Illthid Bling

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:43 pm

In the F&K universe, assuming the Wish Economy, is it something to expect pretty much every illithid that lives in an illithid community to be decked out in magic gear? The place is run by a brain that has magic/psionics on par with a very high level wizard, so its fully capable of getting giant piles of +2 swords which it can distribute to every mind flayer it commands. If you assume the Book of Gears, it would likely just be eight minor magic items for each one, not counting the emotion stones lining their shelves.

I can see their slaves not actually getting anything, because of their opinion on thralls (you don't give your livestock diamon-studded spiked collars and barding).

I know that the idea of distributing wealth to nonprofitable sectors of society is a foreign concept to Bronze-age semi-feudal D&D, but illithids aren't known for being a part of the crowd. Even without the elder brain's aid, they still have planeshift at will along with mind-control powers to accumulate all the gold economy wealth they want.

As a side-effect, this would make them a touch over the CR 8 range they used to hold.

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:01 pm

It really depends on how paranoid you run your mind flayers. The possibility exists, but elder brains really don't want to be replaced. On the other hand, a single mind flayer might find some way to break into the wish economy, and then he has infinite wealth. The real question is if it is the rule, because mind flayers are as smart as any of the people who actually find these gaps and they spend their whole life thinking about this, or if it is only the smart/lucky ones who find out about it. Illithid can read minds, so it shouldn't be too hard for one of them to find the trick if he visits a planar metropolis or escapes a group of adventurers who are aware of the Wish Economy.

Jerry · Post by **Jerry** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:20 pm

I'd assume that Mind Flayers work on a fallout shelter mentality; they know that they will win, but realize that others are a threat. As such, displays of wealth need real meaning. An army of slaves has value when you wage war; a gold-plated toilet seat does not.

That, and Mind Flayers in many settings have their own planar empires.

It's too bad that Illithids in Eberron are crazy cultists that are slave-soldiers to the Daelkyr; totally kills the "evil mastermind" feel.

K · Post by K » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:38 pm

The illithid have a racial mission to collect slaves and brains, are grouped into communities led by a powerful caster, and have potent abilities that let them travel to other planes. This means that they'd be better outfitted if they work in a community since they are essentially agents of the elder brain tasked with the mission of whipping on extraplanar heroes who try to stop their brain culling missions (think of the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis).

Yes, this raises their CR. Why individual illithid probably have labs with weird stuff on shelves culled from odd planes, their combat equipment should be more on par with the best stuff a Wish economy adventurer has. This takes them well into maybe CR 14.

Less powerful illithids are possible if they are break away factions or remnants of destroyed communities, but once they get the support of a elder brain and enter the Wish economy you must assume they get boosted with weird and powerful equipment.

Other points: I disagree that they wouldn't outfit powerful slaves with armor and weapons. Racially, they need powerful troops to fight back the few organizations that actually have the power to fight back, and if your brain-cored ogre bodyslave needs mithral armor, then that's what you do.

Also, illithid communities should be among the most powerful structures. Magical/psionic geography should be common, and there should be teleport circles hidden near the communities so that returning slave caravans don't have to walk too long to get home.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:56 pm

I would think they'd hold back on giving their thralls much in the way of magical equipment, since they lost their super-empire to a slave revolt.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:00 pm

That depends. Mithril armor, for example, isn't worth shit in defense against an illithid.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:00 pm

virgileso wrote:I would think they'd hold back on giving their thralls much in the way of magical equipment, since they lost their super-empire to a slave revolt.

Since this is the Wish economy they would most likely just give the slave +2 weapons with some minor trinkets and call it a day.

Jerry · Post by **Jerry** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:02 pm

Keep in mind that Illithid slaves aren't slaves in the traditional sense, but mindless automations.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:27 pm

Not a permanent mindlessness, however, given how at least one was able to break themselves free of the domination, break others free, and have an open and successful revolt.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:35 pm

Hence I could see it as something the illithids might want to avoid, empowering the thralls too much that they're a truly legitimate threat if/when they revolt.

That always seemed to me how the people of Gith managed to break free, comparatively lax control along with using them as their primary focus for their conquering (which is likely through both gearing and training them).

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:35 am

Didn't the Gith revolt result in the end of the world, which was only prevented by Illithid going back in time to create more of themselves and spread the word to kill Gith on sight?

...And then more went back in time to say "Good job. We won, but don't get cocky. Otherwise we won't have won."

Except they don't understand the concept of past, present and future, because time is strange for those things, and there's simply "Now" and "The now that isn't actually now".

...and Jerry, you just gave me another reason to hate Eberron. Thank you.

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Also, I don't see an issue with giving the slaves AC boosters, DR boosters and magic weapons. Just nothing that helps their Will saves - if they break free, zap 'em again. But mind flayers would probably deck themselves out in trinkets - +2 to every ability score, +3 to saves and one other thing.

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K, would you really say equipment sends them to CR 14? I mean, they probably have the [Awesome] subtype as is, especially if played as paranoid masterminds who don't understand the concept "To go without mind-controlled bodyguards", but that's still quite a leap.

Talisman · Post by **Talisman** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:19 am

I saw the title and immediately thought of a piece of treasure I once created...a set of four jeweled rings connected by light chains, that fit over an illithid's tentacles.

Koumei, as I understand the official story, the Illithids originated near the End of Time (TM). With all of existance coming to an end, they united the efforts of their Elder Brains and ported their whole frikkin' race back several thousand years (at least those that survived the Mega Ritual). There, they enslaved the gith, built an empire, got careless, lost an empire, and were reduced to cave-dwelling Cthulhu-wannabes.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:25 am

Worth noting was that their empire was so awesome that the Blood War actually paused for a bit so the combatants could try to deal with the Illithids. Until the whole Gith rebellion happened soon after.

K · Post by K » Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:38 am

Koumei wrote:
K, would you really say equipment sends them to CR 14? I mean, they probably have the [Awesome] subtype as is, especially if played as paranoid masterminds who don't understand the concept "To go without mind-controlled bodyguards", but that's still quite a leap.

Sure. Mind flayers do have the [awesome] subtype, and the if you assume a Wish economy then you are assuming things like a pocketful of Bronze Griffins, Elemental Gems, and other craziness. The awful beauty of the Wish economy is that someone's attack power really can equal the depth of their pockets.

It's usually not a problem because of the huge number of monsters who can't really enter the Wish economy, but for mind flayers back by an elder brain you can assume some craziness.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:42 am

Surgo wrote:Worth noting was that their empire was so awesome that the Blood War actually paused for a bit so the combatants could try to deal with the Illithids. Until the whole Gith rebellion happened soon after.

That could be an awesome idea for an adventure:

You have to make the Illithid empire crumble into a series of adventures via any of the following lines:

Back to the Future

Have the PCs (very high level heroes) and their minions all enter a demi-plane that has time pass much slower than the real world or actually puts them in stasis and wait until the Illithids attempt their mega-ritual of the future.

The heroes (and possibly the evil villans who also don't want Squid-faces mucking things up) try to stop it (this could be a lot like a post-apocalpytic game where you're running and hiding while travelling from elder brain to elder brain and dropping a Mind-Bomb on each one; or a game where you're essentially really hard-core cave men trying to attack several key locations in the Shadowrun setting

Demon see, Demon do

You have to get the demons into fighting the Illithids. This can be done by tricking large amounts of them into entering portals and attacking Illithid cities until the Illithids enter the Abyss and then all the demons attack them. By bribing them. Or some other method, like the PCs looking like demons and leading lesser demons into a conflict; once a fight has started it's hard to keep it from escalating.

True. However in the case of Hades vs. Az'zetholtep...

Get the Devils into fighting the Illithids. Explaining how the Illithids will reduce the amount of souls coming their way. Building and presenting a legal reason that states that the Devils must wage war on the Squid-faces.

Lesser of ten evils

Illithds want to take over the world. So do the Sahaugin. If the PCs can present the Illithids as the only real threat to Sahaugin dominance. The next thing you know, Sharptooth the barbarian is shot-gun weddinged to the Sea-Devil Emperor's Malenti granddaughter (better to lead or at least get in on the action that high level characters get instead of running a Sea Elf camp) and Rolf the Archivist is learning how to create Lemure Pits from the Sea-Devil clerics.

Aboleths are also an option, as are Kobolds, Goblins and Dwarves. Aboleths being nearly as bad as Illithids, and Kobolds, Goblins and Dwarves have... issues.

The Derro will always be a thorn in everyone's side however; or they get created during the war after the Illithids magically/psionically combine clever human stock with resilient dwarven stock.

===

I am the run-on sentence king.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:47 am

Koumei wrote:Didn't the Gith revolt result in the end of the world, which was only prevented by Illithid going back in time to create more of themselves and spread the word to kill Gith on sight?

No. The gith rebellion happened thousands of years ago. The cataclysm that happened in the future hasn't been named in any book yet that I've read, but it wasn't the gith revolt.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:55 am

Ah, I thought it was their fault. Doesn't make me hate them any less, as they're a bunch of irritating, ugly fuckheads, but still. I suppose it's enough of a catastrophe that they managed to defeat the mind flayers (once). That'd be pretty embarrassing.

"So, what kind of all-powerful creature managed to overpower you in the end?"
"Ugly elves."

...and I'm still pretty sure Illithid prevent the end of the world by going back in time. Killing them off could only result in there being a bigger problem to face.

Besides, they're just too awesome. I couldn't bring myself to exterminate such an awesome race.

*starts reading the Illithiad to shed some light on the matter*

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:51 am

The lore in regards to their origins are through the combined efforts of the Illithiad and the Lords of Madness.

The Illithiad makes the entire process vague, having origins that suggest the beginning of time itself & outside reality while the empire predates written history just barely (suggesting that mortals spent a bit of time rebuilding before writing again, and thus written history began a few generations after the rebellion).

Lords of Madness puts their super-empire in the future, when the prime's age starts to show, and eventually succumbs to some kind of cataclysm that forces them to flee to the past, where they enslave the people of Gith and suffer a rebellion a few centuries later. The problem with the Lords of Madness lore is that they state illithids didn't exist at all until two millenia ago, which means they're creatures that came out of nowhere very recently; many fiends would remember a time before they existed, some dragons would predate illithid existance, etc.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:35 am

It is a doctrine of faith amongst the Ilithid that the reason that the Gith revolt got as far as it did was that slaves managed to get a hold on metal. Therefore while they may very well hand out magical leather armor to warrior thralls, they won't give them metal armor or weaponry.

As for the whole Time War thing, that happened in exactly one book: Lords of Madness. All the other writeups of the Ilithid empire have them come from the past to the present in a depressingly linear fashion. And while I personally love Doctor Who, I really think that if D&D wanted or needed Daleks, that it would have been better to create a new race for that or use one of the ones that doesn't actually have a backstory like the Grell.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:53 am

It does indeed seem the information is both vague and contradictory. Not that there's, strictly speaking, a problem with a contradiction in what is put forward as "the information PCs might be able to find out", but it's still a bugger of a thing.

One school of thought put forward that they were humans in the future, escaped into the Far Realm, emerged from it in the past (and this is what scared the Aboleths, who remember everything, and remember "One day they didn't exist, the next day they did.") and are so changed because of their time spent in that plane. It also explains why they don't really understand the concept of time in the same way that we do.

That one was rather cool. But yeah, Doctor Who is awesome but they should have picked something else for the Dalek treatment.

Cool, Firefox recognises the word "Dalek" ...but not the word "Firefox".

K · Post by K » Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:21 pm

Part of the whole TNE: I Don't Want To Know thread was about just these problems.

I frankly have no problems if no one in the setting knows what the true origins of the illithid are. I'd even support a game world where several of the above theories are shared by the illithid themselves and the evidence is split as to which one is true, or that actually several theories are true in their own way.

At the end of the day, the backstory is the one thing that can be mutable. You, as a DM, may like the explanation that an illithid is the ultimate form of a human who has absorbed enough Far Realm radiations, but for the purposes of the setting you really can use any, some, or all of the explanations below as backstory or discoverable truths:

-Future time travellers.

-Past time travelers.

-Extradimensional travellers (Far Realm or alternate prime).

-Remnants of a great empire.

-Cloned slaves of a super-intelligence a la Rifts who are programmed with a past that never happened

-Recent (few thousand years) byproduct of psionics

-Exposees of a colony on the the Astral Plane/Underdark/"insert magical place here"

-Progency of Tharzidan/Far Realmian god cultees a la' Cthulu

-Experiments of a demon prince/archmage/etc in creating a slave race gone wrong

-First wave troops of an Aboleth empire who were set free at the dawn of time and remained cloaked from divinations and the gods until recently.

-Fluke of a wild magic surge during some magical conflict

At the end of the day, the illithid are:

-alien-ish

-brain eaters

-with psionic powers (or magic that looks like psionics)

-who look like guys with squids/octopuses for faces.

Everything else is unnecessary to be able to tell stories abut them.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:28 pm

Why would metal be special amongst the slaves?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:37 pm

virgileso wrote:Why would metal be special amongst the slaves?

The story of Gith is that the Ilithid are fleshcrafters, and it was the discovery of a metal knife by one of the thralls that made him realize that steel marks flesh and flesh does not mark steel. So he built his entire epiphany and revolution around the doctrine of metal.

That and the Gith make the astral metal blades that cut Ilithid soul cords in half. That sucks too.

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So from the Ilithid perspective, adopting metal would be to admit that they learned something from the Gith, which they will not do.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:43 am

Wasn't Gith a chick?

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:12 am

Yeah.