This is a fascinating species; share your insights, understanding and ideas about these cthonomorphic creatures.
As an opening wonder, can anyone enlighten me as to the extent of the the Mind Flayer "psionic powers that enable them to control the minds of creatures such as troglodytes, grimlocks, quaggoths, and ogres." - Monster Manual
For Example:
What does '... creatures such as ..." mean,?
Is there a limit to the creatures a Mind Flayer can control?
How many individual creature can one Mind Flayer control, is this limited to the Dominate 'spell" that they can use?
I'm hoping to use Mind Flayers as the Big Evil at the end of a level 5-10 campaign, and I want to do so with a strong internal logic and some elegance!
Volos has a good deal of information on them as well including origins. Worth a read. Answering questions in a random order, because I can.
A creature is a creature. Anything that could be classified as an NPC or a PC, counts as the very least. As every living being, and several not-living beings, in a game is either one of those two things...
As many as you want. Your the DM so if you say the Mind Flayer has six creatures under control, it has six creatures under its control. While Dominate magically controls creatures, in the long term it is more effective to condition them to behave through a wide range of options, including but not limited to; Torture, Starvation, Psychological Manipulation, Psychic Manipulation, Memory Manipulation, Personality Manipulation, Explosive Collars. Have fun with it, the worse you come up with the more your players will want it to NOT happen to them.
See previous answers.
That was fun!
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GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links. https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole @BonusRole
As Gyrnos said, the Volos section on mind flayers is well worth a read if you are going to use them as a big bad.
Illithids tend to prefer at least moderately intelligent humanoid minions because the body shape is versatile and they have a greater capacity to follow intent rather than exact wording, can handle more complex tasks (including spying/infiltration), and function as an emergency food source. But I would say they are capable of controlling anything with a mind that they can subdue long enough to psychically soften up.
I seem to recall the books saying that they do use other methods of control that are slower to take effect than the domination spell, so having them break down minds to be more cooperative is canon, but at the end of the day it is your game so you can make whatever adjustments you see fit.
In my campaign aberrations in general are going to be working together, and pulling a lot of strings. So I may have a colony with an abolith rather than an elder brain, chokers on guard duty, I might even make dopplegangers aberrations to help with the espionage and subterfuge. Illithids are strange enough that they offer loads of flexibility to to very memorable things.
Thanks. I guess it was the "creatures such as" that threw me, rather than just creatures. I thought I was missing something. And As Many As You Want was exactly what I needed to hear!
If you're looking to inject some pathos into your tentacled big bads then perhaps you can play them as noble and well-intentioned in their own alien way. Perhaps they are refugees from some horrible apocalypse on their own world who are just looking for a quiet place to live in peace. The cave they land in is loaded with angry snarks and grumpkins all fighting amongst themselves, so the hive mind rightly absorbs these lesser beings into the greater good. From their point of view the adventurers are an invading force of murderers, terrorists even, bent on the destruction of the illithids' peaceful way of life.
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Mind Flayers: Misanthropes or misunderstood?
This is a fascinating species; share your insights, understanding and ideas about these cthonomorphic creatures.
As an opening wonder, can anyone enlighten me as to the extent of the the Mind Flayer "psionic powers that enable them to control the minds of creatures such as troglodytes, grimlocks, quaggoths, and ogres." - Monster Manual
For Example:
What does '... creatures such as ..." mean,?
Is there a limit to the creatures a Mind Flayer can control?
How many individual creature can one Mind Flayer control, is this limited to the Dominate 'spell" that they can use?
I'm hoping to use Mind Flayers as the Big Evil at the end of a level 5-10 campaign, and I want to do so with a strong internal logic and some elegance!
Volos has a good deal of information on them as well including origins. Worth a read. Answering questions in a random order, because I can.
A creature is a creature. Anything that could be classified as an NPC or a PC, counts as the very least. As every living being, and several not-living beings, in a game is either one of those two things...
As many as you want. Your the DM so if you say the Mind Flayer has six creatures under control, it has six creatures under its control. While Dominate magically controls creatures, in the long term it is more effective to condition them to behave through a wide range of options, including but not limited to; Torture, Starvation, Psychological Manipulation, Psychic Manipulation, Memory Manipulation, Personality Manipulation, Explosive Collars. Have fun with it, the worse you come up with the more your players will want it to NOT happen to them.
See previous answers.
That was fun!
GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links.
https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole
@BonusRole
As Gyrnos said, the Volos section on mind flayers is well worth a read if you are going to use them as a big bad.
Illithids tend to prefer at least moderately intelligent humanoid minions because the body shape is versatile and they have a greater capacity to follow intent rather than exact wording, can handle more complex tasks (including spying/infiltration), and function as an emergency food source. But I would say they are capable of controlling anything with a mind that they can subdue long enough to psychically soften up.
I seem to recall the books saying that they do use other methods of control that are slower to take effect than the domination spell, so having them break down minds to be more cooperative is canon, but at the end of the day it is your game so you can make whatever adjustments you see fit.
In my campaign aberrations in general are going to be working together, and pulling a lot of strings. So I may have a colony with an abolith rather than an elder brain, chokers on guard duty, I might even make dopplegangers aberrations to help with the espionage and subterfuge. Illithids are strange enough that they offer loads of flexibility to to very memorable things.
Thanks. I guess it was the "creatures such as" that threw me, rather than just creatures. I thought I was missing something. And As Many As You Want was exactly what I needed to hear!
Great stuff, love the Aberration Collaboration idea, might have to borrow that. Thanks for responding.
If you're looking to inject some pathos into your tentacled big bads then perhaps you can play them as noble and well-intentioned in their own alien way. Perhaps they are refugees from some horrible apocalypse on their own world who are just looking for a quiet place to live in peace. The cave they land in is loaded with angry snarks and grumpkins all fighting amongst themselves, so the hive mind rightly absorbs these lesser beings into the greater good. From their point of view the adventurers are an invading force of murderers, terrorists even, bent on the destruction of the illithids' peaceful way of life.