High Rollers DnD - High Rollers: Aerois #154 | The Knights of Grief (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

The assault on Nightbloom Hold continues but Kellara is sending her finest knights to defend! Support the High Rollers and get early access to podcast episodes and Studio updates on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/HighRollers Grab some High Rollers merch: https://freshmerch.fm/collections/high-rollers Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound & TCT Adventures (Solasta: Crown of the Magisters) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. Hello and welcome to High Rollers. The world of Eros is one of many worlds in the vast stretches of astral space. It was created by the goddess Siaska as a hidden world, safe from the planar emperor Calus Valkyrian. Siaska also created her children, the Titans of Erois, who have been mistaken as gods for centuries to help protect it. who have been mistaken as gods for centuries to help protect it. When Erois was eventually discovered by Calus centuries later, a war was fought and it was believed that Calus killed Siasca, but not before she expelled the invading forces and created a divine barrier from her spirit called the Cradle which protects Erois from outside influence.

Our heroes in their adventures have learnt much. Calus Valkyrian and Siasca were once lovers who fought against the elder evil Hadar, a god trapped in the Far Realm who seeks to consume all of existence. Calus and Siasca had a daughter called Vala who was held in magical stasis for years and was then befriended by the party. And Calus is not perhaps what their history has led them to believe, that he did not kill Siasca and whilst he is stubborn and willing to go to any lengths to stop Hadar, there is an honourable element to him and he cares deeply for his former lover and his daughter. That said, the Astral Emperor still believed that only he could stop Hadar and sought to

take a powerful magical object called a Genesis Relic from Oroes' core, the World Engine, believing it capable of overwhelming Hadar with infinite energy. And so, the party, with many personal quests to become leaders, to rescue lovers, to finding family, and becoming champions of the gods in between, were set to clash with him once more. To help accomplish this, the party seek to restore the goddess Siaska to life, but to do so, they need her children, the Titans, to relinquish their power and rejoin her spirit. Some of these Titans have done so willingly or after certain goals have been accomplished, but others, driven to madness from anger, grief, or fear, have resisted and hidden themselves in their own

unreachable demiplanes. The heroes of Erois now pursue one such Titan, Killara. Once the goddess of life and growth, she was tasked with becoming the herald and shepherd of death in her mother's absence. Her grief, fear, and sorrow of the world's impending fate has caused her to transform her holy knights into merciless killers, and she refuses the prayers of her followers. Her motives are still unknown, but her knights pose a great threat and protect the entrance to her demiplane. Having journeyed into the dense jungle, the heroes have found the knight's stronghold, which protects the breach point needed to enter Calara's plane. Nightbloom Hold is a walled keep beneath the boughs of a colossal tree

surrounded by gardens and mortuaries. Calara's corruption of the jungle has spread to plant life, raise the dead, and even blocks out the light of the sun itself, preventing the party from using their airship, the Stormchaser, to gain easy access. So our champions are in the process of storming the keep to defeat Calara's greatest champions, the Order of the Blackened Rose and her four Knight Commanders. Very broad overview recap of things over the last four years, but that brings us up to where we are today. As mentioned, just for any new viewers, because it has been a while and we might have had a slight influx,

let's just go around and do a real quick who you're playing, rough character kind of info, just so the people are aware. And we'll start with Rhi. We'll start with Sentry. Hello, I'm playing Sentry. She is a oath of the ancients paladin she's kind of like the big tanky mum of the group likes to look after

everybody and protect them from harm that's kind of her whole deal and you are a guardian which is a custom race yeah and you are now the leader of the guardians basically uh the prime the prime guardian yeah yes wicked robot. Big old robot mum. Yep. Yeah. I'm Quill, or Keelakad Kalar, seer of Arois, champion of Hesper, all-knowing champion of Arois,

wonderful boy, Arakokra, cleric mainly, and slight little tidbit of wizard, and I'm the healer of the gang. I'll heal you up. Yep. And you are literally an oracle because you have a magic item which lets you see the future or the past. Yep.

Magic eye. Magic eye. Big storm eye. Very powerful. And he's a bird. I'm a bird with one wing. One winged angel. Two wings now, one mechanical.

Anyway, Kim. I'm playing Nova V'ger and she's a big ol' nerd. She is obsessed with all things space and books and scrolls. She is an air ganassi, well, mixed air ganassi, water ganassi,

but aesthetically, cosmologically, I don't know, but mechanically an air ganassi. And she used to be a Hexblade Warlock, but now she is a level 5 Hexblade Warlock and a level 12 Fighter, Echo Knight Fighter. That's a lot. She has a pact with a Sentient Sword,

who is so much more than a Sentient Sword, but if I was to tell you about Eterna, they're going to cut me off. I also have a girlfriend called Thalia. Who was a Medusa and is now an elf again. Technically it's a Gorgon. Nope, in D&D they're Medusa. That's the ancient Greek thing.

Yeah, fine. She used to be sneaky. She used to be sneaky, she's not sneaky no more. Yeah, bam. Chris Trott. Fixed it. I am Lucius Vion Elenasto, and as you can tell by the name,

I am of noble descent and a high elf. And my family were very wealthy, and I was a naive little boy when I started this adventure. Little boy. And I got thrown into this Tiny boy. This romp, and learned very quickly that I know very little. However, he's got a big heart and he's looking

for a new family because his old one died. And you are a sorcerer. I am a sorcerer, which means I have innate magical abilities. I'm actually a arcane chromat, which is a subclass that Mark made. And I rolled dice and I am acid and cold. And my eyes have heterochromia and they're orange and blue to reflect my magical powers.

Yeah, and it's the idea is that you draw magic from color. From color itself. Yeah. Cool, that's it. And then we also, unfortunately, the other player, Katie, is not with us just yet. She might be joining us later. She plays Aayla, who is a storm barbarian, a wild elf,

which are kind of like Viking Celtic elves rather than sort of the more sort of traditional sort of Lord of the Rings high elves. And she's a storm barbarian, a wild elf, which are kind of like Viking Celtic elves rather than sort of the more sort of traditional sort of Lord of the Rings high elves. And she's a storm barbarian. She's really angry and she smacks stuff with a big hammer. Zero bullshit, giant hammer. Yeah, space-tastic. It's really wacky.

With Aayla, it's just got wacky. It's interesting. It's a work in heritage, though. Yeah, well, it's a bit deeper, very much like the Eterna. There's a lot of stuff going on. Tom, I'm going to ask you to play Aayla again if we do any combat and stuff. Sure.

Well, we're in a combat. Yeah, so the recap was more of a general thing to kind of remind you guys of where you currently are. And I think, Sam, if we can show off the map. That's very good. So you have literally stormed ahead through the gardens and the mortuaries of the Nightbloom Hold

at the heart of the jungles of Jakesh. It is pitch black, but now there is a slight bit of illumination. As you stand before a keep, a walled keep on a slight mount, there is a moat surrounding it, high walls, a drawbridge, which is currently up, and there are archers on the walls uh one section of the wall is now engulfed in a line of flame uh having been conjured by your companion maximilian who is currently with you uh there are undead at the front of the gates um including a giant plant-like undead creature called a dead root um and you know that basically

inside this keep are the order of the blackened Road, the four knight commanders and many more forces. And yeah, this is basically where you are. You tried to sneak in. It all went a bit wrong. And you've just basically charged ahead and have engaged. That was part of the plan. It was part of the plan. Which it did.

And we knew it would. A couple of other things. You have a companion called Hotshot, who is another guardian, similar to Century, who is another guardian, similar to Sentry, who is attempting to sneak in and has some sort of plan to try and destroy this colossal tree called the Rot Heart. Very spurious about that plan.

And this big tree called the Rot Heart seems to be tied to a lot of the undead stuff going on. The other element is that you have your airship currently waiting for some signal, unable to penetrate the gloom. It doesn't know where you are. It doesn't know where you might be. But that is also on hand.

And then the very last thing was from inside the keep itself, the main sort of building of the keep beyond the walls. The very last thing you saw was a strange blue pulsing light that flashed twice and then stopped. And that was the last thing you saw uh i have a question about that yeah go for it one would never have seen that yeah i think all of you would have seen that yeah and with nova's experience with teleportation and dimension door and all those teleportation drills would that have looked like a teleportation spell yeah maybe just do an arcana check for me with advantage, because, yeah, you have a lot of experience with... I think it flashed twice.

It flashed twice, yes. 19. 19. You are quite, yeah, I think Nova, with your experience, you wouldn't know exactly which spell, whether it was teleport or something like that, but the pulsing nature of it, just the sort of general essence of the magic itself,

you're fairly confident that there is some sort of, maybe you sense like a kind of echoing, passing echo or something like that, but you're fairly certain that it was probably teleportation magic. My obsession with teleportation, I'm just like. Yeah, I think that's the thing, is if like you or Quill probably would have been able to pick up on this

more because Quill is, you know, Hesper was a god of magic and can kind of sense these things a bit easier. But yeah, I think for most people it would have just been, you would have known it was some sort of magical effect. But I think for you, you can definitely be like, yeah, that seems oddly familiar. Same sort of sensations and things like that. The other thing I'm going to ask you guys to do before we jump

into the actual initiative rounds is yeah we have this guardian hotshot who's currently trying to sneak in and I would like each of you, one person's going to have to roll twice because Katie's not here just yet to roll some d20s for me, I will say this

you can pick the order of who rolls the later rolls are harder was there a a perception roll last time of someone spotting hot shot going in yeah but didn't really see yeah quill i think quill saw them going in but that was about it yeah uh but this is this is the sermon how successful their attempts are going to be. Oh, boy. So the later rolls will be harder. Reburst. Yeah, that's why I'm giving you the option of picking who rolls when. So five rolls.

Just D20s. I've got the math. Ooh, maybe Kim first, actually. Yeah. Your rolls recently have not been great. They've been hot garbo. All right. D20, just straight up.

Big Nat 20. Don't need to add anything. Just give me the roll. Big Nat 20. 15. Okay. All Nat 20. 15. Okay, all right, next one. Nary? Who's worst?

Oh, yeah, Rhyth. Rhyth. Five. Okay. Okay, I have to do two rolls, so shall I go now, then you, then me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is this Quill or Aayla?

This is Quill, I guess, 12. Okay. Which I feel like might be a failure at this point, but... 16. 15, sorry, 15. Same as Kim. And the last one. Final roll, this is Ayla, technically.

You can hate Katie for this, that was a natural one. We're back! We're back, baby! I've never won. Katie, why? No, it's all right. Going all up here. Oh, no!

Okay. All right. So, with that in mind, I don't know if I got shots on. We jump back into the fight. Now, it has been a week. I did try and go back and remind myself of where everybody was in the initiative. We didn't have a map last time. We now do. So I've tried to place everything around as and when. You can see there are archers up on the wall.

There is still a pack of undead at the bottom. The moat is about 15 feet across. The drawbridge is currently up. I think it was 20. Well, it's 15 now. Shut up. Now we're closer to it. Yeah, it looked 20 feet across,

but now you've gone closer. Oh, it's actually 15, yeah, it's perspective. It's a bit more beach than yeah um but because i couldn't represent it the the keep is slightly higher up as well so it is like slightly elevated okay uh it's also a big flame i think max is that's yes it's wall of fire yeah some arches yes they were incinerated the arches didn't just block them off like they are they are gone those those squires were burnt to a crisp um and find these little leds like it does i don't agree i believe that the very last uh person away was century who then had max go at the end of their turn and then some ballistas fired and all kind of nonsense happened over shadow martin lucius that was going to get hit yep right let Right. Oh, my God. Blasted. That's enough talking.

Let's get to some playing. Let's get whacking. Yeah. And I think that seeing that the six archers who were on the other side who couldn't be wall-fired basically proceed to rush up into shooting positions, and they are going to take position, and they are going to take a shot. Let's see.

There is six of them, so this is going to be a plus 12 to the attack roll, and they are going to look at the targets, surveying it. They can see that Aayla's been surrounded. Nova's also kind of fighting the dead root sentries out on her own. They've just seen Max kind of deflect the strength ballista, but they do see a little bird man all on his little lonesome. Yeah. And so these archers are going to direct

their shots towards Quill for a 29 to hit. Oh, no, that, yeah. Yeah, no, that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that is going to be, it's five points of damage, so it's going to be 30 piercing damage. Whoa. As long as there are lots of squires. So the more of them there are, the easier it is for them to hit and the more damage they do. They have got to go. Yeah.

They're pretty scary. But you know that they are very weak. They are not hard to hit. They are not particularly tough to your attacks. These are minions for the henchmen. We go to Lucius. Filet minion. Lucius is going to take a note out of Max's book,

and he's going to cast Wall of Ice, but he's going to chromatically control it and convert it into a wall of acid. Oh, interesting. Oh, ow. Ow. So en route, it changes from an ice cold into sludgy orange acid. Oh, that's nasty. These guys. It changes from an ice cold into sludgy orange acid.

Oh, that's nasty. These guys, so, Wall of Ice doesn't do damage on its own. It's only when it breaks that it does damage. Yeah, however, a Wall of Acid, is it more like a Wall of Fire? Does a Wall of Acid just collapse instantly? I imagine it's like a spray, like, you know in Valorant? I would say, yeah, let's say it basically functions as a wall of fire instead, right? So it's not going to physically block anybody from moving through it, but it will do damage.

Because they're minions, they automatically fail their saving throws. So all of the remaining archers up on the wall are melted by acid. Hell yeah. Nice. So there is just on one side of this tower, fire. On the other side, acid. Yeah, this kind of pulsing, you know, almost like it's constantly flowing acid. Like an upwards waterfall.

Yeah, I like to imagine that. Who is it with that ability in Valorant? Viper. Viper, yeah. It's my old main. I'll just put those down there. Perfect. So yeah, we see these two conjured sides one max

still concentrating on his wall of fire lucius now concentrating on this wall of acid blocking off the front i should make a point that i couldn't fit them onto the battle map there are two towers on the sides of these walls where the ballista are located but they are raised up and they are separate you you know you'll have to specifically target those yeah uh lucius anything else on your turn uh um no i'm gonna stay where i am all right quill oh yikes i'm gonna do a uh bacon of hope and just try and catch yeah it will catch everyone. So everyone will get maximized healing. And saves on wisdom. For this turn, in terms of bonus actions,

I didn't really want to do merch. What's the range? The range of bacon. 30 feet radius. Yeah, it'll catch everyone, don't you worry. Yeah, that's 20. 30 feet, yeah. It'll catch everyone, don't you worry. Yeah, that's 20. So yeah, 30. I just want to use it.

Where's Sentry? I kind of want to hide behind Sentry. Sentry's up forward because she had charged forward and was demolishing a unit of these skeletons, which are now gone because Sentry's 25 feet. I will move behind Sentry. Okay, move. Please, yeah. You can move behind the control. Yeah. So the ballista, if they want to shoot me again so you're basically we're going to try and use century as a sort of cover yeah okay yeah well i mean it's also the

saving throw bonus i know that she has that aura of protection and everything as well so she's gonna try and use that all right end of ten quill that All right, we're going to jump to the top of a brand new round. You hear from within, past the walls, some sort of roaring creature. Kind of echo out. She's here. Ayla is currently surrounded by minions and the dead root, so she is going to take 25, 10, 15, 20, 25, 5 times 5.

25. 25 damage. Just 5 damage because of AC. Halfed again, down to 2 because of rage. You're going to have to put that in. Oh, yes, that's true. Well, I think it makes sense that she... Actually, how damaged does this big root look?

Not that damaged. It was two weeks ago, so, like, you can try and remember. The root definitely took some heavy blows, but, I mean, it's still stable. It still looks pretty intact. Okay. Well, I think Aayla, yeah, will continue just to try and wear out this horde.

So yeah, she'll just go reckless, I suppose. Doki. So double hit. Bam. Oh, 18 plus 15. That does it. Yeah, it would have been 6 damage per not 5, so it would have been 30, so 10. 10 and would have been 30 so ten ten and a half five yeah uh oh do you have a d10 i do thank you what uh and a d6 let's see boom so she does 12 damage with the first hit so this is against the dead root the the uh the horde oh okay the horde what was the ac to hit uh it was 20 million that's fine fine. So how much damage, sorry? I was trying to track a million things there.

It was... Oh, sorry, 12 plus 9, so 21 damage. So 21, which would be four points left over. So she kills one of them. And one's very wounded. And the next one... Four points. Actually, no, because the dead root is there.

The dead root is empowering these things. Oh, yeah. So she hits and she deals tons of damage, but normally these minions, these skeletal, these hive undead, we've been calling them, these kind of skeletal creatures wrapped up with vines and black flowers. Aayla's hammer should have destroyed one,

but it's being held together by these vines, which seem to be enhanced by the presence of the large plant-like creature. Hey, boy needs to go. Yeah, well the next one, I've already rolled so I'm going to continue hitting the undead, was 19 plus 15. And it will be, oh not as good, 7 plus 9, so 15 damage. Yep, so 15.

So this one would finish off the one that she had already whacked. Actually managing to destroy that one now finally, and then the Hammer Blow kind of passes through and it does impact into another one because of the nature of these minions, they're quite easy to dispatch. But again, doesn't quite do enough damage to destroy them.

And then an extra 3d6 damage of lightning, which they auto fail. Good Lord. One, one and three. Five. Yeah, so the lightning again lasted, but it seems that this one, strengthened by the dead root,

is not having much effect. Cool, and that's it. Oh, does she have a bonus to damage from rage? Yes, four. How much? An extra four. Okay, so she would have done an extra eight damage then to all of these still wouldn't have destroyed the second one but it's very close uh you can see it's like definitely heavily injured but not quite there nice all right that's

uh yeah i don't think she'll move or anything um she'll try and hold up this horde as much she can okay um but yeah i think next turn she'll turn on the dead root. Well, we have Nova Vigia, then it will be Sentry. If I was to skirt around the dead root without leaving... It's a threatened area. Yeah. Would that put 15 feet between me and the other side of the moat? Or is it more like 20? It's like, yeah, you have to be dead on the edge to get 15 across, so you would have to basically step five feet out.

Yeah, you would still get an attack of opportunity if you did that. Let me just double-check. 15 feet. Okay, in which case, I'm just going to go hit and stuff. So I'm going to keep attacking the dead root. Okay. How does reach, like, extended reach affect attack of opportunity? So it's normally you have to leave that full extended element, but certain creatures, like this one's a bit unusual because it has like,

its vines can stretch out, but it's mainly focused on a certain area around it. Basically if like, you try and step more than five feet away even if it's still within its reach, it still gets a whack again. Short range and long range attacks. 27 to hit. The dead root, yes, absolutely.

16 points of damage. 16 points. Tiangong, the blade, cuts through, severing vines, cutting through bone fragments, but again, this is such a thick mass of a creature. What's 16 plus 13? That will hit. Yeah.

If you don't need to do the full maths, I know that that hits. 18 points of damage. 18 points of damage you are slicing hacking cutting through this thing chopping off vines and pieces where you can but it still stands a natural 20. um it's uh blah blah blah uh 19. 19 points uh i think at this point it is now at least beginning to look damaged. You are beginning to see chunks of it that aren't repairing, chunks of it that have been broken away.

It is reduced in size, but it is, yeah, I mean, it's still standing. It's very tough, this thing. As a bonus action, I would like to summon Tiangong and plant them. This is Echo. Echo Tiangong. and plant them. This is Echo. Echo Tiangong.

Plant them next to me, between me and Ayla, just to stop that horde from kind of coming up. Sure, sure, sure. Okay. And that's me. That's you done. Then we go to Sentry.

Alrighty. Am I ten feet away from the... From the dead root? Yes, you are. Sweet. I'm going to make two Starbreaker attacks against that one. Your large, magically enhanced, one-handed lance. Yeah. Giga drill.

Quite literally a giga drill. Good start. Fifteen. Fifteen is not enough. The tip of the lance kind of catches on a section of bone, like a thick plate hidden within the vines. And a natural one on the second one. So, fantastic.

Just glancing off these blows, not quite managing to find purchase and penetrate through into the creature's flesh. No worries. I believe I had Aura of Vitality up two weeks ago. So I'm going to bonus action, use the 2d6 to heal Quill. Well, it's maximized because of Beacon of Hope. So you get 12 healing. Full 12, yeah. Oh, the wombo combo. to heal Quill. Well, it's maximized because of Beacon of Hope. So you get 12 healing.

Full 12, yeah. Oh, the wombo combo. Wombo combo. It's happening. Finally. I'm going to stay where I am. Done? Yep.

Thank you. Okay. You see the dead root kind of shudders for a moment, and it's going to do a couple of things. The first thing it does is it kind of emits the flowers on it kind of begin to bloom, and it pulses, and the wall of flame is dispelled. Oh, interesting.

But, I mean, we can't see anything there, no? No, no, there doesn't appear to be anything there yet. No, exactly. Oh, yeah. Can I also just retcon a little bit and just be like, say something? You can say something, yeah, of course. It's not necessarily on your turn. You can talk in between turns.

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure a couple of things just teleported in on the other side of the wall. Okay, we'll keep an eye out. Okay. And after it uses its Dispel Magic, it is going to use one attack against you, Nova. Go on, slap me. It's going to try and slap you with its vine. That is only going to be, however, a 16 to hit.

Oh, it doesn't. It doesn't hit. And then for its other attack, it's going to use its lashing vine, and I need Quill, no, Lucius, to make a strength saving throw, please. Oh. 21. 21 is enough. This lashing vine whips out,

tries to wrap around you, and maybe through, like, holding your captain's command or something, you manage to kind of, like, fend it and snap off the creature's vine before it gets a full grip on you. And just, yeah, just breaks it away. Awesome. No longer holding you in place.

And then that is going to be that thing's go. You begin to hear the sounds from behind you, and then that is gonna be that thing's go. You begin to hear the sounds from behind you, far, far to the south. You remember you had used Century's mount, the Periton, to try and distract some other packs of undead. They, having dealt with the Periton, are now beginning to make their way towards you. Oh, God.

Oh, so they're actually within map range of us. Those are at the very back of the map. Cool. So what's that like? They literally only bought you a little bit of time. Only one pack of the minions for now. But they are there and they are now arriving. About 75 feet away. That's not too bad.

Two rows of three? Yeah, just two rows of three is perfect. Thank you. They're running in perfect formation. Look at them go. They're still running. You okay? Doing math in my head of movement speeds of other things that aren't here yet. Oh, that's a joke.

That maybe Orc Lady can do. That's them, that's them, that's them. Lucius. Lucius is going to cast a cantrip first, so firebolt. He's going to quicken it. At? At the death blue. The dead root? Dead.

Sure. Close. At death blue. Hold. 26 hits. 4d10. Just doing it on here. Yep. That is 15 points of fire damage.

That's pretty low, but yeah. All right, 15 points of fire damage. Well, from 4d10, 15. I was like, oh, that's actually well above average. Well, at least they're disgusting. Yeah. So, yeah, the firebolt streaks out of your hands, engulfs part of the creature.

And for my main action, I'm going to cast Vitriolic Sphere on the group next to Aayla. Oh. I mean, they fail automatically. I'm pretty sure. Actually, the dead root is there. You will need to roll damage for me. All right.

What level are you casting it at as well? I'm casting it at level four. Okay. That's 22 points of acid. 23, 24 points of acid. 24 points of acid damage is not enough to destroy them. They have more than 24? When they are empowered by the dead root. One of them was damaged by Aayla.

One of them was damaged, that's very true. We will snatch one of those off then. I also just remembered, can you make two con saves for Aayla for me please? Oh yeah. Every time these things die, they emit a cloud of... Also, I'm gonna send a streak of acid back to the big boy for eight points.

Eight points of acid damage. Okay. Con saves from Ayla were? 25 and 30. All right, yeah, that's fine. It's all good. All right, Lucius just launching spells. I'm just blasting over everyone's head.

Yep. Nova duck! Yeah, we're here! You can see all of the undead that Lucius did hit with that Vitriolic Sphere. They are coated in acid. They are melting away rapidly, just about still standing, but heavily, heavily injured.

If it wasn't for this empowering aura, they would have been all destroyed. But they are very close to, and they will take more damage at the start that's a yes sir I still coated which technically the way the minions work is that they activate now so they take another 5d for I think so they're probably all dead anyway yeah yeah yeah just in case you roll all ones when in fact actually no because if you roll all ones they become all twos right so you have minimum ten minimum ten they well we need that we

need yeah 13 you can roll the damage roll I don't mind 13 13 yeah they they are they melt away is whilst they survive the initial blast the acid link clinging to their bones just dissolves them into pieces okay just death root left and the horned of sadness end of of turn. End of turn. Quill. Oh, God! I didn't think I'd be so soon. I will do a... Very quick rapid fire. I will do a Sacred Flame on the Deathroot, which is a dex save, I believe? Yes, the big slow plant creature.

That's a three. Okay, well it's not 22, so it fails. I just wanted to show off his spell safety, see there. Yeah, it's 22. I gathered that. 29 damage. 29.7. Damage.

What the hell is that? That burns away. It's 48. I mean, you could have done 40. You got max damage. No. Wait. No, I got five, two, eight, eight, and I plus six. I add to my cantrip damage. Oh, that's right, because he's pot two, eight, eight, and I plus six. I add to my cantrip.

Oh, that's right, because he's Potence Broadcasting. Yeah, so potent. Potent. But yeah, that Sacred Flame burns away a huge chunk of the bones, the undead necrotic energy, which in powering this thing does heavily seem to recoil and rise against this sacred energy conjured by Quill. Hell yeah.

Anything else, Quill, on your turn? I will use a bonus action to harness divine power and bring back a level three spell slot. Okay. And, yeah. Pretty cool, right? You've done that before. Yeah.

You've used it a bunch of times. Thanks. Yeah, it's pretty cool cool but it does use my like divine yeah things uh so end of turn quote oh yeah I'm staying behind century okay I'm actually snuggled between her and the shield thank you for reminding me I had forgotten all. Ugh. Hey, you're welcome. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Inspiration? I've already got it. Don't worry. Lucius, I think in this case, both Ballistae, they're conversing and they've seen you unleashing

all of these spells. They are both going to train Lucius. Yeah, my Collider's direction spells. What has Max done? Huh? Nobody gave him an order. That's the point. Actually, he would go because normally he goes after the end of its turn.

Max, you go! I mean, no. What Max can do is he can elect you to be his ward for the round, which means that he can basically give you the benefits of cover, and also he can take attacks for you, basically. So, like, plus two AC. It's plus two AC and dexterity saving throws, and then also he can use his reaction

to basically become the target if you are hit. Here's what he's going to do. That's his bonus action. What a hot piece of magic. For his action... He's pretty good. He's a good dude. For his action, he will... Are you injured, Lucius? Have you taken damage?

Not that bad right now. People have been jumping in front of all the attacks. Yeah, that's true. He doesn't really have any more attack spells that are going to be particularly useful here. Also, did you see my spit? Well, actually, he can see that group. The group coming from behind him,

for his action, Max will turn around and he will cast Flamestrike on the group behind. What a hottie. Let's go for the spell. He's hot and he makes hot spells. Each creature in a 10-foot radius, which will hit all six. They fail the dexterity swim through.

Can somebody roll 4d6 or 8d6 for me, please? 8d6? 8d6 for me. We'll do four this side, four that side. Sure, you can do that as well. Because it's a 46 fire, 46 radian. Do you roll it? You got two, I've got two.

Oh my God, I'm so sorry. 19 on this side. 19? 24 on this side. 24, that wipes the group of minions that was arriving from behind. Oh my god. Max just turns around and he like lifts his hand up

and pulls it down and you see the column of divine fire launch down. So dreamy. And then he basically is like, Lucius, get behind me! And he's like pushing you, sort of like, just trying to defend you. Daddy! I'll leave that to you. And then I, how the fuck did I do the ballistae last time?

Was it dex saving throws? I think it was, it's been a while. I think so, yeah. They've got like zero range. Yeah, shut up. So Lucius, they're still gonna try to do the same thing, but you now have a plus two to the dex saving throw. Can you make two dexterity saving throws for me, please?

So, yeah. Natural 20. Okay. And we get a plus two from Max. And a two. Four. Six. So, as a reaction, Max will take the place for you.

In fact, no, it was an attack roll because Max parried it, I just remembered. So, you can ignore those rolls. I just remembered that he had to parry it to miss his AC. Oh, yeah, he cut it out of the air last time. First one misses you. The bolt just kind of collides into the ground next to you. The second one is also going to miss you. So these two bolts. The crew who are arming these ballistae,

thrown off by all the spells and just the onslaught of this attack, definitely have been thrown off as that takes place. And then the thing I was thinking about before Tom reminded me of the Ballistae, Quill, Sentry, Max, and Lucius. Nova and Alia were a bit too forward to, like, see this. All you can really see is the walls in front of you. Those of you who are a little bit back,

you see something fly up from the main keep itself. And it basically spends all of its turn getting up into the air and begin making its way towards you. You see a large wyvern with somebody riding atop it. Yes! A wyvern? Yes! Oh, boy.

There's no wyvern in my notes. I think we need to get inside. Yes! I don't believe so, because you asked how do the Knight Commanders work. Not what are their mounts. They have mounts. They all have mounts.

I saw one on a horse, a skeletal horse. Yeah, that's clearly. Which one is it? The Bride of the Apocalypse! Of course they have mounts! Have we got 10 minutes? You do not have ten minutes. Oh, I want ten minutes!

You want Elnissix. Yes! Oh, my God! I'm afraid you do not have ten minutes. Jump on the dead route and ride that. Ascend, my child. A-lister. To battle!

Ah. And as a reminder, like, looking at the drawbridge and stuff, like, you don't see a way, there's no, obviously there's no way on this side to open it or, like, lower the bridge. I don't need a drawbridge. I just need to touch the wall. That's fine.

Oh, God. Well, she was going to turn onto the death route, and I suppose, other than all of us going, she doesn't know anything about what's behind the wall. I'm too busy killing. I don't even know if Ada would have she doesn't know anything about what's behind the walls. We're too busy killing. I don't even know if Ada would have any way to do anything about it either, so. Well, I wonder if she can fly, if she has that action.

She can only fly for, like, the end of her round. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, she's going to go reckless on this death route. Okay. So that is a, oh, good thing she went reckless. 32. 32 hits. Does that hit?

And a D6. 13 plus 13. No, sorry, 12 plus 13, 25. 25 points. And the second one. Heavy blow. Nearly crushes this thing. You can see it's barely limping now.

The vine's dragging its body hunkered to the ground. The second one, 26. 26 damage? No, 26 to hit. Oh, 5 plus 13, so 18. Just enough. You watch as Ayla brings the hammer down, crushing the dead root. Nice, hell yeah.

If you give the one gap, I didn't quite have enough. Lilypads. Man, how thick does this drawbridge look? The drawbridge itself? I mean, thick as a big, heavy timber, a big, thick plank of wood, like a heavy log. I really want Ayla to jump through it. Even for Ayla, that would be pretty tough. This is like a reinforced

like metal stud. It would be hard. It's clitting. I mean, yeah, that's certainly a possibility, but anything else on the list then? So that was two attacks.

Still got movement and bonus action. I mean, can she run and jump to the other side of the wall? Absolutely she can, yeah. What's,

I think Ayla's strength is pretty damn high. Can she throw me? 25, yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, she can jump. With a running jump, she can jump 25 feet, and she's got enough movement to take, like, a 10-foot back step

and then just jump across. Can she carry me as well? Can she yote Nova? She would not be able to carry Nova. You cannot get yotted yet. Unfortunately, you are still a medium creature. You are light, but you are wearing armor. You've got weapons and equipment.

Could she take Tiangong? Um... She carried them for her. Yeah, because I think we've said that Tiangong... Well, you don't have... Oh, you do have Tiangong. Yeah, I think we've said that they don't really... They're not like an object, but they're not a creature.

They wouldn't really have any weight. They're kind of just made of magical force. So, yes, I would argue that they could. Yes. Alright, we'll come with Minova too. Okay. Just jumping straight across. We have a name. Ayla said it.

So, do you want her to try and grab the tip of the drawbridge or land on sort of like the other side? She knows the plan is to pass war through, so I guess it makes sense that she jumps to the wall if there's space on the other side of the moat to land there. Just she can only just reach there but yes she jumps across to the other side, leaps down slamming into the stone, maybe some of the bricks shifting ever so slightly, but not enough to actually knock it down.

Hell yeah. And yeah, I mean, she'll just wait there, I suppose, for the next turn. All right, Nova Vija. I will teleport. Swap places. And swap places with Tiangong. Hell yeah.

And then cast Passwall and carve. Will I? Now's the perfect time to change the plan, I love it. No, I was just wondering whether or not to hold a reaction, hold an action to do it when everyone's there or just do it and then be like, oh shit, there's 100 dead things on the other side. Yeah, pretty smart.

Okay, yeah, what are you doing, Nova? I was just reading up on the spell and like the distances and stuff. I will cast Pass Wall. Okay, so you, with Qian Gong, you carve almost like a square, almost like a door frame with the tip of the blade, and you watch as a 20 foot sort of deep corridor basically

is just, you watch as the stone materializes into almost like little blue glowing cubes as if the stone and everything within just breaks down into nothing as if it just becomes matter. It all kind of gets pushed to the side and very faint blue uh force fields are almost holding the structure still in place um and all the little cubes are just lined up as if ready

to spring back to replace what they've taken down and you see this basically yeah like a 20 foot deep uh eight foot wide 10 foot i think eight foot high 10 foot wide corridor is carved through not just the outer wall but this is like like a, you know, a Bailey castle. So it's like, there's a, you know, five, 10 foot thick wall and a small corridor and then another sort of like, you know, outer wall beyond that. And it's just all the way through. I guess the force field blocks those exits.

It doesn't block it. It basically prevents it from collapsing. So it's just a bit of flavor of like, because the spell pass will cause there's no structural, like, stability. You could just go into like the spell pass will cause there's no structural like, instability. You could just go into like the side corridors if you wanted to and stuff like that.

It lasts for an hour as well and it's not concentration. Damn, it just is there now. Cool. Very cool spell. Yeah, anything else Nova? Ah, there's shit for me. All right, Sentry.

How far up? 5, 10, 15, 20. I'm going to move up to the side of the little moaty bit, and then I'd like to Misty Step across. 5, 10, 15. Across. Yeah, and then, yep, 30 feet. Yeah. So you would basically get next to the girl I can't see.

Ready to go. Yeah. Cool. Nice. So, yeah, you just Misty Step across yeah I'm getting next to Ayla and Nova ready to go then well I've got it all bonus action or a vitality on Nova and give Nova 2d6 of healing okay which is still maximized still maxed yet 12 12 nice thanks it's alright alrighty end of turn century yeah all good thank you

alright at the very end of the turn, hasn't reached here yet, but behind you, you can see the one remaining dead root and one pack of minions slowly making their way. Still off the map, the battle map, so they're still a fair distance away, but next turn they would, in theory, come on from behind you.

That's the minions. Have we seen any of the undead in the moat itself? No. How does it affect? We don't know how that affects them then. No idea. Okay, cool. No idea. Fair enough. You hear

the sounds. Those of you who are up against the wall, you hear a muttering Lucius's wall of acid is dispelled. Could use one of those as like the paw. I could do, but that's going to be a lot of complicated thing and I can't separate this well enough. It's fine.

We know that it's roughly there. You hear that and then you begin to hear the sound of footsteps on stone, like people rapidly running somewhere. Lucius. We left all the squishies behind. I'm going to say to Max, quickly, they're catching up behind us and I'm going to dash and just try and leap that moat because I don't have anything.

I do have fly, but... Five. So, what is your strength score, Lucius? I believe it's just a regular old 14. 14. Can you make an athletics check for me? Sure. Because you are one foot short of clearing the moat.

All right. Seven. Seven. Seven. You nearly make it. You are just edges away. You hit the embankment underneath your friends and literally sort of slowly scrape down into the moat. It is about the moat itself,

so you're gonna land in the moat. I'm guessing it's biting cold. It's biting cold. Not enough to do damage, but you do find yourself sodden, and it is thick like this water. It's almost like a sludgy material, and you are sinking into it as your feet kind of touch it. Help, please.

So that was a move and dash bonus action. Yeah. Anything else? Really? All right. Quill? I'm going to, yeah, start flying across. So that was a move and dash bonus action. Yeah. Anything else? All right. Quill? I'm going to start flying across.

You got the move to get across? I will dash across. So as an action. I've got... I think I've only got... How much flight speed have I got? Go up there. He's up. I think because you are old Arakoka,

I think it's like 40 or 50. Yeah, it's 50. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'll fly across the river ready for everyone else. I mean, I guess I can't see anything through the tunnel itself. Anything nasty? Would you like to make a check? I would indeed. Okay. Max at the end of the turn is basically going to do the same thing as Ayla in that he just dashes, he runs, he dashes and he's got enough strength to just leap the gap. Cool.

So, perception? Yeah, do you want to make a perception check for me? 27. 27. So you hover sort of like looking through the past wall that Nova's just created. Yes, yeah. I want to see if there's anything waiting on the other side or if I can hear anything particularly nighty.

So I'm trying to think. Give me a second. Silver noise. You see a number of things. Your excellent perception, your hearing, your sight. You hear the sound of heavy, leathery wings, and you know that that wyvern is basically almost above this central

area of the keep it's kind of flying over you now can't see it but you know it's hovering in place almost like you also see literally from this position you can just peer right on through uh you see across a courtyard you can see the main temple building with a large pair of double doors. You can see this kind of open area. You can begin to see another row of six of those squires with the bows and swords and things like that are basically filling out of a barracks and are forming a defensive line

in front of the main keep building. And then just before the end of the round, you see the double doors. And you see a number of figures emerging out. You see two full plate armor great sword knights, the minor knights of the Order of the Black and Rose coming out, dread helms, glowing red eyes. They are accompanied by six monks, friars, in robes,

chanting prayers behind them. And then you see just behind them, and even with your perception, like with so many figures, it's hard to make out, but you see a pair of glowing blue flame-like eyes and another mass of figures behind them just inside the doorway. Blue flaming eyes.

I don't know who that is. Help. Can we go, go, just go? Go. Go. Yeah. Max jumped across. The other list is now can't shoot at you.

We'll just leave her. Like, yeah, you do your thing. So at this point, yeah, so we're going to go. It'll be another round. We go to Aayla. Here's a question, right? Before we jump into this, because there might be some things I need to do.

Are you going to go through the past world and into this main courtyard? Is this like, it's just go time, let's go fight? Or is this like, you guys are going to be like, nope, we need to like back off. Or like, what's the plan here? How many like wyverns or dragons have we actually faced in Aroas? Or do we actually know a lot about?

I mean, we've seen the dragonborn. And you've seen physical dragons. You've fought alongside Felisa and a few others. We fought a Wyvern because we got the Wyvern armor. Yeah. And you've fought alongside. You've seen the dragons take draconic form and fight alongside you.

You've fought the mecha dragons that Zarkira made. Oh, yeah, those things, yeah. What do they sound like again? No, I don't know. Such a noise, I can't possibly try and recreate it. I'm just trying to figure out if staying inside this pass-walled tunnel with a dragon that most likely can breathe fire

or acid or whatever. A wyvern isn't a dragon. I will say this. And I think that Quill would know a wyvern can't breathe fire. Okay. They can breathe other stuff. No, no, they don't.

They don't have a breath weapon attack. They are powerful winged creatures, but they don't have fire breath, they don't have acid breath or anything like that. So, yeah, I mean, you could try and stay in this little you know it's only ten foot wide like you know corridor of this pass wall well it's safer in the pass wall there's a choke point I think I think that was choking that true yeah I think I choking us yeah I think it makes are. Who's choking them? Oh, true, yeah. I think they're choking us. Yeah. Yeah, I think it makes sense for us to go in,

but what does everyone else think? Could we go up and get the blisters? You could certainly try. Like, are we somewhere where we can see? So you're inside these walls here, right? At this point, you're sort of inside this wall. In theory, there is a corridor, and you can see sort of like a stone interior corridor, very narrow. It's only about five foot wide, but you could, and it should lead to that tower. The other side, you would have to pass

through this main bailey. There isn't actually a doorway that leads into this middle bit here, so you would need to come out around and then go back in to get to the other ballista, which is on this side, the right-hand side. But to get to the left-hand side ballista, yeah, in theory there's a rounded tower. You could make your way up into that and then get to the ballista on top. The only thing is there's a couple of things,

and it would highly depend, and I don't think any of you guys would have been able to see this from your angle. Ballistas don't tend to be like a three... They're not designed to turn and face inwards. They're designed to face outwards for this keep. So in theory, if you can't turn it, it would be useless. Like, unless like Aayla or Sentry

could pull it off of its mounting and then they could aim it and somebody else could shoot it. Oh, that's cool though. Oh. That's cool. It would, whoever, it would basically provide disadvantage to the attack roll because, like, Aayla or Sentry

would have to be holding it in place. But it is possible that they could rip it off and remount it. Huh. Kind of like in video games, you know, when you pull, like, the minigun off of the target. Yeah. Yeah, but, yeah, it would be kind of like that.

Okay. Okay. I ask because I might need to make another map, and that's why I need to know. Can we just see one thing before you take this map down? Does that drawbridge go down? It does. Oh, my God.

It's a switch. It's like a motor thing. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yes! That is the coolest thing. This doesn't even need like a... The moat came down and it was cool as hell. It was a mech and I was like... So that's what I was like, it's got one more secret

and when you guys jumped over I was like I mean I know that you were going to use Parcel but I was like I really hope I get to show off the little eeeeee. I was going to ask anyway, don't worry, I know that you were going to use Parcel, but I was like, I really hope I get to show off the little... I was going to ask anyway. Don't worry, I was going to ask. I've been staring at it for 20 minutes. There you go.

That's why I was also like, what do you guys want to do? Because if you guys are going through, I'm going to show off my little drawbridge. We can sort of theatre of mind it a little bit, but maybe during the break I will try and make up a new map. Sure. Okay. Yeah, I can tell everyone that there's a lot of stuff ahead of us.

I mean, it looks like the forces on the wall and things like that were there already. It looks like whoever was inside the keep, and you imagine Godric, this kind of lord commander who, you know, is the sort of leader of it, has basically ordered his forces to, you know, take and

hold the central courtyard basically, the main plaza. Hmm. What you thinking? Because I'm going to get this. By the way, if you move in, once you move in, we're going to roll a brand new initiative. I've got a brand new encounter.

So think of this as like you have, this is the few seconds as you're getting to the side. Also, technically, Lucius is in this sludge. Oh, Aayla will will pick him out yeah well that's my favorite like that's why i wasn't gonna have any checks because i figured like ayla and century and max can all easily just pull him out with strength anyway so um yeah so is the plan to just basically yeah charge on in and be like let's let's go gamers just a question of whether we go forward into the hold or we go right yeah It's just a question of whether we go forward into the hold or we go right up the tower. Yeah. Or split. You could always try to split. That tower will still overlook the main plaza.

Do you want a Wyvern team and then a ground team? Oh, it just sounds so bad. The Wyvern's going to be such a problem. If we go up, it delays them a little bit thing is we know that it's heavily defended ahead of us so why not just go the other way you know yeah and we can then just go right around the back of them they'll still be looking through the past wall i mean they're not If they see you leave the past wall, they're not going to be like,

they're going to come out in a minute. Where'd they go? They have no idea. They've just gone home. I'm also going to brush myself up against every wall so the wyvern is like, I can smell a birdman around here. So is that the plan?

You guys want to go through the corridor and up into this side tower and try and fend off this force from on top of the tower? Maybe up because also we could try and summon a storm chaser as well. True, yeah. Get some aerial support. It's gloomy. Yeah, remember it's pitch black.

Oh, yeah, we had to wait for the trees. But we have a good angle. I guess we have a good angle on the tree anywhere, right? Pretty much, yeah. And also, and I've said this before, your normal spells and weapons will do nothing to the Rothaar. It's massive. But we just need to summon a light, basically.

Yeah, on the tree itself. If you summon a light here, this is where the Storm Chaser will shoot. It needs to be either in the branches of the giant tree or on the tree itself somehow, like laser pointer style. Hmm. At this point, on the tree itself somehow, like laser pointer style. Hmm. At this point, like, as you guys are like thinking,

like you can see like ranks of like these knights have now like moved to the front and center. There is another group of squires. There's now about 12 of these squires all kind of readying weapons. There's the unit of monks behind these knights. And then you can see some shadowy forces still in the interior as well.

Do you know what I miss? Maddening darkness. Yeah? That would have been real good right now. Yeah, that would have been great. I vote up. Assuming these things can't see in magical darkness. Yeah, I've got a couple of...

Well, it would have killed them. Eventually. Necrotic damage, right? No, it was psychic. Oh, yeah, that's true. Because. Oh, yeah, that's true. Because it screams. Yeah, that's true. I vote up.

I've changed my vote. I vote forward. Okay. The squishy bird man wants to go forward. I vote forward. Century, what do you vote? I think we should go up. Okay.

Lucius? Lucius is in sludge and is not strategizing. Oh, Aayla's picked you up. Aayla pulled you up. Come on. I will allow it. You can't not be in on this vote. You just want to avoid responsibility.

He just wants to avoid responsibility. Yeah, exactly. The thing is, if he votes forward, then we have split on the vote. Let's go up. Okay. We're going up. Nova also going up. Okay, okay, we're going up. Nova also going up. Can I cantrip press the Digitation?

As you are running. As I'm going up. Gotta look good. All right. So you guys divert to the side as the group sort of sees you, these two armored knights just point forward. Get them. And you see the squires all pulling out blades, like, and they kind of all begin charging

with the two, what I'm going to call the grieving errants, which are these kind of minor knights, these knight errants. They also begin moving forward with the monks behind them as well. The figures that quill before you get out of range, before you kind of move down the stone corridor blocking your line of sight,

you just see these two staring, glowing blue eyes just watching, unmoving. That's a real bad one. You guys run through the tower, and there's no challenge whatsoever. You make your way through a winding staircase. Aayla and Sentry kicking down these reinforced wooden doors that stand in your way.

No problems to you guys. Epic level champions of an entire world, like the Avengers of Eros. You smash your way up and you get up onto the top floor where two ballista crew, like, pull blades, Aayla just whack, whack, send them flying. Just, ah, Wilhelm scream off the sides. And you now find yourselves on the top of not a very large,

maybe a sort of 10-foot radius. Like, you are packed in here. This is not a tall tower. The ballista in the middle is affixed. It's pintle-mounted, but its arc is a cone in front of the keep. It does not face inwards. As you reach the top, you see the wyvern.

It is literally hovering in eye level with the tower and riding atop it, you see an enormous nine, ten, maybe eleven feet tall orc woman clad

in dark red black plate armor, the seams of which glow as if lit by molten lava. She wears a helm that completely obscures her face with just these glowing, emberous eyes. Blonde, tattered, burnt at the ends, thick hair trailing behind her, and you just see her holding a giant spear in one hand who would be

the first person up the top of this would it be ayla she i mean she does she does move fastest as a held action this javelin comes flying at ayla. Oh, God. So, how does it keep getting more and more badass? I don't know. I love it. How? That is going to be 27 to hit Aayla. Yeah, yeah. Four.

Ooh. Ah. Ooh. Oh, ooh. Clouded lava, and she throws her spear. 22 piercing damage, half to 11. I will track that. Just remind me in a second.

11, yeah. Then some fire damage. Fucking right. Yeah. As the javelin itself, once it is launched from the war knight's hands, becomes lit with flame. Seven points of fire,

so that's going to be 18 total damage to Ayla. Not bad. Not bad. I mean, for Ayla, that's still pretty bad. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And then also, because this is, can Ayla please make a... No, it's not even a saving throw.

As the javelin pierces into her, it kind of stabs into Ayla, like actually into her body, and then you just watch as the Warnite clenches her hand and it vanishes and another one appears oh it leaves behind this bleeding wound and a less like ah like and it's not stopping like it's just gushing with blood all right does everyone remember all the information about this night yes it cost us forward, yeah. They've got a barrel of weapons. They summon weapons.

They're hulking. They're resistant to melee. Yep, yep. I would like brand new initiatives from everybody, please. And then when we get to the break, which is going to be in a few minutes, I will try and desperately,

quickly build a new map. I mean, it's going to be a 10 foot by 10 foot tower, right? No, because I want to have the plaza in case you guys jump down and stuff so um all right lucius initiative 18. quill uh 19. uh century 21 nova 20. ailer 15. all right century you are the next up to ayla like you have all now moved out onto the top of this tower. Aayla just being the first one to kind of take a ready-to-held action.

But Sentry, you are the first to go. The Wyvern is hovering. This tower is maybe, I would say, 25 feet tall, like above the ground. The Wyvern is hovering about 30 feet. No, in fact, actually, with a Javelin, they could easily be hovering about, they would wanna be in range. They're about 50 feet off the ground and about 20 feet above the tower.

And they're just looking down at it, basically. And they're maybe about, I would say, 20 feet away from the tower as well. Like, they're keeping their distance, clearly just holding their position. Okay, I would like to sunbeam the Wyvern please. The Wyvern itself? Yeah.

Okay, the mount itself. Yeah, you will need to pick even with like a line spell, like the Wyvern can kind of pull itself to the side and things like that. I mean, it's big. So a con 17 save. Con 17. That is going to be a 19 for the Wyvern. So half damage, and not blinded. 6, actually, 10, 12, 15, 18, 24 radiant damage. Is that already halved? Halved.

So I'm saying that 24, that is halved, or is that not halved? It's not halved. So 12 points of damage. 12 damage. So the wyvern kind of pulls itself to the side, and the sunbeam rakes along its kind of scaled hide, its leathery, sinuous body. I mean, as it kind of gets caught by the beam, It pulls itself to the side and the sunbeam rakes along its scaled hide, its leathery, sinuous body.

It as it gets caught by the beam, but not blinded and seems to be still standing. Can I move and duck? I guess we're on this middle tower here. No, this is going to be a side tower. You have a 10-foot radius, so it's 20-foot across. From the middle to its sides, it's about 20-foot. What about the stairs down? There are stairs going down.

They're five foot, very narrow staircase. And then like the floor below are all about the same size. Is there like a little wall I can just duck behind? There is, but it's not. It would give you cover from like anybody below. Anybody above doesn't provide any cover. I'll take any cover I can get. I'll duck down under that wall.

Okay. And then that's it? That's it, yeah. All right. Nova Vigia. I think a bit panicked by everything. It's going to be a classic four Eldritch Blasts at the Wyvern.

Okay. So first one is 28 to hit. 28 will hit. And that is six points of damage. Second one is... Sorry, Kim, how much damage? What did I say? Six points of damage.

Six points of force damage. Second one is 14 to hit. Does still hit, actually. Oh, okay. Yep. 12 points of force damage. Second one is 14 to hit. Does still hit, actually. Oh, okay. Yeah, the wyvern is a creature. It doesn't look like it's got like, barding or anything like that.

It's just its natural armor. 12 points of damage on the second one. 12 points of force damage. 15 to hit. 15 still hits, yeah. And 15 points of damage. 15 points of damage. 15 points of damage. Brain.

20 to hit. 20 hits. 10 points of damage. 10 points of damage. I mean, these blasts, you can see that where the sunbeam, the creature kind of dodged the sign and raked it. Nova, you take a moment,

kind of swiping with Tangonblade to create these beams of force kind of echoing towards it, you know, streaking towards it. The sheer number of beams, it can't avoid them all, and they impact its wingtips, they impact its body, its legs. The rider doesn't even seem to be trying to protect the mount either. They are just letting the mount tank these hits. Kind of like screeching out in pain.

Looks badly injured from all four of those blows striking it. Bonus action. The rider is more than 30 feet above me, aren't they? They are 20 feet above and then sort of 25 feet out to the side. So imagine that they're flying, sort of you're on the tower, they're about 20 feet sort of like up and then 25 sort of like feet here so so could i hexblade curse them uh yeah what's the range yeah you can hexblade curse them do you want to target the rider or do you want to target the

wyvern before i decide that is this keep the central ignore this ignore this back now right this map is you are over to the side. This is not here anymore. In which case, consider the rider Hexblade Curse. Okay, so the War Knight you have placed under Hexblade Curse. Okay. At the end of your turnover, the War Knight is going to use their legendary action. Hi.

You see them just point, just like, first tactic in war. This kind of very hulking, but still sort of feminine voice will call out, don't group up. Let's slip the dogs. And she reached out her hand and equal to the number of enemies she can see.

So that would be six with Maximilian. Six fiery spectral hounds. Whatever space is still left on the top of this tower, even the edges. This is not a spell. This is an ability. You watch as these six hounds appear and heat emanates from them.

Yeah, you can just tell that these are... And you also feel like your armor and your reflexes, like your skin becomes more sensitive. Like you can almost feel more vulnerable at this point. Yeah. And yeah, that is the legendary action. Quill, at the start of your turn, because these things are packed into this tower with you,

that is gonna be 30 points of fire damage. Woo! As all of the hounds are within, pretty much within 5, 10 feet of you. In fact, I'm going to cancel that note because it's within 5 feet. I'll say take 20 points of fire damage. You can get 10 points back.

Because not all of them can get within 5 feet, but four of them can. Okay. But you are like, until we have have a map you guys are like crammed in here with these things and these are these are creatures they are you know they can be attacked okay reminder for storm chaser and light yeah it's only when we communicate the next light you see right uh the last thing that lucius says was that lucius gave them an order like the la the next big light you see shoot on that position um okay okay okay um can we see... We can see the Rothart from here, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's this massive colossal tree. It's at the back of the keep itself. Like, the actual central keep. You guys are still on the outer wall. There's, like, a courtyard, and then there's the main keep, and then behind the main keep is the enormous tree. And also, because this is the densest part, Sentry's sunbeam is not going to be enough

to signal the storm chaser. Like, this needs to be, part, Century's Sunbeam is not going to be enough to signal the Storm Chaser. This needs to be like a beacon, like something that's going to penetrate this dark gloom. Okay. The reason I ask is because I've got the Holy Weapon spell and it emits bright light in a 30-foot radius. Is that not enough? No.

Good. Okay, I want to give Ayla a holy weapon then okay um which is a bonus action and concentration for up to an hour so i guess i have to summon elder quill which is a bonus action if you would like to keep beacon of hope i'll get rid of beacon of hope. Very happy you're there. No, don't know, yeah, it's fine. It's okay. It's like fighting with Tom.

So when Ayla attacks now, they make a con save, and she does radiant damage as well. Okay. And it emits bright light. And as an action, I will do the... Yeah, this light is basically stopping you guys from having disadvantage on any of your attack rolls by the way. At this point you are in the darkest point. Unless you have darkvision it is pitch black here.

Okay, so that helps. Cool. And I'll do a word of radiance as an action. So a con save from anything within 5 feet of me. Only hostiles though. I think it's only hostiles any creatures you creature of my choice yeah so uh the only creatures within five feet are these these hounds four of these hounds they fail the same throws automatically okay uh 4d6 plus six i'll just roll it in here oh not bad 25 damage 25 four of the hounds will, yeah, they will vanish as they are purged with flame.

They're like minions. Okay. Kind of, they burn away. Four out of six? Mm-hmm. Very good. But those of you who are still within range of a five foot one, which is pretty, still going to be most of you, I'm going to say,

you still feel that vulnerability, that weakness. Your skin almost feels like more sensitive. Your armor feels brittle. Cool. Yay. Okay, that's me. That's Madon. vulnerability that weakness your skin almost feels like more sensitive your armor feels brittle um cool okay that's me that's madone that's madonzo lucius i'm done is what i was trying to say um looking at the blasts that uh nova has done on the white bin yep have they bled at all yet oh yeah yeah they bleeding, yeah. Does it look, based on Lucius's knowledge of dragons, whether they're alive or dead, undead? You would need to make a religion check, I think,

to be able to detect. Yeah, of course, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it's not skeletal, but it, you know. 19. 19. You look at it, it's bleeding. It doesn't look skeletal.

There's no sort of strange power like glow to its eyes. You think it's a living creature. I'm going to dominate monster. Okay. Wisdom saving throw of 18. 18. Oh, I'm going to portent the hell out of that. Okay. I want this to succeed. I need this to succeed. I mean, they roll an eight. Okay. So they use the War Knight's bonus,

because they are the War Knight's mount. So they roll an eight, and it's wisdom, you said, yeah? Yeah. All right. In that case, yeah, you feel you gain control of this creature's mind. I imagine Lucius, like, gains the eye color of the wyvern. Yeah, it's kind of like reptilian eye. And they go like little slits.

Or do they gain your eyes? It gains your one, yeah. Oh, they gain my eyes? I want that! One bloated orange kind of fills like ink, filling like a wall. And I establish a telepathic link. So long as we're on the same plane of existence, I can use it to issue commands while unconscious, no action required. So attack your rider.

Okay, yeah. And, no, I guess it's one command, right? Yeah, but it will use all of its attacks, it can do so. But yeah, if that, yeah. Would it be an attack and movement? What is it? Let me... I can issue it a command, so I assume it'll be one. Yeah, I think it's just like, yeah, you can i assume it'll be one yeah i think it's just like

yeah you can either tell it to move or you could tell it to uh i mean let me just let me just read it um while the creature is charmed you have a telepathic link with it as long as the two of you are on the same plane of existence you can use this telepathic link to issue to commands the creature while you're conscious no action required which which it does the best you can do you can specify a simple and general course of action such as attack that creature run over there fetch that object if the creature completes you yeah so it's your action to take total and which it does to the best you can do. You can specify a simple and general course of action, such as attack that creature, run over there, fetch that object. If the creature completes you... Yeah, so it's your action to take total and precise control.

So you could use your action, which you can't do this time because you've already cast... Yeah, I didn't choose to quicken it, so... So on your next turn, you could basically have it take a full round, like move, action, bonus action, do whatever. I could do a general one.

But this one, you could be attack your rider, and it will basically do that, but it won't move this turn the knight on their turn it's like i hand you over to this one over here this is your rider now yeah see uh so is that the idea just a general turn uh okay uh uh i think it wouldn't it would do it on its turn because it's not you're giving it a free turn so on its turn it will try and attack its rider basically. Hell yeah. Alright.

Anything else Lucius? That was your action so at the start of your turn you would have taken ten fire damage from these two hounds. So is that not reduced by AC

or is that just a It's five per hound. These hounds are like emanating fire and heat like it's just The last of my Armour of Agathys explodes. Oh! You still had Arm armor of agathys explodes oh you

still had armor of agathys it took majority of i had like one point oh that's fine because how much damage would it have taken because like it's based on how much you started i think it's 20 or 25 wasn't it that's what let's say i think it's enough like the last two hounds explode as they burn lucius the armor of agathys shatters and the ice shards fly into the ghost of the hounds. I forgot you had those ice pauldrons. The feeling of weakness vanishes as the last of the hounds is destroyed. Okay.

All right. Then moving on, because before we take the break, I want to try and get through one full round. Ayla. Well, now there's no hounds, and she now has a magic weapon. And she can't really do much. She can throw the hammer, I suppose.

She'll know that Lucius has just dominated this thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys don't, yeah. I'm not going to make you do the whole, like, I hate that when it's just like, no, I'm going to roleplay my character, just don't cast a spell. It's just like, let's be effective combat players because this is a tough combat.

You can see acid and ice in the Wyvern's eyes. And also, Lucius has used this spell before. You guys know each other's tactics. We're not going to play that game. That's silly. I think she'll just throw the hammer at the rider. Cool. Do you have the stuff for that?

Do you need to pull it up? Let's see. 60 feet range. If the hammer hits a creature it takes an additional 1d6 4d6 yep

and up to 3 nearby creatures for just the 4d6 lightning damage okay so are you attacking what are you attacking with it the rider the war knight

if the if the war knight if yeah it will do lightning damage to the wyvern does that affect the spell uh dominate monster

maybe each time the target takes damage yes it makes a new wisdom saving throw Yeah, it will do lightning damage to the Wyvern. Does that affect the spell? Dominate monster? Maybe. Each time the target takes damage, yes, it makes a new wisdom saving throw. But I believe it's up to, it's Aayla's choice. You could choose not to do damage to the Wyvern. Okay. It's up to three creatures. Yeah, okay, she won't, yeah, so it won't affect the Wyvern.

So she'll just target the rider. Yeah, so it's just a regular weapon attack, I suppose. Sure. Can she reckless that as well? Yeah, yeah So it's just a regular weapon attack, I suppose. Sure. Can she reckless that as well? Yeah, yeah, because it's the thrown weapon attack, so it's basically using her hammer, but to throw it. Okay, that's a good thing I did, because one was a natural one. The other is a 27.

27 hits. D10 and a D6 plus 13. Jesus Christ, two ones. Oh, dear. I need the lightning damage separate to the weapon damage. So 15 on the weapon damage. So that is halved to seven. And then 4d6 of extra lightning damage.

Sure. From the throw. Oh, my God, 6111. Nine. Nine points. And I guess they're not in range of her static. No, no, one, one, nine. Nine points. And I guess they're not in range of her static. No, no, no, no, no. Okay, well that's her.

I guess she'd also maybe back up to like the top of the stairs, because they're following us up, right? That was the last thing you heard, yeah. You heard like a command to kind of like follow you guys. I think, yeah, she'll stand ready at the top of the stairs for any whacking that needs to be doing. The Wyvern on its turn. I'm going to give it disadvantage because it's got to try and

reach up behind it and stuff. Yeah, I imagine the idea of attacking your rider would be an awkward thing to do. It's like trying to spin around and stuff like that. I just want to cause a bit of chaos. I'm just going to give it disadvantage on its attack rolls, that's all. So its first attack, it just can't quite grip with its bite, like its neck, it's trying to snap its neck around. Its claws, it tries to reach up with one of its claws,

and the knight seems to almost be jostling with it, and you see this grimace, and she's just like, Beast, know your master! And she's actually, as it reaches up she smashes its claws and breaks its claws off and you watch as as this very clumsy attack by the wife and is punished by her oh yeah okay except yeah and finally its tail is gonna try and whip round and strike her in the back but again that one also misses not clumsy though this one just kind of whips around. She just bounces off her arm.

What's clumsy? Yeah, you don't know. Seems to be... That blow was particularly... As it swiped, it was a really obvious poor attack. I think I described it. It breaks the weapons of things that hit clumsily. Yeah, clumsily.

Yeah. When it affects you guys, I'll tell you what that means. Until it clumsily. Yeah, clumsily. Yeah. When it affects you guys, I'll tell you what that means. But until it affects you guys, I'm not going to tell you. Also, I forgot Aayla's holy weapon. Do you want to roll it now? So it would have made a con save. Is that it? It just doesn't do any extra damage, right? It does do extra damage.

Oh, roll the extra damage. The knight makes a con save, I mean. Natural 20, like 30-something. 30 high. 30 plus. Okay, don't worry. But the extra damage, is that not just all the time? Read spell plus.

No, nothing happens, I think, if it passes. All right, sure. Okay, in that case, nothing happens. The wyvern, desperate to try and strike uh does nothing uh oh are they in range to do anything it does but at this point don't worry okay i'm not going to worry yeah uh no they're still a little bit ways out uh no oh maybe what What you thinking there? I've got a lot of stuff in this keep and-

Just delete some of it. No. Absolutely not. You don't need it all. I do. You guys came to this keep knowing full well- Oh my god. Yeah. Okay.

This is definitely in range. So you watch as the top of this tower, you begin to see cloud, icy, stormy clouds appear overhead, and snow and ice falls of rock-hard ice in a 20-foot radius, which is the entire tower, 40-foot high cylinder. I need everybody to make dexterity saving throws. Got your plus threes. Dexterity. Oh yeah, plus threes, nice.

Yep. Oh, fuck. 20. Oh, 14. Okay. Century. 15. Fail. 12.

I got like 12, so I fail. Fail. Ayla? 19. Pass. 20. I got like 12, so I fail. Fail, Ayla? 19. Pass. 20. Pass, fail. Fail, Maximilian. I'm going to school again.

Pass, fail, fail, fail, pass. Those of you who failed are gonna take 18 bludgeoning and 10 cold damage. Other way round, 18 cold, 10 bludgeoning damage. 28. I'm an elemental adept. I get resistance to ice. Do you get resistance to ice?

I don't think that's how that feat works. If you have resistance... It removes their resistance. Is it a spell? This is a spell. Okay, so everybody gets resistance. Okay, there you go. So everyone gets resistance to all of this damage.

Okay, so in that case, those of you who failed would take nine cold and five bludgeoning. Fourteen, okay. Those of you who succeed would take two bludgeoning, five, no. Half of nine would be four yeah you half it again

Ayla takes three points of damage because she resists it all at the end as well what do we have to do you have resistance to spell damage spells

it would be five plus nine nine is five so fourteen fourteen yeah thank you

I didn't start doing the math I just and that entire top of the turret the tower is now difficult terrain Nine is five, so 14. 14, yeah. Thank you. I didn't start doing the math. I just... And that entire top of the tower is now difficult terrain as this ice storm conjures overhead. Okay. No idea where that came from. Is it continual?

No, it stops, but it does leave the area difficult terrain. Okay. Skip all of these guys because they're not there yet. Maximilian. Who is heavily injured? I know Nova, you've taken quite a lot, right? I'm on 80 out of 150. Okay. Max will put his hands on you and restore 20 hit points to you. Out of his 50 from his healing flames. Of course, fine.

No, I'm 79 out of 130, so you are technically more injured. So, yeah, he will place his hand on you, Nova, and just be like, we need you at full strength, Nova. You feel like this healing energy overcome you. I love the idea that because he's maybe a bit taller than me, he just puts it on my face because he's not even looking. He's just like... And then that's his action as his bonus action.

He will cast Shield of Faith on you, Lucius, so you get plus 2 AC. What a sweetie. I'm glad we brought him and then the war knight goes the war knight is annoyed that their beast is not following their orders and kind of looks at the the tower and the beast isn't going where she wants it to go and everything else um so you watch as the Warnite stands up on their saddle and it lifts both their hands, conjures a giant greataxe in one and a sort of like stabbing blade in the other

and begins attacking their own wyvern. This is animal abuse. It's pretty brutal. It's a Warnite. Someone call Peter. Yeah, it will get a wisdom save every time. But yeah, she doesn't hit it once and then waits to see if it gains her control.

She goes ham on this thing. Three attacks. When the axe comes down, I'm just going to use its average damage on this just to save myself some time. It nearly cuts through the wyvern's neck completely. She then dismisses. The axe vanishes from her hand,

and now a giant spear appears in it instead. Oh my god. And she brings the, that was the slashing weapon, sorry, the other hand is like a mace, she brings that down on top of it. R-S-P-C-B. Would it come under birds or animals? I guess it would come under birds.

I guess so. Because birds are like the evolution of dinosaurs. So as the mace comes down, where she's cut into the wyvern's neck, the mace comes down and snaps the head, the remaining head off. Jesus. And then she leaps from its body.

Here she comes. Yep, and she flies through the air, the body of the wyvern just plummets to the ground as she leaps off of it, and she is gonna, 20 foot, she can jump it, she lands basically in the middle of all of you. Just. Now the fun begins. Oh my god.

I need, choose one creature. Hey, you know what, that Aayla, she's already so mad. And she's going... Landing in a... Oh, no, wait. Yeah, no, absolutely. ...ball of flame and white of blood. Sensing that there are magic users amongst you, she will look to you, Quill, and just says, like...

Heck, feel the rage. I need you to make a wisdom saving throw, please, Quill. Wis... Oh, my God, I got rid of Guardian. You're going to go berserk. Or Bacon of Faith. Wisdom. I mean, it's pretty good, but... Oh, no.

18 plus 30. So 21. So you still get a 21, okay. Yeah, you focus your mind and you can feel all the frustration, all the anger about the things that have happened to you, all the and you can feel all the frustration, all the anger about the things that have happened to you, all the situations you've been in. My jaw's been blown off.

And you feel it rising up, but you sense that serene calmness that Hesper has taught you, that your meditations you've found, and you kind of keep it at peace, not letting it overwhelm your senses. Serenity. Her last attack, which she hasn't used yet, she's gonna use her piercing weapon, this giant spear,

and she's gonna just go, I mean, there's like six of you to attack, so roll a 1d6, one, two, three, Nova. Protect, please. Okay, yeah, you're definitely within range. That is gonna be a 22 to hit you, Nova. Yep. Even with disadvantage.

Yep, even with disadvantage. That is 20 piercing, nine fire damage, and you begin to bleed from your Nova. Yep. Even with disadvantage. Yep, even with disadvantage. That is 20 piercing, 9 fire damage, and you begin to bleed from your wound as well. I forgot Aayla would have taken some damage on her time as well.

How much? Sorry, I'm going to just roll it. How much? Four points. But she can't resist this. Okay. I just wanted to know

how much damage it does. Yep. Okay, so yes. So now that it's affected Nova, I'll tell you what that does. Basically, whenever you have a bleeding wound, for every bleeding wound you have, you take 1d4 damage, which cannot be resisted at the start of your turn. How you fix it, you don't know yet, but you will know once you do it. So yeah, Nova, she stabs into you

and like cuts all the side of you like your blood just begins pouring out not staunching in any way um and just yeah she just bellows just like yes come uh and that sorry that's fine i know what you're laughing atthy mind. And that is where we are going to take a break so that I can try and... So we can slap Tom. Yeah, so you can slap Tom. Oh, boy. Say it. I should have known.

I should have said something else, but... That is where we're going to take a break. This is going to be a pretty, pretty, pretty hectic one. It is going to be... Yeah, like, we're going to take a break. This is going to be a pretty hectic one. It is going to be, yeah, like we're going to continue this combat. We'll try and squeeze in other bits and pieces. But this is like a big old fight that's been brewing. So join us after the break as we continue this pretty epic and very chaotic battle.

See you then. See you in a bit. Yeah. Come on. See you then. See you in a bit. Yeah. Come.