Editing Neh-thalggu (section)

==Far Realm Neh-thalggu==
{{NotFunny Sourcebook}}
===Dungeon Version===
Brain collectors encroach upon the [[Prime Material|Material Plane]] from the inconceivable [[Far Realm]] in what is actually their larval stage. Terrible beings of unspeakable and unwholesome desires, these monsters are driven to ollect brains and use the knowledge locked within these organs to further their own transformation into beings of godlike power ([[Epic Level Handbook]] 207). Uncaring of the empty husks cast aside by their feeding, these alien predators use their fleshy meals to generate great bursts of arcane energy. While even the weakest are capable of devouring the sentience from whole regions, a fully ascended neh-thallggu rivals even the eldest dragons and some demon lords in ferocity and arcane might.

===[[Epic Level Handbook]] Version===
Bizarre creatures best known for their unpleasant habit of harvesting humanoid brains, whatever the wishes of their current owners, neh-thalggu endlessly prowl for additions to their collections.

Brain collectors have bloated, yellow-orange, oily bodies that spout dozens of short, writhing tentacles. Ten slightly longer tentacles frame its lamprey mouth, which is filled with row after row of jagged red teeth. Above the gaping maw are four large, yellow, red-irised, bulging eyes, behind which cluster a number of squirming bulges about a foot across. These bulges house the human or humanoid brains the brain collector has harvested to date (up to thirteen brains at a time), which it uses to power its own special abilities. It must discard one of its currently “banked” brains in order to replace it with another. The creatures move with surprising agility on twelve segmented crablike legs (larger specimens have eighteen or even twenty-four legs, juveniles but six). Brain collectors lack fixed internal anatomies and can rearrange organ functions at will, making them very difficult to kill.

Brain collectors hail from a distant reality known to sages only as the Far Realm or Nightmare Dimension. Occasionally juveniles (Large, 10 HD, AC 20) are encountered in isolated locations, but fully grown specimens such as the one described here are quite rare. Both types visit mundane realms in order to harvest the brains they need to fully access their abilities. A juvenile will seize any brains of characters 5th level and higher as opportunity arises, but an adult absorbs only the brains of arcane spellcasters of at least 15th level, passing along rejects to its less fussy mind flayer retainers. A creature whose brain has been harvested by a brain collector cannot be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected while the brain is in the creature, because the collector preserves and draws upon the soul and basic personality of the creature for as long as it retains the brain. A brain collector might be bargained with for the return of a specific brain, but only in exchange for a better (higher-level) specimen.

Brain collectors typically attract a retinue of 1d4+1 mind flayers, drawn by the desire to study the aberration’s technique in extracting brains with ranged attacks and its ability to access the arcane brainpower of the assimilated brains. Some sages have ascribed the illithids’ attraction to simple self-interest (the illithids get to claim the rejects that do not meet the neh-thalggu’s demanding specifications), others to an affinity almost amounting to worship. On rare occasions a neh-thalggu is accompanied by a single paragon mind flayer sworn to its service.

Neh-thalggus’ own language is a silent sign language “spoken” with their writhing head-tentacles. They can also communicate telepathically with any creature that has a language within 100 feet.