Good video for playing a wizard in Baldur's Gate and thinking "My character should know a great deal about mindflayers, but I don't want to read spoilers for the game itself."
here's how it could be, prologue. the mighty years. a mess around area getting you to test out spell jamming vessels, soldier placement, other enemies and traitors. chap 1 modern day mind city. planted in the middle of a land of standerd fantasy monsters. introduces traitors and boss monsters (fire dragons and liches) chap 2 breaching crystal sphere galaxies. spell jamming vessels and more alien enemies. introduces enemy illithid colonies and ship teleportation chap 3 the muiltiverse. you go after semi gods to get a way to bypass the far realm, introduces diverse hard monster colonies on each universe. final chap the beyond. your final challenge before becoming interdimensional conquers are the commanders of the lovecraftien gods armadas. possible secret bosses could be a time dragon (that warns you about your actions and if killed won't have their warning cutscenes appear in new game + lich illithid the king of traitors.
34:41 "There's so much lore on the Mind Flayers I could talk about them all day, and maybe one day I will." Don't telepathically threaten us with a good time...
that reminds me.. i read in some 3.5 book about mind flayers using purple worms as mounts by causing a cyst in their mouth and a special harness that could be used to force the beasts mouth to stay open or shut... i forget the precise book but i think it was in a section about exotic mounts.
Arms & Equipment Guide, page 86. Rules are 3.0, but should still be perfectly valid. Same book has an item that allows you to "ride" a gelatinous cube, which would also make an interesting mount for a mind flayer.
I played an Illithid once as an ambitious Rogue/Wizard that was a Mastermind subclass. The combination of their mind control and psychic powers combined with the Mastermind's ability to sow the seeds of deceit among groups of people made the class almost the ultimate "non-combat combat" character. I eventually just got so good at playing the character that the rest of my party was almost a little scared of the character. He was so hard to kill that eventually me and the DM agreed to have the character live on in legend and have me move on to another. The DM has allowed me to use him sometimes in again when the appropriate campaign/setting comes along, but his invincibility, just because of mainly my luck with him and the combination of race and class, has made him a "if he's on the scene, shits real" in our play group. I love Illithids and Morgrack will always live on to be one of the five most powerful characters in my group's circle. My DM and me have been talking about making a campaign where my Illithid is the villain and they ascend into a Lich Illithid. We'll see how that goes, especially if things go as planned and the DM lets me play as the villain and have us have a "Raid Boss" campaign where I get to play as the main villain and actively have a group of players against a single other evil player.
I believe I read somewhere that the cosmic Illithid Empire grew so vast and so powerful at one point that the Blood War actually stopped, with demons and devils considering a truce to deal with these powerful psychics. That's the level of scary these things can reach. Back in the early 2010s I had contemplated an alhoon antagonist who had an ambition of becoming the next Orcus, never really understanding that Orcus was using him as a blunt object to batter his enemies with.
I feel like I've half bastardized this race by playing one of these a bard. His instrument is a vuvuzela, which he plays because the vibrations feels good on his tentacles, but being healed by a vuvuzela is probably more excruciating than his mindblast.
Jackson Briggs Ever since the World Cup in South Africa I have considered the vuvuzela as an instrument if pure evil. So it makes sense a Mind Flayer would use one.
Yay. :) Loved the old mindflayer vid, it was one of my favorites. This one is missing all of the cool atmospheric details you had in the other one though, like when you were describing the lairs.
5:55 dead in an hour you say? I wonder then how the writers of Baldur’s Gate 3 justify the player’s character and other NPC’s surviving more than a day with it in their heads. XD
I've been waiting for this! The mind flayers have been my favorite d&d monster since the ancient days of 1st edition, and this episode in the series truly did them justice. Well done!
I like the reproductions A.J. As always, thank you for the entertainment and hard work. I know these must take some effort and research to put together.
i once roleplayed a lawfull neutral mindflayer. He wore robes and a iron mask, stalking around in the night to eat the brains of badits and thieves. yes, i created the goddamn squidman
i love mind flayers i know there are a lot of beholders fans out there and i get it but to me mind flayers will always be king i love the fact that despise using several references to several works they still manage to be kind of unique and cool in their own way, i love their culture, their society (i mean for being villains obviously) and they look mughty badass too!
I ran a campaign centered around the Illithids of Thoon. I made Thoon an Obyrith in the Far Realm who used her essence more than any other Obyrith in crafting the Seed of Evil given to Tharizdun the O.G. Mad God (take notes, Cyric) to place in the Astral Sea. In my cannon, Thoon never left the Far Realm (unlike many other Obyriths who inhabit the Abyss, & rule/propagate the Qlippoth) & as much as the Obyriths imprinted on Tharizdun, so too did Tharizdun imprint upon Thoon. This led to an overwhelming drive to reunite with the Chained God (described by Thoon as "completing herself"), thereby sending her Illithids to collect Quintessence (which I redefined as refined souls stripped of identity & processed into raw Creation energy) to fuel a particular weapon which when combined with a sliver of the heart of the Abyss, would shatter the Chained God's prison. In other words, I love em too
Bravo well done, Sir. I was wondering if you could make a small section in your videos for information on what can be harvested and made from key parts of creatures that you cover in your videos. thank you
I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw the similarity between the wraith of Stargate Atlantis and the illithids of D&D. I am convinced that the illids were the inspiration for the wraith. Feed on humans Bio-tech Mysterious origin Psychic powers and communication Psychic controlled tech Ravaging entire worlds for food Even their hive mentality. Just replace the elder brain with a queen, and their societies would be virtually identical.
I always saw them as the Goa'uld with how they use hosts to control through their true worm-like body. It is very easy to reflavor them for that as well, just a Mind Flayer without the horrible appearance.
@@AJPickettI’m really bad at keeping up with notifications on youtube. You mean the video you made on the Stargate RPG, right? Or was there a specific creature video?
According to Lords of Madness: Illithids originated in the vastly distant future when creation was starting to die. Thousands of elder brains pooled their energies to create a portal into the Far Realm, which exists outside the boundaries of creation. Upon their arrival within its influence they ripped an opening through time and space to arrive in the prime material. Less than 1% of those who embarked on the journey survived and those who lived were greatly weakened to such an extent that the servitor race that had been under their mental control for millennia revolted and fled to become the Illithids most hated, implacable and tenacious enemies.
AJ, I swear, the depth you go into in your videos it's amazing! Please, keep up the good work. PS. I wonder in the creators of Stargate (the show, not the movie) bases the Goa'uld off of mind flayers...? It's worth a thought. PPS. you should try making a few videos showing the influence D&D has officially had on pop culture. That would be awesome! I would watch fully, thumbs up and share (with all my friends) every video in that series. SOOOOOOOO.... Basically I already do with your videos. LoL. Love ya man, keep on inspiring and entertaining all us lore addicted nerds. LoL.
Actualy I remember in a magazine that Mind Flayers where inspired by the Larry Niven story World of Ptavvs. A race called the Thrint who enslaved others telepathically creating a galactic empire via mind control. Also Charles Stross based his Gith races upon the enemies of the Thrint the race the Tnuctip.
Well now I want to have my players over hear a madman ramble on about how covering your self with the epidermal goo that covers the Illithids body will grant you a measure ov spell resistance, depending upon how much you use. ...only to find out that it does Not do that. Perhaps it does nothing. Perhaps it does something terrible! Not sure what to do yet but I seriously feel like you just handed me a beautiful gift ov an awful idea 😈
How about it only does so for the Illithid that produced it? No other being has a mind resonance that allows for this positive effect. All others have some sort of effect related to thier special racial traits. Roll Gor whether it is positive or negative with advantage or disadvantage being given on whether this is in the presense of aware Illithids.
Weird dark sun game idea, you are retinue of the finest Templars of a sorcerer- king and you've been tasked to find out why a growing psychic black spot has developed in a region only to be a confronted woth something more terrible than your lord. A mind flayer colony has plan shifted to Athas and found lots of large psychic brains to eat and convert.
I hate these things so much. I hate them more than I hate bards, more than I hate oozes, more than I hate fucking gnolls. I hate them more than waking up to my roommate's alarm clock at six in the morning. I don't normally advocate genocide, but for Mindflayers, I make an exception.
How about: The Illithid races become so diverse & far seeding into the past that, humans, or dodecapus, are an intensively planned blend of Illithid races, here on earth, where they believe this to be a successful planetary domination.
Wow, Mindflayers really made it impossible to get rid or limit them. It'd be awesome to come up with a timeline. That alters their race and turns them into a symbiotic species, instead of body stealing parasites.
Whenever I throw these monsters at the party in my games, some characters have died.. NPC's usually, but the last TPK was from an Elder Brain mind blast.
Stargate Atlantis, hell yeah. For some reason not as many people as one might think like SGA, which is a shame because of how awesome it is. By he way, great job on the video, quite informative.
I once played a Mind Flayer Warlock called Xan'Thurr who after an encounter with a powerful wizard began to have flashbacks to his life as a human and became fascinated with the world above. After he left he had to keep hidden by living in the shadows. He also had to consume brains which he got from killing drifters. Favorite character I ever played and tough to roleplay. He eventually met his end by the hands of another mindflayer saving the party.
So in baldurs gate 3 there are two mind flayers free of the colony with their own free will. And At least one of those actually remembers who they were before they transformed. Seems it was a prophecy after all
I'll give you that. Also thanks. By the way, I agree with you that Oryndoll is a cool city. I just never got around to putting all the info on it onto the wiki.
"TH' Illithid stood just in front of th' Aboleth, so that they faced each other, it whose empire was yet unborn, and it whose empire had been lost in th' mists of time for unguessed ages. Kings of darkness, thought Soratha, nameless kings of th' night, whose realms are gulfs and shadows."
something just occurred to me. the idea of the mind flayers conquering the entire great wheel seems rather implausible when you consider all the powerful denizens therein. How likely do you think it would be for the illithids to keep something like a storm giant or an ancient dragon enslaved, for example? Not to mention all the, you know, GODS Illsensine would need to take on single-handedly.
I always imagined a game where the elder brain has some what of a tumor that alters the natural state of the mind flayers making a colony of them more docile and neutral instead of evil
Not in poor taste at all, go for it. Cult of Illithids create a gate and summon a Titan shaped as Cthulhu. Even on the small scale of 6th-level Planar Binding/ Call Planar Ally and summon a 16d8 hd outside hill/ or stone giant size bat wing mind flayer to wreak the PC party with.
I had a friend play an uitharid(The uber mind flayer) that was a 7'7'' barbarian. All he wanted was to convince the other mind flayers that they should "cook" their meals. He'd melt peoples brains out of their nose too.
Looks like you are going to have to do a new video on the mind flayer with baldur's gate 3 being announced and the mind flayer are playing a pivotal role apparently So you can capitalize off the hype ☺️
Say AJ, I noticed in the table for Aberrant Mind sorcerers’ origins that there’s an option for an incomplete ceremorphosis. Any theories on how one could gain sorcerous power from something like that? Best ones I could come up with are that the tadpole was modified by an Ilithid magic user or Alhoon, there was a planar bleed through during the ceremophosis process or a condensation of ambient magical energy such as faerzress, or (if you wanna tie it in with BG3) the tadpole was a prototype for the tadpoles used by the cult of the absolute.
Turning your brain into a receptor for psionic beings on the Astral plane, that could work as both a source of Sorcery, and a means to be in contact with an Eldritch Patron as a Warlock.
You need to explore the Spelljammer campaign of Cluster Space, it is said that the creation of the Illithud race is the Antillian Empire it's a excellent creation myth
Great video and keep up the good work ❤
1:18 Meta Origin
1:50 Publication History
4:05 Ecology
4:34 Tadpole Stage
5:26 Ceremorphosis
6:40 Host Races
7:21 Adult Size
8:18 Senses and Sun Resentment
10:08 Mucus Properties
10:24 Diet and Digestion
11:35 Variant Intellect Devourer
11:45 Joining the Elder Brain
12:45 Colony Communication
13:12 Elder Brain Pt 2
14:25 Brain Golem
14:43 Ulitharid
15:44 Origin
20:46 Neolithid
22:00 Fun Fact: Scent
22:20 Illithid Roper
22:54 Vampiric Illithid (Feral, not charming)
23:30 Arcane Illithids
23:52 Alhoons
24:52 Mind Witness
25:56 Cranium Rats
26:15 Illithosites
26:42 humanoid cattle
28:03 Illithidae: animals with convergent evolution
28:50 Slime Chuul (ceremorph)
29:11 Mosgricken (Deep Gnome ceremorph)
30:25 Ceremorph Shock Troops (lizardfolk)
31:05 Oryndoll
31:40 Architecture & Tech
32:27 Language
32:58 City of Oryndoll
33:25 Founding of Oryndoll
Pin this
Baldurs gate 3 introduced me to dnd. I wish i’d discovered this stuff earlier, cuz this is amazing!
same here.
Yeah, but now you get to binge and watch it all for the first time! Lucky.
nah regular dnd is boring
@@daved1113 L opinion
@@daved1113 Please purtel tell me how is 50 years of lore stories and adventures boring?
Good video for playing a wizard in Baldur's Gate and thinking "My character should know a great deal about mindflayers, but I don't want to read spoilers for the game itself."
As someone who’s never played DnD and is now in love with Baldurs Gate 3, this video is awesome. Great insight into the lore.
Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Idea: a game where you play as an elder brain running a mindflayer colony
here's how it could be, prologue. the mighty years. a mess around area getting you to test out spell jamming vessels, soldier placement, other enemies and traitors.
chap 1 modern day mind city. planted in the middle of a land of standerd fantasy monsters. introduces traitors and boss monsters (fire dragons and liches)
chap 2 breaching crystal sphere galaxies. spell jamming vessels and more alien enemies. introduces enemy illithid colonies and ship teleportation
chap 3 the muiltiverse.
you go after semi gods to get a way to bypass the far realm, introduces diverse hard monster colonies on each universe.
final chap the beyond.
your final challenge before becoming interdimensional conquers are the commanders of the lovecraftien gods armadas.
possible secret bosses could be a time dragon (that warns you about your actions and if killed won't have their warning cutscenes appear in new game +
lich illithid the king of traitors.
Both of you, shut up and just take my money!! XD
Sid Meier's Civilization Illithid
Sim Cthulu City
Edit: of course that's Sim R'leyh.
Serve the Hive.
Feel the groove.
"Let's check UA-cam before I got to bed." Dungeons and Dragons Lore: Mind Flayer - 44 seconds ago "Every once in a great while I have good timing."
The inspiration for Baldurs Gate 3 at 7:38
I had no idea that an Illithid could become a Lich. I think I've found my new favourite Monster.
Same here!
AD&D2ndE Dark Sun/ Ravenloft monstrous compendium Psionic Lich are nightmares to deal with.
I always thought any arcane caster could achieve lichdom?
@@yully89Pretty much. Though some races have a chance of failing and dying. Dragons for example.
@@danielrobinson7872 same with them all though tbh.
The psionic people of Athas and necromancers with their mindless undead hoards can save us from the mindflayers!
The desert would do that itself😂
34:41
"There's so much lore on the Mind Flayers I could talk about them all day, and maybe one day I will."
Don't telepathically threaten us with a good time...
Gotta love these ancient evils from scary settings. Nothing like a marriage of Lovecraft and RPG!
Check out the aboleth! That one is...holy geez wtf.
that reminds me.. i read in some 3.5 book about mind flayers using purple worms as mounts by causing a cyst in their mouth and a special harness that could be used to force the beasts mouth to stay open or shut... i forget the precise book but i think it was in a section about exotic mounts.
Arms & Equipment Guide, page 86. Rules are 3.0, but should still be perfectly valid. Same book has an item that allows you to "ride" a gelatinous cube, which would also make an interesting mount for a mind flayer.
8:00 The legend of the Host-which retained its memory when turning into a Mindflayer (cough Baldur's Gate 3 cough)
Oh that goes back to Bruce Cordell's source books on the Illithids.
@@AJPickett that is basically the Emperor though isn't it?
I played an Illithid once as an ambitious Rogue/Wizard that was a Mastermind subclass. The combination of their mind control and psychic powers combined with the Mastermind's ability to sow the seeds of deceit among groups of people made the class almost the ultimate "non-combat combat" character. I eventually just got so good at playing the character that the rest of my party was almost a little scared of the character. He was so hard to kill that eventually me and the DM agreed to have the character live on in legend and have me move on to another. The DM has allowed me to use him sometimes in again when the appropriate campaign/setting comes along, but his invincibility, just because of mainly my luck with him and the combination of race and class, has made him a "if he's on the scene, shits real" in our play group. I love Illithids and Morgrack will always live on to be one of the five most powerful characters in my group's circle.
My DM and me have been talking about making a campaign where my Illithid is the villain and they ascend into a Lich Illithid. We'll see how that goes, especially if things go as planned and the DM lets me play as the villain and have us have a "Raid Boss" campaign where I get to play as the main villain and actively have a group of players against a single other evil player.
One of my players played a mindflayer who was "disconnected" from the hive mind and they played them as skittish and paranoid it was fun
"Good hunter, may you find peace in the waking world."
but alas, not too fast! The nightmare swirls and churns unending!
Great job, AJ. Your videos have always been great, but you can really see how the production values have improved over time.
I believe I read somewhere that the cosmic Illithid Empire grew so vast and so powerful at one point that the Blood War actually stopped, with demons and devils considering a truce to deal with these powerful psychics. That's the level of scary these things can reach.
Back in the early 2010s I had contemplated an alhoon antagonist who had an ambition of becoming the next Orcus, never really understanding that Orcus was using him as a blunt object to batter his enemies with.
I'm glad none of these vile monsters are real otherwise we would all be in big trouble.
if they were real we'd have powers too though, and the lore to fight them
How do we know they aren't real?
With the apparent lack of brains in this world, I'd say humanity would be safe.
I knew this was gonna be awesome, but man you knocked it way out of the park. Bravo (does a slow clap)
Arthur Bonner thanks :)
I feel like I've half bastardized this race by playing one of these a bard.
His instrument is a vuvuzela, which he plays because the vibrations feels good on his tentacles, but being healed by a vuvuzela is probably more excruciating than his mindblast.
Ha ha ha! Oh my... that is great.
Jackson Briggs Ever since the World Cup in South Africa I have considered the vuvuzela as an instrument if pure evil. So it makes sense a Mind Flayer would use one.
+Reague of Regends It's not the heretical Abomination that is the Neothelid?
That’s awesome! Please tell me more!
damn, should've had him play the otamatone lmao
Your skin monster thing is now an official part of the mind flayer lore in my games. Too cool!
Absolutely.
II'd love to listen to a twelve hour Mindflayer marathon video.
im so happy to see this channel growing so fast
Yay. :)
Loved the old mindflayer vid, it was one of my favorites. This one is missing all of the cool atmospheric details you had in the other one though, like when you were describing the lairs.
Hmmm, true, and my simulation of a mind blast. Thanks, good critique.
5:55 dead in an hour you say? I wonder then how the writers of Baldur’s Gate 3 justify the player’s character and other NPC’s surviving more than a day with it in their heads. XD
I've been waiting for this! The mind flayers have been my favorite d&d monster since the ancient days of 1st edition, and this episode in the series truly did them justice. Well done!
I like the reproductions A.J. As always, thank you for the entertainment and hard work. I know these must take some effort and research to put together.
Yeah, a wee bit :)
i once roleplayed a lawfull neutral mindflayer. He wore robes and a iron mask, stalking around in the night to eat the brains of badits and thieves. yes, i created the goddamn squidman
You predicted a now cannon character. Good job, Emperor!
Imagine a Mind Flayer equivalent of a Worm that Walks, which is comprised entirely of Mind Flayer tadpoles.
Yikes
That's a Neolithid!
What you're describing is very similar to the Tsochar
Outstanding video on the illithids,great foe for any campaign Master Pickett! Keep cranking out that good content!
Freakin fantastic as usual. You should have waaayyyy more subs.
Thanks, tell your friends. :)
Recommended this video to my friends so I could go through Baldur's Gate 3 campaign without having to explain every single detail.
i love mind flayers i know there are a lot of beholders fans out there and i get it but to me mind flayers will always be king i love the fact that despise using several references to several works they still manage to be kind of unique and cool in their own way, i love their culture, their society (i mean for being villains obviously) and they look mughty badass too!
Favourite monster ever.
These are so going to be my villains for my campaign
hits different after Baldurs Gate 3
all of a sudden, very popular video :P
I ran a campaign centered around the Illithids of Thoon. I made Thoon an Obyrith in the Far Realm who used her essence more than any other Obyrith in crafting the Seed of Evil given to Tharizdun the O.G. Mad God (take notes, Cyric) to place in the Astral Sea. In my cannon, Thoon never left the Far Realm (unlike many other Obyriths who inhabit the Abyss, & rule/propagate the Qlippoth) & as much as the Obyriths imprinted on Tharizdun, so too did Tharizdun imprint upon Thoon. This led to an overwhelming drive to reunite with the Chained God (described by Thoon as "completing herself"), thereby sending her Illithids to collect Quintessence (which I redefined as refined souls stripped of identity & processed into raw Creation energy) to fuel a particular weapon which when combined with a sliver of the heart of the Abyss, would shatter the Chained God's prison. In other words, I love em too
Bravo well done, Sir. I was wondering if you could make a small section in your videos for information on what can be harvested and made from key parts of creatures that you cover in your videos. thank you
I've just discovered this channel and I'm loving it you haved earned another sub lol
Thank you Jay C, much appreciated :)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw the similarity between the wraith of Stargate Atlantis and the illithids of D&D. I am convinced that the illids were the inspiration for the wraith.
Feed on humans
Bio-tech
Mysterious origin
Psychic powers and communication
Psychic controlled tech
Ravaging entire worlds for food
Even their hive mentality.
Just replace the elder brain with a queen, and their societies would be virtually identical.
Check my latest video, you will LOVE IT
I always saw them as the Goa'uld with how they use hosts to control through their true worm-like body. It is very easy to reflavor them for that as well, just a Mind Flayer without the horrible appearance.
@@AJPickettI’m really bad at keeping up with notifications on youtube. You mean the video you made on the Stargate RPG, right? Or was there a specific creature video?
BG3 Brought me here. Fascinating stuff. I love it. Thank you for making this video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks AJ, I knew research on your channel would be helpful.
Your videos are fantastic, I'm glad I found this channel!
According to Lords of Madness:
Illithids originated in the vastly distant future when creation was starting to die. Thousands of elder brains pooled their energies to create a portal into the Far Realm, which exists outside the boundaries of creation. Upon their arrival within its influence they ripped an opening through time and space to arrive in the prime material. Less than 1% of those who embarked on the journey survived and those who lived were greatly weakened to such an extent that the servitor race that had been under their mental control for millennia revolted and fled to become the Illithids most hated, implacable and tenacious enemies.
Timey Wimey, wibbly wobbly :) The Illithids thus created themselves.
and thus the gith are from the future.
Terminators, but in reverse... neat!
Isn't that stated in this video?
This is amazing, glad it got recommended to me after playing Balders Gate 3!
AJ, I swear, the depth you go into in your videos it's amazing! Please, keep up the good work.
PS. I wonder in the creators of Stargate (the show, not the movie) bases the Goa'uld off of mind flayers...? It's worth a thought.
PPS. you should try making a few videos showing the influence D&D has officially had on pop culture. That would be awesome! I would watch fully, thumbs up and share (with all my friends) every video in that series.
SOOOOOOOO.... Basically I already do with your videos. LoL. Love ya man, keep on inspiring and entertaining all us lore addicted nerds. LoL.
"Your source for easy listening lore..." Indeed it is. Love your channel AJ
Actualy I remember in a magazine that Mind Flayers where inspired by the Larry Niven story World of Ptavvs.
A race called the Thrint who enslaved others telepathically creating a galactic empire via mind control.
Also Charles Stross based his Gith races upon the enemies of the Thrint the race the Tnuctip.
Mind Flayer is a great name for a heavy metal band
Great video man, I’m working on my first campaign and I’ll definitely use these guys
An Intellect Devourer is basically junk food. Can't live off them, but they're quite tasty... I got a genuine chuckle out of that.
Well now I want to have my players over hear a madman ramble on about how covering your self with the epidermal goo that covers the Illithids body will grant you a measure ov spell resistance, depending upon how much you use.
...only to find out that it does Not do that. Perhaps it does nothing.
Perhaps it does something terrible!
Not sure what to do yet but I seriously feel like you just handed me a beautiful gift ov an awful idea 😈
How about it only does so for the Illithid that produced it? No other being has a mind resonance that allows for this positive effect. All others have some sort of effect related to thier special racial traits. Roll Gor whether it is positive or negative with advantage or disadvantage being given on whether this is in the presense of aware Illithids.
Weird dark sun game idea, you are retinue of the finest Templars of a sorcerer- king and you've been tasked to find out why a growing psychic black spot has developed in a region only to be a confronted woth something more terrible than your lord. A mind flayer colony has plan shifted to Athas and found lots of large psychic brains to eat and convert.
I really enjoyed this in preparation for bauldur's gate 3.
20:06 Quintessence you said? Now, I can put those DnD monster into my Mage: The Ascension campaign!
See? It all works together.
@@AJPickett All part of a "Grand Design"!
I hate these things so much. I hate them more than I hate bards, more than I hate oozes, more than I hate fucking gnolls. I hate them more than waking up to my roommate's alarm clock at six in the morning.
I don't normally advocate genocide, but for Mindflayers, I make an exception.
*hands over a membership application for the Githyanki*
My favorite part of this is the tadpole and the changing into the mindflayer with ten years of growing to dominince
We need the Great Modron March to destroy them! But seriously I miss Mechanus and would love to see the interaction between these two races...
I've been really interested in the Tamer Creed lately. I love the idea of a mind flayer decked out in full plate armor.
Similar to the vampire description of 'the Strain' novels.
The 'worms' burrow into a host and the body is transformed
How about:
The Illithid races become so diverse & far seeding into the past that, humans, or dodecapus, are an intensively planned blend of Illithid races, here on earth, where they believe this to be a successful planetary domination.
Wow, Mindflayers really made it impossible to get rid or limit them. It'd be awesome to come up with a timeline. That alters their race and turns them into a symbiotic species, instead of body stealing parasites.
Pretty cool video. My old DM used to love throwing these things at us.
Whenever I throw these monsters at the party in my games, some characters have died.. NPC's usually, but the last TPK was from an Elder Brain mind blast.
Stargate Atlantis, hell yeah. For some reason not as many people as one might think like SGA, which is a shame because of how awesome it is. By he way, great job on the video, quite informative.
Great video I'm hooked on the lore since BD3
Fantastic job. Very well done. Love the lore vids!
Those spaceships look goofy as all get out. Arg we be Squid Pirates Arg!
i smell an epic campaign... one with spell weavers as the anti-heroes... oh that would be so so sweet...
Indeed!
This lexicon must be forwarded to Swen for a BG3 sequel .
These guy always gave me the creeps.
I once played a Mind Flayer Warlock called Xan'Thurr who after an encounter with a powerful wizard began to have flashbacks to his life as a human and became fascinated with the world above. After he left he had to keep hidden by living in the shadows. He also had to consume brains which he got from killing drifters.
Favorite character I ever played and tough to roleplay. He eventually met his end by the hands of another mindflayer saving the party.
Thank you BG3 for renewing my love for DND
😊
maybe each new addition of D&D is another loop for the Mind Flayer's so we are now on loop 5?
So in baldurs gate 3 there are two mind flayers free of the colony with their own free will. And At least one of those actually remembers who they were before they transformed. Seems it was a prophecy after all
Anyone else exited about the fact baldurs gate 3 early access releases today and its about these guys
You showed a brainstealer dragon when talking about a neothelid. :3 Also I noticed alot of this coming from my wiki posts. :)
Good work! Also the Brainstealer dragon does share a lot of similarities, face-wise to the Neolithid
I'll give you that. Also thanks. By the way, I agree with you that Oryndoll is a cool city. I just never got around to putting all the info on it onto the wiki.
"TH' Illithid stood just in front of th' Aboleth, so that they faced each other, it whose empire was yet unborn, and it whose empire had been lost in th' mists of time for unguessed ages. Kings of darkness, thought Soratha, nameless kings of th' night, whose realms are gulfs and shadows."
5 year old video, has 171k views as of 8/12/23.
Bg3 came out
👍
Yeah, traffic on this video is going to skyrocket.
Ended up here coz of Bulders Gate 3 😂
Awesome stuff man!
Hey, thanks!
I have 3.5 edition stats for a mind flayer assassin. That character was absolutely Nasty
Would Ilithids trade with a society with sufficiently advanced psionics, or would the Ilithids see that society as a threat?
Both, what better way to infiltrate than to trade?
something just occurred to me. the idea of the mind flayers conquering the entire great wheel seems rather implausible when you consider all the powerful denizens therein. How likely do you think it would be for the illithids to keep something like a storm giant or an ancient dragon enslaved, for example?
Not to mention all the, you know, GODS Illsensine would need to take on single-handedly.
its no cake walk
I always imagined a game where the elder brain has some what of a tumor that alters the natural state of the mind flayers making a colony of them more docile and neutral instead of evil
because of Tasha's cauldron of everything we know that even with the correct parameters it can fail because of the aberrant mind origin table
Great video, I love mind flayers :)
I do think that the cult of Thoon will be the thing that does bring the end to the Mindflayer empire
Squid faces. would it be in poor taste to have Illithids form a cult of Cthulhu?
Not in poor taste at all, go for it.
Cult of Illithids create a gate and summon a Titan shaped as Cthulhu.
Even on the small scale of 6th-level Planar Binding/ Call Planar Ally and summon a 16d8 hd outside hill/ or stone giant size bat wing mind flayer to wreak the PC party with.
iv always wanted to play a mind flayer monk
I had a friend play an uitharid(The uber mind flayer) that was a 7'7'' barbarian. All he wanted was to convince the other mind flayers that they should "cook" their meals. He'd melt peoples brains out of their nose too.
nice
that sounds pretty frightening lol
Looks like you are going to have to do a new video on the mind flayer
with baldur's gate 3 being announced and the mind flayer are playing a pivotal role apparently
So you can capitalize off the hype ☺️
Thank you AJ Top-notch video
There's an enemy in the Tower of Latria in Demon's Souls that looks like a Mind Fliar.
Say AJ, I noticed in the table for Aberrant Mind sorcerers’ origins that there’s an option for an incomplete ceremorphosis. Any theories on how one could gain sorcerous power from something like that? Best ones I could come up with are that the tadpole was modified by an Ilithid magic user or Alhoon, there was a planar bleed through during the ceremophosis process or a condensation of ambient magical energy such as faerzress, or (if you wanna tie it in with BG3) the tadpole was a prototype for the tadpoles used by the cult of the absolute.
Turning your brain into a receptor for psionic beings on the Astral plane, that could work as both a source of Sorcery, and a means to be in contact with an Eldritch Patron as a Warlock.
AJ always killing it
You need to explore the Spelljammer campaign of Cluster Space, it is said that the creation of the Illithud race is the Antillian Empire it's a excellent creation myth
I like to give my ilithids cool syfy like bio mechanical guns and constructs
Yeah, coming up with weird equipment that is not magical, but still fantastic, is half the fun with these bad guys. :)
it would be extremely gnar gnar if you did a vid on ormyrr, i would totally watch that
Man playing as a null would be cool or being able to transform into null
VIDEO IDEA: Spellwavers vs Mindflayers!!