Anyone who plays D&D and thoroughly enjoys doing so always has at least one character they have loved to play. It may be because you spent so much time creating them or because you gave them weird quirks and it was a fun concept to play. Whatever the case may be I’d love to hear your guys stories and hope you appreciate the one I’m about to tell. This is the story of Cersis, an aarakocra, way of the shadow monk.

Being a seasoned player and having bonus playtime as DM has given me experience in seeing what works well for players and what doesn’t. When I tell you an aarakocra monk is one of the most fun builds I’ve done, I mean it. From having a fly speed of 50ft out the gate and pairing that with the abilities like step of the wind and unarmored movement for incremental speed increases, it was nuts. Not only was I a vital asset for catching up to people we were chasing but fighting out in the open meant I could beat up pretty much anyone anywhere on the battle map. Not to mention if someone was getting roughed up, I could swoop in right behind and give that sweet advantage even if I was already fighting someone with the step of the wind.

On top of that, being a way of the shadow I had access to abilities such as pass without a trace, darkness, and silence. I would mention dark vision too but after we hit level four I no longer needed it because I took Eldritch Adept and devil sight. I know it might get hate because being a monk I didn’t necessarily have spell casting but I did use spells, so my DM allowed it and it lined up backstory wise. Anyway, that indeed made my character very broken, very fast. The ability to not only cover the battle fields with a sphere of darkness but also fight adequately within the darkness while giving the enemy disadvantage was amazing to say the least. Not to mention level 5 was just around the corner with another attack and of course the dreaded stunning strike.

A bird man who was not only lightning quick but could also envelop you in darkness and kick the crap out of you while you can’t even see him is crazy to witness. The fun didn’t stop there though, he had a pretty crazy skill set with almost everything being at least a +2 and +8 on acrobatics and stealth (yes, we rolled for stats) as well as +7 in insight and perception. To keep going I took a level in rouge for the expertise boosting my perception to +10 and stealth to +11. Passive perception was sitting at a whopping 20 and passive insight 17. So now he’s super stealthy, can see you coming a mile away, and pretty much knows whenever you’re lying. Everyone around him is screwed including the DM.

Level seven granted him the ability to teleport in the shadows and dim light and gain advantage on the first attack with the shadow step feature. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to experience the full joy of being able to use it due to circumstances that happened to put the game on pause for the indefinite future but man was it a hell of a ride. Fly high Cersis, you’ll always have a place in my heart and hopefully we’ll get to finish your story one day.