Aerois - Episode 159: Sorrow Incarnate (Part 2)

Katie Morrison as Aila

Kim Richards as Nova V'ger

Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**Sorrow Incarnate (Part 2)** is the 159th episode of the Aerois Campaign. It was pre-recorded and broadcast on the highrollersdnd Twitch channel on 4th September 2022 from 5PM to 8PM BST.

*This is it...can we survive Kellara Phase 2: SORROW INCARNATE? More importantly, can we achieve a Limit Break?!*

## **Summary**

### **Announcements**

* Mark welcomes everyone and introduces the players.
* This episode is pre-recorded.
* The sponsor this week is Penny Dragon Games who has a new game coming out via Kickstarter – Waystar.
* Merch: reminder that the High Rollers Club t-shirt (inspired by Stranger Things) is still available.

### **Recap**

*"Our champions have entered the domain of Kellara, the titan of death. There, in The Mourning Garden using a discarded lantern infused with star light, our champions managed to overcome her necrotic powers, the banshees that she summoned as her handmaidens, and struck a final blow. Starbreaker, Sentry’s lance, crumbling the throne that she sat upon, but Kellara was not fully defeated. Instead, she transported the party away from Valla’s protection and has taken them to the Path of Light that leads to The Light Beyond: the afterlife. There, Kellara has infused herself with power, embracing the role as a goddess of death and has become Kellara, Sorrow Incarnate.*

 *Now, standing on a disc of golden light, high above Aerois in Astral Space, our party must face her once again."*
### **Part 1**

*Kellara's been unseated from her throne but has teleported the Stormchasers to a land where she is much more powerful... until a motherly voice protects us all!*

The party stands on a featureless golden disc, floating in space, above the world of Aerois. They have dealt a number of heavy blows to Kellara freeing motes of light from her armour. They are all currently infused with the power of Siaska, and all carry a mote of light. Now, reacting to the danger of the situation, Kellara has leapt into the void and created 11 duplicates that surround the disc at the hours of a clock face and are prepared to dash forward with a *Dashing Strike.* Aila, Lucius, and Sentry are currently charging their motes.

Quill uses all charges of his wand of *Magic Missiles* to hit the images of Kellara at 5 o’clock and six o’clock – the image at five o’clock is evaporated. He then tries to fly into the air but finds that he is bound to the ground by one of Kellara’s abilities, *Soul Lockdown* – they cannot leave without her permission. Quill moves to the five o’clock position before healing himself. Max heals Quill then places himself in front of the image coming from eleven o’clock, using *Royal Guard* to protect Lucius. Nova fires a number of *Eldritch Blasts* at the image at eleven o’clock but misses three out of four times – having placed *Hexblade Curse* on the real Kellara, she knows that this one is a duplicate, however. She then moves to a safe space and summons Tiangong to the middle of the disc.

Aila shoots two arrows which fly past the image at eleven o’clock. Sentry *Enlarges* and prepares to use her mote to soak the damage from the images. Lucius casts *Vitriolic Sphere* to hit the images at ten and eleven o’clock – both are destroyed. Max and Sentry are in the line of three attacks, Aila in the line of two, and Tiangong will be hit by all of them. Aila uses her mote to reduce the damage taken, Max goes down and Sentry only manages to stay on her feet because of *Undying Sentinel –* she loses *Aura of Life*, however. The duplicates all vanish and Kellara reappears at eight o’clock before teleporting back to the middle of the disc.

Quill casts *Sacred Flame* on Kellara, who dodges it, then *Healing Word* on Max, bringing him around again. Max staggers to his feet and, calling on the flames of Gideon, casts *Flamestrike* on Kellara, knocking another mote out of her. Kellara, seeing weak foes in Sentry and Max, attacks: she misses Sentry with her first attack, hits with her second (taking Sentry down), then misses Max with her third. Kellara then casts *Gallow’s Call* on Nova, but with Tiangong’s assistance, she resists it, which irritates her greatly. Nova moves willingly to Kellara, summons Tiangong, and strikes Kellara – she reacts with *Dance of Sorrows,* hitting the downed Sentry, Max, Lucius, and Nova. Max goes down and Lucius uses his mote to reduce the damage: Tiangong is destroyed. Nova uses *Action Surge* to hit Kellara again, making her drop another mote. She hits again and again, causing Kellara to vanish once more. She appears, hovering, twenty feet above the disc, whispering, “My knights, come to me!”

Four knights, translucent spirits exuding cold energy, appear on the ground below her as Kellara throws her blades outwards – they begin to spin around her like a barrier. The knights, one of which they recognise as Serrise Fairwind, begin to mindlessly march out towards the edge of the disc. Another knight appears under Kellara. Aila moves to pick up a mote then swings at the nearest partially transparent knight and destroys it, she then moves to another nearby and destroys that, too, her lightning aura destroys a third. Another knight appears underneath Kellara.

Lucius runs to Sentry and stabilises her, then grabs another mote, quickens his spell, and tries to hit the nearby knight spirit with a *Chromatic Orb,* but misses. Quill casts *Healing Word* on Sentry, then *Sacred Flames* one of the knights and destroys it. Another knight appears.

Max, now conscious again(see Trivia), takes damage from a nearby knight then hits the knight next to him and destroys it. Another four knights appear. Nova uses a gravitational thrust from the amethyst lodestone and a wave of energy knocks Kellara backwards, destroying all of the spectral knights. Kellara lands on her feet, angered at the interruption to her plans. She uses *Gallow’s Call* against Aila, pulling Aila to her and hitting her. Aila hits with her first blow, misses with her second, and zaps Kellara with her aura. Sentry moves, grabs a mote, casts *Sunbeam* on Kellara causing her to drop a mote, her armour looking beaten up and cracked. Sentry then *Misty Steps* in front of Max. Kellara uses *Gallow’s Call* to pull Sentry to her and attacks, but misses. Lucius punches the ground, spins around and stares at Kellara with a fierce anger that barely anyone has ever seen, before launching a mighty *Chromatic Orb* at her with a quiet, “Fuck you!” The cold orb impacts on Kellara, dropping her to a knee and releasing a mote from her: badly injured, she pulls herself up to her feet and quietly but angrily exclaims, “I won’t let.. you ruin this… my decision… my fate!” Lucius begins to move towards her, threateningly.

Quill casts *Guiding Bolt* at Kellara but the attack goes wide – like Lucius, he starts to advance on Kellara. Max, heavily injured and dragging the heavy mace behind him, advances on Kellara but is unable to reach her: he calls out, “Friends! Let us end this. Let Gideon be with you!” and casts *Crusader’s Mantle* on the party. Kellara flies up into the air then descends into the middle of the disc, slamming both twinblades into it, “I won’t let this end here. I’ll take you with me if I must!”. They watch as the disc begins to break. They know that they must defeat her immediately.

Nova swings at Kellara three times and misses then begins to charge her mote; ten feet of the outer edge of the disc begins to break away. Aila prepares to use her mote once the others are all charged. Sentry moves to Kellara, swings twice and misses, then buries Starbreaker’s tip in the disc, and saying, “For hope, for Aerois, for Siaska”, she begins to charge her mote. Lucius moves to Aila, begins to charge his mote, nods to Aila and says, “For Siaska”. The ground suddenly breaks underneath Quill – he begins to fall until suddenly, something catches him and pushes him back onto the disc. He moves to Kellara, claps his wings together and hurls a lightning *Chromatic Orb* at her – as it impacts on her, she cries out, tears streaming down her face in pain and desperation, and Quill begins to charge the final mote.

Aila turns to look at Aerois, then back to Kellara saying, “Thank you for giving us such a great view of what we were fighting to save.” Charged up, Aila releases her ability, *Stormfall*: she becomes a conduit of astral storm energy and titanic strength. Aila rushes forward, and with The Howling Tempest, she swings it into an uppercut, launching Kellara a hundred feet into the air, then leaps into the air as if teleported by lightning just above Kellara, brings the hammer down and a blast of astral lightning slams down into the top of her, slamming her down onto the disc. The crystal of the disc cracks and snaps beneath her as Aila flies down with her final blow to finish Kellara off with the hammer landing on top of her doing unavoidable and fatal planar damage.

They watch as Kellara’s armour breaks away, her visor snaps and falls apart; Kellara looks up at all of them and at Aerois. There is a transformation – the darkness of the armour bleeds away like blood caught in the rain and seeps through the cracks of the crystalline disk until she appears to be wearing a simple cotton cream-coloured dress embroidered with hand-stitched flowers. Around her, the Mantle of Life changes from a cloak into a bed of grass, moss, and flowers as if providing a bed for her prostrate form. There is true regret in her eyes that are brimming with astral tears, and her white hair becomes a sunny blonde. They hear Kellara’s soft voice for the last time, “I had forgotten… I had forgotten how beautiful it is. Thank you – thank you for chasing away the darkness. I’m so sorry, mother. I’m **so** sorry.” Kellara slowly begins to turn into ethereal light and the champions, the disc and the image of Aerois fade away as Kellara uses the last of her strength to return them to Nightbloom Hold where Valla is awaiting them. They see for a brief moment a conjured, ephemeral, golden wind before it drifts back up into the air to return to Siaska.

As they enter the Temple of Kellara, they find one small fragment of the energy of Kellara remaining, drifting and formless. Valla believes that Kellara has left behind a portion of herself and that it is waiting for one of them to choose a form for it – they will do this by touching it. Nova works out that this is similar to Zephyr’s gift of her armour, but they will have a choice over the form that Kellara’s gift will take. Nova touches the energy and discovers that it can take the form of Kellara’s eclipse twinblades, her plate armour, or her cloak.

Nova decides that she would like the twinblades – the two long, elegant scimitars form in her hands. Their blades are scythe-like (long and curved) and the handles almost form the haft of Godric’s scythe. There is no more feeling of death about them, and they now look sleek, slender, and like black iron. Tiangong confirms that they are powerful relics and that they would greatly enhance their strength if they were to bond with the swords: Tiangong is happy to do so, having been a guardian of life and a shepherd of the dead, a function similar to that once performed by Tiangong for the Eterna.

Lucius wonders what is to happen now that there is no one to guide souls into the afterlife: Nova and Aila do not think that she had been guiding souls to the afterlife for some time, but Valla does not think that she had ceased doing that but was just harvesting souls early to give them her version of peace before the end. Valla thinks that with Kellara now re-joining Siaska, it is possible that Siaska herself may now be strong enough to take the souls of the dead where they need to go or may ask Sayanna for help.

There is a suggestion that they return to the Halls of Infinite Resplendence, but Lucius first wants to check on the crew of the Stormchaser. Nova checks with Shade what the status of the ground forces is but the others have gone a long distance away and Shade does not know if they have survived. Things are looking up; the outside is sunny and relatively quiet – the faint sound of birds is just audible, and it seems that life is returning to the jungle. Nova notices that the candle that she left is still burning in the lantern and is now burning much brighter than when she left it.

They thank Shade but they are melancholy not knowing what has happened with the other Guardians; Sentry invites Shade to accompany them, firstly to see if they can find the lost Guardians, and if not to join the Guardian forces in Horizon, and they are happy to comply with her wishes. Sentry needs to find out if the sickness is still spreading through the Guardians, and is reluctant to even go into the Matrix for fear of spreading it to the thousands of souls in there.

Lucius contacts Oriya who tells him that the skies have cleared all over the jungle – the rest of the Rot Hearts have stopped giving off darkness. He asks her to look for the lost scouts and to call him with a rendezvous point once she discovers them.

Quill tells Valla about Siaska’s presence “out there” and how her strength is greatly returned. Valla assumes that Kellara took them to the pathway to the afterlife, “the only place [she] can’t go”. Valla says that Kellara’s power would have been stronger out there than on Aerois, and that previously, when Kalus fought the titans, Siaska had empowered them, given them some of her own power. She thinks that with the titans now gone, Siaska may be able to bestow some of her power on the Champions in future. Valla believes that this may be what they need to fight against Hadar: the power of a Divine but tempered by mortal hands so that Hadar cannot simply feed on it, and Valla thinks that is why Siaska has been waiting for them, that they are part of Siaska’s plan. Valla says that Kalus is no longer a mortal champion because of the powers that he has gained – he is not really immortal, not is he mortal. They know that if Hadar is killed by a Divine, that Divine simply becomes the next Hadar, but Valla wonders what would happen if mortals, given divine strength and protection, could defeat Hadar with their mortal minds, souls, and weapons, and she believes that this may now be Siaska’s plan.

Sentry thanks the group, recognising that she almost met her end and took the rest of the Guardians with her – she feels that she must do more work on the Stormchaser to prevent this happening in future. Max also feels the weight of the last few battles saying that he feels like a burden, especially being unable to prevent Kellara from taking Valla away from them. Sentry reassures him that he is not a burden and offers to train with him, Nova reminds him that he delivered the killing blow on Elwyn with nothing but his bare fist, Aila reminds him that he repaired their weapons and armour, and Quill points out that he, like they, is a titan killer. Max refuses to take the title, feeling that he has not earned the honour. Max and Sentry agree that if they are going to put themselves in harm’s way to protect others, they need to work on improving each other. Max reveals to them that he fears that the last fight will be tough, that even Kalus was wary of Atelicus, and Nova reminds them that Kalus has offered to help them with that fight.

Max reminds them of Xarkira and advises them that there are horrible things outside the war line: featureless creatures in countless numbers, some the size of hounds, hard to kill, mad things of living tissue of mouths, hatred, and hunger. Some are the size of giants, others are dreadnoughts that just consume life – they take things to a void where nothing exists, and they have consumed entire battleships. Hadar has endless numbers of such beasts, and in order to get to Hadar, they will need to fight through many such beasts. Tiangong has some memory of these creatures, but the memories are fragmented. They remember some of what Max speaks about, creatures of unlife, of nothingness, of malice, of warped creation. They are formless, hungry things that consume energies, things, nebulae: Tiangong believes that if they go to fight Hadar, but do not defeat Hadar, it will be a one-way trip. Tiangong still believes that the Stormchasers can accomplish the task, however.

Nova holds out the twinblades to Tinagong – Tiangong’s echo separates from Nova and is now holding a shadowy version of the blades, echoing the movement of Nova’s swords. Nova places a fresh candle into the lantern on the altar of Kellara before they all leave to rendezvous with the ship.

(The Stormchaser will locate the Guardians on the outskirts of Jakkesh and organise a rendezvous)

## **YouTube Timestamps**

0:00:00 - Intro
0:03:11 - Dun Duns
0:04:10 - Part 1
(There is no part 2 this week)

## **Featured Characters**

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

* Aila
* Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto
* Nova V'ger
* Qillek Ad Khollar
* Sentry

#### **Returning NPCs**

* Kellara
* Siaska
* Valla
* Shade
* Oriya

## **Featured Locations**

* The Pathway to the Light Beyond
* The Temple of Kellara, Nightbloom Hold

## **Trivia**

* After Mark finished the recap, Tom was excitedly giggling, and Kim said that she had Sephiroth’s music in her head (Sephiroth is a one-winged angel from Final Fantasy).
* Kellara’s abilities (Phase 2)
	+ *Dashing Strike* – 11 mirror images of Kellara are created around the disc at the hours on a clock face. After a round, every duplicate will dash forward in a straight line from one side of the disc to the other. Whomever they cross in a 10-foot line will take damage. If you are struck by multiple duplicates, you will take additional damage. There is a dexterity saving throw to avoid the damage. There is only one real Kellara. The duplicates have Kellara’s AC but are weaker, with fewer HPs – they can be attacked and damaged. Two lines of attack give 65 points of damage, three lines give 75 points of damage. Every mote spent reduces damage by 20.
	+ *Soul Lockdown –* Whilst Kellara is alive, creatures in this space cannot fly, teleport outside the Path of Light, or use Planar Travel.
	+ (Summon knights) – Kellara concentrates and summons knights (4 initially, then 1 at the end of every player’s turn. She can summon another 4 knights on her turn.). These knights will mindlessly march towards the edge of the disc (at 5 feet per turn), and when they get to the edge, they will cause a surge of radiant damage to cross the entire disc and cause damage to everyone. Starting your turn within 5 feet of a knight will cause 5 cold damage (increased by 5 for every knight within 5 feet). If a knight moves through a creature’s space, it takes 5 cold damage. The knights, being partially transparent, are resistant to damage. The knights will keep appearing until Kellara’s concentration can be broken (she can make a constitution saving throw) or until she is knocked at least 5 feet from the centre of the area. The barrier or swords is protecting Kellara (giving the benefits of ¾ cover: +5 to AC, and +5 to dexterity saving throws – it does not confer any benefit against spells that do not require a dexterity saving throw) and will deal slashing damage to anyone who gets within 5 feet of her.
* They had to check, but fortunately, stabilising a character *does* reset death saving throws. If Lucius hadn’t stabilised Sentry, she would have died from the cold blast she received from the passing knight. There was much relief from the table and chat when Mark read out the rule.
* Tom sent a message to Mark during the game. Mark said that he would neither confirm nor deny it, but that Tom could try. Tom said that it would be in his back pocket. Tom later revealed on Discord what his message was about:

* **Continuity error:** Mark forgets that Max was rendered unconscious for a second time by Kellara’s *Dance of Sorrows* and heals him up to 12 HP.
* Once Kellara begins to break the disc up, the party has one round to defeat her, and she must take 150 points of damage. Mark says that Aila, Nova or Lucius will be able to do enough damage if they use the *Power of Siaska.*
* The party finished the fight with very low HPs: Quill 38, Aila 31, Nova 39, Lucius 12, Sentry 15, Max 7.
* The party levelled up to level 18 at the end of this episode, having successfully completed the Trial of Kellara.
* The shimmering energy of Kellara allowed the person who touched it to choose its form, but was not bound to them. There were 3 options:
	+ Kellara’s eclipse twinblades, a pair of magical scimitars, they come as a pair and must be wielded together
	+ Kellara’s armour – full plate armour
	+ Kellara’s Mantle of Life – Cloak – of living leaves and vines
* When Katie said that Aila would not want to get rid of her hammer for sentimental reasons, Mark confirmed that there would be ways to upgrade the hammer.
* When Nova and Tiangong’s weapons changed again, Mark told Kim that she would have to tell Nina, because the character art would change. Kim, sitting in chat for the pre-recorded episode on Sunday night, responded with:

* Mark had the Kellara battle ready for 2 months before they got to see it.
* It is suggested that before they tackle Atelicus, they are heading over to Vortinssar to deal with the revolution.

## **Quotes**

* Lucius to Kellara (before hitting her in the face with a level 9 *Chromatic Orb*): Fuck off!