Adventures in Bluetspur

The surface o f Bluetspur i s vast, spanning a continent-sized region that is hostile to all but the most tenacious forms of life. Due to the endless assault of supernatural weather and earthquakes, civilization-as defined by the illithids-exists entirely below the ground. The Mists encroach even here, filling shadowed chasms and abandoned corridors. While the mind flayers have their own ways of describing the realm's features, the half-lucid ramblings of those who dream of the domain stretch to name and relate several prominent sites. MOUNT MAKAB

Calling Makab a mountain is a wild misnomer; i t is a malignant deformation on a planetary scale, a spire with no apparent summit. Its contorted slopes stretch into the toxic heavens, and its form occupies the periphery of viewers' attention no matter which direction they look. Mount Makab is not a natural feature, but rather part of a colossal, illithid-designed device. Its purposes remain largely mysterious to outsiders, but one thing is certain: it amplifies psionic energy, allowing Bluetspur's mind flayers to project their thoughts into other Domains of Dread. C I TA D E L SUBTER R E N E

Below Mount Makab stretches the hive-like lair of the illithids. This mind flayer metropolis comprises innumerable i nterconnected compounds-laboratory vaults, custom prison-habitats, intellect devourer preserves, incubation domes, brain-filled synapse libraries, testing hippodromes, surgical theaters, and facilities that beggar rational description. Non-illithids find travel within the citadel maddening, like trying to find a specific point within a writhing knot of worms. Locations are inaccessible to creatures reliant upon basic terrestrial mobility or without the ability to access psionically controlled mechanisms. Entering Citadel Subterrene is simple, though, as fissures across Bluetspur, particularly upon Mount Makab, lead within. THE C H A M B E R O F THE GOD- B RA I N

The Chamber o f the God-Brain rests miles below Citadel Subterrene. The cathedral-like chamber is roughly ovoid in shape, with walls of gleaming, organic metal. The massive God-Brain trembles in a pool of medicinal brine and experimental chemicals capable of dissolving most other creatures. The massive, alien brain's affliction is clear from the leaking holes pocking its deep-wrinkled lobes. Illithid attendants in eerie protective garb endlessly attend to their dying overlord and indulge even its most blasphemous schemes, such as the creation of vampiric mind flayers (see chapter 5). Mount Grysl's polypous spires once served as a secondary installation of the domain's resident mind flayers, but the residents rebelled against the GodBrain's self-serving obsessions. As one might amputate an infected limb, the God-Brain cut off Mount Grysl from its psychic network. The abandoned residents largely succumbed to infighting and each other's amoral experiments. The spirits of these tormented mind flayers remain within Mount Grysl, as does the rebellion's leader: a bloated deviant that calls itself the High Master and seeks to undermine the God-Brain. THE GOD-B R A I N

The scope o f what mind flayers call history exists on a cosmic scale. Through ages of empire and conflict, the illithid elder brains indulged experiments without comparison or reference for lesser beings, explorations beyond the boundaries of time, reality, immortality, and the multiverse. Many failed-at least one catastrophically so. To summarize an eon of atrocities, one elder brain's reality-bending research had an unexpected result, revealing to it a malignant truth for which existence was unprepared. Guided by this burgeoning revelation, the elder brain turned and preyed upon its peers, consuming their discoveries and their physical forms to fuel an impossible apotheosis. Ultimately, though, the weight of the elder brain's deeds caused its own physicality to rebel, giving rise to an alien disease that began devouring its fleshy form. Horrified by an affliction that infected only them, the other elder brains united and psionically expelled the diseased brain from existence. Or so they thought. From a place without time or reality, the Dark Powers plucked the dying elder brain and planted it upon a tormented world. Ever since, the God-Brain of Bluetspur has dreamed and desperately indulged ever more demented schemes as it seeks to save its own life and give action to a thought alien even to it. THE G O D - B R A I N ' S POWERS AND D OM I N ION

The God-Brain is more akin to a physical location or massive object than a creature. Its droves of servants are more direct threats than the inscrutable Darklord itself.

Overmind. The God-Brain commands untold

numbers of mind flayers, intellect devourers, and other creatures. Within Bluetspur, it is constantly telepathically linked with all its servants and knows anything that they know. The God-Brain delegates broad goals to its most effective servants, encouraging them to indulge all manner of radical experiments.

Mist Vibrations. Through the awesome psychic resonances of Mount Makab, the God-Brain can guide any of its servants or other psychically aligned minds through the Mists to Bluetspur. I n effect, it provides a vision or dream of the domain that itself functions as a Mist talisman.

Life Support. The illithids of Bluetspur toil to save their elder brain through all manner of outlandish scientific and medical means. Among the most bizarre of these schemes is the God-Brain's own: the creation of degenerate servants that hunt for balms for its affliction. These vampiric mind flayers (see chapter 5) slip from Bluetspur to prey upon Humanoids. They then return to the God-Brain, bloated with cerebrospinal fluid to momentarily dull its suffering.

Closing the Borders. When the God-Brain closes Bluetspur's borders, the surface of the domain is wracked by extreme electrical storms, and alien vapors rise at the domain's distant edges and within its hidden tunnels. Rather than barring creatures' escape, these Mists repress memories. Any nonAberration who leaves Bluetspur is transported to a familiar place where they soon wake up, even if they weren't previously asleep. Their time in Bluetspur is repressed, altered as if by the modify memory spell. See " Recovering Memories" below for more details. THE G o o - BRAIN'S TOR M E NT

The God-Brain of Bluetspur is an entirely unreliable cosmic entity, an immortal inflicted with mortality. Although its death is likely still millennia away, this inevitability leads it to hastily indulge all manner of amoral extremes. ROLEPLAY I N G THE Goo- B RAIN

T h e God-Brain's influence drives the m i n d flayers beyond their domain to purse all manner of subtle observations, bizarre experiments, repeat abductions, and visceral mutilations. ADVENTUR E S IN B LU ET S P U R

While Bluetspur's otherworldly hazards and the mind flayers' defenses can challenge even the highest-level heroes, the domain's menace proves most pernicious when it intrudes on other domains. Taking inspiration from sci-ti horror and tales of alien abduction, adventures involving Bluetspur's mind flayers might begin anywhere with bad dreams or a stranger's impossible rantings. Over time, disappearances, inexplicable scars, subdermal implants, and unlocked memories might reveal the mind flayers' tentacles enwrap more than anyone thought possible. See "Return to Bluetspur" for details on running adventures featuring lost memories, or consider developing other plots using the Bluetspur Adventures table.

B L U E T S P U R A DV E N T U R E S d 8 Adventure

C h aracters awake withi n the s hattered rem a i n s of a flu id - fi lled t u be deep in Citadel S ubterrene. They h ave n o idea how they arrived t h e re . 2 A cavern the c h a racters were e x p l o r i n g seamlessly a buts with B luets p u r, tra p p i n g t h e m in caves overr u n with vampiric mind flayers (see c h apter 5 ) . 3 A strange message l e a d s c h a racters to a s ilvery vessel ful l of a l i e n mysteries wrecked on B l u ets p u r' s s urface. T h e o n l y s u rv i v i n g creature i n t h e wreck i s a c u n n i n g displacer beast. 4 T h e c h a racters fi n d a strange but a d o r a b l e creature t r a p ped w i t h i n an a b a n do n ed a l i e n i n s ta l l at i o n .

T h e b e i n g i s a lovab l e c o m pa n i o n , u nt i l it reveal s itself t o be a star spawn emissary (see c h a pter 5 ) . 5 An a c q u a in t ance of the c h a racters comp l a i n s of reo cc u r r i n g n i gh t m a res. The c o m p l a ints stop w h e n the d re a m e r i s taken o v e r by a n intellect devourer. 6 An i nventor requests the c h a racters' i ns ight i nto a p i l l-sized device s h e extracted from h e r own body.

A s the c h a racters exa m i n e it, the device projects a m a p i nto t h e i r m i n d s and e m its a tel e p a t h i c c a l l for h e l p. T h e m a p l e a d s t o a m i n d flayer w h o wants to put the G o d - B r a i n out of its m isery. 7 A farmer h i res the c h a racters to protect h i s fa m ily, w h o m he b e l i eves-without evidence-are b e i n g a b d u cted a n d returned every n i g ht . 8 T h e H igh M a ster m i n d flayer of M o u n t G ry s l seeks to c l a i m all t h e G o d - B r a i n k n ows. To d o this, it creates a copy of the A p p a ratus (see " Mo rd e n t " l ater i n t h i s c h a pter). A l l it needs i s a rel i c called the Rod of Rastin o n , which it wants the c h aracters to retrieve fo r it.

RETURN TO B LU ETSPUR

Bluetspur c a n b e more chilling a s a memory than as a new discovery. Use this section to create adventures that reveal impossible knowledge, hint at unremembered experiences, or take place as recollected adventures out of continuity with a campaign. R E C OV E R I N G M E M O R I E S

Knowing that secrets lurk within one's own mind holds unique terror. When running adventurers featuring hidden memories, consider how those memories might be revealed.

Magical Recovery. Both the mind flayers of Bluetspur and the Mists surrounding the domain employ methods similar to the modify memory spell to obscure victims' memories of their abduction, replacing them with hazy events or gaps of missing time. A character's true memories can be restored