Quarenzend

Place

Quarenzend is an ancient citadel on a planet in a Prime solar system called Enzend. The location is a closely-held secret, but Enzend is known to be remote, hard to find, and dangerous to be in. The planet is now a barely-habitable rock, frequently beset by thick clouds and violent thunderstorms. It's not clear how much of the world's and system's conditions are natural, and what might be the lasting effects of what happened there.

Thousands of years ago, Quarenzend was a secret capitol in the multiverse-spanning empire of the illithids. They performed extensive research and development in the citadel, honing their understanding of psionics, matter, life, and death. Legends say that the illithids found ways to change reality in profound and permanent ways.

Some of their discoveries are embodied in particular magical items now scattered across the planes, as well as particular spells and rituals derived from their experiments. Recall that the illithids generally disdain arcane magic. However, there are many paths to inventing and perfecting spells, and one path is for clever arcanists to learn and iterate from illithid lore. Examples include the spells Dream and Soul Cage, and objects like a Helm of Liquid Imagination.

Legends agree that a great many horrors were perpetrated at Quarenzend by the illithids in their pursuit of discovery. Tens of thousands of slaves were psionically tortured, physically vivisected, or otherwise lethally abused.

There's no agreed-upon memory or record of Quarenzend's fall, although it was probably in conjunction with the gith rebellion. Legends tell of a powerful psionic storm that devastated and cursed the citadel--perhaps a Pyrrhic doomsday weapon deployed by the illithids or the gith.

Subsequently, Quarenzend has been held by various factions of good and evil. Some have sought to find, study, and leverage what was left behind, either to profit from the clandestine lore or to better understand how to find and slay illithids. Others have sworn that the lore was developed at such an awful price, it should never be used. An alliance of good factions held Quarenzend for much of the 1900s, and they took the latter position. However, on December 22, 1999, a large army of evil beings, rallied and lead by devils, attacked the citadel in force. Rather than try to seize control, the army engaged and distracted most of the defenders, while one or more elite teams raided the vaults beneath the city. The defenders eventually triumphed over the army, driving them off the world and plane. But nevertheless, the raiders got away with at least some of the insidious treasures of the dark world.