Belliserum's Mind Palace (2/2)

by Francois Schuiten

Thanks again to my amazing girlfriend, who inspired and basically co-authored this whole dungeon.

Read part 1 here.

The Curators 

Sexless, ageless constructs who tend to the Mind Palace. They resemble humans, save for the lack of nose and ears, the papery blue flesh, and the way in which their skulls unravel into dozens of ribbon-like bifurcated tentacles. They use these appendages to interface with the Mind Palace via electrical impulses, or deliver a nasty shock to an organic assailant. If you unravel one completely you’ll find writing on the inside, but you probably won’t be able to read it; the soul-text of a dead curator is utterly illegible.

The first generation of curators was a unified task force with the sole desire to protect the Mind Palace from decay and intruders, in that order. Following the onset of decay in the deep palace after Belliserum’s death, the remaining population of curators bickered over which memories/faculties would be given top priority for preservation, at least until the decay could be stalled. Thus, the curators splintered into four factions: 

Logos: The most aggressively militaristic lobe. They control the most territory in the upper levels thanks to their unique aptitude in traversing the palace. Despite their deeply practical culture, they are prone to seeing patterns where none exist (think conspiracy theorists). Some claim to see the future in the movements of the palace; others claim to have deciphered the oldest of Belliserum’s texts (though they refuse to share the location). They hoard memories related to blueprints/recipes for magical artifacts, and on rare occasions build practical prototypes of these.

Temporus: The cosmopolitan/mercantile lobe, and by far the friendliest. They’ll trade outsider goods for guided tours of the Mind Palace’s safer regions, so long as you don’t break or steal anything. They love telling stories about Belliserum with pseudo-religious undertones. Other lobes despise fraternizing with intruders, and begrudgingly trade services/memories to the Temporus for outsider goods. The memories they protect are primarily related to language, including true names and lyrics to forgotten hymns.

Somatos: The sensitive, reclusive lobe, disembodied and nostalgic. They feel the loss of the physical body the most, and long to see the world beyond the palace through the eyes of another. They weave beautiful tapestries, creating art from the indecipherable codes they are sworn to preserve. When the palace changes or an intruder enters their territory, they are the first to know and first to act. They tend to memories associated with locations and sensations.

Occipitus: The distant lobe, mostly ignored or ostracized by their brethren. Ravenously curious, they’ve learned how to “transcribe” living creatures into the palace’s information matrix. Closely tied to the deep palace and all its horrors, as well as to the decay. Those who venture the furthest bear signs of decay: uncontrollable unraveling, and eyes on the backs of their hands. The memories they guard are associated with sight, prophecy, and the identities of wizards and extraplanar beasts.

Curators understand many of the codes in the Mind Palace. They cannot read Common and misunderstand human idioms. Their primary currency unit is a day’s debt of service. 

by Haejin Lee

 

Curator
HD 1  Defense as leather  Quarterstaff 1d4
Move 20  Int 14  Morale 6
Special shocking strikes, grab

All damage dealt by curators by their tendrils/through metal weapons deal additional lightning damage. They can grab you with their tendrils and try to restrain you in their torso, but this deals damage to both parties involved.

1d6	Bog-Standard Curator Encounters
1	Light Patrol: 1d4 curators armed with iron quarterstaffs, seeking out intruders.
2	Heavy Patrol: 2d4 curators armed with falchions, seeking out intruders. The patrol leader can cast a powered-down version of Chain Lightning.
3	Guard Duty: 1d4 curators armed with falchions, guarding the next door (guaranteed unique room).
4	Trading: 1d4 curators traveling to another lobe, either carrying myelin wraps or planning to fulfill a debt of service. At most two are armed with iron quarterstaffs.
5	Working in the Scriptorium: 2d6 curators, unarmed and hard at work.
6	Retrieving books from dilapidated rooms: 1d4 curators, unarmed and hard at work.

When you encounter any number of curators, roll a d4 to see which lobe they belong to. 

1d4	Curator Factions
1	Logos: Militant/territorial/conspiracy theorists. Default disposition: hostile/intimidate
2	Temporus: Religious/tour guide/merchants. Default disposition: friendly/parley
3	Somatos: Reclusive/wistful/artists. Default disposition: neutral/parley
6	Occipitus: Hungry/corrupted/cultists. Default disposition: hostile/attack

The first time you encounter curators from any given lobe, you are in their territory until you enter another lobe’s territory. These lobes are mostly contiguous, but it’s commonplace for one lobe’s patrols to intrude on another lobe’s territory. If there’s a border dispute, Logos > Temporus > Somatos > Occipitus for territory ownership.

1d20	Curator Names
1	Lugaro-One
2	Two-Twenty-A-Seer
3	Dreamcatcher
4	Serum-Being-Four
5	Anxi-Moreso
6	Six-The-Next-Lighthouse
7	Forty-Seven-J-Annis
8	Wings-On-Eight
9	Ninth-Scriptorium
10	Betz-Deca
11	One-One-Majorum
12	Twelve-The-Spindle
13	Thirteen-Thirteen-Fingers
14	Grey-Four
15	Fifty-Two-Schema
16	Gaba-Lost-Sixty
17	K-Oxyto-K
18	Spine
19	Ninety-Syn-Ground
20	Node-C-Sorim

The Dreg Heap from Dark Souls 3

Other Adventurers

They’re here for the same reasons you are, called to the siren song of profit and secrets. Mostly neutral, as likely to help you through the next room ahead as they are to put a knife between your shoulders.

1d6	Adventuring Folks
1	Q-Two-Daemon: A stern Logos with a voice like static electricity. Straight-backed and long-limbed, introduce themselves as “a critical element of our Lady”. The hilt of a long katana is buried in their left temple (they’re using their own torso as a sheath). Watch you like a hawk, and reach for the their temple at the slightest sign of danger. Obsessive and distrustful, but true to their word and unflinchingly loyal. A bit of a rogue, bent on purging monsters from the decay despite the effect close proximity has on their body. Slowly turning into a nightmare.
2	Den Trennock: A mercenary in the service of a merchant’s guild from distant lands. Gaunt and clean-shaven. The rest of his team met a gruesome fate at the hands of a palace denizen (roll d6 for Monster), and he’s just looking for a way out. Carries a morningstar and a book of non-magical hymns. Outfitted quite cheaply: he was the lowest-ranking member of the team. Alcoholic on his last legs, has a bad habit of chewing his thumb nail. When you encounter the monster that killed his team, their bodies will be in the same room: four men with various martial weapons, chain armor, and 3d10+20 gold between them.
3	Mooneye Glum: The world’s most normal owlfolk. Carries a lot of silver, mostly in the form of the dozen pendulums in his coat which she uses to tell time. Curious, cocks her head when quizzical. Calls herself a bounty hunter and demands proof that you are not birds in disguise. Refuses to join your party, then trails one room behind you as you set off traps. Has true dark-vision. She’s here to unearth the secrets of the three avian kings, who went into hiding aeons ago. Carries a walking stick, a bright feather-lined cloak, thirteen silver sling bullets, and a bird cage containing a dead parrot. Can cast Sleep, but that’s it.
4	Beccem: A young man of only seventeen years. His tribe sent him into the Mind Palace to retrieve an artifact (roll d6 for Treasure) as a suicide mission (why? he won’t say). He’s managed to dodge curator patrols for thirty days and is just a day away from dying of thirst. He carries nothing but the shawl on his head, an empty waterskin, and a curved dagger. Wants 1) water; 2) to return to his people; 3) as much gold as he can carry, in that order. Open to working with others so long as he gets what he came for. A decent lock pick and trap finder.
5	Gabriel of Trytis Savor: A roving warrior with outstanding moral fiber and a lengthy beard, sitting cross-legged in the center of the room. Never moves from that spot. Pretends to be a noble but is really just putting on a big show. Found what he came for in the dungeon months ago, although to him it has only been a few days. Currently under the influence of a memetic curse; the wielder of his magic greathammer “Anchor” is compelled to remain in the same room they picked it up. Will only consent to one-on-one duels. Good-natured, boastful, and willing to trade advice about the palace for food and drink. Can laugh at himself.
6	Antessa: A historian studying the life history of Belliserum from the palace. She’s mostly gotten curator accounts so far, the majority of which depict Belliserum as a messianic figure with godlike powers. She’s secretly smuggling a few palace books in her bag, which would definitely get her killed by the curators if they found out. Carries way more supplies (torches/food/water) than she actually needs, as well as a 20 gp pouch and a light crossbow. An anxious hypochondriac. Well liked by the curators, who see Belliserum in the shape of her face in the grey of her hair.

Treasures

They’re hidden in the stacks, or carried by hostile curators. Brought here by Belliserum before her passing, born from decaying memories, or repossessed from previous adventuring parties.

1d6	Palace Treasures
1	Myelin Sheath: A durable yet flexible item woven from the same cloth material used to make curators. If you draw a weapon from it and attack on the same turn, your first attack deals bonus lightning damage.
2	Schwann’s Retainer: Named for a transmutationist who figures prominently in some of Belliserum’s oldest memories. A stretchy, translucent blue ooze which expands to perfectly envelop any item placed inside it (max. 5’ cube). Insulates against water, temperature, and electricity. Soft and malleable, but tightens into a perfect sphere when pushed (for easy rolling).
3	Ring of Ranvier: A suppressed memory crystallized into a whispering black diamond. The wearer may exchange one of their prepared spells with a random spell of the same level (1/day). The new spell has a 50% chance to be a twisted version of its usual self (revealed on cast): Cure Wounds will harm, Light will extinguish all nearby light sources, and Banish will summon an exact alternate-universe copy of the target.
4	Crook of the Lobotomist: A hooked wand of delicate silver. The tip is crusted over with an unidentifiable tissue. 1/day, the wielder may cast Modify Memory on themselves to erase a real memory or introduce a false one (takes 10 minutes). If left under one’s pillow overnight, the “erased” memories will return slowly in reverse chronological order. Beware: previous wielders wanted to erase those memories for a reason.
5	Seerjas, the Imperial Suggestion: A memetic weapon with hypnotic properties. Seerjas is a +1 version of whatever weapon its wielder proclaims it to be, so long as the majority of characters in the room believe it exists in that form. Cha modifiers replace Str for all relevant rolls made with Seerjas. Characters who believe in Seerjas see it in all its glory and can describe it in great detail, but these accounts differ greatly.
6	Axon Stave: A 5’ wooden stave with tiny golden wiring along its full length. Allows the wielder to deliver touch spells with reach. If they shuffle their feet in place for a few seconds, the wielder can deliver a small electric shock through the stave (1 round of movement for 1 damage).

[Sidebar: Electric impulses open a lot of doors in the Mind Palace, which is a big part of how the curators manipulate the architecture to their advantage.]

  

How to Use All This

When I started writing this project, I had no concept of how to run it beyond copying Abandoned Sacrophagus’ Sempervivarium. The warm reception to this post was a huge surprise for me, so much so that I now feel obligated to do right by those who want to run the darn thing. Feel free to throw this stuff out and build the Mind Palace by hand (you’ll probably want to ignore all that stuff about constant room movement in the last post, its a pain in the ass to track on a set layout).

Whenever the party enters an unexplored room, roll a d6. On a 1-3, it’s a scriptorium, an etched stone chamber full of bookcases and tables for copying manuscripts. Roll on the encounter table to see what’s up in there. Otherwise, its a unique room you haven't explored yet (see first post).

Whenever you roll an encounter, roll a d6 to see which table you’re rolling on. Then, roll a d4. On a 4, there’s treasure in this room (where exactly is up to you).

d6 Encounters	Below (Deep Palace)	Ground Floor	Above (High Cortex)
1.	Monster	Monster	Monster
2.	Monster	Monster	Adventurer
3.	Monster	Adventurer	Curators
4.	Adventurer	Curators	Curators
5.	Curators	Curators	Curators
6.	Roll two more times	Roll two more times	Roll two more times

Whenever the party rests in the palace, there is movement (see first post). Roll twice for extended rests.

Once all unique rooms have been cleared, the next unique room is guaranteed to be The End. 

The End

A warm, dark room dominated by a rippling stone throne. In the throne sits a vaguely human-shaped pile of myelin ribbons, like a curator but larger, denser, and less tightly sealed. The entire room is heavy with its slow breaths. Any treasure not discovered in the rest of the dungeon is also in the room, next to a chair and desk much like those found in the scriptoriums.

Many ragged sheets of myelin hang on the walls, upon each of which a message is encoded (its basically Belliserum's Rosetta Stone). One of these (behind the throne) is written in Common. It reads:

“To the world and, more importantly, myself,

There is no greater tragedy in human biology than the lack of permanent records. Yet again, a close friend and colleague has passed away, leaving me his grand collection of unfinished manuscripts, and yet again I approach the painstaking task of transcribing his legacy for future generations. It saddens me to say that his diagrams, experiments, and various musings are in large part indecipherable, and each unfinished thought torments me in its unknowability.

I wonder, is this the fate that shall befall my own work, to be misinterpreted by well-meaning acolytes and heirs? Furiously I write, clarifying and reclarifying my intentions in hopes that they will remember me as I am, but it is futile. There is no combination of ink and syllables that can convey the full depth of my personhood to generations to follow, and when the words are faded and forgotten I will face a second death, that of the independent, unparaphrasable voice.

It is difficult to hold on to hope as my contemporaries take to their tombs, yet I believe I am approaching a solution. To those who would follow in my footsteps, do not decipher my codes or translate my texts.

Just ask.”

The figure in the throne will answer a single question by directly injecting information into the party’s minds, afterwards it falls silent and still.