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."
Thank yo for such a comprehensiev video on mind flayers! I'm making an urban setting for my players that we can play multiple times, and one of the possible quest lines is about a mind flayer colony they may attempt to infiltrate, so this info is very useful! Also, I'd be watching even if I had no mind flayer stories to explore, because it's just that interesting :D
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.
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.
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...
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 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'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 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.
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
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.
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.
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 know this video is ancient but on the off-chance you're still active and so inclined, what's the source of the slide image for the "31:40 Architecture & Tech" timestamp? Can't help but notice it looks exactly like the Illithid architecture in Baldur's Gate 3!
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?
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
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
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.
"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."
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.
I played a high level wizard who was captured by an illithid. I had a contingency spell readied in case I was killed by something to “soul jar” their consciousness and I could attempt to possess their body. The tadpole stood no chance against my spell DC. Body still died and I got to experience turning myself into an illithid. I was barely able to resist the elder brain when I made my escape, and my party almost killed me when I reconnected with them. Character became an NPC after a couple of sessions, but it was fun and cool. Eventually transferred his mind to a fresh clone of his old body.
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.
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.
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 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!
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.
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.
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.
Question: What are the typical sizes of Mind Flayer Colony in terms of members: like how many Mind Flayers will a colony have on average? How many would be psions? I’m not asking in terms of “if you have so and so many party members of so and so level you should have X amounts of Mind Flayers”.
AJ Pickett thanks but how many would be Psions? From what I’ve read in Volo’s Psions are simply Mind Flayers who are more well versed in their natural abilities but it doesn’t say how common they are.
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
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
could you make an all mindflayer playlist, please ? they have this vast ecosystem of related aberrations and i simply can not find them all in one place.
From what I gathered is that all human sized hominids turn into mindflayers and any beast or creature able to be turned become their pet like monsters.
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.
34:15 I was wondering how screwed mindflayers would be in the face of an undead foe. To be fair though, Atropus is quite the horrifying step up from your basic ghoul
Yeah they really really don't like undead, they can't sense them with their psionic powers or infrared/dark vision And that scares them, because they can be ambushed so easily, often mind flayers will be very traumatized after encountering undead creatures
18:35 how to undone it with a wave of hand? Djinns, Sphinx, wizards, A dragon creates a magical item (because thy can) with eve more ancient magic, Demons (make infernal/soul contract back in time that the mind Mind Flayer can feed after charming the top brain with Succubus that demon that CAN do this :D), a wish spell to break fate, Godly intervention, create a relic wia dwarf's, use necromancy an raze a Mind Flayer army with godly support of god of after life, use necromancy to reanimate 1 dead brain and take over them with superior mind fryer (dead immune to status effects and need not to feed), Magical poison (Dark elf or a race or god specializes in this) injected to a brain and infecting their entire network trough like how the gorgon breath works or Manticor poison (I'm sure an lv 20 chemist an come up with something.).How about the Efreet sultan get an army and incinerate them all? (Army of laser Efreet :D), cave in and just straw them.
How about a illithid builds a cult around themselves and becomes a minor god ? The arcane spell caster spreading false hope and fake bless items to their cult believers.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
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
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."
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?
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!
Thank yo for such a comprehensiev video on mind flayers! I'm making an urban setting for my players that we can play multiple times, and one of the possible quest lines is about a mind flayer colony they may attempt to infiltrate, so this info is very useful! Also, I'd be watching even if I had no mind flayer stories to explore, because it's just that interesting :D
I am honored to be of service!
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.
The inspiration for Baldurs Gate 3 at 7:38
"Let's check RUclips before I got to bed." Dungeons and Dragons Lore: Mind Flayer - 44 seconds ago "Every once in a great while I have good timing."
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.
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...
The psionic people of Athas and necromancers with their mindless undead hoards can save us from the mindflayers!
The desert would do that itself😂
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.
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 knew this was gonna be awesome, but man you knocked it way out of the park. Bravo (does a slow clap)
Arthur Bonner thanks :)
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.
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.
Great job, AJ. Your videos have always been great, but you can really see how the production values have improved over time.
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'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 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
Recommended this video to my friends so I could go through Baldur's Gate 3 campaign without having to explain every single detail.
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.
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
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
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.
Favourite monster ever.
im so happy to see this channel growing so fast
"Good hunter, may you find peace in the waking world."
but alas, not too fast! The nightmare swirls and churns unending!
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?
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.
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. :)
These are so going to be my villains for my campaign
"Your source for easy listening lore..." Indeed it is. Love your channel AJ
Thanks AJ, I knew research on your channel would be helpful.
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 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 :)
BG3 Brought me here. Fascinating stuff. I love it. Thank you for making this video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
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
I know this video is ancient but on the off-chance you're still active and so inclined, what's the source of the slide image for the "31:40 Architecture & Tech" timestamp? Can't help but notice it looks exactly like the Illithid architecture in Baldur's Gate 3!
jaredblando.com/cartography
You rock!!! @@AJPickett
Your videos are fantastic, I'm glad I found this channel!
all of a sudden, very popular video :P
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?
hits different after Baldurs Gate 3
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
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
I've just discovered this channel and I'm loving it you haved earned another sub lol
Thank you Jay C, much appreciated :)
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
Thank you BG3 for renewing my love for DND
😊
Great video I'm hooked on the lore since BD3
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.
Fantastic job. Very well done. Love the lore vids!
"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."
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.
I played a high level wizard who was captured by an illithid. I had a contingency spell readied in case I was killed by something to “soul jar” their consciousness and I could attempt to possess their body. The tadpole stood no chance against my spell DC. Body still died and I got to experience turning myself into an illithid. I was barely able to resist the elder brain when I made my escape, and my party almost killed me when I reconnected with them. Character became an NPC after a couple of sessions, but it was fun and cool. Eventually transferred his mind to a fresh clone of his old body.
That's amazing!
Ended up here coz of Bulders Gate 3 😂
Awesome stuff man!
Hey, thanks!
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.
This is amazing, glad it got recommended to me after playing Balders Gate 3!
Similar to the vampire description of 'the Strain' novels.
The 'worms' burrow into a host and the body is transformed
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.
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 love mind flayers :)
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!
Thank you AJ Top-notch video
My favorite part of this is the tadpole and the changing into the mindflayer with ten years of growing to dominince
I've been really interested in the Tamer Creed lately. I love the idea of a mind flayer decked out in full plate armor.
Anyone else exited about the fact baldurs gate 3 early access releases today and its about these guys
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.
I really enjoyed this in preparation for bauldur's gate 3.
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.
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.
Question: What are the typical sizes of Mind Flayer Colony in terms of members: like how many Mind Flayers will a colony have on average? How many would be psions? I’m not asking in terms of “if you have so and so many party members of so and so level you should have X amounts of Mind Flayers”.
I'd say without a mature elder brain, the hive would be less than six, with a mature elder brain, around 20-30 and three times as many thralls.
AJ Pickett thanks but how many would be Psions? From what I’ve read in Volo’s Psions are simply Mind Flayers who are more well versed in their natural abilities but it doesn’t say how common they are.
Inquisitor Thomas pretty much all mindflayers have potent pyscic abilities
Ben Swolo yes but in Volo’s Guide there is variant mind flayer called the Mind Flayer Psion who are more Psionicly powerful then others.
I would say its likely 5-10% of the colony size. So if its 20-30, there would likely be 1-3 psions.
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
So...I wanna try a good aligned flayer. Thoughts?
Stay very far from all Elder brains.
23:13 You have the stats for that Abomination? XD Preferrably 3.5?
Been playing BG3 and this definitely helps with the story thanks
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
could you make an all mindflayer playlist, please ? they have this vast ecosystem of related aberrations and i simply can not find them all in one place.
AJ always killing it
Do Illithid show any variation based on the race used for their host??
From what I gathered is that all human sized hominids turn into mindflayers and any beast or creature able to be turned become their pet like monsters.
This was truly indepth and well done. Thank you for the contet 🥰
You're welcome
TSR was Tactical Studies Rules I believe, if i'm remembering back to the original modules back in the day correctly?
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.
5 year old video, has 171k views as of 8/12/23.
Bg3 came out
👍
Yeah, traffic on this video is going to skyrocket.
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...
You should start doing art credits at the end, I really want to know where that painting at 5:56 comes from!
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
34:15 I was wondering how screwed mindflayers would be in the face of an undead foe. To be fair though, Atropus is quite the horrifying step up from your basic ghoul
Yeah they really really don't like undead, they can't sense them with their psionic powers or infrared/dark vision
And that scares them, because they can be ambushed so easily, often mind flayers will be very traumatized after encountering undead creatures
I do think that the cult of Thoon will be the thing that does bring the end to the Mindflayer empire
AJ, do you think a illithid tadpole could infect a adult illithid? What would happen if it worked?
No, they can't.
I have 3.5 edition stats for a mind flayer assassin. That character was absolutely Nasty
18:35 how to undone it with a wave of hand? Djinns, Sphinx, wizards, A dragon creates a magical item (because thy can) with eve more ancient magic, Demons (make infernal/soul contract back in time that the mind Mind Flayer can feed after charming the top brain with Succubus that demon that CAN do this :D), a wish spell to break fate, Godly intervention, create a relic wia dwarf's, use necromancy an raze a Mind Flayer army with godly support of god of after life, use necromancy to reanimate 1 dead brain and take over them with superior mind fryer (dead immune to status effects and need not to feed), Magical poison (Dark elf or a race or god specializes in this) injected to a brain and infecting their entire network trough like how the gorgon breath works or Manticor poison (I'm sure an lv 20 chemist an come up with something.).How about the Efreet sultan get an army and incinerate them all? (Army of laser Efreet :D), cave in and just straw them.
How about a illithid builds a cult around themselves and becomes a minor god ? The arcane spell caster spreading false hope and fake bless items to their cult believers.
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?
Maybe time for a re-revisit?
Guess I need to bing all of these again.
These guy always gave me the creeps.
This lexicon must be forwarded to Swen for a BG3 sequel .