Hey guys! My brain is melting from too much worldbuilding and I could use some help in crafting a story. Recently I've become a little obsessed with Mind Flayers. This is a campaign I'm wanting to put into play for level 5 characters. So here's a few questions I could use help answering: What events may have prefaced/foretold the invasion? What monsters/races are changed/impacted by the Ilithid in this way? What side plots/quests could the characters embark on to level up that won't kill them in this broken world?
Plot synopsis: According to Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, the Mind Flayers disappeared after the Gith broke free, either retreating to the future to regroup, or possibly wait for the proper moment. This allowed a moment of peace while resources were built back up. In this campaign, the Ilithid return with full force - taking over the entire surface world as well as the Underdark. There is hardly anywhere to hide where there isn't a Nautiloid flying above the sky or thralls invading society. As if that wasn't bad enough, they have built spire-like Citadels hundreds of feet tall above even the largest cities - a symbol of power over the people to break their spirits. Numerous facilities are placed around the cities, each a valuable resource to the Illithid - brain harvesting factories, batteries to run their machinations of war, Nautiloid construction yards, experimental labs, etc. I think that to win this campaign, they're going to have to A) force a retreat from the Illithid(But what on Toril would scare THESE guys away?), B) Destroy the Illithid (Using what? Their empire is huge!), C) Time travel so that the invasion never took place (need mechanics for this though! How would you do it?), or D) cure the Illithid, returning them to humanity somehow (Which seems like the righteous option, but what's the lore behind reversing ceremorphosis? How would you cure an entire race all at once?). But how is such an enormous task even possible? If the empire stretches across the planes, what can they do?
Lore: This was heavily inspired by Half-Life 2, if you're familiar with it - City 17 living in fear, with the hope of a savior. Obviously there's some sort of resistance in the underground, helping a few people get out at a time. Perhaps there's a few locations outside of the main city that have shelter off the radar from the Illithid. That's a magic item - the Neuroheart, which is capable of hiding an entire city from any attempt to detect them including telepathy, and warding off anyone who isn't innoculated to its effect. Smaller versions of it exist, a Neurocore - which is a portable version adventurers can use in areas more populated with enemies. Terminals and more technological devices become more widespread as races begin to figure out their equipment.
Other forms of resistance might be a lost duergar kingdom still in hiding, perhaps willing to join the fight if the players can convince them. Because of recent releases (Shoutout to Spelljammer!) other forms of resistance may come from the skies, combatting the Nautiloids. Maybe they get a few classic D&D villians to join in the fight out of mutual interest, such as the Xanathar or a lich, or a couple of world-renowned wizards. How would they go about recruiting such forces?
Monsters: Because the Illithid have conquered basically every plane, they have experimented on every manner of creature out there. Beholders, giants, dragons, demons, devils, fey - you name it. Even some of the most powerful creatures are no match for the Illithid. Can you imagine Demogorgon as an Illithid spawn? Some creatures have been able to resist the effects, of course - causing areas where failed experiments roam, terrors for whoever wanders too far from the Citadels.
Anyway that's just what I got so far. Any ideas would really help me out. Point out some plot elements, sick monsters or other magic items or lore you think would enhance the campaign.
Honestly, that sounds awesome. You mentioned Half-Life but I got major Matrix vibes from this. Really neat stuff. You mentioned the idea of having a rebellion or some kind of underground force. Unfortunately, that trope's been dragged out behind the barn, shot, and then kicked around for good measure*. A good spin on that, especially with the new spelljammer stuff coming out, is to have your rebellion be off world. Maybe a small crew of Gith have only recently discovered the new Mind Flayer threat, but there Spelljammer is broken down, or something about the Mind flayer's psychic aura is causing it to malfunction. These Gith then touch down on the material plane to discover a threat bigger than they ever imagined. These Gith might discover some of the last remnants of human cities, coming across the party. However, I fear the empire at this point may be sliiiiiightly too big for you to storyboard. The number of questions you have about your own lore makes me think you might need to condense it. Maybe they have only conquered the material plane. After all, they are powerful, but it's an incredibly tall order to suggest that all the fey, archdevils, demon lords, angels, etc. were somehow no match for the illithids. Most of the higher beings have magic that would negate their control anyway. Of course, it's your campaign, but you seem to have a lot of concerns about it already, which is a red flag for me, personally. It might also be fun, if if the empire had just conquered the material plane, if your players start on another plane, maybe with no memory, or maybe under the care of some other beings (Gith, Something Divine, maybe a settlement of humans on another plane, it's up to your imagination). You could run the first few levels on this plane, and in some way, the party discovers their home plan (their patron reveals it to them, for some shock-and-awe, or maybe they find and get a spelljammer working, or whatever is blocking out their memory decides to reveal to them what their home plane is really like now [think when Neo wakes up for real in The Matrix]). Whatever you choose, I think this is a good idea. Just don't over plan, don't overcomplicate. Start simple, branch out. The players begin in a mindflayer colony on earth and have to escape survival horror style. From there, they discover that the whole planet is affected by the illithids. You take the story off from there. But let the players play in the sandbox and move the boundaries out as they go. If your world starts too big, your players will feel small. You're off to a great start though. Now if you'll excuse me, the mind overlords have insisted that I deliver fresh brains to them for harvesting. Toodles.
Wow you don't do things by halves do you? This is an epic undertaking. My only piece of advice would be don't waste any time on trying to figure out how the players will ultimately solve the problem. Just plan the starting area and the first adventure. See where you end up after that, and then plan the next step. Keep that up and at the end when the players do finally over throw the evil overlord they are going to think that you are a GOD among DMs for being able to plan out that whole campaign.
And of course never tell them that you were making it up as you went along.
In terms of inspiration for the starting area/adventure, you could look into the start of Out of the Abyss. Re-skinning drow as Illithids shouldn't be too hard.
There is also a game setting called "Midnight" which is based on the idea that the good guys lost in Lord of the Rings, and the PCs are freedom fighters doing what they can. Again, easy enough to re-skin to be Illithid. There is apparently a new 5e version but I don't know if it is any good. You may be able to pick up the old 3e version somewhere cheap.
I'm reminded of X-com when you talk about fighting illithids as invading aliens. Plenty of tropes could transfer. I'm very interested in the idea that the underdark could become the final bastion of resistance to evil hordes from above. More than any individual character's story, that inversion is something I find innovative. As to the idea of how the PCs can win this scenario... Half-life ends with our hero closing the portal but also an ambiguously coerced into joining the aliens. I think you have to consider what you want out of the ending. Are you setting up for a campaign two? Are you seeking closure? Are you looking for a twist? Probably the best way for the PCs to make progress against illithids that have already won is for them to seek some kind of ancient hidden magic that could alter the playing field... An earworm capable of fending off psychic invasion? A spell that allows for time travel? An antimagic mythal the size of a crystal sphere, tuned to spelljamming helms?
Wow you don't do things by halves do you? This is an epic undertaking. My only piece of advice would be don't waste any time on trying to figure out how the players will ultimately solve the problem. Just plan the starting area and the first adventure. See where you end up after that, and then plan the next step. Keep that up and at the end when the players do finally over throw the evil overlord they are going to think that you are a GOD among DMs for being able to plan out that whole campaign.
And of course never tell them that you were making it up as you went along.
In terms of inspiration for the starting area/adventure, you could look into the start of Out of the Abyss. Re-skinning drow as Illithids shouldn't be too hard.
There is also a game setting called "Midnight" which is based on the idea that the good guys lost in Lord of the Rings, and the PCs are freedom fighters doing what they can. Again, easy enough to re-skin to be Illithid. There is apparently a new 5e version but I don't know if it is any good. You may be able to pick up the old 3e version somewhere cheap.
I tend to agree with this. Don't seek to answer all your questions. Let your players ask their own questions, then let them answer those questions themselves. that's how a sandbox moves forward.
The best way I can think of to combat an occupying force so powerful is to unleash something just as bad (if not worse) and, in the words of Ken Watanabe... "let them fight."
Imagine if the resistance found a way to open a portal into the Abyss, letting in a wave of demons who'd naturally aim their wanton destruction at the most powerful thing they could find (the mind flayers). Or if you could open a portal to Avernus and have the freaking Blood War spill over into the mortal realm. Would be pretty interesting to watch the illithids try to keep pace with that.
Or imagine making contact with the githyanki in the Astral Plane-- the fashy illithid-hunters that have been searching for more betentacled enemies to kill ever since they banished thousands of years ago. Putting a big neon sign for them on your world saying "squid-heads here" would certainly knock the mind flayers down one or two pegs when a bunch of dragon-riding psychic vengeance warriors start spilling out of the sky.
Hell, I wonder if mind flayers have ever fought a tarrasque? Maybe the players have to find a long lost artifact, like an orb of dragonkind only instead of summoning dragons it calls basically Godzilla, and lob that at one of the mind flayers' towers and see what happens?
And sure, these could all destroy the world, but is the world doing super great right now? Surely it's worth tearing down the old, ruined world to have the opportunity to start again? Maybe it'll become the work of tomorrow's heroes to clean up after the sins of today's, but I think that's an interesting theme for this kind of campaign; having no good option, we have to make things worse before things get better, and ultimately the struggle for mortal-kind is simply surviving what needs to be done.
It sounds awesome, and will likely be an amazing campaign! Beg, borrow and steal from everywhere I reckon :) But totally get the half-life reference in this context.
One way that the resistance might work is to stumble across a way to insert the seed of subversion into people who are being consumed by the illithids, effective poisoning them and cutting off their "food supply". If the party can find ways of making that spread among the population, it would be a mechanic that could bring down the empire in its entirely - especially if assaults with other allies start at a point where they are already weakened from not being able to feed and replenish their ranks.
They're a hive mind no? There's got to be a way for the party to exploit that. Or perhaps there is a way to make brains poisonous to ilithid.. your players will figure something out.
Taking down the eldest brain, who leads the hive mind of all the elder brains, reaching the lair of all the elder brains and killing them, or destroying some telepathic amplifier that keeps the whole hive mind together. With the loss of their hive mind leader, something might happen to all the ordinary mind flayers. Think Ender's Game.
Stopping the invasion. Both kinds of sphinxes can time travel everything in their lairs. After completing some kind of test, the party could be sent back to the start of the takeover with the knowledge of what is going to happen. They could then stop a crucial part of the invasion, or even go Groundhog Day mode, and complete dozens of tasks at once by traveling back in time over and over.
Gaining access to an army. Gith is a good choice. Despite the two Gith factions hating each other, the knowledge of the future could be enough to unite them. Again, time travel might allow the Gith army that originally shattered the first mind flayer empire to be brought to the present. Convincing other massive armies to join the cause, and even going world hopping for the united guilds of Ravnica, the titanic warforged that ended the last war on Eberron, the dragonarmies of Krynn, and other incredibly powerful forces from different campaign settings.
These strategies could be combined, by sending armies from different worlds to combat the original invasion, or using the armies to crush the uncoordinated illithids without the leaders of their hive minds. As for side quests, just surviving in a mind flayer dominated world is pretty difficult. Staying hidden and fighting off thrall patrols would allow them to level up, or, using time travel by sphinx, plane shift, a spelljamming ship, or dream of the blue veil to get the players to somewhere safe to do quests until they are ready to take on the massive threat.
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Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
2e had a book by Bruce Cordell (who really fleshed out the "weird fiction" aspects of D&D, Illithids, Aboleths, Far Realm, etc.) The Illithiad, it was basically a sourcebook of all things Illithid. There's also an old Dragon magazine article I think by someone else describing an expedition to what the explorers thought was the Illithiad homeworld. The expedition didn't go well, though they did get some contact with an Illithid city and also realized the world they were on barely scratched the surface of the Illithid presence in what we'd consider a multiverse in 5e terms. The Illithiad supported or complemented a three module arc that deals with the Illithid's subjugation of a prime material world (they basically "eat" the sun) but give the players a way to push back and free their world in the end (and I forget whether it introduces spelljamming or not, but the players get control of a Nautiloid EDIT: so the last module "returns" Spelljammer to D&D as spelljammer had been canceled as a product line 6 years prior to this arc of adventures). There's also support from a one in a billion "variant" Illithid who was produced through cenomorphosis but retained their original host's personality ... though hides it to avoid destruction.
The Dragon article citation I can't find, but the Illithiad and the modules "A Darkness Gathering," "Masters of Eternal Night" and "Dawn of the Overmind" are all available on DMsGuild, and they're good stuff to mind for inspiration for this project. At minimum you'll get some cool maps and visual aids for what Illithid society and dominion might look like based on the last time the game really invested in the Illithids as the big bad for a product arc.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Hey guys! My brain is melting from too much worldbuilding and I could use some help in crafting a story. Recently I've become a little obsessed with Mind Flayers. This is a campaign I'm wanting to put into play for level 5 characters. So here's a few questions I could use help answering: What events may have prefaced/foretold the invasion? What monsters/races are changed/impacted by the Ilithid in this way? What side plots/quests could the characters embark on to level up that won't kill them in this broken world?
Plot synopsis: According to Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, the Mind Flayers disappeared after the Gith broke free, either retreating to the future to regroup, or possibly wait for the proper moment. This allowed a moment of peace while resources were built back up. In this campaign, the Ilithid return with full force - taking over the entire surface world as well as the Underdark. There is hardly anywhere to hide where there isn't a Nautiloid flying above the sky or thralls invading society. As if that wasn't bad enough, they have built spire-like Citadels hundreds of feet tall above even the largest cities - a symbol of power over the people to break their spirits. Numerous facilities are placed around the cities, each a valuable resource to the Illithid - brain harvesting factories, batteries to run their machinations of war, Nautiloid construction yards, experimental labs, etc. I think that to win this campaign, they're going to have to A) force a retreat from the Illithid(But what on Toril would scare THESE guys away?), B) Destroy the Illithid (Using what? Their empire is huge!), C) Time travel so that the invasion never took place (need mechanics for this though! How would you do it?), or D) cure the Illithid, returning them to humanity somehow (Which seems like the righteous option, but what's the lore behind reversing ceremorphosis? How would you cure an entire race all at once?). But how is such an enormous task even possible? If the empire stretches across the planes, what can they do?
Lore: This was heavily inspired by Half-Life 2, if you're familiar with it - City 17 living in fear, with the hope of a savior. Obviously there's some sort of resistance in the underground, helping a few people get out at a time. Perhaps there's a few locations outside of the main city that have shelter off the radar from the Illithid. That's a magic item - the Neuroheart, which is capable of hiding an entire city from any attempt to detect them including telepathy, and warding off anyone who isn't innoculated to its effect. Smaller versions of it exist, a Neurocore - which is a portable version adventurers can use in areas more populated with enemies. Terminals and more technological devices become more widespread as races begin to figure out their equipment.
Other forms of resistance might be a lost duergar kingdom still in hiding, perhaps willing to join the fight if the players can convince them. Because of recent releases (Shoutout to Spelljammer!) other forms of resistance may come from the skies, combatting the Nautiloids. Maybe they get a few classic D&D villians to join in the fight out of mutual interest, such as the Xanathar or a lich, or a couple of world-renowned wizards. How would they go about recruiting such forces?
Monsters: Because the Illithid have conquered basically every plane, they have experimented on every manner of creature out there. Beholders, giants, dragons, demons, devils, fey - you name it. Even some of the most powerful creatures are no match for the Illithid. Can you imagine Demogorgon as an Illithid spawn? Some creatures have been able to resist the effects, of course - causing areas where failed experiments roam, terrors for whoever wanders too far from the Citadels.
Anyway that's just what I got so far. Any ideas would really help me out. Point out some plot elements, sick monsters or other magic items or lore you think would enhance the campaign.
Honestly, that sounds awesome. You mentioned Half-Life but I got major Matrix vibes from this. Really neat stuff. You mentioned the idea of having a rebellion or some kind of underground force. Unfortunately, that trope's been dragged out behind the barn, shot, and then kicked around for good measure*. A good spin on that, especially with the new spelljammer stuff coming out, is to have your rebellion be off world. Maybe a small crew of Gith have only recently discovered the new Mind Flayer threat, but there Spelljammer is broken down, or something about the Mind flayer's psychic aura is causing it to malfunction. These Gith then touch down on the material plane to discover a threat bigger than they ever imagined. These Gith might discover some of the last remnants of human cities, coming across the party. However, I fear the empire at this point may be sliiiiiightly too big for you to storyboard. The number of questions you have about your own lore makes me think you might need to condense it. Maybe they have only conquered the material plane. After all, they are powerful, but it's an incredibly tall order to suggest that all the fey, archdevils, demon lords, angels, etc. were somehow no match for the illithids. Most of the higher beings have magic that would negate their control anyway. Of course, it's your campaign, but you seem to have a lot of concerns about it already, which is a red flag for me, personally. It might also be fun, if if the empire had just conquered the material plane, if your players start on another plane, maybe with no memory, or maybe under the care of some other beings (Gith, Something Divine, maybe a settlement of humans on another plane, it's up to your imagination). You could run the first few levels on this plane, and in some way, the party discovers their home plan (their patron reveals it to them, for some shock-and-awe, or maybe they find and get a spelljammer working, or whatever is blocking out their memory decides to reveal to them what their home plane is really like now [think when Neo wakes up for real in The Matrix]). Whatever you choose, I think this is a good idea. Just don't over plan, don't overcomplicate. Start simple, branch out. The players begin in a mindflayer colony on earth and have to escape survival horror style. From there, they discover that the whole planet is affected by the illithids. You take the story off from there. But let the players play in the sandbox and move the boundaries out as they go. If your world starts too big, your players will feel small. You're off to a great start though. Now if you'll excuse me, the mind overlords have insisted that I deliver fresh brains to them for harvesting. Toodles.
- Gh0styy
*See Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, Matrix Resurrections
Updog
Wow you don't do things by halves do you? This is an epic undertaking. My only piece of advice would be don't waste any time on trying to figure out how the players will ultimately solve the problem. Just plan the starting area and the first adventure. See where you end up after that, and then plan the next step. Keep that up and at the end when the players do finally over throw the evil overlord they are going to think that you are a GOD among DMs for being able to plan out that whole campaign.
And of course never tell them that you were making it up as you went along.
In terms of inspiration for the starting area/adventure, you could look into the start of Out of the Abyss. Re-skinning drow as Illithids shouldn't be too hard.
There is also a game setting called "Midnight" which is based on the idea that the good guys lost in Lord of the Rings, and the PCs are freedom fighters doing what they can. Again, easy enough to re-skin to be Illithid. There is apparently a new 5e version but I don't know if it is any good. You may be able to pick up the old 3e version somewhere cheap.
I'm reminded of X-com when you talk about fighting illithids as invading aliens. Plenty of tropes could transfer. I'm very interested in the idea that the underdark could become the final bastion of resistance to evil hordes from above. More than any individual character's story, that inversion is something I find innovative. As to the idea of how the PCs can win this scenario... Half-life ends with our hero closing the portal but also an ambiguously coerced into joining the aliens. I think you have to consider what you want out of the ending. Are you setting up for a campaign two? Are you seeking closure? Are you looking for a twist? Probably the best way for the PCs to make progress against illithids that have already won is for them to seek some kind of ancient hidden magic that could alter the playing field... An earworm capable of fending off psychic invasion? A spell that allows for time travel? An antimagic mythal the size of a crystal sphere, tuned to spelljamming helms?
I tend to agree with this. Don't seek to answer all your questions. Let your players ask their own questions, then let them answer those questions themselves. that's how a sandbox moves forward.
Updog
The best way I can think of to combat an occupying force so powerful is to unleash something just as bad (if not worse) and, in the words of Ken Watanabe... "let them fight."
Imagine if the resistance found a way to open a portal into the Abyss, letting in a wave of demons who'd naturally aim their wanton destruction at the most powerful thing they could find (the mind flayers). Or if you could open a portal to Avernus and have the freaking Blood War spill over into the mortal realm. Would be pretty interesting to watch the illithids try to keep pace with that.
Or imagine making contact with the githyanki in the Astral Plane-- the fashy illithid-hunters that have been searching for more betentacled enemies to kill ever since they banished thousands of years ago. Putting a big neon sign for them on your world saying "squid-heads here" would certainly knock the mind flayers down one or two pegs when a bunch of dragon-riding psychic vengeance warriors start spilling out of the sky.
Hell, I wonder if mind flayers have ever fought a tarrasque? Maybe the players have to find a long lost artifact, like an orb of dragonkind only instead of summoning dragons it calls basically Godzilla, and lob that at one of the mind flayers' towers and see what happens?
And sure, these could all destroy the world, but is the world doing super great right now? Surely it's worth tearing down the old, ruined world to have the opportunity to start again? Maybe it'll become the work of tomorrow's heroes to clean up after the sins of today's, but I think that's an interesting theme for this kind of campaign; having no good option, we have to make things worse before things get better, and ultimately the struggle for mortal-kind is simply surviving what needs to be done.
It sounds awesome, and will likely be an amazing campaign! Beg, borrow and steal from everywhere I reckon :) But totally get the half-life reference in this context.
One way that the resistance might work is to stumble across a way to insert the seed of subversion into people who are being consumed by the illithids, effective poisoning them and cutting off their "food supply". If the party can find ways of making that spread among the population, it would be a mechanic that could bring down the empire in its entirely - especially if assaults with other allies start at a point where they are already weakened from not being able to feed and replenish their ranks.
They're a hive mind no? There's got to be a way for the party to exploit that. Or perhaps there is a way to make brains poisonous to ilithid.. your players will figure something out.
Winning the campaign might happen a couple ways.
These strategies could be combined, by sending armies from different worlds to combat the original invasion, or using the armies to crush the uncoordinated illithids without the leaders of their hive minds. As for side quests, just surviving in a mind flayer dominated world is pretty difficult. Staying hidden and fighting off thrall patrols would allow them to level up, or, using time travel by sphinx, plane shift, a spelljamming ship, or dream of the blue veil to get the players to somewhere safe to do quests until they are ready to take on the massive threat.
Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
2e had a book by Bruce Cordell (who really fleshed out the "weird fiction" aspects of D&D, Illithids, Aboleths, Far Realm, etc.) The Illithiad, it was basically a sourcebook of all things Illithid. There's also an old Dragon magazine article I think by someone else describing an expedition to what the explorers thought was the Illithiad homeworld. The expedition didn't go well, though they did get some contact with an Illithid city and also realized the world they were on barely scratched the surface of the Illithid presence in what we'd consider a multiverse in 5e terms. The Illithiad supported or complemented a three module arc that deals with the Illithid's subjugation of a prime material world (they basically "eat" the sun) but give the players a way to push back and free their world in the end (
and I forget whether it introduces spelljamming or not, but the players get control of a Nautiloid EDIT: so the last module "returns" Spelljammer to D&D as spelljammer had been canceled as a product line 6 years prior to this arc of adventures). There's also support from a one in a billion "variant" Illithid who was produced through cenomorphosis but retained their original host's personality ... though hides it to avoid destruction.The Dragon article citation I can't find, but the Illithiad and the modules "A Darkness Gathering," "Masters of Eternal Night" and "Dawn of the Overmind" are all available on DMsGuild, and they're good stuff to mind for inspiration for this project. At minimum you'll get some cool maps and visual aids for what Illithid society and dominion might look like based on the last time the game really invested in the Illithids as the big bad for a product arc.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
@Dymfire, Did you get to play your campaign? I'm wondering how it went and if you can share the highlights with us.