Zarride
Medium Aberration, Lawful Evil
Armor Class 16 (Breastplate)
Hit Points 375 (50d8 + 150)
Speed 40 ft.
STR
15 (+2)
DEX
15 (+2)
CON
16 (+3)
INT
22 (+6)
WIS
20 (+5)
CHA
24 (+7)
Saving Throws DEX +8, INT +12, WIS +11, CHA +13
Skills Arcana +12, Athletics +8, Deception +19, Insight +11, Persuasion +13
Damage Resistances Psychic
Senses Blindsight 30 ft., Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 15
Languages Common, Deep Speech, Telepathy 5 miles, Undercommon
Challenge 17 (18,000 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +6
Traits
Advanced Levitating. While Zarride is levitating he can fly, but no faster than half his movement speed. If he levitates only a few inches off the ground it does not require concentration and he can use his full movement to move.
Creature Sense. Zarride is aware of the presence of creatures within 5 miles of him that have an Intelligence score of 3 or higher. He knows the distance and direction to each creature, as well as each one's intelligence score, but can't sense anything else about it. A creature protected by a mind blank spell a nondetection spell, or similar magic can't be perceived in this manner.
Powerful Mind. Zarride has advantage on saving throws to keep his concentration on spells and can concentrate on up to two spells at once.
Special Equipment. Zarride’s longsword functions as a dancing sword.
Innate Spellcasting (Psionics). Zarride's innate spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 20). He can innately cast the following spells, requiring no components:

Innate Spellcasting (Psionics). Zarride is a 10th-level spellcaster. His innate spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 20; +12 to hit with spell attacks). He can innately cast the following spells, requiring no components:

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If Zarride fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead. 

Magic Resistance. Zarride has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Telepathic Hub. Zarride can use its telepathy to initiate and maintain telepathic conversations with up to ten creatures at a time. Zarride can let those creatures telepathically hear each other while connected in this way.

Astral Form (Mythic Trait; Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). If Zarride is reduced to 0 hit points, he doesn't die, instead, he falls unconscious, is stable and has a psychically powered shield around his body, giving him half cover until he regains consciousness. At the same time, his astral form emerges from his body. His astral form has the same stats as he does, except it has no armor or weapons, all damage it deals is psychic damage, cannot grapple creatures, has immunity to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks, poison and the following conditions: grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained, has a flying speed of 50 and can hover and loses the extract brain and longsword actions. If Zarride’s body or astral form dies, he dies. Zarride’s astral form is drawn back into his body when he dies or regains consciousness.

Actions
Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 20 (4d8 + 2) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a Huge or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 15), takes 10 (1d8 + 6) psychic damage at the start of each of its turns until the grapple ends and must succeed on a DC 20 intelligence saving throw or be stunned until the grapple ends. Zarride can have up to three creatures grappled at a time.
Extract Brain. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one incapacitated humanoid grappled by Zarride. Hit: 55 (10d10) piercing damage. If this damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, Zarride kills the target by extracting and devouring its brain.
Mind Bolt (recharge 4-6). Zarride targets a creature within 20 feet of him, it must make a DC 20 intelligence saving throw or take 41 (6d10 + 6) psychic damage or half as much on a successful save.
Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) slashing damage, or 7 (1d10 + 2) slashing damage if used with two hands Plus 9 (2d8) psychic damage. This is a magic weapon attack.
Mind Blast (Recharge 5–6). Zarride magically emits psychic energy. Creatures of Zarride's choice within 60 feet of it must succeed on a DC 20 Intelligence saving throw or take 32 (5d10 + 6) psychic damage and be stunned for 1 minute. A target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Psychic Link. Zarride targets one incapacitated creature it can perceive with its Creature Sense trait and establishes a psychic link with that creature. Until the psychic link ends, the elder brain can perceive everything the target senses. The target becomes aware that something is linked to its mind once it is no longer incapacitated, and the elder brain can terminate the link at any time (no action required). The target can use an action on its turn to attempt to break the psychic link, doing so with a successful DC 20Charisma saving throw. On a successful save, the target takes 10 (3d6) psychic damage. The psychic link also ends if the target and the elder brain are more than 5 miles apart, with no consequences to the target. The elder brain can form psychic links with up to ten creatures at a time.
Sense Thoughts. Zarride targets a creature with which it has a psychic link. The elder brain gains insight into the target's reasoning, its emotional state, and thoughts that loom large in its mind (including things the target worries about, loves, or hates). The elder brain can also make a Deception check with advantage to deceive the target's mind into thinking it believes one idea or feels a particular emotion. The target contests this attempt with a Insight check. If the elder brain succeeds, the mind believes the deception for 1 hour or until evidence of the lie is presented to the target.
Legendary Actions

Zarride can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. Zarride regains spent legendary actions at the start of his turn.

  • Tentacle. Zarride makes a tentacle attack.
  • Break Concentration. Zarride targets a creature within 120 feet of him with which he has a psychic link. Zarride breaks the creature's concentration on a spell it has cast. The creature also takes 2d4 psychic damage per level of the spell.
  • Psychic Pulse. Zarride targets a creature within 120 feet of it with which him has a psychic link. Enemies of him within 10 feet of that creature take 14 (4d6) psychic damage.
  • Sever Psychic Link. Zarride targets a creature within 120 feet of him with which he has a psychic link. He then ends the link, causing the creature to have disadvantage on all ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws until the end of the creature's next turn.

 

Mythic Actions

If Zarride’s mythic trait is active, he can use the options below as legendary actions until he regains consciousness.

Rend Mind. Zarride’s astral form makes two tentacle attacks. If both attacks hit one creature, the target must succeed on a DC 20 intelligence saving throw or be stunned for 1 minute, or until it takes any damage.

Escape. Zarride’s astral form moves up to its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.

Rejoin. Zarride’s astral form teleports his body to its space, and may then return to it, ending his mythic trait, returning him to  and causing him to regain one hit point.

Planar Leap (Costs 2 Actions). Zarride’s astral form casts plane shift on itself.

Description

Zarride is a elder brain with the body of a human male.

The ultimate expression of illithid domination, an elder brain sprawls within a vat of viscous brine, touching the thoughts of creatures near and far. It scrawls upon the canvas of their minds, rewriting their thoughts and authoring their dreams.

Psychic Infiltrators. When an elder brain infiltrates a mind, it alters the creature’s perception and deceives its senses, causing it to see, hear, touch, taste, or feel reality according to the elder brain’s intent. From across great distances, it implants subconscious suggestions or subtly influences dreams to compel creatures toward a course of action that benefits its grand plan.

When its insidious suggestions fail to take hold, an elder brain asserts its dominance more directly. It seizes control of a resistant mind and controls the creature’s body as it would a puppet. Against the rare, strong-willed stalwart that defies it or attacks it, an elder brain sends a blast of overwhelming psychic force to crush the upstart’s mind, rendering the creature a thoughtless, drooling shell.

Devourer of Thoughts. An elder brain sustains itself by consuming the brains of other creatures. When the Mind Flayer servants that guard and tend to an elder brain don’t bring its meals directly to it, The Elder Brain reaches out with tendrils of thought, mentally compelling creatures to come to it so that it may feed upon them.

When a Mind Flayer perishes, the elder brain’s servants feed the contents of its skull to their master, which absorbs the illithid’s brain and all the knowledge and experience contained therein. In this way The Elder Brain continually increases its knowledge, uniting the thoughts and experiences of the illithidcolony into a unified whole. Mind Flayers conceive of this “oneness” as a sacred state in the same way that a worshiper of a human deity might view an eternal afterlife in the heavens—for an elder brain can evoke the persona of any illithid it has ever absorbed.

Hive Mind. Non-illithids call this creature an elder brain because it acts as the central communication hub for an entire Mind Flayer colony just as a brain does for a living body. Linked to The Elder Brain, the colony acts like a single organism, acting in concert as if each illithid were the digit of a hand.

Ego Unhindered. Each elder brain considers itself and its desires the most important things in the multiverse, the Mind Flayers in its colony nothing more than extensions of its will. But no two elder brains are alike, and each presides over its colony according to its own unique personality and storehouse of collected knowledge and experience. Some elder brains reign as domineering tyrants, while others serve more benignly as sages, counselors, and repositories of information and lore for the Mind Flayers that protect and nourish them.

The ambitions of an elder brain are always tempered by its relative immobility. Although its telepathic senses can reach for miles, moving anywhere is always a dangerous proposition. If forced outside its brine pool, an elder brain will swiftly expire, and transporting an elder brain in its pool through confining and tortuous subterranean tunnels frequently proves difficult or impossible.

Lair and Lair Actions

An Elder Brain’s Lair. The lair of an elder brain always lies deep in the heart of a Mind Flayer colony. The creature dwells in a dimly glowing brine pool, filled with foul and brackish water infused with the elder brain’s vital fluids and with psionic energy.

Lair Actions. When fighting inside its lair, an elder brain can use lair actions. On initiative count 20 (losing initiativeties), an elder brain can take one lair action to cause one of the following effects; The Elder Brain can’t use the same lair action two rounds in a row: 

  • The Elder Brain casts Wall of Force.
  • The Elder Brain Targets one friendly creature it can sense within 120 feet of it. The target has a flash of Inspiration and gains advantage on one Attack roll, ability check, or saving throw it makes before the end of its next turn. If the target doesn’t or can’t use this benefit in that time, the Inspiration is lost. 
  • The Elder Brain Targets one creature it can sense within 120 feet of it and anchors it by sheer force of will. The target must succeed on a DC 20 Charisma saving throw or be unable to leave its current space. It can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Regional Effects. The territory within 5 miles of an elder brain is altered by the creature’s psionic presence, which creates one or more of the following effects: 

  • Creatures within 5 miles of an elder brain feel as if they are being followed, even when they are not.
  • The Elder Brain can overhear any telepathic conversation happening within 5 miles of it. The creature that initiated the telepathic conversation makes a DC 20 Wisdom (Insight) check when telepathic contact is first established. If the check succeeds, the creature is aware that something is eavesdropping on the conversation. The nature of the eavesdropper isn’t revealed, and The Elder Brain can’t participate in the telepathic conversation unless it has formed a psychic link with the creature that initiated it.
  • Any creature with which The Elder Brain has formed a psychic link hears faint, incomprehensible whispers in the deepest recesses of its mind. This psychic detritus consists of the elder brain’s stray thoughts commingled with those of other creatures to which it is linked.

If The Elder Brain dies, these effects immediately end. 

Previous Versions

Name Date Modified Views Adds Version Actions
Zarride
5/8/2021 4:01:14 PM
25
2
5e
Coming Soon

Monster Tags: Mind Flayer

Dragonslayer9

Comments

Posts Quoted:
Reply
Clear All Quotes