Fear Of The Unknown - A Far Realms Primer

[Kosm]

Chapter One
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Fishmen
(Creatures of Arelith touched by the Far Realm)


Beholder
A mass of eyes attached to tentacle stalks, Beholders are pretty much Far Realms 101. They are able to utilize strange and alien magic, have two minds constantly at war with each other, worship ancient and eerie gods - and speak their own language, which more likely than not sounds jarring and eldritch to regular people. There are many types of Beholders - from Gauths to Eyes of the Deep and Bloodkiss - all which are at home in the Underdark.


Cloaker
Worshipers of Elder Evils and deadly in even small numbers, Cloakers utilize stealth subsonics, and their dark black wings to attack, and have the power to make an opponent feel anything from slight nausea to insanity. Another Underdark creature, they were thought to have built the shadowy city Ikammu.


Gibberling
Yes- those mutated ratbeasts lingering just outside of the gates. With sporadic patches of fur, maddened eyes, and an ingenious method of breeding, their touch to the psionics and insanity of the Far Realm is chiefly commanded by a Brood Gibberling. The Brood Gibberling will ‘birth’ a clan of Gibberlings by spawning larvae beneath their skin, and passing it on to another. They must remain near the corruption of the Far Realm, so they will often bite another of their kind in order to continue the race - the other will then travel somewhere dark and damp to give a litter of Gibberslugs time to erupt through their skin.


Kuo-toa
Straight out of H.P Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth, Kuo-toa are essentially fish men chased underground, who now make their home amongst the denizens of the Underdark. They are bipedal - in certain lights they may even look human, but their faces is where that similarity ends - their gills, rubbery lips, buggy, wide eyes and scales - as well as webbed hands and feet - reek of inhumanity. Most worship the sea goddess Blibdoolpoolp, but a few worship Dagon, that Dagon, the Great Old One.


Mind Flayer
Tentacled beasts employing psionics with names such as Yharaskrik, these Far Realms spawn are probably the most well-known of all. Political at times, sadistic always, even the most noble of Ulitharid are beneath the Elder Brain - an aberration containing all the dead Mind Flayer brains in the community. At home in the Underdark, even Drow houses have come to respect the magical abilities of the Illithid, and Alhoon are a common and revered sight in and around Andunor.

[Kosm]

Chapter Two
Behold! A Paleblood Sky!
(Elder Evils and Noisome Gods)


Atropus, the World Born Dead
A terrifying undead planetoid where undead summoned from nightmares resided and a headless alien ruled. It is considered to be an omen of destruction if it is seen. Emitting noxious gas not unlike the Far Realm itself, this Evil is good for characters interested in Divination to discover the Realm.


Dagon, Prince of the Darkened Depths
A Demon Lord sometimes worshiped by the Kuo-Toans, Dagon appears as an eel-like creature with a fish face, with rubbery lips and bugged eyes of the Fishmen. He rules over a layer of the Abyss which is home to Marine Dretch, Hezrou, Kraken, and other unspeakable aquatic monsters. With a vast expanse of knowledge and power, even the Queen of Chaos knows not to irk him.


Dendar, Eater of the World
A night serpent dwelling on a cave in the nearby cave of the Fugue Plane, Dendar feasts on nightmares, gorging herself on terrors of the world since the world began. It is prophesied that one day Dendar will eat the sun and destroy the world, and the primordial came into being as the first Man slept and had a night terror. Known from Calimport to Chult, the female Evil is coated in pitch black scales, and remnants of her dream diet made manifest in bones lie beneath her gargantuan tongue.


Haask, Voice of Hargut & Hargut of the Grey Pestilence
During combat in the Year of Craven Words, Haask - who was then a fearsome minotaur, summoned Hargut of the Grey Pestilence - an Elder Evil - to help defeat a Goblinoid warband. Unfortunately for the two of them, the Dead Three (Bane, Myrkul and Bhaal) attacked Haask, showing his identity as a Batrachi doppleganger. The mortals eventually made him to agree to a ritual which would bind Haask and Hargut together into a wormlike beast, with rows of fangs, enslaved by the three to create abominations for their whims. If ever freed, Haask, Voice of Hargut would do everything in his power to work against Bane’s church- likely dealing them a lethal blow.


Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf Eater
A colossal, rarely employed weapon of Malar, the Elf Eater stands on trunk-like legs and captures its prey by way of dozens of tentacles. Known as the Elf Eater perhaps because of it’s blood - Gruumsh and Corellon Larethian - it comes to Faerun to terrorize Elves and their community at least once a century. It devours it’s enemies slowly, enabling it to go great spans of time without eating.


Pandorym, Host of the Planes
Originating from beyond the stars, Pandorym was slowly lured by old Imaskari to act as a doomsday weapon and deterrent to stop the gods of Mulan from destroying Imaskar. It was never used, and only when Vaeleni miners mined a crystal local to the Celestial Nadir - which was used in the family’s production of artificial limbs and organs - did Pandorym strike, emitting a part of it’s psyche which would bathe the flesh in it’s power, enabling it to control the victims. It was able to see the future, create alternate timelines, and move buildings - even when imprisoned in the Imperial Weapon Cache. It now lies imprisoned in a crystal in the Celestial Nadir.


Shothragot
With power swelling from feeding on worshipers and committing acts of violence all across the realms, Shothragot would be an immensely terrifying Elder Evil to ever awaken. Created by That Which Lurks in his quest to eventually otherthrow Ao, Shothragot currently sleeps in the Dismal Caverns, bleeding his followers for power.


Zargon, the Returner
The first ruler of the Nine Hells, Zargon was a hulking bipedal monster with a single cyclopean eye, strange, sinuous barbed tentacles for arms, and larger barbed tentacles for legs. Rather than use his position as ruler to elevate his power, to create pacts with mortals, or anything more fitting of Baatezu - he simply wanted to cover the world in slime. Zargon was cast out by Asmodeus, who now rules the Nine Hells.

[Kosm]

Chapter Three
Do not see! Do not see!
(The Other Gods)


Ghaunadaur
Despite it’s position within the Drow pantheon, Ghaunadaur is simply an extension of the Underdark - a God who creates madness, blindness, and nausea just like the environs of Below. The Elder Eye has a wealth of cultists, insane priests, and simple worshipers of most races - human, Drow, goblin - all of whom are victim to the Slime Lord’s whims. All oozes, jellies, and puddings of the Underdark are under it’s domain - and a particularly mad ‘Oozemaster’ resides in the Drow city of Andunor, in Arelith. It’s symbol is a black circle, a purple eye etched on.


The Great Mother
Often seen as insane by even the most open-minded scholar, the Great Mother possesses both worldly and otherworldly knowledge - more knowledge than any being in the cosmos could hold. The birther of Beholders, the Gibberling Orb, and other, rarer aberrations, the Great Mother seeks to rebuild the world in her image - a land of terrifying madness unlike any other. Her symbol is an eye, laying in an egg.


Ilsensine
A good contender for the Great Mother’s prowess of knowledge, Ilsensine haunts the planes with it’s tentacles roaming into the minds of mortals, siphoning secrets and dreams. Patron deity of Mind Flayers, Ilsensine is a cruel and calculating God, appealing to psionics and scholars alike - but it is the Illithid who truly make up it’s worshipers. Ilsensine’s symbol is an illithid head in jade green, with four stylized tentacles.


Mak Thuum Ngatha
An entity native to the Far Realm itself, the Nine-Tongued Worm differs from its deictic counterparts in that it wants to branch into the Material Plane. Not many know of it’s existence outside of clusters of cultists and alien races - and even less beings know of it’s plans - simply that it involves the Material Plane for certain. Mak Thuum Ngatha’s symbol is a fan-shaped glyph of nine squiggly lines.


The Patient One
An older God much like Ghaunadaur, the Patient One is perhaps far more deadly, plotting and whispering behind the scenes and the stars until it gets hungry - and feeds on the human sacrifices offered up by it’s worshipers - Aboleth, Cloaker, Chuul. No mortal has lived to tell the tale of what it’s plans for humanity is. The Patient One’s sigil is a mouth surrounded by eyes.


Tharizdun
Ancient and malevolent, Tharizdun is concerned with the destruction of humanity- a belief which caused all of the human Gods to rally together to imprison him, long ago. His origins are in the Far Realm, and his worshipers - chiefly hateful aberrations and some hardcore alienists - follow him as they believe he will grant them great boons when he remakes the world. Tharizdun’s symbol is a dark spiral.