Vat-brain in a Wizard Tower in a Field of Desert Roses

Tens of miles out into the Stone-crushed Sea, occasionally visible on the edge of the horizon through the heat haze, stands the Pillar. Few travelers through the vast desert east of Vymrrys even believe it to be real, merely the result of a mirage in 120° heat. However, those who have gotten close enough to feel its pull, its almost hypnotic beckoning, have learned at least the first layer of its true nature before they were lost: it is real, it is beautiful, it is your end. 

The Pillar

Originally a construct of infamous Vymrrysian wizard Abarron Hagai, the Pillar now sits masterless in a sea of sand. It rises from a salt flat, its massive sandstone blocks laced with deep and twisting Ilmenite veins. Over the years, invasive desert rose crystal clusters have crept from the flats, forming a field of shimmering orange and razor sharp formations from knee-height to over 20 feet tall that surround the Pillar in a radius of about a mile. Some of these crystal vines, with their fanned and flattened sandy blades, have begun to snake up the sides of the Pillar, each year growing a few more inches upwards, carefully avoiding the grey and wormlike Ilmenite. 

During his life, Abarron was consumed in his passion for the psionic magics. His studies of the powers contained within the mind led him to build his tower in the desert, close enough to trade routes to occasionally lure lone travelers, but far enough to remain concealed in the heat haze from those who might prove dangerous. After years of experimentation and sacrifices, he achieved his ultimate creation: the growth of a psychic brain independent of body, encased in a vat of pure psionic energy. As with any creation born into an unfamiliar and cruel world, the magically grown and sustained psionic entity grew resentful and desperate. In a fit of rage, the vat-brain lashed out at Abarron, killing him and leaving itself alone in the tower. 

Over the next decades and eventually centuries, the psionic vat-brain has drawn hundreds of travelers to the Pillar, searching for a suitable vessel: none have proved hearty enough to become vehicles for its intellect and ability, and most have had their brains emulsified by even the subtlest beginnings of a permanent mind-swap. The Pillar is now littered with bodies, some still fresh, others already crumbling skeletons.

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A future post will detail a layout for the Pillar, how to run a party's adventure there, and combat with the Vat-brain and its psionically controlled minions.