Illithids. (Mind Flayers.)

***A Legendary tale…** This player-written lore is non-canon and may not exist within Elysium until revived and approved by Staff upon request.*

Note : Don't be OP. Be mindful.

*RATED RP SKILL LEVEL : High*

Not all my work, alot of edits and so on.

-Treepuncher2014

## **Illithids (Mind Flayers.)**

The ultimate megalomaniacs, mind flayers use their ability to enslave minds to play puppeteer to countless thralls while they feast on the brains of less useful creatures. Their goal is nothing short of world domination

Mind flayers, or illithids as they call themselves, are the embodiment of mortals' worst fears. They dwell in darkness and order monsters on foul errands. They slaughter or enslave multitudes of peaceful creatures and exert total dominance over prisoners. Mind flayers have spent centuries on selective breeding and magical manipulation experiments in an attempt to create the perfect slave race.

## Illithids

### Strengths

Mental Abilities, Psionics, Dark Magic, Illusions

### Abilities Race Is Weak in

Physical Combat, Relationships, Larger Opponents.

### Vulnerabilities

They cannot endure physical hits to themselves.. and they are considerably flimsy in the head.

### Additional info

A creature of hatred in search of dominance is truly an enemy.They are petty, unforgiving creatures with a lust for conflict and power. Personalities do still vary from Illithid to Illithid however.

Perhaps the most horrifying and repulsive attribute of the illithids is their physical form, a grisly mockery of the humanoid victims from which they were birthed. Mind flayers use other creatures to reproduce. They implant a juvenile illithid inside a victim's skull, where the tadpole shaped offspring eats the creature's brain. The host irrevocably alters the creature's form, turning it into an adult illithid with features that hint at its former occupant. Some mind flayer search out specific vessels for their young, believing that a powerful host body makes for a strong illithid.

Images, and forum page :

http://www.forum.elysiumrp.net/index.php?topic=2567.msg11904#msg11904 (Contains Images!)

## *Illithid Origins..*

One of the deadliest mortal creatures, the illithid are so prominent a threat, there likely isn't a berk in the entire Planes that doesn't know who these tentacle-mouthed beings are. Vicious and megalomaniacal, even most of the planes are wary around these beings. Thankfully, they're rarely encountered on the planes beyond the realms of their powers, the illithid tend not to have much care for the Outer Planes, focusing their efforts on the mortal realm, the Prime Material Plane that they've nearly ruled before and desire one day to rule again. For many years, their ways were a mystery to most, but thanks to the recently-published *Illithiad*, a compilation of lore, legend, and interviews assembled by one S. Wakeman on the topic of the illithid, much of their nature has come to light, granting a greater comprehension of the species and why they are as they are.

The earliest origins of the illithid are an utter mystery. Despite the existence of a few references claiming to describe their origins — the Sargonne Prophecies, the Astromundi Chronicles, the Planetreader's Primer — nothing is truly known of where they first came from. Some theorize connections to the Far Realm, others the mutant products of experimentations, but these are merely supposition, and the illithid themselves have neither comment nor care for their true origins. The only that would know for certain are the deities or elder brains of the illithid, and neither is likely to speak on the matter to outsiders.

What is known is that the first appearances of the illithid date back to approximately 34,000 years ago upon the Prime, the great ships of the illithid coming from the depths of space to move upon the various material worlds near the waning days of the Reptilian Age, when the earliest intelligent mammalian species were first emerging upon the many-varied worlds. Over the next thousands of years, they took planet after planet, holding hundreds upon hundreds at their peak. Beyond the Material Plane, their reach extended upon the Astral and Ethereal, and even to a few outposts on the Outlands. So great was the Illithid Empire that it drew the notice, and the worry, of even the various kinds of the planes, so far as a threat that the Blood War itself came to a halt for the first time since its commencement as the baatezu and tanar'ri came to a brief summit to discuss the illithid threat; a summit that ended up collapsing into threats and violence, but a summit nonetheless.

Today, the illithid are a significant threat across many Prime worlds, but far more individualized. Having lost much in the way of knowledge, of resources, of communication, each community of illithid upon both the Prime and the planes is essentially its own independent force, with little-to-none in the way of communication with any other community. Still, the illithid have recovered from one near-defeat, and they are among the most tenacious of people; not simply hoping for success, they believe it to be truly inevitable, and that the illithid will one day again rule the planes.

To be more generalized, these odd creatures jump from plane to plane in attempt to dominate. They try to rule mainly 'mortal' realms, and they have arrived to Elysium in continuation for their dastardly quest. Illithids are foreign creatures in seek of power, prosperity and knowledge.

## *The Average Illithid's Affairs..*

With far-reaching plans and a vast pool of thralls, a mind flayer dips its tentacles into regional affairs without getting involved in them. The fiend prefers to remain unnoticed, notching milestone after milestone until its overarching goal is realized. A mind flayer isn't solitary in the sense that it lives alone. Rather, it abides only the company of mindless thralls and illithids that have goals identical to its own. illithids believe all creatures are their inferiors. To an illithid, other creatures exist for one of three purposes: host vessel, food, or slave. When a mind flayer aligns with another creature, it has already plotted how and when it will betray its new ally.

At its basic level, a mind flayer needs brains for sustenance, and it prefers to use thralls to collect would-be victims. When first building its power base, a mind flayer might live hand to mouth for a while. As an illithid's legions reach a healthy size, it launches into the heart of its plans. It might collect arcane writings and items of power to increase its knowledge: it could meddle in the politics of the surface world; it might even be intent on creating portals to summon more of its kin from the Far Realm. The ultimate crown every mind flayer covets is rulership over the planes, which would be reshaped in the Far Realm's image. Given a chance, illithids would extinguish the sun, blister the world, warp flesh into aberrant forms, and rewrite every natural race's history with mad gibbering.

## *Illithid Culture..*

The illithid culture is simultaneously strictly regimented and highly individualistic. Every illithid chooses their role, and is expected to perform that role as tradition dictates and as decreed by the elder brain. Freedom of choice bound by the elder brain held by all as the pinnacle of illithid society. But below the elder brain, while some illithid may hold position over others as necessary for duty, no illithid truly stands above or below any other as an entity, all equal in their superiority above all other mortal life, all of which they see as thrall. And to thralls, they bring dominion, the joy of eventually serving the illithid as slave or food.

Indeed, dominion over all material reality is the overarching goal of all illithids, taking a chaotic, disordered universe and bringing it into perfect, simple order. The planar realms are an irrelevancy, nothing but hypernatural beings that would surely bend to illithid ways once the material is fully under their sway. To them, the multiverse would be a better place were they to hold rule over it, and any that disagree are only confused about the natural way of things, blind to the role of the illithid as the ultimate apex predator; even others of their kind that question this truth are quickly "corrected" in their ways. And though they may not hold position above all yet, they know it to be inevitable that they will, for it is simply what must be.

Part of this view is due to the odd illithid perspective on time. To them, the present is all that truly matters. The past is an irrelevancy, an existence in constant flux known only to the elder brain and relayed to the illithid as it is as necessary, while the future is merely the natural conclusion of the events of the present, the inevitable and unquestionable result of the actions of the now. They keep no histories of their own, and they do not plan for the future, but rather always proceed under the natural assumption of their own success.

The natural sense of superiority leads to an odd approach to religion and worship as compared to many people. The illithid view of Ilsensine, and to a lesser degree Maanzecorian, is a sense of deep reverence for their brilliance, and a jealousy for knowing so much on so many topics that the illithid that revere them wish for themselves. A sense of morality is of no concern for even the religious-minded, no guiding path that would bring them to their deity after death, for their ultimate fate is certain: merger with their elder brain. Nor is there any sense of respect for Ilsensine as a creator god (assuming that it indeed did create the species, which is still far from known), what with their total disregard of the past. No, those illithid that venerate Ilsensine or Maanzecorian do so only out of a desire to be granted their boons.

While the illithid may seem quiet and unemotive to most mortals, this is merely a manifestation of their psionic nature leading to a preference for means of communication hidden from the average mortal. Indeed, their psionic nature is so internal that it runs through near every aspect of their society. Empathy to them is merely another sense, with devices known as resonance stones emanating emotions in the homes of illithid in the same way other mortals might use scented candles. Even the "language" of the illithid is pure multilayered telepathic communication without reference to word. As a people of natural geniuses, such communication comes naturally to them, even extending to the written language of qualith developed so as to at least approximate the multiple levels of usual illithid communications. To them, the spoken word is laughably bereft of meaning and the most blatant sign of the weak minds of thralls, but for perhaps the languages of the baatezu or yugoloth, these tongues coming perhaps closest to the nature of illithid mindspeech.

This incorporation of psionics into their life is in fact so great that the very idea of arcanism is considered utterly vile, totally beneath the illithid. While there are always a slight few that come to the art via either birth or study, any such that have their predilections publicly revealed are shunned by the entire community, regardless of how much talent in the arcane arts they might have; greater skill, in fact, is merely a sign of greater unsuitability towards illithid culture. This exile that bars any such illithid from their ultimate reward of merger with an elder brain, coupled with the natural intellect of the illithid bringing its successful research far more easily than most, leads many arcane illithid to take the path of lichdom, resulting in a creature known as the alhoon; a deadly threat, combining the horrid nature of the illithid with the immense power of the lich.

In short, Illithids are a very defined, strict and aggressive community.. and are selfish, damned creatures.

## An Illithid's Appearance..

When full-grown, illithids stand around six feet tall, utterly hairless, with pale purple-to-mauve flesh glistening from the thin layer of psi-active mucous that, as with most amphibians, keeps moisture sealed in and keeps them from losing too much oxygen, while also boosting their natural psionic abilities. Their bodies tend to be lithe, with hardly any visible musculature to belie their great strength, and as hermaphroditic beings they bear no signs of either primary or secondary sexual characteristics. An illithid's elongated head is covered with thin ridges, with pure-white eyes above a set of four tentacles, each two to four feet long, surrounding a lamprey-like mouth where a normal humanoid's mouth would lie. Each tentacle is tipped with a small duct, where the flesh-and-bone-dissolving enzyme that allows them to so easily remove a brain from its skull is released.

Otherwise, they appear similar to many humanoid creatures, with four-fingered hands and two-toed feet with webbing that helps speed along their underwater movement, but that can be folded away for land maneuvering. Most illithid prefer to drape their bodies in elaborate robes, keeping an air of nobility in their appearance as befitting their natural sense of superiority.

For the most part the ulitharid variant appears largely the same. The ulitharid is far taller, though; whatever the host body was originally, after ceremorphosis it grows to over seven feet, slightly broader in build, and with two additional tentacles about its mouth.

## *The Underdark..*

The Underdark was the vast network of underground caverns and tunnels underneath the surface of another realm. It was home to a host of evil beings driven deep into the caverns at the end of the age of particularly dark creatures.

Lack of light combined with a tomb-like silence made traveling something only for the strong-hearted. The nerve-wracking silence made even experienced adventurers grow agitated after a few days.

## Information

### Language

Mulitiple Languages.

Just like deep dungeons, the air could grow stale and even poisonous in the Underdark. It could contain explosive gases from underground volcanic activity or other deadly gases bubbling out of deep fissures in the rock. Bad air and poisonous fumes could collect in portions of tunnels and caves more or less isolated from the main vaults and caverns. Siphon-like tunnels holding water could also trap these gases for a long time.

The Underdark is home to many nasty souls, and is truly on dark place. Illithids usually live here, and base here. This vast, death-ridden place is quite dangerous.. perilous.

## Summary

Illithids are horrid creatures that travel in search of dominance. They are arrogant and 'lawful evil'.. They feed off brains, of which they can also gain knowledge from. And in general, they are very knowledgable.

They are extremely powerful in psionics and in the mental side of things. They are very squid-like. They aren't well suited for actual, physical combat. They wear a deeply acidic, thick 'goo' that can damage at will to those who touch it.

.