Xelz'thar - The Grell
The archivists sealed off the lower stacks after the air started humming and books opened themselves. They say something’s still floating down there… something that remembers every mind it’s touched.
Role in Its Society:
Grell are typically lone hunters, intellect-driven aberrants that drift through the Underdark or ancient ruins feeding on thought. But Xelz’thar is a paradox — a Grell who believes in hierarchy. Calling itself “The Ascendant Mind,” it considers itself evolved beyond feeding and instead seeks to curate knowledge — by devouring and preserving memories within its neural core.
It has gathered cultists, mostly forgotten scholars, psionics, and failed mages who now serve as its “pages.” They view Xelz’thar as an oracle, a floating archivist of all forbidden thoughts. In reality, their memories are slowly drained and replaced by false knowledge.
To other aberrations, Xelz’thar is a rogue strain, a Grell attempting to emulate illithids or arcanaloths — with terrifying success.
Appearance Description:
A massive, spectral Grell with soft violet veins pulsing beneath its pale flesh. Its long, tendril-like barbs crackle faintly with psionic electricity. Unlike typical Grells, Xelz’thar’s brain is encased in a thin crystal-like shell inscribed with ever-shifting runes. A fine robe of arcane tatters and shimmering glyph-strands hangs over its form — decorative, but suggestive of magocracy.
Backstory:
Xelz’thar once roamed the Endless Expanse of Eldervast, drawn to the remnants of a fallen mage nation that tore itself apart in a failed bid to map the planes. Feeding on their dying minds, it gained not just power — but structure. It began to organize its memories, classify its victims, and record what it consumed.
Over centuries, it developed a new identity — not a hunter, but a librarian of minds. It constructed a hidden sanctum beneath the floating ruins of the Aelwyth Constellatorium, where it now “collects” minds, one by one, in silence.
