Entry 1: Nature as a Markovian Process

I have long studied the insects, the spiders, the inhabitants of the underdark since as long as I can remember. The tales of the variety of species of life down here drew me in as a young man, and the veracity of those stories did not disappoint. Here, amongst the dank and must of the eons, the caves and crannies carved by generations of gnomes and moisture, the branches of life have sprouted in many generations. However, like most cycles, each apogee has a perigee.

Nature is no different. Over time I have notices a stark trend that worries me. I have sworn to uphold the balance of nature, but that balance is becoming more like a funnel. The evolutionary chain of development is not leading to a wider and more varied range of species. Quite the opposite: species are dying off rapidly, and the variety of life is becoming less broad in scope. The evolution of life is becoming predictable. Random variables are no longer out there, forcing the hand of nature to turn one way or the other, to branch out into new life. It is a Markov chain, a chain that will strangle the balance in the underdark, and lead to decay, and destitution!

I have noticed also that many forms of life are, as a result of this inbreeding, becoming increasingly more susceptible to disease. This is something else that appalls me. Whereas the more superior species of life are becoming more uniform, the various microorganisms that comprise the various diseases are spreading rampantly into newer and more exotic forms. This is something else that must be studied so that I might be able to stave them off, and also help forge sturdier experiments more resistant to disease in the future.

The hand of nature occasionally needs help from those who have sworn it's cause. I, Tobias Breen, will not stand idly by and let life in the underdark slowly concave into extinction.

Entry 2

I have encountered a peculiar strain of spider species in the depths of the sewers, while foraging for rat specimens for disease study. This unexpected boon might be useful, although I do not know what might come of it as my studies are fledgling at best. I need access to biological research texts, and perhaps the means to go beyond simple cross breeding of seemingly noncompatible subspecies of spiders.

Entry 3:

I have found that this town is lukewarm to somewhat hostile to my research. No matter, I have found a few allies in a malarite druid and Grizabella. I have seen samples of many insects, bats, rats, lizardmen, you name it. I have also come across something of great interest.

The waters that run beneath the city, and out into the lower part of Sanctuary, I believe are a source of disease. I found a dead mass of something that once lived, so pock marked with cancers and sores it was unidentifiable. I suspect that there is somewhere a cause of this great disease, which might give me some insight as to why the varieties of diseases seems to spread like wildfire down here.

In the interim, I have managed to find a use for the ability to summon source material for my experiments in battle. Nature has granted me the gift to magically create beetles and rats and this is something I should not ignore.

Entry 4:

A few days ago I encountered something that washed up on shore. It was a decomposing organic mass, covered in sores, cancers, and polyps. It was a stinking fetid rest home for disease. An unusual one at that. Once again I thought I had found another strain of malady that needed to be dealt with. I didn't think it would be a possible pandemic.

I was recently wandering about looking for the lost body of a murdered man, when a small band of mutated spiders marched past me. They breathed a deadly disease filled gas which I was resistant to. When I got my hands on one of them, I noticed it was covered in the same types of cancers and evidence of disease that I saw on the tissue sample that floated on shore in the canal ward.

I am going to to some intense analysis of this disease and try to determine what it is. I have some samples of rats and vermin i can work with to see what its effects are, and perhaps determine its origin. I think my work would dictate that I tell the rest of the town, but perhaps only when I come up with some answers. I do not want to alert the citizens with needless speculation.

Entry 5: Timing is everything.

I have never been much of a man for religious dogma. Sure, I have a patron diety. Sure, I have pledged my cause to an unseeable, somewhat unknowable entity called "the balance." However, I have first and foremost called myself a man of science. I depend largely on observable, tangible, discernible evidence to make analysis. It's what led me to the underdark. It's what is driving my research on the causes of disease and the biodiversity crisis that I believe is crippling nature in this bizarre underdark.

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of meeting one Mandarin. This man was standing on the shore of the dark lake with a woman. This woman was named "Morgan." She also appeared to be quite visibly ill. I couldnt help but think that this was no common illness. Something was mentioned: Synod. A clue fell into place that might connect the tissue sample from the canal ward, the mutated spider sample I collected, and some larger picture as to a cause. The man Mandarin and the woman Morgan were met up by another man, Ivandur, who seemed to have a very tenuous love hate relationship with each other, and the law. I followed them and listened in, but could not get anything larger as to the identity of Synod.

I went to the various and sundry sources of knowledge in the city, looking up Synod. I was browsing through a text on Slaastesh, some lizardman encampment, when I saw information that shocked me. It seems that water bourne disease is something they are tied to. I think that whatever Synod is, the answer lies within Slaastesh.

Opportunity knocked again. The man Mandarin mad an announcement that he was willing to pay money to cure the illness *he* had. I did not notice his own malady, but this was an opportunity, albeit dangerous, to learn more. He was heading into the sewers, and I figured this was a chance to see what other pieces of this puzzle I could put together. What Mandarin did was not put any puzzle pieces together, but throw and additional thousand pieces into the mix.

He sounds, for all intensive purposes, like a mad man. He had answers to a lot of questions about Dunwarren, though. What really happened to the gnomes. He left his texts with me. I think, I might have them copied and trade them to the man who I was told had some biological texts. Mandarin went on and on about his diety, this supposed "primordial" from which everything erupted. He claimed life was literally illusory, there were no gods. He said the only way "out" was to merge with his diety. I travelled with him into an undead infested section of sewer and saw him dissolved into a giant gelatin cube. I then saw him later in the city, claiming to have seen what he said were our illusory masters.

A mad dogmatist, half blinded by delusion, driven by what he thinks is evidence of his crackpot theory, armed with a hint of truth ... nothing could be more hazardous. This man needs to be held onto. Perhaps killed. However there is one person I need to speak with before anything. Grizabella must know of what I saw, and what Mandarin told me, before I can make sense of the larger picture. Perhaps she might know something about the Synod, and the disease coming from Slaashtesh as well.

Entry 6:

The disease I have found does not come from the Synod, or from Sslal'teesh. I snuck onto their turf, only to be found by a scout. I was honest with them, and they appreciated it. I struck a deal with them to let them know when I have learned more about the disease. On the other hand, they told me, Mandarin is insane, and is delusional since he was an Illithid slave. It makes sense, even though recently undead had confirmed his words. It might be all an extended lie to him and to everyone. I still need to give him back his texts. Meanwhile, I have to keep searching for more evidence of the disease I found. The Synod kept the sample I collected. I must find more.

Entry 7

My investigation led to a dead end with the Synod and Mandarin. So I went back to the location at which I first discovered the disease, in the canals. I found a bizarre species there, which Grizabella identified as the court of Unseelie. Grizabelle did not know much of them, but took a keen interest in the substance I took from them. A green fluid, that she confiscated, and told me not to look into further.

An unscientific attitude if I do say so myself. I will have to go back to them again and acquire another sample. I believe that a small group can get the job done. However, an assassin from the court attacked me in the mines, and warned against returning. I need another sample, to find out what it does. It comes from a pipe presumably coming from Dunwarren. I think I might try exposing a source material animal to it, and see if that does anything.

Entry 8

I acquired more of the substance. I tested it on a summoned spider, but it did not last long enough to show any long standing effects.

I ingested it myself. The greenish solution is no more than a hallucinogenic. I felt myself lose control of my senses, I felt like I was in some other place, pitch black, and then I awoke feeling nauseated. The reason the Unseelie are so attached to it is because they are addicted to the hallucinogenic feeling.

Meanwhile i have nothing to work with. I no longer have an angle to pursue my research. I have to hope for a clue at this point. All those lives risked, all that money spent, for practically nothing...

Entry 9

And where I thought my hopes were lost, Grizabella told me to look inward for the source of the ooze, which was only a diluted form when I drank from it. The real source is in Dunwarren, in the bowels of the machines within. I must go there to go to the source of the sludge which Grizabella says is responsible for mutating nature and the area into what it is.

Entry 10:

At great cost, the source of the substance was found. Scientific progress must be made. Sampling it is fatal, as I found out when a wild elf drank of it. Experimentation is a must.

Entry 11: Desparation is setting in. I have to accelerate the process of finding someone to bring to the synod for experimentation with the substance. I have asked for help, and received none. I have posted a bounty, and have yet to receive responses. Worse yet, while investigating a sick clan of orogs, I ended up teleported underneath the Sslal'teesh encampment, with no choice but to fight my way out to freedom. I cannot help but think that word of a human druid killing lizardmen for no known reason has made its way to the Synod, the only source of collaboration on my quest for knowledge.

Entry 12:

By luck, an enterprising young man acquired and delivered a subject to the Synod for me. I need only pay him the back end of his sum, and then finally answers will be provided to me. Although I do hope they do not punish me for the accidental deaths of some of their tribesman in the past few weeks. I still must go soon to find out what I need to know about the substance.

Entry 13:

The experimentations werent entirely successful. I say entirely because I am led to believe that the test subject was a minor diversion for the Synod to entertain themselves. Small, medium, and large doses of the substance had no mutagenic affect on the woman, who simply passed out and died. However, the Synod did tell me one thing: that the substance has its greatest effect on immature younglings. When I told them of my scientific endeavors and aspirations for bringing balance to Sanctuary, and helping preserve biodiversity, they gave me a great gift, one I must mother over for some time. It is a heavy burden to bear, but for some time I feel I must protect it in order to see the results I want. The mercenary i hired needs to be paid. I am hoping the woman's belongings will be sufficient to meet his needs.

Entry 14:

I have never known the touch of a woman. I have never sired a child, and I cannot even recall my own family. Yet I feel at home here. I soon will have a child to call my own, and my own creations are its siblings, ready to defend it as necessary.

This is yet another great lesson of nature, and the creation of life. Soon a new life will be born, a unique life, and the markovian process shall be broken. The balance and expansion of life will be restarted, and I feel a strange sense of desire within me. Unscientific, unobjective, but a passionate burning in me to nurture and protect.. and mother.. the gift given to me.

Entry 15:

Someone has found my baby in my absence. I don't know if I can move the baby, or if I will have to kill this person. As I look at its quivering mass, I can't help but be torn between rationality and intense motherly parenting instinct. If someone were to aid me in this venture, someone who felt passionately about the environment and biodiversity, someone who respected life in the underdark, it would be a great burden off my back.

I have begun prayer to Talona again. For some time I felt the rational mind didnt need the gods as much as the empirical facts it could process, but lately I have felt a reconnection to the spiritual side. The side that tells me life is stronger through suffering, that nature roots out the weak through disease and poison, and that this is what is best for all.

16: Rumor has it the grey druids are real. I have one of their staves, and a rune, and they might be sympathetic to my cause of spreading life and reestablishing the balance in the underdark. I need to find them. And soon. Perhaps they might help me raise my baby.

17: The damnable drow; they might be natural to the underdark, but I caught them and duergar around the baby, and I did what I had to do. It didn't matter, as I was easily defeated by them. They didn't kill me off, but they took nearly everything I had. However, the baby was unharmed.

Cooler heads would have prevailed, in retrospect. It is the intense feelings of parenthood that led me to attack them. Later, when the drow confronted me outside the gates of the city, they revealed that they had no interest in the baby, so long as it was not tied to the goddess Llolth. I have no business with Drow religion, and do not call upon Llolth for anything. This eased the Drow's feelings, knowing that I venerate nature and Talona above all. My pets and projects, and the chain around my neck might put them at unease, but they called for a tenative alliance. Any help is necessary. I hope I can still call upon them to aid me when my baby is born. Time will only tell. However they hold me on a short leash, having taken my money and the broken piece of the circle of elders that granted me considerable, albeit limited powers. This will certainly cramp my ability to defend the baby, but there is little I can do about it. I do not need a Drow House against me if I had the capacity to kill these drow and use it.

18: I saw the baby born. I saw it before my eyes, such colossal beauty. It lay at the bottom of a grand stairway, where all the forces of nature stood in my way, keeping me from my child. But when I got to see it, what a sight! However it was all illusory, all a dream. My progeny was trapped behind lights that kept it alive. if it left, it would die. Such a horrific fate! But again, a dream. Still, Mandarin told me such dreams are harbingers of what lay ahead. If my baby were to be permanently trapped in the nursery, I would be very upset.. and if foul magics kept its powers in check, it would be a terrible thing indeed.

Entry 19:

Another dream. This time at the surface world, at a dock, whereupon I saw a beautiful creature. Such beauty unparalled, a perfect match between woman and arachnid. She was mine! She was a future generation of my offspring, and she called me father! Thousands like her existed, but before I could find out more, she pulled out another light, the same purple light that killed my baby in my last dream, it killed her. She said I needed to find "Zero Nine"

I can only presume she means one of my earlier experiments, version zero point nine, who I lost long ago.

Entry 20:

I was never much of a socialite, from the times i can remember before ending up here. As a teenager, I never dated, I didnt have many friends. Ending up in the underdark wasnt really a problem. Being alone was natural. No need for many friends, if any at all.

However I was forced into the company of a Drow, by the misfortune of his associates finding my baby. This slippery slope led to other drow, and neerdowells in the city, and this hasnt really been good for me I think.

One drow has gotten me expelled from Fort Mur by being a complete asshole to other drow. Sure, in the end it ended up saving my life, but that wasnt something I wanted to have happen. Mur is a place away from home, and now I have to find a way to make things better there.

Then there is this woman, Imnan. She was an associate of Zau, and I ended up being drafted into her plans. She was a strange woman, with a more rigid personality than me. Her plans included dueling Mylin, a priestess of some great regard, to the death. In front of a large portion of the city, she called me out to take her things, and tied me to her works in front of them. This served to be against my interests as she seemed to have pissed off a lot of people.

This isnt to say Imnan didnt serve a purpose to me either. She was good with wands. Shes now serving a better purpose. Mylin destroyed her with a single spell, and I ended up taking her corpse and her numerous belongings with me. Back in my new home, I decided that i could possibly make the future dream occur, if I had a means to crossing the baby's essence with a humanoid. I removed Imnan's reproductive organs, and immediately soaked them in a solution to keep. The maggot staff had the rest of her body, but those innards will be useful when the time comes to begin cross breeding experiments. If the dream is right, I... I create a new race of humanoids. Maybe this is the right step towards making *that* new life happen.

Still, friends come, they go. Zau was killed in a large explosion, and I had his body raised. I dont know if I will see him again for a while. Imnan is gone, another drow was arrested... me and several others were expelled from Fort Mur.. it just seems like working with people isnt the wisest thing. Still I need all the hands I can get when the time comes to deal with the baby. Mandarin is still about, and someone is asking me to take them under my wing.

Entry 21:

The time for birth is near. The egg is showing signs of movement. I have meat for it to consume when it is hatched. This is a watershed moment for my work, and for the balance, and for the underdark as a whole. I have asked Mandarin, Aracnar, Rumnar, and hopefully the drow, to come to its birth. It will be a beautiful moment, because I plan on discussing how we can all acheive our individual goals, balance restoration on my part, freedom and the surface, and ghauandar or whoever, for mandarin, im not sure what rumnar wants, Aracnar can pick up my work and take it in his own direction, and the drow can.. well im not entirely sure what they want, but with the direction i want to move in, we can accomplish all of our goals, and start to patch some of the gaping wounds in the balance.

I hear cracking noises. I should go see to the egg. The next few hours will allow minimal sleep.

Entry 22:

I am not the father of a beautiful baby girl. I am also part of the driving force to fix the balance. The coming weeks we prepare. We plan.

Entry 23:

*the following is written in a jerky handwriting*

We are one. Breen is us. All within one. We are Syndrome. We wait for the city, then we go to the city.