The Story
A scene-by-scene walkthrough for the DM — narrative flow, illithid events, and wisdom save triggers woven together in sequence.
Session 1 — Act 1: The Crash
Scene 1: Nautiloid Escape
Players wake on the crashing Nautiloid ship. Chaos. Screaming. The ship is tearing itself apart above the city. They have no idea who each other are — only that the tadpoles behind their eyes are thrumming in sync.
Combat: Cambions on the ship deck. Get to the transponder. Get out before the ship hits the ground.
At the start of combat, all players feel a wave roll through them. They sense each other's fear, anger, pain — raw and unfiltered. For 1 minute they can communicate telepathically without speaking. Sets the tone. This is what the tadpole does. This is what it will keep doing.
Goal: Escape before the ship crashes. The session begins in media res — no preamble, no exposition. They wake up already in danger.
Scene 2: Ravaged Beach
They wake on the beach. The Nautiloid wreckage smolders behind them. Bodies of Mind Flayers, thralls, and passengers litter the sand. Shadowheart is nearby — wounded, clutching a strange artifact she won't explain, and immediately suspicious of everyone.
Choose one player. Without warning, a flash: Shadowheart's memory — a ritual, a dark temple, the artifact changing hands. She's hiding something about where she got it and what it does. She doesn't know they saw it. Play this quietly. The player knows. Shadowheart doesn't know they know.
POD LOCATION #2 — Beach cave. Hidden inside a dead Mind Flayer's skull, wedged behind the eye socket. Someone put it there deliberately.
| Player | WIS Save Trigger |
|---|---|
| Jackson | Trusts Shadowheart — extends goodwill to a complete stranger in a moment of crisis |
| Rachel | Admits she's scared or hurt from the crash — drops the armor, even briefly |
| Genuine emotional reaction to surviving — relief, gratitude, anything real |
Scene 3: Emerald Grove
The grove is under siege. Goblins press at the gates. Inside, Kagha — the acting druid leader — has cornered a tiefling child and is threatening her with a snake. The refugees are terrified. The druids are split. Everything is on the edge of violence.
Any player can attempt Illithid Persuasion on Kagha. DC 10 — auto-success if they've consumed a pod. Her mind bends. She backs down from the child, shaking, terrified of something she can't name. NPCs nearby notice the player's eyes flash purple. Kagha will not forget this.
Halsin is captured somewhere in the goblin camp. His allies in the grove beg the party to find him. Side paths available: the owlbear nest in the Blighted Village, a hidden Harper cache, the corrupted druid rites.
| Player | WIS Save Trigger |
|---|---|
| Holds back from violence — chooses to plan or observe instead of act | |
| Matt | Communes with the grove's nature spirits — the tadpole uses the channel |
| Jackson | Feels genuine peace in the grove — the calm before everything gets worse |
Scene 4: Goblin Camp
The goblin fortress: loud, chaotic, and full of opportunities to die or get creative. Three leaders to neutralize — Priestess Gut (the unctuous true believer), Dror Ragzlin (the warchief who can speak with the dead), Minthara (the ruthless drow commander). Any approach works. Diplomacy, deception, violence. Probably all three.
Any player can reach out and read a goblin's surface thoughts. Fleeting, ugly images — fear of the leaders, hunger, boredom. The goblin gets a nosebleed and stumbles. They never know why. This one costs nothing. That's the point.
During any of the three leader fights, one player can psychically dominate a goblin minion for exactly 1 round. The minion acts on the player's turn, follows one command, then collapses. The player feels the goblin's mind like a puppet string. Brief. Nauseating. Efficient.
Halsin is in a cage in the worg pen. Free him. He'll fight out with them. He owes them everything, and he knows it.
| Player | WIS Save Trigger |
|---|---|
| Rachel | Lets someone else protect her — doesn't have to be the strong one, just for a moment |
| Performs sincerely — not for laughs, not deflection, but something genuine | |
| Matt | Heals an ally — the life energy flows through the tadpole's connection |
| Jackson | Spares a surrendering goblin — mercy costs something here |
Early: Subtle. A pulse behind the eye. Brief headache after the Psychic Pulse. "Did you hear that?"
Mid: Louder. A flash of alien memory. The taste of copper before the Coerce. A brief, irrational urge that wasn't theirs.
End: Undeniable. After the Goblin Camp — if a player used Dominate — the tadpole moves. They feel it squirm. An NPC watching them notices their eyes flash violet for just a second.
Session 2 — Act 2: Shadow and Mind
Scene 5: The Shadow-Cursed Lands
The light stops. Not darkness — something worse. The shadows here have weight, intention. The curse bleeds through everything. Torches dim. Spells feel muted. Something is watching from inside the dark, and it isn't afraid of them.
The tadpole offers, unprompted: darkvision 120 feet to any who accept. The shadows feel comfortable. Familiar. Warm. There's no catch announced. That's the catch.
| Player | WIS Save Trigger |
|---|---|
| Matt | Wild shapes — transformation opens a channel the tadpole wasn't invited through |
| Doubts herself in the oppressive dark — the tadpole notices weakness like a current notices a gap | |
| Drops the jokes and admits actual fear — the mask comes off |
Scene 6: Last Light Inn
A pocket of safety in the cursed lands — Isobel's holy barrier holds the shadows back. The inn is warm, crowded with refugees and Harpers. Jaheira holds it all together through willpower alone. Let the party breathe here. Let them laugh. Then take it away.
Any player can reach into Jaheira's intentions. She's genuine — no hidden agenda with the party — but the desperation underneath is raw. She's been holding this line for months. She doesn't know how much longer she can. Let the player decide whether to tell her they looked.
The Attack: Cultists come for Isobel. If she falls, the barrier drops, and the inn is lost. Protect her or lose the safe haven — and everyone in it.
If Isobel drops below 10 HP, any player can release it: a psychic scream that tears through the room. DC 13 INT save, 2d8 psychic damage + stun 1 round. The player's eyes go fully black. Isobel sees it. The party sees it. The cultists see it. Nobody says anything right away.
| Player | WIS Save Trigger |
|---|---|
| Jackson | Laughs with the party at the inn — genuine safety, genuine connection, genuine guard down |
| Rachel | Physically restrained or pinned during the attack — not in control |
| All players: if they let themselves feel safe before the assault begins. The tadpole learns what they value by watching what they relax around. | |
Scene 7: Moonrise Towers
Ketheric Thorm's fortress. Stone and shadow and the smell of something wrong — formaldehyde and ozone. The dungeon beneath holds his experiments. Mind Flayer operating theaters. Half-transformed prisoners who beg to be killed. Ketheric himself is somewhere above, already knowing they're coming.
The truth about Ketheric: he can't die permanently because his soul is bound to the Absolute's network. To kill him, they have to break that link first — which means going deeper into Shar's domain.
| Player | WIS Save Trigger |
|---|---|
| Matt | Meditates or prays in this cursed space — the silence that answers him isn't natural |
| Listens to a plan instead of charging in — patience costs her something here | |
| Rachel | Admits vulnerability seeing the prisoners — the horror is recognizing herself in them |
Scene 8: Gauntlet of Shar
Shar's trials. Darkness literal and metaphorical. Each trial strips something away — certainty, memory, identity. The Gauntlet doesn't care who they are. It only wants to see what they do when they think no one is watching.
During the Trial of Self — the fear vision, the worst thing they carry — the tadpole offers: "Let me take the pain away."
If they accept: Auto-pass the WIS save. The fear dissolves. It felt like drowning and then not drowning.
The cost: The DM holds a 10-second puppet moment — at any point later in the session, the character does one thing they didn't choose. One action. Ten seconds. Make it count. Make it something they would have done anyway, almost. That's worse.
WIS Save Opportunities: The Gauntlet is designed to break people. Every character has a fear, a wound, a thing they haven't said out loud. Every character has a trigger here. Use what you know about them.
Scene 9: Ketheric Thorm — Final Battle
The roof of Moonrise Towers. Storm above, cursed land below, and Ketheric between them — ancient, armored, and furious. He regenerates. He won't stop. Until they break the soul link, everything they do to him heals. Then they break it. Then he becomes something worse.
This is what they've been building toward. Everything the tadpole gave them, everything it cost — it all comes due here.
If 3 or more players have consumed pods, they can link. One action, one round. Pool all remaining HP across the linked players and split evenly. The pain redistributes. The advantage redistributes. No one is weakest anymore. No one carries it alone.
Read this aloud when it activates:
"Now you understand. This is what we are. This is unity."
The voice is not theirs. It is very calm. It sounds like the right answer.
During the fight — late, when things look bad — each player gets a flash. The Mind Flayer, patient and enormous, watching from somewhere behind their eyes.
"You were never going to win this without me."
It's not a threat. That's the worst part. It's just a fact.
WIS Save Opportunities: Every character has at least one natural trigger during this fight. The stakes, the exhaustion, the fear, the relief — all of it is live wire. Watch for the moments and call for the rolls.
Early: Integrated. The powers feel natural now. The whisper sounds exactly like their own inner voice.
Mid: Intrusive. Involuntary telepathy bleeds through — a flash of another player's vision, uninvited. They're not sure whose thought that was.
Climax: Full presence. The Hive Mind activates. The horror is that it works. It helps. The Mind Flayer's voice says the thing they've all been thinking. And it feels good.
DM Reference
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| WIS Save DC | Session 1: DC 12 | Session 2: DC 14 |
| Corruption Rate | Maximum 1 tier increase per scene — even if multiple triggers fire |
| Tone | The tadpole isn't fighting them. It's merging with them. Never frame it as an enemy. |
| The Hive Mind Moment | Emotional climax of the campaign. The horror is that it works. It helps. It feels good. Let that land before anyone speaks. |
| Pod Consumption | Never pressure. Never forbid. Just make each one feel like a real choice with real weight. |
| The Puppet Moment | If a player accepted the tadpole's offer in Scene 8, use the puppet moment at the worst — or most meaningful — time. Not for cruelty. For story. |
The story ends with Ketheric defeated and the players alive — but the tadpoles are still there. They always will be. The question the campaign leaves them with isn't what happened to them. It's who are they now.