RIP math. Mind Flayers actually need about 1440 brains in their lifespan to live a healthy long life, not a mere 120. I must have dozed off when i wrote that down. Sorry folks!
Don't they need 1081 brains for a healthy life? Since they don't eat any in their first ten years, and then for twenty years, when they are put inside a humanoid to grow and control their body, they just eat that one? That would leave us with ninety years of eating one brain per month, hence 1080 brains plus the one for their growth = 1081. I could be wrong and please correct me if I am. Thank you.
I don't think they take 20 years to eat the one brain. They insert themselves, eat the brain, insert themselves in the brain stem, and after that it takes 20 years to mature. During those 20 years I'm guessing they eat as normal. Also, I'm guessing the 120 years is regarded to the age of the actual mind flayer, not the pre mind flayer tadpole stage.
You didn't mention one of my favorite bits of Mind Flayer lore. They're the only being in the multiverse that Aboleths have nearly no knowledge of their origin, and are therefor the only thing in creation that they fear -- or show caution for. Aboleths have a collective consciousness that span back to the multiverse's earliest moments, and at no point do they ever observe the evolution or creation of Mind Flayers. They just sort of... pop into existence.
Word. They conquered the universe millions of years into the future. Then these slave dudes revolted and genocided them all to death. So before the last of them died they did some terminator shit and sent some dudes back in time a bagillion years ago. The Aboleth video talks about it.
Aboleths also have extremely limited knowledge of Aetherborn. Their original conception in the aether being almost completely unknown, the only thing known is that they are created by pure aether energy. But how/why they where created in aether is unknown. Btw, would they be classified as aether elementals?
My players: Defeats the Ancient Red Dragon Also my Players: Dies to one Mind Flayer due to extremely poor intelligence stats and rolls against the mind blast.
at one point I was playing a rpg (not dnd) with a group who I was new too but they had played lots of rpgs with eachother in past. person 1 "watch he's going to drop another mind flayer on us" gm "only if I want you guys to burn literally everything again" apparently their response to a rumor of a mind flayer was to use some kind of crazy magic to incinerate an entire continent. which ruined everything the gm had planed
@@Naxthural i remember a time when ia played d&d with my pals and started a campaign. we were doing vey well until we faced a mind flayer. it was standing at the back of a long and narrow room and as the careless and cocky people we were, we just knocked the door down and hoped to kill whatever was inside the room. unfortunately, we were all lined up pretty perfectly for its mind blast cone. and that lucky dm got a very high intiative roll for it. the only one that reacted before it was our rogue and all he could ever do was firing one shot from his bow. then the mind flayer used his mind blast cone and all of us failed on our save. we got wiped from one mind flayer and our campaign ended horribly. good old times.
I came in here knowing that Mind Flayers eat brains. The beginning of the video tells me all that I know may be wrong or misrepresented. It then immediately says that they eat brains.
@@trod146 I think they're more pointing out that mind flayers are actually one of the most well-known monsters amongst players of d&d, pathfinder, etc etc, and that most people will actually be right with what they know about them. Calling out a clickbaity title isn't exactly bragging.
New BG3 lore about mind flayers: 1: it is possible, but extraordinarily rare, almost as rare as the use of a 10th level spell, for a mind flayer to possess their original soul and emotions even after they have turned. 2: it is possible for mind flayers to break free from elder brains using aberrations in their genetics, like arcane magic. 3: mind flayers are capable of utilizing all sorts of combat techniques and skills, but may choose not to due to psionic superiority.
Good video Rhexx, but you got some stuff wrong. 1st. The Gith were freed by Zerthimon and Vlaakith. Vlaakith turned into a lich (So the Illithid's psionic would have no effect on her) and wanted to wide the Illithids out, Zerthimon didn't want to do this so he led some Gith to limbo, creating the Githzerai, with Vlaakith leading some Gith to the Astral plane to hunt Illithids. 2. Illithids in-fact come from the Far Realm, as they are classified as Aberrations. 3. Gnomes, Halfling and Monstrous Humanoids are NOT immune, they just don't turn into a "regular" Mind Flayer. 4. The victim of an Illithid parasite have memories of their former life, or share habits (Such as a whistle or biting fingernails). In-fact the Illithid even have a prophecy about a Mind-flayer who is physically an Illithid but still has all of the memories of the former life, called an Adversary. This freaks the out big time BTW. Sorry Rhexx, I just felt like you left some stuff out is all.
The Pronouncement of Two Skies, the blood-feud between the followers of Zerthimon and Gith, stems from two primary factors; Gith believed that it was her people's right to rule over all others, as they were the slayers of the illithids and the 'saviors' of the planes. Zerthimon viewed this as nothing less than tyranny, and believed that it would lead to their people becoming no better than the Mind Flayers. During the clashes between their factions, surviving Illithids were able to escape the Astral Sea and take refuge in their new hidden enclaves on the various Prime Material worlds, and this was viewed by Gith (and Vlaakith after her) as an absolute betrayal on the part of Zerthimon and his followers. tldr; Gith was all for owning slaves and being the only one in charge, Zerthimon so 'fuck that noise' and started a fight, but the squiddies got away and now the Githyanki hate the Githzerai even more than before.
Well i think that the Gith used a rage state of some sort to almost wipe the mind flayers out because if you read Exile it is explained that the mind flayers basically cannot control someone that is in a Rage or anger state meaning berserk or just plain furious! so that's my theory!
I had understood it that githyaki are a hive mind, invading one mind is like invading all of at once. That and their queens are not weak psionically even compared to mind flayers
Fun fact: gnomes can still be infected by tadpoles, and become a form of mind flayers. however often they become what is known as a mozgriken, a gnome ceremorph, or a gnome squidling. These are what are known as flayer-kin or half illithids. Mozgriken are only made from deep gnomes, and the other two are for the other species of gnomes. If successful on the other species of gnomes it becomes a gnome ceremorph, if not it becomes a gnome squidling.
@@blueskull7496 you have a brain, okay? You just don't use it outside the minimum functions to stay alive: inhale, exhale, heartbeat, eat, digest. But just your ability to answer shows you use your brain. How else were you able to produce combinations of letters that make sense?
LOVE the fact that you separate psionics from magic! I honestly have no idea why are some people bent on the idea that they are the same, when it would bring so much more flavor into D&D to have them be their own things (not to mention that pretty much all of their arguments are poor and hold no water). Besides offering the possibility to create characters and campaigns with their special identity that goes outside your standard high fantasy (yes, that's right, I like the idea of fantasy using the full potential of one's imagination instead of being bound to the same old - shocking, I know), they also allow for different mechanics to appear in order for players to customize their characters even more (for example, I like casters, but the whole spell slot system makes very little sense to me, meaning that having a system based on power points allows me to create a character more enjoyable to play as). Also, psionics actually return some of the magic into D&D! Since magic is so common in D&D, it ironically becomes less magical, so to speak (it is pretty much 'fantasy science' by now). Having something mysterious and uncommon like psionics will actually lit that magical spark again! The reason why I say all this is in hope that when we do get the psionc based class for 5e (Psion/Mystic), that it doesn't become just another spell slot based caster that we already have in the game in so many shapes and forms, but its own thing that offers all the new possibilities (and if you don't like it, you can, you know, simply not play it)!
What exactly can you do with psionics that you can't do with magic, divine, wizardly, or sorcerous? I don't know what everyone else thinks about it, but I know for myself, I find it pretty damn redundant. Actually worse than such since it adds a whole other unwelcome layer of complexity when calculating things.
@@arnox4554 since the year of wild magic psionics and magic is interactimg as the same force, if they could somehow sense that youbare casting(detect toughts) a wizard could counter a psionic power
@janivt1 AD&D 2e was extremely clear on this point. Randomly generating a psionic character gave you a handful of abilities that couldn't be dispelled or counter spelled because they were two completely different energies. It was a major feature of the Dark Sun campaign world where literally every person (some plants, too) had psionic ability, but using magic was outlawed and often environmentally disastrous.
lol I love that you threw Jace on screen as you said "counterspell". I have a friend that plays a few different Jace decks that run SO many counterspells!
"Only the strongest tadpole will become a mindflayer" Then a random adventurer with Chaotic Thoughts casted on him appears, shanks the mindflayer eats it and takes a dump in the tadpole pool, while screaming.
Mind flayers in the lore: lovecraftian aliens from beyond time Mind flayers in my campaign: Racist squid people with heavy southern accents and psychic shotguns
YES! A Mindflayer video! In the campaign I'm in we're about to go on a huge mission to purge a Mindflayer invasion, so I've been reading up a lot on the subject. I've been waiting for you to post a video on the subject since yours are among the best and most concise.
You have the perfect tone and voice to set the correct mood of either foreboding fear or adventurous wonder in your videos. This was a entirely gut-wrenching, utterly terrifying video to listen to while playing open-world survival videogames. I am very disturbed. Thank you for that.
It would be interesting to have a campaign where the party joins up with a cotorie of Githzerai or Githyanki to purge an enclave of Illithids and their servants from the Prime Material.
MrRhexx! I love your lore videos for D&D! Please do more! Your video editing, lore knowledge, delivery, all of it is amazing. I also would like to request mimics please.
The old AD&D books stated that the Gith learned how to use psionic abilities from the Flayers and secretly grew their abilities until they were capable of revolt.
thanks for telling me that Illithid have an acidic substance they can produce from their tentacles, that makes my Illithid character much more powerful!
Loving this series MrRhexx. I subscribed to your channel for your Skyrim stuff, but I like this series even more than your Skyrim videos (which I also love). Amazing work.
I know you're mostly looking up info and just sharing it in your videos, but they give me a lot of inspiration for how to have my players interact with creatures in the world
I have to say that this interest's me alot so thank you for making these video's, and this was the fist video of these i found so i thought i would say it here, i also find it funny i found this in my recommendation box after i had bead the Mine Flayer in "Enter the Gungeon" for the first time. (Most Bosses in that game have gun or armaments based words mixed into there name)
Great video! My party are going to encounter mind flayers pretty soon. I also plan on throwing the you know what at them. I don't want to spoil your next vid but its the crazy tadpole from Volos guide lol. I can't wait for that episode.
Question: Don't healthy mindflayers require 1,440 brains over the course of their lifetime? At around 9:00 you mention that they need at least 120 brains. Just wondering if I got my math wrong! Love your videos!
I'm really enjoying this series on these elder monsters, and I'm incorporating them into a game I plan to start, although the players don't know it yet...👍🏻☺️👌🏼. Thanks and keep up the good work!
This was a pretty cool video; thanks for making it! I've always found the Mind Flayers/Illithids pretty fascinating as creatures in D&D (and other sources), and there were some pretty cool extra facts in here. I find it interesting how dwarves and other shorter races are generally immune to being used to create new Flayers, while the more 'average' races are perfect candidates. lol Might help me in my own writings, since one of my central characters is a dwarf. :)
Magic in its nature chaotic energy, thus it is being transferred to the material plane (a combination of chaos and order) by an abstraction of chaos or what we call a soul, while pshycic energy are trasfered by mind the abstraction of order. It is kinda like physics and it is easier to understand this way.
Are you talking about the force carrier that changes an objects behaviour AKA Mana? Or are you talking about Mana as in the physical counterparts to real particles. Or are you talking about Mana the liquid volatile fluid that can change at any moment to a gas or a solid, due to it's weird properties as it's weird water. Instead of being Hydrogen and Oxygen, it's constitution although weighing the same as water and basically being the counterpart of water is made from Essence of Liquid mH and Essence of Fire mO and a normal Hydrogen atom? I mean as a person who studies the implications of mana the force carrier and the mana particles and the many mana counterparts of regular atoms, such as essence of void mHe or essence of weight mOs. Well one might say that there are an unfathomable amounts of these essences but some are so unstable that they just exist for fractions of nanoseconds. Most peculiar things they are. The always liquid Essence of Gold literally the m atom of gold. we don't know why but it's always a liquid except during extreme circumstances, we cooled it down in an experiment to 0.02K and it became solid but some parts of it became a gas and rose to the top of the container coating the container in gold, before itself turned solid, and under extremely high temperatures it turned into a gas, only for droplets forming almost instantly raining down gold. However my favorite of these counterpart particles is mC the counterpart of coal, it is very interesting indeed, it can store large amount of mana in a crystal pattern due to the stability of the mana isotopes. Most of these forms are more stable than the same isotope of regular coal, mC14 doesn't decay at all for the most part depends on how many protons are mana Protons and how many Neutrons are their counterpart too. It's highly complicated stuff. Now excuse me while I'll go make some Adamantium, mFe alloy with mC and mTi and mNi It's slightly heavier than regular steel but it's about as hard as regular diamonds.
What are you talking about?... I thought we were talking about a fantasy universe. But I wouldnt call mana a particle rather the potential energy of elementary magic interction (like elektro-magnetic, gravitational, strong and weak). While this weird water is just a substance with a comperativly high mana and samE with mC and mana isnt the transferrer your soul is. If you.dont understand imagine there is an elektrick motor and it is powering a car , does elektricity power the car ? Yes is it transfering any energy? No, that is being done by the motor. Here its the same thing. That wasnt the best example but hey it isnt from a stupidly hard physics theory written by consuming drugs. I do not nesseraly say magic is just interaction, that isnt nessesarily true Ok next this actually has an interesting implication: magicly enchansed materials actually just have different stronger interections between the core and electrons (or other particles).
I concur, magic phenomena are more akin to elementary forces (although I would say it's more like gravity, a distortion in the plane in it occurs). Thaums (the unit for magic) is a property of the thing in question (like mass, charge, spin, length wave). In nature, magic can be found stored or in a flow (much like we call voltage or current, when we talk about electricity) and like electromagnetic waves you can find places where it simply cannot travel (antimagic zones are like Faraday's cages). Still there are things that are true mysteries like what the spells actually are (we only have a slight idea of how they work, there are many "traditions", wizards, druids, clerics, psions and even innate beings). Even weirder are sentient spells or oozes (a byproduct of potions) that have the intelligence of some lesser elemental forms. And if place like an "Elemental Plane of Magic" exists, it has been keep in the dark...
In some of the 2nd Ed books it was implied via the lore about the Mind Flayers (and, surprisingly, the Aboleths), that the Mind Flayers are from the future. Which is why we cannot find evidence of their empire. The Gith rebelled against them, they fled into the "past" and when the Gith followed, they fled underground.
Actually the answer is quite simple they made a pact with one of the gods of death to transform one of them into an extremely powerful Litch this allowed them to combat the Mind flares with armies of Undead their only weakness as Undead are completely immune to all psionic attacks
According to the guys behind the D&D beyond youtube channel is that the Gith eventually developed a resistance to the Illithid control. The Illithid practiced selective breeding and it was most likely through this that their resistance started developing. It happened over generations.
YOUR TIMING IS IMPECCABLE SIR! THANK YOU FOR THIS! My players are about to meet some nice friendly Illithids from down the road. (Or should I say under the road?) ;)
A friendly Illithid? Good to see someone else using these! I made an Albino Mind Flayer NPC, who would make rune stones (basically potions) for the party. She lived in a town and she basically made a deal that the brains of the dead would be given to her so she could eat. One particular member of my party, a Male human storm sorcerer, seems to be subtly flirting with her, and brings her whole humanoid corpses in a Hewerds Handy Haversack.
I've just been wondering about a bunch of what if situations like "what if they shoved a metric f ton into a giant?" Or "what if they got a few smaller brains and put em together for the tadpole to eat?"
Am now imagining a campaign centered around an enclave of illithid who've figured out a workaround for the upper size limit, going on to create mind flayer giants.
>Be lone barbarian in a party of spellcasters, so I'm the only one with some combat and skill based capabilities >QT Erudite chick is from a cadet branch of a royal family of her home country, basically she's descended from a royal bastard and thus nobility >Wind up hitting it off with her, get kind of a thing going and open up about each other's pasts. She's an exile from her kingdom due to scandals and her refusal to marry her relatives >We wind up visiting her home country out of necessity to get a maguffin, where she gets kidnapped by the main royal family >Turns out the royal family's full of psychic mutants, with the king being a proto Mind Flayer >Manage to infiltrate/fight our way through the palace, I rip n' tear through several members of the royal family since fuck it I'mma Rage and Frenzy til the cows come home while the other guys zap, disintegrate and reanimate dudes that I miss or can't just bulldoze through >Get to king's chamber, turns into brutal battle but I finally manage to smash his head in, we rescue our psionic chick >Couple years after quest is over, I settled down with Erudite grill and we decided to have a baby >Firstborn son is a mindflayer >I fathered the mindflayers
I need a fact check since its been so long since Ive read the 1st Edition Fiend Folio but I do believe the development of psionics (which were pretty OP in 1st edition) allowed the gith to overthrow their mind flayer masters.
Mind flayers during their life cycle can gain quirks or personality from their initial host but if the host dominates the larvae or the quirks are too apparent then they are most likely executed
I've thought about having mind flayers be the main antagonists of a campaign if I ever play as the DM. They seem like really cool monsters that would be right at home in a H.P. Lovecraft book.
They are a part of the lovecraftian tradition of D&D. There are several different streams of inspiration running through classical D&D to today. Tolkien of course is one of the biggest, but Lovecraft is not too hard to find.
Main issue with pinning down illithid lore is that it's constantly retconned in every edition and it also varies between settings. As for the origin its normally the Far Realm just about all aberrations originated from there.
*Those robes must weight a ton wet and must be horrible to swim in it* Nearly all the images of Illithids show them wearing those heavy robes, so having them in a campaign with anything other than that, might as well have them being octopi-centaurs... I'm trying to make sense of it in my campaign but it is a little challenging to put yourself in their place justifying that. You could say they wear it every time they leave their water environment, that perhaps it keeps them moist ( _somehow_ ) while they deal with their more common land dwelling thralls, but... feels like a stretch. You could argue that they are not amphibian anymore, it was just in their past, but many sources show that they rather rest underwater in personal pools in their lairs as adults Regardless, THESE VIDEOS ARE FANTASTIC! Thank you so much for producing and sharing it!
I'm playing a Mind Flayer in a campaign right now and I find this very offensive. Please delete this video on behalf of my kind, we are very misunderstood you know.
RIP math. Mind Flayers actually need about 1440 brains in their lifespan to live a healthy long life, not a mere 120. I must have dozed off when i wrote that down. Sorry folks!
Don't they need 1081 brains for a healthy life? Since they don't eat any in their first ten years, and then for twenty years, when they are put inside a humanoid to grow and control their body, they just eat that one?
That would leave us with ninety years of eating one brain per month, hence 1080 brains plus the one for their growth = 1081.
I could be wrong and please correct me if I am.
Thank you.
I don't think they take 20 years to eat the one brain. They insert themselves, eat the brain, insert themselves in the brain stem, and after that it takes 20 years to mature. During those 20 years I'm guessing they eat as normal. Also, I'm guessing the 120 years is regarded to the age of the actual mind flayer, not the pre mind flayer tadpole stage.
Hmm, could be. Maybe I interpreted it wrongly. Thanks.
Sure, no problem. That's the way interpreted it anyway :)
was totally about to call you out on that one but glad you did.
"The creation of other mind flayers is one of their greatest secrets..."
That is until the trailers for Baldur's Gate 3 dropped.
You didn't mention one of my favorite bits of Mind Flayer lore. They're the only being in the multiverse that Aboleths have nearly no knowledge of their origin, and are therefor the only thing in creation that they fear -- or show caution for. Aboleths have a collective consciousness that span back to the multiverse's earliest moments, and at no point do they ever observe the evolution or creation of Mind Flayers. They just sort of... pop into existence.
Word. They conquered the universe millions of years into the future. Then these slave dudes revolted and genocided them all to death. So before the last of them died they did some terminator shit and sent some dudes back in time a bagillion years ago. The Aboleth video talks about it.
Aboleths also have extremely limited knowledge of Aetherborn. Their original conception in the aether being almost completely unknown, the only thing known is that they are created by pure aether energy. But how/why they where created in aether is unknown.
Btw, would they be classified as aether elementals?
Nerd Musk that’s so cool! I made this up on the fly in my campaign, it’s so satisfying seeing that’s the lore wow.
Ninja Sushi wait, if their goal in the past is to conquer the galaxy, their whole existence is time paradox! omg thats genius!
@@nubiedubie1651 Sort of. Their existence would only be a paradox if they truly have no other point of origin.
what do you truly know about these creatures?
- Mind controlling
- Hentai
- Always too high level for the party
#2
My players: Defeats the Ancient Red Dragon
Also my Players: Dies to one Mind Flayer due to extremely poor intelligence stats and rolls against the mind blast.
at one point I was playing a rpg (not dnd) with a group who I was new too but they had played lots of rpgs with eachother in past. person 1 "watch he's going to drop another mind flayer on us" gm "only if I want you guys to burn literally everything again" apparently their response to a rumor of a mind flayer was to use some kind of crazy magic to incinerate an entire continent. which ruined everything the gm had planed
@@Naxthural i remember a time when ia played d&d with my pals and started a campaign. we were doing vey well until we faced a mind flayer. it was standing at the back of a long and narrow room and as the careless and cocky people we were, we just knocked the door down and hoped to kill whatever was inside the room.
unfortunately, we were all lined up pretty perfectly for its mind blast cone. and that lucky dm got a very high intiative roll for it. the only one that reacted before it was our rogue and all he could ever do was firing one shot from his bow.
then the mind flayer used his mind blast cone and all of us failed on our save.
we got wiped from one mind flayer and our campaign ended horribly.
good old times.
an apt description...
I came in here knowing that Mind Flayers eat brains. The beginning of the video tells me all that I know may be wrong or misrepresented.
It then immediately says that they eat brains.
"May be" not "is"... something so common knowledge is stupid to brag about knowing..
@@trod146 I think they're more pointing out that mind flayers are actually one of the most well-known monsters amongst players of d&d, pathfinder, etc etc, and that most people will actually be right with what they know about them. Calling out a clickbaity title isn't exactly bragging.
Well, most people think that the actual psionics absorb the brains and don't actually know about the method they do.
"I don't trust Clarota, I don't trust Clarota, I DON'T TRUST CLAROTA!"
Raptor Wares - LITERALLY what I was shouting at them during that adventure. 😜
I wanted to trust Clarota, but I didn't D:
It was the Elder Brain, I think it still had some residual magic from the horn while rejoining.
I did, even though I knew it would end badly for him... rip wizard squidward
when you look up Mindflayer after watching Balder's Gate III trailer
V Y I looked it up to show my sister.
Yes, that's why I'm here :-).
im here cuase of stranger things
@@905InTheDot905 a man with taste I see
V Y baldurs gate was my favorite ps2 game, it’s what made me wanna play Tabletop.
Cthulhu: Really?
Gary Gygax: Yes really
New BG3 lore about mind flayers:
1: it is possible, but extraordinarily rare, almost as rare as the use of a 10th level spell, for a mind flayer to possess their original soul and emotions even after they have turned.
2: it is possible for mind flayers to break free from elder brains using aberrations in their genetics, like arcane magic.
3: mind flayers are capable of utilizing all sorts of combat techniques and skills, but may choose not to due to psionic superiority.
Good video Rhexx, but you got some stuff wrong.
1st. The Gith were freed by Zerthimon and Vlaakith. Vlaakith turned into a lich (So the Illithid's psionic would have no effect on her) and wanted to wide the Illithids out, Zerthimon didn't want to do this so he led some Gith to limbo, creating the Githzerai, with Vlaakith leading some Gith to the Astral plane to hunt Illithids.
2. Illithids in-fact come from the Far Realm, as they are classified as Aberrations.
3. Gnomes, Halfling and Monstrous Humanoids are NOT immune, they just don't turn into a "regular" Mind Flayer.
4. The victim of an Illithid parasite have memories of their former life, or share habits (Such as a whistle or biting fingernails). In-fact the Illithid even have a prophecy about a Mind-flayer who is physically an Illithid but still has all of the memories of the former life, called an Adversary. This freaks the out big time BTW.
Sorry Rhexx, I just felt like you left some stuff out is all.
The Pronouncement of Two Skies, the blood-feud between the followers of Zerthimon and Gith, stems from two primary factors; Gith believed that it was her people's right to rule over all others, as they were the slayers of the illithids and the 'saviors' of the planes. Zerthimon viewed this as nothing less than tyranny, and believed that it would lead to their people becoming no better than the Mind Flayers. During the clashes between their factions, surviving Illithids were able to escape the Astral Sea and take refuge in their new hidden enclaves on the various Prime Material worlds, and this was viewed by Gith (and Vlaakith after her) as an absolute betrayal on the part of Zerthimon and his followers.
tldr; Gith was all for owning slaves and being the only one in charge, Zerthimon so 'fuck that noise' and started a fight, but the squiddies got away and now the Githyanki hate the Githzerai even more than before.
The Adversary is one of my favorite "legends" in D&D, I believe there was also a module featuring it once. 2nd ed I think.
Are there any rogue Githyanki who converted later to Githzerai?
am i the only one who doesn’t know what the fuck is going on
@@ka1ki523 no ur not i didnt even read any of it
Well i think that the Gith used a rage state of some sort to almost wipe the mind flayers out because if you read Exile it is explained that the mind flayers basically cannot control someone that is in a Rage or anger state meaning berserk or just plain furious! so that's my theory!
rage anti-mindaffecting abilities ftw
Isn´t that from a Star Trek Episode? XD Kirk being imprisoned by some mind control freaks with big heads, and anger cancels their mind powers.
Barbarians beat mindflayers
I had understood it that githyaki are a hive mind, invading one mind is like invading all of at once. That and their queens are not weak psionically even compared to mind flayers
So barbarians should be immune to them during rage?
These guys are cool. Hope they show up in a major D&D video game sometime
That'll never happen. No way.
Ha. I wish we'd get something like that but no way
yea would be epic if a game came out like that also cool if it got game of the year but yea no way to niche
Impossible 😂
They have been in nearly every major d&d release since the 80s shut up
Fun fact: gnomes can still be infected by tadpoles, and become a form of mind flayers. however often they become what is known as a mozgriken, a gnome ceremorph, or a gnome squidling. These are what are known as flayer-kin or half illithids. Mozgriken are only made from deep gnomes, and the other two are for the other species of gnomes. If successful on the other species of gnomes it becomes a gnome ceremorph, if not it becomes a gnome squidling.
Almost anything can be infected by the tadpoles, but they won’t necessarily be illithids
Wonder if this is possible in BG3....
Yeah, that is something that was written 3 years after this video. It is also extremely rare that a gnome survives the process.
“They need brains for virtually everything.”
Yeah, most other creatures do too. There are many, many things that cannot be done without a brain.
dont need a brain for a Tumblr account.
Pretty sure i've been living without a brain my whole life excuse me?
@@blueskull7496 you have a brain, okay? You just don't use it outside the minimum functions to stay alive: inhale, exhale, heartbeat, eat, digest.
But just your ability to answer shows you use your brain. How else were you able to produce combinations of letters that make sense?
@@derskalde4973 me understand brain now
Democrats don't need them, apparently.
13:43 - Do I see Smurf at the end of that chart?
What, no talking about the Mindflayer's coming from the dark and distant future? Or is that not cannon anymore?
Thank you! I was just about to ask this myself.
Nathan Holstrom what are illithads
Illithids and Mind Flayers are the same thing, just by different names depending on lore/setting.
I guess it doesn't, at least Volo's guide to monsters doesn't mention anything like that
@@drbrown747 volo is more about practical use, not so heavily lore material
In past editions mind flayers had books jjst for them
LOVE the fact that you separate psionics from magic!
I honestly have no idea why are some people bent on the idea that they are the same, when it would bring so much more flavor into D&D to have them be their own things (not to mention that pretty much all of their arguments are poor and hold no water).
Besides offering the possibility to create characters and campaigns with their special identity that goes outside your standard high fantasy (yes, that's right, I like the idea of fantasy using the full potential of one's imagination instead of being bound to the same old - shocking, I know), they also allow for different mechanics to appear in order for players to customize their characters even more (for example, I like casters, but the whole spell slot system makes very little sense to me, meaning that having a system based on power points allows me to create a character more enjoyable to play as).
Also, psionics actually return some of the magic into D&D!
Since magic is so common in D&D, it ironically becomes less magical, so to speak (it is pretty much 'fantasy science' by now).
Having something mysterious and uncommon like psionics will actually lit that magical spark again!
The reason why I say all this is in hope that when we do get the psionc based class for 5e (Psion/Mystic), that it doesn't become just another spell slot based caster that we already have in the game in so many shapes and forms, but its own thing that offers all the new possibilities (and if you don't like it, you can, you know, simply not play it)!
What exactly can you do with psionics that you can't do with magic, divine, wizardly, or sorcerous? I don't know what everyone else thinks about it, but I know for myself, I find it pretty damn redundant. Actually worse than such since it adds a whole other unwelcome layer of complexity when calculating things.
@@arnox4554 Works in anti magic fields mostly not alot else
@@michaelhowze8198 So now you have an anti-magic field... That for a large group of magic, doesn't work. XD Well... "magic", but you know what I mean.
@@arnox4554 since the year of wild magic psionics and magic is interactimg as the same force, if they could somehow sense that youbare casting(detect toughts) a wizard could counter a psionic power
@janivt1 AD&D 2e was extremely clear on this point. Randomly generating a psionic character gave you a handful of abilities that couldn't be dispelled or counter spelled because they were two completely different energies.
It was a major feature of the Dark Sun campaign world where literally every person (some plants, too) had psionic ability, but using magic was outlawed and often environmentally disastrous.
mindflayer 1 : what should we do today?
mindflayer 2 : let's go snort some brains !
mindflayer 1: right on broooo.
lol I love that you threw Jace on screen as you said "counterspell". I have a friend that plays a few different Jace decks that run SO many counterspells!
I know they taste great stir-fried
You know, I could really go for some telepathic calamari right now.
Found the Githyanki.
I lile to chop their tentacles up and fry them in a tempura batter, while they watch. Their 'hidden' tentacle is the best!
I much prefer them baked in dragon oil myself
You've all got it wrong; cover them in pixie dust, and fry them in dragon oil - Kentucky Flayed Chicken
"Only the strongest tadpole will become a mindflayer"
Then a random adventurer with Chaotic Thoughts casted on him appears, shanks the mindflayer eats it and takes a dump in the tadpole pool, while screaming.
came here because of the Enter the Gungeon boss "Mine Flayer".
always wondered what inspired that boss.
Mind flayers in the lore: lovecraftian aliens from beyond time
Mind flayers in my campaign: Racist squid people with heavy southern accents and psychic shotguns
Dude you have to keep going with this series! You have a great narrating voice and I personally love your lore/secrets videos
YES! A Mindflayer video!
In the campaign I'm in we're about to go on a huge mission to purge a Mindflayer invasion, so I've been reading up a lot on the subject. I've been waiting for you to post a video on the subject since yours are among the best and most concise.
You have the perfect tone and voice to set the correct mood of either foreboding fear or adventurous wonder in your videos. This was a entirely gut-wrenching, utterly terrifying video to listen to while playing open-world survival videogames. I am very disturbed. Thank you for that.
my players are going to freak if i ever throw illithids at them
Almighty Eragon Same XD
Almighty Eragon throw a brain stealer dragon at them and they'll probably have heart attacks.
@@sakuyaizayoi8528 how? The lowest rolled stat is a 3. Is it from a cursed item?
@@sakuyaizayoi8528 Let's just say if you ever run a game in the Astral Plane you are FUCKED.
It would be interesting to have a campaign where the party joins up with a cotorie of Githzerai or Githyanki to purge an enclave of Illithids and their servants from the Prime Material.
.....YOU need to talk about the braineater dragon..its too awsome
Ticci Toby sounds like something I have to mount on my wall lol
Ticci Toby Also lizardfolk ilithid!
@@silenthero618 Good fricking luck duder. They also act as an "elder brain" node too, so a leader of multiple illithid.
there are Illithid Dragons?...aww hell no!
MrRhexx! I love your lore videos for D&D! Please do more! Your video editing, lore knowledge, delivery, all of it is amazing. I also would like to request mimics please.
The old AD&D books stated that the Gith learned how to use psionic abilities from the Flayers and secretly grew their abilities until they were capable of revolt.
Dude, your D&D lore series is the best. Hope you keep making these.
Just re found your channel watched all your Skyrim lore. You have no idea how happy I am. Love you, the content and the lore as always is amazing man.
thanks for telling me that Illithid have an acidic substance they can produce from their tentacles, that makes my Illithid character much more powerful!
Loving this series MrRhexx. I subscribed to your channel for your Skyrim stuff, but I like this series even more than your Skyrim videos (which I also love). Amazing work.
I came here after Baldur's Gate III's trailer. Oh boy, that game is gonna be awesome.
I know you're mostly looking up info and just sharing it in your videos, but they give me a lot of inspiration for how to have my players interact with creatures in the world
I have to say that this interest's me alot so thank you for making these video's, and this was the fist video of these i found so i thought i would say it here, i also find it funny i found this in my recommendation box after i had bead the Mine Flayer in "Enter the Gungeon" for the first time.
(Most Bosses in that game have gun or armaments based words mixed into there name)
I like the third edition explanation that they fled from an unknown enemy at the end of the universe back to the past of the DnD multiverse.
13:38
And that's why I have 4'10" and 4'11" characters. Well also because that's what my art style best fits, cutesy and short characters.
They're one of my favorite creatures, and I'm not surprised this is one of few videos I knew everything.
Great video! My party are going to encounter mind flayers pretty soon. I also plan on throwing the you know what at them. I don't want to spoil your next vid but its the crazy tadpole from Volos guide lol. I can't wait for that episode.
You forgot they also like to hang out in Hawkins, Indiana...and The Upside Down
cobbb11 this was before stranger things 2
I know. 'Twas a joke good sir.
lol the upside down is shadowfell
@@rongpirson5250 It's inspired by it.
I would just like to say hats off to you for making a stranger things refrence
ONLY A COUPLE OF MONTHS UNTIL STRANGER THINGS THREE WOOOOOOOO
Question: Don't healthy mindflayers require 1,440 brains over the course of their lifetime? At around 9:00 you mention that they need at least 120 brains. Just wondering if I got my math wrong! Love your videos!
Noticed the same. Interesting video still. Feel inspired to use Mind Flayers in my game now.
No, Edric Leggett is right. It would be 1,440 if the Mindflayers ate a brain once a month for it's whole life.
Rokkiteer I'm currently using them with their ultimate goal to revive their god and absorb all magic in the universe
He actually has a comment correcting that mistake.
glad I searched for "1,440" before posting the same thing. lol
I'm really enjoying this series on these elder monsters, and I'm incorporating them into a game I plan to start, although the players don't know it yet...👍🏻☺️👌🏼. Thanks and keep up the good work!
This was a pretty cool video; thanks for making it! I've always found the Mind Flayers/Illithids pretty fascinating as creatures in D&D (and other sources), and there were some pretty cool extra facts in here. I find it interesting how dwarves and other shorter races are generally immune to being used to create new Flayers, while the more 'average' races are perfect candidates. lol Might help me in my own writings, since one of my central characters is a dwarf. :)
Hey Rhexx! Loving the videos! I've been watching your Dark Souls 3 Playlist again and it's still great. Keep up the great content!
Had to re-watch after that badass balders gate 3 cinematic trailer.
"They made their way deep into the underdark, where they could not be found...
That's why you find them there."
Magic in its nature chaotic energy, thus it is being transferred to the material plane (a combination of chaos and order) by an abstraction of chaos or what we call a soul, while pshycic energy are trasfered by mind the abstraction of order. It is kinda like physics and it is easier to understand this way.
FALAMOUS Starstrider very intersting
Yeah it explains a lot and if magic existed in the real world this would probably be how it worked.
Are you talking about the force carrier that changes an objects behaviour AKA Mana?
Or are you talking about Mana as in the physical counterparts to real particles.
Or are you talking about Mana the liquid volatile fluid that can change at any moment to a gas or a solid, due to it's weird properties as it's weird water. Instead of being Hydrogen and Oxygen, it's constitution although weighing the same as water and basically being the counterpart of water is made from Essence of Liquid mH and Essence of Fire mO and a normal Hydrogen atom?
I mean as a person who studies the implications of mana the force carrier and the mana particles and the many mana counterparts of regular atoms, such as essence of void mHe or essence of weight mOs.
Well one might say that there are an unfathomable amounts of these essences but some are so unstable that they just exist for fractions of nanoseconds. Most peculiar things they are. The always liquid Essence of Gold literally the m atom of gold. we don't know why but it's always a liquid except during extreme circumstances, we cooled it down in an experiment to 0.02K and it became solid but some parts of it became a gas and rose to the top of the container coating the container in gold, before itself turned solid, and under extremely high temperatures it turned into a gas, only for droplets forming almost instantly raining down gold.
However my favorite of these counterpart particles is mC the counterpart of coal, it is very interesting indeed, it can store large amount of mana in a crystal pattern due to the stability of the mana isotopes.
Most of these forms are more stable than the same isotope of regular coal, mC14 doesn't decay at all for the most part depends on how many protons are mana Protons and how many Neutrons are their counterpart too. It's highly complicated stuff.
Now excuse me while I'll go make some Adamantium, mFe alloy with mC and mTi and mNi
It's slightly heavier than regular steel but it's about as hard as regular diamonds.
What are you talking about?... I thought we were talking about a fantasy universe. But I wouldnt call mana a particle rather the potential energy of elementary magic interction (like elektro-magnetic, gravitational, strong and weak). While this weird water is just a substance with a comperativly high mana and samE with mC and mana isnt the transferrer your soul is. If you.dont understand imagine there is an elektrick motor and it is powering a car , does elektricity power the car ? Yes is it transfering any energy? No, that is being done by the motor. Here its the same thing. That wasnt the best example but hey it isnt from a stupidly hard physics theory written by consuming drugs. I do not nesseraly say magic is just interaction, that isnt nessesarily true Ok next this actually has an interesting implication: magicly enchansed materials actually just have different stronger interections between the core and electrons (or other particles).
I concur, magic phenomena are more akin to elementary forces (although I would say it's more like gravity, a distortion in the plane in it occurs). Thaums (the unit for magic) is a property of the thing in question (like mass, charge, spin, length wave). In nature, magic can be found stored or in a flow (much like we call voltage or current, when we talk about electricity) and like electromagnetic waves you can find places where it simply cannot travel (antimagic zones are like Faraday's cages).
Still there are things that are true mysteries like what the spells actually are (we only have a slight idea of how they work, there are many "traditions", wizards, druids, clerics, psions and even innate beings).
Even weirder are sentient spells or oozes (a byproduct of potions) that have the intelligence of some lesser elemental forms. And if place like an "Elemental Plane of Magic" exists, it has been keep in the dark...
this is awesome, please keep doing these lore vids for dnd
"Inside the tenctacles there's a duck"
*quack*
Patching up my Mind Flayer knowledge for Baldurs gate
amazing video Rhexx as always! maybe at some point you could cover our favorite mimics too ^_^ can't wait for part 2!
Thank you loads for these videos. I use them to make my games better. Can't wait for the next one.
Baldur's gate 3 got me watching all the D&D lore videos
Thanks so much for making this! Really enjoying this series!
I always liked the Psionics / Magic crossover at a -4 proficiency penalty. Not that they are the same thing, but that they can affect one another.
In some of the 2nd Ed books it was implied via the lore about the Mind Flayers (and, surprisingly, the Aboleths), that the Mind Flayers are from the future. Which is why we cannot find evidence of their empire. The Gith rebelled against them, they fled into the "past" and when the Gith followed, they fled underground.
These guys are scary until you realize a small group of quirky kids from the 1980s can take them down.
love the new direction of the channel. keep up the fantastic content. :)
Actually the answer is quite simple they made a pact with one of the gods of death to transform one of them into an extremely powerful Litch this allowed them to combat the Mind flares with armies of Undead their only weakness as Undead are completely immune to all psionic attacks
@Lucien Clubb 😂 Uh, a man of culture
What are thee undeads weakness?
According to the guys behind the D&D beyond youtube channel is that the Gith eventually developed a resistance to the Illithid control. The Illithid practiced selective breeding and it was most likely through this that their resistance started developing. It happened over generations.
YOUR TIMING IS IMPECCABLE SIR! THANK YOU FOR THIS!
My players are about to meet some nice friendly Illithids from down the road. (Or should I say under the road?) ;)
A friendly Illithid? Good to see someone else using these! I made an Albino Mind Flayer NPC, who would make rune stones (basically potions) for the party. She lived in a town and she basically made a deal that the brains of the dead would be given to her so she could eat. One particular member of my party, a Male human storm sorcerer, seems to be subtly flirting with her, and brings her whole humanoid corpses in a Hewerds Handy Haversack.
Thankfully, psionics have since been rebalanced. There's a good reason DM's back in the day usually banned psionics.
Baldur's Gate 3 trailer brought me here to learn more about the Mind Flayers
I've just been wondering about a bunch of what if situations like "what if they shoved a metric f ton into a giant?" Or "what if they got a few smaller brains and put em together for the tadpole to eat?"
be prepared to face them in baldur's gate 3
Am now imagining a campaign centered around an enclave of illithid who've figured out a workaround for the upper size limit, going on to create mind flayer giants.
I'm curious how many Baldur's Gate 3 viewers are finding this.
The Mind Flayer has always been my favorite D&D monster.
illithids and beholders...*cough *cough *Lovecraft's great ones *cough
This is very helpful. I'm running a game and I want the main threat to be a mind flayer. Thanx!!!
>Be lone barbarian in a party of spellcasters, so I'm the only one with some combat and skill based capabilities
>QT Erudite chick is from a cadet branch of a royal family of her home country, basically she's descended from a royal bastard and thus nobility
>Wind up hitting it off with her, get kind of a thing going and open up about each other's pasts. She's an exile from her kingdom due to scandals and her refusal to marry her relatives
>We wind up visiting her home country out of necessity to get a maguffin, where she gets kidnapped by the main royal family
>Turns out the royal family's full of psychic mutants, with the king being a proto Mind Flayer
>Manage to infiltrate/fight our way through the palace, I rip n' tear through several members of the royal family since fuck it I'mma Rage and Frenzy til the cows come home while the other guys zap, disintegrate and reanimate dudes that I miss or can't just bulldoze through
>Get to king's chamber, turns into brutal battle but I finally manage to smash his head in, we rescue our psionic chick
>Couple years after quest is over, I settled down with Erudite grill and we decided to have a baby
>Firstborn son is a mindflayer
>I fathered the mindflayers
"Where they could not be found. And that is why you find them there!" that really got me laughing. Great vid tough!
Mind Flayers are nasty creatures for sure! Great video as always.
Could you do videos on the different planes, it would be super helpful for creating stories when fully understanding all the different realms
Can you touch up on outer planes like The Abyss, Nine Hells, or even Sigil. That'd be awesome, love your stuff man!
keep this work up! I love this series!
What happens if you insert a tadpole, into a mindflayer?
I would think that the tadpole would eat the mindflayer's brain and then it would probably result in a malformed mind flayer in the end.
Ever see "Being John Malcovich"?
@@whythecows I wish I didn't.
The Mind Flayer goes to jail for incest
I need a fact check since its been so long since Ive read the 1st Edition Fiend Folio but I do believe the development of psionics (which were pretty OP in 1st edition) allowed the gith to overthrow their mind flayer masters.
Finally... i Did know that!
Mind flayers during their life cycle can gain quirks or personality from their initial host but if the host dominates the larvae or the quirks are too apparent then they are most likely executed
Your D&D videos are amazing :D. Will you ever do a video about the Vampires or Shadow dragons?
Of course! There's just so much to cover o.O
After watching this I wondered if you could use prestidigitation to clean all the mucus off a mind flayer and therefore reduce their psychic powers
Can you do a video explaining "the Netheril History"?
They are ancient and secretive.
I remember the first time I saw one of these in Baldur's Gate 2, scared me then and still scares me now. Truly terrifying race.
9:05 That would be 1440 brains per life time.
I've thought about having mind flayers be the main antagonists of a campaign if I ever play as the DM. They seem like really cool monsters that would be right at home in a H.P. Lovecraft book.
they remind me of cthulhu
They might be base off of Cthulhu and the Deep Ones, Alright of D&D Monsters are base off of real Myth and Stories.
Super Ratz They are
i did use one Cthulhu picture in there xD
MrRhexx regardless that's still pretty cool
They are a part of the lovecraftian tradition of D&D. There are several different streams of inspiration running through classical D&D to today. Tolkien of course is one of the biggest, but Lovecraft is not too hard to find.
I expect that new BG3 players are gonna check this out
Thank you for this. The Wikipedia article left things out. I look forward to the next episode.
Main issue with pinning down illithid lore is that it's constantly retconned in every edition and it also varies between settings. As for the origin its normally the Far Realm just about all aberrations originated from there.
6:59
"Tellikinessies"
What?
It is a Bard spell: you tell the name of a object and then this will go flying and hit the opponent's head/jk
*Those robes must weight a ton wet and must be horrible to swim in it*
Nearly all the images of Illithids show them wearing those heavy robes, so having them in a campaign with anything other than that, might as well have them being octopi-centaurs... I'm trying to make sense of it in my campaign but it is a little challenging to put yourself in their place justifying that.
You could say they wear it every time they leave their water environment, that perhaps it keeps them moist ( _somehow_ ) while they deal with their more common land dwelling thralls, but... feels like a stretch.
You could argue that they are not amphibian anymore, it was just in their past, but many sources show that they rather rest underwater in personal pools in their lairs as adults
Regardless, THESE VIDEOS ARE FANTASTIC! Thank you so much for producing and sharing it!
I've always loved Illithids
I would suggest reading into Dakkons story. (From Planscape Torment) He reveals truths about the gained freedom and how the Gith were able to do so.
Yo man because of Stranger Things, this video is going to get pretty popular.
Sno0py Tru Tru
Sno0py ?
Please Mr , do the Gith next. I was hoping to see one from you now that BG3 is out.
I'm playing a Mind Flayer in a campaign right now and I find this very offensive. Please delete this video on behalf of my kind, we are very misunderstood you know.
me and my friends are big drow fans so we happen to know a ton about illithids, but this still had a good amount of info.