Aerois - Episode 149: Into the Umbra

Katie Morrison as Aila

Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

 Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**Into the Umbra** is the 149th episode of the Aerois Campaign. It was broadcast live on the highrollersdnd Twitch channel, and hosted on the Yogscast Twitch channel, on 5th June 2022 from 5PM to 8PM BST.

*The gang travel to Jakkesh to find the Order of the Blackened Rose but first they learn how terrible they are at teaching and discover a flock of rare (and very sentient) birds!*

## **Summary**

### **Announcements**

* Mark welcomes everyone and introduces the players. Kim is away this week, visiting family. Trott is in charge of Nova this week.
* There will be no High Rollers next week because Mark will be "a wizardess in a field" at Empire LARP.
* TwitchCon is coming up on the 16th and 17th of July in Amsterdam. It will be a prologue of campaign 3 on Saturday 16th July at approximately 2pm (time to be confirmed). It will be streamed live on Twitch. Kim will not be joining the crew live, but there will be two guests who have been confirmed: Myre, who does D&D with the Tablestory Twitch channel, and Scott Major, who is well-known for his playing of Minecraft. The characters that Scott and Myre play might come up later on in the actual campaign as NPCs.
* Subscribe on Twitch with your Prime sub, follow the Patreon, check out the podcast, and buy some merch!

### **Recap**

*"Our champions spent time in the Sky City of Horizon preparing themselves for their upcoming trial against the titan, Kellara. They bought some potions and some scrolls, spoke with allies, and ultimately made ready for their journey ahead. Of particular note was Lucius, who having accidentally wished himself into becoming an Aarakocra, requested aid from Valla, a demi-goddess with power over time and space. Worried for the potential risks, the process was, however, mostly successful, and Lucius is once again a High Elf, though a tiny bit younger as teen Lucius - a late teen, very young adult Lucius - has once again joined."*
### **Part 1**

*3 days of travel until we reach the Order of the Blackened Rose and we learn how terrible we are at teaching and how to not deal with a flock of extremely rare birds!*

The party is aboard the Stormchaser en route from Horizon, heading for the northern jungles of Jakkesh where they believe that Nightbloom Hold is located. Nightbloom Hold is somewhere in Gravebloom Valley and is the headquarters of the Order of the Blackened Rose, Kellara’s once knightly champions who have now become remorseful, guilt-ridden, and mournful killers of Kellara’s followers. They have travelled for one day so far (which has been smooth sailing), but still have two or three days of travel remaining before they will reach their destination.

Lucius, now back as a High Elf, is about the equivalent of 19 in human years: he has long hair on one side with the other side shaved short with runes and Elven symbols shaved into it, has no beard, and has no scars on his chest. The new day emerges as sunny and bright with clear skies and no wind. Kamarra, Lancion, Penny, and a few of the Wolf Pack approach the Stormchasers and ask for various types of training that they can get from the party.

Sentry teaches them about how to use cover to protect themselves from missiles and projectiles – the training does not really go to plan, however, and there are a few mishaps that cause some fights among the crew. Quill gives a six-hour lecture on Magic 101 – it is a disaster, and his objectives are not met, with the Wolf Pack being largely uninterested. Aila decides to try to teach the Wolf Pack how to anticipate attacks and to avoid them – she throws rocks at them and manages to hit many of them, rather than having them able to dodge her “spells”. Lucius decides to train them in his own way but by now, they are surly and frustrated. Lucius separates them with a wall of ice down the middle of the ship and then encourages them to get to him first while he unleashes all of his twinned magic near them on either side – the injuries are not serious, and he manages to encourage the two teams to work together, increasing their confidence, but overall they do not get much benefit out of all their training. The crew is now terrified of Aila and Lucius. The rest of the day is clear and dry with a moderate temperature, but a light wind starts to pick up – Quill’s sterling navigation skills manage to keep them on course, however, and even gain them time.

On the second day, there is a slight wind that dies down, and both Quill and Lookout notice a large flock of unusual birds in the distance: they are flying at a rapid pace, are on the larger side, and appear to be magical. The birds’ eyes shimmer with a multi-coloured magic, their wingtips seem to be prismatic (their feathers remind Quill of the Cradle), and they leave a very faint multi-coloured prismatic-hued pattern behind them in their wake as they fly. Quill does not know what these creatures are, having never seen anything like them before, but he alerts the crew to them. Aila, Lucius,and Nova recognise them as very rare but highly-sought-after Aetherhawks which generate aetherium that drips off their wings and is left in their wake as the multicoloured vapour. Lucius knows that their feathers are very powerful spell components because they are enriched with aetherium. Oriya also knows what the birds are and suggests that they try to capture one to sell to help fund the alliance. Lucius suggests that they capture a bird or two and keep it as a pet on the Stormchaser: Sentry worries that they might be a family (to which Lucius says that not everyone can have a family that can be together), so offers to speak to the birds to see if any of them would like to come with them. Quill suggests that he could calm the birds to make them less skittish when they approach.

Nova makes Quill and Lucius invisible and Lucius casts *Fly* on himself, Aila and Sentry. Quill plans to cast *Calm Emotions* on as many of the birds as possible, leaving Sentry to try to speak to the birds with *Speak with Animals*. The Aetherhawks are spooked as they approach, and when Quill tries to cast *Calm Emotions*, thus becoming suddenly visible, they begin to scatter very quickly as they prepare to dash off. Before Sentry can speak to them, Lucius casts a *Cone of Cold* past her at the flock of birds: all but three of the birds become ice statues and plummet out of the sky towards the ocean below them. The three survivors fly off at incredible speed, with an upset Sentry encouraging them to flee. Four feathers are left slowly drifting down as the living birds disappear into the distance, and Lucius manages to grab one of the frozen birds before it falls to the ocean far below. Sentry tries to grab the frozen bird off Lucius, but he pulls it to him, snapping the leg off in Sentry’s hand while Aila grabs the floating feathers and Lucius heads back to the ship. The angry and upset crew take a vote and unanimously decide to send Lucius to his room; Valla, for the first time, shows that she is not happy with Lucius, so he storms off and goes to his room. Valla apologises to the rest, telling them that she thought that she had managed to keep his personality intact despite the de-ageing error, but it must have been affected; she is sad that these rare and beautiful creatures have died for no reason, and mentions that they have an element of Siaska’s magic within them. She leaves, disappointed and with Max in tow, to go to her quarters to recover from the tragic event. Howard offers to pluck and cook the already dead Aetherhawk in an attempt to make something from the mess – he manages to collect another three feathers, giving them seven in total.

Having cast *Speak with Animals* before they went out to meet the birds, Sentry is horrified by the nightmare of having heard their final cries as the birds were murdered.

Howard makes a lovely meal of the unfortunate dead bird which Lucius attacks with angry gusto, having stewed over his grounding from before. The Wolf Pack, Oriya, and Howard enjoy the meal, but Quill, Sentry, and Aila abstain from eating the bird. One of the Wolf Pack, a badly scarred fellow who was injured heavily in the meteor swarm(see Trivia), is enjoying the bird especially – he wonders out loud if all “special” birds taste as nice and is told to leave the table, but eyes up Quill’s drumsticks before he does.

The day remains clear with a light wind and Quill keeps them on course for Jakkesh, using the tailwind to speed up their arrival and getting them there a day early. Valla has recovered and tells them that she would like to try to age Lucius as she does not like the attitude that she is seeing from teenage Lucius, but tells them that she will need his consent. She points out to him that the birds that he killed were deeply connected to Siaska, and that his behaviour from the day before was not typical of the Lucius that she knows: the others add their concerns, but it is when Sentry tells him that she is disappointed in him for being disrespectful and having a sub-par attitude that he decides that he will let Valla try to fix his age problem. She gets the party to encircle Lucius and asks them to think of the Lucius they knew from within the last month when they went to the Feywild.

They all think of a memory: Aila remembers Lucius telling Kalus to shut up and outsmarting Xarkira in the fight on Horizon; Quill thinks back further, to his conversation about Valla with Lucius on a watch tower in Rosehall, when they first became friends; Sentry remembers Lucius encouraging her at Kellara's Forge just before she connected to the Hope Focus, and always being supportive; Lucius, still affected by his teenage angst and self-indulgence, thinks he wants to be the Lucius who still had his parents. Meanwhile, Valla holds her hands out, forming a triangle with her hands – clocks start to spin around her as familiar geometric shapes appear around Lucius. His body shifts and immediately begins to age forwards – his beard grows back in, his hair grows long, then short and dark, then long again, and the scar on his chest is rapidly formed and repaired. He becomes the Lucius that they knew exactly a day before the wish was made.

Valla collapses and falls to her knees – Max catches her and Lucius runs forward to help. While she is exhausted, she says that the process was better and that having external foci was very helpful. Lucius appears to be very much himself now – he feels the scar on his chest and believes that he is where he needs to be in time. He apologises for his previous self and actions, and Max tells him that he does not need to apologise because the point of youth is to learn and grow up. The rest of them realise the truth of this statement and they agree to focus on the task ahead as Oriya points out that they are arriving.

Looking across the landscape and the dense foliage of northern Jakkesh, and the spiked mountains that jut up throughout its thick canopy, they spot the unusual sight of a valley apparently drinking in the morning sun’s light, as it is dark despite the sunshine. At the very edges of the valley, the light quickly fades and blends into a permanent umbra, a twilight with no lights within, only the vague shapes of trees and a canopy. They realise that the valley has been made magically dark, like midnight, and although the rest of the land is lit normally by the rising sun’s rays, the closer they get to the valley, the darker it becomes. Dowser and Stave appear on deck and Stave advises that the valley was not like this when they left a few weeks ago.

### **Part 2**

*We reach the umbral darkness of the jungle and dive in to discover what dangers lie within!*

Jakkesh’s jungle is incredibly thick and the Stormchaser cannot land, although there may be two or three points where the crew could jump from the ship and make their way to the ground. They realise that within the huge area of darkness below, they can just make out the canopy and maybe a river hundreds of feet below. Stave is able to project the illusory map so that they can work out where the camp would be relative to their current position. Stave also offers to go with them, given that they know the campsite, but warns that they will not really be able to fight if they encounter the undead. Quill sends an *Arcane Eye* down to the outpost to scout it out before they leave the ship: its darkvision sends back shadowed images of black, white, and grey that are obscured by the thick trees and undergrowth around the area. As it reaches the outpost, Quill realises that he has not seen a solitary Guardian, and the campsite looks like it was abandoned in a hurry, possibly even a panicked rush – there are still tents, supplies and a campfire present. He communicates his concern with a quiet shake of his head to Sentry and the rest of the party.

Sentry summons Alnisyx, Lucius casts *Fly* on Aila and himself, and Aila carries Nova on piggy-back, so that they can all make their way off the ship to go down to the campsite. As they head into the gloom, their darkvision engages, and for those without, it is almost impossible to see beyond about five feet ahead of them. They encounter the canopy about twenty feet off the ground and make their way slowly down to the clearing where they find what Quill had described and also hastily built barricades and defences. As they land, they notice the odd absence of noise from the jungle – there is no chittering of insects or other animal calls, and the sound of the aetherium engines from the Stormchaser appears to be abnormally loud. Lucius sends a message through the messenger rings to Oriya asking her to take the ship away due to the eerily quiet jungle – she agrees, and the ship moves off. As it does, Sentry receives a message in her mind from a Guardian she vaguely recognises, called Harper: *Sentinel Prime! Outpost compromised, lots of undead in AO, you must hold position! Secure exit route! Please confirm, over.*

Sentry begins to respond in the affirmative, but as she does the rest hear a lot of movement in the surrounding woods.

Quill can barely make out lumbering and skittering shapes moving quietly and cautiously in the woods: they are bones with ancient-looking and worn armour, skeletons in tattered burial clothing, and they begin to encircle the camp. As they get closer, he notices that inside each one of them, in their bony rib cages, coming out of their eye sockets and interwoven with the bones of their arms are long, black vines with black leaves sprouting black roses. To the south emerges a mass with black leaves and black roses; it has long vine-like tendrils with thick barbed spines and skulls buried in its plant-like flesh.

Aila moves over towards the giant plant and a pack of skeletons and calls Sentry over to her before going into a rage. She smacks one of the skeletons with her hammer, breaking it apart – as it hits the ground, the plants inside its body blood and erupt and try to grapple her, with the ground around it becoming difficult terrain. Her second attack takes down another skeletal minion that likewise explodes in plant growth around it as it falls. One of the packs rushes towards Alnisyx, destroying it, before moving up to Sentry, Quill and Lucius. Sentry loudly calls forth Starbreaker, and destroys two of the skeletal minons, resulting in Quill, Lucius and Sentry being restrained by the bursting plant life: her loud weapon call also summons another pack of skeletal minions from the surrounding jungle.

A second pack of skeletons moves towards Aila and surrounds her. Quill casts *Sunbeam* and destroys another seven minions, but lights up the jungle in doing so and attracts more from further away.

Another pack uses its frenzied rush, knocking Dowser unconscious and attacking Nova. Lucius takes slashing damage from the skeleteons surrounding him and calls Oriya over the messenger ring to return and attack, which she agrees to do if they can light up an area for the Stormchaser to bombard. Lucius casts *Vitriolic Sphere* on Aila, killing all the skeletons and injuring the large plant creature (a Deadroot). Nova *Misty Steps* over to the unconscious Dowser and starts to multi-attack whatever skeleton minions she can reach – she wounds three of them but does not kill any. With an action surge, she destroys all of them but is restrained as they explode in plant growth.

The Deadroot moves towards the large melee in the centre of the campsite; as it approaches the skeletal minions, the flowers and plants within them pulse and grow stronger, and the creatures become faster and tougher as the plants start to wrap around them like armour. Aila throws her hammer and injures multiple creatures with only one being destroyed, while a new pack springs on Nova from behind.

Sentry casts *Aura of Life* while another pack surrounds Lucius. Quill is swarmed and attacked by a mob of skeletons and loses concentration on both his *Arcane Eye* (that Elder Quill had been holding) and on the *Sunbeam*, so he casts *Mass Cure Wounds,* reviving Dowser in the process. Another pack activates and swarms Aila. Lucius requests the Stormchaser to bombard the area where a light will appear, then calls Nova to the rest of them while he prepares to cast *Lucius’ Luscious Light*. Another pack appears in the meantime and swarms towards Sentry and Lucius. Nova *Misty Steps* away from the pack behind her, Lucius’ spell goes off, and they hear shots fired from the air: while the arcane turret’s force projectile goes off-course a little, it still manages to kill a whole pack but is very loud and summons another pack. Lucius dismisses his light.

Nova blasts three of the skeletons but all survive and, given that they are close to the Deadroot, are barely scratched as it appears to absorb some of the damage. The Deadroot, covered in flower buds, pulses with magic, and *Aura of Vitality* is dispelled.

Another pack of skeletons appears nearby as Aila kills two more skeletons of the group surrounding her. The new group rushes past Lucius and Quill, clawing at them on the way past. Sentry moves to line up as many of the skeletons as she can and casts *Destructive Wave* in an attempt to destroy most of the ones surrounding the centre of the camp. As she releases the thunder damage of the spell, it ripples through the forest and vibrates the bones of the skeletons but does not destroy them - and the radiant energy that follows is mostly absorbed by the Deadroot, whose flowers open as the divine energy is absorbed. Half of the skeletons are destroyed, but another pack appears.

The party has still not heard from the scouts how much longer they need to survive.

## **YouTube Timestamps**

0:00:00 - Intro
0:04:18 - Dun Duns
0:05:16 - Part 1
1:22:58 - Part 2

## **Featured Characters**

#### **The Stormchasers (Player Characters)**

* Aila
* Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto
* Nova V'ger (Played by Trott)
* Qillek Ad Khollar
* Sentry

#### **Returning NPCs**

* Dowser
* Stave
* Howard
* Valla
* Max
* Penny
* Oriya
* Kamarra
* Lancion
* Harper

## **Featured Locations**

* The Stormchaser
* Jakkesh
	+ Gravebloom Valley

## **Trivia**

* Podcast editions for this and last week's episodes are both delayed by one week, due to "some outages" during the week of episode 148. As there is no scheduled episode next week, the podcasts should be caught up again by episode 150.
* Kim was trolled in #livestream-chat on the High Rollers Discord into believing that Nova had been petrified this week. She was unimpressed when she found out that this was not the case.

* The birds that Quill and Lookout see are the size of Golden Eagles (or about half the size of Quill). Aila has heard stories about them, knowing that they are very rare and valuable either alive or dead and one bird would feed a clan for 6 months. Lucius knows them as Aetherhawks and knows that the trail they leave in their wake is a faint trace of aetherium – he knows that they are rare and suspicious of people, rarely coming into contact with them. He knows that a single Aetherhawk feather can replace 50g of a spell component cost. One could manage to get 2-3 feathers from each living bird without causing the creature damage.
* Mark told Trott that he is still mostly Lucius ,but was aware that he was playing into the teenage version of himself this week.
* Tom had not read the description for *Calm Emotions* properly and had not realised that it would not be effective on the birds since it only affects humanoids.
* Mark took great delight in the idea that chat would *hate* Lucius for his murder of the Aetherhawks.
* From murdering 17 rare and beautiful Aetherhawks, they manage to get 7 feathers.
* Mark had made a note that if a player would like to befriend the Aetherhawks, there was a whole planned event.
* Trott asked if the Aetherhawks were sentient – they are both sentient (being able to perceive or feel things) and sapient (intelligent and able to think).
* The Aetherhawks had an intelligence of 10, making them smarter than Sentry and Aila.
* The flock of Aetherhawks contained multiple generations of the birds with a mixture of young and old animals.
* This was compared to the Cow Incident in episode 8 which Trott seems to remember differently to the actual events, suggesting that “the cows attacked us…”. Nightjar made a comment in Twitch, “So the surviving cow and the three remaining birds are teaming up to kill Lucius, right?” I think I would pay to see that after a training montage.
* Trott explains why he is playing Lucius this way: he is freshly bullied, has issues with personal security, and is a teenager who thinks that he knows better than his parents. Mark points out that he also has tremendous power that he did not have when he was a teenager.
* Mark didn't want to decide for Kim what memory of Lucius Nova thought of while Valla returned him to his correct age, but clarified that Nova would also focus on a memory.
* When asked to think of Lucius moments, they need to make a Wisdom or Charisma saving throw. With only Aila failing, they pushed the odds of success over 100% for Valla to anchor which time she wished to hit.
* The Wolf Pack member who wanted to eat Quill is called Bone Eater.
* A fan art video was played in the break.
* There is a reference to the meteor swarm that hit the Stormchaser in episode 95.
* **Continuity error:** Last session, Lucius succeeded in making a charisma saving throw that allowed him to keep his memories, knowledge and personality as it was for his normal age. The angsty teen Lucius technically shouldn’t have been a thing. Does Trott just have it in for pretty magical birds? Should Quill be worried???
* Tom and Mark pointed out that HR is the only channel on Twitch where you can use a combination of emotes to get DADDY DUN SUCC.
* No one has a Feather Fall token anymore.
* When Mark described “a lot of movement” in the woods around him, he brought out 5 fistfuls of skeleton miniatures (30 miniatures in total).
* Mark likens the combat in part 2 to the “lost missions of XCOM”. He said that he took this idea from someone in Discord. That someone was Boxley.
* With the combat beginning in part two, there were specific rules:
	+ The Stormchaser had flown away and was not available for the first round, but it could be recalled to provide fire support. In order to do so, the party would need to illuminate the area they wished to be fired upon with a 10-foot radius of bright light. They would then have to send a message to Oriya to advise her that the area was clear and could be fired upon (this could be through the messenger rings or with the *Sending* spell). This fire could occur once per round. Once the spot is chosen, Mark would roll a d20: if he rolled a 1-5 the shot would miss by a large degree, on a 6-13 it would shift randomly away from the centre by a small degree (d8 determining the direction, and a d4 determining the distance from the centre), and a 14+ would be a precise hit. It would hit everything in a 10-foot radius.
	+ Mark used the skeletons in minion packs (minions were a thing in 4e and Matt Colville has redone minions in the book, *Flee, Mortals!*, and Mark did his own take on minions for this encounter).
	+ The skeleton packs do not have an initiative of their own but activate after one of the players. The same pack cannot move multiple times in a turn as it can only activate once per turn.
	+ The skeleton packs (individual skeleton minions have an AC of 16) have the following abilities:
	+ **Frenzied rush:** the pack moves another 30 ft (half speed through difficult terrain or another unfriendly creature), doing 6x6 (36) necrotic damage as they tear, rip, stab and slash. They can use this action once.
	+ At the start of each player’s turn, for **every minion** within 10 feet of them, they will take 6 points of physical (slashing) damage (representing them clawing and raking at the character) – i.e., 6 minions will be 36 points of damage.
	+ **Death bloom:** When the skeleton minions are killed, they burst into growths of flowers and vines, turning the surrounding area into difficult terrain. Anyone within 10 feet of them must make a strength saving throw or be restrained which lasts to the end of their next turn, but the character can use an action to break free.
	+ If the skeletons ever have disadvantage, it causes them to do half damage at the start of a character’s turn.
	+ Any effect that boosts a character’s AC reduces the amount of damage that they take. Instead of using the shield spell to increase AC, for example, it could reduce the damage taken per minion (AC boost of 4 would be reduction of 4 damage). If a character could use their reaction to gain a +2AC against **an attack**, that would reduce one of the minion’s attack damage by 2.
	+ The minions fail all saving throws. They are also immune to a lot of conditions (being “hive mind zombies”).
* The Deadroot:
	+ Moves across the difficult terrain created by the dead skeletons without penalty.
	+ **Poisonous Touch:** Does 2d? poison damage and gives the poisoned condition on a failed con save for 1 minute (a successful con saving throw at the end of your turn will end the effect).
	+ Empowers minions nearby (distance?) and absorbs the first 10 points of damage done to them on an attack.
* Mark forgets that both Lucius and Quill are restrained when they are attacked by the Deadroot but Trott reminds him. Tom refers to this as “I just got Tom’d” and said that he liked it because he likes playing by the rules.
* Mark indicated that there was no cap to the encounter in part 2, meaning that the skeletal minions would just keep coming in the right circumstances.
* The Deadroot absorbs 133 radiant damage from Sentry’s spell.
* Katie expressed her frustration at the end of the episode because she was unable to do AOE damage and felt a bit useless. This would end up with Mark doing a retcon for next episode.
* A dono question by ScubaDude asked whether Quill has ever considered freeing up an attunement slot by regenerating his wing. Tom said that he has considered it but thinks that if he can’t live without the wing, he doesn't deserve the wing. Mark suggested that the Mk 2 of the wing that Nova is working on may not require attunement. Tom then suggested that the messenger ring was back on the table…
* There were 3 polls run throughout the stream:

## **Quotes**

* Rhi: With *Speak with Animals*, would I have like heard their like final thoughts as they were like dying? Fuck. (Link)
* Mark: Yes, you would have, yes. You basically got a lot of like, “What is… aaaargh!” screaming like one of them is like, “Flee my children!”
* Rhi: No!
* Tom: “Carl’s gone!”
* Trott: Sorry, are these fucking birds sentient?”
* Mark: (aggravated): Yes, of course they’re sentient! They’re living things, Chris Trott! Like a dog is sentient, a cat is sentient! Of course they’re sentient! They have an intelligence of ten, they’re smarter than Sentry!

## **References**

1. ↑ HighRollersDnD Twitter, 6 Jun 2022 at 13:00
2. ↑ https://youtu.be/hqBd3ST\_Bs8?t=3493