Cerebrotic Blot

Sometimes Xoriat touches the world, and when such contact occurs, reality is stained. When the stain persists, such locations are sometimes referred to as cerebrotic blots. While every cerebrotic blot manifests differently, there are features that every fully manifested blot have in common. For instance, on the periphery of a blot, only a slight influence is felt. However, as one moves ever closer to the blot's core, the corrupt nature of the landscape and the creatures that inhabit it become more and more obvious. In this central zone of the cerebrotic blot, called the marrow, the landscape is twisted, and the flora and fauna are dramatically altered. Strange new creatures, born of equal parts nature and madness, fester and hunt in this perverted place. If one could travel so far, one would find that pure madness holds sway at the marrow's core, where a tiny puncture provides intermittent contact to Xoriat itself. Thus, a cerebrotic blot has two main zones: the periphery, and the marrow. The core is but a doorway.

Cerebrotic Periphery

The periphery of a blot is not outwardly different than the environment that is normal for the area, nor is it visible: It is merely an alien influence. However, a subtle influence pervades the area, overlaying the area with an unnerving sense of dread and foisting nightmares upon those unlucky enough to rest within or near the periphery. Over time, the land inside a periphery will begin to take on strange traits and odd geometry. This boundary can be noticed with a successful DC 20 Spot check.

Dimensions:

The periphery of a blot is not necessarily a symmetrical circle encompassing a smaller marrow- indeed, it is more likely that a cerebrotic blot's periphery occurs in blotches, river-like swathes, and discontinuous pockets of influence. A typical periphery can unevenly pervade an area several miles in circumference. Note that a cerebrotic periphery can lie completely above ground, completely below ground, or some combination of both. Despite its uneven occurrence, the periphery of a cerebrotic blot frequently encompasses the entirety of the inner marrow, where things are different. The boundaries of a cerebrotic periphery sometimes rapidly expand or unaccountably retreat according to unknowable tides

Foci:

Despite a periphery's discontinuous nature, each periphery always possesses one or more foci. A periphery focus serves to anchor the periphery, and more importantly it serves as the method whereby one passes between the periphery and the marrow. Despite normal laws of nature that suggest that merely walking inward on any path from the periphery would allow a traveler to penetrate deeper portions of the cerebrotic blot, the reality-rupturing influence of the Far Realm actually helps to protect the real world by restricting physical access to the marrow through only a few choke points. A typical focus of a cerebrotic periphery takes the form of a slab of stone, sometimes a pillarlike rocky outcropping, other times an altarlike slab, and sometimes even a freestanding arch of stone. A strange, phosphorescent growth is visible upon the stone, and any creature that touches this growth (or smears it upon their forehead, as pilgrims are wont to do) can pass from the periphery to the marrow by walking past (or through) the focus, and back again via the same route. To the traveler it seems that his path inward is continuous, while to an observer the walking traveler appears to fade into translucence and then into nothingness.

Environmental Effects of the Periphery:

A field of corruption pervades each cerebrotic periphery. The field is invisible to the naked eye as well as magical or psionic perception. However, the temperature is always several degrees lower than surrounding conditions warrant. Additionally, characters who succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom check feel an indefinable aura of "wrongness" while within the boundary.

Dream Corruption:

Creatures within a cerebrotic blot's periphery have cause to fear their nightmares. The sleeper is plagued with the same awful dream whenever sleep claims him. In the dream, the dreamer finds himself in an Unformed gelatinous body upon a field of the recently slain, or perhaps a plague-ridden street. The dreamer finds that he is ravenously hungry and is unable to stop himself from partaking of the bountiful feast lying unguarded upon the road. The dreamer uses his newfound body to directly digest "food" in a horribly external fashion. Sane beings must make a DC 14 Will save, or take 1 point of Wisdom damage. Creatures who reach O Wisdom through the dream corruption effect are considered permanently insane and put under the control of the DM forevermore. This Wisdom damage cannot be healed naturally while the subject remains in the periphery. This effect manifests whenever any intelligent creature sleeps within the area.'

Cerebrotic Marrow

Once a creature uses the focus to cross between the periphery and the marrow, the hidden awfulness of the inner region of the blot soon becomes apparent. The sky above shifts and melts, constantly raining thick amoebic liquid that, upon alighting on solid surfaces, seeps and collects in putrescent pools, sometimes even spontaneously forming amoebic crawlers (see Far Realm Monstrosities). Most often, the terrible rain simply renders non-natives off balance and vulnerable. Regardless of where it collects, the constant fall of the amoebic drizzle reduces vision of distant landscape features into nightmarish, blurred enigmas (see Environmental Effects within the Marrow). The visible landscape is scarred by frequent earth movements, as if the world itself seeks to shake off the corruption of the blot. Creatures of nightmare inhabit the marrow-some mutated versions of what once lived in the area before the coming of the blot, others wholly new species that managed to squeeze through from Xoriat itself. Such creatures include amoebic crawlers, cranial encysters, kaortic hulks, and nightseeds. Within the hidden marrows of cerebrotic blots that have persisted for several years or more, awful assemblies of what can only be called cities sometimes tower over the landscape. The slender towers of these metropoli, wavering and reaching miles into the air like blind worms, threaten to nauseate creatures from the natural world who even try to imagine such a sight. What awful designs are plotted within these structures none have ever returned to report-they are best given a wide berth by interlopers in the marrow seeking to stand at the inmost chasm.

Dimensions:

The cerebrotic marrow is "out of phase" with the surrounding landscape and in a sense steals away the lands upon which it originally spilled, hiding them behind a veil of ruptured reality. Thus the marrow can be, and often is, larger on the inside than the exterior periphery would suggest. The typical cerebrotic marrow is a spherical volume encompassing almost 20 square miles of space. At the center lies the marrow's core, a pitlike void that provides a direct channel of influence between Xoriat and reality, and sometimes, a discrete connection. At the exterior of the marrow one or more access points to the periphery called foci can be found.

Foci:

The foci that connect the cerebrotic marrow to the periphery are the very same foci that allow travel from the periphery to the marrow. Leaving the marrow requires the traveler to access the foci as described under Cerebrotic Periphery.

Core:

In truth, the connection to Xoriat at the marrow's core could also be called a foci. Under normal circumstances, the core focus appears to be a steep-walled, slime-sheathed pit leading into an absolute void. A smell of stagnation and humidity is ushered upward in a wet wind that blows ever up and out. This is the most common physical manifestation of the perverting influence of Xoriat as it reaches into the world. Sometimes the core opens, allowing direct access to Xoriat (and vice versa). Certain spells produce this effect in an attempt to generate specific results, but it is dangerous (see Cerebrosis).
Environmental Effects Within the Marrow: Besides the occasional tremor that occurs roughly once per day (DC 13 Balance check to avoid falling prone), the constant amoebic rain is the most significant and annoying environmental effect within the marrow. All visibility ranges are halved while in the amoebic rain, but worse, all creatures (except those native to the Far Realm and the marrow) subject to the drizzle suffer a -1 penalty on their attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, and skill checks due to the annoying, distracting nature of the viscous, gooey fluid that flows and collects almost as if it had a mind of its own.

Mood Corruption:

Creatures in this zone of influence are easily aggravated. Tempers flare, and an argument can quickly get out of control. Each time a group has an argument or even a simple disagreement, involved members must succeed at a DC 14 Will save or feel a sudden burning desire to end the disagreement in a decisive manner by attacking those with whom they disagree. The affected creature strikes out at its erstwhile companions with murderous intent for 1d4+ 1 rounds, after which the urge passes. Once a particular creature is affected (or makes its saving throw to avoid being affected), it is immune to the effects of mood corruption for one day

Form Corruption:

Every time a creature receives magical healing in the marrow, influence from the core threatens to corrupt the healed flesh. Each hit point healed per spell is equal to the percent chance that the creature's form becomes conupted. For instance, if a creature is healed for 12 points of damage, it stands a 12% chance of having its healed flesh corrupted. If a creature is affected, it is not only healed, but is the recipient of a strange new vestigial addition to its body at the point where the wound was healed. The vestigial organ or limb is entirely useless. A corruption can be removed "surgically," but doing so deals damage to the amputee. A vestigial limb might take the form of one of the following corruptions:

d10	Corruption to the Flesh
1	Blinking Eye
2	Flapping Tongue
3	Grasping Hand
4	Mucus-oozing Sore
5	Muttering mouth
6	Screaming hair
7	Sinuous Tentacle
8	Teethy Scales
9	Wagging Tail
10	Waggling Finger

Cerebrotic Core

A slime-lined pit pulses and heaves like a living orifice, eager to consume. To hurl oneself into the pit is sometimes sufficient to briefly open the portal that opens directly upon Xoriat. The traveler falls directly into the fabled Amoebic Sea, there to slowly be digested into the obscene geometry, mind shattered and wafting away like vapor, food for predators. For unprotected travelers from rational planes of existence, a trip to Xoriat is one way.

Type

Dimensional, Pocket