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Illithid

2021-09-24T05:55:35Z

2601:203:480:BD90:9C0F:4E72:4C9B:8B5E:

[[file:Illithid.jpg|thumb|right|Time to slurp brains]]

'''Illithids''' (also called '''Mind Flayers''') are cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. They look like tiny little, skinnier, wingless [[Cthulhu]]s, wear black robes with high collars and eat brains. Plus they all have psionic powers and are so super-smart even their breakfast is [[JUST AS PLANNED]]! They would be totally [[Mary Sue]], except for the fact that they are [[ Edgy|so brain-damagingly evil it makes them awesome]] instead of lame. (There was one good one in the [[Book of Exalted Deeds]], but nobody gives a crap about her, so let's move on.) Their psionic version is much better than their Monster Manual version by virtue of increased versatility. According to the book [[Lords of Madness]] they came from THE FUTURE.

The Illithid is considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its [[Open Gaming License]]. However, "half-Cthulhu creeps" and "squidface brainsuckers" are totally okay, so go nuts.

The illithid first appeared in the official newsletter of [[TSR]], The Strategic Review #1. They then appeared in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement for Original Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, they have have appeared the first [[Monster Manual]] of every edition. In second edition they got a whole book to themselves called The Illithiad, and in 3.5 they got a chapter in [[Lords of Madness]].

[[Fiend Folio]] in describing the [[githyanki]] (and [[githzerai]]) retconned that the 'flayers have enslaved humans - or will enslave them - and that they escaped/will-escape into a scourge perhaps even worse than they are/were/will-be. (Grammar gets kind of fuzzy with time diddlers.)

[[Dragonlance]] in a rare diversion into sword-n'-sorcery mooted a subrace of "degenerate" illithids, the Yaggol. These have retreated into Taladas' jungle, losing all of their psionic powers except for Mind Blast. On the upside, they are much stronger, stand 7 feet tall, and have chameleon-like skin.

Fun fact: in the city of Stormreach, in the [[Eberron]] campaign setting, there is an Illithid who just hangs around near a garden and engages in perfectly normal, honest, and voluntary business transactions with the humanoids and other races that inhabit the city. And by "normal" we mean people pay him to reprogram their brains and alter their memories. Why spend four years studying a new language when you can learn it by spending four minutes letting Fred gnaw on your brain? Oh, yeah, [https://ddowiki.com/page/Fred his name is Fred]. It's a very common Mind Flayer name. Point is, Mind Flayers may be brain eating parasitoids but they don't just compulsively kill/consume humanoids on sight like the xenomorphs from the Alien movies; they're perfectly capable of being normal, well-integrated members of surface-dwelling, non-evil, humanoid societies, not that they are likely to want to though.

==Illithid Physiology==
Illithids consist of... purple, mostly. Just brains and purple.

Their alien physiology has stumped our crack (addict) biology team even after years of scientific scrutiny. It is thought that if we could crack the mystery of why these skinny creatures subsist on a diet of nothing but fat and calcium, we would be closer to... something.

Look, just look up "aberrant" in the dictionary. We can't offer you much for the time being.

In actuality, Illithid physiology is a moderately altered version of their host organism's body (see mating practices). The brain of the host is replaced by a tadpole thing, and the digestive tract is altered to aid in the consumption of brains and their psychic essence. And of course, they grow tentacles and Sarlaac mouths and lose all of their hair.

Explained somewhat in 3.5's Tome of Darkness, the resulting creature is entirely conscious of its organs and body, as opposed to being autonomous. There is a tiny part of the creature's powerful mind constantly remembering to make sure the heart beats, and regulating digestion. Things like that. So they eat normally, and extract maximum nutrition from it. The method of creating an illithid destroys the brain, which includes all those hormone producing glands in the skull that keep a person healthy. This is why they need brains to keep their body from decaying. The memories and thoughts consumed are... well "flavor" to put it in the least disgusting way possible. These memories, thoughts, and emotions are just as necessary as the hormones contained within the brain for an illithid that consumes only the brains of unintelligent creatures or animals will regress into a ravenous beast, actually pretty similarly to the [[Kroot]].

There is apparently a cult of illithid monks/clerics known as The THOON (yes all caps) who worship a god or philosophy also known as THOON (see below for more on THOON and The THOON). They minmax their bodies as well as their minds. The elder brains hate them. They've been out of circulation since 4e landed. But if you need a mastermind who can roundhouse kick the fighter through a wall after the party blitzes through his mooks, look no further.

For the morbidly curious about what'd happen if you ate an illithid's brain, according to 5e's Volo's Guide to Monsters, nothing good. Apparently, each bite into an illithid's brain releases an intense flood of memories that the illithid developed/consumed in its life, so strong it'll probably drive the typical consumer insane. As to how [[Elminster]] knows this, he refuses to explain.

==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 and reincarnate and true resurrection, can bring back the victim, but even then the mind flayer will still be alive. Aside from that, nothing can reverse the effects; there is no way to bring back the original host, so he/she/they is 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).

If the host is any species besides a human, the result is a half-mindflayer, whose template can be found in the Fiend Folio. Special cases are present though; placing a mind flayer tadpole into a beholder results in a mindwitness (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 Mind Witness will look for another telepathic being to serve if the illithids it works for die. Placing it within a true dragon results in the unspeakably powerful gribbly horror that is the Brainstealer Dragon, whose psychic might is only surpassed by the Elder Brain. Put it in a Roper and you get the urophion, 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). Implanting one in a [[Svirfneblin]] usually kills both the tadpole and its host, but if it survives the result is a mozgriken, a small shapechanging 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. The tadpoles typically placed within lizardfolk are more bellicose than their kin, and form the Tzakand- 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. If a tadpole is placed into a [[Chuul]], the tadpole dies, but the Chuul is changed into a creature called an uchuulon, or a slime chuul, which is like a chuul, but slimier. A gnome ceremorph is 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 laser pistols and are the same alignment as before their transformation. A gnome squidling is an 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.

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.

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.

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 degenerative 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.

[[File:Elder-brain-dragon.jpeg|thumb|right|300px|]]

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.

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).

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.

==Illithid Society==
[[File:Elder Brain 5e.png|thumb|right|300px|An elder brain in his pimped-out floating vat]]
Illithids function as a hive mind, serving the Elder Brain. Other than maintaining the Elder Brain, the day-to-day duties of the average illithid consist of evil science and making cheeky wood burnings. The purpose of these wood burnings is an inextricable mystery, as they seem to disappear shortly after their completion. They can make Brain Golems out of buds from said queen-like Elder Brain, which are exactly what they sound like and exactly as retarded as you would think. Even the Illithids and the Elder Brain itself know how impractical this can be, and would prefer to use any other type of golem instead. The Illithids live for the fact that after they die, their brains, and thus their minds, will be merged with the Elder Brain after death. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, as the Elder Brain just eats their knowledge and discards everything else (although pretty much nobody in-universe aside from the elder brains themselves is aware of this). Elder Brains discourage studying magic too much because Elder Brains can't eat a mind flayer's magical abilities, though they can eat a mind flayer's knowledge of psionics (if it ever took levels in Psion, Erudite, Wilder, or what have you.) Below the Elder Brain on the mind flayer hierarchy are the Brainstealer Dragons (very rare because it's notoriously difficult to restrain a true dragon) and the Ulitharids.

The mind flayers have one deity they pay respects to in Illsensine, who did not create them. Perhaps to make up for the fact that Illsensine is the only Mind Flayer God, Illsensine is a very powerful rank 20 greater deity who omnoms the knowledge of everyone the instant they die. The Mind Flayers don't exactly worship Illsensine per se, they just respect it for its great knowledge, and Illsensine returns the favor by considering Mind Flayers to be the only worthy species in the multiverse. This is not to say that there are no Mind Flayer clerics to Illsensine, because said clerics of Illsensine do indeed exist, but their numbers are rather small relative to say the number of Dwarven clerics of Moradin, however; Mind Flayer communities have an exception to their rule of "don't study magic too much" for the Clerics of Illsensine, and in fact greatly respect these clerics and leave them to their business.

The mind flayers used to have another god called Maanzecorian, but Tenebrous (actually Orcus, it's a long story) used the last word on him, so his head asploded.

Some illithids spend their time finding ways to put out the sun, because they hate that bright light shit. Unfortunately for them, putting out a 1,392,000+ kilometer ball of ungodly hot hydrogen and helium is nigh on impossible (unless your name is [[Elder Evils#Father Llymic|Father Llymic]].) Most other Illithids think that these illithids are wasting their time when it's common knowledge that all they have to do is wait many, many billions of years for the sun to eventually puff up and die. And it goes without saying putting out the sun would indirectly eliminate their food source as well.

===Creeds===
Illithid communities are governed by a group of representatives called an Elder Concord, while the Elder Brain acts like the president. These representatives come from the various creeds or factions of illithid culture. Each creed has different beliefs about the best path towards taking over the universe. The symbols of each creeds are squares containing six horizontal bars that are either solid or split in two.
* The Creatives devote themselves to advancing illithid society though scientific and psionic research and invention.
* The Awaiters believe in [[Just As Planned|long term planning]] and avoid making rash decisions.
* The Possessors think hording wealth and resources through trade with other races is the best path to power.
* The Tamers work to build up the illithid's military strength so they can dominate the universe through force.
* The Thorough Biters have a philosophy of learning through failure, making them more humble that most other illithids.
* The Nourishers promote the interest of maintaining the community's supply of thralls.
* The Abysmal feel that the best way to dominate other races is through the power of terror.
* The Influencers specialize in collecting intelligence and misleading their enemies through infiltration and spying.
* The Darkeners, the dudes who think they can find a way to extinguish suns.
* The Gatherers want to consolidate the illithid race into larger, more powerful communities instead of many small disparate ones.
* The Arisers say that illithids shouldn't stay in darkness and so they develop ways for them to work in daylight and make plans for conquering the surface.
* The Venerators are the worshipers of the illithid god [[Ilsensine]].

* The Loretakers are a minor creed, but they are important as the source of the Thoon:

Some Loretaker mind flayers (possibly) went to the [[Far Realm]] and apparently encountered something called Thoon. However, the exact nature of Thoon is unknown even to the mind flayers themselves, so whether Thoon is a god, an aberration, a philosophy, or something else entirely is open to interpretation. In any case, the encounter with Thoon changed these particular illithids completely, they're a lot more irrational and unpredictable (NE instead of LE), make use of a lot of really weird constructs and altered humanoids (and employ a variant of the mind flayer that trades the ability to control minds for ninja powers), and for some fucking insane reason a CR 25 Elder brain came back as a CR 15 entity that's totally batshit insane. Oh, and they also seek to gather [[Psion|quintessence]] for some reason.

== 3.5e stats ==

Is this copyrighted? Who cares? It's not like anyone reads this site anyway.

::— +2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +8 Intelligence, +6 Wisdom, +6 Charisma.
::— A mind flayer’s base land speed is 30 feet.
::— Darkvision out to 60 feet.
::— Racial Hit Dice: A mind flayer begins with eight levels of aberration, which provide 8d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +6, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +2, Ref +2, and Will +6.
::— Racial Skills: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it skill points equal to 11 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Bluff, Concentration, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Listen, Move Silently, and Spot.
::— Racial Feats: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it three feats.
::— +3 natural armor bonus.
::— Natural Weapons: 4 tentacles (1d4).
::— Special Attacks: Mind blast, psionics, improved grab, extract.
::— Special Qualities: Spell resistance equal to 25 +class levels, telepathy 100 ft.
::— Automatic Languages: Common, Undercommon. Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Aquan, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Infernal, Terran.
::— Favored Class: Wizard.
::— Level adjustment +7.

==Monstergirls?==
[[File:Illitiddies.png|right|300px|thumb|With assets like those, who cares if she has an octopus for a head?]]
{{Monstergirls}}

Now, you'd see the face on these things and the how of their reproduction and figure that this has to be one species that can't get the [[monstergirls]] treatment? ...But then you realize that they have tentacles, and you suddenly remember that Japan exists. "Feminized" illithids, which are basically mind-flayers with boobs and often skimpily clad, occasionally pop up in monstergirl-related threads on /tg/, usually under the same joking context as the [[thri-kreen]]/[[xixchil]].

More importantly than that, Mindflayers are one of the "Aberrant" monstergirls that show up in the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]. Formally considered a relative of the [[scylla]], they take the form of tall, curvy, slime-dripping women with tentacles for hair and a Morticia Addams-like dress implied to actually be tentacle-legs. It also (good taste) has an ultra-high collar. They are ultra-perverted hedonists, using their [[psionics]] to brainwash victims into playmates of their obscene lusts, and are reputated to eventually transform men they take as their lovers mentally and physically into grotesque, squid-like tentacle-beasts, which spend the rest of their lives fastened to the mindflayer's hips and shoving her genitals full of tentacle-penises.

Later sources clarified that the man in question can freely transform back and forth between squid-form and human form, but that the mindflayers are uncharacteristically shy about public displays of affection when their lovers ''aren't'' tentacled, so this is only done in private. And they usually use their mind-powers to help friends engage in emotionally-resonant roleplay when in societies with other monsters.

==See Also==
* [[Aberration]]
* [[Githzerai]]
* [[Githyanki]]
* [[Far Realm]]
* [[Unified_Setting/Illithid]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Mind flayer Blackmoor.jpg|The ''very first'' illustration of a mind flayer, in ''D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor''.
Mind flayer 1e.jpg|1e
Mind Flayer MCv1.jpg|2e
Illithid MM 2e.png
Mind flayer 3e.jpg|3e
Mind flayer 4e.jpg|4e
Mind flayer 5e.jpg|5e
Mind Blast.jpg|The Illithid's Mind Blast power in use
Illithiad cover.jpg|The cover image of the Illithiad
Pirate illithid 5e.jpg|Yes, that is an [[awesome|Illithid space pirate captain]]. Yes, he is canon.
Illithid eating.jpg
Mindflayer skull.jpg| Mindflayer skull
Nihiloor 5e.jpg|[[Intellect Devourer]]s are like dogs that can teleport into and eat the brains of your enemies.
Mind flayer funerary jar 3e.jpg
Mind flayer of Thoon 3e.jpg|Illithids of Thoon would rather get swole
Illithid savant 3e.jpg| Illithid [[savant]]. Mind blasts are mid-range, don't you know.
Illithid Body Tamer.jpg|Spiked tentacles!
Mindflayer nom.jpg
Underdark cover.jpg
Mind flayer Dragon 313.jpg|[[Dragon Magazine]] #313
Illithid MC Ravenloft.jpg
Yaggol.jpg|A Yaggol
Vesuvian illithid MA.jpg
Illithid dissection MA.jpg
Adult illithid MA.jpg
Arcane illithid MA.jpg|Arcane illithid
Psionic illithid MA.jpg|Psionic illithid
Illithid mind blast MA.jpg
Illithid astral MA.jpg
Psionic circuitry MA.jpg|"It's not magic runes, Mom, It's ''psionic circuitry''!"
Illithid perils of the warp MA.jpg
Illithid partialism MA.jpg|An illithid afflicted with partialism, wherein some of the personality of its last meal takes over.
Illithid praying MA.jpg
Illithid thrall MA.jpg
Illithid wrestling MA.jpg| Illithid wrestling. why are a race known for mind over matter so physically fit?
Illithid web MA.jpg
Brain eating ceremony MA.jpg
Thrall pokemon battle MA.jpg|Thrall pokemon battle
Illithid undead MA.jpg|Illithids fear undead because they are immune to mindfuckery
Illithid vs Githyanki MA.jpg
Illithid bathhouse MA.jpg
Space illithid MA.jpg
Illithid instrument MA.jpg
Illithid inventor.jpg
Illithid dampsuit.jpg
Illithid boss.jpg
Illithid tentacle knives.jpg
Monsters illithid.jpg
Illithid MC7 cover.jpg
Illithid Night Below 1.jpg
Tavern SJA2.jpg
Illithid S3.jpg
theorx taja trebek.jpg
Qualith MA.jpg|An example of [[Qualith]], Illithid braille. Designed to be read with the mouthparts.
</gallery>

<big>Ulitharid</big>
<gallery>
Monsters ulitharid.jpg
ulitharid MCAV1.jpg
ulitharid LoM.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Illithid vampire</big>
<gallery>
Illithid vampire MC Ravenloft.jpg|An illithid vampire
Illithid vampire MA.jpg
Monsters vampire illithid.jpg
Vampiric Mind Flayer 5e.png
</gallery>

<big>Nautiloid</big>
<gallery>
Nautiloid 2e.jpg
Nautiloid MA.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Elder brain</big>
<gallery>
Elder brain MA.jpg|Elder brain
Brain pool MA.jpg
Elder concord MA.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Tadpoles</big>
<gallery>
Big tadpole MA.jpg|An Illithid baby
Monsters tadpole.jpg
Monsters tadpoles.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Neothelid</big>
<gallery>
Neothelid MA.jpg|Neothelid, when an Illithid tadpole reaches its "natural" maturity.
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
</gallery>
<big>Ceremorphed thralls</big>
<gallery>
Urophion MA.jpg|Urophion (Ceremorphed [[roper]])
Monsters urophion.jpg|Urophion
Cranium rat MA.jpg|Cranium rats
Kezreth Dragon 255.jpg|Kezreth
Tzakandi Dragon 255.jpg|Tzakandi (Ceremorphed [[lizardfolk]])
Mozgriken Dragon 255.jpg|Mozgriken (Ceremorphed [[gnome]] infused with [[Shadowfell]] energy)
Gnome Squidling .jpeg| Gnome Squidling, why using gnomes are not worth the Tadpole
Gnome Ceremorph.jpeg| Gnome Ceremorph, that 1 in a million chance something doesn't go wrong.
Abductor Dragon 255.jpg|Abductor
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Monsters]]

Illithid

2021-09-24T05:51:15Z

2601:203:480:BD90:9C0F:4E72:4C9B:8B5E:

[[file:Illithid.jpg|thumb|right|Time to slurp brains]]

'''Illithids''' (also called '''Mind Flayers''') are cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. They look like tiny little, skinnier, wingless [[Cthulhu]]s, wear black robes with high collars and eat brains. Plus they all have psionic powers and are so super-smart even their breakfast is [[JUST AS PLANNED]]! They would be totally [[Mary Sue]], except for the fact that they are [[ Edgy|so brain-damagingly evil it makes them awesome]] instead of lame. (There was one good one in the [[Book of Exalted Deeds]], but nobody gives a crap about her, so let's move on.) Their psionic version is much better than their Monster Manual version by virtue of increased versatility. According to the book [[Lords of Madness]] they came from THE FUTURE.

The Illithid is considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its [[Open Gaming License]]. However, "half-Cthulhu creeps" and "squidface brainsuckers" are totally okay, so go nuts.

The illithid first appeared in the official newsletter of [[TSR]], The Strategic Review #1. They then appeared in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement for Original Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, they have have appeared the first [[Monster Manual]] of every edition. In second edition they got a whole book to themselves called The Illithiad, and in 3.5 they got a chapter in [[Lords of Madness]].

[[Fiend Folio]] in describing the [[githyanki]] (and [[githzerai]]) retconned that the 'flayers have enslaved humans - or will enslave them - and that they escaped/will-escape into a scourge perhaps even worse than they are/were/will-be. (Grammar gets kind of fuzzy with time diddlers.)

[[Dragonlance]] in a rare diversion into sword-n'-sorcery mooted a subrace of "degenerate" illithids, the Yaggol. These have retreated into Taladas' jungle, losing all of their psionic powers except for Mind Blast. On the upside, they are much stronger, stand 7 feet tall, and have chameleon-like skin.

Fun fact: in the city of Stormreach, in the [[Eberron]] campaign setting, there is an Illithid who just hangs around near a garden and engages in perfectly normal, honest, and voluntary business transactions with the humanoids and other races that inhabit the city. And by "normal" we mean people pay him to reprogram their brains and alter their memories. Why spend four years studying a new language when you can learn it by spending four minutes letting Fred gnaw on your brain? Oh, yeah, [https://ddowiki.com/page/Fred his name is Fred]. It's a very common Mind Flayer name. Point is, Mind Flayers may be brain eating parasitoids but they don't just compulsively kill/consume humanoids on sight like the xenomorphs from the Alien movies; they're perfectly capable of being normal, well-integrated members of surface-dwelling, non-evil, humanoid societies, not that they are likely to want to though.

==Illithid Physiology==
Illithids consist of... purple, mostly. Just brains and purple.

Their alien physiology has stumped our crack (addict) biology team even after years of scientific scrutiny. It is thought that if we could crack the mystery of why these skinny creatures subsist on a diet of nothing but fat and calcium, we would be closer to... something.

Look, just look up "aberrant" in the dictionary. We can't offer you much for the time being.

In actuality, Illithid physiology is a moderately altered version of their host organism's body (see mating practices). The brain of the host is replaced by a tadpole thing, and the digestive tract is altered to aid in the consumption of brains and their psychic essence. And of course, they grow tentacles and Sarlaac mouths and lose all of their hair.

Explained somewhat in 3.5's Tome of Darkness, the resulting creature is entirely conscious of its organs and body, as opposed to being autonomous. There is a tiny part of the creature's powerful mind constantly remembering to make sure the heart beats, and regulating digestion. Things like that. So they eat normally, and extract maximum nutrition from it. The method of creating an illithid destroys the brain, which includes all those hormone producing glands in the skull that keep a person healthy. This is why they need brains to keep their body from decaying. The memories and thoughts consumed are... well "flavor" to put it in the least disgusting way possible. These memories, thoughts, and emotions are just as necessary as the hormones contained within the brain for an illithid that consumes only the brains of unintelligent creatures or animals will regress into a ravenous beast, actually pretty similarly to the [[Kroot]].

There is apparently a cult of illithid monks/clerics known as The THOON (yes all caps) who worship a god or philosophy also known as THOON (see below for more on THOON and The THOON). They minmax their bodies as well as their minds. The elder brains hate them. They've been out of circulation since 4e landed. But if you need a mastermind who can roundhouse kick the fighter through a wall after the party blitzes through his mooks, look no further.

For the morbidly curious about what'd happen if you ate an illithid's brain, according to 5e's Volo's Guide to Monsters, nothing good. Apparently, each bite into an illithid's brain releases an intense flood of memories that the illithid developed/consumed in its life, so strong it'll probably drive the typical consumer insane. As to how [[Elminster]] knows this, he refuses to explain.

==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 and reincarnate and true resurrection, can bring back the victim, but even then the mind flayer will still be alive. Aside from that, nothing can reverse the effects; there is no way to bring back the original host, so he/she/they is 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).

If the host is any species besides a human, the result is a half-mindflayer, whose template can be found in the Fiend Folio. Special cases are present though; placing a mind flayer tadpole into a beholder results in a mindwitness (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 Mind Witness will look for another telepathic being to serve if the illithids it works for die. Placing it within a true dragon results in the unspeakably powerful gribbly horror that is the Brainstealer Dragon, whose psychic might is only surpassed by the Elder Brain. Put it in a Roper and you get the urophion, 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). Implanting one in a [[Svirfneblin]] usually kills both the tadpole and its host, but if it survives the result is a mozgriken, a small shapechanging 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. The tadpoles typically placed within lizardfolk are more bellicose than their kin, and form the Tzakand- 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. If a tadpole is placed into a [[Chuul]], the tadpole dies, but the Chuul is changed into a creature called an uchuulon, or a slime chuul, which is like a chuul, but slimier. A gnome ceremorph is 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 laser pistols and are the same alignment as before their transformation. A gnome squidling is an 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.

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.

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.

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 degenerative 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.

[[File:Elder-brain-dragon.jpeg|thumb|left|300px|]]

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.

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).

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.

==Illithid Society==
[[File:Elder Brain 5e.png|thumb|right|300px|An elder brain in his pimped-out floating vat]]
Illithids function as a hive mind, serving the Elder Brain. Other than maintaining the Elder Brain, the day-to-day duties of the average illithid consist of evil science and making cheeky wood burnings. The purpose of these wood burnings is an inextricable mystery, as they seem to disappear shortly after their completion. They can make Brain Golems out of buds from said queen-like Elder Brain, which are exactly what they sound like and exactly as retarded as you would think. Even the Illithids and the Elder Brain itself know how impractical this can be, and would prefer to use any other type of golem instead. The Illithids live for the fact that after they die, their brains, and thus their minds, will be merged with the Elder Brain after death. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, as the Elder Brain just eats their knowledge and discards everything else (although pretty much nobody in-universe aside from the elder brains themselves is aware of this). Elder Brains discourage studying magic too much because Elder Brains can't eat a mind flayer's magical abilities, though they can eat a mind flayer's knowledge of psionics (if it ever took levels in Psion, Erudite, Wilder, or what have you.) Below the Elder Brain on the mind flayer hierarchy are the Brainstealer Dragons (very rare because it's notoriously difficult to restrain a true dragon) and the Ulitharids.

The mind flayers have one deity they pay respects to in Illsensine, who did not create them. Perhaps to make up for the fact that Illsensine is the only Mind Flayer God, Illsensine is a very powerful rank 20 greater deity who omnoms the knowledge of everyone the instant they die. The Mind Flayers don't exactly worship Illsensine per se, they just respect it for its great knowledge, and Illsensine returns the favor by considering Mind Flayers to be the only worthy species in the multiverse. This is not to say that there are no Mind Flayer clerics to Illsensine, because said clerics of Illsensine do indeed exist, but their numbers are rather small relative to say the number of Dwarven clerics of Moradin, however; Mind Flayer communities have an exception to their rule of "don't study magic too much" for the Clerics of Illsensine, and in fact greatly respect these clerics and leave them to their business.

The mind flayers used to have another god called Maanzecorian, but Tenebrous (actually Orcus, it's a long story) used the last word on him, so his head asploded.

Some illithids spend their time finding ways to put out the sun, because they hate that bright light shit. Unfortunately for them, putting out a 1,392,000+ kilometer ball of ungodly hot hydrogen and helium is nigh on impossible (unless your name is [[Elder Evils#Father Llymic|Father Llymic]].) Most other Illithids think that these illithids are wasting their time when it's common knowledge that all they have to do is wait many, many billions of years for the sun to eventually puff up and die. And it goes without saying putting out the sun would indirectly eliminate their food source as well.

===Creeds===
Illithid communities are governed by a group of representatives called an Elder Concord, while the Elder Brain acts like the president. These representatives come from the various creeds or factions of illithid culture. Each creed has different beliefs about the best path towards taking over the universe. The symbols of each creeds are squares containing six horizontal bars that are either solid or split in two.
* The Creatives devote themselves to advancing illithid society though scientific and psionic research and invention.
* The Awaiters believe in [[Just As Planned|long term planning]] and avoid making rash decisions.
* The Possessors think hording wealth and resources through trade with other races is the best path to power.
* The Tamers work to build up the illithid's military strength so they can dominate the universe through force.
* The Thorough Biters have a philosophy of learning through failure, making them more humble that most other illithids.
* The Nourishers promote the interest of maintaining the community's supply of thralls.
* The Abysmal feel that the best way to dominate other races is through the power of terror.
* The Influencers specialize in collecting intelligence and misleading their enemies through infiltration and spying.
* The Darkeners, the dudes who think they can find a way to extinguish suns.
* The Gatherers want to consolidate the illithid race into larger, more powerful communities instead of many small disparate ones.
* The Arisers say that illithids shouldn't stay in darkness and so they develop ways for them to work in daylight and make plans for conquering the surface.
* The Venerators are the worshipers of the illithid god [[Ilsensine]].

* The Loretakers are a minor creed, but they are important as the source of the Thoon:

Some Loretaker mind flayers (possibly) went to the [[Far Realm]] and apparently encountered something called Thoon. However, the exact nature of Thoon is unknown even to the mind flayers themselves, so whether Thoon is a god, an aberration, a philosophy, or something else entirely is open to interpretation. In any case, the encounter with Thoon changed these particular illithids completely, they're a lot more irrational and unpredictable (NE instead of LE), make use of a lot of really weird constructs and altered humanoids (and employ a variant of the mind flayer that trades the ability to control minds for ninja powers), and for some fucking insane reason a CR 25 Elder brain came back as a CR 15 entity that's totally batshit insane. Oh, and they also seek to gather [[Psion|quintessence]] for some reason.

== 3.5e stats ==

Is this copyrighted? Who cares? It's not like anyone reads this site anyway.

::— +2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +8 Intelligence, +6 Wisdom, +6 Charisma.
::— A mind flayer’s base land speed is 30 feet.
::— Darkvision out to 60 feet.
::— Racial Hit Dice: A mind flayer begins with eight levels of aberration, which provide 8d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +6, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +2, Ref +2, and Will +6.
::— Racial Skills: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it skill points equal to 11 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Bluff, Concentration, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Listen, Move Silently, and Spot.
::— Racial Feats: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it three feats.
::— +3 natural armor bonus.
::— Natural Weapons: 4 tentacles (1d4).
::— Special Attacks: Mind blast, psionics, improved grab, extract.
::— Special Qualities: Spell resistance equal to 25 +class levels, telepathy 100 ft.
::— Automatic Languages: Common, Undercommon. Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Aquan, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Infernal, Terran.
::— Favored Class: Wizard.
::— Level adjustment +7.

==Monstergirls?==
[[File:Illitiddies.png|right|300px|thumb|With assets like those, who cares if she has an octopus for a head?]]
{{Monstergirls}}

Now, you'd see the face on these things and the how of their reproduction and figure that this has to be one species that can't get the [[monstergirls]] treatment? ...But then you realize that they have tentacles, and you suddenly remember that Japan exists. "Feminized" illithids, which are basically mind-flayers with boobs and often skimpily clad, occasionally pop up in monstergirl-related threads on /tg/, usually under the same joking context as the [[thri-kreen]]/[[xixchil]].

More importantly than that, Mindflayers are one of the "Aberrant" monstergirls that show up in the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]. Formally considered a relative of the [[scylla]], they take the form of tall, curvy, slime-dripping women with tentacles for hair and a Morticia Addams-like dress implied to actually be tentacle-legs. It also (good taste) has an ultra-high collar. They are ultra-perverted hedonists, using their [[psionics]] to brainwash victims into playmates of their obscene lusts, and are reputated to eventually transform men they take as their lovers mentally and physically into grotesque, squid-like tentacle-beasts, which spend the rest of their lives fastened to the mindflayer's hips and shoving her genitals full of tentacle-penises.

Later sources clarified that the man in question can freely transform back and forth between squid-form and human form, but that the mindflayers are uncharacteristically shy about public displays of affection when their lovers ''aren't'' tentacled, so this is only done in private. And they usually use their mind-powers to help friends engage in emotionally-resonant roleplay when in societies with other monsters.

==See Also==
* [[Aberration]]
* [[Githzerai]]
* [[Githyanki]]
* [[Far Realm]]
* [[Unified_Setting/Illithid]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Mind flayer Blackmoor.jpg|The ''very first'' illustration of a mind flayer, in ''D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor''.
Mind flayer 1e.jpg|1e
Mind Flayer MCv1.jpg|2e
Illithid MM 2e.png
Mind flayer 3e.jpg|3e
Mind flayer 4e.jpg|4e
Mind flayer 5e.jpg|5e
Mind Blast.jpg|The Illithid's Mind Blast power in use
Illithiad cover.jpg|The cover image of the Illithiad
Pirate illithid 5e.jpg|Yes, that is an [[awesome|Illithid space pirate captain]]. Yes, he is canon.
Illithid eating.jpg
Mindflayer skull.jpg| Mindflayer skull
Nihiloor 5e.jpg|[[Intellect Devourer]]s are like dogs that can teleport into and eat the brains of your enemies.
Mind flayer funerary jar 3e.jpg
Mind flayer of Thoon 3e.jpg|Illithids of Thoon would rather get swole
Illithid savant 3e.jpg| Illithid [[savant]]. Mind blasts are mid-range, don't you know.
Illithid Body Tamer.jpg|Spiked tentacles!
Mindflayer nom.jpg
Underdark cover.jpg
Mind flayer Dragon 313.jpg|[[Dragon Magazine]] #313
Illithid MC Ravenloft.jpg
Yaggol.jpg|A Yaggol
Vesuvian illithid MA.jpg
Illithid dissection MA.jpg
Adult illithid MA.jpg
Arcane illithid MA.jpg|Arcane illithid
Psionic illithid MA.jpg|Psionic illithid
Illithid mind blast MA.jpg
Illithid astral MA.jpg
Psionic circuitry MA.jpg|"It's not magic runes, Mom, It's ''psionic circuitry''!"
Illithid perils of the warp MA.jpg
Illithid partialism MA.jpg|An illithid afflicted with partialism, wherein some of the personality of its last meal takes over.
Illithid praying MA.jpg
Illithid thrall MA.jpg
Illithid wrestling MA.jpg| Illithid wrestling. why are a race known for mind over matter so physically fit?
Illithid web MA.jpg
Brain eating ceremony MA.jpg
Thrall pokemon battle MA.jpg|Thrall pokemon battle
Illithid undead MA.jpg|Illithids fear undead because they are immune to mindfuckery
Illithid vs Githyanki MA.jpg
Illithid bathhouse MA.jpg
Space illithid MA.jpg
Illithid instrument MA.jpg
Illithid inventor.jpg
Illithid dampsuit.jpg
Illithid boss.jpg
Illithid tentacle knives.jpg
Monsters illithid.jpg
Illithid MC7 cover.jpg
Illithid Night Below 1.jpg
Tavern SJA2.jpg
Illithid S3.jpg
theorx taja trebek.jpg
Qualith MA.jpg|An example of [[Qualith]], Illithid braille. Designed to be read with the mouthparts.
</gallery>

<big>Ulitharid</big>
<gallery>
Monsters ulitharid.jpg
ulitharid MCAV1.jpg
ulitharid LoM.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Illithid vampire</big>
<gallery>
Illithid vampire MC Ravenloft.jpg|An illithid vampire
Illithid vampire MA.jpg
Monsters vampire illithid.jpg
Vampiric Mind Flayer 5e.png
</gallery>

<big>Nautiloid</big>
<gallery>
Nautiloid 2e.jpg
Nautiloid MA.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Elder brain</big>
<gallery>
Elder brain MA.jpg|Elder brain
Brain pool MA.jpg
Elder concord MA.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Tadpoles</big>
<gallery>
Big tadpole MA.jpg|An Illithid baby
Monsters tadpole.jpg
Monsters tadpoles.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Neothelid</big>
<gallery>
Neothelid MA.jpg|Neothelid, when an Illithid tadpole reaches its "natural" maturity.
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
</gallery>
<big>Ceremorphed thralls</big>
<gallery>
Urophion MA.jpg|Urophion (Ceremorphed [[roper]])
Monsters urophion.jpg|Urophion
Cranium rat MA.jpg|Cranium rats
Kezreth Dragon 255.jpg|Kezreth
Tzakandi Dragon 255.jpg|Tzakandi (Ceremorphed [[lizardfolk]])
Mozgriken Dragon 255.jpg|Mozgriken (Ceremorphed [[gnome]] infused with [[Shadowfell]] energy)
Gnome Squidling .jpeg| Gnome Squidling, why using gnomes are not worth the Tadpole
Gnome Ceremorph.jpeg| Gnome Ceremorph, that 1 in a million chance something doesn't go wrong.
Abductor Dragon 255.jpg|Abductor
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Monsters]]

Illithid

2021-09-24T05:47:56Z

2601:203:480:BD90:9C0F:4E72:4C9B:8B5E:

[[file:Illithid.jpg|thumb|right|Time to slurp brains]]

'''Illithids''' (also called '''Mind Flayers''') are cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. They look like tiny little, skinnier, wingless [[Cthulhu]]s, wear black robes with high collars and eat brains. Plus they all have psionic powers and are so super-smart even their breakfast is [[JUST AS PLANNED]]! They would be totally [[Mary Sue]], except for the fact that they are [[ Edgy|so brain-damagingly evil it makes them awesome]] instead of lame. (There was one good one in the [[Book of Exalted Deeds]], but nobody gives a crap about her, so let's move on.) Their psionic version is much better than their Monster Manual version by virtue of increased versatility. According to the book [[Lords of Madness]] they came from THE FUTURE.

The Illithid is considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its [[Open Gaming License]]. However, "half-Cthulhu creeps" and "squidface brainsuckers" are totally okay, so go nuts.

The illithid first appeared in the official newsletter of [[TSR]], The Strategic Review #1. They then appeared in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement for Original Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, they have have appeared the first [[Monster Manual]] of every edition. In second edition they got a whole book to themselves called The Illithiad, and in 3.5 they got a chapter in [[Lords of Madness]].

[[Fiend Folio]] in describing the [[githyanki]] (and [[githzerai]]) retconned that the 'flayers have enslaved humans - or will enslave them - and that they escaped/will-escape into a scourge perhaps even worse than they are/were/will-be. (Grammar gets kind of fuzzy with time diddlers.)

[[Dragonlance]] in a rare diversion into sword-n'-sorcery mooted a subrace of "degenerate" illithids, the Yaggol. These have retreated into Taladas' jungle, losing all of their psionic powers except for Mind Blast. On the upside, they are much stronger, stand 7 feet tall, and have chameleon-like skin.

Fun fact: in the city of Stormreach, in the [[Eberron]] campaign setting, there is an Illithid who just hangs around near a garden and engages in perfectly normal, honest, and voluntary business transactions with the humanoids and other races that inhabit the city. And by "normal" we mean people pay him to reprogram their brains and alter their memories. Why spend four years studying a new language when you can learn it by spending four minutes letting Fred gnaw on your brain? Oh, yeah, [https://ddowiki.com/page/Fred his name is Fred]. It's a very common Mind Flayer name. Point is, Mind Flayers don't just compulsively kill/consume humanoids on sight like the xenomorphs from the Alien movies; they're perfectly capable of being normal, well-integrated members of surface-dwelling, non-evil, humanoid societies.

==Illithid Physiology==
Illithids consist of... purple, mostly. Just brains and purple.

Their alien physiology has stumped our crack (addict) biology team even after years of scientific scrutiny. It is thought that if we could crack the mystery of why these skinny creatures subsist on a diet of nothing but fat and calcium, we would be closer to... something.

Look, just look up "aberrant" in the dictionary. We can't offer you much for the time being.

In actuality, Illithid physiology is a moderately altered version of their host organism's body (see mating practices). The brain of the host is replaced by a tadpole thing, and the digestive tract is altered to aid in the consumption of brains and their psychic essence. And of course, they grow tentacles and Sarlaac mouths and lose all of their hair.

Explained somewhat in 3.5's Tome of Darkness, the resulting creature is entirely conscious of its organs and body, as opposed to being autonomous. There is a tiny part of the creature's powerful mind constantly remembering to make sure the heart beats, and regulating digestion. Things like that. So they eat normally, and extract maximum nutrition from it. The method of creating an illithid destroys the brain, which includes all those hormone producing glands in the skull that keep a person healthy. This is why they need brains to keep their body from decaying. The memories and thoughts consumed are... well "flavor" to put it in the least disgusting way possible. These memories, thoughts, and emotions are just as necessary as the hormones contained within the brain for an illithid that consumes only the brains of unintelligent creatures or animals will regress into a ravenous beast, actually pretty similarly to the [[Kroot]].

There is apparently a cult of illithid monks/clerics known as The THOON (yes all caps) who worship a god or philosophy also known as THOON (see below for more on THOON and The THOON). They minmax their bodies as well as their minds. The elder brains hate them. They've been out of circulation since 4e landed. But if you need a mastermind who can roundhouse kick the fighter through a wall after the party blitzes through his mooks, look no further.

For the morbidly curious about what'd happen if you ate an illithid's brain, according to 5e's Volo's Guide to Monsters, nothing good. Apparently, each bite into an illithid's brain releases an intense flood of memories that the illithid developed/consumed in its life, so strong it'll probably drive the typical consumer insane. As to how [[Elminster]] knows this, he refuses to explain.

==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 and reincarnate and true resurrection, can bring back the victim, but even then the mind flayer will still be alive. Aside from that, nothing can reverse the effects; there is no way to bring back the original host, so he/she/they is 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).

If the host is any species besides a human, the result is a half-mindflayer, whose template can be found in the Fiend Folio. Special cases are present though; placing a mind flayer tadpole into a beholder results in a mindwitness (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 Mind Witness will look for another telepathic being to serve if the illithids it works for die. Placing it within a true dragon results in the unspeakably powerful gribbly horror that is the Brainstealer Dragon, whose psychic might is only surpassed by the Elder Brain. Put it in a Roper and you get the urophion, 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). Implanting one in a [[Svirfneblin]] usually kills both the tadpole and its host, but if it survives the result is a mozgriken, a small shapechanging 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. The tadpoles typically placed within lizardfolk are more bellicose than their kin, and form the Tzakand- 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. If a tadpole is placed into a [[Chuul]], the tadpole dies, but the Chuul is changed into a creature called an uchuulon, or a slime chuul, which is like a chuul, but slimier. A gnome ceremorph is 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 laser pistols and are the same alignment as before their transformation. A gnome squidling is an 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.

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.

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.

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 degenerative 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.

[[File:Elder-brain-dragon.jpeg|thumb|left|300px|]]

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.

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).

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.

==Illithid Society==
[[File:Elder Brain 5e.png|thumb|right|300px|An elder brain in his pimped-out floating vat]]
Illithids function as a hive mind, serving the Elder Brain. Other than maintaining the Elder Brain, the day-to-day duties of the average illithid consist of evil science and making cheeky wood burnings. The purpose of these wood burnings is an inextricable mystery, as they seem to disappear shortly after their completion. They can make Brain Golems out of buds from said queen-like Elder Brain, which are exactly what they sound like and exactly as retarded as you would think. Even the Illithids and the Elder Brain itself know how impractical this can be, and would prefer to use any other type of golem instead. The Illithids live for the fact that after they die, their brains, and thus their minds, will be merged with the Elder Brain after death. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, as the Elder Brain just eats their knowledge and discards everything else (although pretty much nobody in-universe aside from the elder brains themselves is aware of this). Elder Brains discourage studying magic too much because Elder Brains can't eat a mind flayer's magical abilities, though they can eat a mind flayer's knowledge of psionics (if it ever took levels in Psion, Erudite, Wilder, or what have you.) Below the Elder Brain on the mind flayer hierarchy are the Brainstealer Dragons (very rare because it's notoriously difficult to restrain a true dragon) and the Ulitharids.

The mind flayers have one deity they pay respects to in Illsensine, who did not create them. Perhaps to make up for the fact that Illsensine is the only Mind Flayer God, Illsensine is a very powerful rank 20 greater deity who omnoms the knowledge of everyone the instant they die. The Mind Flayers don't exactly worship Illsensine per se, they just respect it for its great knowledge, and Illsensine returns the favor by considering Mind Flayers to be the only worthy species in the multiverse. This is not to say that there are no Mind Flayer clerics to Illsensine, because said clerics of Illsensine do indeed exist, but their numbers are rather small relative to say the number of Dwarven clerics of Moradin, however; Mind Flayer communities have an exception to their rule of "don't study magic too much" for the Clerics of Illsensine, and in fact greatly respect these clerics and leave them to their business.

The mind flayers used to have another god called Maanzecorian, but Tenebrous (actually Orcus, it's a long story) used the last word on him, so his head asploded.

Some illithids spend their time finding ways to put out the sun, because they hate that bright light shit. Unfortunately for them, putting out a 1,392,000+ kilometer ball of ungodly hot hydrogen and helium is nigh on impossible (unless your name is [[Elder Evils#Father Llymic|Father Llymic]].) Most other Illithids think that these illithids are wasting their time when it's common knowledge that all they have to do is wait many, many billions of years for the sun to eventually puff up and die. And it goes without saying putting out the sun would indirectly eliminate their food source as well.

===Creeds===
Illithid communities are governed by a group of representatives called an Elder Concord, while the Elder Brain acts like the president. These representatives come from the various creeds or factions of illithid culture. Each creed has different beliefs about the best path towards taking over the universe. The symbols of each creeds are squares containing six horizontal bars that are either solid or split in two.
* The Creatives devote themselves to advancing illithid society though scientific and psionic research and invention.
* The Awaiters believe in [[Just As Planned|long term planning]] and avoid making rash decisions.
* The Possessors think hording wealth and resources through trade with other races is the best path to power.
* The Tamers work to build up the illithid's military strength so they can dominate the universe through force.
* The Thorough Biters have a philosophy of learning through failure, making them more humble that most other illithids.
* The Nourishers promote the interest of maintaining the community's supply of thralls.
* The Abysmal feel that the best way to dominate other races is through the power of terror.
* The Influencers specialize in collecting intelligence and misleading their enemies through infiltration and spying.
* The Darkeners, the dudes who think they can find a way to extinguish suns.
* The Gatherers want to consolidate the illithid race into larger, more powerful communities instead of many small disparate ones.
* The Arisers say that illithids shouldn't stay in darkness and so they develop ways for them to work in daylight and make plans for conquering the surface.
* The Venerators are the worshipers of the illithid god [[Ilsensine]].

* The Loretakers are a minor creed, but they are important as the source of the Thoon:

Some Loretaker mind flayers (possibly) went to the [[Far Realm]] and apparently encountered something called Thoon. However, the exact nature of Thoon is unknown even to the mind flayers themselves, so whether Thoon is a god, an aberration, a philosophy, or something else entirely is open to interpretation. In any case, the encounter with Thoon changed these particular illithids completely, they're a lot more irrational and unpredictable (NE instead of LE), make use of a lot of really weird constructs and altered humanoids (and employ a variant of the mind flayer that trades the ability to control minds for ninja powers), and for some fucking insane reason a CR 25 Elder brain came back as a CR 15 entity that's totally batshit insane. Oh, and they also seek to gather [[Psion|quintessence]] for some reason.

== 3.5e stats ==

Is this copyrighted? Who cares? It's not like anyone reads this site anyway.

::— +2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +8 Intelligence, +6 Wisdom, +6 Charisma.
::— A mind flayer’s base land speed is 30 feet.
::— Darkvision out to 60 feet.
::— Racial Hit Dice: A mind flayer begins with eight levels of aberration, which provide 8d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +6, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +2, Ref +2, and Will +6.
::— Racial Skills: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it skill points equal to 11 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Bluff, Concentration, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Listen, Move Silently, and Spot.
::— Racial Feats: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it three feats.
::— +3 natural armor bonus.
::— Natural Weapons: 4 tentacles (1d4).
::— Special Attacks: Mind blast, psionics, improved grab, extract.
::— Special Qualities: Spell resistance equal to 25 +class levels, telepathy 100 ft.
::— Automatic Languages: Common, Undercommon. Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Aquan, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Infernal, Terran.
::— Favored Class: Wizard.
::— Level adjustment +7.

==Monstergirls?==
[[File:Illitiddies.png|right|300px|thumb|With assets like those, who cares if she has an octopus for a head?]]
{{Monstergirls}}

Now, you'd see the face on these things and the how of their reproduction and figure that this has to be one species that can't get the [[monstergirls]] treatment? ...But then you realize that they have tentacles, and you suddenly remember that Japan exists. "Feminized" illithids, which are basically mind-flayers with boobs and often skimpily clad, occasionally pop up in monstergirl-related threads on /tg/, usually under the same joking context as the [[thri-kreen]]/[[xixchil]].

More importantly than that, Mindflayers are one of the "Aberrant" monstergirls that show up in the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]. Formally considered a relative of the [[scylla]], they take the form of tall, curvy, slime-dripping women with tentacles for hair and a Morticia Addams-like dress implied to actually be tentacle-legs. It also (good taste) has an ultra-high collar. They are ultra-perverted hedonists, using their [[psionics]] to brainwash victims into playmates of their obscene lusts, and are reputated to eventually transform men they take as their lovers mentally and physically into grotesque, squid-like tentacle-beasts, which spend the rest of their lives fastened to the mindflayer's hips and shoving her genitals full of tentacle-penises.

Later sources clarified that the man in question can freely transform back and forth between squid-form and human form, but that the mindflayers are uncharacteristically shy about public displays of affection when their lovers ''aren't'' tentacled, so this is only done in private. And they usually use their mind-powers to help friends engage in emotionally-resonant roleplay when in societies with other monsters.

==See Also==
* [[Aberration]]
* [[Githzerai]]
* [[Githyanki]]
* [[Far Realm]]
* [[Unified_Setting/Illithid]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Mind flayer Blackmoor.jpg|The ''very first'' illustration of a mind flayer, in ''D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor''.
Mind flayer 1e.jpg|1e
Mind Flayer MCv1.jpg|2e
Illithid MM 2e.png
Mind flayer 3e.jpg|3e
Mind flayer 4e.jpg|4e
Mind flayer 5e.jpg|5e
Mind Blast.jpg|The Illithid's Mind Blast power in use
Illithiad cover.jpg|The cover image of the Illithiad
Pirate illithid 5e.jpg|Yes, that is an [[awesome|Illithid space pirate captain]]. Yes, he is canon.
Illithid eating.jpg
Mindflayer skull.jpg| Mindflayer skull
Nihiloor 5e.jpg|[[Intellect Devourer]]s are like dogs that can teleport into and eat the brains of your enemies.
Mind flayer funerary jar 3e.jpg
Mind flayer of Thoon 3e.jpg|Illithids of Thoon would rather get swole
Illithid savant 3e.jpg| Illithid [[savant]]. Mind blasts are mid-range, don't you know.
Illithid Body Tamer.jpg|Spiked tentacles!
Mindflayer nom.jpg
Underdark cover.jpg
Mind flayer Dragon 313.jpg|[[Dragon Magazine]] #313
Illithid MC Ravenloft.jpg
Yaggol.jpg|A Yaggol
Vesuvian illithid MA.jpg
Illithid dissection MA.jpg
Adult illithid MA.jpg
Arcane illithid MA.jpg|Arcane illithid
Psionic illithid MA.jpg|Psionic illithid
Illithid mind blast MA.jpg
Illithid astral MA.jpg
Psionic circuitry MA.jpg|"It's not magic runes, Mom, It's ''psionic circuitry''!"
Illithid perils of the warp MA.jpg
Illithid partialism MA.jpg|An illithid afflicted with partialism, wherein some of the personality of its last meal takes over.
Illithid praying MA.jpg
Illithid thrall MA.jpg
Illithid wrestling MA.jpg| Illithid wrestling. why are a race known for mind over matter so physically fit?
Illithid web MA.jpg
Brain eating ceremony MA.jpg
Thrall pokemon battle MA.jpg|Thrall pokemon battle
Illithid undead MA.jpg|Illithids fear undead because they are immune to mindfuckery
Illithid vs Githyanki MA.jpg
Illithid bathhouse MA.jpg
Space illithid MA.jpg
Illithid instrument MA.jpg
Illithid inventor.jpg
Illithid dampsuit.jpg
Illithid boss.jpg
Illithid tentacle knives.jpg
Monsters illithid.jpg
Illithid MC7 cover.jpg
Illithid Night Below 1.jpg
Tavern SJA2.jpg
Illithid S3.jpg
theorx taja trebek.jpg
Qualith MA.jpg|An example of [[Qualith]], Illithid braille. Designed to be read with the mouthparts.
</gallery>

<big>Ulitharid</big>
<gallery>
Monsters ulitharid.jpg
ulitharid MCAV1.jpg
ulitharid LoM.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Illithid vampire</big>
<gallery>
Illithid vampire MC Ravenloft.jpg|An illithid vampire
Illithid vampire MA.jpg
Monsters vampire illithid.jpg
Vampiric Mind Flayer 5e.png
</gallery>

<big>Nautiloid</big>
<gallery>
Nautiloid 2e.jpg
Nautiloid MA.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Elder brain</big>
<gallery>
Elder brain MA.jpg|Elder brain
Brain pool MA.jpg
Elder concord MA.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Tadpoles</big>
<gallery>
Big tadpole MA.jpg|An Illithid baby
Monsters tadpole.jpg
Monsters tadpoles.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Neothelid</big>
<gallery>
Neothelid MA.jpg|Neothelid, when an Illithid tadpole reaches its "natural" maturity.
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
</gallery>
<big>Ceremorphed thralls</big>
<gallery>
Urophion MA.jpg|Urophion (Ceremorphed [[roper]])
Monsters urophion.jpg|Urophion
Cranium rat MA.jpg|Cranium rats
Kezreth Dragon 255.jpg|Kezreth
Tzakandi Dragon 255.jpg|Tzakandi (Ceremorphed [[lizardfolk]])
Mozgriken Dragon 255.jpg|Mozgriken (Ceremorphed [[gnome]] infused with [[Shadowfell]] energy)
Gnome Squidling .jpeg| Gnome Squidling, why using gnomes are not worth the Tadpole
Gnome Ceremorph.jpeg| Gnome Ceremorph, that 1 in a million chance something doesn't go wrong.
Abductor Dragon 255.jpg|Abductor
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Monsters]]

Illithid

2021-09-24T01:31:07Z

2601:203:480:BD90:9C0F:4E72:4C9B:8B5E: /* Illithid Mating Practices */

[[file:Illithid.jpg|thumb|right|Time to slurp brains]]

'''Illithids''' (also called '''Mind Flayers''') are cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. They look like tiny little, skinnier, wingless [[Cthulhu]]s, wear black robes with high collars and eat brains. Plus they all have psionic powers and are so super-smart even their breakfast is [[JUST AS PLANNED]]! They would be totally [[Mary Sue]], except for the fact that they are [[ Edgy|so brain-damagingly evil it makes them awesome]] instead of lame. (There was one good one in the [[Book of Exalted Deeds]], but nobody gives a crap about her, so let's move on.) Their psionic version is much better than their Monster Manual version by virtue of increased versatility. According to the book [[Lords of Madness]] they came from THE FUTURE.

The Illithid is considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its [[Open Gaming License]]. However, "half-Cthulhu creeps" and "squidface brainsuckers" are totally okay, so go nuts.

The illithid first appeared in the official newsletter of [[TSR]], The Strategic Review #1. They then appeared in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement for Original Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, they have have appeared the first [[Monster Manual]] of every edition. In second edition they got a whole book to themselves called The Illithiad, and in 3.5 they got a chapter in [[Lords of Madness]].

[[Fiend Folio]] in describing the [[githyanki]] (and [[githzerai]]) retconned that the 'flayers have enslaved humans - or will enslave them - and that they escaped/will-escape into a scourge perhaps even worse than they are/were/will-be. (Grammar gets kind of fuzzy with time diddlers.)

[[Dragonlance]] in a rare diversion into sword-n'-sorcery mooted a subrace of "degenerate" illithids, the Yaggol. These have retreated into Taladas' jungle, losing all of their psionic powers except for Mind Blast. On the upside, they are much stronger, stand 7 feet tall, and have chameleon-like skin.

Fun fact: in the city of Stormreach, in the [[Eberron]] campaign setting, there is an Illithid who just hangs around near a garden and engages in perfectly normal, honest, and voluntary business transactions with the humanoids and other races that inhabit the city. And by "normal" we mean people pay him to reprogram their brains and alter their memories. Why spend four years studying a new language when you can learn it by spending four minutes letting Fred gnaw on your brain? Oh, yeah, [https://ddowiki.com/page/Fred his name is Fred]. It's a very common Mind Flayer name. Point is, Mind Flayers don't just compulsively kill/consume humanoids on sight like the xenomorphs from the Alien movies; they're perfectly capable of being normal, well-integrated members of surface-dwelling, non-evil, humanoid societies.

==Illithid Physiology==
Illithids consist of... purple, mostly. Just brains and purple.

Their alien physiology has stumped our crack (addict) biology team even after years of scientific scrutiny. It is thought that if we could crack the mystery of why these skinny creatures subsist on a diet of nothing but fat and calcium, we would be closer to... something.

Look, just look up "aberrant" in the dictionary. We can't offer you much for the time being.

In actuality, Illithid physiology is a moderately altered version of their host organism's body (see mating practices). The brain of the host is replaced by a tadpole thing, and the digestive tract is altered to aid in the consumption of brains and their psychic essence. And of course, they grow tentacles and Sarlaac mouths and lose all of their hair.

Explained somewhat in 3.5's Tome of Darkness, the resulting creature is entirely conscious of its organs and body, as opposed to being autonomous. There is a tiny part of the creature's powerful mind constantly remembering to make sure the heart beats, and regulating digestion. Things like that. So they eat normally, and extract maximum nutrition from it. The method of creating an illithid destroys the brain, which includes all those hormone producing glands in the skull that keep a person healthy. This is why they need brains to keep their body from decaying. The memories and thoughts consumed are... well "flavor" to put it in the least disgusting way possible. These memories, thoughts, and emotions are just as necessary as the hormones contained within the brain for an illithid that consumes only the brains of unintelligent creatures or animals will regress into a ravenous beast, actually pretty similarly to the [[Kroot]].

There is apparently a cult of illithid monks/clerics known as The THOON (yes all caps) who worship a god or philosophy also known as THOON (see below for more on THOON and The THOON). They minmax their bodies as well as their minds. The elder brains hate them. They've been out of circulation since 4e landed. But if you need a mastermind who can roundhouse kick the fighter through a wall after the party blitzes through his mooks, look no further.

For the morbidly curious about what'd happen if you ate an illithid's brain, according to 5e's Volo's Guide to Monsters, nothing good. Apparently, each bite into an illithid's brain releases an intense flood of memories that the illithid developed/consumed in its life, so strong it'll probably drive the typical consumer insane. As to how [[Elminster]] knows this, he refuses to explain.

==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 and reincarnate and true resurrection, can bring back the victim, but even then the mind flayer will still be alive. Aside from that, nothing can reverse the effects; there is no way to bring back the original host, so he/she/they is 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).

If the host is any species besides a human, the result is a half-mindflayer, whose template can be found in the Fiend Folio. Special cases are present though; placing a mind flayer tadpole into a beholder results in a mindwitness (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 Mind Witness will look for another telepathic being to serve if the illithids it works for die. Placing it within a true dragon results in the unspeakably powerful gribbly horror that is the Brainstealer Dragon, whose psychic might is only surpassed by the Elder Brain. Put it in a Roper and you get the urophion, 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). Implanting one in a [[Svirfneblin]] usually kills both the tadpole and its host, but if it survives the result is a mozgriken, a small shapechanging 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. The tadpoles typically placed within lizardfolk are more bellicose than their kin, and form the Tzakand- 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. If a tadpole is placed into a [[Chuul]], the tadpole dies, but the Chuul is changed into a creature called an uchuulon, or a slime chuul, which is like a chuul, but slimier.

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.

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.

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 degenerative 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.

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).

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.

The fifth edition adventure [[Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden]] introduced two more Illithid variants. A gnome ceremorph is 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 laser pistols and are the same alignment as before their transformation. A gnome squidling is an 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.

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons introduced a new illithid monster in the form of the Elder Brain Dragon. Instead of a dragon that underwent ceremorphosis, it is a dragon that an elder brain fused with in order to gain mobility. The dragon loses their breath weapon but can spray illithid tadpoles from its mouth.

==Illithid Society==
[[File:Elder Brain 5e.png|thumb|right|300px|An elder brain in his pimped-out floating vat]]
Illithids function as a hive mind, serving the Elder Brain. Other than maintaining the Elder Brain, the day-to-day duties of the average illithid consist of evil science and making cheeky wood burnings. The purpose of these wood burnings is an inextricable mystery, as they seem to disappear shortly after their completion. They can make Brain Golems out of buds from said queen-like Elder Brain, which are exactly what they sound like and exactly as retarded as you would think. Even the Illithids and the Elder Brain itself know how impractical this can be, and would prefer to use any other type of golem instead. The Illithids live for the fact that after they die, their brains, and thus their minds, will be merged with the Elder Brain after death. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, as the Elder Brain just eats their knowledge and discards everything else (although pretty much nobody in-universe aside from the elder brains themselves is aware of this). Elder Brains discourage studying magic too much because Elder Brains can't eat a mind flayer's magical abilities, though they can eat a mind flayer's knowledge of psionics (if it ever took levels in Psion, Erudite, Wilder, or what have you.) Below the Elder Brain on the mind flayer hierarchy are the Brainstealer Dragons (very rare because it's notoriously difficult to restrain a true dragon) and the Ulitharids.

The mind flayers have one deity they pay respects to in Illsensine, who did not create them. Perhaps to make up for the fact that Illsensine is the only Mind Flayer God, Illsensine is a very powerful rank 20 greater deity who omnoms the knowledge of everyone the instant they die. The Mind Flayers don't exactly worship Illsensine per se, they just respect it for its great knowledge, and Illsensine returns the favor by considering Mind Flayers to be the only worthy species in the multiverse. This is not to say that there are no Mind Flayer clerics to Illsensine, because said clerics of Illsensine do indeed exist, but their numbers are rather small relative to say the number of Dwarven clerics of Moradin, however; Mind Flayer communities have an exception to their rule of "don't study magic too much" for the Clerics of Illsensine, and in fact greatly respect these clerics and leave them to their business.

The mind flayers used to have another god called Maanzecorian, but Tenebrous (actually Orcus, it's a long story) used the last word on him, so his head asploded.

Some illithids spend their time finding ways to put out the sun, because they hate that bright light shit. Unfortunately for them, putting out a 1,392,000+ kilometer ball of ungodly hot hydrogen and helium is nigh on impossible (unless your name is [[Elder Evils#Father Llymic|Father Llymic]].) Most other Illithids think that these illithids are wasting their time when it's common knowledge that all they have to do is wait many, many billions of years for the sun to eventually puff up and die. And it goes without saying putting out the sun would indirectly eliminate their food source as well.

===Creeds===
Illithid communities are governed by a group of representatives called an Elder Concord, while the Elder Brain acts like the president. These representatives come from the various creeds or factions of illithid culture. Each creed has different beliefs about the best path towards taking over the universe. The symbols of each creeds are squares containing six horizontal bars that are either solid or split in two.
* The Creatives devote themselves to advancing illithid society though scientific and psionic research and invention.
* The Awaiters believe in [[Just As Planned|long term planning]] and avoid making rash decisions.
* The Possessors think hording wealth and resources through trade with other races is the best path to power.
* The Tamers work to build up the illithid's military strength so they can dominate the universe through force.
* The Thorough Biters have a philosophy of learning through failure, making them more humble that most other illithids.
* The Nourishers promote the interest of maintaining the community's supply of thralls.
* The Abysmal feel that the best way to dominate other races is through the power of terror.
* The Influencers specialize in collecting intelligence and misleading their enemies through infiltration and spying.
* The Darkeners, the dudes who think they can find a way to extinguish suns.
* The Gatherers want to consolidate the illithid race into larger, more powerful communities instead of many small disparate ones.
* The Arisers say that illithids shouldn't stay in darkness and so they develop ways for them to work in daylight and make plans for conquering the surface.
* The Venerators are the worshipers of the illithid god [[Ilsensine]].

* The Loretakers are a minor creed, but they are important as the source of the Thoon:

Some Loretaker mind flayers (possibly) went to the [[Far Realm]] and apparently encountered something called Thoon. However, the exact nature of Thoon is unknown even to the mind flayers themselves, so whether Thoon is a god, an aberration, a philosophy, or something else entirely is open to interpretation. In any case, the encounter with Thoon changed these particular illithids completely, they're a lot more irrational and unpredictable (NE instead of LE), make use of a lot of really weird constructs and altered humanoids (and employ a variant of the mind flayer that trades the ability to control minds for ninja powers), and for some fucking insane reason a CR 25 Elder brain came back as a CR 15 entity that's totally batshit insane. Oh, and they also seek to gather [[Psion|quintessence]] for some reason.

== 3.5e stats ==

Is this copyrighted? Who cares? It's not like anyone reads this site anyway.

::— +2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +8 Intelligence, +6 Wisdom, +6 Charisma.
::— A mind flayer’s base land speed is 30 feet.
::— Darkvision out to 60 feet.
::— Racial Hit Dice: A mind flayer begins with eight levels of aberration, which provide 8d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +6, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +2, Ref +2, and Will +6.
::— Racial Skills: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it skill points equal to 11 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Bluff, Concentration, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Listen, Move Silently, and Spot.
::— Racial Feats: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it three feats.
::— +3 natural armor bonus.
::— Natural Weapons: 4 tentacles (1d4).
::— Special Attacks: Mind blast, psionics, improved grab, extract.
::— Special Qualities: Spell resistance equal to 25 +class levels, telepathy 100 ft.
::— Automatic Languages: Common, Undercommon. Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Aquan, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Infernal, Terran.
::— Favored Class: Wizard.
::— Level adjustment +7.

==Monstergirls?==
[[File:Illitiddies.png|right|300px|thumb|With assets like those, who cares if she has an octopus for a head?]]
{{Monstergirls}}

Now, you'd see the face on these things and the how of their reproduction and figure that this has to be one species that can't get the [[monstergirls]] treatment? ...But then you realize that they have tentacles, and you suddenly remember that Japan exists. "Feminized" illithids, which are basically mind-flayers with boobs and often skimpily clad, occasionally pop up in monstergirl-related threads on /tg/, usually under the same joking context as the [[thri-kreen]]/[[xixchil]].

More importantly than that, Mindflayers are one of the "Aberrant" monstergirls that show up in the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]. Formally considered a relative of the [[scylla]], they take the form of tall, curvy, slime-dripping women with tentacles for hair and a Morticia Addams-like dress implied to actually be tentacle-legs. It also (good taste) has an ultra-high collar. They are ultra-perverted hedonists, using their [[psionics]] to brainwash victims into playmates of their obscene lusts, and are reputated to eventually transform men they take as their lovers mentally and physically into grotesque, squid-like tentacle-beasts, which spend the rest of their lives fastened to the mindflayer's hips and shoving her genitals full of tentacle-penises.

Later sources clarified that the man in question can freely transform back and forth between squid-form and human form, but that the mindflayers are uncharacteristically shy about public displays of affection when their lovers ''aren't'' tentacled, so this is only done in private. And they usually use their mind-powers to help friends engage in emotionally-resonant roleplay when in societies with other monsters.

==See Also==
* [[Aberration]]
* [[Githzerai]]
* [[Githyanki]]
* [[Far Realm]]
* [[Unified_Setting/Illithid]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Mind flayer Blackmoor.jpg|The ''very first'' illustration of a mind flayer, in ''D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor''.
Mind flayer 1e.jpg|1e
Mind Flayer MCv1.jpg|2e
Illithid MM 2e.png
Mind flayer 3e.jpg|3e
Mind flayer 4e.jpg|4e
Mind flayer 5e.jpg|5e
Mind Blast.jpg|The Illithid's Mind Blast power in use
Illithiad cover.jpg|The cover image of the Illithiad
Pirate illithid 5e.jpg|Yes, that is an [[awesome|Illithid space pirate captain]]. Yes, he is canon.
Illithid eating.jpg
Mindflayer skull.jpg| Mindflayer skull
Nihiloor 5e.jpg|[[Intellect Devourer]]s are like dogs that can teleport into and eat the brains of your enemies.
Mind flayer funerary jar 3e.jpg
Mind flayer of Thoon 3e.jpg|Illithids of Thoon would rather get swole
Illithid savant 3e.jpg| Illithid [[savant]]. Mind blasts are mid-range, don't you know.
Illithid Body Tamer.jpg|Spiked tentacles!
Mindflayer nom.jpg
Underdark cover.jpg
Mind flayer Dragon 313.jpg|[[Dragon Magazine]] #313
Illithid MC Ravenloft.jpg
Yaggol.jpg|A Yaggol
Vesuvian illithid MA.jpg
Illithid dissection MA.jpg
Adult illithid MA.jpg
Arcane illithid MA.jpg|Arcane illithid
Psionic illithid MA.jpg|Psionic illithid
Illithid mind blast MA.jpg
Illithid astral MA.jpg
Psionic circuitry MA.jpg|"It's not magic runes, Mom, It's ''psionic circuitry''!"
Illithid perils of the warp MA.jpg
Illithid partialism MA.jpg|An illithid afflicted with partialism, wherein some of the personality of its last meal takes over.
Illithid praying MA.jpg
Illithid thrall MA.jpg
Illithid wrestling MA.jpg| Illithid wrestling. why are a race known for mind over matter so physically fit?
Illithid web MA.jpg
Brain eating ceremony MA.jpg
Thrall pokemon battle MA.jpg|Thrall pokemon battle
Illithid undead MA.jpg|Illithids fear undead because they are immune to mindfuckery
Illithid vs Githyanki MA.jpg
Illithid bathhouse MA.jpg
Space illithid MA.jpg
Illithid instrument MA.jpg
Illithid inventor.jpg
Illithid dampsuit.jpg
Illithid boss.jpg
Illithid tentacle knives.jpg
Monsters illithid.jpg
Illithid MC7 cover.jpg
Illithid Night Below 1.jpg
Tavern SJA2.jpg
Illithid S3.jpg
theorx taja trebek.jpg
Qualith MA.jpg|An example of [[Qualith]], Illithid braille. Designed to be read with the mouthparts.
</gallery>

<big>Ulitharid</big>
<gallery>
Monsters ulitharid.jpg
ulitharid MCAV1.jpg
ulitharid LoM.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Illithid vampire</big>
<gallery>
Illithid vampire MC Ravenloft.jpg|An illithid vampire
Illithid vampire MA.jpg
Monsters vampire illithid.jpg
Vampiric Mind Flayer 5e.png
</gallery>

<big>Nautiloid</big>
<gallery>
Nautiloid 2e.jpg
Nautiloid MA.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Elder brain</big>
<gallery>
Elder brain MA.jpg|Elder brain
Brain pool MA.jpg
Elder concord MA.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Tadpoles</big>
<gallery>
Big tadpole MA.jpg|An Illithid baby
Monsters tadpole.jpg
Monsters tadpoles.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Neothelid</big>
<gallery>
Neothelid MA.jpg|Neothelid, when an Illithid tadpole reaches its "natural" maturity.
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
</gallery>
<big>Ceremorphed thralls</big>
<gallery>
Urophion MA.jpg|Urophion (Ceremorphed [[roper]])
Monsters urophion.jpg|Urophion
Cranium rat MA.jpg|Cranium rats
Kezreth Dragon 255.jpg|Kezreth
Tzakandi Dragon 255.jpg|Tzakandi (Ceremorphed [[lizardfolk]])
Mozgriken Dragon 255.jpg|Mozgriken (Ceremorphed [[gnome]] infused with [[Shadowfell]] energy)
Gnome Squidling .jpeg| Gnome Squidling, why using gnomes are not worth the Tadpole
Gnome Ceremorph.jpeg| Gnome Ceremorph, that 1 in a million chance something doesn't go wrong.
Abductor Dragon 255.jpg|Abductor
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Monsters]]

Illithid

2021-09-24T01:19:26Z

2601:203:480:BD90:9C0F:4E72:4C9B:8B5E: /* Illithid Mating Practices */

[[file:Illithid.jpg|thumb|right|Time to slurp brains]]

'''Illithids''' (also called '''Mind Flayers''') are cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. They look like tiny little, skinnier, wingless [[Cthulhu]]s, wear black robes with high collars and eat brains. Plus they all have psionic powers and are so super-smart even their breakfast is [[JUST AS PLANNED]]! They would be totally [[Mary Sue]], except for the fact that they are [[ Edgy|so brain-damagingly evil it makes them awesome]] instead of lame. (There was one good one in the [[Book of Exalted Deeds]], but nobody gives a crap about her, so let's move on.) Their psionic version is much better than their Monster Manual version by virtue of increased versatility. According to the book [[Lords of Madness]] they came from THE FUTURE.

The Illithid is considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its [[Open Gaming License]]. However, "half-Cthulhu creeps" and "squidface brainsuckers" are totally okay, so go nuts.

The illithid first appeared in the official newsletter of [[TSR]], The Strategic Review #1. They then appeared in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement for Original Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, they have have appeared the first [[Monster Manual]] of every edition. In second edition they got a whole book to themselves called The Illithiad, and in 3.5 they got a chapter in [[Lords of Madness]].

[[Fiend Folio]] in describing the [[githyanki]] (and [[githzerai]]) retconned that the 'flayers have enslaved humans - or will enslave them - and that they escaped/will-escape into a scourge perhaps even worse than they are/were/will-be. (Grammar gets kind of fuzzy with time diddlers.)

[[Dragonlance]] in a rare diversion into sword-n'-sorcery mooted a subrace of "degenerate" illithids, the Yaggol. These have retreated into Taladas' jungle, losing all of their psionic powers except for Mind Blast. On the upside, they are much stronger, stand 7 feet tall, and have chameleon-like skin.

Fun fact: in the city of Stormreach, in the [[Eberron]] campaign setting, there is an Illithid who just hangs around near a garden and engages in perfectly normal, honest, and voluntary business transactions with the humanoids and other races that inhabit the city. And by "normal" we mean people pay him to reprogram their brains and alter their memories. Why spend four years studying a new language when you can learn it by spending four minutes letting Fred gnaw on your brain? Oh, yeah, [https://ddowiki.com/page/Fred his name is Fred]. It's a very common Mind Flayer name. Point is, Mind Flayers don't just compulsively kill/consume humanoids on sight like the xenomorphs from the Alien movies; they're perfectly capable of being normal, well-integrated members of surface-dwelling, non-evil, humanoid societies.

==Illithid Physiology==
Illithids consist of... purple, mostly. Just brains and purple.

Their alien physiology has stumped our crack (addict) biology team even after years of scientific scrutiny. It is thought that if we could crack the mystery of why these skinny creatures subsist on a diet of nothing but fat and calcium, we would be closer to... something.

Look, just look up "aberrant" in the dictionary. We can't offer you much for the time being.

In actuality, Illithid physiology is a moderately altered version of their host organism's body (see mating practices). The brain of the host is replaced by a tadpole thing, and the digestive tract is altered to aid in the consumption of brains and their psychic essence. And of course, they grow tentacles and Sarlaac mouths and lose all of their hair.

Explained somewhat in 3.5's Tome of Darkness, the resulting creature is entirely conscious of its organs and body, as opposed to being autonomous. There is a tiny part of the creature's powerful mind constantly remembering to make sure the heart beats, and regulating digestion. Things like that. So they eat normally, and extract maximum nutrition from it. The method of creating an illithid destroys the brain, which includes all those hormone producing glands in the skull that keep a person healthy. This is why they need brains to keep their body from decaying. The memories and thoughts consumed are... well "flavor" to put it in the least disgusting way possible. These memories, thoughts, and emotions are just as necessary as the hormones contained within the brain for an illithid that consumes only the brains of unintelligent creatures or animals will regress into a ravenous beast, actually pretty similarly to the [[Kroot]].

There is apparently a cult of illithid monks/clerics known as The THOON (yes all caps) who worship a god or philosophy also known as THOON (see below for more on THOON and The THOON). They minmax their bodies as well as their minds. The elder brains hate them. They've been out of circulation since 4e landed. But if you need a mastermind who can roundhouse kick the fighter through a wall after the party blitzes through his mooks, look no further.

For the morbidly curious about what'd happen if you ate an illithid's brain, according to 5e's Volo's Guide to Monsters, nothing good. Apparently, each bite into an illithid's brain releases an intense flood of memories that the illithid developed/consumed in its life, so strong it'll probably drive the typical consumer insane. As to how [[Elminster]] knows this, he refuses to explain.

==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.

When the process is complete, no form of magic or psionics, excluding wish and reincarnate and true resurrection, can bring back the victim, but even then the mind flayer will still be alive. Aside from that, nothing can reverse the effects; there is no way to bring back the original host, so he/she/they is 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).

If the host is any species besides a human, the result is a half-mindflayer, whose template can be found in the Fiend Folio. Special cases are present though; placing a mind flayer tadpole into a beholder results in a mindwitness (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 Mind Witness will look for another telepathic being to serve if the illithids it works for die. Placing it within a true dragon results in the unspeakably powerful gribbly horror that is the Brainstealer Dragon, whose psychic might is only surpassed by the Elder Brain. Put it in a Roper and you get the urophion, 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). Implanting one in a [[Svirfneblin]] usually kills both the tadpole and its host, but if it survives the result is a mozgriken, a small shapechanging 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. The tadpoles typically placed within lizardfolk are more bellicose than their kin, and form the Tzakand- 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. If a tadpole is placed into a [[Chuul]], the tadpole dies, but the Chuul is changed into a creature called an uchuulon, or a slime chuul, which is like a chuul, but slimier.

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.

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.

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 degenerative 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.

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).

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.

The fifth edition adventure [[Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden]] introduced two more Illithid variants. A gnome ceremorph is 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 laser pistols and are the same alignment as before their transformation. A gnome squidling is an 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.

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons introduced a new illithid monster in the form of the Elder Brain Dragon. Instead of a dragon that underwent ceremorphosis, it is a dragon that an elder brain fused with in order to gain mobility. The dragon loses their breath weapon but can spray illithid tadpoles from its mouth.

==Illithid Society==
[[File:Elder Brain 5e.png|thumb|right|300px|An elder brain in his pimped-out floating vat]]
Illithids function as a hive mind, serving the Elder Brain. Other than maintaining the Elder Brain, the day-to-day duties of the average illithid consist of evil science and making cheeky wood burnings. The purpose of these wood burnings is an inextricable mystery, as they seem to disappear shortly after their completion. They can make Brain Golems out of buds from said queen-like Elder Brain, which are exactly what they sound like and exactly as retarded as you would think. Even the Illithids and the Elder Brain itself know how impractical this can be, and would prefer to use any other type of golem instead. The Illithids live for the fact that after they die, their brains, and thus their minds, will be merged with the Elder Brain after death. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, as the Elder Brain just eats their knowledge and discards everything else (although pretty much nobody in-universe aside from the elder brains themselves is aware of this). Elder Brains discourage studying magic too much because Elder Brains can't eat a mind flayer's magical abilities, though they can eat a mind flayer's knowledge of psionics (if it ever took levels in Psion, Erudite, Wilder, or what have you.) Below the Elder Brain on the mind flayer hierarchy are the Brainstealer Dragons (very rare because it's notoriously difficult to restrain a true dragon) and the Ulitharids.

The mind flayers have one deity they pay respects to in Illsensine, who did not create them. Perhaps to make up for the fact that Illsensine is the only Mind Flayer God, Illsensine is a very powerful rank 20 greater deity who omnoms the knowledge of everyone the instant they die. The Mind Flayers don't exactly worship Illsensine per se, they just respect it for its great knowledge, and Illsensine returns the favor by considering Mind Flayers to be the only worthy species in the multiverse. This is not to say that there are no Mind Flayer clerics to Illsensine, because said clerics of Illsensine do indeed exist, but their numbers are rather small relative to say the number of Dwarven clerics of Moradin, however; Mind Flayer communities have an exception to their rule of "don't study magic too much" for the Clerics of Illsensine, and in fact greatly respect these clerics and leave them to their business.

The mind flayers used to have another god called Maanzecorian, but Tenebrous (actually Orcus, it's a long story) used the last word on him, so his head asploded.

Some illithids spend their time finding ways to put out the sun, because they hate that bright light shit. Unfortunately for them, putting out a 1,392,000+ kilometer ball of ungodly hot hydrogen and helium is nigh on impossible (unless your name is [[Elder Evils#Father Llymic|Father Llymic]].) Most other Illithids think that these illithids are wasting their time when it's common knowledge that all they have to do is wait many, many billions of years for the sun to eventually puff up and die. And it goes without saying putting out the sun would indirectly eliminate their food source as well.

===Creeds===
Illithid communities are governed by a group of representatives called an Elder Concord, while the Elder Brain acts like the president. These representatives come from the various creeds or factions of illithid culture. Each creed has different beliefs about the best path towards taking over the universe. The symbols of each creeds are squares containing six horizontal bars that are either solid or split in two.
* The Creatives devote themselves to advancing illithid society though scientific and psionic research and invention.
* The Awaiters believe in [[Just As Planned|long term planning]] and avoid making rash decisions.
* The Possessors think hording wealth and resources through trade with other races is the best path to power.
* The Tamers work to build up the illithid's military strength so they can dominate the universe through force.
* The Thorough Biters have a philosophy of learning through failure, making them more humble that most other illithids.
* The Nourishers promote the interest of maintaining the community's supply of thralls.
* The Abysmal feel that the best way to dominate other races is through the power of terror.
* The Influencers specialize in collecting intelligence and misleading their enemies through infiltration and spying.
* The Darkeners, the dudes who think they can find a way to extinguish suns.
* The Gatherers want to consolidate the illithid race into larger, more powerful communities instead of many small disparate ones.
* The Arisers say that illithids shouldn't stay in darkness and so they develop ways for them to work in daylight and make plans for conquering the surface.
* The Venerators are the worshipers of the illithid god [[Ilsensine]].

* The Loretakers are a minor creed, but they are important as the source of the Thoon:

Some Loretaker mind flayers (possibly) went to the [[Far Realm]] and apparently encountered something called Thoon. However, the exact nature of Thoon is unknown even to the mind flayers themselves, so whether Thoon is a god, an aberration, a philosophy, or something else entirely is open to interpretation. In any case, the encounter with Thoon changed these particular illithids completely, they're a lot more irrational and unpredictable (NE instead of LE), make use of a lot of really weird constructs and altered humanoids (and employ a variant of the mind flayer that trades the ability to control minds for ninja powers), and for some fucking insane reason a CR 25 Elder brain came back as a CR 15 entity that's totally batshit insane. Oh, and they also seek to gather [[Psion|quintessence]] for some reason.

== 3.5e stats ==

Is this copyrighted? Who cares? It's not like anyone reads this site anyway.

::— +2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +8 Intelligence, +6 Wisdom, +6 Charisma.
::— A mind flayer’s base land speed is 30 feet.
::— Darkvision out to 60 feet.
::— Racial Hit Dice: A mind flayer begins with eight levels of aberration, which provide 8d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +6, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +2, Ref +2, and Will +6.
::— Racial Skills: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it skill points equal to 11 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Bluff, Concentration, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Listen, Move Silently, and Spot.
::— Racial Feats: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it three feats.
::— +3 natural armor bonus.
::— Natural Weapons: 4 tentacles (1d4).
::— Special Attacks: Mind blast, psionics, improved grab, extract.
::— Special Qualities: Spell resistance equal to 25 +class levels, telepathy 100 ft.
::— Automatic Languages: Common, Undercommon. Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Aquan, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Infernal, Terran.
::— Favored Class: Wizard.
::— Level adjustment +7.

==Monstergirls?==
[[File:Illitiddies.png|right|300px|thumb|With assets like those, who cares if she has an octopus for a head?]]
{{Monstergirls}}

Now, you'd see the face on these things and the how of their reproduction and figure that this has to be one species that can't get the [[monstergirls]] treatment? ...But then you realize that they have tentacles, and you suddenly remember that Japan exists. "Feminized" illithids, which are basically mind-flayers with boobs and often skimpily clad, occasionally pop up in monstergirl-related threads on /tg/, usually under the same joking context as the [[thri-kreen]]/[[xixchil]].

More importantly than that, Mindflayers are one of the "Aberrant" monstergirls that show up in the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]. Formally considered a relative of the [[scylla]], they take the form of tall, curvy, slime-dripping women with tentacles for hair and a Morticia Addams-like dress implied to actually be tentacle-legs. It also (good taste) has an ultra-high collar. They are ultra-perverted hedonists, using their [[psionics]] to brainwash victims into playmates of their obscene lusts, and are reputated to eventually transform men they take as their lovers mentally and physically into grotesque, squid-like tentacle-beasts, which spend the rest of their lives fastened to the mindflayer's hips and shoving her genitals full of tentacle-penises.

Later sources clarified that the man in question can freely transform back and forth between squid-form and human form, but that the mindflayers are uncharacteristically shy about public displays of affection when their lovers ''aren't'' tentacled, so this is only done in private. And they usually use their mind-powers to help friends engage in emotionally-resonant roleplay when in societies with other monsters.

==See Also==
* [[Aberration]]
* [[Githzerai]]
* [[Githyanki]]
* [[Far Realm]]
* [[Unified_Setting/Illithid]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Mind flayer Blackmoor.jpg|The ''very first'' illustration of a mind flayer, in ''D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor''.
Mind flayer 1e.jpg|1e
Mind Flayer MCv1.jpg|2e
Illithid MM 2e.png
Mind flayer 3e.jpg|3e
Mind flayer 4e.jpg|4e
Mind flayer 5e.jpg|5e
Mind Blast.jpg|The Illithid's Mind Blast power in use
Illithiad cover.jpg|The cover image of the Illithiad
Pirate illithid 5e.jpg|Yes, that is an [[awesome|Illithid space pirate captain]]. Yes, he is canon.
Illithid eating.jpg
Mindflayer skull.jpg| Mindflayer skull
Nihiloor 5e.jpg|[[Intellect Devourer]]s are like dogs that can teleport into and eat the brains of your enemies.
Mind flayer funerary jar 3e.jpg
Mind flayer of Thoon 3e.jpg|Illithids of Thoon would rather get swole
Illithid savant 3e.jpg| Illithid [[savant]]. Mind blasts are mid-range, don't you know.
Illithid Body Tamer.jpg|Spiked tentacles!
Mindflayer nom.jpg
Underdark cover.jpg
Mind flayer Dragon 313.jpg|[[Dragon Magazine]] #313
Illithid MC Ravenloft.jpg
Yaggol.jpg|A Yaggol
Vesuvian illithid MA.jpg
Illithid dissection MA.jpg
Adult illithid MA.jpg
Arcane illithid MA.jpg|Arcane illithid
Psionic illithid MA.jpg|Psionic illithid
Illithid mind blast MA.jpg
Illithid astral MA.jpg
Psionic circuitry MA.jpg|"It's not magic runes, Mom, It's ''psionic circuitry''!"
Illithid perils of the warp MA.jpg
Illithid partialism MA.jpg|An illithid afflicted with partialism, wherein some of the personality of its last meal takes over.
Illithid praying MA.jpg
Illithid thrall MA.jpg
Illithid wrestling MA.jpg| Illithid wrestling. why are a race known for mind over matter so physically fit?
Illithid web MA.jpg
Brain eating ceremony MA.jpg
Thrall pokemon battle MA.jpg|Thrall pokemon battle
Illithid undead MA.jpg|Illithids fear undead because they are immune to mindfuckery
Illithid vs Githyanki MA.jpg
Illithid bathhouse MA.jpg
Space illithid MA.jpg
Illithid instrument MA.jpg
Illithid inventor.jpg
Illithid dampsuit.jpg
Illithid boss.jpg
Illithid tentacle knives.jpg
Monsters illithid.jpg
Illithid MC7 cover.jpg
Illithid Night Below 1.jpg
Tavern SJA2.jpg
Illithid S3.jpg
theorx taja trebek.jpg
Qualith MA.jpg|An example of [[Qualith]], Illithid braille. Designed to be read with the mouthparts.
</gallery>

<big>Ulitharid</big>
<gallery>
Monsters ulitharid.jpg
ulitharid MCAV1.jpg
ulitharid LoM.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Illithid vampire</big>
<gallery>
Illithid vampire MC Ravenloft.jpg|An illithid vampire
Illithid vampire MA.jpg
Monsters vampire illithid.jpg
Vampiric Mind Flayer 5e.png
</gallery>

<big>Nautiloid</big>
<gallery>
Nautiloid 2e.jpg
Nautiloid MA.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Elder brain</big>
<gallery>
Elder brain MA.jpg|Elder brain
Brain pool MA.jpg
Elder concord MA.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Tadpoles</big>
<gallery>
Big tadpole MA.jpg|An Illithid baby
Monsters tadpole.jpg
Monsters tadpoles.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Neothelid</big>
<gallery>
Neothelid MA.jpg|Neothelid, when an Illithid tadpole reaches its "natural" maturity.
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
</gallery>
<big>Ceremorphed thralls</big>
<gallery>
Urophion MA.jpg|Urophion (Ceremorphed [[roper]])
Monsters urophion.jpg|Urophion
Cranium rat MA.jpg|Cranium rats
Kezreth Dragon 255.jpg|Kezreth
Tzakandi Dragon 255.jpg|Tzakandi (Ceremorphed [[lizardfolk]])
Mozgriken Dragon 255.jpg|Mozgriken (Ceremorphed [[gnome]] infused with [[Shadowfell]] energy)
Gnome Squidling .jpeg| Gnome Squidling, why using gnomes are not worth the Tadpole
Gnome Ceremorph.jpeg| Gnome Ceremorph, that 1 in a million chance something doesn't go wrong.
Abductor Dragon 255.jpg|Abductor
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Monsters]]

Illithid

2021-09-24T01:18:37Z

2601:203:480:BD90:9C0F:4E72:4C9B:8B5E:

[[file:Illithid.jpg|thumb|right|Time to slurp brains]]

'''Illithids''' (also called '''Mind Flayers''') are cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. They look like tiny little, skinnier, wingless [[Cthulhu]]s, wear black robes with high collars and eat brains. Plus they all have psionic powers and are so super-smart even their breakfast is [[JUST AS PLANNED]]! They would be totally [[Mary Sue]], except for the fact that they are [[ Edgy|so brain-damagingly evil it makes them awesome]] instead of lame. (There was one good one in the [[Book of Exalted Deeds]], but nobody gives a crap about her, so let's move on.) Their psionic version is much better than their Monster Manual version by virtue of increased versatility. According to the book [[Lords of Madness]] they came from THE FUTURE.

The Illithid is considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its [[Open Gaming License]]. However, "half-Cthulhu creeps" and "squidface brainsuckers" are totally okay, so go nuts.

The illithid first appeared in the official newsletter of [[TSR]], The Strategic Review #1. They then appeared in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement for Original Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, they have have appeared the first [[Monster Manual]] of every edition. In second edition they got a whole book to themselves called The Illithiad, and in 3.5 they got a chapter in [[Lords of Madness]].

[[Fiend Folio]] in describing the [[githyanki]] (and [[githzerai]]) retconned that the 'flayers have enslaved humans - or will enslave them - and that they escaped/will-escape into a scourge perhaps even worse than they are/were/will-be. (Grammar gets kind of fuzzy with time diddlers.)

[[Dragonlance]] in a rare diversion into sword-n'-sorcery mooted a subrace of "degenerate" illithids, the Yaggol. These have retreated into Taladas' jungle, losing all of their psionic powers except for Mind Blast. On the upside, they are much stronger, stand 7 feet tall, and have chameleon-like skin.

Fun fact: in the city of Stormreach, in the [[Eberron]] campaign setting, there is an Illithid who just hangs around near a garden and engages in perfectly normal, honest, and voluntary business transactions with the humanoids and other races that inhabit the city. And by "normal" we mean people pay him to reprogram their brains and alter their memories. Why spend four years studying a new language when you can learn it by spending four minutes letting Fred gnaw on your brain? Oh, yeah, [https://ddowiki.com/page/Fred his name is Fred]. It's a very common Mind Flayer name. Point is, Mind Flayers don't just compulsively kill/consume humanoids on sight like the xenomorphs from the Alien movies; they're perfectly capable of being normal, well-integrated members of surface-dwelling, non-evil, humanoid societies.

==Illithid Physiology==
Illithids consist of... purple, mostly. Just brains and purple.

Their alien physiology has stumped our crack (addict) biology team even after years of scientific scrutiny. It is thought that if we could crack the mystery of why these skinny creatures subsist on a diet of nothing but fat and calcium, we would be closer to... something.

Look, just look up "aberrant" in the dictionary. We can't offer you much for the time being.

In actuality, Illithid physiology is a moderately altered version of their host organism's body (see mating practices). The brain of the host is replaced by a tadpole thing, and the digestive tract is altered to aid in the consumption of brains and their psychic essence. And of course, they grow tentacles and Sarlaac mouths and lose all of their hair.

Explained somewhat in 3.5's Tome of Darkness, the resulting creature is entirely conscious of its organs and body, as opposed to being autonomous. There is a tiny part of the creature's powerful mind constantly remembering to make sure the heart beats, and regulating digestion. Things like that. So they eat normally, and extract maximum nutrition from it. The method of creating an illithid destroys the brain, which includes all those hormone producing glands in the skull that keep a person healthy. This is why they need brains to keep their body from decaying. The memories and thoughts consumed are... well "flavor" to put it in the least disgusting way possible. These memories, thoughts, and emotions are just as necessary as the hormones contained within the brain for an illithid that consumes only the brains of unintelligent creatures or animals will regress into a ravenous beast, actually pretty similarly to the [[Kroot]].

There is apparently a cult of illithid monks/clerics known as The THOON (yes all caps) who worship a god or philosophy also known as THOON (see below for more on THOON and The THOON). They minmax their bodies as well as their minds. The elder brains hate them. They've been out of circulation since 4e landed. But if you need a mastermind who can roundhouse kick the fighter through a wall after the party blitzes through his mooks, look no further.

For the morbidly curious about what'd happen if you ate an illithid's brain, according to 5e's Volo's Guide to Monsters, nothing good. Apparently, each bite into an illithid's brain releases an intense flood of memories that the illithid developed/consumed in its life, so strong it'll probably drive the typical consumer insane. As to how [[Elminster]] knows this, he refuses to explain.

==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.

When the process is complete, no form of magic or psionics, excluding wish and reincarnate and true resurrection, can bring back the victim, but even then the mind flayer will still be alive. Aside from that, nothing can reverse the effects; there is no way to bring back the original host, so he/she/they is 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).

If the host is any species besides a human, the result is a half-mindflayer, whose template can be found in the Fiend Folio. Special cases are present though; placing a mind flayer tadpole into a beholder results in a mindwitness (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 Mind Witness will look for another telepathic being to serve if the illithids it works for die. Placing it within a true dragon results in the unspeakably powerful gribbly horror that is the Brainstealer Dragon, whose psychic might is only surpassed by the Elder Brain. Put it in a Roper and you get the urophion, 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). Implanting one in a [[Svirfneblin]] usually kills both the tadpole and its host, but if it survives the result is a mozgriken, a small shapechanging 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. The tadpoles typically placed within lizardfolk are more bellicose than their kin, and form the Tzakand- 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. If a tadpole is placed into a [[Chuul]], the tadpole dies, but the Chuul is changed into a creature called an uchuulon, or a slime chuul, which is like a chuul, but slimier.

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.

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.

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 degenerative 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.

5th edition introduced a new illithid monster in the form of the Elder Brain Dragon. Instead of a dragon that underwent ceremorphosis, it is a dragon that an elder brain fused with in order to gain mobility. The dragon loses their breath weapon but can spray illithid tadpoles from its mouth.

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).

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.

The fifth edition adventure [[Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden]] introduced two more Illithid variants. A gnome ceremorph is 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 laser pistols and are the same alignment as before their transformation. A gnome squidling is an 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.

==Illithid Society==
[[File:Elder Brain 5e.png|thumb|right|300px|An elder brain in his pimped-out floating vat]]
Illithids function as a hive mind, serving the Elder Brain. Other than maintaining the Elder Brain, the day-to-day duties of the average illithid consist of evil science and making cheeky wood burnings. The purpose of these wood burnings is an inextricable mystery, as they seem to disappear shortly after their completion. They can make Brain Golems out of buds from said queen-like Elder Brain, which are exactly what they sound like and exactly as retarded as you would think. Even the Illithids and the Elder Brain itself know how impractical this can be, and would prefer to use any other type of golem instead. The Illithids live for the fact that after they die, their brains, and thus their minds, will be merged with the Elder Brain after death. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, as the Elder Brain just eats their knowledge and discards everything else (although pretty much nobody in-universe aside from the elder brains themselves is aware of this). Elder Brains discourage studying magic too much because Elder Brains can't eat a mind flayer's magical abilities, though they can eat a mind flayer's knowledge of psionics (if it ever took levels in Psion, Erudite, Wilder, or what have you.) Below the Elder Brain on the mind flayer hierarchy are the Brainstealer Dragons (very rare because it's notoriously difficult to restrain a true dragon) and the Ulitharids.

The mind flayers have one deity they pay respects to in Illsensine, who did not create them. Perhaps to make up for the fact that Illsensine is the only Mind Flayer God, Illsensine is a very powerful rank 20 greater deity who omnoms the knowledge of everyone the instant they die. The Mind Flayers don't exactly worship Illsensine per se, they just respect it for its great knowledge, and Illsensine returns the favor by considering Mind Flayers to be the only worthy species in the multiverse. This is not to say that there are no Mind Flayer clerics to Illsensine, because said clerics of Illsensine do indeed exist, but their numbers are rather small relative to say the number of Dwarven clerics of Moradin, however; Mind Flayer communities have an exception to their rule of "don't study magic too much" for the Clerics of Illsensine, and in fact greatly respect these clerics and leave them to their business.

The mind flayers used to have another god called Maanzecorian, but Tenebrous (actually Orcus, it's a long story) used the last word on him, so his head asploded.

Some illithids spend their time finding ways to put out the sun, because they hate that bright light shit. Unfortunately for them, putting out a 1,392,000+ kilometer ball of ungodly hot hydrogen and helium is nigh on impossible (unless your name is [[Elder Evils#Father Llymic|Father Llymic]].) Most other Illithids think that these illithids are wasting their time when it's common knowledge that all they have to do is wait many, many billions of years for the sun to eventually puff up and die. And it goes without saying putting out the sun would indirectly eliminate their food source as well.

===Creeds===
Illithid communities are governed by a group of representatives called an Elder Concord, while the Elder Brain acts like the president. These representatives come from the various creeds or factions of illithid culture. Each creed has different beliefs about the best path towards taking over the universe. The symbols of each creeds are squares containing six horizontal bars that are either solid or split in two.
* The Creatives devote themselves to advancing illithid society though scientific and psionic research and invention.
* The Awaiters believe in [[Just As Planned|long term planning]] and avoid making rash decisions.
* The Possessors think hording wealth and resources through trade with other races is the best path to power.
* The Tamers work to build up the illithid's military strength so they can dominate the universe through force.
* The Thorough Biters have a philosophy of learning through failure, making them more humble that most other illithids.
* The Nourishers promote the interest of maintaining the community's supply of thralls.
* The Abysmal feel that the best way to dominate other races is through the power of terror.
* The Influencers specialize in collecting intelligence and misleading their enemies through infiltration and spying.
* The Darkeners, the dudes who think they can find a way to extinguish suns.
* The Gatherers want to consolidate the illithid race into larger, more powerful communities instead of many small disparate ones.
* The Arisers say that illithids shouldn't stay in darkness and so they develop ways for them to work in daylight and make plans for conquering the surface.
* The Venerators are the worshipers of the illithid god [[Ilsensine]].

* The Loretakers are a minor creed, but they are important as the source of the Thoon:

Some Loretaker mind flayers (possibly) went to the [[Far Realm]] and apparently encountered something called Thoon. However, the exact nature of Thoon is unknown even to the mind flayers themselves, so whether Thoon is a god, an aberration, a philosophy, or something else entirely is open to interpretation. In any case, the encounter with Thoon changed these particular illithids completely, they're a lot more irrational and unpredictable (NE instead of LE), make use of a lot of really weird constructs and altered humanoids (and employ a variant of the mind flayer that trades the ability to control minds for ninja powers), and for some fucking insane reason a CR 25 Elder brain came back as a CR 15 entity that's totally batshit insane. Oh, and they also seek to gather [[Psion|quintessence]] for some reason.

== 3.5e stats ==

Is this copyrighted? Who cares? It's not like anyone reads this site anyway.

::— +2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +8 Intelligence, +6 Wisdom, +6 Charisma.
::— A mind flayer’s base land speed is 30 feet.
::— Darkvision out to 60 feet.
::— Racial Hit Dice: A mind flayer begins with eight levels of aberration, which provide 8d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +6, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +2, Ref +2, and Will +6.
::— Racial Skills: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it skill points equal to 11 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Bluff, Concentration, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Listen, Move Silently, and Spot.
::— Racial Feats: A mind flayer’s aberration levels give it three feats.
::— +3 natural armor bonus.
::— Natural Weapons: 4 tentacles (1d4).
::— Special Attacks: Mind blast, psionics, improved grab, extract.
::— Special Qualities: Spell resistance equal to 25 +class levels, telepathy 100 ft.
::— Automatic Languages: Common, Undercommon. Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Aquan, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Infernal, Terran.
::— Favored Class: Wizard.
::— Level adjustment +7.

==Monstergirls?==
[[File:Illitiddies.png|right|300px|thumb|With assets like those, who cares if she has an octopus for a head?]]
{{Monstergirls}}

Now, you'd see the face on these things and the how of their reproduction and figure that this has to be one species that can't get the [[monstergirls]] treatment? ...But then you realize that they have tentacles, and you suddenly remember that Japan exists. "Feminized" illithids, which are basically mind-flayers with boobs and often skimpily clad, occasionally pop up in monstergirl-related threads on /tg/, usually under the same joking context as the [[thri-kreen]]/[[xixchil]].

More importantly than that, Mindflayers are one of the "Aberrant" monstergirls that show up in the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]. Formally considered a relative of the [[scylla]], they take the form of tall, curvy, slime-dripping women with tentacles for hair and a Morticia Addams-like dress implied to actually be tentacle-legs. It also (good taste) has an ultra-high collar. They are ultra-perverted hedonists, using their [[psionics]] to brainwash victims into playmates of their obscene lusts, and are reputated to eventually transform men they take as their lovers mentally and physically into grotesque, squid-like tentacle-beasts, which spend the rest of their lives fastened to the mindflayer's hips and shoving her genitals full of tentacle-penises.

Later sources clarified that the man in question can freely transform back and forth between squid-form and human form, but that the mindflayers are uncharacteristically shy about public displays of affection when their lovers ''aren't'' tentacled, so this is only done in private. And they usually use their mind-powers to help friends engage in emotionally-resonant roleplay when in societies with other monsters.

==See Also==
* [[Aberration]]
* [[Githzerai]]
* [[Githyanki]]
* [[Far Realm]]
* [[Unified_Setting/Illithid]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Mind flayer Blackmoor.jpg|The ''very first'' illustration of a mind flayer, in ''D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor''.
Mind flayer 1e.jpg|1e
Mind Flayer MCv1.jpg|2e
Illithid MM 2e.png
Mind flayer 3e.jpg|3e
Mind flayer 4e.jpg|4e
Mind flayer 5e.jpg|5e
Mind Blast.jpg|The Illithid's Mind Blast power in use
Illithiad cover.jpg|The cover image of the Illithiad
Pirate illithid 5e.jpg|Yes, that is an [[awesome|Illithid space pirate captain]]. Yes, he is canon.
Illithid eating.jpg
Mindflayer skull.jpg| Mindflayer skull
Nihiloor 5e.jpg|[[Intellect Devourer]]s are like dogs that can teleport into and eat the brains of your enemies.
Mind flayer funerary jar 3e.jpg
Mind flayer of Thoon 3e.jpg|Illithids of Thoon would rather get swole
Illithid savant 3e.jpg| Illithid [[savant]]. Mind blasts are mid-range, don't you know.
Illithid Body Tamer.jpg|Spiked tentacles!
Mindflayer nom.jpg
Underdark cover.jpg
Mind flayer Dragon 313.jpg|[[Dragon Magazine]] #313
Illithid MC Ravenloft.jpg
Yaggol.jpg|A Yaggol
Vesuvian illithid MA.jpg
Illithid dissection MA.jpg
Adult illithid MA.jpg
Arcane illithid MA.jpg|Arcane illithid
Psionic illithid MA.jpg|Psionic illithid
Illithid mind blast MA.jpg
Illithid astral MA.jpg
Psionic circuitry MA.jpg|"It's not magic runes, Mom, It's ''psionic circuitry''!"
Illithid perils of the warp MA.jpg
Illithid partialism MA.jpg|An illithid afflicted with partialism, wherein some of the personality of its last meal takes over.
Illithid praying MA.jpg
Illithid thrall MA.jpg
Illithid wrestling MA.jpg| Illithid wrestling. why are a race known for mind over matter so physically fit?
Illithid web MA.jpg
Brain eating ceremony MA.jpg
Thrall pokemon battle MA.jpg|Thrall pokemon battle
Illithid undead MA.jpg|Illithids fear undead because they are immune to mindfuckery
Illithid vs Githyanki MA.jpg
Illithid bathhouse MA.jpg
Space illithid MA.jpg
Illithid instrument MA.jpg
Illithid inventor.jpg
Illithid dampsuit.jpg
Illithid boss.jpg
Illithid tentacle knives.jpg
Monsters illithid.jpg
Illithid MC7 cover.jpg
Illithid Night Below 1.jpg
Tavern SJA2.jpg
Illithid S3.jpg
theorx taja trebek.jpg
Qualith MA.jpg|An example of [[Qualith]], Illithid braille. Designed to be read with the mouthparts.
</gallery>

<big>Ulitharid</big>
<gallery>
Monsters ulitharid.jpg
ulitharid MCAV1.jpg
ulitharid LoM.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Illithid vampire</big>
<gallery>
Illithid vampire MC Ravenloft.jpg|An illithid vampire
Illithid vampire MA.jpg
Monsters vampire illithid.jpg
Vampiric Mind Flayer 5e.png
</gallery>

<big>Nautiloid</big>
<gallery>
Nautiloid 2e.jpg
Nautiloid MA.jpg
</gallery>

<big>Elder brain</big>
<gallery>
Elder brain MA.jpg|Elder brain
Brain pool MA.jpg
Elder concord MA.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Tadpoles</big>
<gallery>
Big tadpole MA.jpg|An Illithid baby
Monsters tadpole.jpg
Monsters tadpoles.jpg
</gallery>
<big>Neothelid</big>
<gallery>
Neothelid MA.jpg|Neothelid, when an Illithid tadpole reaches its "natural" maturity.
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
</gallery>
<big>Ceremorphed thralls</big>
<gallery>
Urophion MA.jpg|Urophion (Ceremorphed [[roper]])
Monsters urophion.jpg|Urophion
Cranium rat MA.jpg|Cranium rats
Kezreth Dragon 255.jpg|Kezreth
Tzakandi Dragon 255.jpg|Tzakandi (Ceremorphed [[lizardfolk]])
Mozgriken Dragon 255.jpg|Mozgriken (Ceremorphed [[gnome]] infused with [[Shadowfell]] energy)
Gnome Squidling .jpeg| Gnome Squidling, why using gnomes are not worth the Tadpole
Gnome Ceremorph.jpeg| Gnome Ceremorph, that 1 in a million chance something doesn't go wrong.
Abductor Dragon 255.jpg|Abductor
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Monsters]]

Beholder

2021-09-24T01:11:30Z

2601:203:480:BD90:9C0F:4E72:4C9B:8B5E: /* 5th Edition */

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Beholder]]
[[File:Beholder 4e.jpg|thumb|right|300px|A beholder doing what they do best: wrecking your shit.]]

A '''beholder''' is a giant lumpy... thing that looks like a floating octopus with a giant eye in the middle. The tentacles also have eyes at the end of them. Yuck.

Beholders, like [[Illithid|Mind Flayer]]s, are considered "intellectual property" of <s>TSR</s> Wizards of the Coast, so they aren't allowed to be used in third party D&D supplements or in [[Pathfinder]] as they were not covered under the [[OGL|Open Gaming License]]. This naturally doesn't stop [[ChapterHouse Studios|weirdly]] [[Original character, do not steal|similar]] creatures from appearing in various [[weeaboo]] JRPGs and related works, where - from ''[[White Dwarf]]'' #14 on - they're usually called "gazers" or similar. Yes, this includes [[Monstergirls]]. Of course one game even used the name beholder, but we all excuse it, because this game is [[Heroes of Might and Magic|THE GAME. THE LEGEND.]]

The Beholder first appeared on the cover of the [[Greyhawk]] supplement for the Original Dungeons and Dragons. The creation of [[Spelljammer]] where beholders play an major role resulted in the creation of many varieties of beholders. Much information about their biology and culture was revealed in the book [[Lords of Madness]]. They also got an entire book to themselves in second edition called ''I, Tyrant''.

==Personality and Characteristics==

Beholders are selfish bastards who love to manipulate and enslave any races considered beneath themselves (i.e. every other species). They are extremely [[Imperium|xenophobic]] even going so far as to kill other individuals of their species that look even ''slightly'' different from themselves, though they always go after the more extreme divergences first; two beholders will gang up on the "freak" with scales and fiery eyes before trying to kill each other over the differences in their numbers of teeth. Soooo basically the D&D equivalent of a [[Doctor Who|Dalek]]. Even if two beholders look identical to each other they will struggle to cooperate with each other due to their extreme paranoia. Large groups of beholders can only work together while under the mind control of a beholder hive mother or an overseer.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the beholder race has a lot of genetic variety (as evidenced by the number of Beholder variants, [[Skaven|all of whom hate each other]], as listed below). They are greedy, often living in dungeons stuffed with valuables. They can cast magic from their eyes and often rule over unwilling souls through domination. One even runs the Thieves' Guild of Skullport, the most recent of several beholders to have done so.

Beholders worship the [[Great Mother]] and due to their massive egos, each beholder is convinced that not only does the Great Mother look exactly like itself, but also that it's ''literally'' their mother (false memories are funny like that). Beholders would be shocked and possibly driven mad (or madder than they already are) if they found out that the Great Mother, despite possessing vast knowledge, is completely insane and acts mainly on instinct instead of logic, unlike her children. Beholders also have another god named [[Gzemnid]] who is associated with gases and deception. Worshipers of Gzemnid are considered [[Heresy|heretics]] by other beholders because they believe that the Great Mother is actually constantly changing in appearance and creates different breeds of beholders every time she reproduces so there is no master race of beholder.

Part of the reason why beholders are so egotistical and paranoid is because they actually possess two minds. They do most of their thinking with their rational mind, but they also possess an intuitive mind which can censor the beholder from experiencing anything that might threaten their ego. This causes the beholder's rational mind to have no memory of times when they failed at anything, and to try to explain the missing memories with conspiracy theories.

Like [[Aboleth]]s, when a beholder is born, they inherit memories from their parent, though not a complete set of memories. This is why trying to raise a baby beholder to be good is a terrible idea, as their xenophobic beliefs are one of the things they inherit. For a beholder to turn good they have to give up on everything they have ever believed since birth, which by beholder standards would make them insane even compared to other insane beholders. Even beholders that are tolerant enough of non-beholders to work with them are usually still evil and tend to become crime bosses.

A standard beholder has a roughly spherical body with no distinction between their head and torso. Their skin comes in a wide variety of colors and textures. They have large mouth full of sharp teeth and a single central eye that constantly projects an anti-magic cone when it is open. At the top of their head are ten stalks tipped with smaller eyes. In some beholder breeds the eye stalks resemble tentacles while in others they are jointed. Each of theses eyes can fire a magical ray at will, with each eye having a different ray. Theses rays are: Charm Person, Charm Monster, Sleep, Telekinesis, Flesh to Stone, Disintegrate, Fear, Slow, Cause Serious Wounds, and Death. They have no other appendages besides these eye stalks. A beholder can levitate and fly. This ability is not magical in nature as it isn't affected by anti-magic fields or else beholders would knock each other out of the air by looking at one another. Beholders with significant deviations from this form are known as Beholderkin. Beholderkin may be born randomly from beholders, and are usually killed at birth, or may be intentionally birthed by beholder Hive Mothers. Beholders posses both male and female reproductive organs inside of their mouth, but they usually reproduce by self-fertilization since most beholders hate each other too much to willingly mate with each other. In 5th edition this is retconned and beholders now spontaneously create new beholders and beholderkin by altering reality while dreaming.

==Notable Variants==
===2nd & 3rd Edition===
====True Beholders====
* '''Beholder''': Your basic beholder. A central eye that projects an anti-magic cone and ten smaller eyes that each fire a different ray, such as charm person, disintegrate, and flesh to stone.
<gallery>
Beholder Greyhawk.png|The beholder's first appearance on the [[Greyhawk]] supplement cover.
Beholder 1e.jpg|1e
Dungeonmasters companion.png|DM's Companion: Book 2
BeholderSolo MM 2e.png|2e
I Tyrant MA cover.jpg|''I, Tyrant'' cover
Beholder 3e.jpg|3e
Beholder 5e.jpg|5e
MM 5e cover.jpg|5e [[Monster Manual]] cover
</gallery>
* '''[[Elder Orb]]''': A larger beholder with a much longer than normal lifespan. Always has at least 6 levels of sorcerer.
<gallery>
Behoelderorb.gif
Elder orb LoM.png|Lords of Madness
</gallery>
* '''Hive Mother/[[Hive Tyrant]]''': The highest ranked of all beholders and beholderkin. Basically a bigger meaner beholder that holds beholders and beholderkin under its sway. It has the ability to control other beholders and beholderkin, and has the ability spawn new kinds of beholderkin specialized for different tasks. Beholder hives are almost always ruled by a Hive Mother, which keeps the different kinds of beholders and kin from killing each other, and when Hive Mothers belonging to the same breed come together, they can form beholder cities. In 2nd edition, Hive Mothers have their smaller eyes set in a ring around their head instead of being on the ends of stalks, making them less maneuverable but also less vulnerable to being cut off, while in 3rd edition they are just extra large beholders.
<gallery>
Hive mother.jpg
Hive mother poster.jpg
</gallery>

====Beholderkin====
* '''Gauth''': Basically, babby's first beholder, with only 6 eyestalks of doom and a reduced ability to disintegrate everyone and eats magic. Looks like a smaller beholder with a ring of useless extra eyes around the central eye and four of its ten stalks don't have eyes on the end.
<gallery>
Gauth.png
Gauth poster.jpg
Gauth VG 5e.png
</gallery>
* '''Eyeball''': Tiny beholder, best used as a familiar. Pretty damn adorable for a beholder, still Neutral Evil. They have four eye stalks with ray of frost, cause fear, daze, and mage hand and can only use one of them at a time. The central eye doesn't do anything.
<gallery>
Eyeball MF 3e.png
</gallery>
* '''Death Kiss''': instead of dispensing death-beams from its eyestalks, they use them to suck your blood. Their only eye has no powers, but they release electric shocks when they are injured. Introduced in Dragon #59 as the Bleeder.
<gallery>
Bleeder Dragon 59.png
Behodeathkiss.gif
Death kiss.png
Death kiss poster.jpg
Hookhand.png
DeathKiss VG 5e.png
</gallery>
* '''Astereater''': giant space-faring asteroid beholderkin with no eyestalks that eats your ship. For some reason it likes to enslave [[Giff]] to use as soldiers. [[Spelljammer]] was weird. Beholders and other beholderkin insist that they have no relation to them.
<gallery>
Astereater MCS1.jpg
</gallery>
* '''Examiner''': Four eyestalks, four limbs, and no central eye. Their limbs let them use tools and weapons, and they can create magic items. They also regenerate 1 hit point every round.
<gallery>
Examiner poster.jpg
</gallery>
* '''Observer''': A powerful psionic beholder with a hard shell, six eye-stalks, three large eyes spaced evenly around its middle, and three mouths on the ends of long retractable stalks that suck blood similar to a death kiss. It uses its psionic abilities to brainwash other monsters into its loyal servants. Less evil than other beholders.
<gallery>
Behoobserver.gif
Observer MA.png
Observer poster.jpg
</gallery>
* '''Lensman''': Beholder infantry. The lowest of all beholderkin, or at least until the Eyeball was introduced. Imagine a starfish, then add a giant eye and mouth in the middle of its body, then replace four of its five arms with the arms and legs of an ape. The eye may have one of six different powers. They do not levitate but their limbs allow them to use weapons and tools.
<gallery>
Lensman MA.jpg
</gallery>
* '''Watcher''': the second lowest of beholderkin. Has three normal eyes around its body and a large compound eye on the top surrounded by six eyespots, and a single tentacle on the bottom which can inflict electric shocks. Its three regular eyes each have two different powers, and the compound eye can use three of those powers. Can cast the message and tongues spells. They are cowardly and mainly act as scouts for their more powerful cousins.
<gallery>
Watcher poster.jpg
</gallery>
* '''Spectator''': true neutral beholderkin. It's actually pretty swell, as far as beholders go. Remember that one beholder in Baldur's Gate? They can be summoned with a ritual using four beholder's eyestalks. They make excellent guards since they are content to spend very long periods of time in deep contemplation and don't need to be fed since they can magically create their own food. Has only four eye-stalks and the central eye reflects magic instead.
<gallery>
Spectator 1e.png
Spectator MC FR.jpg
Spectator MA.png
Spectator poster.jpg
Spectator 3e.jpg
Rero rero.png
</gallery>
* '''Overseer''': a beholderkin that looks like a giant fleshy tree trunk with thirteen eyestalk branches, tentacles for roots, no central eye, and several mouths at the base. Yes, we realize that it looks nothing like a beholder, but the book says it is so fuck it, let's call it a beholder. Like the hive mother, it also has the ability to dominate other beholders and beholderkin. In large beholder cities, the Hive Mother dominates the Overseers, who then dominated other beholders and kin for her, thus greatly increasing the number of a beholders a Hive Mother can control at one time.
<gallery>
Overseer.jpg
Overseer poster.jpg
</gallery>
* '''Eye of the Deep''': it's like a beholder BUT UNDERWATER! And it tastes oddly of shrimp. Also, it's got little arms with crab-pincers. Only has two eye stalks and the central eye can flash blinding light. Also can cast the spell persistent image, which it uses to create [[Trap|illusions of mermaids]] and other things to lure victims closer. Rarely interacts with other kinds of beholders due to them living in different environments.
<gallery>
Eyeofdeep.jpg
Aquatic Beholder.png
Eye of the deep Dragon 93.jpg
Eye of the deep.jpg
Eye of the deep poster.jpg
Eyeofthedeep 3e.jpg
</gallery>
* '''Director''': beholder cavalry. A beholderkin with six eyestalks and three tentacles on the bottom that it uses to bond with and ride vermin, usually giant centipedes. Because haven't we all wanted to ride a giant centipede like a pony up and down the streets... SHUT UP, I DON'T JUDGE YOU! Has six eye stalks and its central eye generates a protective forcefield around itself and its mount.
<gallery>
Director MA.jpg
Director.png
Director poster.jpg
</gallery>
* '''Gouger''': A beholderkin created to fight beholders. In the [[Forgotten Realms]] setting, they were created by [[Phaerimm]]s. Larger than regular beholders and has four small useless legs hanging off of its body. It has the same number of eyes as a standard beholder but does not have any eye powers other than the central antimagic eye. It attacks with a 15 foot long barbed tongue which it uses to disable other beholder's eyes.
<gallery>
Gouger MF 3e.png
</gallery>
* '''[[Gorbel]]''': Six eye stalks without any eye powers, no central eye, rubbery flesh that causes blunt weapons to harmlessly bounce off, and a pair of claws. They are stupid and try to eat anything that moves. Its claws are so strong that once it has grabbed a creature it is impossible to shake off until it is dead and its body is filled with gas that explodes on contact with air so do your best to kill them before they grab you or figure out a way to kill it without rupturing it.
<gallery>
Gorbel 1e.jpg
Gorbel 2e.gif
</gallery>
* '''Orbus''': An albino dwarf beholder with no eyes other than the anti-magic central eye but is a powerful spellcaster. They are only seen in the [[Spelljammer]] setting on beholder ships, which they are bred to power and navigate.

====Other====
* '''[[Beholder mage]]''': when the DM wants the entire party to die horrible deaths but doesn't feel like using rocks. This is a special character class that only true beholders can take, which requires them to remove their anti-magic eye, and whenever they gain a the ability to cast a new level of spells must sacrifice one of their eye powers to turn that eyestalk into a spellstalk which casts spells of that level. At level 10, it's empty eye socket can absorb spells to heal it. All the cheese of a wizard with more spells per day, the ability to blast 10 spells at once at you as free actions, and fucking spontaneous casting. Even munchkins shit their pants in fear when they hear of these things. One of the unholy trinity of fuck off broken PCs that you can technically enter, the others being tainted scholars and Illithid Savants. And that's before you start optimizing the bastard because the fucker can still take ten more levels before becoming epic.
<gallery>
BeholderMage Wildspace 2e.png
Beholder mage.jpg
Beholder mage poster.jpg
Eyeless beholder.png
</gallery>
* '''[[Beholder Priestess]]''': Sometimes when a beholder city is endangered the Hive Mother will called for help from The Great Mother and will be temporarily granted abilities similar to a cleric. On rare occasions this can also happen to a standard beholder, which will cause it to mutate into a Hive Mother.
<gallery>
Beholder priestess.png
</gallery>
* '''[[Doomsphere]]''': The ghost of a beholder killed in by a magical explosion that haunts the area where it died. If doomsphere is defeated it will respawn in one day unless the area is exorcised.
<gallery>
Doomsphere.jpg
</gallery>
* '''[[Death Tyrant]]''': Basically, a Beholder lich. Yeah, you're probably fucked.
<gallery>
Skelly beholder.png
</gallery>
* '''[[Kasharin]]''': A death tyrant beholder that also carries a rotting disease similar to mummy rot.
<gallery>
Behokasharin.gif
Undead beholder.jpg
Kasharin poster.jpg
</gallery>
* '''[[Evil Eyes]]''': A beholder that possesses non-standard eye powers and so is especially hated by other beholders.
* '''[[Mindwitness]]''': Debuted in the 3.5e ''Underdark'' sourcebook. A beholder ceremorphed by an [[illithid]] tadpole. If you kill off the rest of the Illithid colony it will actually seek out the nearest telepathic entity to serve and gradually change it's alignment to match their own.
<gallery>
Mindwitness 3e.jpg
Mindwitness VG 5e.png
</gallery>

===4th edition===
4e made use of quite a few different kinds of beholder, though almost all of them were pretty rapetastic, being made for higher levels. Most kinds of beholders had a Telekinesis Ray that they could use to slide enemies about, though for most, that's all they do.

* [[Gauth]] - Pretty much the same as old editions, this is the pitiful little baby of the beholder family in 4e, and something you can toss at low-level parties to scare them without killing them. Level 5 Elites that can shoot fire, sleeping rays, and exhaustion rays, and immobilize with its central eye.
* [[Bloodkiss]] - Another carry-over and the second-weakest beholder statted, this one got the Undead subtype for some reason (guess they didn't read up and thought it was "just" a beholder vampire). Level 9 Solo Controller that relies on its blood-sucking tentacles to rip up anything in reach, though it also packs a psychic + dazing effect Death Scream attack and can hit people a lot of times.
* [[Eye of Shadow]] - Beholders who spent too long in the shadowfell, dissolving into a blot of darkness and hate. Fairly puny (level 12 Elite), but seriously trolling, with blinding rays, thundering rays, freezing rays, and the ability to pull off a "teleport 20 squares and then be invisible" trick.
* [[Eye of Flame]] - not to be confused with [[Eye of Fear and Flame]]. A beholder that specializes in burninating shit. The central eye gives vulnerability to fire and causes fire attacks to do ongoing, eyestalks blast foes with fire and fear effects. A low-Paragon tier (level 13 Elite) foe.
<gallery>
HereComDemBoys.jpg|Eye Tyrant and Eye of Flame
</gallery>
* [[Eye of Frost]] - We got a burn-your-ass beholder, so evidently we need a freezinating beholder. Slightly tougher (1 level higher) than its counterpart. Central eye means cold damage can immobilize those it looks at... weirdly, its got two kinds of freezing rays; one that does a lot of cold damage, one that does less cold damage but freezes your ass solid.
<gallery>
EyeFrost MM2 4e.png
</gallery>
* [[Beholder Spawn]] - Baby beholders wanna eat your face, too. Level 15 Minions that can bite or do elemental damage with their eye-rays.
* [[Death Tyrant]] - Zombie Eye Tyrants, pretty much. Way weaker than their older namesakes (level 15 Solo). Central eye can strip away necrotic resistance (guess what kind of damage it does most) and slow you, and eyebeams focused on kill-you-dead. The choice is whether it just necrotic damages you to death, petrifies you, makes you die, or makes you die and then come back as a ghoul. Oh, and it has a fear ray too.
* [[Ghost Beholder]] - Dead Eye Tyrant who came back as a ghost. A level weaker and only an Elite, but still pretty nasty. Freezing eye rays and the ability to possess and mind control your dudes: not a lot of fun if your Will is shitty.
* [[Eye Tyrant]] - Your basic beholder for this edition, and pretty damn nasty (level 19 Solo). Can daze you with its central eye, or use its eyestalks to cause radiant and necrotic damage, put you to sleep, paralyze you, confuse you, terrify you, petrify you, disintegrate you or kill you outright.
* [[Eye of Chaos]] - Now we're getting into the big guns. Beholders that have been warped by the abyss, changing their alignment to chaotic evil and making them more similar to demons in their behavior. Level 25 Elites that will drive you almost as crazy as themselves, with the ability to lock you down to at-will powers only with their central eye and hit you with rays of force, blinding, confounding, madness, fear or teleportation.
<gallery>
LookAtThisDude.jpg
</gallery>
* [[Ultimate Tyrant]] - They ain't fucking kidding when they named this bastard. Level 29 Solo - there are ancient dragons that aren't this nasty! Central eye locks you down, other eyes can drive you mad, unravel you, dissolve you, burn you, freeze you, drag you around, petrify you, disintegrate you, pull you closer or hurl you away.
* [[Eternal Tyrant]] - Because even the Ultimate Tyrant isn't ultimate enough. This bastard is an undead version of the Ultimate Tyrant that comes in a pair of linked entities; the Shell, a beholder [[golem]] (Level 31 Elite Brute) and the Essence, a hyper-powerful beholder [[ghost]] (level 33 Elite Artillery). These assholes are literally god-tier monsters - you had damn well better know what you're doing when you fight an Eternal Tyrant!

===5th Edition===
5e's first Monster Manual provides three forms of beholder; common beholder (or Eye Tyrant), Death Tyrant, and Spectator. The first two variants are what 5e calls Legendary creatures, meaning they have extra powers in their lairs that they can trigger on Initiative Count 20, certain specific effects mark the regions in which they lair, and they have special Legendary Actions that they can perform outside of the normal turn sequence. Their legendary ego has been given up a serious boost; now, beholders mutate at random just by accidentally thinking too hard, their ego is that overpowering. This is also how they reproduce now: by sleeping and dreaming of other beholders, bending reality in that way.

* Beholder: You know it, you hate it. Challenge level 13. Has its old antimagic cone central eye back, a bite attack for piercing damage, and ten eye rays, of which it can use three each round, rolling randomly to determine which three it has. Charm ray, paralyzing ray, fear ray, slowing ray, enervation ray, telekinetic ray, sleep ray, petrification ray, disintegration ray and death ray. It can burn one of its three legendary actions at the end of another creature's turn to blast somebody with a random eye ray. Its lair effects consist of three options; change a 50ft square up to 120ft distant into slimy difficult terrain, make any walls within 120ft sprout flailing appendages that'll grapple anyone within 10ft who can't beat a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, or cause an eye to pop up on any solid surface within 60ft that can then shoot a random eye ray at any enemy within its sight. For region effects, they're all fluffy; creatures within 1 mile sometimes feel they're being watched, or minor reality warps that affect inanimate objects (markings changing on a wall, slime coating a statue, etc) pop up whilst the beholder is sleeping. Volo's Guide to Monsters introduced a table of potential alternate eye rays, in case your party was feeling complacent.
* [[Death Tyrant]]: A beholder who dreamed of living forever. So it died in its sleep and became an undead beholder skull with ghostly eyes. It trades the antimagic cone for a negative energy cone (creatures can't regain hitpoints, humanoids that die in its area of effect become zombies under the death tyrant's command on the next turn). It has the same eye rays and legendary actions as the beholder. Its lair actions are variants of the beholder's - its grabbing walls are DC 17 and reach into the Ethereal Plane, it creates a 50ft cube of lightly obscured difficult terrain, and it can create a spectral eye at any point within 50ft, which can also target foes on the Ethereal Plane. It has one crunchy regional effect; a creature that is both hostile to the death tyrant and aware of its existence must roll a D20 if it finishes a long rest within 1 mile of the death tyrant's lair. On a 10 or less, it gets zapped with a random eye ray.
* [[Spectator]]: A lesser beholder variant with only four eye stalks, conjured from another plane of existence via a ritual that requires four beholder eyestalks as material components. It's only Challenge level 3 and it's Lawful Neutral, rather than the Lawful Evil of the others. It has a Confusion Ray, a Paralyzing Ray, a Fear Ray and a Wounding Ray, and it can magically create all the food and water it needs to sustain itself each day. It's a fool's gambit to attack it with spells thanks to its Spell Reflection reaction, which lets it retarget a spell that missed the spectator, or which forced a save that the spectator passed, against another creature within the spectator's line of sight and that is at least 30 feet from the spectator.
* [[Beholder Zombie]]: Much weaker than a living beholder. Loses most of its eye rays and its anti-magic cone.
* [[Death's Kiss]]: A Beholder who had nightmares about bleeding out spawns a vampiric tentacle monster, using toothy mouth-stalks to voraciously suck the blood from other creatures. It also bleeds lightning, for some reason. Not as smart as a normal beholder, but for this reason not as egotistical or paranoid. Added in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
* [[Gauth]]: A smaller beholder who sometimes shows up if you screw up the ritual to summon a spectator; it's got six eyestalks, four tentacles, and smaller eyes all around its central eye, so it's hard to understand how wizards can get confused when it lies and claims to be the real deal. The issue is that Gauths are magic eaters, sucking the juice from magical items to sustain themselves, so you can see why that makes them pretty piss-poor guards for a wizard's lair. They're weaker than true beholders and also less xenophobic. Also, they explode when you kill them.
* [[Gazer]]: A ridiculously adorable and weak little beholder (only Challenge 1/2 - that is, a ''twenty-sixth'' of the strength of a true beholder) that is sometimes dreamed into being. They're so amusingly pathetic that even pure beholders often keep them as pets, and they have the same sadistic ego of a full beholder in miniature. Have caused a lot of argument over whether the sidebar on gazer familiars is intended for PCs as well or just for mage NPCs, and if so if house rules should be used to slot them in as Chain Pact warlock familiars, let them take the action to fire their eye-rays, etc.
* [[Mindwitness]]: A beholder converted into an [[illithid]]-like creature via ceremorphosis. Now that those of you who aren't currently running from your computers in terror have stopped screaming, the end result is less "terrifying perfect marriage of beholder eye-rays with illithid mind rape and the combined egotism of both" and more "quasi-lobotomized docile [[Adeptus Astra Telepathica#Astropaths|glorified psionic email server]]," though still smarter than the average human. Notably, if the illithids and elder brains they serve are slaughtered and they survive, mindwitnesses tend to drift around looking for other psionic creatures to serve, taking on the alignments and worldviews of those they meet, be they kindly [[flumph]]s or evil [[demon]]s. Four of their eyestalks become tentacles, but they have six kinds of eyerays: fear, telekinetic, and slowing rays like those of their normal cousins, but also aversion rays that cause disadvantage on attack rolls, stunning rays that stun creatures, and a psychic ray that just causes a pile of psychic damage.
* [[Eyedrake]]: When a beholder spends a lot of time thinking about dragons their dreams may spawn an eyedrake, a dragon-like creature with an eye in its mouth and eyes on the tips of its wing digits.

==Similar Monsters==
Beholders are not the only monsters that look like floating orbs with eyes.
* [[Argos]]: Introduced in [[Spelljammer]], and said to come from the same region of Wildspace as beholders. Basically an intelligent [[Gibbering Mouther]] that can shoot beholder-style eye rays. For whatever reason, the MM says it smells like roses.
<gallery>
Argos MM 2e.png
</gallery>
* [[Astral Dreadnought]]: A huge predator that lives in the [[Astral Plane]] that has a single eye with anti-magic abilities similar to a beholder's central eye. Relation to beholders unknown.
* [[Deepspawn]]: An orb with six large tentacles and several retractable eye stalk. Three of it's tentacles end in mouths, and the other three can wield weapons. It has the ability to give birth to loyal clones of creatures it has previously eaten, making them useful for villains who want to populate their dungeons with a variety of monsters. Relation to beholders unknown.
<gallery>
Deepspawn MM 2e.png
Deepspawn 3e.jpg
</gallery>
* [[Fihyr]] (also spelled Feyr): A living manifestation of nightmares that forms when a large number of people in an area all have nightmares in one night. It has a roughly spherical body covered in eyes, mouths, and tentacles. No relation to beholders.
<gallery>
Feyr MM 2e.png
Feyr 3e.png
</gallery>
* [[Gas Spore]]: Not a true beholder or beholderkin, but a [[fungus]] that resembles a beholder. May have been created by a beholder mage, or may be a fungus that took on the form of the beholder that it fed on, or maybe it's just mundane evolutionary mimicry. Beholders sometimes cultivate them in their cities for defense.
<gallery>
Gas spore 1e.jpg
Gas spore 3e.jpg
Gas spore 4e.jpg
Gas spore 5e.jpg
</gallery>
* Gibbering Orb: An epic version of the [[Gibbering Mouther]]. An amorphous orb covered in mouths and eyes, which have eye rays similar to a beholder. Possibly is the common ancestor of beholders and gibbering mouthers, though this would conflict with the belief that the Great Mother created beholders. Fourth edition also introduced the Gibbering Abomination, a middle ground between the mouther and the orb which also has eye rays.
<gallery>
Gibbering Orb 3e.png
Gibbering Orb 4e.jpg
</gallery>
* [[Lurking strangler]]: These creatures are to beholders what monkeys are to humans. A tiny aberration that looks like a pair of flying eyeballs connected by a cord of muscle. It likes to strangling sleeping enemies to death, and it can put enemies to sleep with one of its two eye rays. Beholders sometimes keep these things as pets.
<gallery>
Lurking strangler.jpg
</gallery>
* [[Thagar]]: Also known as the Beholdereater, it is a predator that eats beholders. Is a giant orb covered in eyes with several mouths on the ends of stalks. It does not have any eye powers, but it is immune to mind affecting magic and highly resistant to it's body being physically affected by magic, so there isn't much a beholder can do against it.
<gallery>
Thagar SJR1.png
</gallery>

==Notable Beholders==
*Large Luigi, a relatively friendly beholder who works as a barkeep in the [[Spelljammer]] setting.
*That beholder head of the thieves' guild who was the first major boss in [[Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance]]
*Another beholder head of another thieves' guild who was the final boss of the first Eye of the Beholder game.
*That funny spectator you kept running into and quasi-befriended in [[Baldur's Gate|Baldur's Gate II]]
*That blind death tyrant boss you had to get a special god-killing magic wand to kill in [[Baldur's Gate|Baldur's Gate II]]
*That beholder in [[Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes]]
*That beholder in Futurama who's there for no apparent reason (was meant to be guarding some passage in the Central Bureaucracy but fell asleep on the job)
*Xanathar, the head of Skullport's Thieves' Guild and writer of "Xanathar's guide to everything", which includes new options for classes and backgrounds, along with his snide comments running throughout. Apparently he's only one of many beholders to have used the title since the first one seized power. Notable for being one of the few beholders to remotely care for a being other than itself, he really loves his pet goldfish. It is kind of adorable. What he doesn't know is that his beloved goldfish has been replaced several times by the Thieves' Guild since goldfish don't live very long and he would [[RAGE|not be happy if he ever found out]].
<Gallery>
Xgtecover.jpeg
MTG Xanathar.jpeg
</Gallery>

==Beholders as Monstergirls==
[[File:Gazer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|No, you're not dreaming, this is a Beholder in monstergirl form.]]{{Monstergirls}}

[[rule 34|The proof that nothing, ab-so-lu-te-ly nothing is sacred,]] even Beholders got anthropomorphised into a sexy almost-human female by [[/d/|those irremediably insane weebs]]. Goddamit, Japan!

Gazers (as they are typically known due to copyright) are often depicted as arrogant, selfish beings that do not hesitate to use their eye ray powers to get what they want. Of course, fitting for a [[monstergirl]]s setting, their powers are [[PROMOTIONS|less destructive]] than that of a D&D Beholder, going more toward charm, hypnotism and mind control.

Still, beholder-girls are a rarity, simply because there's something rather counter-intuitive about turning a floating head full of teeth and eyes into a monstergirl. Perhaps the most well known example of them on /tg/ is the Gazer of the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], whose smug grin currently adorns this section of the page. Described as spiteful and full of themselves, their deepest secret is that this is mostly bluster to cover up feelings of insecurity about their looks. They specialize in hypnotic spells, mostly to brainwash men into falling in love with them.

==External Links==
[https://dumpstatadventures.com/blog/deep-dive-the-beholder Click here for an in depth look at the complete history of the beholder, including every book it appeared in.]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Petrifiedvictims.jpg
Volobeholder.png
NwN Beholder.jpg|Neverwinter Nights
DrowChainMail2e.webp
Petrifiedbeholder.png
Anti-Magic Ray.png|Monstrous Compendium Vol 1
Eyestalks.png|Eyestalks explained
Beholders AdventuresSpace 2e.png|AD&D Adventures in Space
WhereDoUThinkUrGoing.png|Dragon #76
Beholderkin1.png|Several beholderkin in 2e
Beholderkin2.png|Even more beholderkin in 2e
DeathTyrant LostShips 2e.png
I Tyrant.jpg|Several beholderkin, from ''I, Tyrant''
Beholder eye.png|Beholder eye anatomy
Beholder anatomy.png|Beholder anatomy
Ghost beholder.png|Beholder ghost
Blind beholder.png|5e Beholder zombie
NuGreyhawk.png
MCv1.png|''Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1'' cover
MM2e.png|2e ''Monstrous Manual'' cover
Beholder Dragon 313.jpg|''Dragon 313''
Beholder.jpg|''I, Tyrant''
Injured beholder.jpg
Patroller.png|A Patroller, a brainless organism crafted from troll stock. A beholder can sit in its chest cavity and control it.
Beholder armor.jpg|. . . but an enchanted suit of armor also works fine.
Ravenloft beholder.jpg
Beholder dogfight.jpg
Beholder lifter.jpg
Balldozer.jpg|A beholder piloting a ''Balldozer''.
Beholder bombardment.jpg|Using eye lasers to put on a lightshow.
Beholder hat.jpg|Beholder-leather clothing is the height of fashion, much to PETA's chagrin.
Beholder petrify.jpg
Beholder shield.png
Beholder flight.jpg
Great Mother.jpg|An avatar of the Great Mother.
Beholder stampede.jpg
Beholder hidenseek.jpg
Beholder funeral.jpg|A beholder funeral.
Beholder carrion.jpg
Vesuvian beholder.jpg
Beholder dogfight.jpg
Standard beholder poster.jpg
Beholder MCFR.jpg
Beholder_balloon.jpg|Drow clowns make a different kind of balloon animal
Awesome Beholder.png|A beholder after trolling a party of adventurers.
The-bard-and-the-beholder.jpg
Gazer_D&D.png
Kawaii Beholder.jpg|Does this count as [[Monstergirl]] bullshit, or just [[Weeaboo]] bullshit? The world may never know...
MTG Baleful Beholder.jpeg
</gallery>
</center>