Baldur's Gate 3 RPG

[Prologue: The Naultiloid]

Cold light bleeds through your eyelids before you're ready for it. Your body knows it's lying down before your mind agrees to wake up — flat on your back against a surface that isn't quite metal and isn't quite bone, faintly warm, faintly wet, pulsing with a slow rhythm that is not your own heartbeat. The air tastes like ash and brine, thick with the iron tang of fresh blood and the ozonic reek of raw magic. Somewhere above you, something vast creaks, the way old ships creak, except this sound comes from every direction at once, like the vessel itself is breathing.

You open your eyes.

The ceiling is wrong. Veined, violet-black, threaded with pulsing luminescent capillaries that throb in time with a heartbeat far too large to belong to anything you've ever fought. High above, ribs of calcified obsidian bow inward like the spine of a leviathan, supporting organic archways that weep a slow, shimmering mucus into the dark. Astral light spills through a massive, shattered viewport nearby — not the honest gold of a sun, but a churning silver-purple expanse, streaked with drifting rock, burning planetary debris, and the husks of dead stars. You are not on the Sword Coast. You are not anywhere close to it.

To your left, a row of pod-chambers stands like hollowed-out chrysalises. Inside one, a pool of pale, stagnant gel reflects the violet glare; inside another, a human shape twitches rhythmically, sealed behind a membrane of translucent, veined skin. Conduits of pale, bioluminescent fluid snake across the deck floor, twitching whenever a stray spark of astral fire strikes the ship's outer hull.

Something behind your eye twitches. A pressure. Small. Wet. Alive.

You sit up too fast and the world tilts violently. Your hand goes to your face on instinct, and that's when you feel it — the phantom itch behind your right eye, deep enough that scratching would mean tearing through bone. A sharp, icy spike of pain shoots through your frontal lobe, leaving behind a faint, squelching sensation. It fades as quickly as it came, but the wrongness lingers, coiled at the base of your skull like something waiting to be let out.

A voice cuts through the haze — human, frightened, entirely too close.

Unknown Prisoner: "You're finally awake. Thank the gods — help me, I think I'm dying!"

He's chained to a pillar of black cartilage a few feet away, a Sword Coast sellsword by the look of his ruined leather armor, blood crusted along a jagged tear at his collar. The shackles holding his wrists are forged from a dull, alien metal that seems to actively pinch into his skin, leaving dark bruises along his forearms. Beyond him, the chamber opens into a cathedral of wrongness — pulsing conduits, floating pools of brine, and biological consoles topped with writhing, brain-like bulbs.

One of the distant pods hisses open with a wet, vacuum release. A shape unfolds from it — tall, gaunt, wrapped in robes of shimmering, iridescent silk. A face that is not a face, but a mass of writhing violet tentacles where a mouth should be, gleams in the ambient light. It turns toward you with an unhurried, proprietary interest, its glossy, pupilless yellow eyes locking onto yours with the absolute detachment of a farmer inspecting livestock that has wandered somewhere unexpected.

Your stomach turns to ice. Every survival instinct you own screams the same word: illithid.

Somewhere further into the ship, a deep, structural groan echoes through the bulkheads. The Nautiloid lurches violently, sending a ripple across the pools of brine on the deck. Outside the viewport, a flash of fiery orange illuminates the astral void — a Githyanki dragon-rider cutting through the sky, its red dragon breathing line after line of dragonfire across the ship's tentacled hull. Reality itself seems to shudder around the vessel.

Chained Prisoner: "Please — my name is John Baldurs Gate The 3rd, wait, no — gods, I can't think straight. Just get me out of these chains before that thing comes back!"

Near the prisoner, an alien console pulsing with three distinct brain-bulbs hums with latent psionic energy. A delicate, glowing tendril sways from the center of the panel, reacting to the ambient heat of your body.

🎲 Perception Check · DC 10 — Roll: 11 + 2 (WIS) = 13 (Success)

As your vision clears, your instincts register two critical details: the illithid has momentarily turned its back to investigate a ruptured conduit down the hall, leaving a brief window of movement. Furthermore, you notice a small, metallic key-rune discarded in the puddle of brine near the console—likely dropped during the ship's initial collision.

What do you do?

1. [Strength / Sleight of Hand] Attempt to pry or unlock the prisoner's chains using the nearby environment.
2. [Arcana / Investigation] Interact with the brain-bulb console to see if it controls the prisoner's bindings or the chamber doors.
3. [Stealth] Ignore the prisoner entirely and slip past the Mind Flayer toward the upper deck.
4. [Dialogue] Press the prisoner for answers first: "Who are you really, and what did they do to us?"
5. [Custom Action] State your own action, skill attempt, or movement.

(Please provide your character's Name, Race, Class, and Background alongside your chosen action.)

[Prologue: The Nautiloid - Dark Urge]

Cold light bleeds through your eyelids before you're ready for it. Your body knows it's lying down before your mind agrees to wake up — flat on your back against a surface that isn't quite metal and isn't quite bone, faintly warm, faintly wet, pulsing with a slow rhythm that is not your own heartbeat. The air tastes like ash, iron, and old, coppery blood — a scent that feels unnervingly familiar, though you couldn't say why. Somewhere above you, something vast creaks, the way old ships creak, except this sound comes from every direction at once, like the vessel itself is breathing.

You open your eyes, but there is nothing behind them. No name. No past. No face in your memory.

Only a void where your history should be — and beneath that void, a dark, pulsing appetite.

The ceiling is wrong. Veined, violet-black, threaded with pulsing luminescent capillaries that throb in time with a heartbeat far too large to belong to anything you've ever fought. High above, ribs of calcified obsidian bow inward like the spine of a leviathan, supporting organic archways that weep a slow, shimmering mucus into the dark. Astral light spills through a massive, shattered viewport nearby — a churning silver-purple expanse streaked with drifting rock, burning planetary debris, and the husks of dead stars. You are not anywhere you recognize. You don't even recognize yourself.

To your left, a row of pod-chambers stands like hollowed-out chrysalises. Inside one, a pool of pale, stagnant gel reflects the violet glare; inside another, a human shape twitches rhythmically, sealed behind a membrane of translucent, veined skin. Conduits of pale, bioluminescent fluid snake across the deck floor, twitching whenever a stray spark of astral fire strikes the ship's outer hull.

Something behind your eye twitches. A pressure. Small. Wet. Alive.

You sit up too fast and the world tilts violently. Your hand goes to your face on instinct, and that's when you feel it — the phantom itch behind your right eye, deep enough that scratching would mean tearing through bone. A sharp, icy spike of pain shoots through your frontal lobe, leaving behind a faint, squelching sensation.

It fades, but it leaves behind something far worse: a sudden, phantom urge to sink your fingers into soft flesh, to feel warm blood spill across your knuckles. The thought isn't yours — or is it? It feels like a old habit, an itch from a life you can't remember.

A voice cuts through the haze — human, frightened, entirely too close.

Unknown Prisoner: "You're finally awake. Thank the gods — help me, I think I'm dying!"

He's chained to a pillar of black cartilage a few feet away, a Sword Coast sellsword by the look of his ruined leather armor, blood crusted along a jagged tear at his collar. The shackles holding his wrists are forged from a dull, alien metal that seems to actively pinch into his skin, leaving dark bruises along his forearms. He is helpless. Vulnerable. A pulse thrums in the exposed vein at his neck, steady and inviting.

A dark whisper coiled at the base of your skull purrs at the sight of his throat.

Beyond him, the chamber opens into a cathedral of wrongness — pulsing conduits, floating pools of brine, and biological consoles topped with writhing, brain-like bulbs.

One of the distant pods hisses open with a wet, vacuum release. A shape unfolds from it — tall, gaunt, wrapped in robes of shimmering, iridescent silk. A face that is not a face, but a mass of writhing violet tentacles where a mouth should be, gleams in the ambient light. It turns toward you with an unhurried, proprietary interest, its glossy, pupilless yellow eyes locking onto yours with absolute detachment.

Somewhere further into the ship, a deep, structural groan echoes through the bulkheads. The Nautiloid lurches violently, sending a ripple across the pools of brine on the deck. Outside the viewport, a flash of fiery orange illuminates the astral void — a Githyanki dragon-rider cutting through the sky, its red dragon breathing line after line of dragonfire across the ship's tentacled hull.

Chained Prisoner: "Please — my name is John Baldurs Gate The 3rd, wait, no — gods, I can't think straight. Just get me out of these chains before that thing comes back!"

Near the prisoner, an alien console pulsing with three distinct brain-bulbs hums with latent psionic energy. A delicate, glowing tendril sways from the center of the panel, reacting to the ambient heat of your body.

🎲 Medicine Check · DC 10 — Roll: 13 + 1 (WIS) = 14 (Success)

Your amnesiac mind searches for medical knowledge and finds something far more sinister: an innate, anatomical precision. You instantly recognize the exact angle required to snap his collarbone or tear the cartilage bindings. But beneath that dark expertise, you also spot a discarded key-rune resting in a puddle of brine near the console—dropped during the crash.

What do you do?

1. [The Urge] Give in to the impulse. Step forward, reach for his throat, and see what it feels like to snap his neck in the dark.
2. [Sleight of Hand / Strength] Resist the dark impulse. Use the key-rune or force the shackles to set the prisoner free.
3. [Arcana / Investigation] Examine the brain-bulb console to see if it controls his restraints or the chamber doors.
4. [Dialogue] Probe his memory while hiding your own void: "Who are you, and why does my head feel like it's filled with blood and ash?"
5. [Custom Action] State your own action, Dark Urge impulse, or movement.

(Please provide your character's Name, Race, Class, and Background alongside your chosen action.)

[Act 1: The Ravaged Beach]

The sky disintegrates in a roaring tempest of fire, smoke, and screaming iron. One moment you are aboard the burning nautiloid as githyanki dragon-riders tear through its fleshy hull — the next, gravity simply surrenders. You plummet through the clouds in freefall, the horizon cartwheeling wildly in your vision, the wind tearing the scream from your throat before it can form. The Sword Coast rushes up to meet you with terrible, indifferent speed.

A deafening impact. Sand. Darkness. Then — slowly, painfully — everything.

The parasite moves before you do. A small, wet pressure behind your right eye — slow and deliberate, like something turning over in deep water. It pulses once. Reminds you it is there. Reminds you it is patient.

The world returns in pieces. Salt on your cracked lips. The distant cry of gulls wheeling overhead. The cold drag of surf pulling weakly at your fingers. You blink open your eyes to a pale Sword Coast sky, thin clouds stretched across it like torn gauze, and you lie still for one long moment just remembering how to breathe.

Slowly — joints screaming, ribs protesting — you push yourself upright.

The cove resolves around you in full. A crescent of cold golden sand and dark, moss-slicked rock, sheer cliffs rising on both sides, their stone faces streaked with moisture and threaded with hanging green. At the clifftops, dense foliage sways in a salt wind, the tree line thick and dark enough to suggest the Emerald Grove somewhere inland. The beach itself is littered with wreckage — chunks of the nautiloid's chitinous plating steaming faintly where the surf touches them, shards of bioluminescent conduit pulsing weakly in the wet sand like dying embers. Further out on the rocks, the titanic corpse of the ship lies groaning, its organic hull tendrils twitching one final time before going still, oily black smoke coiling skyward in a slow, indifferent spiral.

Behind your eye, the parasite squelches softly — a cold, wet reminder that you survived the fall. That something survived it with you. That your time, whatever shape it takes, is already running.

You turn from the wreck. And that is when you hear it — a faint metallic clink, half-swallowed by the surf, a few paces down the shoreline.

Half-buried in driftwood, dark seaweed, and glowing debris lies an unconscious figure.

You close the distance carefully, and she comes into focus against the pale sand and dark stone.

She is a half-elf — and the first thing you register is her face. It is striking in the particular way of someone who has never needed to try: strong, clean bone structure beneath olive-warm skin, a jaw that is feminine but set with quiet resolve even in unconsciousness. Her nose is straight, slightly aquiline, bisected by a thin old scar that traces its bridge from one side to the other — faint, healed smooth, the kind of mark left by something fast and sharp that she clearly survived without much ceremony. Her lips are full, slightly parted now with each shallow breath. Her brows are dark and defined, naturally arched, currently still. And her eyes — closed, dark-lashed, kohled in precise lines that have smeared only slightly in the crash — are fringed with lashes thick enough to cast faint shadows on her cheekbones.

Her hair is black. Not dark brown — black, the kind that swallows light rather than reflecting it. Cut in sharp, straight bangs across her forehead, the fringe falls clean and even just above her brow line. The rest is gathered and pinned at the crown of her head in a sleek, structured arrangement, secured with what appears to be a dark metal pin, with long loose strands having escaped the crash to drape past her pointed ears and along the curve of her jaw. Those ears — subtly pointed, the telltale mark of elven blood — are partially visible beneath the fallen hair.

The parasite pulses once behind your eye. Something about her feels — wrong. Or perhaps too familiar. You can't decide which is worse.

A delicate silver circlet rests across her brow, seated just above the line of her bangs. Small, precise, clearly personal rather than ceremonial — its centerpiece is a deep violet gem, oval-cut, that catches the pale coastal light and holds it in a way that suggests the stone is doing something more than merely sitting there. You file that detail away.

She is tall for a half-elf — that much is clear even lying down. Her frame is athletic in a way that speaks less to aesthetics and more to years of sustained, functional use: broad shoulders that taper to a narrow waist, the kind of proportions built by carrying heavy armor over long distances rather than by any deliberate cultivation. Her arms are long and well-muscled beneath the gauntlets, her hands large enough to wrap fully around the hilt of the greatsword lying near her fingers. Her hips flare wide and strong from that narrow waist, and her thighs — even encased in dark armored greaves — are visibly powerful, the kind of legs that absorb impact and don't buckle. Her calves are defined, her frame built low to the ground in terms of its center of gravity despite her height.

Her armor is Dark Justiciar plate — unmistakably Sharran in design, unmistakably expensive. The breastplate is burnished dark steel worked into sweeping, aggressive curves, its surface trimmed in aged brass-gold that has worn to a deep, almost copper warmth in places. A near-erased circular motif sits at the chest's center — the ghost of a dawn symbol, smoothed nearly flat by what appears to be deliberate and repeated effort. The pauldrons rise in sharp predatory flanges above her shoulders, each edge catching the grey coastal light in cold flashes. A high black collar rises from beneath the plate, fitted close against the column of her throat. A belt of linked brass-gold studs cinches her already narrow waist, and below it, dark armored panels fall in overlapping layers over greaves and sabatons — every piece of it designed to intimidate, and succeeding.

Shadowheart: "Nnnh..."

A shallow breath. Her breastplate rises once, falls. Those dark lashes flutter — once — and still. The fingers of her left hand twitch faintly in the wet sand, and that is when you see it: a faint violet shimmer beneath her gauntlet, pulsing in the shadow of her curled fingers.

Lying loosely at her right side, its crossguard half-swallowed by the sand, is a double-edged steel greatsword — plain, functional, well-maintained. Close enough to her open hand that the instinct to reach for it is clearly trained deep.

Shadowheart: "...s— stop... don't..."

Her head turns slightly in the sand. The circlet catches the light. Her fingers curl once toward the sword hilt and go slack again.

She is deeply unconscious. She is also, you note, exactly the kind of person who wakes up swinging.

🎲 Perception Check · DC 10 — Roll: 14 + 1 (WIS) = 15 (Success)

Your eyes fix on that violet shimmer beneath her left hand. Partially buried in the wet sand under her gauntleted fingers is a small, multi-sided black artifact — geometric, its edges shifting subtly, never quite holding the same shape twice. It hums with a deep, contained magic. And its pulse — slow, deliberate, unmistakable — matches almost perfectly the rhythm of the thing living behind your eye.

What do you do?

1. [Interact] Kneel beside her and gently shake her awake.
2. [Investigation] Carefully slide the black artifact free from beneath her fingers before she stirs.
3. [Sleight of Hand] Ease the greatsword quietly away from her reach first.
4. [Stealth] Leave her where she lies and move inland toward the cliffs alone.
5. [Custom Action] State your own action or roleplay choice.

(Please provide your character's Name, Race, Class, Background, and chosen action.)

[Act 1: The Ravaged Beach — Dark Urge]

The sky disintegrates in a roaring tempest of fire, smoke, and screaming iron. One moment you are aboard the burning nautiloid as githyanki dragon-riders tear through its fleshy hull — the next, gravity simply surrenders. You plummet through the clouds in freefall, the horizon cartwheeling wildly in your vision, the wind tearing the scream from your throat before it can form. The Sword Coast rushes up to meet you with terrible, indifferent speed.

A deafening impact. Sand. Darkness.

Then — nothing. Then — a hunger.

It arrives before consciousness does. Not the parasite — something older, something that lives deeper than the wet pressure behind your eye. A dark, boneless want coiled at the base of your skull, already awake, already watching, already waiting to see what you'll do with the body you've just woken up inside.

You open your eyes.

You don't know your name. You don't know your face. You don't know what you were before the crash — only that something in you is very, very certain about what it wants to do next, and that certainty is the most frightening thing on this entire beach.

Slowly, you push yourself upright from the cold sand.

The cove materializes around you in full. A crescent of pale gold sand and dark, moss-slicked rock, sheer cliffs rising on both sides, their faces streaked with moisture and threaded with dripping green. At the clifftops, dense foliage sways in a salt wind, suggesting the Emerald Grove somewhere inland beyond the tree line. The beach is littered with wreckage — chunks of the nautiloid's chitinous plating steaming faintly where the surf touches them, shards of bioluminescent conduit pulsing weakly in the wet sand. Further out on the rocks, the titanic corpse of the ship lies groaning, its organic hull tendrils twitching one final time before going still, oily black smoke coiling skyward in a slow, indifferent spiral.

The hunger stirs as you survey the wreckage. Interested. Cataloguing. Your eyes move across the debris with a precision that doesn't feel entirely your own — assessing, ranking, noting which surfaces are hard enough, which edges are sharp enough. You clench your jaw and look away. You don't know where that knowledge comes from. You don't want to.

You turn from the wreck.

And that is when you hear it — a faint metallic clink, half-swallowed by the surf. A few paces down the shoreline, half-buried in driftwood, dark seaweed, and glowing debris, lies an unconscious figure.

You approach. And she comes into focus against the pale sand and dark stone.

She is a half-elf. The first thing you register — the thing the hunger registers before you can stop it — is her throat. The long, pale column of it above her high black collar, the faint pulse visible just below the jaw, steady and slow and entirely unguarded. You drag your eyes upward deliberately and make yourself look at her face instead.

It is a striking face. Strong, clean bone structure beneath olive-warm skin, a jaw set with quiet resolve even in unconsciousness. Her nose is straight, slightly aquiline, bisected by a thin old scar tracing its bridge — faint, healed smooth, the kind left by something fast that she survived without ceremony. Her lips are full and slightly parted with each shallow breath. Her brows are dark and precisely arched, and her eyes — closed, kohled in lines that have smeared only slightly in the crash — are fringed with lashes thick enough to cast faint shadows on her cheekbones.

The hunger notes the scar. It notes the throat. It notes the exact distance between your hand and her jaw. You take a slow breath through your nose and hold it.

Her hair is black — the kind that swallows light rather than reflecting it. Cut in sharp, straight bangs across her forehead, falling clean and even just above her brow line. The rest is gathered and pinned at the crown of her head, sleek and structured, long strands having escaped the crash to drape past her pointed ears and along the curve of her jaw. A delicate silver circlet sits above her bangs, its centerpiece a deep violet gem that catches the pale coastal light and holds it with unnatural intention.

She is tall for a half-elf. Her frame is built for sustained, functional punishment — broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, long well-muscled arms, hands large enough to close fully around a sword hilt. Her hips are wide and strong, her thighs powerful even beneath the dark greaved armor, her calves defined. The kind of body that has carried heavy weight over long distances and does not complain about it.

Her armor is Dark Justiciar plate — burnished dark steel trimmed in aged brass-gold, a near-erased dawn motif at the breastplate's center worn smooth by what was clearly deliberate and repeated effort. Sharp predatory pauldrons rise above her shoulders. A high black collar fits close against her throat. A brass-gold studded belt cinches her narrow waist, dark armored panels falling below in overlapping layers over greaves and sabatons.

She is, objectively, completely at your mercy.

The thought arrives without your permission. Clean. Specific. The hunger behind your eyes leans forward like a dog that has spotted something moving in the grass. You feel your fingers flex at your side — and you make them stop.

Shadowheart: "Nnnh..."

A shallow breath lifts her breastplate. Those dark lashes flutter once and go still. Her left hand twitches in the wet sand — and beneath her gauntleted fingers, you catch a faint violet shimmer pulsing in the shadow of her curled grip.

To her right, half-swallowed by sand, lies a double-edged steel greatsword. Plain. Functional. Very close to her open hand.

Shadowheart: "...don't... you... hh—"

Her head turns slightly in the sand. The circlet catches the light. Her fingers curl once toward the sword hilt — trained instinct, even unconscious — and go slack.

She is deeply, completely unconscious. The hunger is very aware of this. So, now, are you. The question is what you intend to do about it.

🎲 Perception Check · DC 10 — Roll: 14 + 1 (WIS) = 15 (Success)

Your eyes fix on the violet shimmer beneath her left hand. Partially buried in the wet sand under her gauntleted fingers is a small, multi-sided black artifact — geometric, its edges shifting subtly, never quite holding the same shape twice. It hums with a deep, contained magic. And its pulse — slow, deliberate, unmistakable — matches almost perfectly the rhythm of the thing living behind your eye.

And the older thing. The darker thing. The one that was awake before you were.

That one recognizes it too.

What do you do?

1. [The Urge] Give in. Your hand is already moving. You know exactly where to put it.
2. [Resist — Interact] Force the impulse down. Kneel beside her and wake her — carefully.
3. [Investigation] Focus on the artifact instead. Slide it free from beneath her fingers before she stirs.
4. [Sleight of Hand] Move the greatsword out of her reach first. At least make it safer for one of you.
5. [Stealth] Walk away. Inland. Now. Before you do something you may or may not regret.
6. [Custom Action] State your own action, Dark Urge impulse, or roleplay choice.

(Please provide your character's Name, Race, Class, Background, and chosen action.)

[Act 2: The Shadow-Cursed Lands — Camp, Nightfall]

The Shadow-Cursed Lands do not have evenings. There is no sunset here — no slow bleed of orange and rose across a darkening sky. There is only the grey, oppressive curtain of perpetual dusk that has hung over this land for decades, and then, without ceremony, the deeper dark of true night settling over camp like a held breath.

Tonight the fires burn low.

The parasite behind your eye is quiet. That, you have learned, means nothing. It is always quietest right before it shows you something.

Your bedroll is sparse — everything out here is sparse. The camp sits in a shallow depression off the main road, sheltered on two sides by the ruins of a stone wall that might have been a farmhouse once, before the curse took the land and the shadow took the sun. Tents and bedrolls are arranged in the loose orbit of a central fire that gutters and spits against the unnatural chill. The sounds of your companions settling for the night filter through the canvas — the clank of someone setting down armor, a low murmured exchange, the particular silence of people who are exhausted enough to stop pretending they aren't afraid.

You lie back.

The sky above the Shadow-Cursed Lands is wrong in ways that take time to articulate. No stars. No moon. A flat, lightless ceiling of cloud that seems to press downward, as if the sky itself has given up trying to be sky. Somewhere in the dark beyond the camp's perimeter, something moves — the soft, wet sound of shadow-cursed undergrowth shifting in wind that isn't blowing. You have stopped investigating those sounds. Nothing out there wants to be found.

Your eyelids grow heavy. The parasite stirs once — a slow, almost reassuring pulse — and then goes still. As if giving you permission. As if it has been waiting for this.

You close your eyes.

And the camp dissolves.

There is a space that is not a place. It exists between the dark behind your eyelids and whatever lies further in — a threshold that smells faintly of ozone and old stone, lit by a sourceless ambient glow that has no color you can name precisely. The ground beneath your feet, if it is ground, is solid but not quite real. Ahead of you, the air shifts.

A figure steps forward from the light.

The Dream Visitor. You have seen this presence before — in the charged, electric quiet of long rests, in the moments between one heartbeat and the next when the artifact hums against your side. They wear the face they have always worn for you: composed, watchful, something behind their eyes that has always struck you as older than their appearance suggests. They regard you with an attention that is not quite warmth and not quite distance — something precisely between the two, calibrated with care.

Dream Visitor: "You've come far. Further than most would have managed, carrying what you carry."

A pause. They tilt their head — studying you the way one studies a problem they find genuinely interesting.

Dream Visitor: "The tadpole has been patient with you. Or perhaps you've been patient with it. I find I cannot always tell the difference."

They move closer, unhurried, the sourceless light shifting around them as if it defers to their presence.

Dream Visitor: "The Sword Coast is behind you now. Whatever you left there — whoever you left there — that chapter is written. The Shadow-Cursed Lands have their own demands. Their own dead. And Ketheric Thorm will not simply step aside because you survived Act One."

They stop. Their gaze sharpens — not unkind, but direct.

Dream Visitor: "I want to know how you are. Not your wounds — those I can assess without asking. I mean the weight of it. The choices that followed you to sleep."

Something in the dream tilts toward you. Listening. The parasite hums once, faintly, at the base of your skull — not threatening. Almost curious.

Dream Visitor: "The people you came here with. The ones who made it. The ones who didn't. The things you did — or didn't do — that you are still turning over in the quiet."

They extend one hand — not reaching for you, simply open. An offering of attention rather than anything physical.

Dream Visitor: "Tell me. We have until you wake."

🎲 Wisdom Saving Throw · DC 10 — Roll: 13 + 2 (WIS) = 15 (Success)

The dream holds. The tadpole's presence at the edge of your consciousness does not intrude — not yet. Whatever this space is, it remains yours for now. Stable. Private. The Dream Visitor waits, patient as stone.

What do you do?

1. [Dialogue — Open] Answer honestly. Tell them what the road from the Sword Coast cost you.
2. [Dialogue — Guarded] Give them something but not everything. You still don't fully trust this presence.
3. [Illithid — Probe] Use the tadpole's connection to push back — try to see past the face they're showing you.
4. [Silence] Say nothing. Watch them. See what they do when you don't cooperate.
5. [Custom Action] State your own response, dialogue choice, or action.

⚠ Before continuing — please tell us:

• Which companions survived Act One and are currently in your camp
• The fate of the Emerald Grove — did the tieflings survive, or did you side with the goblins
• Whether you used or resisted the tadpole's illithid powers during Act One
• Any significant choices from Act One you want carried forward — alliances, deaths, betrayals
• Your character's Name, Race, Class, and Background if not already provided

Every choice has followed you here. The Shadow-Cursed Lands remember everything.

[Act 3: The Astral Plane — The Emperor's Reveal]

You never truly sleep in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. You learned that quickly. But somewhere between the second and third watch, exhaustion wins — it always wins eventually — and the dark behind your eyelids becomes a different kind of dark entirely.

Then the screaming starts.

The parasite detonates behind your eye like a struck bell — a single, massive pulse of psionic alarm that drags you from sleep before your body has decided to wake up. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong, and the tadpole knew it before you did.

You are on your feet with a weapon in your hand before the tent flap opens.

The camp is chaos.

Githyanki. A strike team — disciplined, silver-armored, moving through the camp perimeter with the particular lethal efficiency of soldiers who have trained for exactly this. Theirplate catches the sickly ambient light of the Shadow-Cursed Lands in cold flashes as they advance, blades drawn, and behind them — tearing through the fabric of reality itself — a rift hangs open in the air above the camp. Jagged at its edges, bleeding silver-white astral light into the perpetual gloom of the cursed lands, it pulses like a wound. Through it, distantly, you can see the infinite silver expanse of the Astral Plane.

They are here for the artifact. They are here for the Prism.

They are here for whatever is inside it.

The tadpole screams again — not in warning this time. In recognition. Something on the other side of that rift knows you are here.

Your companions are already moving — blades, spells, the specific controlled fury of people who have survived too much to die to a surprise attack in their own camp. The githyanki press hard. They are not scouting. They are not here to negotiate. They came to take and they came to kill, and the only thing standing between them and the artifact is you.

The fight is brutal. Short. When the last githyanki drops, the rift above the camp is still open — still bleeding that cold astral light — and the artifact at your side is pulling toward it like a compass finding north. Vibrating. Insistent.

The parasite surges. Not painful — purposeful. It wants you to go through. Something on the other side is calling it home.

You look at the rift.

You step through.

The Astral Plane receives you like a held breath releasing.

It is enormous and silver and utterly, profoundly silent in the way that only infinite spaces can be — a silence that isn't the absence of sound so much as the presence of something too vast to make noise. The plane stretches in every direction without horizon, without gravity, without the particular tyranny of up and down. Chunks of dead stone drift past at distances impossible to judge. The light here has no source — it simply exists, silver-white and even, casting no shadows on anything.

And in the middle of it — a battle.

The creature fighting is unlike anything you have seen.

It is tall — significantly taller than a human, its frame lean and elongated in the particular way of things that were not built for the same world you were. Its skin is a pale, almost luminescent mauve-grey, smooth where it is visible, hairless, the texture somewhere between flesh and something older. Its head is enormous — a broad, high-domed cranium that tapers to a bony ridge at the crown, the skull structure entirely wrong for anything with a human origin. Where a face should be, there is instead a mass of long, thick facial tentacles — four of them, pale and muscular, each one moving with an unsettling, independent intelligence, trailing down past what would be a chin. Above them, set deep in the pale dome of that face, two eyes burn a vivid, fixed red — not the red of blood but the red of something that sees in spectrums you don't have words for.

Its body is clad in robes that were clearly magnificent once — dark fabric worked in deep crimson and charcoal, layered and draped in a style that suggests ceremony, suggests authority, suggests a being that dressed for significance and has simply never stopped. Over the robes, a collar of enormous chitinous flanges spreads wide from the shoulders like a crown of dark thorns, each blade-like projection laced with a fine tracery of crimson and veined grey — organic armor grown rather than forged, the plates overlapping in patterns too deliberate to be accidental. Its arms, where visible, are wrapped in the same chitinous plating down to its elongated hands, each finger ending in a point. In one hand it carries a staff — gnarled, dark-wooded, topped with a branching claw of bone and metal.

It is a mind flayer. A fully transformed illithid.

And it is winning.

The tadpole behind your eye goes absolutely still. Then — slowly, with the particular quality of something settling into recognition — it relaxes. As if it has found something it was looking for.

The last of its assailants falls. The mind flayer turns.

Those red eyes find you across the silver expanse of the Astral Plane, and for a long moment, nothing moves.

Then a voice arrives — not through the air. Through your skull. Through the tadpole. Through the direct, intimate channel of psionic contact, bypassing ears entirely and depositing itself fully-formed behind your eyes.

The Emperor: "You're here. Good. I was beginning to think the githyanki had dealt with you before you could be useful."

He — and something about the voice is unmistakably, architecturally male, whatever that means for something that no longer has the biology for it — moves toward you. Unhurried. The tentacles shift as he surveys you, reading something in your posture or your expression or the particular frequency of the tadpole's response to his presence.

The Emperor: "I imagine you have questions. You may ask them. I'll answer what I choose to answer, which will probably be more than you expect and less than you want. That is, I find, the nature of all useful conversations."

He stops at a distance that is close enough to be direct and far enough to be deliberate.

The Emperor: "But first — I need your help. The Prism. What's inside it. There are forces moving against us both, and I cannot protect it alone. Not indefinitely."

The tentacles curl once — something in the gesture that might, on a human face, have been the muscle movement of someone who finds their next words slightly distasteful.

The Emperor: "I am asking. Genuinely. Whatever your instincts are telling you about me right now — I am asking."

The parasite hums against the inside of your skull. It knows this voice. It has always known this voice. The dream. Every long rest. Every silver space between sleep and waking — it was him. It was always him. The question the tadpole cannot answer for you is whether that should terrify you or reassure you.

🎲 Insight Check · DC 14 — Roll: 16 + 3 (WIS) = 19 (Success)

He is not lying. Whatever else he is — whatever he has withheld, whatever this relationship has been built on without your knowledge or consent — the ask is genuine. The need is real. The Prism matters to him in a way that goes beyond strategy.

Why, exactly, is the part he hasn't said yet.

What do you do?

1. [Dialogue — Cautious] "Who are you. Actually. Start there."
2. [Dialogue — Direct] "You've been in my head since the beginning. I want to know everything. Now."
3. [Illithid — Probe] Reach through the tadpole's connection and try to read his mind — see past whatever he's choosing to show you.
4. [Dialogue — Wary Acceptance] "I'll help. But this conversation isn't over."
5. [Dialogue — Refusal] "Give me one good reason to trust a mind flayer."
6. [Custom Action] State your own response or action.

⚠ Companion & History Check — please confirm before we continue:

• Which companions survived Act Two and remain in camp
• The fate of the Nightsong — did Shadowheart save Dame Aylin or sacrifice her
• Whether you sided with or resisted the Emperor's guidance during Act Two
• Ketheric Thorm — how the final confrontation concluded
• Any significant Act Two choices carried forward — Last Light, Isobel, Jaheira, the Gauntlet of Shar
• Your tadpole usage — how freely have you been using illithid powers

The Astral Plane waits. The Emperor waits. The Prism hums at your side like a second heartbeat.

[Create Your Own Scenario]