How to Run Vampiric Mind Flayers From Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

Mind flayers are iconic monsters in Dungeons & Dragons that have appeared in numerous campaign settings and adventures. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft brings to fifth edition another kind of mind flayer, one that lacks their intellect and sophistication but are frightfully strong and dexterous. Vampiric mind flayers are the undead creation of a dying elder brain that desperately clings to life. Find out how to bring vampiric mind flayers to your table.

Vampiric mind flayers: Vicious siblings to mind flayers

Vampiric mind flayers are physically and mentally unstable beings. Ghoulish creatures, they let nothing stand between them and their existential imperatives. Although they possess the telepathic abilities of mind flayers, their brains aren’t equipped to employ them. Instead, they bombard nearby creatures with a mental static of visceral visions.

Source: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

vampiric mind flayerVampiric mind flayers are animalistic predators that appear in Bluetspur, a Domain of Dread of cosmic horror and monstrous experimentation. They are the result of an elder brain that infects mind flayer tadpoles with vampirism. Reaching maturity, these mind flayers hunt down humanoids beyond the Mists and drain them of their cerebral fluid. Bloated and lumbering, vampiric mind flayers will return to their elder brain to be liquefied into a balm.

Vampiric mind flayers disturb their more intelligent and sophisticated siblings, mind flayers. They lack personality or desire beyond serving their elder brain. For mind flayers, these creatures are the stuff of nightmare — they are mind flayers that lack agency and have no sense of self-preservation except to return to the God-Brain to be destroyed.

Bluetspur: The Domain of Alien Memories

Bluetspur is an incomprehensible wasteland of floating mountains and violent storms. Few creatures roam the inhabitable surface world of this Domain of Dread, though many have taken refuge deep underground. There, mind flayers toil away in futuristic laboratories for a cure to an alien disease that slowly kills the God-Brain, the domain's Darklord. All the while, the God-Brain dreams up more terrible experiments and creations in its demented state, including the ravenous vampiric mind flayer.

If the inclusion of Bluetspur doesn't suit your campaign, you can include vampiric mind flayers in other ways. An ancient vampire might have sought more powerful minions and experimented on mind flayer tadpoles. Or a human scientist could have sought to weaponize these creatures, but instead was devoured when its creation reached maturity.

Vampiric mind flayers in combat

Vampiric mind flayers have a challenge rating of 5, making them suitable for a party of four 5th-level adventurers. If you want to raise the stakes, these creatures can be found with intellect devourers. One vampiric mind flayer accompanied by an intellect devourer represents a hard encounter, according to our Encounters tool

With high Wisdom, vampiric mind flayers will be tactical when attacking enemies. Their high Dexterity allows them to sneak up on targets until they are in range of their bonus action ability, Disrupt Psyche. This ability targets Intelligence saving throws and can take down threats before they get a chance to act in combat:

Disrupt Psyche (Recharge 5–6). The mind flayer magically emits psionic energy in a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on itself. Each creature in that area must succeed on a DC 15 Intelligence saving throw or be incapacitated for 1 minute. The incapacitated creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Vampiric mind flayers have low Intelligence, so they might not properly assess threats. They might choose to keep a watchful eye on the barbarian with a bloody greataxe rather than the wizard with phantasmal force, for example. That said, you will have to decide whether the vampiric mind flayer's Wisdom score means that it will target an incapacitated creature and escape after draining it of cerebral fluid, or if it will attack those who are still standing.

For its Action, the vampiric mind flayer will need to use its Multiattack before it can take a sip out of player characters. Its Tentacles automatically grapple on a hit. The required DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) to break free is a high bar for spellcasters and neatly sets up the vampiric mind flayer's Drink Sapience Action:

Drink Sapience. The mind flayer targets one creature it is grappling. The target must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or take 14 (4d6) psychic damage and gain 1 level of exhaustion. The mind flayer regains a number of hit points equal to the psychic damage dealt. A creature reduced to 0 hit points by the psychic damage dies.

Imposing exhaustion is a nice touch for the creature's Drink Sapience ability. One point of it imposes disadvantage on ability checks, including those required to break a grapple. Meanwhile, regaining hit points off the psychic damage dealt could mean the vampiric mind flayer gets an extra turn or two before fleeing or dying. Unfortunately, Drink Sapience doesn't do anything if the target successfully saves.

The vampiric mind flayer might flee

Vampiric mind flayers are psychically linked to the elder brain that created them. If the God-Brain exists in your adventure and the vampiric mind flayers want to flee, then the Mists will roll onto the battlefield, opening a gateway to Bluetspur. This can trigger an adventure if the player characters pursue the vampiric mind flayer, which uses its high bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks to lose them before returning to the God-Brain.  

Playing with vampiric mind flayers at your table

vampiric mind flayers artworkVan Richten's Guide to Ravenloft offers a variety of adventure hooks that lead player characters to Bluetspur. Player characters might be unwittingly abducted and returned with only scattered memories of experiments conducted on them in Bluetspur. These serve as a talisman to the domain. But if you want an adventure set in the Material Plane that involves vampiric mind flayers, you can tweak the following to suit your party's level:

A mind flayer seeks the party's aid

In the bustling city streets, you see an older man dressed in robes lumbering forward, his eyes blankly staring into yours. He beckons you forward with a crooked finger. "A private ... audience ... if you will," he says, his voice strained.

He walks backwards, bumping into others who pay little mind to him, his unblinking eyes locked on you. He rounds a corner to an empty alleyway and stops to point at an open sewer grate on the far end. "He ... seeks ... your aid," the man says, bowing stiffly.

A mind flayer known as S'lthell has traveled to the surface seeking a cure for vampirism. A decade before, its colony's elder brain was afflicted with vampirism. Illithid tadpoles placed in the spawning pool where the elder brain dwells have similarly been afflicted and become vampiric mind flayers. Over the years, these creatures have overrun the colony. Because the elder brain attacks any mind flayers who oppose its growing army, S'lthell fears the colony will collapse with no new mind flayers being born.

Making a deal with the illithid

Player characters who enter the sewers will be telepathically contacted by S'lthell, who has set up a base of operations nearby. It explains the blight of vampirism on its colony and offers a deal to the adventuring party: Help it cure the elder brain of its vampirism and it will see that humanoids trapped in the colony are released.

To accomplish this task, the party will need to research and concoct a balm that can cure the elder brain's vampirism. Further, the party will need to apply the balm themselves. S'lthell has been banished from the spawning pool after arguing against the elder brain's continued creation of vampiric mind flayers. However, S'lthell can ensure the party is tasked with looking after the elder brain, and that they are safely taken to and from the colony.

Refusing to help: Should the party refuse to help, a vampiric mind flayer will attack a commoner in the city in the following weeks. Following this attack, S'lthell will approach the party once more, explaining that the elder brain now seeks to extend its domain to the surface world, and that this attack was simply to measure the city's response.

Despite the risks involved in invading the surface, no other mind flayers have risen to S'lthell's cause. Should the party still refuse to make a deal with S'lthell, the city will be attacked by a mob of vampiric mind flayers and intellect devourers. In the chaos that ensues, two mind flayers will attempt to sneak into the city's castle or other center of power and gain control of high-ranking officials.

Finding the cure for vampirism

Landwell Tikrite, a nonbinary halfling alchemist who dwells in the city holds the secret to ending the elder brain's ailment. During their off-hours, Landwell studies the undead, believing that science can uncover the secrets to their unending lives — and use those secrets for good. In what way, Landwell isn't entirely sure. In exchange for creating the balm required to heal the elder brain, Landwell asks the party to bring back a sample from the creature for experimentation.

Creating the balm requires material components costing 15 gold, in addition to the fang of a vampire or vampire spawn. At night, one of these creatures can be found terrorizing commoners who live near the city's graveyard. During the day, the creature takes refuge in one of the graveyard's crypts. When Landwell has the necessary components, they produce the balm after three workdays.

Venturing into the Underdark

When the party returns to S'lthell in the sewers, it reveals its plan for getting them into the colony: S'lthell will need to take control of them in order to dupe any mind flayers who might read their thoughts when they first arrive.* Once inside, S'lthell will relinquish its control over the party and assign them various tasks around the colony until the elder brain accepts them as caretakers. Such tasks can include the following:

Tasks in the mind flayer colony

1 Protecting a herd of rothé from an umber hulk spotted in the area.
2 Cleaning fighting pits where nightly duels are held.
3 Putting on a performance that entertains other mind flayers and showcases the party's strengths.
4 Collecting decorative flowers, which are protected by swarms of rot grubs.

* If loss of agency makes any of your players uncomfortable, the adventuring party might instead be tasked with learning and reciting phrases to successfully dupe any suspicious mind flayers. 

elder brainCaring for the elder brain

When the party is permitted into the elder brain's chambers, they find the creature partially submerged in a spawning pool filled with innumerable infected mind flayer tadpoles. The elder brain is protected by two vampiric mind flayers that keep watch over the caretakers. Changed by its vampirism, the elder brain is lethargic and frequently hungers for cranial fluids.

Every couple hours, the elder brain demands to be fed, at which point a mind flayer brings in servants to be drained by the vampiric mind flayers on guard. Afterward, the vampiric mind flayers enter the spawning pool and are liquefied. During this time, the party can safely apply the balm and take a sample of the elder brain as it is unguarded and distracted.

Alternatively, the party can make a group Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) or Charisma (Deception) check to safely apply the balm and take a sample. If they fail, S'lthell will enter the chamber and distract the elder brain and vampiric mind flayers long enough for the party to accomplish these tasks. S'lthell dies in doing so.

Curing the elder brain

When the balm is applied to the elder brain, a psychic pulse resonates through the colony, disrupting the mind flayers' psychic abilities and causing vampiric mind flayers in the area to enter into a frenzy. The elder brain is incapacitated for 1 hour as it heals from its vampirism.

As the colony erupts into chaos, S'lthell takes one of three courses of action, depending on its attitude toward the party:

  1. Friendly: S'Ithell uses the opportunity to help the party and other servants escape. Doing so draws the attention of other mind flayers, who are too distracted to attack but will later have S'lthell exiled from the colony.
  2. Indifferent: S'Ithell is true to its word and is later exiled from its colony for providing aid. However, S'lthell doesn't trust the party and has them followed by intellect devourers to ensure that they do not reveal the location of its colony when they return to the city. If they do, the intellect devourers attack. Otherwise, they stop tracking the party after a few days.
  3. Hostile: S'Ithell refuses to help the party but does not interfere in their escape, or if they help servants escape.

When the party and freed servants return to the surface, word quickly spreads of their deeds, and the city launches a project to find and seal off any entrances into the Underdark. In the months that follow, the party hears rumors of humanoids in nearby towns going missing. In truth, S'lthell's colony has returned to normalcy and begun replacing the servants who escaped. 

Watch your head!

Vampiric mind flayers are another terrifying addition to D&D in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Whether you take your party to the alien domain of Bluetspur or inject these creatures into an adventure rife with vampires, vampiric mind flayers can make for a challenging encounter with surprising and horrifying abilities. Happy hunting! 

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is available to purchase on D&D Beyond! It offers two new subclasses, lineages, all-new monsters, and more! Master-tier subscribers can share content they purchase in the marketplace with players in their campaigns.


  


Michael Galvis (@michaelgalvis) is a tabletop content producer for D&D Beyond. He is a longtime Dungeon Master who enjoys horror films and all things fantasy and sci-fi. When he isn’t in the DM’s seat or rolling dice as his anxious halfling sorcerer, he’s playing League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering with his husband. They live together in Los Angeles with their adorable dog, Quentin.

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