Post by DM Leverage on Apr 15, 2017 17:28:47 GMT -5
Illithids
"The taste link is active," Sugglir sent to his assembled peers.
"Begin," came the collective response.
"Human food-creature," sent Sugglir to the bound captive, "you are honored by being chosen as the subject of pa'nur. My mind and yours are linked. When I feast upon your brain, you shall sense it, and savor its taste as much as I do. In this way, perhaps your soul will be convinced to tread the world in the future as an illithid, rather than as surface cattle." With that, Sugglir's tentacles bored their way into Kilimur's skull.
Kilimur screamed, but as he died, he learned that the mind flayer found his brain to be quite delicious.
The mind flayers are rightly feared for their evil, their power, and their diet of the brains of intelligent creatures. They assemble in great cities in the Underdark and enslave entire colonies of sentient to work for them and serve as sources of food. What prevents them from immediately conquering the world, in addition to their very specific dietary needs, is their inherently self-serving nature - even a slight setback causes an illithid to flee in the interest of preserving its own skin.
Brief History
As with the beholders, the origin of the Illithids is the source of much speculation and little fact. Some think they came from another plane, some from another time or from across the Sea of Night. Others theorize that they come from a place outside the normal considerations of Faerûn's cosmology. There are other worlds where mind flayers rule and all other races are livestock, and it was ancient slave rebellions against the mind flayers that resulted in psionically active races such as the duergar. As things stand, mind flayers are scattered across the world, and no one can point to a specific place where they originated.
The Organization
These statistic apply to the population of illithids living in or under Faerûn.
Headquarters: Various cities in the Underdark.
Members: Unknown, but at least five cities of 1,000 or more mind flayers are known to exist in the Underdark.
Hierarchy: Militaristic.
Leader: None, or the elder-brain of a city.
Religion: Ilsensine.
Alignment: LE.
Secrecy: None (although few on the surface other than illithids know the locations of Underdark Cities).
Symbol: Mind flayers have no common symbol, although their cities sometimes have a unique icon that decorates items created there.
Ilsensine - Deity of the Brain Eaters
While all mind flayers revere Ilsensine, their evil deity of knowledge, conquest, and mental power, few choose to devote themselves to the diety and become clerics. Each illithid city has a handful of clerics that remain somewhat apart from the others in the city. Ilsensine is said to look liek an enormous green brain trailing countless tentacles that lead throughout its cavernous realm and into the hidden corners of all planes. Its symbol is a brain with two tentacles. The domains associated with it ar Charm, Evil, Knowledge, Law, Mentalism, and Tyranny. Its favored weapon is the tentacle (whip)
Cities of Illithids
A mind flayer city is a hideously beautiful place, alien in construction and designed to suit creatures that can naturally levitate. Openings to palatial tunnels rise in staggered levels up the sides of great caverns, ramps are used instead of stairs, and the lowest level is relegated to slaves and slave handlers. At the center of the city is a large building that houses the elder-brain, the aggregate intelligence and memory of the mind flayers that have died. Within the elder-brain's pool swim the tadpole like young of the race, which implant themselves in a humanoid host when they reach maturity, eventually transforming the host body into the form of an adult mind flayer.
Mind flayers work to advance the plans of their community and divide themselves into smaller groups for specific purposes, such as creating attack strategies, planning slaving runs, searching for a way to dim the light of the sun, or creating magic items to enhance their psionic abilities. Illithids encountered outside a city are either agents of these smaller groups or (rarely) traitorous citizens marked for death. Whether associated with a city or not, mind flayers vigorously complete with each other, rarely pooling their powers, even when working towards the same goal.
Hierarchy
The head of a mind Flayer city is the elder-brain, which telepathically inks all the illithid minds within a mile of the city itself. The elder-brain is parent, orator, judge, arbiter, governor, and library for the illithids. Imbued with vast psionic power from its constituent preserved brains, the elder-brain cannot move and has no ability to physically defend itself, but its mental powers can effortlessly brin any mind flayer to its knees.
Below the elder-brain is the Elder Concord, a council of mind flayers representing each of the various illithid creeds (factions). The Elder Concord sets goals for the community, elects officials for various duties, and takes care of most of the responsibilities for ruling a community. Underneath the Elder Concord are the "common" illithids of the city, which either work alone or agglomerate into inquisitions or cults. Below the common illithids are the many slaves of the city, which do all of the actual labor, act as the city's military arm, and eventually end up as meals for the mind flayers. A city usually has one or two races of thralls to maintain its breeding population.
Motivation and Goals
The mind flayers wish to dominate the world so that they may live lives of luxury, feasting upon the refined minds of carefully bread thralls and honing their psionic powers to a fantastic degree. How each illithid plans ot see this goal achieved may differ - some wish to blot the cursed sun that prevents them from easily waging war on the surface, some wich to amass great armies of slaves, some to create psionic items of incredible power, and some have even stranger and more incomprehensible goals. Any motivation is a means to the desired end of world domination.
Recruiting
Mind flayers do not recuirt. To them, other races are only potential slaves. Only when it is to their advantage or when greatly outnumbered do they ally with others instead of enslaving them, and any creatures "recruited" by the illithids are eventually going to be charmed and enslaved by them. Almost any type of creature with a discernible intelligence may be found as an illithid thrall.
Allies
Mind flayers have few true allies, although they sometimes make temporary alliances with other Underdark races. They keep slaves of almost any race; the most common ones are grimlocks, because grimlocks breed fast and are willing to eat the remains a hungry mind flayer leave behind. The illithids also frequently have chuuls as slaves, and use many Underdark-adapted animals as spies (the illithids scour the animals' brains to get the information they want, bypassing the limited intelligence of the creatures).
Mind flayers sometimes lead small bands of doppelgangers, a type of group known as a druuth. The shapechangers are able to infiltrate various organizations and societies, providing their illithid masters with valuable information.
Enemies
The illithids have many enemies - namely, every creature that isn't an illithid, because no sane mind would volunteer to be enslaved and eaten by these monsters. However, some beings in particular are frequent foes. Deep dragons and drow compete with the mind flayers for living space and slaves. Undead of all kinds are hated and feared, for they are immune to most psionic powers, forcing the mind flayers to use their own natural attacks or waste valuable slaves.
The duergar are the most ardent foes of the mind flayers. Once a normal clan of dwarves, after being enslaved and tampered with for generations, the duergar shook themselves free of their mental chains and emerged into the Underdark as a new subrace of dwarves. The duergar have never forgotten their enslavement, and they train all their soldiers in illithid fighting tactics.
Encounters
Mind flayers avoid direct combat, preferring to let their slaves deal with this dirty business. If they have to fight, they hide behind a wall of slaves and use their mind blast and psionic abilities to neutralize foes. If they are particularly confident, they may enter melee personally to extract the brain of someone they find appealing. A rare few mind flayers have developed new psionic powers that enhance their physical profess and enable them to gain levels in the monk class.
If combat turns against it, even slightly, an illithid is likely to flee, abandoning its slaves. It may later sneak back to the site and charm any survivors, whether thrall or enemy.
Source: Forgotten Realms: Lords of Darkness.
