Aether Skies: Airships, Sky Cities, and Eldritch Horrors

Creating your character

✦ Aether Skies Character Creation (Level 6) 🎲 Ability Scores Use the Expanded Standard Array to reflect the mental and spiritual strain of surviving in Xonterra: 15, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 Apply racial/lineage modifiers as appropriate. Sanity is treated as a 7th ability score (see house rules). ⚙️ Equipment & Items ✧ Magic Items Choose: 1 Rare magic item, or 2 Uncommon magic items ✧ Standard Gear You may begin with as much non-magical equipment as makes sense for your background and class. Excludes consumables like potions, or scrolls, unless specifically granted by class or feature.

Preparing for the session

Free accounts for D&D Beyond, Zoom, and Owlbear rodeo. Email account to receive the Zoom game link. Free Session Zero before the 6-session campaign.

What Nerdarchist Dave brings to the table

🎭 What to Expect at My Table Return of the Sable Siren starts with a mystery in the clouds—a missing luxury aethership, silent and scorched, drifting back into city airspace after vanishing a decade ago. No distress beacon. No signs of life. Just questions. This is where you come in. At my table, you’re not just passengers on a ride. You’re part of a living, breathing world where every choice you make shifts the sky. Whether you’re hunting down answers, diving into ancient secrets, or walking into danger armed with nothing but grit and cleverness, the story will move with you—and react to you. Expect: 🧭 Story-First Adventure with Room to Explore The game is tightly plotted but never on rails. Want to track a ghost through the engines? Interview a surviving relative? Smash a cursed artifact against a cathedral window? Let's see what happens. 🧠 Cinematic Mystery with a Slow-Burn Unraveling This starts grounded. Supernatural tension creeps in session by session—like Event Horizon or The Terror, the horror isn’t in your face at first. But when it arrives, it hits hard. By the end, you’ll be facing something ancient, hungry, and almost beautiful. ⚙️ Tactical Combat When It Counts Encounters are rare but loaded—set-piece moments where what you do matters. Expect creative terrain, environmental hazards, and enemies that challenge more than your hit points. 📚 Your Character Backstory is Canon Your past matters. I will weave your secrets, goals, and personal hauntings directly into the larger arc. You bring the threads—I’ll tie them into the storm. 🎲 Rule of Cool Meets Rules with Teeth Clever, cinematic, character-driven play is always welcome. Want to backflip through a collapsing hallway or bind a ghost with a piece of your own soul? I’ll help you make it happen. But this world has edges, and if you poke it wrong, it will bleed back. 🕯️ Themes of Cosmic Horror, Morality, and Madness This is a world of airships, aethertech, and moral gray. You might save the world. You might sacrifice everything. But you’ll feel something by the time the Siren sings its last.

Homebrew rules

🧠 Sanity “Aether eats at the mind as much as the flesh. To master it is to dance along the edge of madness.” Sanity Score functions like any other ability score. Sanity Saves are used when resisting exposure to raw aether, eldritch knowledge, hallucinations, or planar contact. Sanity Damage directly reduces your Sanity score (not HP). If your Sanity reaches 0, you suffer a permanent insanity and must roll on the Madness Table (DM’s discretion). Once you receive a permanent insanity your sanity score resets. 💀 Corruption “Aether burns you. Corruption changes you.” Corruption Threshold = Your Maximum HP You begin play with 0 Corruption unless otherwise stated (see below). Each time you gain Corruption, it adds to your threshold tally. When your Corruption equals your HP, your soul is considered irredeemable. The character may become an NPC, turn into an eldritch horror, or otherwise be lost to the story. 💉 Healing Corruption Corruption cannot be healed naturally and requires divine purity: Lay on Hands (Paladin): Spend 5 points to heal 1d8 Corruption Lesser Restoration: Heals 3d8 Corruption Greater Restoration: Heals 6d8 Corruption These spells must be cast by uncorrupted creatures, or the effect may be reduced or corrupted themselves. 🧬 Racial Modifier Beastkin and Scavenger-Breed Humans begin play with 1 point of Corruption that cannot be healed. This reflects inherited exposure to the psychic bleed of the eldritch realms. 🧿 Corruption Feats Characters who have any Corruption may access Corruption Feats (Use Dragonmarked Feats as templates). You may take 1 Corruption Feat for every 5 points of Corruption you've accumulated. Every feat beyond the first cause a permanent 5 points of corruption damage. Activating a Corruption Feat deals soul-rending damage to the user: 1 feat → 1d4 damage 2 feats → 1d6 damage 3 feats → 1d8 damage 4 feats → 1d10 damage 5 feats → 1d12 damage (max) Damage is untyped and ignores resistances. It represents the inner fracturing of your soul and flesh when calling on the beyond.

How Nerdarchist Dave creates a safe table

🛡️ How I Keep My Players Safe and Comfortable The world of Return of the Sable Siren may be full of aether-twisted horrors, unraveling timelines, and creeping dread—but the table itself is a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space for everyone. We’ll open with a Session 0 to: Set clear expectations for tone, pacing, and themes Establish character connections and goals Walk through safety tools and create space for boundaries During Session 0, we’ll also use: Lines & Veils – You’ll be sent a digital form to flag topics you want left out (lines) or handled with care (veils). We’ll respect those boundaries 100%, no questions asked. X-Card (Digital & Verbal) – At any time during play, you can say “X,” drop it in chat, or privately message me. We’ll stop, rewind, and pivot—no explanation needed. N & O tools – Use “N” (need to slow down/check in) or “O” (everything’s good, keep going) in chat or voice to help us stay connected in emotionally intense scenes. After heavy sessions—especially once the supernatural hits full force—I always leave time for aftercare: a moment to check in, debrief, and decompress if needed. Horror at the table should be thrilling, not distressing. My goal is to tell unforgettable stories while making sure everyone feels seen, safe, and supported while we do it. All players, identities, and experience levels are welcome here—as long as we treat each other with curiosity and respect. We’re diving into something dark and strange. Let’s make sure we do it right—and do it together.