A Sky of Stolen Stars. Blackrazor blazes white with the countless souls it has devoured, and that hoard sustains its wielder. While Aelius holds Blackrazor, he has Advantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. Whenever Blackrazor devours a soul, Aelius gains temporary hit points equal to the slain creature’s hit point maximum.
Beyond Sight and Sway. Aelius can’t be targeted by any spell from the enchantment, divination, illusion, or necromancy schools. His will belongs to the blade, he casts no reflection a seer can find, his Soul Sense pierces every disguise, and death already adores him.
Death Is an Old Friend (Discorporation). When Aelius drops to 0 hit points and his Starlit End trait has already been spent, his body scatters into a murder of shadow-ravens with a delighted laugh, and his essence is drawn into Blackrazor. He cannot take physical form again until the blade chooses a new moment to disgorge him.
Innate Spellcasting (3/Day). Aelius can innately cast eyebite (spell save DC 27). His spellcasting ability is Charisma.
Legendary Resistance (5/Day). If Aelius fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead.
Magic Weapons. Aelius’s weapon attacks are magical.
Murder of Shadows. Aelius can take one reaction per turn rather than only one per round. He also has Advantage on saving throws against being knocked Unconscious or Stunned. If he fails a saving throw against an effect that would stun him, one of his unspent legendary actions is spent instead.
Regeneration. Aelius regains 10 hit points at the start of his turn.
Shapechanger. Aelius can use a bonus action to change into ae raven, a winged hybrid, or his humanoid form. His statistics are the same in each form. He reverts to his true form when he dies.
Soul Sense. Aelius is aware of the location of any creature that has a soul within 120 feet, and knows whether it is below half its hit point maximum.
Multiattack. Aelius makes three Blackrazor attacks. He can replace one of these attacks with a use of Shadow Breath (if available) or Devouring Murder.
Blackrazor. Melee Weapon Attack: +22, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 20 (2d6 + 13) Slashing damage plus 22 (4d10) Radiant damage. If this attack reduces a creature that isn’t a Construct or an Undead to 0 hit points, Blackrazor devours its soul: the creature dies, it can be restored to life only by a wish spell, and Aelius gains temporary hit points equal to the creature’s hit point maximum.
Shadow Breath (Recharge 5–6). Dexterity Saving Throw: DC 27, each creature in a 60-foot Cone. Failure: 70 (20d6) Necrotic damage. Success: Half damage. Failure or Success: A Humanoid reduced to 0 hit points by this damage dies, and a Shadow rises from the corpse. The shadow is under Aelius’s control and shares his Initiative count, acting immediately after him.
Devouring Murder. Dexterity Saving Throw: DC 27, each creature in a 30-foot Cone. Failure: 44 (8d10) Necrotic damage, and the target is Blinded until the end of its next turn as a screaming murder of shadow-ravens tears past. Success: Half damage only. Any creature reduced to 0 hit points by this damage has its soul devoured as if by Blackrazor.
Spellcasting. Aelius casts one of the following spells, requiring no material components and using Charisma as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 27):
At Will: eldritch blast (4 beams, each +19 to hit, 1d10 + 10 Force), dissonant whispers, darkness
3/Day Each: finger of death, enervation, hunger of hadar
1/Day Each: power word kill, feeblemind
Aelius can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time, and only at the end of another creature’s turn. Aelius regains spent legendary actions at the start of his turn. While his Starlit End trait is active, he uses the Mythic Actions below in place of these options.
Shadowstep. Aelius vanishes into one shadow and steps from another, teleporting up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space he can see. Each creature within 10 feet of the space he leaves takes 16 (3d10) Necrotic damage.
Soul Lash. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 27, one creature Aelius can see within 60 feet. Failure: 27 (6d8) Radiant damage, and Aelius gains temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. Success: Half damage, and Aelius gains no temporary hit points.
Eclipsing Wings (Costs 2 Actions). Aelius beats his wings and a wave of darkness rolls out. Each creature within 30 feet of him must succeed on a DC 27 Constitution saving throw or have the Blinded condition until the end of its next turn. Aelius can then fly up to half his Speed without provoking [Tooltip Not Found].
If Aelius’s Starlit End trait is active, he can use the options below in place of his Legendary Actions for 1 hour.
Stride Between Stars. Aelius teleports up to 120 feet to an unoccupied space he can see, even one he can perceive only through Soul Sense. Each creature within 20 feet of the space he leaves and within 20 feet of the space he arrives takes 33 (6d10) Necrotic damage, and a Shadow under Aelius’s control rises in each of those areas.
Devour the Light. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 27, one creature Aelius can see within 60 feet. Failure: 52 (8d12) Radiant damage, and Aelius gains temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. If this reduces the creature to 0 hit points, its soul is devoured as if by Blackrazor. Success: Half damage, and Aelius gains no temporary hit points.
The Sky Goes Out (Costs 2 Actions). Aelius blots out all light. Each creature within 60 feet of him must succeed on a DC 27 Constitution saving throw or have the Blinded condition for 1 minute and take 35 (10d6) Necrotic damage. A creature that fails repeats the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the blindness on a success. Aelius can then fly up to his full Speed without provoking [Tooltip Not Found].
Description
He was born Aelius of House Covenglade, a drow of no particular distinction, a third son in a matriarchy that had no use for him, raised in the lightless cathedrals of the Underdark to expect an early and unmourned death. He got one. He got many. That, as it turned out, was the only thing he was ever truly gifted at.
The first death broke something loose in him. Slain in a temple coup and dragged into the Shadowfell, Aelius did not pass on as the others did. The Raven Queen’s realm reforged him as it does the rare few it cannot let rest, a shadar-kai, grey-skinned and hollow-eyed, bound to the gloom. But where her other reborn return numb and drained of feeling, Aelius came back delighted. He had felt the cold completeness of the end and found it beautiful. Death was not the enemy his House had used to frighten him; it was the only honest thing in all the planes, the single promise that is always kept. He fell in love with it the way a drowning man loves air, and he has spent every century since chasing the feeling again, and again, and again.
Somewhere in those grey years the curse of the wereraven took him, and he welcomed it like a returning friend. Now a murder of shadow-birds lives beneath his skin; he scatters into wings when slain and reassembles wherever the dark is deepest, laughing before his feet have touched the ground. He has died on a hundred blades and in a thousand falls, and each death only deepened the joke that he was the one being in creation who could not be punished by it.
His ruin and his apotheosis arrived as the same object. Deep beneath White Plume Mountain he took up Blackrazor, the nihilist greatsword, the shard of starless void that hungers to return all things to nothing. A lesser wielder would have been consumed by it within days. But Aelius and the blade wanted the same thing, and where most men are devoured by Blackrazor, Aelius simply kept feeding it. Soul after soul, century after century, he fed the void until something impossible happened: the blade filled. The darkness that had no bottom finally reached the brim, and the captured souls began to shine through the metal like a sky turned inside out. Blackrazor, the blade of nothingness, became a blade of everything, blinding white, crowded with stolen stars, each point of light a life it would never give back.
Aelius is what stands at the far end of that hunger. He is no longer quite drow, nor shadar-kai, nor wereraven, nor even fully a man, he is the place where all of them met a sword that eats souls and refused to die long enough to become its god. He drifts on great wings the color of an eclipse, hooded, his eyes two violet points of cold amusement, and he greets every challenger the same way: as a gift. To fight Aelius is to offer him the one thing he still craves and the one thing he can offer you in return. He will kill you gently, almost gratefully — and your soul will hang in his blade among the others, one more star in a sky he carries into the endless dark he adores.
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