![]() ![]() Mind flayers, or Illithids, are bizarre, intelligent creatures that feed mainly on the sentient brains of others (with deadly efficient use of their mouthparts and tentacles). Seemingly lifeless, piercing eyes read and track not only your every movement, but your every thought. ![]() Solitary, pair, brood (3-5), Cult (3-5 and 6-10 humanoid minions)Ī frightening, hideous humanoid-shape stands proudly, with long, writhing, feeling tentacles protruding from its head, covering its apparent mouth-hole, glimpses of circular rows of teeth revealed with each motion. Intentions +7, Bluff +11, sight +11, concentration +11, diplomacy +7, Disguise +3 (+5 act), Dupe +11, Intimidate +9, Stealth +10, Knowledge (selec one) +12. Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse, Combat Casting. Mental boom, Telepathic battle, Mind flay, Tentacles It does risk stepping on a cool part of the intellect devourers' schtick, although you could also play with the denizens as the source of that particular power.Tentacle +8 C/C (1d4+1), 4 tentacles +8 C/C (1d4+1) In Golarion, associating them tightly with dreams makes them a natural foil for the servitors of Desna. The denizens could also transform slaves physically taken to Leng, which is harder to work in to a campaign, but is closer to the illithid's approach and still allows for the rescue mission. The freshly-transformed denizen's journal almost writes itself.Īnd traveling to the Dimension of Dreams to free someone's dreamself from Leng is just begging to be an adventure. The victim could also deprive themselves of sleep and use curative magic to slow the process. ![]() And, at the end of the process, the denizens get a new "child" that maintains some elements of its old body and knowledge, maybe even hiding its transformation to maintain a position in society.ĭreams are nice in that you can throw them at PCs and NPCs alike, keeping the horror front and center without impeding a character's ability to adventure or fight back too much. The process of gaining tentacles, sharpened teeth, claws, horns, new skin, different organs, and reversed legs could be milked for months of brutal unpleasantness, if one were so inclined. If you wanted to reinsert the body horror aspects, they could capture dreamers and torture them, bringing their physical body a little closer to being a denizen of Leng every time they sleep. In Lovecraft's works, they live in the Dreamlands (the Dimension of Dreams in Pathfinder) and are implied to be degenerate humans. Illithids aren't canon for Golarion or the Pathfinder Campaign Setting though, as has already been said, so whatever you make of them is your call. (Though I'm quite happy to break ties with WotC Product Identity and likely won't be converting illithids for use.) If I were to use illithids in Golarion at all, I'd likely just make them a servitor race of the neothelids. The neothelid illustration in the Pathfinder Bestiary is way better than the WotC illustration for the creature and it is much more inspiring for some alien horror. The neothelids are given a bigger role in the Darklands in Golarion than they were in the Underdark of yore because they're not just some illithid bio-waste. If you want to have illithids in your game, perhaps instead of having them be an aboleth experiment or creation, they could be a neothelid experiment. Neothelids are illithid tadpoles that were never implanted in a brain as detailed in Wizards of the Coast materials, but Paizo doesn't have that history for them since illithids aren't available for use but neothelids are. ![]()
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