hi guys, writing a campaign here involving aforementioned tentacular horrors. i like to have a logical basis for most stuff in my campaigns to give them verisimilitude and to allow the players to change the world with their decisions. so im trying for an answer to the header question. its more just a water cooler topic in my mind, but any answers i can get would be fun. some facts to be thinking with:

1. mind flayers absorb the memories of every brain they eat. thus a 50yo flayer eating 1 brain/day would have eaten the memories of 18, 250 people.

2. those memories would include the memories of 20th level casters, fighters and so on. so any flayer would automatically be a super everything, god-like in its power.

3. add to this the fact that you have 18,250 intellects informing the flayer's decisions. so it would know all agriculture, economics, psychology, whatever

so: why is Oerth not a massive concentration camp being run by flayers?

anything you can contribute would be good

cheers geoff :)

Well, for one thing they don't absorb the knowledge nearly as perfectly as you describe. From Volo's Guide to Monsters "When a mind flayer devours a brain, it acquires stray memories from its victim". They're primarily fed by the inherent psionic energy of a mind and the meat, not thoughts or memories, and they don't gain an instant perfectly understood database of knowledge with each meal.

Another limitation on them is that the colonies rely on being networked in with their Elder Brain to function as a society, and the brain has a hard limit to that network range, is not mobile, and while it has the power to easily fend off a mob with pitchforks and torches, it's much less able to protect itself from a line of trebuchets or a group of mages chucking fireballs. It doesn't come up mechanically, but the elder brain can't survive for long outside of the brine pool it rests in, so it's not even a case of necessarily reducing the HP, just causing enough structural damage around it. Thus the source of their greatest strength is a glass cannon, and so they try to avoid drawing the kind of attention that brings armies to their doors.

Also the lore indicates they were a massive empire in the past, but something shredded their civilization or otherwise took them off the board, so proportionately their population is low and scattered.

Adventurers. Adventurers prevent the dominance of manyfold creatures that would otherwise rule a planet.

right. youve obviously been doing some reading, i was just going off the MM description. two things occurred to me:

1. the flayer brain would simply not have the processing ability to absorb and use the memories of 18,250 minds. if the illithid could pick and choose what it absorbed, it could go the memory set of an L20 cleric, but if it had very limited control as we do, then it might just absorb a spell here, an emotion there..
2. something about the reproductive cycle. its a bit complex, requires tech. so that could be a limiting factor

re lost empires, im going to have a peruse thru the gith lore for some ideas. dont really see anything from the giths at first glance that would terminate the flayers. thats alright. any old nonsense will do as long as i can persuade the victims i mean players to suspend disbelief

i do think the elder brain does present the possibility for geometric power expansion. give any colony enough time and it will control the region. that is because it is huge and thus could process many memories. feed it enough flayers and it actually would have all those L20 abilities.

Quote from geoffwalker >>

right. youve obviously been doing some reading, i was just going off the MM description. two things occurred to me:

1. the flayer brain would simply not have the processing ability to absorb and use the memories of 18,250 minds. if the illithid could pick and choose what it absorbed, it could go the memory set of an L20 cleric, but if it had very limited control as we do, then it might just absorb a spell here, an emotion there..
2. something about the reproductive cycle. its a bit complex, requires tech. so that could be a limiting factor

re lost empires, im going to have a peruse thru the gith lore for some ideas. dont really see anything from the giths at first glance that would terminate the flayers. thats alright. any old nonsense will do as long as i can persuade the victims i mean players to suspend disbelief

i do think the elder brain does present the possibility for geometric power expansion. give any colony enough time and it will control the region. that is because it is huge and thus could process many memories. feed it enough flayers and it actually would have all those L20 abilities.

I mean, when it comes to "absorbing" spells, keep in mind magic isn't a cosmic vending machine, especially for pretty much any spellcasting class aside from Wizards. Clerics, Paladins, Druids, Rangers, and Warlocks are all forming a connection with an external source one way or another- typically from behavioral qualities rather than cognitive processes so imitating the steps doesn't guarantee results.

As for the gith, they all have psychic resistance and the zerai have advantage on saves against charm as well. That's a pretty hefty counter to the basic Illithid kit of options, and while the illithids' status as mid-tier enemies means they don't really show it in HP terms, it's indicated that Illithid aren't really built for dealing with enemies who can weather the initial psionics and mob them.

Who says they aren't? O.O

You could always run Mindflayers like the Silents from Doctor Who, To copy/paste from the wiki for the organisation called "the Silence": "Some members belonged to a race of genetically engineered priests (known as Silents) who used post-hypnotic suggestion to manipulate other species into doing their bidding and to make confessions. All memory of the Silents would also be erased from one's memory after an individual looked away from them. The Silents also employed human and humanoid agents to carry out specific tasks".

So maybe the Mindflayers are ruling everything and people just forget as soon as eye contact is broken.

They may have at one point, but their multiversal empire fell, probably from the revolt of Gith and her people. Now their descendants .. well actually probably also some of the original Githyanki since they don't age .. hunt and kill Mind Flayers across all worlds.

They were at some stage the dominant empire across the stars. They're a fallen people, their empire shattered and their birthrate is insufficient to recover, plus each colony despises eachother, they lost their ability to commune with each other and cannot organize beyond the basic group level and even then they are constantly betraying each other. Heap on the fact that virtually every other species in the universe will kill a flayer on sight that pretty much explains the why. The how is up to you. 

Quote from Wysperra >>

Adventurers. Adventurers prevent the dominance of manyfold creatures that would otherwise rule a planet.

 The Githyanki, their former slaves rose up against the, still hunt them down.

Quote from geoffwalker >>

hi guys, writing a campaign here involving aforementioned tentacular horrors. i like to have a logical basis for most stuff in my campaigns to give them verisimilitude and to allow the players to change the world with their decisions. so im trying for an answer to the header question. its more just a water cooler topic in my mind, but any answers i can get would be fun. some facts to be thinking with:

1. mind flayers absorb the memories of every brain they eat. thus a 50yo flayer eating 1 brain/day would have eaten the memories of 18, 250 people.

2. those memories would include the memories of 20th level casters, fighters and so on. so any flayer would automatically be a super everything, god-like in its power.

3. add to this the fact that you have 18,250 intellects informing the flayer's decisions. so it would know all agriculture, economics, psychology, whatever

so: why is Oerth not a massive concentration camp being run by flayers?

anything you can contribute would be good

cheers geoff :)

 I don't know if it's been changed as of late, but the lore I'm familiar with says that the illithids come from a far distant future where they do rule everything and have sent themselves back in time to make that future happen.  They don't doubt that they will make it happen since they remember that it already has from the perspective of whence they came.  So it is simply too soon in the timeline for them to have done it yet; but it is an eventuality; unless of course 'the heroes' can alter fate and time.  This is the goal of the Gith races, to try to thwart the future, that they know from their experience as slaves of the illithids, that already is dominated by them.

Quote from geoffwalker >>

hi guys, writing a campaign here involving aforementioned tentacular horrors. i like to have a logical basis for most stuff in my campaigns to give them verisimilitude and to allow the players to change the world with their decisions. so im trying for an answer to the header question. its more just a water cooler topic in my mind, but any answers i can get would be fun. some facts to be thinking with:

1. mind flayers absorb the memories of every brain they eat. thus a 50yo flayer eating 1 brain/day would have eaten the memories of 18, 250 people.

2. those memories would include the memories of 20th level casters, fighters and so on. so any flayer would automatically be a super everything, god-like in its power.

3. add to this the fact that you have 18,250 intellects informing the flayer's decisions. so it would know all agriculture, economics, psychology, whatever

so: why is Oerth not a massive concentration camp being run by flayers?

anything you can contribute would be good

cheers geoff :)

A: they don't eat daily, if lucky they eat once a week, but generally they feed when they can. 

• 1: They get surface thoughts, not skills or abilities. 
• 2: Usually just NPC commoners. Not even level 1's 
• 3: bad logical conclusion

B: Most mind flayers live in colonies controlled by an Elder Brain, they take armies of slaves and eat slaves on ration. The slaves also kidnap more slaves. 

C: Githyanki are actively  hunting all mind flayers and they are experts at hunting and destroying them. Also the Githzerai do the same. 

D: Adventurers often stumble on these hives of mind flayers and they usually destroy them. 

E: if there are not enough slaves to feed the community of mind flayers the Elder Brain eats the brains of all the mind flayers it thinks are excessive. 

Quote from geoffwalker >>

hi guys, writing a campaign here involving aforementioned tentacular horrors. i like to have a logical basis for most stuff in my campaigns to give them verisimilitude and to allow the players to change the world with their decisions. so im trying for an answer to the header question. its more just a water cooler topic in my mind, but any answers i can get would be fun. some facts to be thinking with:

1. mind flayers absorb the memories of every brain they eat. thus a 50yo flayer eating 1 brain/day would have eaten the memories of 18, 250 people.

2. those memories would include the memories of 20th level casters, fighters and so on. so any flayer would automatically be a super everything, god-like in its power.

3. add to this the fact that you have 18,250 intellects informing the flayer's decisions. so it would know all agriculture, economics, psychology, whatever

so: why is Oerth not a massive concentration camp being run by flayers?

anything you can contribute would be good

cheers geoff :)

 So...did you actually read the Mind Flayer descriptions before you wrote this?  Compare what you wrote to what's there and see what's missing.