@@epiccthuluExactly! What's blasé in one place is a monster somewhere else. Though, in a world with actual monsters, that opens up some real orders of magnitude.
Great video! I’ll be sure to use them alongside Mind Flayers for my game group. I like the idea of having a pseudo death spiral with their ability to drain the PC’s ability to think. This will be really fun to act out at our table.
Originally intellect devoured had nothing to do with mind flayers or the fungus creatures. Not in first edition anyway. Fiend folio introduced the fungus creatures as their own breed of monster. Originally None of these creatures was conected
We're all way more scared of intellect devourers than we are of mind flayers. The risk of a single bad roll straight up killing a player is so intimidating compared to the mind flayer stun eat combo. Especially if you combine one mind flayer and one intelligent devourer. In one turn a player is dead and a barbarian or a cleric with high level magic is added to the encounter. And what options do you have to save them? Wish the brain back. Regenerate over the course of a minute without losing concentration or getting killed or killing them and using the 1000 gp spell resurrection or reincarnate
Love these cuties. They make great recurring villains as they are very elusive foes. The key is to give them some noticeable quirk or habit for the party to look out for.
3.5e " Psionic " hand book, using Metamorph Other and Psychic Surgery to create psionic bioweapons. Just take item creation feat to a different level. Since metamorphosis and psionic powers are more than difficult for the spell Dispel Magic can undo, it has a more lasting effect. i'Lithids can breed all types of monsters to their personal tastes, which many will find horrifying.
These are body horror monsters in my campaigns. When an Intellect Devourer takes over a PC in my campaigns, I tell him his alignment is now Lawful Evil and he is part of the Intellect Devourer's party but otherwise "normal". I allow him to either surrender his character to NPC control or give him the option to play as part of the bad guys. It's during this state, the PC's brain is replaced by the Intellect Devourer but is ironically salvageable. Cast Regenerate, Heal or even Cure Disease on him, his brain will regrow and absorb his lost memories from the now consumed Intellect Devourer. In the Cure Disease version, it's not his brain that's regrown. His body and original mind assimilated the Intellect Devourer. If he is ever killed, he becomes a Player Character Intellect Devourer with the Player Character's original mind. He will struggle with his Intellect Devourer nature, especially if he is a good guy. Raising him from the dead will respawn his body as a symbiotic form he became after the Cure Disease altered him, the original body with the assimilated Intellect Devourer as his brain with his original mind. The bonus of that is that he is immune to Intellect Devourer attacks after that and resistant to most forms of mind control. Don't look at me like that. Put twisted monsters in my game and I come up with just as twisted horror based upon it.
I had a different way of things with Intellect Devourers’ lore, in many of my games they were from the same bizarre plane/dimension as Grell, and were their equivalent of dogs.
I like to imagine that when the intellect devourer teleports it's actually just teleporting it's consciousness. Especially with the 5e devourers that are twisted and mutated brains. I like to think the devourer teleports its consciousness inside of the brain and warps it into the new intellect devourer body.
Maybe to combine both ideas, the Devourer bores into the nose/ears with its tendrils, downloads its consciousness into the new host, then its body either shrivels up and dies or goes into a stasis while it takes up its new body and host. The host brain gradually transforms into a new Devourer, the longer it goes on the more difficult it becomes for the victim to regain consciousness in his body. This way it allows for the freaky visuals for players without the 'It's magic!' overkill. Just an idea, anyway.
I Have a new player idea. A illusionist got caught trying to learn the psionic abilities mind manipulating abilities. He became a intellect devourer. Remembered who he was, and escaped before he got eaten. Takes the bodies of those he fights.
Maybe I'm going way to far with this, but would an Intellect Devourer not very quickly undergo an existential crisis and alignment change if they devoured someone particularly good for their first meal? These 20 plus years surely overriding or heavily influencing the little time the creature has been alive. Killing someone, who loved others and brought joy to the world, particularly a good cleric or paladin, it would immediately inherit their victims belief and values and start to judge what they did as wrong and feel guilty even though they didn't know any better at the time. Would it not weep and beg the party to resurrect this light in the world that they so mindlessly snuffed out. That is only a very good character mind you and I imagine it would be far harder for this to happen if they had been subsisting on drow ect for a while but still. Food for thought. What do other people think?
That could be an interesting plot twist, perhaps an intellect devourer who develops "goodness" is now considered "Ripe" by Mind Flayers, who will then blast it and eat it with great relish?What we know of Mind Flayers and their ilk, however, is that they don't feel the positive emotions as we do, they only experience them vicariously, like someone watching someone else derive pleasure from eating a delicious meal, but not tasting anything themselves.
Were fungi, but yes, 5E canon has written over that, and it's fine.. for all intents and purposes, Illithid could be Fungal life forms as well (a motile, cerebravore fungiform parasite, to be precise) it would not change much about them for the purpose of game mechanics or flavour.
I personally like the 5e versions, but that is mainly because I created two intellect devourers in my campaign whom gained their former personalities and memories back after being subjected to the Stone of Awakening (the main plot point of the campaign) so the fungus variant would fudge up their backstories, and create a plot hole. I love the idea of these two freed intellect devourers trying to steal the stone from the party in hopes they can use it to liberate other intellect devourers more specifically their wife and sister. Though as fungus, I would imagine they'd be a lot like bulborbs.
I've been wondering this but I can't seem to figure it out, but how would one go about using Quoatle's. Flying winged serpents. I can't come up with anything.
AJ Pickett not really, just General use. It says they are servants of good gods and watch over players or gaurd relics and such, but how would players encounter one. it claims they do whatever they can to avoid be revealed, but I'm not sure ,if that's the case, how players WOULD find out and how to go about using it. it says they wouldn't lie, but there is no way they would ever know about this creature in the game world.
Well, we know that they can change shape for indefinite periods of time, but change back into their true form when they die. In any form they take, they are shielded from any spell or effect that reveals their thoughts and emotions, even where they are.. this in itself could clue someone onto the fact that they are not what they appear to be. Then you could just ask this individual "Hey, are you actually a *whatever they are shape shifted into* and why can't we sense you?" and the Couatl starts getting really vague and evasive.. ah ha! Player characters will figure it out if you give them some subtle clues. Never underestimate (or overestimate) the curiosity of a player. I would use the Couatl as a being that is concerned with the movements, discovery, use and information about powerful artifacts, high level spells and imprisoned creatures of great chaos and destruction. If the player characters don't know they are about to inadvertently release a great calamity on the land, the Couatl may act to warn, divert or prevent them from doing so.
could make a super devourer, like you said in the video, have them shove their tenticles up the nose and take over the host. and take away the "teleport" ..... lets take it one step ferther intot he rabbit hole. and the longer its attached to the host the devourer starts mutating the brain of the host into a devourer. and even after removed depending on how long it was attached in a week or so after painful headaches and the such, a new baby int devourer is born with all your knowlage and the basics of the species. I mean they are bred from and by mind flayers after all. and it would give them that Alien chest burster feel. Just spitballing ideas to make them worse. lol, so what would happen if a Int Devourer got ahold of a host that's a Vampire?
Vampires are dead, they are undead, operating on a negative biochemistry, so, instead, the question is, what happens when you create vampiric Intellect Devourers? A master could infect and turn vampire spawn, and thus, mind control them anyway. I love the idea of an Intellect Devourer "Head Burster", I think I will use that at some point.
had a idea. after the host is infected with the Int. Devourer. If it's discovered and players try to get it out of the host. it physically takes over control of the host body to defend it self. and can use the hosts weapons/spells etc etc. I'm picturing the tentacles failing out the nose whipping back and forth rapidly. the player pleading for life as you the DM control the actions lol. nightmare for a pc.
Thanks! I was actually wrestling with an NPC overtaken by an intellect devourer and now a KO will reveal the pulsating sack with a tendral up his nose which may be removed by swift (but risky) action or the magester guild. Nothing like clarity!
Warboss West Take a Warhammer and “smashy smashy”, that was the reaction of one of my characters as well after a few ID encounters...and as he put it “Cuts down on zombies and skeletons they can call on us too!”
AJ - Great work up on the IDs. At the end, you talk about them being "emissaries, attached to monstrous creatures", while that is true to an extent, it is very clearly stated in the Monster Manual under the first sentence of the "Body Thief" description that it only targets "an incapacitated humanoid within 5 ft., not any "target creature". Probably a good reason for that, otherwise, why not just have the ID take over a Tarrasque (which otherwise meets the criteria with an INT of 3, and would eventually fail that INT DC 12 save?) That still leaves a lot of possibilities, all the PC races, plus things like Bugbears, Bullywugs, Goblins, Drow, Gith, Gnolls, Grimlocks (wouldn't that be interesting to throw in a Grimlock that is actually a ID with other Grimlocks who also serve the Illithid?), half-dragons, Hobgoblins, Lycanthropes, kobolds, Kou-Toa, Sahuagan and Merfolk, etc. Great way to change up the monsters! My interpretation is that once the ID has become a Body Thief to a humanoid, the ID has not lost the blindsight ability, detect sentience, or Devour Intellect or Body Thief abilities, it just has a new body. It could then use Body Thief again to "trade up" or "trade down" the body when it incapacitates a different humanoid, leaving the old, brainless one behind. Imagine a finicky Intellect Devourer that wants to be an Elf today, a Troglodyte tomorrow and an Orc the next. Imagine all the intel an ID can collect for its Illithid masters? No wonder the Illithid ruled everything in the past/future.
an idea of Brain Dog sound like a good idea on paper, up until someone cast "Protection from Good & Evil" on them, that is single cast and Brain Dog just send flying + piss off player for obvious reason
I believe there is something in Xanathar's Guide about regaining lost stats. Personally I'd just add the feature that the effects wear off after an hour just because resorting to downtime activities in the middle of a dungeon or the underdark is just flat out annoying and takes the fun out of the game.
I love the 1st Edition version of the intellect devourer. It was almost impossible to kill because of it's resistance and immunity to damage. It was a 6 HD creature, with the following abilities: "They are able to hide in shadow as well as a 10th level thief. Normal weapons and most spells have no effect upon these monsters. Magical weapons +3 or more cause 1 point of damage upon them when they hit. Bright light will drive them off, and a protection from evil will keep them at a distance. _Fire balls_ serve only as a bright light, but _lightning bolts_ will cause them pain and some small damage (1 paint per die of _lightning bolt_ strength). A _death spell_ has a 25% chance of success, and a _power word kill_ will slay them. Of course, they can be psionically attacked, and their psionic strength of 200 total makes this not too difficult." "Their awareness extends to the astral and ethereal planes, and intellect devourers often roam the astral and ethereal planes."
Maybe its just because I love aberrations, but why be a lich when you can fully possess an intellect devourer and body ride from one person to another?
IDs are a fun, weird thing for me. On the one hand, I really like their stealthy quality, in 5e,yet I agree they can be daunting for player characters to deal with, when they can straight up kill the character. One of myvown little Illithid complaints is that they never seem to try stealth. I mean, they do, but a Mind Flayer has a particular look, and so might struggle to get along in a community. An idea I recently had, though, combined two terrors; the ID and the Doppelganger. I suppose Illithids could control, or coerce, the shspechanger's service, but IDs just serve, so having one eat a Doppelganger's brain, and inherit its abilities, could be neat. I'm going to confess I didn't consider them running around slave populations, snacking on slave minds. I've complained before about how can Mind Flayers control populations with the powers depicted on their blocks, but u feel like this would help greatly .
I would say it is because they are usually evil. Anything that lives in proximity to an Elder Brain is going to be influenced by it (as my best guess).
@@AJPickett Thank you for your answer! I'm most familiar with first and third editions, wherein intellect devourers are vulnerable to protection from evil as though they were summoned creatures (which they clearly are not). Obviously, this is just an inconsistency left over from the early days, but it can be quite an exercise to try to justify it. Pathfinder makes them sufficiently alien that somehow it works on them. It's 1AM here in California and my wife really wants to go to sleep, so I can't do any research on fifth edition or looking through old Dragon mags right now. Good night, and thank you again
Was curious to what extend intellect devourers have a personality of their own, or are they completely subservient to their masters (Lilith is a). In the case of the Xanathars guild, do they actually obey the Xanathars?
I will forever call these things "brainhead bugs" I also call mindflayers and the Mondflayer tadpoles "brainhead bugs" Never said I was particularly creative.
Yeah I really dislike the new origin of Intellect devourer, why would Illithids waste already extracted food to make creatures that are potentially dangerous to them. I much prefer an origin for them being Far Plane creatures or the fungus idea. (Like Migo)
Stop giving GMs tips for capturing the party............... Kinda a pet peeve of mine. I get that some DM's want to raise the stakes and have this thrilling adventure planned out in their heads, but players NEVER react or behave in a predictable way. If a party gets captured due to caiotic stupid, then fine; but this whole idea of a cut-scene fade to black moment where you wake up in chains doesn't really work in tabletop like it does in video games. Primarily due to things like save games that don't exist in this medium. Set the stage, set the actors, but don't set the story.
I always thought these things were way overpowered for "Illithid chickens". They are almost scarier than their masters.
One planet’s fodder is another planet’s apex predator.
@@epiccthuluExactly! What's blasé in one place is a monster somewhere else. Though, in a world with actual monsters, that opens up some real orders of magnitude.
Get an INT Devourer, put it in a Doppelganger, and watch your party descent into madness.
Great video! I’ll be sure to use them alongside Mind Flayers for my game group. I like the idea of having a pseudo death spiral with their ability to drain the PC’s ability to think. This will be really fun to act out at our table.
Originally intellect devoured had nothing to do with mind flayers or the fungus creatures. Not in first edition anyway. Fiend folio introduced the fungus creatures as their own breed of monster. Originally None of these creatures was conected
Thank you for the clarification Dittimus, much appreciated! :D
Cordyceps fungi!!! Last Of Us! You’re so ahead of your time, AJ!
We're all way more scared of intellect devourers than we are of mind flayers.
The risk of a single bad roll straight up killing a player is so intimidating compared to the mind flayer stun eat combo. Especially if you combine one mind flayer and one intelligent devourer.
In one turn a player is dead and a barbarian or a cleric with high level magic is added to the encounter. And what options do you have to save them? Wish the brain back. Regenerate over the course of a minute without losing concentration or getting killed or killing them and using the 1000 gp spell resurrection or reincarnate
Love these cuties. They make great recurring villains as they are very elusive foes. The key is to give them some noticeable quirk or habit for the party to look out for.
3.5e " Psionic " hand book, using Metamorph Other and Psychic Surgery to create psionic bioweapons.
Just take item creation feat to a different level.
Since metamorphosis and psionic powers are more than difficult for the spell Dispel Magic can undo, it has a more lasting effect.
i'Lithids can breed all types of monsters to their personal tastes, which many will find horrifying.
These are body horror monsters in my campaigns. When an Intellect Devourer takes over a PC in my campaigns, I tell him his alignment is now Lawful Evil and he is part of the Intellect Devourer's party but otherwise "normal". I allow him to either surrender his character to NPC control or give him the option to play as part of the bad guys. It's during this state, the PC's brain is replaced by the Intellect Devourer but is ironically salvageable. Cast Regenerate, Heal or even Cure Disease on him, his brain will regrow and absorb his lost memories from the now consumed Intellect Devourer. In the Cure Disease version, it's not his brain that's regrown. His body and original mind assimilated the Intellect Devourer. If he is ever killed, he becomes a Player Character Intellect Devourer with the Player Character's original mind. He will struggle with his Intellect Devourer nature, especially if he is a good guy. Raising him from the dead will respawn his body as a symbiotic form he became after the Cure Disease altered him, the original body with the assimilated Intellect Devourer as his brain with his original mind. The bonus of that is that he is immune to Intellect Devourer attacks after that and resistant to most forms of mind control.
Don't look at me like that. Put twisted monsters in my game and I come up with just as twisted horror based upon it.
I can imagine zombies eyes lighting when they see these puppys
I don't know man. If I came across a turkey sandwich with legs and claws I'd be having quite a different reaction.
Nice work on the video!
I had a different way of things with Intellect Devourers’ lore, in many of my games they were from the same bizarre plane/dimension as Grell, and were their equivalent of dogs.
Cathulu chickens... Nice
I like to imagine that when the intellect devourer teleports it's actually just teleporting it's consciousness. Especially with the 5e devourers that are twisted and mutated brains. I like to think the devourer teleports its consciousness inside of the brain and warps it into the new intellect devourer body.
Maybe to combine both ideas, the Devourer bores into the nose/ears with its tendrils, downloads its consciousness into the new host, then its body either shrivels up and dies or goes into a stasis while it takes up its new body and host. The host brain gradually transforms into a new Devourer, the longer it goes on the more difficult it becomes for the victim to regain consciousness in his body. This way it allows for the freaky visuals for players without the 'It's magic!' overkill. Just an idea, anyway.
I would have it bore into the intestines and work its way up with a tendril. It just needs contact with the brain.
@@twogruden9943 ....actually *MIGHTY PSIONICS* !
I Have a new player idea. A illusionist got caught trying to learn the psionic abilities mind manipulating abilities. He became a intellect devourer. Remembered who he was, and escaped before he got eaten. Takes the bodies of those he fights.
Thanks AJ. You just seeded an idea for one of my present games. Like a tendril working its way in...
Maybe I'm going way to far with this, but would an Intellect Devourer not very quickly undergo an existential crisis and alignment change if they devoured someone particularly good for their first meal? These 20 plus years surely overriding or heavily influencing the little time the creature has been alive. Killing someone, who loved others and brought joy to the world, particularly a good cleric or paladin, it would immediately inherit their victims belief and values and start to judge what they did as wrong and feel guilty even though they didn't know any better at the time. Would it not weep and beg the party to resurrect this light in the world that they so mindlessly snuffed out. That is only a very good character mind you and I imagine it would be far harder for this to happen if they had been subsisting on drow ect for a while but still. Food for thought. What do other people think?
That could be an interesting plot twist, perhaps an intellect devourer who develops "goodness" is now considered "Ripe" by Mind Flayers, who will then blast it and eat it with great relish?What we know of Mind Flayers and their ilk, however, is that they don't feel the positive emotions as we do, they only experience them vicariously, like someone watching someone else derive pleasure from eating a delicious meal, but not tasting anything themselves.
You said in the video that, intellect devourers are fungi and not aberrations like mind flayers or are we just going 5e canon now?
Were fungi, but yes, 5E canon has written over that, and it's fine.. for all intents and purposes, Illithid could be Fungal life forms as well (a motile, cerebravore fungiform parasite, to be precise) it would not change much about them for the purpose of game mechanics or flavour.
Werefungi? O.o
I personally like the 5e versions, but that is mainly because I created two intellect devourers in my campaign whom gained their former personalities and memories back after being subjected to the Stone of Awakening (the main plot point of the campaign) so the fungus variant would fudge up their backstories, and create a plot hole. I love the idea of these two freed intellect devourers trying to steal the stone from the party in hopes they can use it to liberate other intellect devourers more specifically their wife and sister.
Though as fungus, I would imagine they'd be a lot like bulborbs.
I've been wondering this but I can't seem to figure it out, but how would one go about using Quoatle's. Flying winged serpents. I can't come up with anything.
Are you planning on having any adventures in the celestial planes?
AJ Pickett not really, just General use. It says they are servants of good gods and watch over players or gaurd relics and such, but how would players encounter one. it claims they do whatever they can to avoid be revealed, but I'm not sure ,if that's the case, how players WOULD find out and how to go about using it. it says they wouldn't lie, but there is no way they would ever know about this creature in the game world.
Well, we know that they can change shape for indefinite periods of time, but change back into their true form when they die. In any form they take, they are shielded from any spell or effect that reveals their thoughts and emotions, even where they are.. this in itself could clue someone onto the fact that they are not what they appear to be. Then you could just ask this individual "Hey, are you actually a *whatever they are shape shifted into* and why can't we sense you?" and the Couatl starts getting really vague and evasive.. ah ha!
Player characters will figure it out if you give them some subtle clues. Never underestimate (or overestimate) the curiosity of a player.
I would use the Couatl as a being that is concerned with the movements, discovery, use and information about powerful artifacts, high level spells and imprisoned creatures of great chaos and destruction. If the player characters don't know they are about to inadvertently release a great calamity on the land, the Couatl may act to warn, divert or prevent them from doing so.
Excellent question by the way!
AJ Pickett thanks my man
could make a super devourer, like you said in the video, have them shove their tenticles up the nose and take over the host. and take away the "teleport" ..... lets take it one step ferther intot he rabbit hole. and the longer its attached to the host the devourer starts mutating the brain of the host into a devourer. and even after removed depending on how long it was attached in a week or so after painful headaches and the such, a new baby int devourer is born with all your knowlage and the basics of the species. I mean they are bred from and by mind flayers after all. and it would give them that Alien chest burster feel.
Just spitballing ideas to make them worse. lol, so what would happen if a Int Devourer got ahold of a host that's a Vampire?
Vampires are dead, they are undead, operating on a negative biochemistry, so, instead, the question is, what happens when you create vampiric Intellect Devourers? A master could infect and turn vampire spawn, and thus, mind control them anyway.
I love the idea of an Intellect Devourer "Head Burster", I think I will use that at some point.
sweet.
had a idea. after the host is infected with the Int. Devourer. If it's discovered and players try to get it out of the host. it physically takes over control of the host body to defend it self. and can use the hosts weapons/spells etc etc. I'm picturing the tentacles failing out the nose whipping back and forth rapidly. the player pleading for life as you the DM control the actions lol. nightmare for a pc.
How about the thought eater
Thanks! I was actually wrestling with an NPC overtaken by an intellect devourer and now a KO will reveal the pulsating sack with a tendral up his nose which may be removed by swift (but risky) action or the magester guild. Nothing like clarity!
So hypothetically speaking, if I were to play a druid specialized in fungus, could I use these things as covert agents? Because that would be fun.
After my group encountered one I ended up lobotomizing ever corpse we made.
Warboss West Take a Warhammer and “smashy smashy”, that was the reaction of one of my characters as well after a few ID encounters...and as he put it “Cuts down on zombies and skeletons they can call on us too!”
Yup that happens.
AJ - Great work up on the IDs. At the end, you talk about them being "emissaries, attached to monstrous creatures", while that is true to an extent, it is very clearly stated in the Monster Manual under the first sentence of the "Body Thief" description that it only targets "an incapacitated humanoid within 5 ft., not any "target creature". Probably a good reason for that, otherwise, why not just have the ID take over a Tarrasque (which otherwise meets the criteria with an INT of 3, and would eventually fail that INT DC 12 save?) That still leaves a lot of possibilities, all the PC races, plus things like Bugbears, Bullywugs, Goblins, Drow, Gith, Gnolls, Grimlocks (wouldn't that be interesting to throw in a Grimlock that is actually a ID with other Grimlocks who also serve the Illithid?), half-dragons, Hobgoblins, Lycanthropes, kobolds, Kou-Toa, Sahuagan and Merfolk, etc. Great way to change up the monsters!
My interpretation is that once the ID has become a Body Thief to a humanoid, the ID has not lost the blindsight ability, detect sentience, or Devour Intellect or Body Thief abilities, it just has a new body. It could then use Body Thief again to "trade up" or "trade down" the body when it incapacitates a different humanoid, leaving the old, brainless one behind. Imagine a finicky Intellect Devourer that wants to be an Elf today, a Troglodyte tomorrow and an Orc the next. Imagine all the intel an ID can collect for its Illithid masters? No wonder the Illithid ruled everything in the past/future.
an idea of Brain Dog sound like a good idea on paper, up until someone cast "Protection from Good & Evil" on them, that is
single cast and Brain Dog just send flying + piss off player for obvious reason
I believe there is something in Xanathar's Guide about regaining lost stats. Personally I'd just add the feature that the effects wear off after an hour just because resorting to downtime activities in the middle of a dungeon or the underdark is just flat out annoying and takes the fun out of the game.
I love the 1st Edition version of the intellect devourer. It was almost impossible to kill because of it's resistance and immunity to damage.
It was a 6 HD creature, with the following abilities: "They are able to hide in shadow as well as a 10th level thief. Normal weapons and most spells have no effect upon these monsters. Magical weapons +3 or more cause 1 point of damage upon them when they hit. Bright light will drive them off, and a protection from evil will keep them at a distance. _Fire balls_ serve only as a bright light, but _lightning bolts_ will cause them pain and some small damage (1 paint per die of _lightning bolt_ strength). A _death spell_ has a 25% chance of success, and a _power word kill_ will slay them. Of course, they can be psionically attacked, and their psionic strength of 200 total makes this not too difficult." "Their awareness extends to the astral and ethereal planes, and intellect devourers often roam the astral and ethereal planes."
I thought that intelligent devourer were made from animals brain as it didn't make sense for Mindflayers to waste food brains to make them
Maybe it disperses into spores, getting inhaled by the target, and replaces its brain over 1d4 hours or days or something.
Maybe its just because I love aberrations, but why be a lich when you can fully possess an intellect devourer and body ride from one person to another?
I for sure prefer the fungus origin
IDs are a fun, weird thing for me. On the one hand, I really like their stealthy quality, in 5e,yet I agree they can be daunting for player characters to deal with, when they can straight up kill the character.
One of myvown little Illithid complaints is that they never seem to try stealth. I mean, they do, but a Mind Flayer has a particular look, and so might struggle to get along in a community. An idea I recently had, though, combined two terrors; the ID and the Doppelganger. I suppose Illithids could control, or coerce, the shspechanger's service, but IDs just serve, so having one eat a Doppelganger's brain, and inherit its abilities, could be neat.
I'm going to confess I didn't consider them running around slave populations, snacking on slave minds. I've complained before about how can Mind Flayers control populations with the powers depicted on their blocks, but u feel like this would help greatly .
I know it's too late to hope for an answer, but why does protection from evil work on them?
I would say it is because they are usually evil. Anything that lives in proximity to an Elder Brain is going to be influenced by it (as my best guess).
@@AJPickett Thank you for your answer! I'm most familiar with first and third editions, wherein intellect devourers are vulnerable to protection from evil as though they were summoned creatures (which they clearly are not). Obviously, this is just an inconsistency left over from the early days, but it can be quite an exercise to try to justify it. Pathfinder makes them sufficiently alien that somehow it works on them. It's 1AM here in California and my wife really wants to go to sleep, so I can't do any research on fifth edition or looking through old Dragon mags right now. Good night, and thank you again
Was curious to what extend intellect devourers have a personality of their own, or are they completely subservient to their masters (Lilith is a). In the case of the Xanathars guild, do they actually obey the Xanathars?
So it’s like the cordiceps fungus that turns bugs into zombies, this fungus is the same fungus in the last of us game
Alien fungus
what is the process of making an intellect devourer called?
Cerebromorphosis?
Cephalomorphosis?
Uh I remember fighting this thing in neverwinter nights it had high damage res
I will forever call these things "brainhead bugs"
I also call mindflayers and the Mondflayer tadpoles "brainhead bugs"
Never said I was particularly creative.
Yeah I really dislike the new origin of Intellect devourer, why would Illithids waste already extracted food to make creatures that are potentially dangerous to them. I much prefer an origin for them being Far Plane creatures or the fungus idea. (Like Migo)
Will this be in New game my goal is to leave at least on comment on each vid u ever made but so many and I like them almost
Take ideas from Last of Us. The old lady in the first episode was creepy.
Definitely body horror.
Stop giving GMs tips for capturing the party............... Kinda a pet peeve of mine. I get that some DM's want to raise the stakes and have this thrilling adventure planned out in their heads, but players NEVER react or behave in a predictable way. If a party gets captured due to caiotic stupid, then fine; but this whole idea of a cut-scene fade to black moment where you wake up in chains doesn't really work in tabletop like it does in video games. Primarily due to things like save games that don't exist in this medium. Set the stage, set the actors, but don't set the story.