Illithid (E-li-thids)

The universe is vast and ever changing. And there is a god, a horrific and terrifying being who travels it, leeching off everything in its path, devouring the infinite well of knowledge and memory in an insatiable fit to know all and thus be all. Both insane cultist and divine priest alike know this being by only one name. Qet. To some, he is mere legend. But others aren't as quick to dismiss his existence.   Books and texts like the Tome of Qet speak a lot on the nature of such an entity, but most fail to talk about the beasts of legend that are claimed to serve Qet and his purposes. For the few sources that do mention these creatures, they are called Illithids, and are fabled to be just as dangerous as the nefarious god himself.  

The Hordes of Shiq'Gith

In the planar realm of Shiq'Gith, out at its fringes where the plane borders the vast nothingness of Limbo, the Illithids are a numerous race of beings created in the likeness of Qet. As legend goes, the god — seeing himself as non-omnipresent — birthed from himself children which he sent out from himself to the parts of space he could not reach. Connected to his life force, everything they beheld and every memory they absorbed, Qet would also. So became the Illithids.   Illithids are a violent and amorphous species of aberrations. Native to Limbo, where they were presumably first created, they multiply from themselves at an alarming rate, taking on a myriad of different shapes, both humanoid and not, that strike fear into every living thing they encounter.   Anything touched by the Illithids jump at the spark of power these beings wield, and experience an agonizing glimpse at the personified manifestation of their own psyche, which is how many meet their end.

An Illithid, like Qet, is an insatiable beast. They feed off the memories and knowledge of other living things, sucking their prey dry in very intelligent and strategic ways that either leave them an empty husk void all its color, or as a newborn Illithid.   When an Illithid attacks, they most often attack the mind of their target, sometimes even sending them into an unconscious state where they must fight for their lives inside their own mind. Though a place like this holds no correlation within the cosmology of Brinomir, it is typically called the Psyche Realm.   The Psyche Realm is a mental manifestation of a person's own consciousness, projected as a physical environment that often mirrors the outside world with varying differences. Sometimes, an individual may experience the Psyche Realm without gravity, giving the illusion of flight, while other times the environment itself may crumble in on itself, creating hazardous situations that must be avoided.   Teams of even the most daring heroes dread encountering an Illithid because of this, because a fight meant to be had as a team suddenly turns into several fights done alone. And to die in your Psyche Realm is no different than your very brain being ripped out of your body. Many make the mistake of overlooking this severe condition, and many have met their end because of it.

Planar scholars, of which many originate from alien civilizations in Shiq'Gith agree that the terrors that come from the Illithids are an unending list. What once looks like a mound of shapeless sludge can turn into a monster whose form is unique to any other aberration of its kind before it.   But, there does stand a record of the most common kinds of Illithids who exist, the personalities they take on, and the roles they play.  

Illithid Sludge

A sludge is to the Illithids as a baby is to its mother. Illithid sludges are more than just newborn and maturing aberrations, birthed from the very spirit of Qet himself, they are revered among their kind like kings and cared for with paternal need.   A sludge's body is completely fluid and shapeless, folding over itself in indistinguishable blobs as it worms across ground. A sludge is very slow, but their bodily makeup is not any less dangerous. Just as a gelatinous cube's body is very acidic and melts away any physical thing it touches, an Illithid sludge is not much different, withering away the mind and very personality of any unfortunate prey that finds itself consumed by it.   The minds and memories a sludge digests is directly proportional to its rate of maturity, as well the type of intelligence it is likely to take on once it fully grows and evolves itself.  

Riftwalker

A riftwalker is an insect-like monstrosity formed from a fully mature sludge which absorbed no sorts of substance. With no ideals, personality, or intellect to influence its behavior, riftwalkers are a wholly instinct-driven branch of Illithids that naturally gather in swarms and dwell between the confines of the physical world and the mental. When Illithids are near, people who sleep will often witness nightmares in which these very things appear, and when another Illithid drags its prey into their Psyche Realm, several riftwalkers are usually there as well, quick to jump the break between spaces and devour all it can.   Their bodies can be shaped different, but all of them have a featureless, hard rock-like shell, stand upon single-talon legs, and show a strange dark crystal that protrudes violently from their back.  

Beholder

Among the religious history surrounding Qet, the greatest of his myths say the Beholders were the first of his brood to be made. Bound to his power and true to their name, they were to be a set of eyes that beheld everything from the far reaches of the universe where Qet was not as a way to make something out of his lack of omnipresence. Beholders themselves are terribly devilish beings, whose minds are exceptionally crafty and deceitful. A single eye rests in the center of its spheroid body, where many other smaller eye stocks sprout from it. It carries so much psychic power that it is capable of constant levitation.   They can not only speak telepathically, but they can see telepathically as well, and its this sense of divination that makes many pass themselves off as gods to nearby and primitive populaces in need of tribute, the common case being someone's sacrifice, which the monster happily uses as a chance to acquire its psyche.

Mind Brood King

Among the most terrifying, and thankfully one of the least common Illithids to exist are Mind Brood Kings. Though a riftwalker is a creature incapable of conscious thought, that doesn't prevent it from absorbing the mental energy of other prey. And when the mind of an intelligent creature meets the primitive, animalistic nature of a riftwalker, an almost extraordinary sort of metamorphosis begins to take place. The riftwalker grows in size, its crystal grows brighter, and its power increases, to the point when it itself becomes capable of an incomprehensible mixture of intelligence and lack thereof.   A mind brood king is several times the size of a normal human and is shaped like a scarab. Its power allows it the capability of telepathic control of other riftwalkers, and it expresses an alarming amount of strategy in the way it and its other riftwalkers survive and grow. Its level of strength almost doubles that of a beholder itself, able to steal its way into the mind of any creature and twist them to its control almost at will.  

Mind Flayer

No creation of both Qet and sludge are as sadistic as an aberration known as a mind flayer. The most intelligent of all Illithids, mind flayers are akin to their kind as generals are to an army. They are considered the heralds of Qet, ushering the presence of the Illithids into a world and drawing their creator to them. They are also among the only ones of their kind who, at least among humans, physically extract and consume the brain of the one they feed off of.   Unlike mind brood kings, mind flayers are capable of intelligent, and even elegant speech. That is coupled with a level of intelligence that is willing to do something a mind brood king will not: make a deal.