Vat-Brain Part 2: Map and Details

Here's the map I sketched up before my Monday night group made their way to the Pillar. I decided to (poorly) ape Zak S' style from Vornheim, since it was easy and didn't require the time I normally need to make a standard top-down or isometric map. I looks better in my notebook, but it scanned in alright. 

I didn't key the map with numbers, so I'll go room-by-room for the descriptions. You can add your own enemies, traps, and items, but I'll put in what I went with. As your party adventures throughout the structure, have them experience frequent visual and auditory hallucinations (tests, if you will, from the Vat Brain to test their mental fortitude). When you do so, utilize some form of insanity table, calm stat, etc. Remember, the Vat Brain is looking for only the strongest potential hosts for its intelligence, and will test those it's pulled to the Pillar both physically and mentally.

GROUND FLOOR

Entrance Hall

• The entrance hall looks as if it were carefully carved from inside the monolith of stone, its walls curving upward with strange and intricate designs. Those entering would notice that the old cloth draped from the walls and ceiling are decaying and dusty, but light sources are still kept burning. Strange crystals have begun to erupt from the stonework, slowly growing to cover other nearby surfaces. The crystals are a grey-blue and emit a faint light, and if broken, turn completely into dust. 
• There are no enemies present in the entrance hall, though there are corpses and various states of decay. If they are examined, patterns emerge: joints twisted at odd angles, eyes which have completely bulged out of their sockets, dried blood in ears, and several self-inflicted wounds. 
• Against the far wall stand several motionless figures. They look alive, but sickly and twisted: tongues hanging out, eyes bulging and unblinking. They will not defend themselves if attacked. 
• Doors lead East and West.

Botanical Room

• The crystals grow here too, having consumed some of the many plants. The room has several long tables covered in various plant species as well as hanging hydroponics and wall-mounted drip systems. One or two figures move jerkily around the room tending to the plants and look similar to the figures in the previous room. They can not speak or defend themselves.
• Feel free to include a variety of plants from your campaign setting here which could be harvested and used as ingredients in potions or magic rituals. 
• This room has a Southern door that links to the Library on the floor above.

Storage Room

• The storage room is dark and mostly empty save for boxes of completely decayed goods. Thorough searches might yield useful and old items that could be sold for a decent profit to the right merchants or collectors. This room has a Southern door that links to the Assistant's Quarters on the floor above. 

SECOND FLOOR

Library

• The Library is extensive, with long shelves of books covering the floor as well as  the walls along the balcony tier above. Two ladders on swivels/wheels can get PCs and NPCs from the floor to the balcony and vice-versa. The room can be searched like any other, but if looking for books, use whatever library-searching rules you employ. 
• Several more mindless husks roam the stacks here, the Vat Brain searching for even the smallest bits of usable information hidden among the tomes. 
• The grey-blue crystals jut out from the ceiling, but it seems as if they have been kept from overtaking the books. 
• I tested my party often if they spent time here, one of them suffering a potentially permanent insanity. 
• The room was also patrolled by an mentally enslaved Knight of the Karxican Isles (7 HD, 16 AC, +3 to hit, 2d6+3 damage with a massive Bastard sword), a wild Kirre (5 HD, +3 to hit, 12 AC, 1d8+3 damage with claws), and a bowman (3 HD, 13 AC, +4 to hit, 1d8+2 damage with longbow).  All are controlled by the Vat Brain, though the Karxican Knight has retained enough of himself to rasp out apologies to the party as he attacks. He will weep when killed. 
• The Library has a Western door to the Dining Area, and a secret Southern door to the old Wizard's Quarters. 

Dining Room

• The Dining Area is old and decrepit, with not much left of use. Corpses are scattered about in various states of decomposition. Crystals have overtaken much of the room, but if thoroughly searched, an adventuring party might find dining utensils of strange metals that could be sold. 

Assistant's Quarters

• The old Assistant's Quarters contains a variety of old tomes (including several on low-level psionics and necromancy) as well as a few on geology, alchemy, and botany. There is also an expansive alchemy/chemistry set which has been disassembled and has some essential parts removed. If the party could find the necessary parts elsewhere, they could make a very useful potion-brewing set. 
• 3d4 mindless husks occupy this room, seemly awaiting orders. Per usual, they will not defend themselves if attacked. 

THIRD FLOOR

Wizard's Quarters

• The magic door from the Library leads directly to the Sick Wizard Hagai's old living quarters. This area has been kept in meticulous condition, as the future living quarters for the Vat-Brain's future host body. As such, it is also guarded well by any enemies of your choosing. Keep in mind that any enemies within the Pillar are psionically enslaved by the Vat-Brain, and would move as if controlled by a puppeteer's strings: jerkily and painfully. 
• The Sick Wizard's quarters contain old tomes on advanced psionics and necromancy, and potentially suitable magic items and artifacts of great value. 

Study

• The old Study is a large and airy space where the Sick Wizard and his assistants worked on experiments, rituals, and compared notes from the assembled literature. Here they had space to think and act. Within, Husks measure and mix ingredients into large glass containers, alchemical steam forming a haze within the room. The sickly blueish mixture is sucked via a sort-of siphon tube system up through the ceiling into the room directly above.
• If the party has made it this far, the Vat-Brain should attempt to hijack their bodies. Players must save vs. intelligence.
• On a Natural 1 - the PC becomes enslaved to the Vat-Brain's inhuman intellect. They will attempt to fight the party. To free them the Vat-Brain must be destroyed or reasoned with.
• On any other unsuccessful save - the PC will take 2d6 points of psionic damage and may also have to roll on an insanity table or something similar. 
• On a successful save - the PC is able to resist the psionic pressure of the Vat-Brain and remains themselves. 
• On a Natural 20 - the PC is able, through sheer force of will, redirect some of the psionic pressure back at the Vat-Brain, doing 2d6 points of damage.
• The Study links directly to the Vat Room on the floor above.

Collapse

• The magical door opens directly into a rock collapse. Anyone walking through the door without paying attention will have to roll a dex save or fall and take 30 feet of falling damage. Without another way back in, they can either climb back up to the doorway, or scale down the side of the Pillar back to the entryway. If they fail to scale the side of the Pillar and fall, they will take falling damage in addition to piercing damage if they land on a crystal formation. 

FOURTH FLOOR

The Vat Room

• The Vat Room is massive, and takes up nearly the entire top floor of the Pillar. The floor is soaked in dank, blue, viscous liquid (the same that was seen in the Study) and blue crystals erupt from the floor, ceiling, and walls. At the center of the room sits a large reinforced glass vat, roughly 50 feet by 50 feet (3 HD, 16 AC). Tubes snake up through the floor and connect into the top surface of the vat, continuously pumping in fresh feeding liquid. The Vat-Brain (10 HD, 6 AC, uses psionic attacks, hyper-intelligent) floats within, taking up the majority of the space, its grey matter hideous and pulsating. 
• 4d4 Husks tend to the Vat-Brain, making sure the feeding tubes are working and the slave pens in the adjacent room are watched over. 
• The Vat-Brain can be reasoned with and will not immediately attack; remember its main goal is to find a body and mind strong enough to become the host for its intelligence so it can finally leave the Pillar. 
• If combat ensues, the Vat-Brain will attack the party psionically, and enslaved guards will protect the feeding tubes and the vat itself. In my campaign, an NPC named Tomak was the main foe here. 
• If the feeding tubes are disconnected or the vat itself is destroyed, the Vat-Brain will begin loosing HP each round. 

Slave Pens

• The Vat-Brain keeps still-unenslaved travelers in the slave pens, ready to serve as husks once older ones die. These people can be freed after the Vat-Brain is killed or reasoned with. Some have been there a very long time.

Aviary

• Strangely enough, the old aviary in the tower was kept in good shape, with a variety of desert birds still living there. The opening through which the birds come and go is the only other opening besides the front entrance and the magical door near the collapse. 
• If searched, old notes to and from other wizards can be found. These notes seem to indicate similar experiments were taking place elsewhere in the world...