This article is part of a series for both the April 2020 RPG Blog Carnival and the 2020 Blogging A to Z Challenge.

Xoriat, the Realm of Madness, home of the Daelkyr, is beyond description. By merely visiting the plane non-natives risk having their minds shattered at the sight of the chaos. Over 9,000 years ago, Xoriat became coterminous with Eberron, and the continent of Khorvaire was overrun by the daelkyr and their aberrations. This started the Daelkyr War. The daelkyr destroyed the Dhakaani Empire, but were pushed back to Xoriat by the Gatekeepers. Dimensional seals created by the magic of the druid sect, with the help of the dragon Vvaraak, disturbed Xoriat’s orbit, preventing it from becoming coterminous again. Since then, the Gatekeeper druids patrol the seals to Xoriat, making sure that no abominations return to Eberron. However, not all daelkyr were pushed back, and many of them were sealed in the depths of Khyber.

Xoriat consists of many stacks of translucent layers, an apparently infinite amount of planes stacked upon one another. Its inhabitants exist on multiple layers simultaneously. Massive, drifting entities too large to notice visitors to the plane; free-floating rivers of milk-white liquid; rains of blue globes falling from unseen heights, only to burst and release horse-sized ticks when they strike another object — these are typical sights on Xoriat. Gelatinous worms wriggle from layer to layer, wending through tentacled vegetation encrusted with orange moss, all suspended above an amoebic sea. Time on Xoriat flows differently from time on the matrial plane. One minute in the Realm of Madness is equal to one hour on the Material Plane.

Xoriat is the equivalent of the Far Realm in the regular D&D cosmology.

«ph’nglui mglw’nafh da’elkyr xor’iat wgah’nagl fhtagn.»

For your campaign

The daelkyr are also known by the titles of the Lords of Xoriat, the lords of madness, or the shapers of flesh. Those few daelkyr who remain in Khyber are rumored to create new terrors to this day, each one of them at their own image: spawns.

New template: Spawn of the Unknowable

When confronted with the mad reality of Xoriat, some creatures lose their sanity, but not their life… and if the circumstances are wrong enough, they can be seriously transformed by the experience. If found by a daelkyr or any of their servants near a manifest zone, they can become pseudonatural creatures with tentacles substituting former arms and legs and eyes growing everywhere.

When ongoing such a terrible transformation, make the following changes to the original creature:

• Damage immunities. It becomes immune to psychic damage and the charmed condition.
• All-seeing. It gets advantage on Perception skill checks based on sight. It also gets advantage for saving throws that would impose the blinded condition.
• Scion of Madness. It can be consumed by its correspondent lord. Its lord can destroy any spawn within 5 feet of it and either regains 20 hit points or regains the use of a single ability as though it had finished a long rest.
• Tentacle. It gets a melee attack with range 5ft for small or medium creatures, 10ft. for Large or Huge and 15ft for larger creatures. On a hit, damage equals to 2d8 + Strength modifier. If it hits an opponent smaller than it with a tentacle, it deals normal damage and attempts to start a grapple as a bonus action.
• Otherwordly metamorphosis. As an action, and only if its current hit points are equal or below half its maximum, it can take the form of a grotesque, tentacled mass (or another appropriately gruesome form), but all its abilities remain unchanged despite the alien appearance. When in this form, attacks against it are made with disadvantage.

Based on Lovecraft’s Chtulhy mythos, the Far Realm and Xoriat are origin to the most unfathomable of creatures. Have you use the madness additional rule as given in the DungeonMaster’s Guide in order to reflect these creatures attack on the sanity of their victims? Let us know in the comments below!