Homebrew Aethylen Race Details

Often, the reasoning behind the creation of the Aethylens is unknown. Some say that their creation comes from an oncoming resource shortage in Illsygoth by the massive amount of Illithid tadpoles the city contains. Others predict they are a strain of forced evolution manfactured by the Elder Brain Collective to defend against and attack invading Gith and unwary adventurers near Illsygoth. But what most can agree on is where they came from.

The Aethylens are born from countless experiments on weak and useless Illithid tadpoles that the Elder Brain Collective approves of. Usually, this would be considered taboo, but in the case of the weak tadpoles, well, let's just say no one Illithid would care about them. These experiments would be conducted by bathing an exceptionally weak tadpole in an alchemical mixture of pheremones and the blood of various humanoids and creatures , allowing for the tadpole to forgo the process of ceremorphosis and continue growing into maturity without the need for a humanoid host. A normal Aethylen usually matures at the age of 25, but there is no record of how long one could live as any Aethylen who's outlived their usefulness is either burned or cooked alive to feed the massive Hydra cow .

After many unsuccessful attempts, the experiments would provide one healthy Aethylen and assign that Aethylen to a role based on their certain mutations. Some of the most common mutations were increases in muscle mass, deeper intelligence, camouflage traits, etc. From there, any tadpole born from an Aethylen would aquire the traits of its parent's, with controlled gestation by the Elder Brain Collective, of course. Any other means of doing so will immediately be found by the Tsisynki, a branch of Illithid Special Forces in Illsygoth, and eliminated with extreme prejudice and fire.

What is known much abou the Aethylens is their uncanny psychic resistance to the Elder Brain Collective's and the Illithid's control. From Gith researchers on the subject matter, the Aethylens have some sort of "undying loyalty" to the Collective and answer only to them at all times. They pay no attention to the rest of the Illithid society and seem to lack their psionic powers in all shape and form. It also is evident that the Aethylens differ highly in appearances. Some look almost human or elvish with tentacles just growing on their backs and an unusual skin color to distinguish them from the other races. The Collective tolerates their presence enough, so long as they are useful and the Aethylens seem to be thankful for it.

This is not always the case however, as a large amount of Aethylens broke free of control from the Elder Brain Collective and escaped from the city entirely. The rest of the Illithid race highly detested these abominations for their disgusting mutations and their lack of a brain diet. Eventually, a group of Aethylens revolted against their masters and fled away from Illsygoth entirely. The freed Aethylens were then seen venturing further into the Under Dark and even on the Surface.

Aethylen Traits

Mind Breaker: An Aethylen has advantage against charm and sleep spells and can grant anyone 5ft away this effect for 10 minutes everyday. In the same way, an Aethylen has a small resistance of 1d10 against Psyonic damage due to their Illithid nature.

Monsterous Appearance

Due to your Illithid nature, most people would simply drop everything and run from a brain-eating monster, however, your awkward skin color and mutations tell you apart from those in many children's tales of the terrifying Mind Flayers of Illsygoth who would devour the insides of a naughty child. They could even tolerate your presence if possible, though that rarely happens because you look like a monster.

"I will Mind-F@#k you!!" - A famous Aethylen Barbarian.

Octo-Khrous Aethylen

Named after the first known Aethylen of the subrace, Khrous are extremely adept in manipulating their bodies to fit into small spaces no bigger than their heads or changing the color of their skin to match that of their surroundings, though doing this is extremely tenuous at best. They are known for being excellent scouts and even fewer know of their excellent theivery. Generally, Khorus do not like one another, but given the opportunity, 2 or 3 would only ever consider it. The most glaring way to identify a Khrous is with the eight tentacles on its face instead of the usual 4. The eight tentacles is believed to be a way to increase the amount of grip a Mind Flayer would have when consuming a humanoid brain.

Of course, the Illithids of Illsygoth looked down upon the Aethylens for their many "disgusting" mutations, but for the Khrous, their hate was especially cruel. The Khorus attempted to please their masters, but the Illithids proved to be unshaken by their achievements and they are still treated lesser than their slaves. And it is because of this that they gained the notorious name of the Sick Ones because of Octo-Khrous's first and last mistake: Eating the brains of its Illithid Master. Or so it has been told...

Khor Phi Mutations

Unfortunately, due to certain limitations by the weak body of the Aethylen tadpoles, the Aethylen can only receive one more mutation at random or else suffer permanant damage to themselves or most commonly death because of the rapid changes in the tadpole's genes. It is not known if the tadpoles willing chooses their mutations or if it is random.

The Khor Phi Mutations is a special set of mutations that focus on tasks like infiltration and assassination mostly recommended and issued by the Elder Brain Collective as a means to eliminate certain Illithid betrayers and conspirators against the Collective. In extreme cases, they are also called upon to inflitrate certain enemy settlements for means of equipment sabotage, espionage, assassination, and more. However, this role has taken its toll on some of the Khorus leading them to escape the collective, marking them for death by the Collective.

Stoneskin Aethylen

The Stoneskins are as equally loyal and friendly as they are battle-efficient. They are literally engineered for battle as they are much more capable in hard labor task or as warriors in the battlefields of Illsygoth than their Illithid cousins. Because of the infused blood of orcs, bears and such, they adopted their massive sizes and even some temperaments of those race, which help their accommodating mutations in excelling further than normal in a Stoneskin's duties at a more efficient pace than normal Illithids. This helps foster a competitive nature between the Stoneskins as many would attempt to out-do each other by performing great feats of strength and achievements in their small Aethylen communities and to/against rare but friendly travelers.

Styglif Mutations

The most common of mutations seem to be an increase of Strength, better pain threshold, a long single bone claw that appears at will on both arms, and skin as hard as stone. Other mutations are extremely rare and are mostly deemed unfit for battle by the Collective and the Stoneskins themselves.

Ygorweyss Aethylen

An usually timid group of Aethylens that tend to be Illsygoth's main archivists and care-takers of the Elder Brain Collective. They record and illustrate the proceedings and orders of the Collective and tirelessly obey the Collective's every whim and every desire. However, they do not obey the Illithid nobles of IlIsygoth in any way except when commanded to.

The Ygorweyss are created purely out of the amusement and commodity of the Collective, as they serve no other purpose other than performing duties unfit for those of mindflayers. In addition, an Ygor, unlike their kin, have at most 2 tentacles growing out from the base of its spine or near the neck area to better distinguish between an Illithid and an Ygor. It is in the most rarest occasions that an Ygor is seen outside the Collective's sight, much less outside Illsygoth, but it is not impossible.

One event of a freed Ygor is tied in with the Elder Brain Vyqcor's legion of Alhoons. One of the commanding Alhoons was given a Ygor as a gift for the Alhoon's outstanding accomplishments in defeating an entire hoard of hobgoblin adventurers single-handedly. The Alhoon unknowingly ventured past the limits of Illsygoth with a group of other Alhoons, at which, they were set upon by a roper the size of a mountain. Of course with their numbers, the roper was subdued with little to no loss to its group, however, the Ygor managed to to be launched farther away from Illsygoth by one of the roper's large tentacle. Miraculously, the Ygor survived and found a group of escaping Stoneskins who nursed it back to health. Unfortunately, that Ygor was the only known escapee of its kind and no other sightings of it has been reported.

Yqibitioth Augumentations

The mutations of a Ygor react differently to the presence of an Elder Brain and the influences of Alhoons' magic resulting in a conflux of additionally moditfications. It is because of these effects that the mutations are further augmented to a new level due to their incredible memory processing talent. However, because of the exceptionally weak tadpole the Ygor are created from, their bodies could only receive one augment in its lifetime. Or whatever time it has before it becomes useless.

Most of these augments exceed the expectations of the Elder Brains, though the Collective do not care so long as any who are caught immediately are implanted with a normal Tadpole or eaten by the Collective as a means to prevent an uprising. Coincedentally, only the descendants of the escape unnamed Ygor will be able to take advantage of these augments.