Slay Awhile: The Slumbering Dark is an Actual Play web video series where six friends play through Critical Role's Call of the Netherdeep module.
During an annual festival in the port city of Jigow, five adventurers come into possession of a Vestige of Divergence called the Jewel of Three Prayers and set off on a journey to free the man who once owned it.
Featuring:
- Kai (she/they) as Remi Yam (they/them), the sea elf paladin of Avandra
- Avery (she/her) as Joy (she/her), the amnesiac bard slash rogue of the party
- Flower (she/her) as Folen Ghaelsith (he/him), the colorful drow ranger and brother to Than
- Josh (he/him) as Balthandorel "Than" Ghaelsith (he/they), the drow fighter
- Vico (it/its) as Hush (it/they), the masked bladesinger wizard
- and Racieus (he/him) as everyone else
Archived episodes can be found on impulse/initiative's (formerly ADHG) Twitch channel here
and live episodes can be viewed on the same channel almost every Sunday at 5:30pm Eastern.
Slay Awhile: The Slumbering Dark contains examples of:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Remi often casts healing spells through forehead kisses
- All Animals Are Dogs: Finley, the party's pet baby bulette, behaves more like an untrained puppy than a wild animal
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Remi and Hush is blue, Than is gray, and Folen cycles through different colors depending on season. As of episode 46, Folen has been orange (autumn) and pink (spring) onscreen.
- Apparently Human Merfolk: Remi (and most of the Yam family) looks indistinguishable from other elves aside from being blue
- Captain Fishman: Remi can breathe underwater, speak to fish, and swim very fast
- Casual Danger Dialogue: The party likes to banter even in tense situations. Joy especially can't resist cracking a joke.
- Combat Medic: Remi, as the party's paladin, is bother their tank and their main healer. Folen also has shades of this.
- Criminal Found Family: Den Ghaelsith, run by Than and Folen's parents and which includes their many adopted siblings
- Cuteness Proximity: Remi and Hush's reaction to Finley
- Dark and Troubled Past: Everyone in the party has this, from Folen's Sympathetic Murder Backstory to Hush's childhood with the Crooked Fang
- Dreaming of Things to Come: The party experience several prophetic dreams over the course of the campaign, courtesy of Alyxian.
- The Fair Folk: They seem to have something to do with Folen's backstory, though even he doesn't know what
- Forest Ranger: Folen is more at home in the woods than in cities, casts ranger spells using natural materials, and primarily fights with his bow.
- Friendly Rivalry: The party has this with Team Friendship, the Non-Player Character party they first clash against at the festival in the first few episodes
- Graceful in Their Element: Remi in water
- Important Haircut: Hush gets one of these following their subclass change
- I Know Your True Name: Hush gains this ability after switching to onomancer
- Like Brother and Sister: Remi and Hush have this relationship, as do Folen and Joy
- The Mafia: Den Ghaelsith appears to be a fantasy, southern-accented take on this trope
- Professional Killer: Hush's old job. Than also has shades of this.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The party: An amnesiac and possibly undead woman, a pirate sea elf who's never spent much time on land before, two scions of a criminal empire, and a constantly-masked wizard
- Religion of Evil: The Crooked Fang has shades of both this trope and The Syndicate, being a yuan ti cult of Zehir that kidnaps children to use as spies and assassins all over the world
- Resignations Not Accepted: The Crooked Fang. Hush's old job involved tracking down and killing members who attempted to resign anyway.
- Shipper on Deck: Most of the main party act as this for Team Friendship's Ayo and Galsariad, engineering a situation during their Taste of Tal'dorei dinner to help them impress each other. Also, Joy and Than for Folen/Remi.
- Sibling Team: Than and Folen, and later their brother Vanju
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Hush gets one just before the party leaves Jigow, and another after switching to onomancer. Folen also changes his outfit several times throughout the campaign, first to disguise himself and again when the party arrives in Marquet
- Played With in Joy's case. She gets a whole new outfit in Ank'Harel, costing several hundred gold, but it looks exactly the same as her old outfit
- Snake People: Several Yuan-ti characters make appearances throughout the campaign, most significantly Hush
- Sympathetic Murder Backstory: Long before the beginning of the campaign, Folen accidentally killed an innocent man while mind-controlled by a ruidium-infused sword. The incident left him with a lot of trauma that comes up over the course of the campaign.
