Mind Flayers (Illithid)

Overview

Mind flayers, also known as illithids , meaning "mind flayer" or "mind ruler" in Undercommon), and sometimes referred to as ghaik by the githyanki, were sadistic aberrations feared by sentient creatures on many worlds across the multiverse due to their powerful psionic abilities. From their twisted lairs deep in the Underdark, these alien entities sought to expand their dominion over all other lifeforms, controlling their minds to use them as obedient thralls. They consumed their victims' very personality by extracting and devouring their brains while they were still alive. In terms of height, weight, and build, mind flayers were roughly comparable to thin humans, but it was at this point that any external comparison to humanoids ended. A mind flayer's body was, in fact, a gruesome mockery of the humanoid form.  An illithid's flesh, was soft, supple, moist, and rubbery, resulting in an unmistakable texture easily distinguishable from any other creature by anyone familiar with it. Their skin ranged from mauve to greenish-violet in color. Mind flayers that were healthy from brain-rich diets excreted a thin film of slimy, glistening mucus that kept in moisture and gave off a faint odor similar to onions, garlic, or even vanilla, although the smell was imperceptible from afar. Their blood had a silvery-white color.    An illithid's bulging, ridged, elongated head was reminiscent of an octopus, with a cluster of four flexible, unsegmented, extendable, purplish-black tentacles surrounding their mouths. The tentacles could range in length from 2 to 4 feet (0.61 to 1.2 meters), appearing shorter when an illithid was at rest. They writhed and undulated almost constantly and absent-mindedly while the illithid pondered or otherwise was not using them, and flexed in anticipation when sentient beings drew close. They were also incredibly dexterous, powerful, and could be fully controlled by the mind flayer to perform both fine and strength-based tasks. In many apocryphal descriptions and diagrams, mind flayers were portrayed as having beaked mouths, possibly owing to their octopus-like heads. In reality, an illithid's mouth was more like that of a lamprey, with a circular, jawless orifice ringed by several rows of small, rasping teeth.    Illithid hands were long, slender, and lacked an index finger, but were otherwise similar to those of normal humanoid creatures. The remaining fingers and opposable thumb were red to mauve in coloration, and their nails were thick and black. Though illithid nails seemed dangerous, they were actually blunt and composed of soft cartilage, and so had little hope of being effective weapons. Illithid feet were webbed and had only two toes, which were also nailed and could flex widely apart, as if to assist in swimming.  

Personality

  Mind flayers had utterly alien thought processes and enigmatic objectives. They saw themselves as masterminds that twisted others into serving their own sinister and far-reaching schemes. While some individuals could show extreme variance in mindset, the majority shared many common beliefs and precepts. Illithids were megalomaniacal in the extreme, tyrants driven by an immense ambition and intrinsically ruled by an overwhelming sense of self-importance. The mind flayers sought nothing less than world domination, knew their destiny was mastery over the universe, and the ultimate prize they yearned for was complete dominion over all the planes of existence, with the power to reshape reality and all within it to fit their otherworldly designs. However, mind flayers did not believe themselves to be horrifying monsters.   In the minds of the illithids, their kind acted as agents of "Order", forces of law tasked with taming a chaotic and unguided universe. They saw the various races in its confines as potential thralls with no supervision, living out aimless existences and working with no direction. In this role as multiversal caretakers, the mind flayers constantly worked for what they saw as the betterment of the cosmos, asserting their ultimate control to provide the restoration of order that only their superior species could bestow to all the multiverse.   The mind flayers strongly believed in their manifest destiny, and viewed the task of bringing the multiverse to heel as one of great importance. The illithids instructed all who questioned this view to look at the biological facts, how they stood at the top of the food chain and how all others naturally fell beneath them. While the illithids recognized that other creatures resisted their control, they perceived this as a natural result of reality's current state, the unknowing thralls within not knowing any better than to fight their masters.   Utterly arrogant, mind flayers were elitists who believed all creatures to be inferior to themselves, livestock fit to fulfill only three purposes: to die as their food, work as their slaves, or serve as vessels for more of their kind. Even so, the mind flayers did feel a sense of gratitude towards lesser beings. In truth, they truly appreciated the "gifts" of those they feasted upon, and sincerely felt that they were giving their livestock a gift of their own when they consumed their brains.   The illithids had to dominate not only to achieve their goals, but to fulfill certain basic needs of their own. Without a mind to control, a mind flayer would feel incomplete. They actually had an intimate relationship with their own thralls, suffering when they died (whether by sickness, age, or physical harm) and sometimes going mad from loneliness without their constant companionship. Illithids were known to postpone their other goals just to renew an emptied retinue of thralls and every illithid had at least one personal thrall. When they found one they favored, illithids would go out of their way not to eat personal thralls in bouts of hunger or anger, and might even grant them toys and trinkets to occupy themselves with when not working.  

Combat

  In spite of their lack of physical abilities, mind flayers were feared by all beings in the Underdark because of their great mental prowess. In addition to the small array of mind-affecting spells that every illithid had at its disposal to take control of its prey, they also frequently employed a powerful mind blast to affect a multitude of foes. The mind flayer's mind blast was a 60‑foot (18‑meter) cone that stunned anyone caught within it.   Their abundant psionic powers allowed them to levitate at will, as well as to detect the thoughts of nearby creatures and to dominate or charm any kind of creature in their vicinity. Additionally, there were reports of mind flayers capable of controlling others by power of suggestion. They were also capable of teleporting themselves to other planes of existence by plane shifting.  

Society

  Individual mind flayers were rarely found alone; rather, they were usually accompanied by two or more slaves mentally bound to them. Typical enslaved races found among mind flayers included grimlocks, ogres, quaggoths, and troglodytes. These enslaved species had in common the fact that they were not typically considered edible by the illithids. Mind flayer communities (also called "colonies") typically ranged in size from two hundred to two thousand, and that was counting only the illithids. Each mind flayer in the community likely had at least two slaves to do its bidding. In these communities, the number of slaves often far outstripped the number of mind flayers.    Mind flayer colonies operated as a single hive mind, with control centralized by an elder brain, a singular entity that exerted its telepathic control simultaneously over all mind flayers within a radius of 5 miles (8 kilometers). The elder brain was the heart of the community. Held in a pool of briny fluids, the elder brain consisted of all the brains of the dead mind flayers in the colony. It served as the center of the communication network, relaying information received from one mind flayer to the entire colony, storing all the collective knowledge of the colony, and issuing commands to individual mind flayers. The degree of control and organization exerted by the elder brain over a mind flayer community was so absolute that it was more convenient to think of a mind flayer colony as a single individual: the elder brain.   Although mind flayers willingly came together to achieve an end, they were always vying for more control in the community, but even then they were always beneath the elder brain. While individual mind flayers might have, at one time in their past, retained a certain degree of independent thought, after the collapse of the illithids' empires it was generally agreed upon by them that their survival required complete obedience to the elder brain.   Mind flayers considered arcane magic an abomination. They viewed it as an inferior and corrupt form of psionic power that should disappear from the universe once the illithids regained control of it. It was speculated that this hatred was related to the role of magic in the gith rebellion. Arcane magic was especially sought out by renegade illithids looking for ways to shield themselves from the elder brain's influence. Although most mind flayer arcanists were wizards, a few were also born with the gift of sorcery. Because a mind flayer sorcerer was naturally more intelligent than other mind flayers, it was better able to resist psionics. A rare and most treasured item in a mind flayer colony was a flying ship known as a nautiloid. Mind flayers once had a massive presence in space and commanded countless of these conch-shaped spelljammers. In fact, spacefaring mind flayers were sometimes quite different from their land-bound counterparts and acted more as traders than conquerors.