Talk:Illithid

message: Article merged: See old talk-page for Ilsensine here. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Not that I'm some sort of D&D playing nerd or anything, but this is much more commonly known as illithids, IMO. Tuf-Kat
:I've moved it. Tuf-Kat
There are no mind flayers or illithids in ADOM, nor any creature with similar brain-sucking powers.  Are you sure that they exist in "many other roguelike games"?
Ekaterin.
:Angband and Nethack have mind flayers, as presumably do most of their numerous descendants. Salsa Shark 08:20, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Illithid

message: Well, I am a "D&D playing nerd". Gave the page a quick revision. I think I got most of the grammar, but someone should run another set of eyes over it.
Another thing: this page has quite a bit of info on these guys that's not in any of the core books, especially concerning their lore and the mechanics of "ceremorphosis". Sure would be nice to get sources for this - or at least someone who can back this up.
--STGM 09:50, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: It states that their system of lines felt by tentacles is similar to morse code, but wouldn't it be closer to braille? --Psyphics 19:24, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting speculation - never thought of it that way. Wouldn't be good to add to the article, though. 71.194.32.252 (talk) 02:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: OK...? 204.153.84.10 (talk) 16:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morse code? 

message: Could someone with the Book of Abherrations get some info on these Illithids/M ind flayers, please?
:I don't quite get what you want. There's enough info for someone unversed in D&D to figure out exactly what the illithid are, and that's the sort of thing Wikipedia exists for. MasterGrazzt 07:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Abheration

message: *Gygax, Gary? The Strategic Review #1, (TSR, 1975).
Putting a question mark after uncertain parts of a reference is the lazy way of writing refs. Please find out the correct information (Google is your friend). Furthermore, since the SR is a periodical, you should list the title of the article the mind flayer appears in.-Robbstrd 09:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Try again, please

message: Nothing serious, but anyone noticed how similar zoidberg is to a mindflayer/illithid in terms of head appearance and eating mannerism? Jackpot Den 14:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Zoidberg doesn't eat brains, and the tentacles are arranged differentl. Also, Illithids have an endoskeleton whereas zoidberg is crab/lobsterlike, with a shell. The only thing going is the number of tentacles. 82.31.111.204 (talk) 16:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zoidberg? 

message: Should there be mention of the followers of Thoon (Monster Manual V) as a separate group of Illithids? The book makes it quite clear that they differ significantly from normal Illithids in motives and, in some cases, abilities. Xiphe 00:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They're just part of the wonderful variety of illithid sects. (Boom-tish). But seriously, folks...that's not true in all settings. In Eberron, for example, they are actually closer than normal illithids to their true origins, since they've been back to their home plane far more recently. 137.166.68.65 (talk) 03:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thoon 

message: We need citation on the illithid variant section, does anyone know if we're allowed to use dnd books as sources? Tanderson11 (talk) 14:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You absolutely may! :) It's better than nothing at all. Where possible, we need to use reliable seconday sources such as these, but in the absence of those we might as well go with what we have. :) BOZ (talk) 14:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What BOZ said. Additionally, whenever you happen to come across a reliable source, please add it at WP:DND/R for ease of reference. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations

message: I don't know anything about dragonlance so I'm ignorant of yaggols, are they an illithid variant or should they be related creatures? Tanderson11 (talk) 14:53, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just looked up yaggols on http://www.dlnexus.com/lexicon/15109.aspx and it doesn't mention illithids at all, they only look similar do we need them at all? Tanderson11 (talk) 15:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Off the top of my head, they are a related creature... but don't take my word for that; whenever possible, always go straight to the source. :) BOZ (talk) 15:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Yaggols

message: Do we need this, we could list thousands of specific illithid related things, we want this article to be consise as possible, we don't need this clogging it up.Tanderson11 (talk) 15:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Darn, I keep forgetting to sign Tanderson11 (talk) 15:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It takes time to get used to doing that. :) Don't know the significance of the Adversary thing, as I don't currently have access to Dawn of the Overmind, but undoubtedly that part could be shortened and still get the point across. BOZ (talk) 16:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Right now I propose the adversary section for deletion, it is just not relevant enough.  Tanderson11 (talk) 16:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes sense. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The Adversary

message: The bold sections about certain gods have to go, if we want we should create separate articles for the gods. Tanderson11 (talk) 17:01, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going ahead and removing the god section and making a new article for the main illithid god (can't remember his name at this time) Tanderson11 (talk) 21:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd added in the god sections from a merge because the two articles were too short, but it does make sense for them to be separate. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion

message: Whoever said illithids are inspired better step up to the plate and tell us how they know because we need citations. Tanderson11 (talk) 21:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? -Drilnoth (talk) 02:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Cythos

message: ,  ???,  BOZ (talk) 20:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible refs? 

message: How come nobody has even mentioned that the Illithid are basically wingless Cthulhus?? It's very unlikely that hte D&D creators just "happened" to imagine a creature that looks just like Cthulhu.--20-dude (talk) 07:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cthulhu 

message: I removed the uncited claim that Maanzecorian was the primary illithid deity prior to his death. (In my change notes I incorrectly cited "Monster Mythos (1992)", the correct title is actually Monster Mythology.) While it is possible that Maanzecorian's prominence was retconned at a later date, I cannot find anything supporting this claim in any 2e, 3e or 3.5e sources I have at hand (I have a lot). If Maanzecorian's level of godhood was indeed retconned, this retcon should be noted or at the very least cited.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.191.61.94 (talk) 10:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maanzecorian 

message: Publication history
The Mind flayers which were created by Gary Gygax, did in fact thaat an  inspiration for the Mind Flayers was in fact the cover painting of the book The Burrowers Beneath written by Brian Lumley.Ok thats fine but that book that the cover art is inpired by is in fact Cthulhu Mythos fan fiction so H.P. Lovecraft does  in fact deserve credit in this Wikipedia article for being the origin of the  cause if Mr.Gygax's inspiration because if it was not For him and his Cthulhu Mythos Mr.Lumley would not have been inspired to write that book.
<--REX— Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.12.110.212 (talk • contribs) 
:"Fan fiction" and "inspired by" are not the same thing.  "Fan fiction" is a non-professional writer taking someone else's copyright work and making their own stories with the same to minimally altered characters without any expectation of being published.  Illithids are not Cthulhu, and are only visually similar, thus they are only inspired by.  Ian.thomson (talk) 23:34, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  ORIGIN OF THE MIND FLAYERS 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Illithid. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20060827004803/http://www.planewalker.com:80/encyclopedia/encyclopedia.php?intEntryID=168 to http://www.planewalker.com/encyclopedia/encyclopedia.php?intEntryID=168
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 20:05, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Publication history
* for the original (white box) Dungeons & Dragons game (1976), wherein they are described as super-intelligent, man-shaped creatures of great (and lawful) evil, with tentacles that penetrate to the brain and draw it forth for food.
* The article "The Sunset World" by Stephen Inniss in Dragon #150 (October 1989) presented a world that had been completely ravaged by mind flayers. The "Dragon's Bestiary" column, in the same issue and by the same author, described the illithidae, the strange inhabitants of this world.
* The ulitharid, or "noble illithid" was introduced in the Dungeon adventure Thunder Under Needlespire by James Jacobs in Dungeon #24 (July/August 1990), and later included in the Monstrous Compendium Annual One (1994).
* Monster Manual V (2007) introduced the concept of "thoon", a driving force (be it some alien god, outside philosophy, or other driving incentive) which has changed several mindflayers' world outlooks.
Fictional aspects
* Illithidae:  Illithidae are to mind flayers as less intelligent animals are to humans.  Known types include the cessirid, embrac, kigrid, and saltor. Dragon magazine once published a template for use in creating an illithidae creature, for use with the 1st Edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game.  They were updated in 3.5 in the Lords of Madness supplement.
* Neothelid: If an illithid tadpole survives but fails to undergo ceremorphosis, it will eventually grow into an incredibly powerful worm-like creature with illithid tentacles at the forefront of its body and immense mental powers. An immature neothelid variant was also detailed in Dungeon magazine #81.
* The origins of the illithids have been described in several conflicting stories offered in various D&D products, in past editions and in the current version of the game, which can be taken as successive retcons.
* The 2nd Edition book The Illithiad suggests they may be from the Far Realm, an incomprehensible plane completely alien to the known multiverse. There is no mention of time travel in this theory. Instead, they emerged somewhere countless thousands of years ago, beyond the histories of many mortal races, and spread from one world to another, and another, and so on. It is explicitly stated in this book that the illithids appear in some of the most ancient histories of the most ancient races, even those that have no mention of other races.
* The 4th Edition preview Wizards Presents Worlds and Monsters supports the claim that mind flayers originate from the Far Realm.
* In these two differing versions of the story, much of the variance hinges upon a fictional text called The Sargonne Prophecies. The Illithiad described the Prophecies as misnamed, and that much of it sounds more like ancient myth than prophecy. Lords of Madness takes the name more literally, and states that The Sargonne Prophecies are in fact prophecy—or, perhaps more accurately, a history of the future.
* Yet another version came from The Astromundi Cluster, a Spelljammer boxed set produced before The Illithiad. This version holds that the illithids are descended from the outcasts of an ancient human society that ruled the now-shattered world called Astromundi. The outcast humans eventually mutated, deep underground, into the mind flayers. (This boxed set also introduced the entity known as Lugribossk, who was depicted as a god of the Astromundi flayers then but was later retconned into a proxy of the god Ilsensine.) In the retconned history of the illithids found in either The Illithiad or Lords of Madness, the emergence of illithids in Astromundi becomes a freak occurrence due to the intervention of Ilsensine through its proxy, since the illithids of Astromundi have their own histories as emerging solely upon that world.
* However, and whenever it occurred, when the illithids arrived in the Material Plane of the distant past, they immediately began to build an empire by enslaving many sentient creatures. They were very successful, and soon their worlds-spanning empire became the largest one the multiverse had ever seen. They had the power—in terms of psychic potency and the manpower of countless slaves—to fashion artificial worlds. One such world was this empire's capital, called Penumbra, a diskworld built around a star, which was a thousand years in the making. Such was their might that the Blood War paused as the demons and devils considered a truce to deal with the illithid empire.
* Eventually, the primary slave race of the illithids developed resistance to the mental powers of their masters and revolted. Led by the warrior Gith, the rebellion spread to all the illithids' worlds, and the empire collapsed. The illithid race itself seemed doomed.
* Dungeon #100 claims the original home of the gith forerunners was a world known as Pharagos. Currently it is described as, "an unremarkable Material-Plane world, a far cry from the hotbed of magical activity and divine intervention that is the Forgotten Realms campaign or the World of Greyhawk." Beneath the Wasting Desert on that world, however, is the petrified corpse of the long-dead patron deity of the ancestors of the gith races. As is recounted in most 1st and 2nd edition sources, the ancestors of the gith forerunners were a human civilization before being modified by countless generations of illithid breeding and profane science.
This edit removed a lot of info that appears to refer to primary sources directly in the prose. Above is some of that info which should be easier to verify, cite & restore if an editor has access to the older D&D books. Sariel Xilo (talk) 15:39, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I'm sure most of this would be simple enough to source. I think it was removed because that was easier than just trying to do the work, or just leaving it for someone else who could do it. BOZ (talk) 00:45, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed info