Ilsensine

Ilsensine (meaning \"great brain\" or \"powerful brain\" in Undercommon) is the patron deity and supposed creator of the illithids, and the Tentacled Lord embodies their ideals of mental prowess, unlimited knowledge, and willful dominion over all other lifeforms. Although predominantly focused on mind flayers, the God-Brain is the patron of all beings that enslave the thoughts of others.

Ilsensine is known as such by the sages and scholars of most races, but illithids identify them differently. Rather than a name, telepathically communicating mind flayers use a series of visual images and symbolic denotations to represent it. A psionic inflection used to mark Oryndoll as a holy place of Ilsensine is enough to cause fear in those minds the name is projected into.

Description

A being of the mind and spirit, Ilsensine lacked any physical body, instead incarnating as a cohesive thought. Radiating a lambent, emerald hue this manifestation took the shape of a gigantic, pulsing mass of cerebral matter. As was depicted by the mind flayers and as was actually the case, around the disembodied, brain-like form was a number of ganglionic tendrils radiating outwards in all directions, immeasurable in length and uncountable in number. Running along surfaces and through the earth, the God-brain's tentacles extended beyond sight and to all the nigh-infinite reaches of the multiverse.

When incarnating in an avatar, Ilsensine's floating form was much easier to comprehend, appearing as spectral 8 feet (2.4 meters) across, green-glowing brain with only two tentacles. Manifestations

The religious authorities of Oryndoll held that a sparkling sheet of naturally formed calcite at the south edge of Orynoll's Thrall Caverns, known as the Flowstone Tapestry, was a manifestation of Ilsensine's thought processes. They believed that by studying the swirling patterns of the 50 feet (15 meters) high 200 feet (61 meters) long formation that profound revelations into the nature of divinity could be had. It was not known if this was true and non-illithids were rarely allowed to view the alleged majesty of Ilsensine, but many illithids spent countless hours analyzing it and while reports indicated it was not magical, it did radiate a natural hypnotism effect.

Personality

Alien and elusive, Ilsensine's thoughts are a relentless tide of dark deceptions and unimaginable deviancy. According to elven myths, before the creation of mortal beings, it surpasses all its divine peers in subversive intent, always striving to undo what others accomplish and defy established convention, and even loosing the mind flayers to act as a counter-creation after mortals come into existence. It is a cold and calculating being of practically limitless knowledge, and its philosophies mirror that of the illithids, holding information as the greatest commodity, darkness as the greatest illumination, and the mind as the greatest strength.

Another dominating facet of Ilsensine's unending thoughts is megalomania for its motivation is the supremacy of the greatest race in its mind; its own illithid creations. Of all those that it knows of, it judges them the most worthy mortals, and seeks for them to conquer all planes. Its thoughts unceasingly insist that they are meant to rule all reality, enslaving, using and consuming the rampant \"cattle\", and enjoying the conquest as they do so. This is to be done through mental domination, superior knowledge, and the expression of will and force of mind that is magic.

Despite its many strengths, Ilsensine is not infallible. Aside from being supremely arrogant, Ilsensine is not impervious to emotion, and in fact, can be overtaken by it. Litanies of hatred constantly radiate from its mind, mercilessly hammering any nearby with its insane (by non-illithid standards) declaration of the illithid manifest destiny. The deeper one delves into its lair, the worse it becomes, growing from a whisper to a buzz until obscenities are being screamed directly into the unfortunate's mind. More crucially than simply feeling emotions however, Ilsensine's feelings can drive it towards problematic behavior.

Though Ilsensine has experienced fury before, a relatively recent incident raised its anger such that it qualified as a new and strange sensation. It not only lost a shard of its consciousness, but had no idea how it happened. In its anger, Ilsensine shocks the mind flayers into looking for the artifact, and yet is either not fully aware or doesn't care about how its anger affects its people. Even leaving anger aside, despite mind flayers legends on its extraordinary deliberation, Ilsensine has allegedly made mistakes out of impatience in the past. In its discontent with its rate of information reception and craving for mental essences to feast upon, Ilsensine may have accidentally created a force it is incapable of controlling.

Divine Realm

Though often thought of as omnipresent mental energy, Ilsensine is strangely based underneath the Outlands, the outer plane of true neutrality, in its own vast, subterranean realm known as the Caverns of Thought, or sometimes simply Ilsensine's realm. Some speculate that it manages to persist here because of Ilsensine's great might, the moral relativism of its followers, or its position as a god of knowledge and thought outweighing its lawful evil leanings, but the real reason is because it conspires against all alignments. Even so, it is quite possible that the god-brain maintains realms on other planes.

The Caverns of Thought are cold and heartless, consisting of black, slimy tunnels just cold enough to be uncomfortable without being chilly, the stone slick with fungus save for the spots speculated to be Ilsensine's nerves that warmly pulse as if alive. There is no secret within its realm that Ilsensine does not know and no movement its nerves do not sense. The twisting caverns cross and recross each other, but like the inescapable Mazes of Sigil itself, all paths lead to one place, Ilsensine's court at the heart of the realm.

The only condition that really matters within the Caverns of Thought is the characteristic brain burn caused by the mind-wracking drone of Ilsensine's loathsome thoughts. This wears down the minds of anyone wandering within the caverns, the rate at which they have to struggle against its influence increasing in speed the deeper they go. The struggle is daily at less than a mile in, twice a day at less than five miles, and hourly at less than ten miles in (this also being the point psionics cease functioning). Past ten miles in, it is every ten minutes, and once in Ilsensine's court they have to fight for every minute they stay.

Ilsensine's realm is primarily occupied by zombies, either the petitioners or planars who stay too long. Only the very lucky leave with their minds intact, and those few who leave Ilsensine's court would be wise to question their wits, for none can stand before them for long without changing at least a little. However, there are also mind flayer petitioners present, much the same in appearance and behavior as they were in life, and it is suspected that secret portals to the Lower Planes are present as darker fiends of the Lower Planes also take up residence in and around the area when visiting the Outlands. Even so, the only structures present are bits of wall and bedding left by those that attempted to establish themselves within.

In the Great Wheel Cosmology, Ilsensine shares their realm with Gzemnid, the lesser beholder god of illusion and obscurement. It is rumored that the Gas Giant interweaves their realms so Ilsensine keeps both bound to the Outlands, and it is often unclear if they share one realm or for whatever reason refrain from differentiating them. Their knotwork of tunnels often intertwines, further making it difficult to figure out where one is as psychic force drains the mind. In the World Tree cosmology, the Caverns of Thoughts are part of the greater Deep Caverns where dwell the Great Beholder Mother and Laogzed.

Activities

Through its multiplanar ganglia, Ilsensine gathers information from all across the multiverse simultaneously. It peers into the minds of the greatest sages across the cosmos and saps the fading memories from the desiccating brains of deceased wizards, perceiving every thought and learning every secret before storing them all away for future use. It acquires magic and stares across space and time itself in its quest for omniscience.

Mind flayers depict the god-brain as ever-seeking to extend their influence, yet despite Ilsensine's constant quest for knowledge, this is not entirely accurate. In truth, Ilsensine is often too self-absorbed to actually act, preferring to watch and wait from its immobile form in the center of the Caverns of Thought and spending much of its time in brooding fantasies of tyrannical ascendance.

When stirred from its dreams of domination, on extremely rare occasions, Ilsensine might send an avatar or proxy to the Material Plane to either its most reverent illithids or those that could benefit the most from a specific divine intervention. Illithids respond to such an honor by offering up the brains of great captured intellects in homage for it to absorb, which is sometimes rewarded by the god-brain granting those involved with a handful of spells of widely varying power for a few days. When illithid conclaves are held regarding major territorial aggressions and plots with decade-spanning schedules, Ilsensine might also have an avatar attend and observe the meeting.

However, Ilsensine is far more likely to send a proxy than an avatar, usually dispatching Lugribossk for direct intervention and particularly for assisting a notably bold illithid plan to subjugate. Communications are reserved for the most prized servants and performed via telepathic contact. To those that displease it however, Ilsensine is known to make its demands of illithid domination clear through a personal appearance via an avatar, consuming half the offending illithids to encourage the survivors.

Worshippers

Many sages correctly assumed that Ilsensine was the most important and powerful of the illithid gods due to representing the broadest concept. Ilsensine represented not just mental mastery, but psionic unity between the self and universal knowledge. Exactly what it meant to attain this state was a subject of interpretation between elder brains and each had their own ideas on how to reach it, with some illithids and elder brains who devoted themselves to Ilsensine pursuing ways to dominate and even supplant knowledge gods on their quest to fully incorporate themselves into the universal consciousness.

Unlike in many Underdark theocracies, the Ilsensine clergy was simply one faction among many within their kind, normally forming into the Venerator Creed. This priesthood was small and select, for while normal illithids and elder brains alike could devote themselves to Ilsensine, few chose to do so and serve as its clerics. Every city had a handful of clerics, but despite the efforts of the Venerators to spread their membership, some communities simply lacked mind flayers able to channel a spell from the god-brain. The reason for this reluctance despite Ilsensine's complete dominion over the race stemmed from the nature of its creations.

Mind flayers did not worship their deity in the same sense that humans did, and were in fact incapable of true worship due to their innate and extreme egotism. Mind flayers envied its seemingly limitless knowledge and revered the god-brain for its all-sensing mental capacity, but they revered them as the manifestation of an idealized psionic and philosophical state of mind, the physical motions performed during occasional meditation on this ideal often being misinterpreted as proper worship. To the mind flayers, Ilsensine was the ultimate culmination of an elder brain's aspirations, what it (and thus any mind flayer who successfully joined in mental and spiritual union with it) could become after innumerable eons of growth.

Another reason for Ilsensine's lack of priesthood was the nature of his being. Ilsensine's omnipresent mental power was the source of their telepathy, mind blasts, and acute awareness, and the power of the illithids likewise flowed back to him and further increased his strength.[note 2] Thus, the energies of Ilsensine were everywhere, requiring no specific channeling or focus through spellcasters. Most mind flayers seemed more interested in developing their personal psionics than channeling another's power anyway, even that of their own god, and had a lower maximum capacity for attaining divine strength.

Becoming a cleric of Ilsensine also came with several disadvantages for an illithid, the most immediate of which was an extreme reduction in magical resistance performed as a simple act of will by Ilsensine itself. Without doing so, a mind flayer's magical resistance would prevent it from effectively channeling its divine power. The primary disincentive to mind flayers however was that in most communities, pledging one's self to Ilsensine was to forfeit the right to join the elder brain after death. Mind flayers lacked a mythical view of the afterlife and gods of the outer planes, often disbelieved in the idea they had souls that went there after death, and even when aware would rather merge with the elder brain than serve Ilsensine after death. Illithids already denied the possibility of communion usually worshiped Ilsensine in hopes their souls would be taken in.

These drawbacks in mind, there were mind flayers that did willingly dedicate themselves to Ilsensine. The primary advantage Ilsensine offered to mind flayer devotees was the ability to grant clerical spells, allowing them to advance their own psionics while simultaneously walking another path of power. Mind flayer clerics provided healing their communities and acted as medics for their hunting parties. They often served as thrallmasters, capturing unusual slaves on the surface, for they could not only control the living with psionics but the undead through their spells.[note 3]

The secondary advantage Ilsensine offered was information. As any sane illithid understood, knowledge was power, and if one could gain its favor the answers to many difficult questions could be obtained. Mind flayers might entreat or supplicate Ilsensine, but their lacking capacity for proper worship meant they only did so as the mood struck them, wandering into its temple to make boon requests or sacrifices. Through their worship, mind flayer priests enlisted its aid to know things hidden even to an elder brain, sometimes emulating it through the use of cranium rats as spies and long-range messengers.

Others

Though Ilsensine was the god of mind flayers, it promised power to all who followed them, so sometimes non-illithids, especially evil psions, formed cults in service to it.

Dogma

The teachings of the god-brain were that the spawn of Ilsensine were destined to conquer the surface and establish dominion over all other races, the source of their motivation for collective dominance being the powers of their deity. Priests of Ilsensine concerned themselves with exploration and knowledge, specifically exploiting knowledge gained through exploration. They also were known to match wits with powerful gith psions.

Those of the Venerator Creed made a point to expand for the "Glory of Ilsensine" and were the direct representatives of the god-brain's interests in illithid society. They worked closely with the Abysmal Creed, who in a sense functioned as missionaries to non-illithids, ranging far to reaveal the horror of the Tentacled Lord to unsubjugated races.

Though a distinction was made between the clerics and acolytes of an illithid clergy, the ability to cast priestly spells was not a requirement to be considered a cleric; it was entirely possible for both types to merely be normal mind flayers versed in Ilsensine's lore. Though not abhorred as arcane casters were,[note 4] priests usually did not mix with the rest of society.

Priests of Ilsensine rarely left their temples save for the performance of important ceremonies. Clerical illithids might conduct processions and pick thralls out for obscure purposes, and sometimes silently moved through the community on unclear errands. They lived monastically, pursuing knowledge for its own sake and engaging in psionic enhancement experiments.

Temples

Communities with a Venerator presence possessed temples dedicated to Ilsensine where the faithful could offer reverence, generally taking the form of small, non-descript shrines in out-of-the-way corners of the community. In the cases of larger houses of worship, chambers might be attached to the central temple for the devoted to reside in.

Rituals

In addition to offering the minds of sages, illithids honored by a visit from Ilsensine customarily dedicated a few in their community to its priesthood. So few were its clerics that novitiates received one-on-one apprenticeships with seniors (though cults formed under these cirumstances tended to die with the originally chosen mind flayers), the would-be cleric treated as little better than a thrall until he proved himself by casting a divine spell through imitation of his teacher.

Illithid custom saw mind flayers pray to Ilsensine upon consuming an especially delicious brain, the leftover ichor used to trace their symbol on a nearby surface. Prayers to the god-brain were performed telepathically, tentacles held perfectly still as a matter of respect.

Relationships

Ilsensine was not welcoming of others into its realm, preferring those it could control. Between that and the brain burn there was little reason to visit the Caverns of Thought save for one. If one could gain the god-brain's favor, likely requiring the surrender of part of one's mind (such as memory and/or sanity) as payment, they could beseech its cosmic knowledge. With Ilsensine's constant, reality-spanning sensory input and perfect memory, it likely knew more of dark secrets than any being in the cosmos, such as the weakness of any given foe. From here it was said, one could learn the answer behind almost any planar activity, assuming they could stay sane enough to ask the question, and most that got as far as Ilsensine's court never came back in the first place.

Ilsensine never rose exceptional mortal illithids to divinity, even as demigods, jealous as they were of their power and position, but they did have a servitor deity in Maanzecorian, the mind flayer god of knowledge and philosophy. Much like Ilsensine in attitude, he refrained from granting apotheosis out of jealousy and believed illithids to be the natural rulers of all realms and dominators of the other races, who were fit only for food and servitude. Unlike his master however, the Philosoflayer believed that other brains could provide valuable knowledge before consumption and that such an activity was most pleasurable after prolonged waiting.

Maanzecorian's veneration could have never reached that of Ilsensine, but he kept his priesthood small partially to avoid the appearance of trying to usurp Ilsensine's primacy. He was always deferential to the Tentacled Lord, but despite this position the god-brain was still his rival, and he did not always pass along everything he learned. He even kept a base called the Rotting Oracle, located between the realms of Ilsensine and Gzemnid, as an espionage post, having his spies and proxies keep tabs on his superior.

Besides Maanzecorian, Ilsensine had no allies save for the drow goddess of vengeance Kiaransalee. Foes included most of the rest of the drow pantheon, including Eilistraee, Lolth, Selvetarm and Vhaeraun, the elf god of revenge Shevarash, and the deep gnome god Callarduran Smoothhands. Dwarves

Ilsensine had a notably complex relationship with deities of dwarven origin. They enjoyed an obscure, non-hostile relationship with Dumathoin, dwarven god of underground exploration, but the exact relationship was unknown to other gods and their followers had no such accord. Dumathoin's Deepshaft Hall, part of the overall Dwarvish Mountain shared by Dugmaren and Vergadain, intertwined with Ilsensine's (although Ilsensine's was deeper) so it seemed likely Ilsensine had an interest in what Dumathoin did, but it was unclear what Dumathoin wanted in turn, if anything. Ilsensine even mind-wiped one of his petitioners and sent him back as a spy, but it was unclear if Dumathoin was unaware or indifferent.

The derro god Diirinka, the most magical of dwarf deities, stole much of his magic from Ilsensine, having left his brother Diinkarazan to suffer for their looting. A furious Ilsensine placed a complex curse on the Diinkarazan, trapping him in a layer of the Abyss to be tormented by visions of what he feared most (including Ilsensine), a curse that left him insane save for once every fifty years or so. To ensure he would be permanently trapped, the Tentacled Lord created the artifact known as Ilsensine's ring, and save for a greater god willing it, only the ring's destruction could grant Diinkarazan freedom.

There was a fierce enmity between Ilsensine and Deep Duerra, the duergar god of psionics, for she had stolen several secrets of the Invisible Art and robbed it of psionic energy many times. Besides hating Duerra, Ilsensine had also long sought vengeance against her superior Laduguer for some ancient slight. Agents

Aside from other deities, Ilsensine had various planar agents, not least of which were the eaters of knowledge, allegedly created by implanting some of the god-brain's own cerebral matter into a zombie petitioner. Caring little for their individual fates, eaters were sent to record places Ilsensine couldn't sense by devouring native minds, and otherwise acted as heralds to bear its words, instruments of its vengeance, payments for services performed by another power, or aids to its illithid followers (though even they were wary of the eaters).

Ilsensine also dispatched cranium rats as spies (quickly killing anyone who discovered this purpose) as eyes and ears for places beyond its influence, and possibly used them for long-distance communication. This could be done in the form of individual cranium rats or as hive minds, but while the latter were more capable, gathering too many in a single area risked them gaining the ability to break free of Ilsensine's control. A notable example of this phenomenon was "The Us" a cranium rat hive mind based in Sigil that broke free of Ilsensine's control so hated the god-brain that it acted to bring it pain and death.

Aside from these servants, Ilsensine generally used thought slayers as heralds. Strangely, its planar allies consisted of demons, specifically the psionic cerebriliths, logical mariliths, and seductive succubi.

History

Ilsensine was a mystery of the cosmos, their true origin nigh-impossible to discern. This origin was made even more confusing given the origins of the mind flayer race in the future prior to their grand act of time travel and the conception that the god-brain's omnipresence extended throughout time.

In any case, Ilsensine was held by the illithids as the Creator God, and allegedly existed alongside other deities before they created mortals. Illithids held that while other divine beings blundered in the Material Plane trying to stake claims with proto-creations, Ilsensine patiently perfected its own, the mind flayers being the result of an aeons-long series of experiments to craft the perfect species. Arrival

Ilsensine made itself known in the Realms immediately following the duergar uprising in Oryndoll against the illithids in approximately −4000 DR. The established governing bodies were in disarray in the aftermath of the rebellion and the city nearly collapsed from the resulting chaos, saved only by the sudden appearance of an avatar of Ilsensine, believed to have been summoned by its elder brain.

Following that appearance, Oryndoll diverge from standard illithid cities in many ways, developing many psionic innovations along with a highly religious culture. Ilsensine's manifestation apparently altered the tadpole pool so that the spawn rate of ulitharids was greatly increased. Furthermore, not only did the Venerator Creed emerge (as was typical for a mind flayer community after Ilsensine's visits), but the Tentacled Lord permitted Venerators to join the elder brain upon death, a practice forbidden in other communities. Venerators of Oryndoll taught that joining the elder brain guaranteed an afterlife as part of Ilsensine itself, and as a result of this acceptance the Venerators of Oryndoll persisted for centuries without dying out. Recent History

Sometime in the mid-14th century, Maanzecorian died before the demon lord Orcus, at the time a god of undeath known as Tenebrous, making Ilsensine the unquestioned supreme god of the mind flayers.

In 1358 DR, during the Time of Troubles, Ilsensine manifested in Oryndoll again, adopting as its avatar the city's elder brain and, as a consequence of its manifesation, stimulating the minds of the resident illithids. This further increased the influence of the Venerators, making Cephalossk, the Creedmaster of the Venerators, the most politically powerful (ignoring his monumental clerical powers that exceeded usual illithid capacities) inividual, save the elder brain itself. Tendril Rings were given to the elder brain and all Creedmasters in power at the time of Ilsensine's appearance, but those of the high priest Cephalossk had various additional, secret powers even he did not fully grasp.

The mental stimulation also and saw the Loretaker Creed renew their assaults on surface lore holdings and caused a burst of creative energy that resulted in the creation of new technologies, new psionic items, and more psionic disciplines from the Creative Creed. Shortly after, a band of adventurious illithids went on a pilgrimage to the Caverns of Thought, and while their success was unknown and uncommented on by the pilgrims themselves, they returned with the belief in Thoon, which was deemed heretical by the orthodox clergy and saw them exiled.

The unexpected loss of a shard of its consciousness had sent Ilsensine into a rage from which it could not calm until the fragment was restored. It dedicated all its energies into finding it and knowingly or not had compelled the council of Oryndoll to find it. It was speculated that Ilsensine was angry with Oryndoll, as astral travelers reported seeing strange explosions in astral space near portals from the City of Loretakers, and psychics claimed to have heard strange alien screams and had visions of an enormous, betentacled head quaking in anger. The artifact had somehow ened up buried somewhere in the sandy caves of the Sembian coast, and many groups of mercenaries were hired to obtain it (without being told what it was).

Ilsensine

Greater deity

Basic Information

Titles

The Tentacled Lord
The Great Brain
The God-Brain

Pantheons

Illithid

Served By

Maanzecorian (Dead)

Attributes

Alignment

Lawful Evil

Symbol

A brain with two tentacles
A stylized illithid face rendered in jade green

Realm

Concordant Domain of the Outlands/Caverns of Thought

Portfolio

Conquest, Knowledge, Magic, Mental Dominion, Mental Power

Favored Weapon

Tentacle (whip or an unarmed strike for non-illithids)

Following

Worshippers

Illithids

Alignments

LN, LE, NE

Domains

Charm (Captivation)
Evil (Fear)
Knowledge (Memory, Thought)
Law (Slavery, Tyranny)
Magic (-)

Favored Aspects

Monsters

Cranium rats