Arc 6: The Glacerian Trail

Official illustration for Arc 6 Episode 1

Arc 6 is a gritty survival arc set in the Upnorth region of Hyranor. It is the first split-level arc of the podcast, with characters ranging from level 3 to level 9, and DMed by Gus. He planned the arc to be "remarkable in its brutality", and thus, there were special safety tools for the players used in this arc, and all players had to prepare backup characters upfront. The arc focuses on the last crew of sky pirates, who, in 71 AP, have a crash landing in the Upnorth, an icy, inhospitable region, in which they have to survive in until they manage to get to Glaceria, the magically warm city there.

The arc is connected to previous arcs through the city of Glaceria (Arcs 1, 2, and 3) and the sky pirates (Arc 5). Additionally, the character Kix has an Old Orbula orb as part of his robot body, which connects the arc to Arc 4 aswell.

Apart from the additional safety tools, for this arc Gus introduced some alternative rules from the Dungeon Masters Guide and a homebrew rule, listed below. He already stated in episode 0 that for this arc, the BBEG is not a person or creature, but Mother Nature. It was mostly inspired by the show "I Shouldn't Be Alive", which is about people that survived horrific natural challenges, and also partially by the game "The Oregon Trail", from which the arc got its name.

The players did get magic items that were submitted via Patreon, but only their backup characters received these items, to make the players more excited to play these characters as well. Apart from that, the backup characters only got to have starting equipment. The starting characters have starting equipment, 500 gold pieces to spend on whatever nonmagic items they want, and the choice between picking two common or uncommon magic items or one rare magic item.

## Arc 6 Characters and Players

Characters and Players in order of introduction in Episode 0:

**DM** (Gus - He/Him)

### Starting Characters:

**Lottie Leremy** (She/Her) (played by Haley - She/Her\*), level 6, a Variant Human College of Spirits Bard that is, due to a curse or something similar, completely in greyscale, and always accompanied by 12 ghosts, one of which constantly plays with her hair. She's a bit odd, but found acceptance in the crew of sky pirates.

**Captain Remeny Gratz** (She/Her) (played by Jenny - She/Her), level 9, a 50 something Human Oath of Treachery Paladin with the vibe of a wine aunt who did not like people telling her what to do, so she simply became captain. She just wants to be free and do whatever she wants. She has been hopping around crews together with Beryl a lot before she came to this crew.

**Beryl Hatebad** (She/Her) (played by Julia - She/Her), level 8, the Dwarf Battle Master Fighter and quartermaster of the crew. She has been friends with Remeny for some time, and they have been hopping crews together before they joined this one. Sometimes she adjusts the direction Remeny is pointing towards before agreeing that that is exactly where they should head towards. She is like a mom to Lottie.

**Kix** (Any/All) (played by Abbey - She/They), level 5, a Warforged Battlesmith Artificer who has lived 970 years, but cannot remember most of them, because they are saved on a different hard drive. The crews Eirden Airyc ("Eric") recognised him from a long time ago, though, and the two of them became a team even before the others joined.

**Kipp Tupper** (He/They) (played by Amelia - Any/None), level 3, a Satyr Shadow Magic Sorcerer studying at the Arcane Academy in Tyle. To get some course credits, they decided to become an intern with the last crew of sky pirates and document it. They joined about 6 months ago.

### Backup Characters:

**Gust** (They/He) (played by Haley - She/Her\*), an Air Genasi Circle of the Moon Druid who much prefers to be an animal over being a human.

**Berkeley** (He/Him) (played by Jenny - She/Her), a Bugbear Path of the Beast Barbarian who enjoys hunting and heard that there might be interesting things in the Upnorth, so he went there despite the danger.

**Bengy Shadyglade** (He/Him) (played by Julia - She/Her), a 75 year old Human Wizard who is incredibly annoying and follows the main crew around even though they cannot stand him.

**Aezrelle** (She/Her) (played by Abbey - She/They), a nerfed Succubus Paladin looking for her friend Kix to help her with some family problems.

**Salas** (He/They) (played by Amelia - Any/None), an Elf Monk/Druid who wants to place the ashes of their deceased wife somewhere where she can see the northern lights.

All Backup characters are level 6.

The icebreaker question for this arc was: "What is your favourite ice cream flavour, or, if you are not an ice cream fan, your favourite frozen treat?"

* Gus: strawberry ice cream, in his opinion "the most scrumptious little ice cream you could possibly put your tongue on"
* Haley: vanilla ice cream with any kinds of chunks in them, since she doesn't like food that is not chewed
* Jenny: chocolate ice cream with peanut butter and caramel, because while she is a bit allergic to lactose and nuts, it's not that bad for her, and "if you gonna, you gotta" (please take your allergies serious)
* Amelia: neapolitan ice cream, because it is the experience of all three flavours, or soft serve frozen yoghurt twist from Braums
* Julia: Ben and Jerry's phish food, because it has to be a chocolate base, and the marshmallow is important
* Abbey: fudgesicles because they "don't know moderation" or cappucino frozen yoghurt, specifically from Chapman's

\*Haley has since changed his pronouns to She/Any.

## Additional Player Safety Tools

Since this arc was planned to be brutal, and character or even full party death more possible than usually, there were some additional safety tools used for this arc:

* Every player got a survey asking for "lines" and "veils", meaning sensitive topics that should not be happening during play. "Lines" are hard lines, so topics that should not be touched upon at all. "Veils" are topics that can happen off-screen, with a fade to black, or be referenced, but not actually happening "on camera".
* Every player got an additional survey asking in more detail how comfortable they would be with their characters and / or the whole party dying in the finale, in the middle, or in episode 1, how comfortable they would be with a TPK (total party kill) in general, if there was only one survivor, or if no one died. Based on the results of this survey, Gus gave every player a range of 3 levels to pick from for their character.
* X Cards: If, at any point during the game, someone felt uncomfortable with the situation, they could give Gus a signal (the X card) and the scene would be stopped immediately.

## Alternate Rules

### Introduced in Episode 0

* **Variant Encumbrance:** when a character carries weight of a value of at least five times their Strength score value, their speed is reduced by 10 feet. At ten times their Strength value, their speed is reduced by a total of 20 feet, and they get disadvantage on all ability checks, attack rolls, and Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saves. Their carrying capacity has a maximum of fifteen times their Strength score value.
* **Slow Natural Healing:** instead of regaining all hitpoints after a long rest, characters can roll hit dice instead, as they would during a short rest. The other benefits of a long rest still apply, including regaining half of the maximum hit dice.
* **Lingering Injuries:** any time a character suffers a critical hit or drops to 0 hit points, they have to roll on the lingering injuries table from the Dungeon Master's Guide (p.272) to determine what long term effect this will have on them, ranging from a scar to losing a body part. For creatures they are fighting, they will do the same for critical hits (at 0 hitpoints the creature dies).
* **Massive Damage:** when a character takes at least half of their hitpoint maximum in damage from a single source, they have to make a Constitution saving throw. If they fail to hit a 15, they'll roll on the system shock table from the Dungeon Master's Guide (p.273), with results ranging from not being able to take reactions for a turn to dropping to 0 hitpoints.
* **Upnorth's Cold:** while usually, cold weather gear makes characters automatically succeed the Constitution save they have to succeed every hour in the cold to avoid exhaustion, the Upnorth is so cold that this is not the case here. Instead, the Constitution saves are spread out to happen every 8 hours instead of every hour. The DC for this save is 10.

### Added later

* **Side Initiative (Episode 3 onwards):** from the Dungeon Master's Guide, this does not let every single combatant roll Initiative, but rather splits the combat into side, e.g. "Players" and "Enemies". Each side rolls Initiative as a whole, and when it's a side's turn, the members go at once and can then choose the order between themselves.
* **Difficult Speech (only Episode 3):** because of the cold, it takes a lot of effort to talk. While traveling, you can only say an amount of words in a row that is equal to your constitution modifier. (This does not apply to Kix.)

## Arc 6 Plot (Full Arc Spoilers)

### Episode 1

Content warnings for the episode: fantasy violence, strong language, death

The crew flew to the Upnorth region to find a mountain, that, according to Remeny, would be full of riches they could take as maybe their last mission before their Eirden Airyc would have to retire for good. But as it gets colder and foggier, they collide with a dragon that immediately bites itself into the Eirden, and the episode begins with Initiative. While the dragon further harms and finally kills Airyc, one after one the crew members fall, and Lottie catches them with Featherfall. Only Beryl stays atop of their steed. As it dies and starts falling, Remeny has to cast Gaseous Form on herself to avoid being dragged down with it, but Beryl cannot get away and only survives the crash landing due to the dead Eirden cushioning the damage for her. The dragon now goes after the still falling party members, and Kipp falls unconscious; Kix can stabilise, but not heal him mid-air. Remeny reaches the ground, where she tries to take on the dragon by herself and later also falls unconscious while Beryl, gravely wounded, hides. Kix detaches their legs to let them fall on the dragon from above, and the now also dangerously hurt dragon does a last breath attack at the falling crew members Lottie, Kipp, and Kix, and then flies away. This last breath weapon lets Kix and Lottie fall unconscious, too, and freezes Kipp to death, leaving only Beryl standing.

### Episode 2

Content warnings for the episode: fantasy violence, strong language, possible death, animal mutilation

The episode starts with Lottie, Kix and Remeny rolling death saves. Beryl manages to stabilise Remeny, Kix wakes up and can stabilise Lottie, and as the last three crew members finally land in the snow, Kix and Beryl get everyone into a secluded cavern near the spot where Beryl was hiding only moments before. They get a fire going, and after a while, Remeny wakes up. She needs a moment to remember what happened, and then quickly heals Lottie, while Kix starts sewing coats for the crew.

Remeny drags the saddle bags from the eirden into the cave, realising that the crew is not happy with her and the decisions she made that led to Kipp being dead and all of them being in grave danger. Still, they try to get along well enough to survive the situation they are in, and Beryl plays some cards with the captain, while Lottie conducts a ritual to talk to her ghosts, and also the ghost of Kipp to find out what kind of funeral he would prefer and how she can carry on his legacy. Remeny goes out to skin Airyc, so that they can have blankets in the night, and Lottie realises that Kipp actually joined her ghosts, which is the first time something like this happened. Before they all take a long rest, Beryl starts digging a grave, and at sunrise Kipp gets a proper funeral.

The crew decides that their best chance at survival is to wander towards Glaceria in the south east\*. Remeny summons a warhorse that she names Airycorse to carry the saddle bags, and they start their journey. About an hour in, they find an arctic fox, and Beryl and Lottie can convince Kix not to immediately shoot it to eat it. The fox joins them and just starts walking next to them. It is Salas, wildshaped, who was surprised to see any people at all in the cold Upnorth.

\*In the episode, Gus accidentally said "south west" twice, but later confirmed that Glaceria is supposed to be south east of their current location.

### Episode 3

Content warnings for the episode: fantasy violence, strong language

The sky pirate crew, minus their intern but plus a fox, continues their journey. After an hour, the wildshape on Salas drops, and he introduces himself, and the party, only confused for a short moment, decides to let him join them but to keep their eyes on him. They encounter a freezing fog, and later a frost giant that blocks their path and tries to steal their saddle bags. The frost giant kills Airycorse, but gets in turn killed by the crew, and Remeny summons a new Airycorse for them. In the afternoon, they have to go through a fog that messes with their brains, and both Kix and Salas drop to 0 HP before they can be healed, which leaves a little glowing scar on Salas's temple. As it turns night, the crew rests in a Tiny Hut summoned by Lottie, where they have a little talk with and about Remeny and Kipp, and about fault and responsibility. Looking out of the Tiny Hut, Remeny suddenly sees the top of a mountain, higher than any other, right on their path, closer to Glaceria than she had thought it would be, promising her riches hidden inside it.

### Episode 4

Content warnings for the episode: fantasy violence, strong language

Kix finishes their coat during the rest, and as the morning comes, Beryl's already reduced Wisdom score gets reduced again, and Salas's eyes loose their colour, although that doesn't seem to have any other effect. Kix can heal Beryl's Wisdom with a potion, and they all continue their journey, on which they encounter a Persistent Spring and some Air Elementals they flee from, and a stormy area with a mimic disguised as a shelter, from which Lottie takes a scar with. They rest for the night.

The next day, Beryl again has her Wisdom score reduced, and Remeny heals it with a Lay on Hands. For this day, the group decides to move at a faster pace. They get to a lightly forested area, where Salas picks up and eats a fruit and then begins to shine. As it gets later, the trees suddenly become more and more animated, and finally start lashing out at them, until they can run away. As they break out of the forest, they can see the highest mountain, Mount Ornament, before them, and decide that it would be a good idea to try and get to it and up it, because from up there they would be able to see Glaceria. During their rest, Remeny and Salas find out that Lay on Hands also heals Salas's eye condition.

As the morning comes, Beryl's Wisdom is reduced again and Salas's eyes are back to being grey, and Remeny heals them both. They continue their journey towards Mount Ornament while planning how to climb it. During their journey, suddenly the snow starts to climb up their legs and tries to eat them, and it leaves Lottie with another scar. Finally, they arrive at the mountain, and out of the corner of the eye they notice other climbers, dark and shifting, unsure just how real they really are.

### Episode 5

Content warnings for the episode: strong language, animal death

The episode starts with the party standing at the base of Mount Ornament, planning how to climb it. They see a small perch about 40 feet above the ground, big enough for two people to stand on. Remeny decides to dispell Airycorse, and they all take the things out of the saddle bags they cannot leave behind before Salas (with a Rope of Climbing) and Beryl (with Spiderclimb) start climbing.

During their climb, they find the riddle of the mountain: at certain points, climbers vanish, and the shifting figures glitching on the mountain give hints as to what the person has to do to reappear. First, Beryl has to drop a coin, which falls down a few feet away from the party. Then, Salas has to drop his staff, which falls down right above him, and he just manages to catch it before it can hit him. Then, as Salas vanishes again, there is no glitching figure that is not falling themselves, so Salas lets go of their pitons and falls, and Lottie can just barely save them with Featherfall.

Now having solved the riddle of the mountain, slowly and with varying magical and non magical tricks, the whole party reaches the resting spot at 100 feet. There, they realise that there is no way they could climb any higher. Beryl finds the entry to a cave, and they all get inside it, while Kix holds Remeny back for a short bit to tell her that he has a suspicion about her plan of finding glory after all, and is on board as long as she tells him about it. The cave turns out to be an old mine. Salas, in the form of a panther, walks a bit infront of the group, and suddenly gets hit with a painful memory of happier times, when their wife was still alive.

### Episode 6

Content warnings for the episode: suicidal ideation, fantasy violence, strong language

Salas, hit back into their normal form from the psychic damage of the memory, jumps back out of the area where it hit them and starts silently crying. The party tries to comfort them, and now warned of the danger, they walk through the area together, and except for Beryl all of them are hit with a painful memory. Remeny, specifically, remembers a mutiny of her old crew, her deep fear that nobody ever really trusts her, and that she has to look out for herself if she wants to achieve her goals.

Behind the tunnel, they get into a foyer with four doors (A-D) and a big table and try to decompress and calm down there. While the others are eating, Beryl starts walking around the room and listens at every door to check for hidden traps or enemies. Kix walks up to her and quietly informs her about what they know about Remeny's secret plans. In the meantime, Remeny casts Locate Object to detect hidden riches, and gets a strong signal from behind door C. As Beryl is listening at that door, Remeny comes up to her and suggests continuing with their journey, acting like she chose the door at random. She opens it and goes inside, Beryl and Kix follow her and try to talk her into at least getting a rest before continuing with the exploration.

Remeny tries to cast Charm Person on them to make them let her continue into the room. She fails, and as Beryl realises what she tried to do, she sends Kix out, blocks the door to the room, and tries to have a serious talk with Remeny, demanding to know what she is doing. While Kix informs Lottie and Salas outside about what has happened, Remeny accuses Beryl of mutiny, and Beryl opens the door again to leave.

As the door is opened, the argument escalates. Salas casts Fog Cloud to give everyone a chance to calm down, but Remeny, who has the Blind Fighting fighting style, attacks Beryl, before her party can talk her into stopping what she is doing and putting down her weapon. Finally, they can convince her that they care about her, and that they got into their current situation through their own free will as well as her decisions, and as Kix hugs Remeny, she turns into her Gaseous Form to get some distance between her and her crew for an hour.

After that hour, they take a long rest in the foyer, during which Remeny tries to fix what she broke with the crew. After the rest, they go through the rooms together, finding the remnants of very powerful magic, and possible destruction of evidence. While finding out that they are on desecrated ground, Remeny also realises that Salas is undead, but they decide to move forward before sharing the story behind that. In room C, they realise that something is hidden behind the back wall. Lottie uses Shatter to destroy the wall, and they find a secret room filled with riches, and in the middle of it a teleportation circle with "Glaceria" written on it.

### Episode 7

Content warnings for the episode: fantasy violence, strong language

While looking for a spell scroll for the Teleport spell, Kix takes a look at all the spell scrolls in the mine again and realises that while some of them are just for general construction work, others indicate that the inhospitable climate of the Upnorth was magically created by powerful spellcasters instead of evolving naturally. After they tell the others, the crew decides to just steal a little bit of the riches (including diamonds suited for the Revivify spell) and be prepared for someone possibly awaiting them on the other side of the portal. Before they activate it, Salas finally finds the tick hidden on Beryl's head that had fed on her wisdom, and Beryl gives Lottie the promise to always be there for her, that just because they are not sky pirates anymore, doesn't mean they will separate. Then, they step through the portal.

On the other side of the portal isn't Glaceria awaiting them. They just get out of the mine, to the other side of the mountain, and are immediately dragged down and burrowed by an avalanche. After they all get out, they realise that starting at the bottom of the mountain, there is an antimagic field preventing them from casting spells. This leads to Kix not being able to heal their legs, so she has to leave them behind, and Lottie can no longer see her ghosts, which makes her panic for a bit. They did, however, see Glaceria before the avalanche hit them, and know that it can't be too far away, so they continue their journey.

On their journey, they encounter an area in which snow falls up, a promising warm spring they don't decide to investigate further, and a few strange beasts. Since Lottie can no longer cast Tiny Hut, the cold gets to them more than usually, and they cannot really rest that well. Before their last day, Salas opens up about their past a bit, and tells them about their daughter, who is, because of them being a Reborn, also their sister, which makes things weird between them. Lottie reads through Kipp's notes as she cannot sleep despite her exhaustion.

Finally, they get to Glaceria. Around the city, though, is a storm unlike any other, in which ice falls from the sky, and figures with swords stand between them and safety.

### Episode 8

Content warnings for the episode: fantasy violence, strong language, death

The party struggels to get through the storm and towards safety. Salas is first, then Lottie and Beryl to one side, and Remeny and Kix to the other. Remeny drops her backpack with all her belongings to not be encumbered, while Lottie is still fighting with three levels of exhaustion, and Kix desperately tries to make their magic Headband of Intellect work again. The figures they saw before are statues made out of ice that can teleport and attack forwards, they surround and hit Salas with their longswords and stamina draining attacks. Beryl breaks through the ice, which immediately closes above her, and can only get out when Remeny breaks it with her weapon. Lottie is finally able to reach one of her ghosts again, and thus can hold the hand of the Beguiler.

Salas is brought down by the ice storm. Kix and Beryl manage to get closer to him, but cannot do anything. Remeny crawls back to Lottie as to not leave her alone, desperately trying to heal her, and even though it fails, Lottie appreciates the effort. When the statues attack them, Remeny uses her body to shield Lottie and is knocked unconscious, the next weather effect brings Lottie and Kix to zero before Kix gets a chance to try and heal Salas.

Beryl is the last one standing, and as she has no magic, she cannot do anything to safe her crew members, who ultimately all die at the same time. Lottie and Remeny become ghosts, and while Lottie's old ghosts, including Kipp, decide to move on to what is beyond, they become a little ghost crew and decide to float around and see the world. Salas sees a black room, and the Raven Queen before them, but before they can insult her they are reborn as a Half-Elf baby in Glaceria. Kix's fail save goes off, revealing a note that says to bring him to an SK Warforged to fix him. An unknown amount of time later, they become conscious again in a futuristic lab, surrounded by screens and things they cannot understand, awoken by a human. Beryl, meanwhile, makes it to Glaceria, as the only one from her crew. She is greeted by a Gnome named Hopkins Williamhead, who helps her get back her strength. Later, she goes on to establish a weapons manufacturing business, builds her own family, and becomes successful. All the time, she wants to get her revenge and destroy whoever is responsible for the suffering and death of her crew, and soon she finds out about the Lovejoys, about their power, and about the rumours that they make their money from things hidden in the mountains of the Upnorth.

## Trivia

* This was the first arc that had a trailer air before Episode 0. All previous arcs got a trailer added in late 2022, and only on the podcast feed, not on social media.
* Arc 6 is the first arc of 2022.
* It is also the first arc with five players that Gus DMed on podcast.
* And it is the first arc he ever DMed with a split-level party.
* Gus had known from awhile back that he wanted Arc 6 to be gritty survival, and then Haley introduced sky pirates in Arc 5, which were very good spin-off material in addition to being loved by the fans on Discord.
* Episode 1 was the first podcast episode that was completely taken up by an encounter (with a monologue leading up to the encounter).
* For this Arc, starting with Episode 2, Sam (who played Sasha Rose in Arc 2) drew paintings for each Episode that were posted on the Unprepared Casters Instagram and Twitter accounts.
* The giant snail Salas wildshapes into in Episode 7 is spelled Haungharassk.
* This is the first arc that has a postmortem, which was released together with Episode 0 of Arc 7 instead of a standard Verbal Component episode and can be accessed for free here.