The Lack

"Unfortunately there is little to no provably factual knowledge about this entity, as it is near impossible to observe. This document presents all that I do know of the topic, as well as my own theories on it.

After encountering one of its agents in our travels, I became fascinated by this entity that I had called ‘The Lack’. The man we encountered had possessed many strange gifts the likes of which I had not seen before. He could seemingly disappear, reducing himself to little more than a shadow. He also proved completely immune to any forms of divination magic and, perhaps most jarringly, when he slew a hill giant that had attacked us, he erased it completely. After extensive physical and magical searching, I could find no trace of its existence on any plane, it had completely ceased to exist.

When I inquired after his gift he told me he often dreamed of open, empty voids, occasionally these dreams would be accompanied by disembodied feelings or a new power, but never was there anything to see or to hear.

After hearing this I was fascinated, and have spent countless hours since researching it in such places as the libraries of Sigil, the archives of Gideon Prime, and even, calling in one of the few great favours I was owed from my days travelling alongside Merry and Phillip, a single day in the halls of the Knowing Mistress herself. It was only in this last location that I found any trace of the phenomenon, and even that wondrous place had disappointingly little. There were only accounts from people who had made contact with The Lack, which had varying degrees of detail. I learned that it never uses words and that it can have multiple hosts at once. I also theorised that it had gotten slowly more intelligent over time. Of course, there were no accounts outright stating this, as each account was only from one time period, but in more recent accounts it was described as communicating with more sophistication, communicating different emotions at different times to send a specific message, rather than just one overwhelming emotion per vision.

Finding even the halls of the Knowing Mistress to be lacking, I decided I must take matters into my own hands. I retreated to my focusing room (I still need to thank Yussa for helping to set that up, perhaps he would enjoy my recent notes on the creation of demiplanes?), joined by Laele, and set about my work. I prepared a combined ritual of 'Sending', ‘Telepathic Bond’ and 'Contact Other Plane', placed a 'Mind Blank' onto Laele, and asked her to read my thoughts and record them, in case I was left unable to remember. My fears, it turns out, were not unfounded, we were both left completely unable to remember the event, so I have included a copy of Laele’s notes in place of my own account, translated from elven shorthand into common for convenience’s sake. I have complete faith in her notetaking abilities, but all the same, it must be stated that I have no way to prove that any of what is recorded actually occurred.

“Leona has established contact with The Lack, currently no sensory stimuli of any kind. She attempts to reach out with her mind, no response. Several minutes pass, Leona is surprised The Lack is surprised, Leona feels its emotion. She asks if it can understand language, it responds with sadness and frustration, it cannot. She asks how it responded if it cannot, it responds with confusion, it does not understand the question. Theory, it can understand intention but not language. I tell Leona, she does not appear to hear me. She asks what it is, it responds with confusion and frustration, it does not know. She asks how it first became aware of itself. It responds with confusion and frustration, it does not know it did not know how to communicate the information to her, it tries. It communicates calm and lack of focus, perhaps trying to represent nonexistence? Then there is surprise, then several emotions, it appears to struggle to decide. Then there is frustration, then focus, then there is something new. A memory, perhaps, or knowledge, not a thought, thoughts are acoustic, this is non-sensory, purely semantic. It felt an unknown sensation then it was aware of itself. Not as conscious as it is now, not even able to feel, but aware of itself and of another, someone in a world, not ours, trying to reach beyond their own world. It ended as soon as it began but left a trace, it wanted more. No other information comes besides the want at the end, perhaps its consciousness was reduced by lack of contact? Later, it doesn’t know how much, it felt it again, from a different place, and latched on. It was more aware this time, but only barely, still not able to form emotions. This happened several more times, it grew slightly more aware each time, contact became more sustained. The stream of information suddenly ends, it communicates fatigue, it cannot send more. Leona doesn’t react.”

The next thing I was aware of I was lying with my head in her lap, bleeding from my face, one of the focusing crystals was shattered. Laele tells me she checked on me when I did not respond and she saw I was collapsed and bleeding, she ended her detect thoughts spell and tried to rouse me, to no effect, then shattered the focusing crystal in order to end the spell. I awoke roughly five minutes later. Neither of us had any memory of the events, it is likely the stream of information overwhelmed my mind, perhaps it tried to communicate its lack of existence to me and my mind could not process it, Laele was likely only spared because of the ‘Mind Blank’. We have looked over the notes and formed some theories. We believe a powerful wizard attempted to reach beyond their world, perhaps in an early attempt to create a demiplane, perhaps simply to satisfy their curiosity. Their spell failed, but it did send a small amount of magic through to the other side before that happened. That residual magic caused The Lack to develop some tiny form of sentience, enough to want more. Later, another spellcaster recreated the experiment and the same happened. Over time this buildup of magic caused The Lack to develop into a semi-sentient entity. It does not appear to have any malicious goals, or any goals at all, beyond experiencing life, it does so by reaching out where the boundaries between planes are weak, attempting to contact minds and piggyback off of their sentience, granting them some of its own magic in return, whether this is intentional or not is as of yet unclear. I have suggested attempting to re-establish contact, but Laele is against the idea, I’m afraid I still can’t say no to her, so this matter has been put to rest for the time being." - Exerpt from the notes of arcanist Leona Helviund

Expanded Spell List

The Lack lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Fiend Expanded Spells

Spell Level	Spells
1st	heroism, inflict wounds
2nd	calm emotions, silence
3rd	blink, nondetection
4th	gravity sinkhole, greater invisibility
5th	antilife shell, passwall

Silhouette Guise

You gain the ability to take on the incorporeal nature of your patron. As an action you can transform, appearing as an indistinct silhouette for up to 10 minutes or until you choose to end this effect (no action required), you make a weapon attack, or you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell). You gain the following benefits while transformed:

Your identity is completely obscured.

You are invisible in complete darkness, and Wisdom (perception) checks made to see you while you are in dim light have disadvantage, even if the creature perceiving you has darkvision.

You can produce no sound, including speech and verbal components of spells.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Formless Resilience

Starting at 6th level, while your silhouette guise is active you do not need to breathe and you gain resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage.

Insubstantiality

Starting at 10th level, while your silhouette guise is active your weight is reduced to 0.5lbs, you cannot be tracked by non-magical means and you can walk across unstable surfaces such as snow or sand without sinking. Additionally, so long as you move no more than half your speed per turn you can walk across liquid surfaces, harmful substances still damage you when traversed in this manner.

Additionally, you no longer need to concentrate to maintain your silhouette guise, and the duration increases to 1 hour.

Empty Soul

When you reach 14th level, you cannot be targeted by any divination spell unless you allow it. Additionally, when you would trigger a spell such as Alarm or Glyph of Warding by proximity, you can roll a charisma ability check against the caster’s spell save DC, on a success the spell does not trigger and will not trigger for you until you leave and re-enter its area.