Normally, the land beyond the edge of the map is not a place that can be easily reached by Nexian galleys, but if the PCs possess the egg given them by Lahapraset, they can give the egg to the helmsman of any Nexian galley to cause him to set course for this impossible destination. Without the egg, the PCs can still set sail for the Isles of Not on their own—they just won’t be able to rely on the magic of one of the galleys to take them there.
If PCs give the blue egg to the helmsman, the strange construct’s eyes take on a greenish-golden glow as he turns to the tiller and guides the Nexian galley out to sea. Nex’s original design for the plane of Kakishon was that it be a flat disk, but he discovered that he and his guests preferred the sense of a vanishing horizon, so he compelled the proteans to warp the reality of the demiplane into a slightly convex disk like a turtle’s shell, its span extending just beyond the horizon before dissolving into the ether substrate from which the proteans wove the plane’s material substance.
Near the edges of the disk, the sea begins to slip off—while gravity still operates normally for creatures on the water’s surface, the sea itself is drawn in an accelerating current toward the disk’s edge until it cascades in an immense cataract off the edge of the world.
The 50-mile voyage beyond the horizon takes approximately 12 hours from most Waypoint piers. As the traveler approaches the edge, ambient light begins to dim and distort, as though filtered by a thin veil of dark mist. Sounds become simultaneously muted and echoing, and in the far distance a loud but growing susurrant hiss and a DC 15 Profession (sailor) check confirms that the ship is being carried along with a strong current. The ship continues to speed ahead, moved forward by quickening waters as well as the relentless strokes of its animated galley oars and a freshening breeze.
The light around dissolves into a misty twilight of winking stars and roiling clouds above a roaring sea. In a moment, the mists part and the traveler can see with terrible clarity that the sea below seems to end, as if sliced off by an impossibly huge razor. This is the end of eternity.
As the ship plummets over the edge of the infinite, PCs have a chance to be tossed overboard if they are not lashed to the deck. The ship falls for 6 rounds before hitting bottom, and each round every character must make a DC 20 Balance check or a DC 20 Climb check (the helmsman automatically makes these checks). A failed check results in 2d6 points of damage as the character is buffeted about, falling from his perch but catching himself again. A PC who fails two checks in a row falls completely off of the ship and suffers 8d6 nonlethal damage from the pounding of the water about him. Of course, creatures that can fly or otherwise slow or halt their falls can effect a much more controlled descent over the edge. After a distance of just over a mile, the traveler finally hits bottom. Fortunately, there is not a doom of sharp rocks and broken ships awaiting beyond the edge of the world.
Instead, as the ship falls beyond that first mile, it plunges into the half-formed world of Andakami. The cascade of falling water, once a raging torrent, thins and dissolves into clinging mist, and within moments the ship’s fall slows as the clinging mists grow thicker and almost solid, a turbid expanse of featureless, washed-out colors. The ship finally comes to a shuddering stop, settling into a strange “lake” of thicker mist with a muffled thud, shaking with the impact.
The PCs have fallen out of solid reality and into a realm of mutable substrate used by the proteans to create and maintain the world of Kakishon. While the spatial reality here is malleable, all of it is contained within the bounded demiplane of Kakishon and offers no hope of egress from the plane. It extends to the infinite, yet distances are strangely unstable. One can swim for years in one direction, and then upon turning back, arrive at the point of departure in minutes.
Any creature that fell out of the ship or makes a more controlled descent via flight arrives in roughly the same region as where the ship touched down. Those who land in the thick, tar-like mist are treated as if in quicksand for the purposes of movement and drowning (DMG 88).
Flying creatures might have difficulty finding their allies, as the surface of the mist-colloid is covered by a 20-footdeep layer of solid fog, above which floats a 20-foot-deep layer of thick fog equal to a fog cloud, both of which grant concealment within 5 feet and total concealment beyond 5 feet. The mists dampen sound, penalizing Listen checks by 1 every 5 feet rather than every 10 feet.
The Nexian galley takes only 6d6 points of damage from the fall into the thick mist. If this is enough to destroy it, or if the PCs arrived without a ship, they must either swim through the mist-colloid, fly, or find some other means to move. If the Nexian galley is intact, it automatically begins to move again once all PCs are on board—they have entered the protean’s domain, and as guests (either welcome or not), their ship is caught up in a current that will, in the course of 10 minutes of slow travel, bring them to the Isles of Not. Even if the PCs wander aimlessly here, there’s really only one place to arrive at, and you can simply have the PCs arrive at the Isles of Not whenever you wish.
After Nex banished them to this misty realm, the surviving proteans continued to maintain their hidden lair here at the end of eternity. Although called the Isles of Not, the lair itself consists of a series of cavern-like cysts organically shaped from raw substrate, each cyst containing a wide pool of liquid precipitate that the proteans used for visualizing the creation—and, in theory, the destruction—of Kakishon.
Around the Isles, the mist is as strong as stone, yet possesses a curious elasticity that yields softly to the touch. The caves themselves are lit by a softly glowing light that seems to have no true source—everything within is under shadowy illumination unless otherwise noted.
The proteans are chaos incarnate, and as such their reaction to the PCs’ arrival is the same whether the PCs are here to speak to them after having been summoned or they’ve come to attack them. Of course, should combat begin, the proteans are quick to adjust their attitudes and will do their best to defeat the invaders.
The floors, walls, and ceilings of these caves are actually quite spongy and uneven, constantly shifting and moving despite their solid appearance. Movement on these surfaces is considered difficult terrain. Doors within the caves are circular plugs of shifting mist that, at first glance, look more like strange protuberances on the walls than doors. A DC 20 Spot check is enough to see them for what they really are, and once the PCs know what to look for, the doors are obvious. They open like an iris when touched, closing automatically a round later as long as nothing remains in the doorway.
The blinding fog thins ahead as three yellow-green lights come into clear view. A strange crescent-shaped anchorage just large enough to snugly secure a vessel forms out of the mist, each of its crescent quays tipped by a small stonework tower like a small lighthouse surmounted by a bright-glowing, yellowgreen lantern. The harbor seems to abut the base of a large hill of slowly roiling mist, with a third lantern at the center of the crescent, mounted over an archway leading into the hillside along a dimly lit cobblestoned avenue.
Creatures: The three lighthouses are each permanent illusions that hide a single naunet protean, while the “lanterns” are everburning torches held aloft by the proteans. The naunets use detect law on anyone who approaches, but do not overtly move against new arrivals unless first attacked. They remain motionless unless confronted, in which case all three slither out of their illusory towers to hiss and growl in Protean. If the PCs can establish a means of communication, the naunets tell them that they are expected and should proceed into the cave behind them—they do not accompany the PCs.
hp 85 each (see page 86)
The boundaries of this cave are unsettling to look upon, for slowly palpitating whorls and streams of dim, multihued radiance flicker deep within the pale walls. Even without the colored light, the passageway would be disorienting, as its width and height and direction seem to pulsate and shift, almost like the throat of an immense living creature.
The first time the PCs enter the caves, they must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or become sickened as long as they remain in them. Blind creatures are immune to this effect, and the Endurance feat allows a bonus to this save.
If the PCs are here to speak to the proteans, an echoing female voice calls out to them from the depths of the cave, saying, “Welcome, my guests. Come forward so we may speak.” If, instead, the PCs are here for mayhem and violence, they get no greeting save for a vague and somewhat unsettling sense that they are unwanted by the place.
The walls, floor, and ceiling of this irregular chamber are studded with large cysts and buds, though they appear somewhat dried and withered. Most of the floor is covered with a pool of faintly glowing greenish liquid.
These empty cysts were once the chambers of imentesh proteans who have been killed or captured by the shaitans. They contain no treasure or personal items. The pools contain entropic essence, a strange liquid that works quickly to undo physicality in the same manner as a powerful acid (2d6 acid damage per round of exposure, doubled against creatures with the lawful subtype). Each pool is only a foot deep, and the stuff itself cannot exist outside of Andakami; if brought back to reality, the stuff fades away.
The walls, ceiling, and floor of this large chamber are studded with strange cysts and buds. Most of the floor is covered by a wide pool of faintly glowing green liquid but for a narrow pathway leading around it to an opening on the far side. There stand a sumptuous divan, a canopied bed, and a table surrounded with chairs.
This chamber is the heart of the tiny protean society that remains in Andakami, the lair and throne room of their current leader Lahapraset.
Creatures: Standing near the entrance to the chamber is a strange, pale-skinned elven man dressed in fine leathers and armed with a curved blade. He eyes the PCs warily and silently as they enter but makes no move to intercept them unless they attack. A second figure is seated upon the divan across the room—another elf, this one female and strikingly beautiful. She calls out to the PCs in a melodious voice, beckoning them over.
“I greet you, my heroes from outside this reality. I am Lahapraset. I am a spirit of creation, and I wish you to be my champions. Thank you for answering my summons, and I trust that business with the Golden Ram did not vex you overmuch—it was but a convenient way for me to judge your skill and worth. Do not mind Chinoy; he is not much for conversation but watches over my safety. Come, let us sit together. We have so much to discuss.”
Lahapraset works in this chamber, shaping designs and plans for her few remaining proteans to begin the final unraveling of Kakishon once the realm has been scoured of non-native life—as long as creatures from the real world remain alive in Kakishon, the atrophied power of this Cystic Chamber is unable to work the final unweaving.
Non-native lives are all the blockage that remains, and until these lives are ended or expunged from Kakishon, the proteans cannot complete their goal of reverting the entire realm to something akin to Andakami, a place more to their liking if they are to escape to the Maelstrom themselves.
Yet the imentesh protean is wary of exposing the full extent of her plan to intruders, for she knows full well that non-proteans do not understand the beauty of entropy and resist it out of fear. Likewise, she understands that her true form unsettles most, and has adopted what she hopes is a more pleasing one for the extent of the PCs’ stay in the caves.
Lahapraset can relate much of the history of Kakishon to the PCs; she can tell them that she and her kin were captured long ago by Nex and forced to create this realm, and of how when their work was done, Nex betrayed them and forced them into Andakami rather than releasing them to the Maelstrom for fear that the loss of the proteans would cause Kakishon to crumble over time. Lahapraset knows this to be true, of course, but points out if asked that “everything crumbles to dust in the end, and that the foolish hope to oppose such certainty is the base flaw of life.” In her telling of the tale, she takes pains to portray herself and her kind as benevolent spirits of creation tricked and then imprisoned by Nex after fulfilling their end of the bargain. She also explains how a wizard from the world outside recently tore open the portal to Kakishon to imprison an army of fire and earth spirits, and that in so doing he damaged the structures of creation. This damage is what allows Lahapraset and her kin to emerge from Andakami into Kakishon, but the damage was not enough to allow them to escape to their true home in the Maelstrom. She also, almost mournfully, recites how the most recent forced opening of the portal (the one the PCs are responsible for) wrought great strain upon the mind of their previous leader, a protean named Thaiyanathan.
Lahapraset explains that this other lives still, but has been imprisoned for his own safety for he no longer knows friend from foe. Worse, the only other surviving imentesh protean, Magiyawalla, has recently been captured by a shaitan named Obherak.
Here, Lahapraset asks for the party’s aid, and promises them a valuable reward should they accept her offer—the PCs can no more escape Kakishon than she can, and if they can rescue Magiyawalla and slay the shaitan genies that still dwell in Kakishon, Lahapraset promises to help the PCs escape from Kakishon. She’s reticent to go into details as to how she plans to help the PCs escape, since she can only force the PCs out of Kakishon as the start of the final unmaking of the world, something that can only begin once all intruders are either dead or willing to leave. Until the shaitans are dead or willing to leave as well, she cannot use this method to return the PCs to the outer world.
If the PCs agree to her terms, Lahapraset tells the PCs she can use the entropy pool to send the PCs back to Kakishon, to any Waypoint they wish. She recommends one of three destinations:
• Isle of the Dead Waypoint: It was here that Andrathi was slain by Jhavhul long ago, and Lahapraset suspects the wizard’s spirit haunts the isle still. If the PCs ask for more information about Andrathi, Lahapraset reluctantly suggests that the PCs should travel to this isle to seek answers, although she would prefer they go to Kakishon or Khandelwal to start fighting shaitans.
• Kakishon Waypoint: The PCs can swiftly reach Nex’s Pleasure Palace from here—this was, until very recently, the home of the warlord Jhavhul. The few genies who remain there now are not as violent or dangerous as those who serve Obherak, and the PCs might be able to learn more from them about Magiyawalla’s fate and Obherak’s defenses.
• Khandelwal Waypoint: The shaitan Obherak rules now over a crater in the middle of Khandelwal. The shaitan captured Magiyawalla some time ago, and the site’s wards against chaotic outsiders make it a difficult place for Lahapraset to assault—and the small numbers of surviving (and sane) proteans make such a prospect unnerving at best anyway. She does know where the lair is located (under the Golden Bowl in the central portion of the island), and that the entrance is likely to be blocked with stone for most hours of the day.
Lahapraset points out that even shaitans must breathe, though, and that it’s likely they periodically open the entrance to the lair for ventilation.
If the PCs ask for aid, Lahapraset gifts the PCs with the vials of oil of soften earth and stone and the wand of stone shape from the treasure, explaining that as creatures of earth, the shaitans are likely to use stone walls instead of locked doors to secure their lair. If the PCs can adjust her friendly attitude to helpful with a DC 20 Diplomacy check, she opens her treasure cache to the PCs as a bribe to encourage them to undertake the task—this treasure is less important to Lahapraset than her quest, and she’ll let the PCs take it all if that’s what it takes to get them to comply. If the PCs ask her to accompany them, or to send other proteans to aid them, she sadly explains that while the structure of Kakishon has been strained by the recent forcing open of its portals, she and her kind are still exiled and barred from staying long in Kakishon. They can use the entropy pool to travel to various Waypoints, but after a minute, they are pulled back here to the Isles of Not and cannot travel in such a way again. She also points out that when one of them attempted to travel directly to the shaitans’ lair, she was captured and prevented from returning at all—if the shaitans are to be defeated, it must be by hands other than the proteans’.
If PCs refuse her quest, she grows sullen and moody, ordering the PCs to step into the entropic pool at once so she can send them back to Kakishon (if the PCs comply, she returns them to the Sarygamysh Waypoint). If they become aggressive, she attacks, calling upon all of the sane proteans in the area to aid her. In all, there are 6 naunet proteans ready to rush to Lahapraset’s aid—this is an EL 13 encounter, and thus one the PCs would be well advised to avoid if possible.
When the PCs are ready to go, they need only to step into the entropic pool while Lahapraset concentrates on their destination. A moment later, the ghostly caves are suddenly and shockingly replaced by Kakishon—the return is instantaneous, and for the PCs, one way. If they wish to return to the Isles of Not, they’ll need to travel out to sea and over the edge of eternity once again.
Imentesh protean (see page 84)
hp 136
Naunet protean (see page 86)
hp 85
Treasure: Lahapraset has collected a small cache of treasure consisting of various items and trophies won from her long war with the genies. This cache is hidden in a small cyst on the west wall (DC 30 Search check to find). Within lies an alabaster coffer worth 200 gp containing 1,100 gp, 230 pp, an ivory comb worth 70 gp, a pair of silver earrings set with silver pearls worth 500 gp, a silver medallion inlaid with the seal of Mouhannad Iqilma (a long-dead merchant-prince of Katapesh) worth 130 gp, a gold pendant set with a large opal worth 1,200 gp, and a single plain gold earring worth 50 gp. In addition, a jade box inlaid with gold filigree worth 700 gp contains 24 sticks of rare incense worth 5 gp each as well as a potion of cat’s grace, two potions of fly, three vials of oil of soften earth and stone, a wand of stone shape (32 charges), a wand of restoration (28 charges), and a wand of dimension door (19 charges).
Ad Hoc Experience Award: If the PCs accept Lahapraset’s quest and learn about Kakishon’s history, award them experience as if they had defeated a CR 10 creature in combat. If they secure additional aid from Lahapraset (in the form of treasure), increase this to a CR 12 award.
The walls of this chamber are studded with strange cysts and buds, while the floor is dominated by a pool of churning, bubbling greenish liquid. Rising from the pool’s center, wrapped in green liquid tendrils that seem to rise from the pool itself, is a hideous serpentine creature. Vaguely humanoid in form but with massive saucer-like eyes and a fanged maw one might expect on a prehistoric beast, its mouth seems to move in a strange cadence, almost as if it were whispering constantly to itself, and its bulging eyes stare sightlessly at nothing.
Creatures: The pool of entropy in this room once functioned as those in areas 3 and 4, but the latest wrenching of the Kakishon portal damaged the pool—and drove insane the imentesh protean who was using it at the time. That protean, Thaiyanathan, has been bound into the pool by Lahapraset, who hopes that unraveling Kakishon will restore his mind. The bonds that hold Thaiyanathan in stasis in the pool set him apart from time and space, as if under the effects of temporal stasis, yet this bond is fragile. If any non-outsider touches him or the pool he is imprisoned in, the bonds shatter and release the insane protean, who immediately attacks anyone in the chamber, protean or otherwise.
Thaiyanathan is guarded by two naunet proteans—they move to block any non-protean who attempts to approach the pool, and attack if the intruders do not immediately turn back.
Imentesh protean (see page 84)
hp 136
hp 85 (see page 86)
Development: If Thaiyanathan is released, the pool of entropy continues to flash and sputter. Unlike the dormant pools in area 3 or the active one in area 4, it rejects any non-proteans who touch the pool. Such creatures are immediately teleported to the last Waypoint they visited (an unwilling creature can resist the teleportation with a DC 15 Will save). If the PCs lack flight or teleportation (or similar magical travel) and have slain or estranged Lahapraset, this pool may well be their only means of returning to Kakishon once their business in the Isles of Not is ended.