Aerois - Episode 166: Valkyrian Vandalism

Kim Richards as Nova V'ger

Rhiannon Frost as Sentry

 Tom Hazell as Qillek Ad Khollar

**Valkyrian Vandalism** is the 166th episode of the Aerois Campaign. It was pre-recorded and broadcast on both the Yogscast Twitch channel and highrollersdnd Twitch channel on 20th November 2022 from 5PM to 8PM GMT.

*Today's espionage involves an ambitious DOUBLE MISSION approach, starting with sabotaging a Valkyrian warehouse.*

## **Summary**

### **Announcements**

* Mark welcomes everyone and introduces the players.
* Today’s episode is pre-recorded and Katie is away this week. Last episode (also pre-recorded) screened on her birthday and the HR crew forgot/did not realise (with the pre-record and screening schedule), so wished her a belated happy birthday this week. Kim asked Chat to go back in time and wish Katie a happy birthday last week, but as Nightjar pointed out, chat remembered.
* Merch: get merch and support the show at Freshstore.co (new core collection t-shirt, long-sleeved t-shirt, High Rollers Club t-shirt, Xmas jumper, hoodie, dice mat with liquid core dice, and tankard (which you may be able to customise in the future!), Quill plush (now sold out)).
* Mark will be at PAX unplugged and will be doing the final episode of Nights of Eveningstar live on stage. This will be streamed on Twitch. Mark encourages people to come and say hi to him if you see him on the floor – he says that he will "sign anything”.
* Next week will be live (then the week after will be pre-recorded while Mark will be at PAX).

### **Recap**

*"Our heroes are currently in the Genasi city of Vortinssar where they are working with an underground group of freedom fighters (activists? seekers?), called the Seekers, who are opposing the message of the current city’s ruler, Harmony, as well as the Valkyrian propaganda artist, Shansara. Together they are working to try and influence the city, to try and bring them back to the side of working with Aerois, but also stop this plan to transport the entire city back to the elemental plane of Genas (which, as the party know, having used Quill’s prophetic vision with the Storm Eye, will cause the city to crumble and be destroyed). In doing so, they have so far managed to rescue a group of students who were being kept prisoner in the university, called the Atlas Academy, however the mission to do so did not go quite according to the group’s plans and there were some complications and there were some consequences to the things that happened there. They have spent some more time building new identities and disguises to move around the city, and now they have also unlocked two more secondary missions and objectives that will help them in the long run as well.*

*With only four days remaining before this supposed transport plan will take place, there is still much to be done."*
### **Part 1**

*It's the day of double missions! Bust down a Valkyrian Warehouse and break into a tower! What could go wrong?!*

The party considers their options, one of which is stealing a ship and docking at the landing platform at the top of the Pillar of the Open Sky where the council members are being held prisoner. They know that air traffic is under tight control around the city, and that they would need a specific reason to dock at the platform. Nova checks through all the intel she has on the Valkyrian Empire (which includes some ship schematics), but she does not have any information on these specific ships, only the larger ships.

Quill learns from Norfir that Titan, one of the ambassadors and council members that he met in Horizon has gone “missing”, so he plans to use *Locate Creature* in order to locate him. Azure plans to go to a tavern that is frequented by guards that work in the tower, to befriend them, then to offer them free drinks after their shift ends to attempt to get them drunk so that they go to work hungover in the morning – Aila helps out by encouraging drinking competitions between them. Nova wants to research architectural plans of the tower in her new guise of Laguna, a student of the Atlas Academy and part-time waiter. Quill sends out *Arcane Eyes* looking for information that will help with the tower mission while Sentry poses as someone keen to join the Valkyrian forces at the tower. Goliath causes a fracas near the tower in order to confuse things and make it easier to get information, and Fuego attempts to find out how well the group’s cover is holding throughout the city.

Sentry is rebuffed – the tower is a special duty and guards have to be assigned there. Goliath does not do so well, only drawing away some of the lower-level guards. Everyone else succeeds in their efforts and Fuego informs them that changing their disguises has helped but they need to be careful – they are at risk of being detected.

The group decides to look into the sky yard in the upper city – it is an air ship dock with a warehouse area connected to it. It has been locked down and is being used by the Valkyrians as a barracks and a temporary air base. Nova asks Fuego to pick a guard’s pocket and steal her one of their passes – she will attempt to replicate it, and this would potentially get them through the first gate into the compound. Aila tries to intimidate guards to get information out of them about shift changes, officers in charge, and so on. Lucius throws a *Chromatic Orb* at some structure in the compound so that the guards have to do repairs and will be distracted, and Sentry uses *Plant Growth* to cover cameras and sensors, and to give them places to hide. Quill carefully wanders around casting *Dispel Magic* to get rid of magical traps, alarms, and so on, while Goliath scouts around the area, looking for a good place to get in.

After all of them have finished, there are a couple of possible entry points, they have passes to get through the main gate, and the communications is compromised for the Valkyrians – the Valkyrian mission is ready, and it is now early evening in late Spring/early Summer.

The group discusses their Valkyrian mission: Nova and Quill want to hit them hard and destroy something significant, and maybe steal their transport ship, Sentry suggests setting all of her plants on fire and incinerating their supplies…

They again consider the layout and their objectives. The Valkyrian forces can be found in a number of barracks and storehouses in the city, and one of the main ones is in the upper section of the Air District sky yard where one of their planetary transport ships docks. The area is fenced off and patrolled exclusively by Valkyrian forces working for Shansara. The storehouse contains magitek equipment, weapons, food supplies, and other essentials. The planetary transport is also docked nearby and is one of the major assets of the forces in the city. Finally, a number of senior Valkyrian commanders and officers are stationed in the barracks here – if killed, captured, or otherwise incapacitated, it would be a big loss for their forces here.

The are two main sections in the sky yard – a barracks area where soldiers will be resting, sleeping, storing their gear, and getting ready for different shifts. The second is the storehouses where the surplus weapons, food, and equipment are kept. One of the two planetary transport vessels docks here. This yard is on a magically floating platform thousands of feet above the city.

They decide to steal uniforms and outfits to make themselves look like Valkyrians and blow up the storehouses, while Nova steals the ship and makes it look like they are retreating to inform higher ups of the attack. They decide to send Goliath back to the safe house and take Fuego with them on both missions.

As the sun begins to set over Vortinssar, they take a steam platform from the Fire District to the upper city and listen to the din of the city below them. The steam platform is a large metal platform with railings and chains connected to it that is launched into the air at an alarming speed by jets of magical hot air and steam before the chains hooked to it take over and pull it to the top. Their passes and IDs are scanned and checked, and with Fuego’s help they get through without too much fuss – Azure and Crag are registered as being there, however. They make their way towards the airship yard and into the sky yard base as the sun sets and hide behind empty crates and barrels that have been stored behind a shower block. In the distance, across open terrain, they see the warehouse, the barracks, and the docks. The warehouse is full of guards on patrol and at work loading goods, the barracks (to their left) are probably full of guards at rest, and directly ahead down a wide street is the wooden jetties of the airship docks. They can either move through the warehouse with its numerous guards or cross the open section to get to the barracks and to the airship dock from there.

Inside the shower block, Quill can hear that there is at least one person apparently taking a shower – the person is singing a Shansara song, “Follow Your Star”. Nova makes herself and Sentry invisible and then she moves out to the road to look around. Sentry decides to enter the shower block to see if she can find a uniform – she steps in and slips over, making a horrendous clanging noise on the metal floor. Suddenly, the curtain from one of the showers is pulled back, and a naked man look around for the source of the noise – not seeing anything, he grabs and equips his towel, then moves over towards his rifle corps uniform to get his magitek pistol from its holster. The soldier is male, human, and has purple military tattoos – he starts walking around and calling out to see who is there. Sentry suddenly erupts from the floor, grabs the man’s ankles, pulls him down and gets him into a choke hold. A wrestling match ensues between Sentry and the naked, wet, sudsy, armed Valkyrian soldier – after a few seconds, the man manages to break free just as the rest of the party runs into the shower and helps Sentry to disarm and subdue the man. Sentry drags the unconscious man outside and hides him in the bushes while Lucius gets dressed in the man’s uniform and helmet with help from Aila and Quill spots incoming soldiers – with the door the only way in or out, they must hide or be spotted, so they both get into a single shower cubicle and pull the curtain shut. Lucius stumbles out of the door, swearing.

The soldiers ask if he is ok and he tells them that he fell over in the shower which, fortunately, the guards believe. They are convinced that Lucius is now ready to start his shift so take him with them to work in the warehouse.

### **Part 2**

*The Stormchasers battle with stealth once again in the midst of a Valkyrian supply warehouse!*

Quill and Aila eventually peek around the door of the shower block to see Lucius being taken into the warehouse to work while Fuego and Sentry hide the unconscious soldier better in the bushes – no one knows where Nova has gone. Nova has moved, undisturbed, up to the jetty where the planetary vehicle/troop transport/gunship is docked – it has a large, bulky square body with crystalline wings that stick out the top and two magitek engines that power it. The ship has a sculpted cockpit nose and a very large cannon built into it. Nova sees the crew of three Valkyrian pilots doing maintenance on and checking the aircraft, and there are no soldiers around. The back ramp of the ship is currently open, as is a side door that leads into the piloting compartment. One of the pilots is outside the ship while the others are in the troop holding bay or the cockpit.

Nova sneaks forward to hear what the pilots are saying, but it is mainly idle chatter about the ship and its maintenance – they consider changing out some parts that are fairly worn but don’t want to do that yet because they need the ship as much as possible at the moment. Nova suspects that they will be at the maintenance for another couple of hours at least. Nova sneaks into the piloting area and sees that it is a cramped space, but will fit three people – a pilot, a co-pilot, and a gunner (a ladder leads down to a bubble cockpit where the gunner sits in their turret.

Nova spends some time listening to conversations and observing the layout and screens – she realises that the ship is a combination of an astral starfighter (like the Twinstar Longbow) and an airship. She believes that she and Lucius would be able to pilot the ship.

Quill suggests that he and Sentry go into the warehouse and look for more uniforms or other things to help them. They see several Valkyrian troops marking off inventory (they see four rifle corps troops and one sergeant) but Lucius is not in this warehouse. Lucius is under the command of a Feywild Wood Elf, Captain Lyra, who tells his squad that because the alert level in the city has been increased, that most officers are being issued with a special eyepiece that allows them to see invisible creatures: Lucius’ squad is ordered to find the eyepieces that are part of a package, multiple of which are spread throughout the warehouse. Once they are gathered together, they will be issued to the officers that night. The package that contains the eyepieces is marked with an epsilon symbol, and there should be twelve in the warehouse (although the warehouse is huge). Lucius is put to work and does his best to disable them when he finds them.

While he is working, Lucius hears Quill’s voice, *“We’re in another warehouse. Is there anything we should look out for? Xoxoxoxo”.* Lucius responds with, *“Praxis Val! Just practicing. LOL. Captain Lyra has informed me quite eloquently that there is increasing patrols and that there are twelve…” –* the message cuts off, and Sentry and Quill are left guessing as to what the number twelve is significant for. Quill takes a look into the warehouse and sees, hidden away in a corner, is a huge (11-12 feet tall) shape that is completely covered by a Valkyrian tarpaulin that has been weighted and tied down. It looks like an armoured frame. Quill and Sentry simultaneously cast *Banishment* to get rid of the guards and captain – Quill uses *Portent* on the captain, and all but one is banished from Aerois.

Aila jumps in and starts punching the remaining guard in the face and Quill launches a *Sacred Flame* at the man. Sentry runs in and punches him twice, smiting him into the bargain – a bright pulsing energy engulfs her fist as it hits the man, and her second punch knocks him out.

Lucius, Captain Lyra, and another guard hear the faint noise from the adjoining warehouse and Lucius volunteers to go and check it out, Lyra agrees and tells the rest of the men to be prepared to go and back him up if needed. Lucius runs over, pulling his pistol out and, glancing in the door, sees his friends with Aila carrying the unconscious guard. Fuego is hiding and ready to shoot the incoming guard, but Quill recognises it as Lucius and calls him in. Lyra calls out and asks what has happened – Lucius, not even disguising his voice, tells her that something has fallen over, but he is not convincing and there is no response from Lyra – they hide and get ready to ambush anyone who comes in.

Sentry pulls on the tarp, snapping the ropes that were holding it down, and throws it over the guards and Lyra – Lyra and one guard are trapped under the tarp and blinded, but two of the guards manage to avoid it. Having uncovered the thing that the tarp was hiding, what they see is a huge mech – it is not as large as Project Vanguard but is a miniaturised mech suit with giant propulsor fists, and large stomping legs.

Fuego shoots one of the guards and hits him twice and the two guards return fire, attempting to hit Sentry but only score one hit on her. Aila runs in and punches the guard whom Fuego has already hit and zaps him with lightning. Lyra and the other guard free themselves of the tarp while Fuego goes after the injured guard again, almost downing him. Sentry pushes crates over attempting to catch the guards in the fall, but she mistimes it and the crates clatter harmlessly to the ground. As they smash open loudly, the party sees their spilled contents – recharge crystals for the force rifles, and small round canisters with runic timers (that look like some sort of magitek grenade).

Quill looks at the grenades, thinks better of it, then summons Elder Quill and casts *Calm Emotions,* affecting all guards, Fuego, and Aila – Quill does not affect Aila or Fuego, but the guards and Captain Lyra become indifferent to the group of them and stand down from fighting them. Captain Lyra instead informs them that they are intruding on a military base and are all under arrest with Lucius going straight to the brig. Sentry asks what the huge mech is for, at which point Lyra starts to get angry – Lucius chooses this moment to cast *Dominate Monster* on her and takes control of her mind.

Captain Lyra suddenly goes quiet (as does Lucius), and then puts her hand up to her ear (as if hearing a communication from elsewhere), asking, “Are you sure? … But they look like infiltrators. … OK, fine.” Lyra then tells the guards to stand down, that there has been a miscommunication, and that she needs them to go back to finding the devices. The guards are confused and start to question Captain Lyra, but she brushes them off and tells them that her orders come from the top and tell them to get back to work. Lucius makes Lyra grab him and tell him that he is still going to the brig for disobeying a direct order and says that she will deal with the others while the rest of them go back to work. They do.

Lucius makes Lyra let go of him (getting her to say, “I’m a poopy head, I’m a big, big poopy head”) – he decides that he should go and check on Nova with Captain Lyra, accompanying her as her guard. Quill thinks they should do something with the mech, and Sentry wants to look for more uniforms (but there are none in the warehouses, which are solely used for storing equipment). Aila starts removing the uniform from the guard that they had previously knocked out so that she can put it on herself. Sentry wants to disable the mech, but it is a very complicated magitek machine, and she is not sure how to disable it. She works out that a creature can effectively mount the battle mech and cannot make attacks other than with the mech itself. Sentry realises that because of its thick armour, the mech will be incredibly tough and hard to destroy – it is resistant to most elemental damage and magic, and resistant to weapon attacks.

Quill casts a *Sending* to Nova, *“Things are going just great over here. A dominated captain with Lucius is coming towards you. Xoxoxoxoxo”*. Nova sends a telepathic reply, *“Three pilots in dropship. Get Lucius to send them away. I can pilot. Xoxoxoxoxoxo”*.

On their way towards the transport ship, another group of guards, having heard the noise from the warehouse, starts heading towards it. Captain Lyra tells them to stand down, that she has the situation under control, and sends them away. Lucius notices that most of the troops from the barracks appear to have been moved to the main gate leading to the shipyard (which explains why there was not more attention when they were making all the noise in the warehouse). Arriving on a Genasi carriage is a female Valkyrian Inquisitor (wearing a long dark overcoat and equipped with a lot of magitek items), and a back-up dancer for a girl band (apparently a protégé of Shansara). They are accompanied by an elite group of guards (including Phase Knights), and all proceed to enter the gate leading to the ship.

Quill and Sentry discuss what they should do – they know that while the Valkyrian forces elsewhere on Aerois are in a defensive pattern now, these troops are taking orders from Shansara, and appear to be being resupplied from somewhere other than the main empire – they appear to be their own faction at this point. Quill asks Fuego to use the mech to destroy as much property around them as possible and also to provide them with a distraction, but he still wants Fuego to escape (preferably after destroying the mech).

Quill hears a large force approaching the warehouse they are in – he peeks outside to see the female Inquisitor, the dancer, a troop of elite guards, as well as some riflemen on their way – it appears to be a surprise inspection. Quill and Sentry leave it to Fuego if he wants to help them, and he immediately climbs into the mech and starts strapping himself in. Quill starts the engine and backs off, they hear someone outside asking if that is the mech they are hearing as power bursts from its chest and Fuego, hollering with delight, smashes the ground, sending crates flying.

## **YouTube Timestamps**

00:00 - Intro
04:57 - Dun Duns
05:53 - Part 1
1:37:57 - Part 2

## **Featured Characters**

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

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

#### **Returning NPCs**

* Fuego
* Goliath

#### **Mentioned NPCs**

* Kay Avalin
* Shansara

## **Featured Locations**

* Vortinssar
	+ Fire District - safe house in Coalsmoke Street
	+ Air District - Valkyrian air base

## **Trivia**

* Tom hates a prolonged silence.
* Trott wore a jumper with the slogan “Pleasure Elf” today. It is from the Hat Films Christmas collection and available on freshstore.co.

* Mark describes the planetary transport vessel as “the Pelican from Halo – a gunship and troop transport combined together”. It can hold a squadron of 12 soldiers in the carrier bit and has pilots and weapons at the front. You could, in theory, hold a smaller vehicle or mounts inside it.
* Mark advised that the “grunt” soldiers would not have access to up-to-date information, whereas the officers might have the equivalent of an iPad, but it still may not have up-to-the-minute information on it, so they could still be persuaded to believe a lie.
* Tom had another metal crates moment this episode. Mark had just finished explaining that Goliath had much better skills to start a fracas, but Tom completely missed it and wanted Fuego to do that.
* The group’s incognito score started at 21. After the Atlas Academy mission, it dropped to 13 (before Quill and Nova changed their disguises, it was even less than that)! There was a slow erosion from the gate entry, and having disguises revealed (like Quill and Nova) tanks the incognito score because there starts to be guilt by association.
* If a PC’s incognito score is between (unknown numbers), NPCs will see them as unknown strangers and may even have some suspicions about their disguises. You can still use charisma skills to avoid further difficulty, but they will not be easily won over. DCs are higher than normal.
* Mark said that he always forgets what season they’re in when Tom says that they are in the depths of Winter. Kim mentions that they started in Palas (late Autumn), Mark’s response was, “Yeah, who fuckin’ knows? Not this guy.” Mark *thinks* that it has been about 1.5 years in game since they started, so he thinks it would be the end of Spring or early Summer.
* **Continuity error:** Mark again describes Vortinssar as being in the south east, even though Kim’s notes have it as in Jakkesh (which is in the north east of the world of Aerois).
* Kim wanted to retcon that she had attuned to the amethyst lodestone before coming on the Valkyrian mission, but it would have affected their getting through the checkpoint in a negative way, so she didn’t.
* The Shansara hit, Follow Your Star, is described as “cheesy J-pop kinda stuff, like anime theme opening”.
* Coming back from the break, Mark commented, “Wow, I really hope that didn’t make it in! Boy howdy. Because that was a statement and a half.” Apparently, the comment needed context and was Trott talking about his pants.
* The guns on the Valkyrian planetary vehicle use dex-based skills.
* When Mark is rolling up a name for the Valkyrian captain who is supervising Lucius (using the Roll & Play book https://rollandplaypress.com/product/roll-play-fantasy/), he asks whether he should use a “heart throb” name or a “ferocious” name. Kim insists on heart throb, and Trott suggests “Captain Flashheart” (Rik Mayall’s character from the Blackadder series).
* Mark cut Trott off in his return *Sending* to Quill. Trott was short-changed by 3 words, but it made the message more mysterious!
* Mark describes the huge mech as “more like the exo suit from Aliens – there is a cockpit in which someone can strap themselves”, like Titanfall, or the ones from Avatar: Legend of Korra.
* The Valkyrian riflemen have an ability called “Marksman’s Eyes” that causes d12 of damage. This is added to ?normal d? damage from the rifle.
* Mech rules: A creature can mount the mech like a mount. Whilst you are mounted, you cannot make your own attacks or cast spells – your action and bonus action must be spent to control the mech. For your action, you can cause the mech to make an attack roll for you. You use the mech’s movement speed. If the pilot is attacked, they get a bonus to cover (considered ¾ cover), have magic resistance, can have one of the attacks target the mech automatically, but can still be struck. The mech can punch, has a powerful melee attack, and can launch arcane missiles. To destroy it would take a very high DC arcana check, to do an incredible amount of damage to it, or to drop it from an incredible height.

## **Quotes**

* Tom: I just got really depressed thinking that my life is like an under-cooked time pie and that, for some reason, just cut me deep. Anyway, carry on.

* Mark: Remember, you could technically unlock both of these missions today and then do the missions tomorrow if you prefer.
* Tom: Pfft. Double mish-mosh.