The Unplace
Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
Hit Points 153 (18d10+54)
Speed 30 ft. climb 30 ft.
Saving Throws Dex +7, Int +8, Wis +6
Skills Stealth +7, Deception +7, Perception +6, Investigation +8
Damage Resistances psychic
Condition Immunities restrained
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 16
Languages Common, Deep Speech, telepathy 120 ft.
Challenge 9 (5,000 XP) Proficiency Bonus +4
Actions
Bonus Actions
Reactions
Lair
Lair Actions
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the creature can take a lair action to cause one of the following effects; it can't use the same effect two rounds in a row:
- The Corridor Changes. The Unplace chooses two doors, passages, streets, or other openings within the lair. Until initiative count 20 on the next round, each opening leads to the location formerly reached by the other opening.
- Unwelcome Shortcut. One creature the Unplace can see within the lair must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be teleported to a hostile or inconvenient location within 60 feet, such as a dead end, a flooded chamber, or the edge of a drop.
- The Exit Moves. Until initiative count 20 on the next round, every creature attempting to leave the lair must succeed on a DC 16 Intelligence saving throw or return to the space it occupied at the start of its turn.
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You cannot leave a place that has not finished becoming you. — Ilyra Venn, final note in the Surveyor's Chapel
Lore & Description
Appearance
The Unplace is a towering, angular figure composed of masonry, folded parchment, and fragments of painted scenery. Its torso resembles a many-sided watchtower whose windows open onto different skies, while its limbs bend at impossible angles like roads drawn by a careless hand. Rivers of blue ink crawl beneath translucent stone across its body, forming maps that constantly redraw themselves. Its head is a smooth, featureless slab marked only by a compass rose with a needle that spins whenever someone speaks of going home.
Behavior & Origins
The Unplace began as a harmless error on the survey map of the royal cartographer Ilyra Venn, who placed a valley between two distant mountain ranges and gave it the name Vellum Gap. Travelers began following the false map, and each journey made the valley more real. When Ilyra returned to correct her mistake, the valley had acquired roads, houses, weather, and resentment. Now the Unplace expands by incorporating every visitor's expectations, then rearranges itself whenever anyone tries to leave. It especially hates farewells, believing that every goodbye is an accusation that it is not a real place. The Unplace wants the original copper survey plate bearing Ilyra Venn's signature, which is hidden in the abandoned Surveyor's Chapel; it intends to alter the plate so that Vellum Gap appears on every map in the world.
Running The Unplace
Tactics
The Unplace opens with Erase Landmark to scatter the party, then uses Fold the Street to isolate anyone separated from the group. It keeps melee attackers moving with Boundary Shear and Wrong Turn while pinning spellcasters or fleeing characters with Map Pin. When reduced below half its hit points, it rearranges the battlefield every round and attempts to trap one character in a false exit; it fights to the death if the party carries Ilyra Venn's survey plate, but otherwise flees through solid terrain once reduced below 20 hit points.
DM Tips
- Telegraph the danger with maps whose roads change when viewed twice, doors that open onto places the characters just left, and farewell words that echo from empty rooms.
- Give the Unplace a wounded, offended voice: it speaks in the tones of signposts, distant bells, and remembered guides, and refers to visitors as misplaced objects.
- For a weaker party, reduce Erase Landmark to 4d8 damage and remove the forced teleport; for a stronger party, let Fold the Street teleport 90 feet and give the Unplace a third Boundary Shear in its Multiattack.
- Keep a simple sketch of the lair and alter it openly between rounds so players understand that navigation itself is part of the encounter.
Loot
- Ilyra Venn's Copper Survey Plate — A weathered engraving plate that depicts Vellum Gap. It can serve as proof that the Unplace was deliberately created, or be altered to make the false territory appear on official maps.
- Compass of the Last Known Road — This tarnished compass points toward the nearest place its bearer sincerely considers home, even across planar boundaries. The Unplace desperately wants it destroyed.
- The Unplace's Errata — A bundle of folded maps covered in living ink. Each map depicts a location that does not yet exist, offering the DM several seeds for future impossible dungeons.
