Now I want to add this to a campaign. Have a really edgy bad guy that can only be killed in the Shadowfell and trapping him in a sphere is the only way to make him port there.
MoaRider this is actually a very accurate assessment, cockroaches, like elves, live longer lives and are hard to kill, but do fuck all and are annoying as hell. Ants live short lives are easy to kill, but are very industrious and get shit done, like fantasy humans, oh and they’re also less annoying
Good 'ol Acererak...we got him good during Tomb of Annihilation. When he appeared from a demiplane, our cleric decided to go through that same portal. Acererak shut that portal, trapping our cleric in his demiplane (basically, his office). We fight Acererak, and the remaining paladin, bard, and fighter manage to beat him up fairly well. Our barbarian, meanwhile, is smashing an entire stockpile of phylacteries, leaving no possibility of Acererak coming back to life. Acererak starts getting nervous, so he re-opens that demiplane to escape...and out walks our cleric. Except our cleric had gotten REALLY old, complete with long grey beard. Turns out, time worked differently in Acererak's office, and our cleric had aged 30 years...he had sustained himself on tasteless food and water through his spells, and sheer lust for revenge. Acererak wastes no time escaping; he flies through the portal, vowing that he will kill us all as soon as he creates a new phylactery, and shuts the demiplane behind him. Our weary cleric drops to his knees, and our group rushes to him to help him. We lament how we failed to kill Acererak, and we worry that all hope is lost. Our now-feeble cleric, however, starts laughing hoarsely. Confused, we ask him what he's finding so funny. Turns out, while the cleric was trapped inside Acererak's office, he did more than eat and go crazy...he kept on casting "Guardian of Faith", waiting for someone to open the demiplane again. As soon as Acererak entered his office, gravely injured from our fight, the FIRST thing he saw was a massive celestial warrior brandishing a mace and shield of Pelor. The LAST thing Acererak heard before being obliterated by this radiant guardian was: " SUP NERD. WHERE'S MY MONEY?" His dying screams echoing in our minds, Acererak was slain, and Chult was saved by a bunch of murderous assholes.
My group beat him down by having our barbarian (with resistance to fire damage) disarmed Aserak and then literally held him in the lava. While the Bard used silence on him. “Oh you wanna counter spell, you’re outer range mate”
That's BRILLIANT... and something I should do, since I'm basically a dead-ringer for the great Alan Oppenheimer. "Acererak to adventurers... Acererak to adventurers... come in, you tomb-robbing boobs!"
Not sure if it's in 5E yet but you could even find them in the Far Realm...though they were totes crazy and had spiders running through their skull pans.
Runesmith: "Wait, can't we just use the mechanics of the world DnD takes place in to answer unsolved mysteries behind characters' lores?" WOTC: Wait that's illegal
the Shadowfell is so cool. I’ve had this idea for a horror game where a strange creature from the Shadowfell manipulates the children of a large region of the Material Plane, stealing them to later be eaten and to feed on their happiness. he just wants to feel happy, like how he was when he was a regular man. I don’t know, what do y’all think?
Chazzle it’s what I though as well. I’m thinking of making him more manipulative, his relationships with these children going on for months to try and lure them into the Shadowfell. thanks 🙏
I once heard somebody describe the FW (bc autocorrect is a bitch) as abundance- soaked in magic, emotional, all that jazz. And, of course, the Shadowfell is its opposite, so yeah. That probably isn't the best description, but...eh
Acererak is basically what happens when a horny balor gets with a human thot, has a kid, then kills the mom, and lefts his child unchecked. Then that angsty edgy teenager goes swearing vengeance for his dead mom (insert attack on titan joke), goes to learn magic from f*cking Vecna himself, learns the true name of daddy and enslaves him, gets bored of life, and pays a visit to uncle Orcus to become a crappy skeleton guy. After getting bored of existence, he decided to create a bunch of death caves designed by grampa gygax, to kill annoying murderhoboes lured by the need of power. I don't understand why people see him as a baddie, all he does is kill stupid adventurers who create chaos wherever they go. In fact, everything would certainly work better if he becomes everyone's master. He would grant us immortality in exchange of only complete and utter loyalty. He would certainly not trick you to fail a wis save against a dominate person spell, and make you write stupid ass comments to expand his ideology (which certainly isn't a bunch of totalitarian propaganda garbage). So that's basically Acererak.
In direct opposition to the dude above me, Acererak is one of my favourite villains in D&D. I see him as a character who is the crystallisation of evil- and he knows it. Maybe once upon a time he lived for knowledge or power or whatever. Not any more. His signature item is the sphere of Annihilation- and for good reason. He exists to end worlds however he can, creates gods of death, and collects the relics of his conquests in Dungeons to serve as museums. One day, all things will end. Acererak finds purpose is assisting that process, and for that I love him. In our Tomb of Annihilation canpaign, he only appeared for less than an hour, but he characterised he whole thing. It essentially became a story of a group of characters with nothing to live for, facing against the ideology of someone who wanted everything to end. It was an amazing story! (Especially when the paladin became a flesh golem)
I kinda want to actually make that canon in my campaign. Maybe there’s a quest to fish some edgy teens back out of the Shadowfell after they tracked down a portal thinking it would be a cool place to go. Some might have adapted well to it and not want to leave, but others would be scared shitless and not know how to protect themselves. There also may be a couple of kids that do want to leave and have been there long enough to help you track down everyone else safely.
@@Sytheduke Dude, go for it! And treasure the time and those moments! That is what I LOVE of D&D: the immense creativity and hilarity ensued between sessions and great buds. Wish I had an experience like that in an actual and official session, but (ironically) the group that I joined to play together each week or two in middle & highschool ditched me because I wasn't "geeky enough" (that and perhaps for trying to insta-kill a random monster by slicing its neck and causing a hemorrhage.) Also? Honey badgers as OCs. Last one I had was a bard who learned the fine arts of seduction, belly dance & mauling.
@@Sytheduke That was basically how I made Metalocalypse canon in my world. The party had to rescue this band of travelling Bards who were super talented musicians, yet bumbling idiots who got lost during a snowstorm and somehow stumbled upon a gate to the Shadowfell. They were saved, and wound up becoming the BBEG's much later in the game as their music took over my world.
3e/3.5 forgotten realms lore: *deep meaningful long texts explaining everything in great detail* 5e: *about 1 page for like 25 locations. Maybe a half or a whole additional page if lucky*
@@TheBayzent yeah! I love how detailed it was. Having the 3e campaign compendium vs the sword coast adventurerers guide pretty lame. Still agood book, it could've been a little more detailed. I use moduels such as DIA to get more info. Fandom is my new girlfriend right now as well.
You talk about the Raven Queen like her initial quest for power was pointless, but I'm pretty sure that Mordenkainen gave a motive. She began the ritual around the time when the Dark Seldarine (drow gods) split off from the Light Seldarine (elven gods). Being an elven queen, the soon-to-be-Raven-Queen wanted to become a goddess to be at a level where she could reunite the two elven pantheons. However, her ritual was accidentally sabotaged by a group of evil wizards who screwed up the ritual, turning her into the Raven Queen, sending them all to the Shadowfell, and turning the wizards themselves into the Nagpa (Skeksis knockoffs).
medramon masque de cendres It also brought up a lot of Silent Hill vibes for me, with the emotion monsters and the personalized nightmares at Raven Queen’s house
I feel like it would be better and more accurate to say: "the raven queen's fans tried to make her more powerful, but some of those fans were toxic and ruined it for everybody."
So, what I got from this is... make a campaign that has the players eventually go to the fortress of memories to find Acererak's real name... or did I miss something here?
6:30 this is all really funny to me because in the last campaign I played, Acererak is just this really fun guy who loves making lattes, destroys stuff for fun (literally broke apart the surface of the world in this universe because he was bored), and is dating the party minotaur. It's all super fun to watch happen.
Feywild Elves: OMG!! Its such a beautiful day, isn't it great~? WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY TO BE ALIVE~~!! Normal Elves: Mmm. Yes, I must concur. This a very exceptional day to go on a stroll. Shadowfell Elves: There is no point in this day, just as any other day. Just another reminder of our own short miserable existence.
6:08 1. Finding what you've forgotten, or lost 1. Uncovering secrets kept by the dead 3. Confronting manifested fears or doubts I see you also do not follow the studies of arithmetic
My favourite thing to do with the Shadar Kai is to take their emotionlessness and just run with it. They're not angsty or tortured, they literally don't give a shit about anything. Whenever the party runs into one, they act like your most apathetic coworker at a shitty office job. They have literally no passion or enthusiasm about anything. They're just kind of bored.
The Feywild, the Material Plane, and the shadowfell are all the triplet children of the elemental planes. The Material Plane is the healthy one, but the Feywild and the Shadowfell lhave mania and depression, respectively.
I recently came up with a Shadar-Kai character who I think is actually pretty cool and breaks the mold a little bit. Basically, their clan found a portal to the prime material plane in a cave and decided that they were sick of living in the Shadowfell. So they sent several of their members - including my character - through the portal to scout out this new world and find a brand new place for them to inhabit that is a heck of a lot safer and more peaceful than anywhere in the Shadowfell. They still worship The Raven Queen as their patron goddess though.
i’ve had a really good idea for a campaign where there’s 4 kids and they’re wandering around after a night of fun, and a creature from the shadow fell takes one of the kids back to the shadowfell. the kids have to talk to different people who have different pieces of information like a teacher with info on the shadowfell and another psychic kid who knows about the creature, so they can finally take down the monster and rescue their friend. lol
I looked up the stats for the nightwalker and a necromancy wizard at lvl 14 with command umdead can easly make one of these ther personal life sucking nightmare
If Acererak made his Phylactery before using it, then the knowledge of it is in there somewhere. My guess is he either made his dungeon network AS the phylactery, or he just tossed it into the negative plane.
I made the Raven Queen a powerful sorceress that Nerull, being the absolute jerkbutt he is, used as sort of a cosmic phylactory that while he went and fused with the Negative Energy plane. Elevating her to a god and him to something else. But she's also real clever and now he can't directly effect things and has no living cult anymore. So her motives are out maneuvering her evil undead ex.
This episode was so good. The comedy was on point, it was informative and you made some great bits. I totally agree on the elfs and the outro was amazing.
In my setting, the Raven Queen's death tore her identity from her. She gathers memories and ideas to wear them and fill the void. When she inevitably finds out they don't fit her correctly, she discards them (hexblade patrons!). Sadly, she can't retain what she's learned because she's basically a dead/undead god. She's got the worst mix of amnesia and Alzheimer's, and is one of the most tragic stories. She will never succeed unless she ceases to exist as the Raven Queen.
In my first game, the party went here briefly after the party's sorcerer pulled the most badass exit, and pissing off the Cleric, by murdering the Raven Queen and taking her place, and in the chaos ended up leaving us there for a little bit as we tried to find a way out. We fought duplicates of the party, controlled by us as well, and I learned to fear the cleric.
I recently did a one shot with my Gf and her sister, one of the characters was a wild magic sorcerer and pushed my own event that the first time she used her magic, they got pulled into the Shadowfell, because they we're at a Shadow Elf village in the real world. They fought the undead and found a mage who's died and had an idea that would allow you to pass between planes. Trying to find information and enemies was tough for 5e, so ultimately I got to do as I wish. Was fun and may add it into a later game as well! Great video!
So in my setting The Raven Queen was once the Seelie Fey queen who was betrayed by Titania. In what were believed to be her last moments she pulled her castle and loyal servants into the Shadowfell. She now resides there safe from the betrayer.
The Shadowfell is the homeland of all edgelords, and a recommended getaway by lord fredge of edge. It provides ample crevaces, glum caves, shadowy corners and isolated holes to brood in.
I must have been hallucinating when I first read Mordenkainen’s Yellow Pages because I could swear the reason given for the Raven Queen’s ascension was “she was trying to stop the elven gods from fighting so much” which makes her kind of a tragic big sister figure who failed to stop mom and dad from separating. Then I just inserted the idea that her mind fragmented so hard from the ascension that she has to constantly collect supplemental memories or she’ll basically just cease existing
Ravenqueen actually used her near godlike or "superpowers" to try and bridge the Drow and Eldarin bringing their entire elven race back to what was their golden age
I love Demonac's take on the shadowfell since the sky has a 10 foot invisible ceiling that molds itself to the landscape, but the plane just goes down forever like the abyss
Going to the shadowfell to find the mortal mind of Acererak seems like a good epic plot, he has a issue where any game with him will end dissapointingly because you either die or it doesnt count, now you can actually worry him.
Just here to say that the Raven Queen HAD a purpose for becoming powerful. She wanted to lead a group of elves back to Arvandor, the place Corellon kicked everyone out of after Lolth's insurrection. She actually succeeded and had one foot in Arvandor when she realized the thirteen wizards that helped her become powerful had sluiced some power away for their own devious purposes. She immediately turned back to the wizards, who were already in the middle of their own ritual, but instead of ending that ritual had it blow up on the fourteen of them. That's basically how she became the Raven Queen we know and how the skelks came to be. Also, Gollum was my first thought when I read the Meazel too and by god will I use his voice when roleplaying one.
I've decided my shadow magic sorcerer is absolutely going to the shadowfell now to find out why she has these powers. Also this absolutely works with my character as horrible events have followed her and haunt her. She was abandoned by her birth parents whom she never knew. She was taken in by nobles who wanted to puppet her and take advantage of her power. She didn't quite fit in although all seemed well and she was headed for a position of power as a highly regarded mage until she accidentally lost control and killed her best friend and secret love. Everyone turned on her and she had to flee for her life. Her adoptive sister gained power and tracked my character down who was living in exile with an outlander clan. Her sister murdered nearly her entire clan searching for her. She went on the run yet again and was captured in the underdark by some dark elves for mysterious reasons and was detained for 8 days. And that is where the campaign begins. Only on 6th or 7th session now. Not too much has happened.
My campaign ran a whole 2 parter where we traveled into the shadowfell to revive a dead party member, a gnome artificer. He died to a vampire who apparently is native to the shadowfell (for plot reasons we don't know and she has subsequently become our beloved ally, she almost died last week and half of us started crying). Then after the character the guy who played the gnome artificer betrayed us and ran off (also for plot reasons we're not quite sure why, it's gonna be revealed in our session literally tomorrow), we decided it's time to go to the shadowfell to pick up good old gnome artificer. We traveled in, spent about 2 weeks in the shadowfell, went to the raven queen's fortress, she gave us a sword and wanted us to kill someone else to replace the artificer we were gonna leave with, but my gnome monk (who happened to have obtained gauntlets of ogre strength) beat a DC 24 strength check to break said sword. Now he's got permanent disadvantage to dex ability checks, but it was fucking cool. People will probably ask "well why didn't she just pop you like a zit?" the short answer is my DM was so flabbergasted I met their insane requirement that they were like "You know what? FINE! Here's a permanent hex on all your Dex abilities but you saved your friend." End of the story, after we got out we found out it had been a year since we left and my character is alive to tell the story of how he single handedly defied the Raven Queen. Joe the Drunk Monk is my D&D incarnation of "Nothing Bad Ever Happens to the Kennedy's" but with no backlash. The other day our DM revealed that due to my backstory of being kidnapped by Drow (he's a deep gnome) and subsequently escaping, Joe has a secret cult dedicated to worshipping him as a messiah. They offered Joe a night filled with kinky spider sex with some Driders and he "politely" declined. (every other session we have is somehow based on a movie or TV show, we killed three fake Dads at a wedding on our world's version of a Greek Island and we also tortured some high schoolers who played basketball and could also sing)
Just got my copy of the Dungeon Craft box set and oooooohhhh BOI am I excited to put it to use. After looking through it I came back to this video just to use your link as I preorder their next one. I always wanted to use more physical stuff and get away from roll20 and other site since servers can be down and other things but every other thing like this is so expensive. Like miniatures are crazy but now I admit I may be entering a rabbit hole my wallet can’t escape from. Anyway great content loved the Xmas episode you just put out! Merry X-MÃS
De BLOB is one of the most unique and fun games I have played. A shame that it didn’t get the attention it deserved as it never got another release after de BLOB 2. You can surprisingly also play both on the pc. They are only 4,99 on steam till the end of the black friday deal.
possible motive for the Raven Queen (not ever after high) she made a dumb bet with another elf and got stranded in another world because of it, winning the bet, basically a "I won but at what cost?" extra better addition is that due to winning the bet, she now has power over that elf's descendants forever, as long as they are within her vicinity, so as long as those descendant never enter the Shadowfell, they are safe unfortunately the elf she made a bet with is a cheating little bard and has a bunch of children... who are really good at surviving and have even more children and grand children...... so she can accidentally can control an entire elven army
6:27 Wasn’t it canon that like Vecna destroyed the material plane in ascending to godhood, but then the Lady of Pain was just like ‘no’ and un-godified Vecna, and then remade reality. And that was in 3rd edition, which explained some of the incongruities between 2nd and 3rd, like kobolds going from Dog people/weird goblins to mini-dragonborn. You could just rule that she put Acererak back as a Lich, but didn’t make a pre-lichdom Acererak, so there isn’t anything there for him.
Funny you should mention that my players have been in the shadowfell for two weeks now and they're actually going to the Fortress of memories next week.
Legend has it that if all the corners in a room are taken, an edgelord will instead open a portal to the shadowfell and go sulk there.
Now I want to add this to a campaign. Have a really edgy bad guy that can only be killed in the Shadowfell and trapping him in a sphere is the only way to make him port there.
@@MrMikado282 Hm... he might end up being so edgy that he creates a corner. You've gotta be careful
@@zecat3727 You need two edges to make a corner.
@@connordarvall8482 Ah yes, my mistake.
Z. Catt you got that right
"Elves are human plus"
"Elves are planar cockroaches"
So that means humans are..
Oh...
ugly
Cockraches minus?
Cockroach Lite
We're like ants.
Ants are fucking awesome.
Never trust a Cockroach.
MoaRider this is actually a very accurate assessment, cockroaches, like elves, live longer lives and are hard to kill, but do fuck all and are annoying as hell. Ants live short lives are easy to kill, but are very industrious and get shit done, like fantasy humans, oh and they’re also less annoying
Aight, now imma run the shadowfell as 1930’s gangster town, where their ain’t no magic but guns and bootleg whiskey.
With strippers and blow
Play ya a tune on my violin see
Assuming whiskey isnt magical smh
The most notorious gang is Bones Malone and the Spooky Boys
Now I'm picturing that meme of the skeletons dressed like gangsters, with the caption, "Rattle em, boys!" or whatever.
Good 'ol Acererak...we got him good during Tomb of Annihilation.
When he appeared from a demiplane, our cleric decided to go through that same portal. Acererak shut that portal, trapping our cleric in his demiplane (basically, his office).
We fight Acererak, and the remaining paladin, bard, and fighter manage to beat him up fairly well. Our barbarian, meanwhile, is smashing an entire stockpile of phylacteries, leaving no possibility of Acererak coming back to life.
Acererak starts getting nervous, so he re-opens that demiplane to escape...and out walks our cleric.
Except our cleric had gotten REALLY old, complete with long grey beard. Turns out, time worked differently in Acererak's office, and our cleric had aged 30 years...he had sustained himself on tasteless food and water through his spells, and sheer lust for revenge.
Acererak wastes no time escaping; he flies through the portal, vowing that he will kill us all as soon as he creates a new phylactery, and shuts the demiplane behind him.
Our weary cleric drops to his knees, and our group rushes to him to help him.
We lament how we failed to kill Acererak, and we worry that all hope is lost.
Our now-feeble cleric, however, starts laughing hoarsely. Confused, we ask him what he's finding so funny.
Turns out, while the cleric was trapped inside Acererak's office, he did more than eat and go crazy...he kept on casting "Guardian of Faith", waiting for someone to open the demiplane again.
As soon as Acererak entered his office, gravely injured from our fight, the FIRST thing he saw was a massive celestial warrior brandishing a mace and shield of Pelor.
The LAST thing Acererak heard before being obliterated by this radiant guardian was:
" SUP NERD. WHERE'S MY MONEY?"
His dying screams echoing in our minds, Acererak was slain, and Chult was saved by a bunch of murderous assholes.
Tony Favilla I love everything about this story
Best damn story ever 'Slow Clap Noise'
Didn't know Moon Knight was a Pelorite.
My group beat him down by having our barbarian (with resistance to fire damage) disarmed Aserak and then literally held him in the lava. While the Bard used silence on him. “Oh you wanna counter spell, you’re outer range mate”
Was the cleric from Douchebaggery domain? I mean, trickery
The first time i found out about Acerarak, the DM gave him a Skeletor voice.
I've had a hard time taking him seriously since then.
Acerarak or your DM?
@@zachariahkindle8926 Acerarak.
Lol
High Rollers?
@@MasterMygrane i think so, yeah.
That's BRILLIANT... and something I should do, since I'm basically a dead-ringer for the great Alan Oppenheimer.
"Acererak to adventurers... Acererak to adventurers... come in, you tomb-robbing boobs!"
"Elves are like planar cockroaches"
Well that escalated quickly. Not that I disagree with your assessment
Totally need to quote him on that somewhere in a game or something.
Fantasy writers: Elves are a beautiful, artistic race of nature loving do-gooders.
Fantasy readers: Filthy knife-ears.
Well if knife ears weren't so god damn hot I bet there'd be less of them
Not sure if it's in 5E yet but you could even find them in the Far Realm...though they were totes crazy and had spiders running through their skull pans.
@@stevecooper6578 points
Runesmith: "Wait, can't we just use the mechanics of the world DnD takes place in to answer unsolved mysteries behind characters' lores?"
WOTC: Wait that's illegal
Gotta love plotholes and oversights!
"I, will...make it,...legal ."
I now roll intimidate skill check, follow by end " Message" spell.
Then make a few Senate diplomacy skill rolls.
Won't surprise me that Ace erased his memories from the Vault though, or made a deal with RQ not to reveal that info to anyone
@@anthonynorman7545 Plotholes are the best part of TTRPGs you can fill it with anything you like and create your own story
the Shadowfell is so cool. I’ve had this idea for a horror game where a strange creature from the Shadowfell manipulates the children of a large region of the Material Plane, stealing them to later be eaten and to feed on their happiness. he just wants to feel happy, like how he was when he was a regular man. I don’t know, what do y’all think?
Kinda reminds me of Stephen King's IT. I dig it.
Chazzle it’s what I though as well. I’m thinking of making him more manipulative, his relationships with these children going on for months to try and lure them into the Shadowfell. thanks 🙏
Could be fun, bonus if you make the monster try to sway the characters into joining/giving it pity
wert1234576 sounds cool lol, thanks 👍
I'd love to DM this
Ah yes, the five emotions:
Angery
Hongry
Forever Alone
Lost
Wretched, but also kinda cute
Now I'm sitting here wondering when he'll hit us with "Basically, The Astral Plane."
SO BASICALLY U IS ON ACID
Maynard Zervantian
I mean, accurate.
"it's really big, and really blue, and sometimes you can find crap in it, but usually you can't"
Well, you were about six months ahead of him 😄
Acererak, I know that you’re mad, I wasn’t the best necro-dad, but I still love you, you purple pineapple...
-Vecna, the Necro-dad
So… the Feywild is an Lsd fuelled Saturday. and the Shadowfell is a gloomy Monday?
You nailed it.
More like
Feywilde=happy hour
Shadowfell=the following hangover
@@lazarus9165 no hes way closer go try some lsd
I once heard somebody describe the FW (bc autocorrect is a bitch) as abundance- soaked in magic, emotional, all that jazz. And, of course, the Shadowfell is its opposite, so yeah. That probably isn't the best description, but...eh
They call it Stormy Monday... but Tuesday is just as bad.
Two words:
Emo Feywild.
I mean....accurate.
Not even. The frickin _HAGS_ would rather check out hell itself than go here. Literally.
Elmo Feywild
More like goth feywild
Hot take:
Shadowfell = Goth world
Vanilla "plain" = Poser world
Feywild = Prep world
JoJo
indeed now to the outer planes XD
That makes too much sense it scares me
Don't you mean goffic world, YA GIT?
Feywild is manic pixie girl but a lot more toxic
"Haha, look at the funny man! He can't decide what he wants for dinner."
STOP LOOKING AT ME
Is basically Acererak next?
I hope so
Acererak is basically what happens when a horny balor gets with a human thot, has a kid, then kills the mom, and lefts his child unchecked. Then that angsty edgy teenager goes swearing vengeance for his dead mom (insert attack on titan joke), goes to learn magic from f*cking Vecna himself, learns the true name of daddy and enslaves him, gets bored of life, and pays a visit to uncle Orcus to become a crappy skeleton guy. After getting bored of existence, he decided to create a bunch of death caves designed by grampa gygax, to kill annoying murderhoboes lured by the need of power.
I don't understand why people see him as a baddie, all he does is kill stupid adventurers who create chaos wherever they go. In fact, everything would certainly work better if he becomes everyone's master. He would grant us immortality in exchange of only complete and utter loyalty. He would certainly not trick you to fail a wis save against a dominate person spell, and make you write stupid ass comments to expand his ideology (which certainly isn't a bunch of totalitarian propaganda garbage).
So that's basically Acererak.
In direct opposition to the dude above me, Acererak is one of my favourite villains in D&D. I see him as a character who is the crystallisation of evil- and he knows it. Maybe once upon a time he lived for knowledge or power or whatever. Not any more. His signature item is the sphere of Annihilation- and for good reason. He exists to end worlds however he can, creates gods of death, and collects the relics of his conquests in Dungeons to serve as museums. One day, all things will end. Acererak finds purpose is assisting that process, and for that I love him.
In our Tomb of Annihilation canpaign, he only appeared for less than an hour, but he characterised he whole thing. It essentially became a story of a group of characters with nothing to live for, facing against the ideology of someone who wanted everything to end. It was an amazing story! (Especially when the paladin became a flesh golem)
@@reubenfromow4854 You can't just end that with "Especially when the paladin became a flesh golem" XD Goddamn please elaborate!
Yes please!
6:21 That was unironically amazing.
*Shadowfell:* where the goths, emos, Punk stars & Heavy Metal bands like to chill and hang out.
I kinda want to actually make that canon in my campaign. Maybe there’s a quest to fish some edgy teens back out of the Shadowfell after they tracked down a portal thinking it would be a cool place to go. Some might have adapted well to it and not want to leave, but others would be scared shitless and not know how to protect themselves. There also may be a couple of kids that do want to leave and have been there long enough to help you track down everyone else safely.
@@Sytheduke Dude, go for it! And treasure the time and those moments! That is what I LOVE of D&D: the immense creativity and hilarity ensued between sessions and great buds. Wish I had an experience like that in an actual and official session, but (ironically) the group that I joined to play together each week or two in middle & highschool ditched me because I wasn't "geeky enough" (that and perhaps for trying to insta-kill a random monster by slicing its neck and causing a hemorrhage.)
Also? Honey badgers as OCs. Last one I had was a bard who learned the fine arts of seduction, belly dance & mauling.
@@Sytheduke That was basically how I made Metalocalypse canon in my world. The party had to rescue this band of travelling Bards who were super talented musicians, yet bumbling idiots who got lost during a snowstorm and somehow stumbled upon a gate to the Shadowfell. They were saved, and wound up becoming the BBEG's much later in the game as their music took over my world.
"Elves are like planar cockroaches."
Thank you for this quote, which I'll be using every day for the rest of my mortal life.
Our party defeated Acererak via our Druid casting feeble mind, and it somehow actually working, and then we just kind of left him there.
Legendary resistance? Where did your DM go wrong?
But even if it worked somehow wouldn't he be back to himself in like a month more pissed off than ever?
My gaming group would have Sold Acererak to a night hag or arch devil duke.
6:26 every one knows aserak was a Canadian who made geese duh
*S I L E N C E, M O R T A L*
Callback ;D
This is the history they will not tell you
Honest talk, what was he talking about? That sounds like a cool story hook.
@@Leivve it's another video runesmith made, I don't remember what it was about
3e/3.5 forgotten realms lore:
*deep meaningful long texts explaining everything in great detail*
5e:
*about 1 page for like 25 locations. Maybe a half or a whole additional page if lucky*
3.5 FR is more: Several books detailing what exports, weather, how the people dresses and the relationships of the place
@@TheBayzent yeah! I love how detailed it was. Having the 3e campaign compendium vs the sword coast adventurerers guide pretty lame. Still agood book, it could've been a little more detailed. I use moduels such as DIA to get more info. Fandom is my new girlfriend right now as well.
everything not written is up for homebrew, man
2e: "Hold my ale."
Before 5th, people complained about such things. Now it's here and they want the info dump back. Is it too hard or isn't it?!
How to improve the Shadowfell in one move: replace the Raven Queen with David Bowie and the elves with Skeksis'
HmmmmmMMMMMmmmm
...Visiting the Fortress of Memories to uncover the secrets needed to beat Acererak sounds like a pretty cool campaign idea.
As a life long dwarf player your hatred of the knife ears pleases me.
You talk about the Raven Queen like her initial quest for power was pointless, but I'm pretty sure that Mordenkainen gave a motive. She began the ritual around the time when the Dark Seldarine (drow gods) split off from the Light Seldarine (elven gods). Being an elven queen, the soon-to-be-Raven-Queen wanted to become a goddess to be at a level where she could reunite the two elven pantheons. However, her ritual was accidentally sabotaged by a group of evil wizards who screwed up the ritual, turning her into the Raven Queen, sending them all to the Shadowfell, and turning the wizards themselves into the Nagpa (Skeksis knockoffs).
Personally i see the Shadowfell as something like Dark Soul: lot of dead people, gloom and doom and demons at each corners
medramon masque de cendres It also brought up a lot of Silent Hill vibes for me, with the emotion monsters and the personalized nightmares at Raven Queen’s house
@@JeweledRoseStudios So, the land of Silent Souls?
1:31
De Blob? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in years...
HOLD ON YOU ARE DOING BASICALLY THE PLANES!!! AWESOME!!! can't wait till the outer planes
You mean the Lovecraftian planes?
@@prodigiousthetarnished198 outer planes are the alignment lands, the far realms are Lovecraft town.
Let's count to 3 with Runesmith. Ok, ready?
1. 1. 3.
Ten!
This is one series that helps me make my campaigns.
I feel like it would be better and more accurate to say: "the raven queen's fans tried to make her more powerful, but some of those fans were toxic and ruined it for everybody."
So, what I got from this is... make a campaign that has the players eventually go to the fortress of memories to find Acererak's real name... or did I miss something here?
6:29
Uh, actually you know what? I'm good. You keep your secrets there, buddy hahaha I can relate. Just gonna walk away now and never look back. Bye
+
"Nightwalkers will 100% kill you"
Party necromancer: Hold my skull goblet
Well most people who try to go to the negative are necromancers and nightwalkers kill everyone who goes in there so go figure
6:30 this is all really funny to me because in the last campaign I played, Acererak is just this really fun guy who loves making lattes, destroys stuff for fun (literally broke apart the surface of the world in this universe because he was bored), and is dating the party minotaur. It's all super fun to watch happen.
Yharnam is part of the Shadowfell. Change my mind.
At least for the night of the hunt
Feywild Elves: OMG!! Its such a beautiful day, isn't it great~? WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY TO BE ALIVE~~!!
Normal Elves: Mmm. Yes, I must concur. This a very exceptional day to go on a stroll.
Shadowfell Elves: There is no point in this day, just as any other day. Just another reminder of our own short miserable existence.
6:08
1. Finding what you've forgotten, or lost
1. Uncovering secrets kept by the dead
3. Confronting manifested fears or doubts
I see you also do not follow the studies of arithmetic
He'll find he forgot to fix the numbers
Sooo basically Shadowfell is like Silent Hill's misty realm and its dark counterpart, the hell-like realm.
My favourite thing to do with the Shadar Kai is to take their emotionlessness and just run with it. They're not angsty or tortured, they literally don't give a shit about anything. Whenever the party runs into one, they act like your most apathetic coworker at a shitty office job. They have literally no passion or enthusiasm about anything. They're just kind of bored.
4:21 that undertale references *_bonetrousle blasting in the background_*
Your Acererak is very different to Puffin Forest’s
The Feywild, the Material Plane, and the shadowfell are all the triplet children of the elemental planes. The Material Plane is the healthy one, but the Feywild and the Shadowfell lhave mania and depression, respectively.
If dragons who get stuck in the Shadowfell turn all dark and shadowy, what happens to a dragon if it gets stuck in the Feywild???
One word dragontales
It exploded into a swarm of faerie dragons
It turns gay.
@@beatdrake9116 very, very gay
It shrinks and sleeps on a hoard of flowers and fungi.
I recently came up with a Shadar-Kai character who I think is actually pretty cool and breaks the mold a little bit. Basically, their clan found a portal to the prime material plane in a cave and decided that they were sick of living in the Shadowfell. So they sent several of their members - including my character - through the portal to scout out this new world and find a brand new place for them to inhabit that is a heck of a lot safer and more peaceful than anywhere in the Shadowfell. They still worship The Raven Queen as their patron goddess though.
You caught on to exactly why I introduce the Raven Queen when running Curse of Strahd.
i’ve had a really good idea for a campaign where there’s 4 kids and they’re wandering around after a night of fun, and a creature from the shadow fell takes one of the kids back to the shadowfell. the kids have to talk to different people who have different pieces of information like a teacher with info on the shadowfell and another psychic kid who knows about the creature, so they can finally take down the monster and rescue their friend.
lol
Like stranger things?
@@sletelier8 nah, entirely different. duh
I got bad news man
I looked up the stats for the nightwalker and a necromancy wizard at lvl 14 with command umdead can easly make one of these ther personal life sucking nightmare
If Acererak made his Phylactery before using it, then the knowledge of it is in there somewhere.
My guess is he either made his dungeon network AS the phylactery, or he just tossed it into the negative plane.
Does the ending perhaps foreshadow "Basically: Acererak"?
I made the Raven Queen a powerful sorceress that Nerull, being the absolute jerkbutt he is, used as sort of a cosmic phylactory that while he went and fused with the Negative Energy plane. Elevating her to a god and him to something else. But she's also real clever and now he can't directly effect things and has no living cult anymore. So her motives are out maneuvering her evil undead ex.
This episode was so good. The comedy was on point, it was informative and you made some great bits. I totally agree on the elfs and the outro was amazing.
I like how he avoided saying 'sent into the shadow realm'
Psychonauts?
*I am the milkman...*
M Y M I L K I S D E L I C I O U S
I just love that critical role lore was referenced in this
In my setting, the Raven Queen's death tore her identity from her. She gathers memories and ideas to wear them and fill the void. When she inevitably finds out they don't fit her correctly, she discards them (hexblade patrons!). Sadly, she can't retain what she's learned because she's basically a dead/undead god. She's got the worst mix of amnesia and Alzheimer's, and is one of the most tragic stories. She will never succeed unless she ceases to exist as the Raven Queen.
In my first game, the party went here briefly after the party's sorcerer pulled the most badass exit, and pissing off the Cleric, by murdering the Raven Queen and taking her place, and in the chaos ended up leaving us there for a little bit as we tried to find a way out.
We fought duplicates of the party, controlled by us as well, and I learned to fear the cleric.
0:51 sponsored segment ends
Thanks, Caleb.
"power is not a goal,it's a tool"
*INCORRECT*
All the other youtubers are slowing their production speed but you keep churning out quality content relatively quickly, you’re awesome.
Shadow fell or as I call it the
*Edgy Dimension!!!!!!!!!!!!* (Echoes)
Skulks were fun to mess with when we had someone playing a child character. Nice n spooky
Oh, so that's where ravenloft went. Good to know. Next up, need to find dark sun and spell Jammer
And Planescape, after Ravnica is now a thing...
* immediately creates a party of 10 friends at lev 20 for the sole purpose of finding his reliquary and killing him
I recently did a one shot with my Gf and her sister, one of the characters was a wild magic sorcerer and pushed my own event that the first time she used her magic, they got pulled into the Shadowfell, because they we're at a Shadow Elf village in the real world. They fought the undead and found a mage who's died and had an idea that would allow you to pass between planes. Trying to find information and enemies was tough for 5e, so ultimately I got to do as I wish. Was fun and may add it into a later game as well! Great video!
Time to run a short campaign now for adventurers trying to reclaim their memories
Thanks
So in my setting The Raven Queen was once the Seelie Fey queen who was betrayed by Titania. In what were believed to be her last moments she pulled her castle and loyal servants into the Shadowfell. She now resides there safe from the betrayer.
The Shadowfell is the homeland of all edgelords, and a recommended getaway by lord fredge of edge. It provides ample crevaces, glum caves, shadowy corners and isolated holes to brood in.
The spooky bit was cool and all, but it’s a super good question if you could find out who acererack is through the raven queen’s place.
I must have been hallucinating when I first read Mordenkainen’s Yellow Pages because I could swear the reason given for the Raven Queen’s ascension was “she was trying to stop the elven gods from fighting so much” which makes her kind of a tragic big sister figure who failed to stop mom and dad from separating. Then I just inserted the idea that her mind fragmented so hard from the ascension that she has to constantly collect supplemental memories or she’ll basically just cease existing
The bit with the dungeon tiles on the bed was totally worth slightly crushing all those tiles! Hilarious. I did NOT expect that.
*"SPEAKING TO A SEA OF ENDLESS, MINDLESS..."*
Me: °chews headphones faster°
Ravenqueen actually used her near godlike or "superpowers" to try and bridge the Drow and Eldarin bringing their entire elven race back to what was their golden age
6:06 "or face your inner demons Like persona 5" *sad persona 4 noises*
Ye but psyconauts cool.
*Acerorak speaking creepily*
Me: *laughs nervously*
I love Demonac's take on the shadowfell since the sky has a 10 foot invisible ceiling that molds itself to the landscape, but the plane just goes down forever like the abyss
Those mad wizards on the coast, twisting reality to their one demented vision that only makes sense to them.
I heard that in the Shadowfell, Barbarians are constantly enraged with all of the downsides and only a few upsides.
6:30 Doot, where are you, Acererak is acting weird again. Go get your boss another drink.
Going to the shadowfell to find the mortal mind of Acererak seems like a good epic plot, he has a issue where any game with him will end dissapointingly because you either die or it doesnt count, now you can actually worry him.
Im betting Acerack that boi be that one guy who escaped the doom of his 12th level casting empire by becoming a lich. He's just goin through a phase.
Love the ending 😂
Hay! Elves aren't cockroaches, their knife-eared rabbits that can be made into a mean broth. -Orc probably
6:08 nice counting there
Perfect! Two weeks ago, I TPKd my party. Tonight we join our heroes in the shadowfell.
Just here to say that the Raven Queen HAD a purpose for becoming powerful. She wanted to lead a group of elves back to Arvandor, the place Corellon kicked everyone out of after Lolth's insurrection. She actually succeeded and had one foot in Arvandor when she realized the thirteen wizards that helped her become powerful had sluiced some power away for their own devious purposes. She immediately turned back to the wizards, who were already in the middle of their own ritual, but instead of ending that ritual had it blow up on the fourteen of them. That's basically how she became the Raven Queen we know and how the skelks came to be.
Also, Gollum was my first thought when I read the Meazel too and by god will I use his voice when roleplaying one.
I've decided my shadow magic sorcerer is absolutely going to the shadowfell now to find out why she has these powers. Also this absolutely works with my character as horrible events have followed her and haunt her. She was abandoned by her birth parents whom she never knew. She was taken in by nobles who wanted to puppet her and take advantage of her power. She didn't quite fit in although all seemed well and she was headed for a position of power as a highly regarded mage until she accidentally lost control and killed her best friend and secret love. Everyone turned on her and she had to flee for her life. Her adoptive sister gained power and tracked my character down who was living in exile with an outlander clan. Her sister murdered nearly her entire clan searching for her. She went on the run yet again and was captured in the underdark by some dark elves for mysterious reasons and was detained for 8 days. And that is where the campaign begins. Only on 6th or 7th session now. Not too much has happened.
From what I know about the Raven Queen has dominion over life and death so I made a drow death cleric that serves the Raven Queen
My campaign ran a whole 2 parter where we traveled into the shadowfell to revive a dead party member, a gnome artificer.
He died to a vampire who apparently is native to the shadowfell (for plot reasons we don't know and she has subsequently become our beloved ally, she almost died last week and half of us started crying).
Then after the character the guy who played the gnome artificer betrayed us and ran off (also for plot reasons we're not quite sure why, it's gonna be revealed in our session literally tomorrow), we decided it's time to go to the shadowfell to pick up good old gnome artificer.
We traveled in, spent about 2 weeks in the shadowfell, went to the raven queen's fortress, she gave us a sword and wanted us to kill someone else to replace the artificer we were gonna leave with, but my gnome monk (who happened to have obtained gauntlets of ogre strength) beat a DC 24 strength check to break said sword. Now he's got permanent disadvantage to dex ability checks, but it was fucking cool. People will probably ask "well why didn't she just pop you like a zit?" the short answer is my DM was so flabbergasted I met their insane requirement that they were like "You know what? FINE! Here's a permanent hex on all your Dex abilities but you saved your friend."
End of the story, after we got out we found out it had been a year since we left and my character is alive to tell the story of how he single handedly defied the Raven Queen.
Joe the Drunk Monk is my D&D incarnation of "Nothing Bad Ever Happens to the Kennedy's" but with no backlash. The other day our DM revealed that due to my backstory of being kidnapped by Drow (he's a deep gnome) and subsequently escaping, Joe has a secret cult dedicated to worshipping him as a messiah. They offered Joe a night filled with kinky spider sex with some Driders and he "politely" declined.
(every other session we have is somehow based on a movie or TV show, we killed three fake Dads at a wedding on our world's version of a Greek Island and we also tortured some high schoolers who played basketball and could also sing)
Im literally running ToA with my group and that ending gave me actual chills😱😱
The negative elemental plane(s) is my favorite d&d dimensions(sic):ash, salt, void and (the opposite of water I can't remember)
DND: Yeah Shadowfell very spooky, evil creatures, bad bois!
WoW: Ok we take your idea and put fancy ,shiny angels in it.
If elves are humans but everything is increased, it makes sense that they seem arrogant.
Just got my copy of the Dungeon Craft box set and oooooohhhh BOI am I excited to put it to use. After looking through it I came back to this video just to use your link as I preorder their next one. I always wanted to use more physical stuff and get away from roll20 and other site since servers can be down and other things but every other thing like this is so expensive. Like miniatures are crazy but now I admit I may be entering a rabbit hole my wallet can’t escape from. Anyway great content loved the Xmas episode you just put out! Merry X-MÃS
De BLOB is one of the most unique and fun games I have played. A shame that it didn’t get the attention it deserved as it never got another release after de BLOB 2. You can surprisingly also play both on the pc. They are only 4,99 on steam till the end of the black friday deal.
Logan has three personalities represented by his three voices:
1. Wise lore master
2. Snarky and sarcastic
3. Meek and nasally
possible motive for the Raven Queen (not ever after high)
she made a dumb bet with another elf and got stranded in another world because of it, winning the bet, basically a "I won but at what cost?"
extra better addition is that due to winning the bet, she now has power over that elf's descendants forever, as long as they are within her vicinity, so as long as those descendant never enter the Shadowfell, they are safe
unfortunately the elf she made a bet with is a cheating little bard and has a bunch of children... who are really good at surviving and have even more children and grand children......
so she can accidentally can control an entire elven army
6:27
Wasn’t it canon that like Vecna destroyed the material plane in ascending to godhood, but then the Lady of Pain was just like ‘no’ and un-godified Vecna, and then remade reality. And that was in 3rd edition, which explained some of the incongruities between 2nd and 3rd, like kobolds going from Dog people/weird goblins to mini-dragonborn. You could just rule that she put Acererak back as a Lich, but didn’t make a pre-lichdom Acererak, so there isn’t anything there for him.
Funny you should mention that my players have been in the shadowfell for two weeks now and they're actually going to the Fortress of memories next week.