Illithid
Also known as ‘Mind Flayers’, Illithids are a fearsome psychic species found across countless worlds. They’re identified by their octopus like heads, with four tentacles draping down from where their mouths would be. Illithid have a reputation for being loathed by most sapient species, due to their dietary habits and methods of reproduction; Illithid begin their lives as a parasitic, tadpole like organism which buries into, consumes, and eventually replaces the brain of a humanoid creature. The creature remains dependent on the brains of sentient humanoids for sustainance thereafter. Illithid ships (strange, biotechnical structures known as ‘nautiloids’ for their mollusk like shape) are often pirate and slaver vessels, raiding ships and settlements of sapient beings for food stock and breeding material.
Free Illithid tend to work as information brokers and scientists, relying on synthetic brain substitutes, 'donations’ from Eox, or Aeon Stones for sustainance. Many have found work with the Starfinder Society, in particular the Infophiles, as their love of knowledge and secrets transcends the will of an Elder Brain. Some, eager to free their brethren from the command of the Elder Brains, have taken to raiding and capturing Illithid colonies in order to destroy their Elder Brains or (more likely) subject those they capture to Psychic Surgery in an attempt to liberate them. This rarely works.
A few Elder Brains have also taken to sending infiltrators, Illithid who are still fanatically loyal, yet who pretend to have been liberated in order to spy on Pact Worlds society. Despite this loyalty, the distance from the Elder Brain means that these Illithid run the risk of becoming Renegade themselves.
Basic Information
Anatomy
A mind flayer stands around the same height as a human, typically between 5'4" and 6'2", having humanoid shape and narrow build. Its head resembles an octopus, with four writhing tentacles where its mouth is. Its skin color ranges from mauve to a greenish lavender, soft and damp like an amphibious creature, and constantly covered by a layer of glistening slime.
A mind flayer's hands have three narrow reddened fingers and a thumb, while its feet have two webbed toes. Its fingers and toes are capped with sharp nails, although despite appearances these are made from soft cartilage and do not serve well as weapons. Its eyes are pure white.
The mind flayer's most deadly physical feature is its tentacled mouth. A mind flayer's four prehensile tentacles can be extended from around 2 feet to to around 4 feet in length, and the mind flayer can manipulate them with great precision. Its small, circular mouth is lined with rows of teeth. It constantly drips an oily slime. Despite lacking a jaw, the mind flayer is capable of speech.
Biological Traits
Genetics and Reproduction
Mind flayers begin their lives as tiny parasitic tadpoles which hatch from eggs in spawning pools. Adult mind flayers are hermaphroditic, and perhaps two or three times in their lifetime they will lay a batch of around one thousand eggs in the pool.
These eggs hatch after around a month and take ten years to reach maturity, by which stage they reach three inches in length. During this time, they are routinely fed a slurry of brain matter and organs.
Growth Rate & Stages
Over 99% of tadpoles do not reach maturity, instead consumed as psychic fodder by the elder brain, who inhabits the pool. The surviving parastic tadpoles are inserted into the body of a humanoid captured for this purpose, which burrows its way into the individual's brain, growing over the course of one week until it completely replaces the victim's brain.
This transformation process is known as ceremorphosis. Humans are typical victims, but humanoids of similar size are also used, such as elves (including drow), gith, orcs and goblinoids. The resulting mind flayers spend the next twenty years in a period of growth and education before they are permitted to leave the city.
When a mind flayer dies, their brain is ceremonially removed and cast into the spawning pool, where it is absorbed by the elder brain, a enormous and ancient psionic being who rules a mind flayer city. The elder brain absorbs the mind flayer's knowledge. It is the greatest punishment in mind flayer society to be denied joining with the elder brain upon death.
Dietary Needs and Habits
A mind flayer must consume humanoid brains to survive. Its digestive tract is self-aware and absorbs not just the necessary enzymes and hormones, which the mind flayer's parasitic brain is inacapable of producing itself, but the psychic energy of its victims' brains. The mind flayer's mouth produces an enzyme which breaks through the victim's skull, and cannot be stopped by any known substance other than the slime which coats a mind flayer's skin.
A mind flayer must eat one fresh brain per month to survive, or at least one every two weeks for optimal health. Ideally, a mind flayer will eat as many as one brain per week. While the mind flayers breed slaves, these mature too slowly and the dull and the psychic energy of a wretched slave makes for a boring meal.
Planetary surface raids are a preferable source of fresh brains. Intelligent surface-dwelling creatures make preferable meals. Such raids have been known to depopulate entire villages. Among their favourites include humans, drow, halflings and derro. They will occasionally enjoy more exotic fare, including nymphs, umber hulks and xorns.
Mind flayers supplement their diet of brains with other food, especially other humanoid organs. While these lack psychic energy, they do provide the mind flayer with basic nutrients.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Mind flayers live in well-protected subterranean communities, typically consisting of between 200 and 2,000 individuals. Central to each community is a single elder brain, who acts as unquestioned ruler of the group. Each mind flayer may also own multiple thralls or slaves.
Mind flayer settlements are dimly lit, with their innate darkvision obviating the need for lighting except for their thralls. Vast waterways and fountains serve to maintain high humidity that is amenable to the mind flayers, who prefer to keep their skin moist.
Illithid settlements are designed around a large central plaza. Their architecture is vast and dark, conveying an air of ancient decadence. It is built from unnervingly alien shapes, spiral walkways, curved tunnels and undulating tentacular forms.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
A mind flayer is vulnerable to certain unique mental and physical illnesses. Exhausting one's mental reserves of psionic energy on a regular basis can cause a brain damage known as psionic cascade, which can trigger psionic powers randomly and eventually cause death. Illithid can also suffer from psychic flareback, a rare backfire which can destroy their ability to use psionic power entirely.
They can contract a common illness called "the ashen", a flu-like disease which causes beige, dry skin and impaired mental functioning. A more serious condition is that of a partial personality, where a remnant of the host body's mind survives the transformation process.
Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms
An illithid tadpole unintentionally allowed to grow without being implanted into a host can grow until it becomes a neothelid, a wild psionic predator. They are typically formed from tadpoles who survive the destruction of an elder brain, who soon turn on each other in a cannibalistic frenzy until only one massive survivor remains.
Civilization and Culture
Major Organizations
Mind flayers frequently operate alone, but they will work in pairs or in larger groups when the situation demands it. A collective of three to five mind flayers assembled for specific purpose is known as an inquisition, and somewhat resembles an adventuring party in purpose and variety of composition.
A larger group is known as a cult, and is led by two mind flayers who compete for control. The mind flayers are usually accompanied by mind-controlled thralls, and as in normal illithid society it is common for the number of thralls to outnumber the mind flayers at least two to one.
Relationship Ideals
Average Technological Level
Illithid ships (strange, biotechnical structures known as ‘nautiloids’ for their mollusk like shape) are often pirate and slaver vessels, raiding ships and settlements of sapient beings for food stock and breeding material. Nearly every Illithid ship or compound is commanded by an Elder Brain; a psychic entity which feeds upon the brains and psychic energies of its victims. Though Illithid are all individually very intelligent and posess a great deal of willpower to an outside observer, they tend to lack any real will of their own. Their memories and perceptions are meticulously shaped by the Elder Brain, instilling loyalty to the point that most Illithid function as mere extensions of the abberant brain’s will. Each Elder Brain is different, but all rely on their colonies of Illithid to provide them with knowledge and sustainance.
Major Language Groups and Dialects
The mind flayers are telepathic, and have no need for a spoken language of their own. However, they are capable of using and understanding speech, and typically speak Aklo. The mind flayers possess a written script, Qualith, which has no spoken form. It consists of raised dashes and spaces, and is read by touch. It is written in four parallel lines which are intended to be read simultaneously, and is a written interpretation of telepathic communication. It is commonly engraved on walls in illithid cities, but is extremely difficult for non-illithids to comprehend. Mind flayers are intelligent, and commonly learn other languages, including Common.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
The most commonly worshiped mind flayer deity is Ilsensine, an illithid deity of knowledge. It has no physical body or gender, but manifests in the form of a giant brain whose ganglia reach to all corners of existence and learn from the minds of all beings across the multiverse.
Illithid clerics of Ilsensine live secluded and monastic lives, and are rarely seen outside of their temples. They spend much of their time in psionic research and the pursuit of esoteric knowledge. The aphorism "with an illithid's faith" is used by adventurers to mean "with treachery"
History
The Illithid were, in the millenia before the gap, rulers of a vast stellar empire; led by a single Elder Brain and its many subordinates in a network of galactic tyranny. When this brain was slain in a rebellion by an ancient warrior known as Gith, the empire collapsed on itself, and the Elder Brains took to infighting and pursuing their own agendas, with some even settling on lost Golarion. It is unknown what happened to the Illithid during the Gap, as they had regained space travel and had already established hidden colonies on many Pact Worlds. What is known is the aftermath, and the effect it had on both Illithid and Pact Worlds society.
You see, because Illithids are parasites which replace the brains of sentient creatures, the unfortunate victim doesn’t actually die. Instead, the victims soul is metaphysically merged with that of the nascent illithid, and maintains a faint echo of the individuals memories, alignment, and personality. As Illithid are naturally psychically sentitive, the newly formed mind flayer is invariably influenced by the nature of their past host; sharing hobbies, interests, and even alignment. As a rule, Elder Brains take considerable effort to stamp out such remnants, suppressing any fragments of the host’s persona that still linger. As Charm and Dominate effects only function for a brief period of time and require constant maintanance, and an individual Elder Brain can have hundreds (if not thousands) of Illithid in their employ, most rely on manipulating the memories and perceptions of these 'problem children’ to ensure their loyalty.
So when a galaxy wide event wiped out everyone’s memories for the past few millenia, many of these so-called Renegade Illithid experienced the first moments of true lucidity, and the long supressed personas of their souls quickly reasserted themselves… now backed with the psychic powers and mental abilities of a fully formed Illithid. Many were horrified or enraged at the Tyranny of the Elder Brains, either staging their own rebellions or fleeing from the Elder Brains control. In the aftermath of the Chaos, the Pact Worlds suddenly found themselves host to a rather large Illithid refugee population, consisting of the Renegade Illithid who had regained fragments of their original personalities, and the many Illithid whose Elder Brains were slain in the chaos, leaving them listless and without a guiding force. It took years (and some nudging from Eox) for them to be recognized as Pact Worlds citizens, but now it’s not uncommon to spot an Illithid living on the decks of Absalom Station, or working independently in the Diaspora.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Mind flayers are feared and reviled by most sentient races. The mind flayers truly hate the githyanki and githzerai, who they once kept enslaved thousands of years ago, and the hatred is mutual. They regularly recruit spies within gith society, aiming to keep the two gith factions at war with each other so that they never unite against the mind flayers.
Mind flayers particularly fear the undead, whose unliving minds cannot be detected or harmed with psionics, and who often have no brains for the mind flayer to eat.
Mind flayers regulary keep humanoids as enslaved thralls, controlled by constant psionic bombardment and bred to be docile. The life of a thrall is nightmarish and short, and usually ends with the mind flayer eating their brains and feeding the rest of the body to other thralls. Mind flayers typically use their thralls as slaves and armies, and owning a large collection of unique slaves carries great social status. Mind flayers do not form alliances unless they have something to gain.
- +2 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Str. [4 HP]
- 30 Feet (Ground)
- Illithid Magic: Illithid gain the following spell-like abilities.
- At Will: Daze, Psychokinetic Hand
- 1/Day: Mind Thrust
- The Illithid treats their character level as the caster level for the purposes of this effect. When an Illithid uses this ability to cast Mind Thrust, it is always cast at first level. An Illithid capable of casting spells (such as a Mystic or Technomancer) instead adds Mind Thrust to their spells known. An Illithid with the Major Psychic Power feat may select Mind Thrust as a second level spell.
- Psychic Potential: Illithid count as having the Minor Psychic Power feat for the purposes of meeting prerequisites. In addition, they do not need to meet the Charisma prerequisites for Minor Psychic Power or any feat which has it as a prerequisite.
- Limited Telepathy: Illithid can communicate telepathically with any creatures within 30 feet with whom they share a language.
- Tentacles: Illithid have long, grasping tentacles sprouting from their mouths which they use to consume their prey. They have a +4 bonus on attack rolls to grapple foes their size category or smaller. An Illithid can use these tentacles to perform a Coup De Grace on a Helpless Foe, dealing damage as if the Illithid had the Improved Unarmed Strike feat. If the target dies, their brain is extracted and may be consumed by the Illithid.
- Darkvision: Illithid have Darkvision out to 60 Feet.
- Light Blindness: An Illithid exposed to bright light is blinded in one round and dazzled for as long as they remain in the area of Bright Light.
Dietary Requirements: Illithid cannot consume normal food, instead relying on the brain matter of sentient creatures for sustenance. While substitutes are available in the Pact Worlds, they are rare and expensive. An Illithid who attempts to consume any food or drink (except water) not intended for Illithids, even unintentionally, must immediately make a DC 15 Fortitude Save or become Nauseated. All rations, meals, and intoxicants for Illithids cost twice as much as normal to accommodate for their specialized dietary needs. In addition, colonies lacking an Illithid population are unlikely to have such substitutes at all, though they can be crafted with the Life Sciences skill, non-sentient brain matter, and UPBs equal to their cost.
While these dietary substitutes are sufficient in keeping Illithids alive, they pale in comparison to a freshly consumed brain from a sentient creature. Whenever an Illithid successfully Coup De Graces a sentient creature with their Tentacles and consumes their brain, they are sated for an entire week. Such consumption is considered to be an evil act for purposes of alignment, and is highly illegal in the Pact Worlds.
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