Editing Illithid (section)

=Illithid Mating Practices=
[[File:Ceremorphosis drow 3e.jpg|thumb|right|300px|This drow is in for a Bad Time.]]
[[File:Tadpole entering host.png|thumb|left|300px|NO NO NO NO NO]]
This morbid fascination of yours is going to get you killed one of these days, you know that?

Anyway, if you've ever seen that Bruce Campbell movie ''Mindwarp,'' with those burrowing leech things, you've got a pretty good grasp on what to expect. Consider this your warning.

Twice in an illithid's life, it will go to the pool containing the mind flayer community's Elder Brain (though any briny pool will do), and literally vomit a huge amount of tadpoles out of their mouth (they're asexual like that.) These tadpoles will be nurtured (though the elder brain will eat some of the tadpoles, who themselves engage in cannibalism) over the course of ten years (20 for ulitharids) and once they are ready, they are taken from their pool to undergo Ceremorphosis.

An unlucky creature will be restrained as the tadpole is brought to it, and the mind flayer carrying the tadpole will place it within the most direct route to the brain (typically the ear or nose, which makes no sense since neither of those connects to the brain, but the eye socket does so it could still work) and the tadpole will quickly burrow its way through the skull and into the brain where it will devour the host organism's brain over the course of a week as it alters the host with mind flayer traits. Not all tadpoles are able to integrate into the host body to the same degree, such that sometimes the resulting illithid is left with the impression of piloting its body rather than of being it. Very, very rarely the transformation process itself partially fails and no external changes are brought about (though it will still internally be a mind flayer and need to eat brains) in these cases the new mind flayer is used as an infiltrator for obvious reasons. Even rarer, to the point where it's practically considered an urban legend is the opposite, where the host undergoes the full transformation, but their original mind remains intact and in control of their newfound powers. Mind flayers are scared shitless of these creatures, referred to collectively as The Adversary. Not only are they perfectly capable of blending in flawlessly with mind flayer society, they are almost certainly in the vengeance-seeking mindset, and in the perfect position to bring it all crashing down on their tormentor's heads.  Humorously, the reason why illithids know that the adversary exists is because the adversary deliberately spreads rumors of their own existence to make illithids more paranoid and less trusting of each other.  Illithids who retain minor remnants of their host's mind have to carefully hide these traits to avoid being accused of being the adversary.

When the process is complete, no form of magic or psionics (excluding wish, reincarnate, or true resurrection) can bring back the victim. Even in the cases where such powerful magics are used, the body will still be that of a mind flayer; there is no way to bring back the original host, so he/she/they are for all intents and purposes dead forever. Though the newborn mind flayer will be physically mature, it will take some time to mentally mature (though its community will be more than willing to assist it in this manner).

==Non-Standard Ceremorphs==
*'''Half-Mindflayer''': In 3e, if the host is any species besides a human, this is the result, a template which can be found in the Fiend Folio.
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Half-illithid lizardfolk 3e FF.jpg
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*'''Mindwitness''': The result of placing a mind flayer tadpole into a beholder (essentially replace four of the eyestalks with large thick tentacles and the rays of doom with psionics), a docile creature whose main role is to facilitate telepathic communications. A Mindwitness will look for another telepathic being to serve if the illithids it works for die, and it's alignment will even shift to match that of it's new master. So be careful with these if any of your players are telepathic. Debuted in the 3.5 ''Underdark'' splatbook.
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Mindwitness 3e.jpg
Mindwitness VG 5e.png
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*'''Brainstealer Dragon''': The unspeakably powerful gribbly horror that results from ceremorphing a true dragon. It's psychic might is only surpassed by the Elder Brain.  This monster has an equivalent in 5th edition called an elder brain dragon, which is technically not a ceremorph, see below.
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Brainstealer dragon Dragon 337.jpg
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*'''Urophion''': A ceremorphed [[roper]], a creature with a genius level intellect whose talents are wasted on sentry duty due to racism (but with their slow, slow, slow move speed they can't do much of anything else). 
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Urophion MA.jpg|2e
Monsters urophion.jpg
urophion 3e.jpg|3e
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*'''Mozgriken''': From [[Dragon Magazine #255]]. Implanting a tadpole in a [[Svirfneblin]] usually kills both the tadpole and its host, but if it survives the result is a small shapeshifting creature with no mouth and only three tentacles, a trait that forces them to feed only on brain fluids and earns them no small amount of abuse from true illithids.
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Mozgriken Dragon 255.jpg
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*'''Tzakandi''': Also from Dragon #255. The tadpoles typically placed within lizardfolk are more bellicose than their kin, and form the Tzakandi- creatures similar to lizardfolk save for the two acid-spitting tentacles emerging from their heads that become fanatically loyal to the first illithid they see. 
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Tzakandi Dragon 255.jpg
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*'''Uchuulon''' or '''Slime Chuul''': If a tadpole is placed into a [[Chuul]], the tadpole dies, but the Chuul is changed into this, which is like a chuul, but slimier.  

*'''Gnome Ceremorph''': An illithid created from a gnome host that failed to completely change into an illithid and so retains some of the physical and mental traits of a [[gnome]], making them shorter than a regular illithid, but talented at invention. They wield [[Wat|laser pistols]] and are the same alignment as before their transformation.
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Gnome Ceremorph.jpeg
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*'''Gnome Squidling''': A pathetic and [[Dawww|kind of adorable]] variant of the gnome ceremorph that came out horrifically wrong with a stunted body, an oversized head, big eyes, and a pair of tentacles that are way too long. They have to use levitation to move around and their mind blast attack is replaced with a much weaker mind tickle attack. Their lack of intelligence makes them unaligned.
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Gnome Squidling .jpeg
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==Neothelid==
If a tadpole is not placed into a host and is placed in the wild (which normally happens only in spawning pools whose Elder Brain is dead, as it eats all tadpoles that do not undergo ceremorphosis), it will eventually eat and grow into a gigantic fucking psychic worm of doom called the neothelid (think the dune sand worm, only quite a bit smaller and with tentacles and head asploding psychic powers) with only minimal sentience- that is, unless it eats a sentient creature. Regular Mind Flayers consider it highly taboo to speak about neothelids (probably because neothelids remind the illithids too much of their "natural" state which their progeny would devolve into, were it not for the availability of suitable hosts their tadpoles could Ceremorph), and to actually create one is outright forbidden. Oddly, neothelids are ''not'' considered Product Identity by Wizards of the Coast, possibly because "giant slimy worm that spits acid and shoots mind bullets" would not have been copyrightable. No word on whether neolithids ever develop the capacity to birth tadpoles of their own.
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Neothelid MA.jpg|2e
Neothelid 3e.jpg|3e
Neothelid into the darklands.png|PF
Neothelid 5e.jpg|5e, where D&D actually copied a design from PF and not the other way around
Neothelid PF 2e.png|PF 2e
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==Ulitharid==
One out of a hundred or so tadpoles will take twice as long to become ready for ceremorphosis. These tadpoles will create ulitharids when implanted into a host. Ulitharids are large sized and have two extra long tentacles and much more powerful psionic abilities. They also live for a lot longer than normal mind flayers. Sadly, the only statistics for ulitharids are for ulitharid tadpole/human combinations, which is a disappointment since an ulitharid brainstealer dragon would have been fuck-awesome. Fifth edition updates their lore such that if elder brains can be compared to queen bees, then ulitharids are analogous to juvenile queen bees. After serving as a colony's majordomo for a while, ulitharids eventually get sick of having to live in the elder brain's house and therefore live by their rules, so they move out and start their own colony (with blackjack and hookers). Soon after they find a good spot, the ulitharid uses their fancy staff to basically ''crack their own skull open like an egg'' and have their brain put in a special pool, where it soon develops into a fully fledged elder brain.
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Monsters ulitharid.jpg
ulitharid MCAV1.jpg
ulitharid LoM.jpg
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==Elder Brain==
Elder brains are created via a process that varies from edition to edition (in those editions that elaborate on the process at all, that is). In some editions all ulitharids that survive long enough eventually morph into one. In others it happens when a bunch of deceased mind flayer brains are dumped into a single pool filled with a briny solution; these brains will merge and eventually become alive and turn into a CR 25 [[TPK]]ing horror. There is also an idea that elder brains were created by the Illithid god Ilsensine, who performed ceremorphosis on some lesser gods or demigods. One of them, called the "Illithid God-Brain," is even trapped on [[Ravenloft]] and rules over an Illithid colony named Bluetspur, with the official backstory left open as to why one of these alien monstrousities would ever earn the place of a [[Darklord]] on that benighted plane, save that it must have done something atrocious even by Illithid standards. And with Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, we finally have the answer: this elder brain started cannibalizing other elder brains to help it discover a concept that was utterly alien, even to it! But it developed a kuru-like disease as a result of the cannibalism, which scared the other elder brains into attempting to banish it from reality in fear of the disease spreading, [[What|because apparently the threat of treacherous cannibalism wasn't scary enough]].

An elder brain that wants to increase their mobility can parasitize a dragon and merge with them to become an Elder Brain Dragon.  They probably got jealous of how cool the brainstealer dragon is.  The possessed dragon loses their breath weapon but can spray illithid tadpoles from its mouth.
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Elder brain MA.jpg
Brain pool MA.jpg
Elder concord MA.jpg
elder brain RQ2.jpg
Elder Brain 5e.png|An elder brain in his pimped-out floating vat
Elder-brain-dragon.jpeg|It's terrifying when PC have to assault an elder brain but scarier when the elder brain comes after them
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==Alhoon/Illithilich==
A rare few Illithids who end up mastering actual arcane magic instead of psionics opt to become [[Lich|Liches]], named [[Alhoon]]s or Illithiliches, since Elder Brains can't absorb magical abilities from the brain of an Illithid mage and magical talent (unless it's that of a Cleric to Ilsenine, see below) is looked down on in Illithid society. These squid-faced liches are extremely dangerous examples of psionic undead and can still rip your brain from your skull despite having no need to consume brains after the transition to undeath, with no explanation being given for how they still continue to secrete the biocorrosive slime needed to soften the flesh and bone of the skull to allow for easy extraction of living brains while undead (and thus having no metabolism to speak of).
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Alhoon RoMD.png|2e
Alhoon MCAV3.jpg
Lich Alhoon MoF.jpg|3e (Regular lich on left)
Alhoon 5e.png|5e
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==Illithid Vampire==
Even more rare than Alhoons are Illithid [[Vampire|vampires]], who are created by unknown means. Unlike Alhoons, Ilithid vampires still need to consume brains to survive, plus retain the thirst for blood that vampires are cursed with. The process that turns them into vampires also affects their brains, as the majority of their intellect is replaced with feral instincts and a savage cunning streak. Fifth edition gives us more on their lore by having them be the servants of the Elder Brain overlord of [[Demiplane of Dread#Bluetspur|Bluetspur]], created by infecting Illithid tadpoles with vampirism before implantation. These creatures then go out into the world to complete their only mission: draining cerebral fluid from sapient creatures. Once this objective is fulfilled, they return to the Elder Brain's pool, where they are then dissolved into the brine, releasing the cerebral fluid which is used to stave off the dark lord's degeneration. Despite this, vampiric mind flayers are (rightly) considered by their living brethren to be abominations.
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vampire illithid RQ2 1.jpg
vampire illithid RQ2 2.jpg
Illithid vampire MCR2.jpg
Illithid vampire MA.jpg
Monsters vampire illithid.jpg
Vampiric Mind Flayer 5e.png
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