The Things That Fill The Space Between

Outsiders 
Outsiders were only accidently allowed into the world. A thousand and five hundred years ago, the Material Plane and the Outside came into contact for an instant, and in that instant, millions of its inhabitants appeared in the world. But then the planes (Shadow Realm and Aether) once again separated the Outside from the Material Plane and they became trapped. For decades outsiders ‘plagued’ the Northern Realm. Their sudden appearance brought chaos and confusion down on all the inhabitants of the world. Now, all but eradicated, a few have escaped to the deep, ancient places under the earth.

Outsiders are as peculiar as they are horrible to behold. They are not native to Rhen. Rare and hidden in inconspicuous places, many take refuge deep underground. Powerful outsiders often reside alone, while other outsiders tend to come together, probably for better protection from the inhabitants of this world that seem to hate them.

The presence of outsiders is discombobulating. The room seems to breathe. The ground fluctuates like thick mud with each step. Sense of self, control over emotions and physical reactions have a complete disconnect from reality. After an experience with an outsider, one could describe it as an overwhelming sense of horror or madness, but only for a complete lack of ability to cope with the sensation.

Environmental Effects: Once in the affected area creatures have a tenuous grasp on their sanity. Creatures forced to make any check risk becoming confused if they fail it. Making a full movement requires an Intuition check.  

·  Outsiders have alien minds; they are unaffected by mind-affecting spells. If a spell or ability attempts to see into the mind of an outsider it necessitates a Will resistance check, DC 10 or it falls unconscious for 1d4 minutes. A successful check leaves the creature dazed for 1 round.

·  The physical laws that govern the Material Plane do not limit outsiders; they can change size at the cost of a movement within one size category of their stated size (for example a Large outsider can become a Huge or Medium sized outsider).

·  Outsiders are immune to temporal effects.

·  Immunity to all conditions and critical hits, except catching fire, falling, and death.

·  Damage reduction/magic.

·  Outsiders have no Luck score.

·  Outsiders have no shadow in the Shadow Realm.

 Art by Magdalena Zwierzchowska

Aspect Thief 
This truly horrible sight creeps and pulsates, summoning limbs, heads, and tails from its grotesque body. It constantly changes appendages as it copies the forms of the creatures it consumes.

Aspect thieves are an amalgamation of horrors. Like an amoeba, its fluid form collapses on itself and spreads across the ground, spontaneously forming legs that push and arms that pull it along. It can form multiple appendages to attack its foe, but most often it attempts to grab its target and draw it into its body. Unlike a chimera, an aspect thief never seems to form a whole body, though it comes close. Its body has the consistency and appearance of inside-out flesh except where it has morphed its body into familiar, albeit misshapen shapes. 

Cave Maw 
Smooth cave walls, dagger-like stalactites, dripping water, nothing gives warning to this creature’s presence until a low rumble just seconds before its attack reveals the true nature of this living geological mimic.

The cave maw is named for its seemingly singular purpose. Hiding in the deep dark, this creature can lie in wait for long years without eating. Cave maws may also be found mimicking cave entrances, the halls of abandoned castles, even underwater tunnels. When opportunity strikes, the cave maw is deadly efficient. The ceiling falls on its prey as if collapsed. As it moves the scraping of its body against the stone emits a peculiar rumble. This is the only warning any of its prey receive before its mass envelopes it. In the event it misses its prey the cave maw can pursue it through the darkness. It is nearly invisible while it moves even in the light. Only by finding a means of marking its body can it be ‘seen’. And though it is slow moving and betrayed by the sound it makes, it is a relentless pursuer, aided by the confusion of navigating in the dark, tight places it resides. Surprisingly, the cave maw is also able to make short quick attacks. A cave maw is able to use parts of its body to quickly strike out at prey at close range.

Chimera
 Head of a wolf and body of a giant spider, wings of a bat or body of a lion, tail of a snake, breathing fire from the goat head rising from its back, or a two-headed horse arising from a long slimy body with no legs, a chimera can be anything, but always an abomination.

The chimera is one of few outsiders that enter into the mythology of several cultures. In the Tegean mythos, chimeras are commonly depicted as monstrous creatures with the body and head of a lion, snake for a tail, and with the head of a goat rising from its back. In the Free Realm, chimeras are depicted in many different ways, in particular there are dozens of old carvings around the Free City depicting a wolf-like creature with two heads and wings of a giant bat. In much art, however, there is no distinct pattern to the chimera’s form. In the greater Free Realm, one particularly famous carving depicts the winged two-headed wolf partnered with a similar creature, but with scales and a spiny ridge on its back. After much debate, the scholars of the Free City Library have determined that it too, is a chimera.

Chimeras like other outsiders are alien to the Material Plane. Their true state is amorphous and mindset inconceivable. Attempting to read its mind is dangerous. In turn, a chimera is able to read the minds of any living being and change its shape in accordance to the shapes familiar to its target. The chimera is almost certainly unable to sort through the thoughts of creatures on this Plane, being a creature of the Outside, but it is able to see into them, resulting in a discombobulated jumble of thoughts. It combines the many creatures’ thoughts taking on aspects of many forms in an attempt to appear more familiar, thereby becoming something quite the opposite. Chimeras have been hunted to near extinction, but some still exist. They are powerful creatures and the few surviving after the Great War and the long years following are a testament to that.

Art by Magdalena Zwierzchowska

Doppelgänger 
Standing as tall as a man, thin, gaunt; or with the appearance of a woman, lovely, buxom; or an aelf, broad and strong; the doppelgänger is anything it wills itself to be. It has no native shape in the Material Realm.

After the Great War, the invading outsiders were hunted, and ultimately wiped out or escaped to hidden places. Only the cleverest, well-hidden outsiders survived. Doppelgängers are the shrewdest, most adaptable of the invaders, hiding amongst the creatures that would hunt them until they were forgotten with time.

Doppelgängers are extraordinarily intelligent. They are creatures of strategy, manipulation, and patience. They are perhaps the most dangerous of the outsiders that came to the Northern Realm. Able to take on the appearance of any humanoid and practically immortal, doppelgängers are not only intelligent, but also experienced in the various crafts, professions, and talents that are required to survive in the Material Plane. And though they thrive in secret, as all outsiders, doppelgängers wish to return to their native environment, the Outside. The means to accomplish this is unknown, the secret having died with the last of the Ancients, but doppelgängers are patient and cunning. They know that someday the secret will be discovered.

Gryre

This beast seems to be made up of mirrors. Its body is plated with countless immaculate reflective surfaces. It has no head, four limbs, and innumerable sharp edges. Its movement is the sound of a thousand mirrors breaking, its assault the source of nightmares.

The gryre was a creature most dreaded during the Great War. The aelfs called it deimos and the dunaelfs, strach. Its appearance struck fear into the hardiest of warriors. Hunted to extinction, gryre were thought long dead until the Aelf War, when one was discovered locked away in the deepest dungeon of Old Mramor. These creatures destroy the flesh with their claws and razor sharp edges, but otherwise stand immobile until sensed by another. Gryre can only "see" if seen, "hear" if heard, otherwise they are immaculate sculptures with no senses. Wizards of the aelfin House of Maleinos discovered that gryre trap the souls of creatures they destroy, somehow imprisoning them within their body. Only by destroying a gryre can the souls of the creatures killed by it be released.

Horror 
An abomination in every sense of the word, it is a churning mass of toothed orifices, plant growths, rocks, groping tendrils, eyes, and shadows; its appearance changing into ever more monstrous forms.

A confused mass of ever-changing organic and inorganic materials, a horror can appear as a groping mound of vines, stumps, and rocks one moment and then erupt into a hoard of what seems like squirrels, skittering across its surface out of a dozen gaps in its body, which then change again into sharp teeth and mouths that clack together as if made from wood. Horrors bear a strong resemblance to aspect thieves, except that a horror is actually a number of organisms clumped together. It’s nearly impossible to tell that they are an amalgamation of creatures, but after great violence a horror will break apart and flee, or feign retreat. One way to tell a horror and aspect thief apart is that a horror does not change forms at rest. It can sit without moving or changing for many weeks before it needs to feed. Another way to tell them apart is the feeling of dread it emits as psychic energy. In fact, this is how it got its name. 

Mimic 
This creature, like other outsiders is able to change its appearance. It is set apart by its knack for mimicking objects. It may appear as large as a treasure chest or as small as an axe. Its victims may not realize a mimic’s true nature until the claws of the beast reach out from the axe pommel, holdfast, and turn on its wielder.

Like doppelgängers, mimics have survived by hiding amongst the population of Rhen. It mimics objects from Small to Large. Its purpose is the same as other outsiders; to survive until it is free to once again roam the infinity of the Outside, with the additional motivation to feed. Mimics lure victims by impersonating objects familiar to them. When a victim comes near to a mimic, it strikes, reaching for its victim with strong appendages and strangling its prey before absorbing it into its body to digest.

  

A Fitting End

The story started without any freakish abominations but with time evolved. If you remember our last campaign session, ended with Eckehard being eviscerated, (Gryres). But before all that, we had to reboot the campaign. It started with Eckehard the dhampir, Camilla the creature, and ‘Coco-bean’ the Magpie. They hadn’t yet met two of our current party members, Alia the wizard and Trafalgalard the half blood until Eckehard woke in an underground cell and Camilla and Coco had found themselves in a daze outside the town of Kine, traveling with two residents they knew to be dead (in fact, Eckehard had killed them in the first part of the adventure).

This was the Lord Silver campaign. The Silvers were a prominent family with a history stretching back to the once Masters of the realm– and apparently, it was just beginning to catch up to them. The town was plagued with disease and the town’s inhabitants were unwilling to confide in us. We had never really gotten to the bottom of that story arc, but after a long break and the introduction of the two new players, the story restarted with a twist. Apparently, a mysterious man named Doctor Nylor had entered the story in our absence and became the center of a whole new mess of problems for the town– beginning with the Silvers, who had apparently disappeared. Fast forward a few sessions and we find ourselves in a place outside the Material Plane. This ‘complex’ seemed to consist of micro universes, connected by portals and made to look like the natural habitats of those creatures imprisoned within them. One of the first we came to, was home to a little girl named Elizabeth, who was not only from the Free Realm, but the Free Realm of hundreds of years ago. Next, we entered a room with a Gwyllion, who apparently had just given birth but had her child stripped from her. There was also a room with a sentient tree, one with a crow, and a room that entered into outer space (which nearly killed Eckehard). We had ended with Eckehard going off alone to the room with a crow. There he had found a portal covered in an opaque sheen (which later turned out to be a Gryre– that's what Eckehard gets for trying to punch his way through the portal).

After his near-death experience and being rescued by the party, Eckehard returned to the Gwyllion’s pool to heal when a gnome woman named Blondwine entered. The gnome had apparently been freely traveling the prison and excitedly shared her findings with us. She had also drawn a map. Not long after, a second Blondwine entered the room. She was an exact duplicate. This led to all sorts of confusion and a short trip to a location marked ‘Storage’ on the map.  From the ‘Storage’ area, Eckehard found and examined a suit of armor that seemed to fluctuate as he stared at it. Not only did it evoke nausea, it also appeared to change size. In fact, to a point that it fit him. Then with some hesitation, Eckehard donned the fluctuating armor as a replacement for his broken mail (from the encounter with the Gryre). In the meantime, Blondwine left to explore the unlabeled room with a milky white portal (that she wouldn’t shut up about). We, on the other hand, decide to go to the part of the map labeled Troll– after all, it was a creature many of us had only heard stories about.

When we enter said room, Doctor Nylor is standing with two minions under an apparatus simultaneously holding the troll down and examining it. Without skipping a beat, Eckehard (who has already experience a number of enerving experiences with Doctor Nylor) with outward calm (and inward fear) made his way to Doctor Nylor but didn't get far. The precocious Alia suddenly summoned a fireball that whizzed by Eckehard and consumed not only the equipment, but also freed the troll, revealing Doctor Nylor in all his glory as an abomination wreathed in flames. When the fire cleared, a horror with many bulging eyes and gnashing teeth appeared in the good doctor's place, covering the waking troll (and perhaps holding it down). Being the closest, Eckehard quickly mounted the abomination and slashed it open, splitting it down the middle before it suddenly broke into a dozen fleeing blobs. The party shot at each of them with fire and arrows to prevent the fractured Nylor from escaping, while the troll in one fluid motion snatched a blob, froze it, and crushed it in its massive hand. Then with utmost clarity of thought, the troll stood up and scooped Coco off the ground as she made her way to the portal and in an all-out sprint rushed towards Eckehard who was standing between an exit and 4 of the horrors that were fleeing towards it. Eckehard managed to destroy the first horror but was then quickly dragged through the portal by the remaining three blobs.

In this new room (marked griffin on the map; also a creature of myth) is a peculiar place where all who enter are overcome with the sensation of being unable to move anywhere other than diagonally. Trafalgalard, who enters shortly after Eckehard, immediately falls from the diagonal and suddenly causes the griffin to appear as a writhing snake beast. Alia and Trafalgalard then burst through the portal and take out the other horrors before turning on the remaining one grappled with Eckehard. The beast then seems to let out a sigh and the echoing voice of Nylor is heard from all around, “Kill me and the knowledge is lost,” to which Coco answers by shattering it with a spell, thereby killing the good doctor.

But then the light in the room immediately quashes and there’s pitch darkness except for the pulsating glow of the portals. The room then begins cracking and the griffin panicks, cracking the world further. Eckehard immediately bolts from the room (to many an outcry from the players– a lot of shade is thrown Eckehard's way), while Alia casts a light spell. The room is being torn apart and everyone begins moving to the portal, except the troll, who is crouched with both hands on the ground and chanting ‘It's only stone, it's only stone’ as his magic permeates the floor, seemingly holding it together. Eckehard meanwhile is bolting through the portals from the crow's room to the tree which is now lit and floating above the floor to the fiend child's abandoned room. All the rooms were as pitch and they were all beginning to crack. The portals were pulsating more infrequently and becoming increasing faint. Three rooms later Eckehard returns to the room he was looking for. Elizabeth, the fiend child and the now sickly Gwyllion are curled up in a dark and cold pool. He immediately sweeps her and the Gwyllion up and moves to the room he had entered from and then another. He knew he wouldn't make it back to the crow's room (where he believed there was an exit). Instead, he returns to the first room (next to the fiend's). The one they had first entered the complex from.

It was now cracked and separated from reality by a gap in literal space. He can see that there's no time. The room is now broken and the ledge which led back to the Material Plane is thirty feet from the underground temple on the other side- but there is no time to stop and think, Eckehard runs and leeps. Somehow, despite the incredible distance, Eckehard is drawn to the crack in the underground temple as if its gravity was pulling him towards it. The armor also seems to respond to his will and aids him in traversing the gap (later my GM said, "Thank god you put it on"). As we were floating in space the jolt from the movement frees Elizabeth from his arms. Eckehard then reached for her, making his check to grab her but in the process loses his grip on the Gwyllion who slips into the nothingness, wherein the darkness there are many eyes, revealing creatures blinking into and out of existence. Our GM finishes the scene with the Gwyllion’s expression turning to one of comfort, she then smiles, and a translucent beast appears from the black swallows her whole, then fades away.

When Eckehard hits the ledge on the other side he doesn't miss a stride. He puts as much distance from the shattering complex and infinite space to the familiar tunnels below the temple. Meanwhile, the rest of the party leaves the troll muttering his incantation and makes for the room where the gryr was destroyed. From there they entered a portal (Ah ha! Punching the portal wasn't such a bad idea now, was it) into a collapsing underground complex still pulsating with otherworldly energy. They made their way through the hall and up the spiral staircase before the ceiling collapses. They are saved by Alia’s spell, but her sanity was lost in the process as the creature with which her mind was tied (there was a story arc with the crow) was crushed in the rubble and the Havren mind that possessed it (the crow) fled to hers, overwriting it (or at least pushing her mind aside).

We left the campaign here with the party amidst the rubble near the town and Eckehard below the temple at its center. Not long after exiting the portaled realm, acolytes from the temple approached underground with Yorgey Silver at their head (he was dead in the first rendition of this story, providing further evidence of multiple realities) and with the final words of the night said, “So my son is truly dead.”


There was a lot of run-up, but it was a hell of a ride and I thought I’d share the climax. I've never been so sad about a nameless NPC (the troll) especially one we spent so little time with. His sacrifice was appreciated.

GM side note: The story behind Blondwine was that she was captured and was used as a lab assistant in Nylor's experiments to find the source of the Silver disease. She was eventually able to make use of some tools that allowed her to traverse the portals and escape. Unfortunately, she found her way to a broken area of Nylor’s Prison (where he had mistakenly captured a vampire, who in its despair killed itself and its blood shattered that section of the prison). This broken area became a vortex of energy and shattered reality. Essentially, it began spitting out innumerable copies of Blondwine. She would then traverse the cells, eventually finding her way to the milky white room (room 12, which we later discovered what was inside from a blood-soaked map left behind by one of the Blondwines) where her infinite copies all met their demise. Interestingly, her curiosity ended up feeding and growing an entire ecosystem of giant spiders.