Mind Flayer Over Matter, a Spelljammer Adventure

Deep in the nebula storm of a dead god’s eye, a clan of mind flayers is preparing a ritual to open a wormhole and summon malevolent allies from the depths of the Far Realms. But a githyanki dragon rider is hot on their trail, ready to brave the cosmic storm and disrupt the ritual—for better, or perhaps, for worse. Only with the aid of clever heroes can the portal be sealed and the aberrational nightmares repelled.

A Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis Expansion - What's this all about?

As the party travels through the Astral Sea to confront the Xaryxian Armada in Light of Xaryxis, chapter 10, they encounter a githyanki dragon rider named Dagaz who is hunting mind flayers. In the book, this encounter is simply meant as a cliffhanger for the end of chapter 9, and is very unlikely to result in anything more than a brief exchange before Dagaz departs and never reappears in the campaign.

The purpose of this adventure is to provide an important side quest offered by Dagaz to give this encounter more narrative impact. In this adventure, Dagaz recognizes that the coalition is sorely outmatched and offers to tell them the location of a Xaryxian reinforcement base that the party could strategically destroy before the fight with the Armada. In return, the party must accompany Dagaz on a quest to hunt down and defeat a crew of mind flayers in a nearby Wildspace system called Vermilionspace. 

As always, it is up to you how much of the content to use. It’s perfectly fine to use some parts of this supplement while discarding others, or simply let the ideas presented here inspire new ideas of your own. This supplement assumes a party of four to six characters of 8th level.

The party receives a quest to hunt some mind flayers with Dagaz in a nearby Wildspace system. Once the group reaches Vermilionspace, they encounter a flying fish ship whose crew are being mind-controlled by puppeteer parasites. The party must decide to save or slay the crew before continuing on deeper into the system. Arriving at the heart of the system, a nebula called the Vermilion Eye, the party discovers five mind flayers conducting a ritual to summon invaders from the Far Realms. The party must disrupt the ritual while surviving the nebula storm. But as the mind flayers lose control, the ritual unexpectedly gives way to a cosmic horror that threatens to enter through the portal. To stop it, the party must either close or regain control of the portal themselves before the creature fully emerges. Finally, as the monster is defeated, the party must work together to safely contain the unstable energy of the wormhole—before a supernova explosion threatens their survival. 

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