Extus Narr's Desk Top

"Hail Great Extus, Master of Mortality, Your Divine Wisdom has led us to great success! The site is rich in the mineral we seek! In fact, my team has located an intact fragment that measures over 63 hands long! Surely, this is the largest yet! Praise to our grand Extus!"

A series of letters about a dig site...

intel in and out of High Grumlet, normally sparse, has ceased entirely. rumors that the queen is dead, undead, abound. one loon claims to have seen walls of flesh, floors and stone turned to viscera in High Halls. hallucinations not unlikely given the increased incidence of sleeping sickness and the dream plague.

A coded message in an unknown language...

A quaint portrait of a young family: father, mother, and an adorable baby girl. The portrait is weathered and stained, but the faces are still clear. A child's drawing depicting a young girl alongside her daddy in a bright summer field. The colors are faded and the paper looks ready to dissolve.

Skeemo Oddbottle Finder, Fixer, Fermenter Tipsy Turtle, South Splits, E. Bank Ave. Order a mint julep, hold the julep

A calling card for a shady individual, found scattered among the desk's papers...

"Hail Great Extus, Purifier and Justicar,  Your Benevolent Judgment and Swift Corrections have put us back on schedule! I am delighted to report that excavation will be complete within two days and that my late foreman’s fears, may his soul rest in Eternal Slumber, of damaging the specimen were indeed unfounded and the crystal remains perfectly intact. The Wildemere brute assures me that adequate transportation has been prepared and is similarly on-schedule. We anticipate arrival at the delivery site before the week is out! Praise to our grand Extus!"

A series of letters about a dig site...

Narr, My barge my has been waiting for two days. If this cuts into my profits, we’ll need to renegotiate terms. Respectfully, Duke

A series of letters about a dig site...

Ches 15 Shipment received. Our guest is eager to complete his project. Timeline accelerated. Expect completion by Ches 21.

Handled. Expect shipment tomorrow.

Ches 14 – Still no barge. Update?

Delayed

Ches 13 – No delivery. Problem?

Good. I will send a mage to aid with security.

Ches 11 Situation on site. Break-in. We handled it. Our guest remains ignorant, but we believe it was a rescue attempt. Guards and patrols doubled. Guest is ready for the delivery tomorrow. Timeline not affected.

Very good. Give him what he needs

Ches 10 Our guest continues to work productively. Demands resources often, but not outside our agreed-upon bounds. Timeline is accelerated with projected end date now within the tenday.

An unusual series of dated correspondences written back-and-forth on a long scroll...

Request denied High Priestess involved?

For Peace and Prosperity, S. Reginald Balk 1st Kapetan, Sergent of Arms, Stara Straza

Ches 14

Congressional Assembly Security Committee Report Graydocks fire destroyed home of a known alchemist witch. Third magic-user attacked this week. Night patrols increased. Request for increased funds. East Gate kidnappings unrelated, no ransoms posted. Inquiries yield further incidents, similar in appearance but apparently random. Lacking motive, it is suggested that the cases be moved to homicide division. Stone, Temple quarter sleep-like illness victims continue to increase. Local reports of irregular dreams no longer seem coincidental. Request to increase discreet investigations elsewhere in Stone and Canals. Unusual reports from Swampside increasing, Moorholm council requesting aid patrolling Swamp Walls. Informant indicates that Black Merchants have abandoned the moors, trade dwindling, fights brewing.

A security briefing drafted by the Stara Straza, the city guard of Heavenfell...

Prisoner Logs: Prisoner 061 - no response to psychic attacks; appears immune to psychotropic fear response; unusually high pain tolerance; torture of nearby victims provided Prisoner 061 with an impressive boost of power - note: perform questioning in a separate cell in the future speaks abyssal and infernal - no apparent loyalties in the blood feud - in fact, suggests (brags) that it plays both sides (suspect that it draws power from the suffering of both parties); Inquiries with Prisoner 062 indicate varied temperament, tolerance, and skill level. 062 was unhelpful, though 061 was enraged by its termination.; Efforts to evade our bargain were unfruitful - bargain with another daemogoth yields no progress - as I feared, only success came with the death of one party. Prisoner 018 - binding successful!; professes to serve me, obsequious beyond measure, and yet refuses to grant my wishes. Another dead end. Perhaps he will be useful still? Prisoner 090 - the celestials are even more useless than these damn infernal beasts; Day 679 of inquiries finally deemed unsuccessful - perhaps I need to move up the chain of command; Ah, the celestial will be useful afterall! Let’s see if the heavens are immune to this new corruption!; they are not.

A series of ledgers and logs...

Experimental Notes: Log 1 Experiment 1 - describes a young human man, age 25 to 30, dockworker, strong, height and weight measurements, grievously wounded, describes great efforts to heal and restore the man. Eventually the author fails to cure him and the man dies in a mess of unspeakable flesh and appendages. Samples not viable. Experiments 2,3 describe similar scenarios, but the individuals live, their minds and bodies intact - except for odd malphormities. One subject, female, late 60s, elven, lost all her hair, one eye and ear, half of mouth, replaced with a horrible toothy maw extending up half her face. The other subject, gnomish, female, had injured her left leg and lost the limb, growing several many-jointed arthropoid-like limbs in its place. The infection fascinates the author. He begins to refer to it as "the malphaesance" throughout his notes. Samples of the infection not viable for transplant.

A series of ledgers and logs...

Experimental Notes: Log 2 Experiment 4 - a young orphan boy, badly wounded in shoulder, active malphaesance infection, describes the steady progression. Then after alchemical and magical treatment, the disease regresses. Only malformed tissue remains. A cure? No viable infectious tissue. Experiment 5 - Describes a man with an abdominal wound, active growth of the malphaesance, no strong effect from the treatment given to #4. Tissues are infectious! "Using the subject as a vector for further experiments! Contamination continues to be problematic. The Sea has made an excellent containment chamber in the meantime. Perhaps the void is their natural home? Regardless, their ceaseless encroachment requires matter, thus I have begun construction on Project Sea Snake in the event of disaster." Experiment 12 - "I underestimated its versatility and have sealed the cold room. All progress lost! Damnit!" Experiment 13 - "The celestial has held-out much longer than the giant, but continues to deteriorate. The landscape has not mutated as in the cold room, but I remain prepared to seal the space if necessary."

A series of ledgers and logs...

The Forgotten Art of Hemocraft, by Randall H. Narr Over many decades, Randall Narr assembled an impressive body of notes summarizing his research and rediscovery of Hemomancy - the magical manipulation of one's lifeforce. This tome is the culmination of that research. An individual who spends a total of 24 hours reading and studying this book gains the "Forbidden Hemocraft" feat.

• You learn two Hemomancy spells which require your own lifeforce to power. Choose from the following list: blood lash, blood puppet, blood bath, gift of ab-life, sanguine sense
• The damage inflicted by your hemomantic sacrifices can not be reduced in any way, except by spending hemomancy points. Your spellcasting ability for these spells is Constitution.
• Your Hemomancy spells scale with your hemomancy die, 1d6. The sacrifice to cast them and, subsequently, the effect they produce can be increased by a number of 1d6 equal to your Constitution modifier.
• You gain 2 hemomancy points to spend on your bloodcraft (these points are added to any sorcery points you have from another source but can be used only on Hemomancy). One hemomancy point negates one hemomancy die's worth of sacrificial damage without reducing the spell effect. You regain all spent hemomancy points when you finish a long rest.

From the magical bookcase...

A nameless, weathered tome written in Loxodon: Preface:

• This book appears to be a collection of transcribed research journals, personal notes and letters, and interviews with a small group of scientists studying interplanar travel.

• It is labeled as Volume 2 of 3 and appears to be authored by “knowledge shepherd” Waylan Ulbar.

• You do not recognize the date of its compilation, nor do you recognize the brief notes describing the location of the event described herein (though there is a distinct mention of a “plane” that is not this one). It encourages the reader to consult Volume 1 for more detail regarding the context of this knowledge.

From the magical bookcase...

A nameless, weathered tome written in Loxodon: Collected Evidence, Part 1:

• The first part of the book is a jumbled assortment of interviews, journals, and letters describing a group of researchers studying interplanar travel.
• They crafted a device that was intended to open a gateway between planes. But their efforts stabilizing the portals and directing where they led were floundering. Instead they began to focus their efforts on investigating the netherspace between their portal openings, hoping it would lead to more reliable portal creation.
• This realm was neither here, nor there. Non-planar. But seemingly endless, empty, devoid of light, color, and matter. They called the space the Blind Eternities, and after countless tests and missions, they discovered that it was not as empty as they had thought.
• One day, when they opened their first portal, they met a shadowed being that communicated with them telepathically. It called itself the Voice of the Void, and later, ominously, the Herald of the Promised End.

From the magical bookcase...

A nameless, weathered tome written in Loxodon: Collected Evidence, Part 2:

• This discovery of "life" between the portals was groundbreaking. The scientists began to devote all their efforts to investigating this being.
• The scientists determined that the Voice of the Void was an a-physical entity made of no perceivable matter or energy. They believed it was a shared psychoturgic hallucination for a time.
• During the investigations, the being requested aid from the scientists. It explained that its Mother was trapped, bound to a tiny prison in the material world.
• It pleaded with the researchers. It offered immortality and boundless power in exchange. The scientists voted to refuse the offer and pause any future experiments with their gateway generating device. The creature became agitated and enraged. The team closed the portal, fearing that the being might become violent.
• Accounts of what occurred next varied and none of the surviving scientists can explain what went wrong or how these events were allowed to transpire, but all agree that the team chose to put the project on hold to assess its risk.

From the magical bookcase...

A nameless, weathered tome written in Loxodon: Collected Evidence, Part 3:

• Someone opened the portal. One scientist recalls that there was shouting and raised voices in anger. One scientist outright blames one of his dead colleagues, claiming that the man was quietly going mad ever since making first contact with the entity.
• Regardless of how and who, as soon as the portal opened, out spilled unimaginable horror. Ceaseless tentacular terrors manifested as they pushed through the open gate.
• The scientists panicked as they watched their colleagues turn inside out, flesh turned to writhing masses of viscera, spreading like decay. Walls of stone and steel morphed into a patchwork of brittle, skeletal lattice. Their minds were raked by a cacophony of telepathic, primal imagery as if from a beast caught in a trap. The need to escape, to grow, to feed, to spread and other incomprehensible thoughts.
• In the massacre that ensued, a few scientists managed to escape, but a single, brave individual managed to overload their gate generator, sealing the portal and cutting off the creatures from whatever invisible, extra-dimensional hand had been controlling them.

From the magical bookcase...

A nameless, weathered tome written in Loxodon: Collected Evidence, Part 4:

• After the portal closed, the beings that had pushed through withered into pale yellow dust, leaving behind naught but skeletal white chalk coraline lattices and iridescent fractal square honeycombs where their touch had wrought destruction.
• Even after complete disaster and the loss of countless lives, the surviving scientists could not help but study and record the event.
• The researchers find a name for the creatures from the void: Eldrazi.
• In their efforts to capture and catalog the horrors they witnessed, they created a series of grotesque sketches. Their unusually vibrant colors and twisting lines create a momentary optical illusion. Staring at the images for too long, you begin to feel an alien presence press into your mind, yearning to find purchase in this physical realm...

From the magical bookcase...