mind flayer pc

[geekintheground]

so me and some friends are about to start a monstrous gestalt campaign, and i've chosen to play a mind flayer//wizard/master specialist/initiate of the sevenfold veil.
i hereby turn to my favorite group of people for help: why would a mind flayer go on an adventure? how should i roleplay this? i originally chose it because it sounded cool... but then i actually looked into these guys and realized how weird they really are...

[DrMotives]

Mind Flayers are a couple relevant things: One, they're psionic creatures that tend to look down on arcane magic; And second they're extremely community-driven. Your PC could play off of either or both of these as hooks.

As a wizard, you're already trying to play a very non-standard mind flayer who would be likely shunned by it's community. Pursuit of arcane magic is while not completely unheard of, is very rare. So it's very likely that you'd not have the support of your Elder Brain, which also grants you the freedom to go be an adventurer.

You could also assume the other way round, that perhaps your community was destroyed by enemies such as Drow, Snirfneblin, or other classic Mind Flayer enemy. This would leave you wandering the Underdark alone, and you might explain your arcane studies by this orphanage from your community.

[the_david]

As far as I know, there is at least one person who was transformed into a mindflayer with his own personality intact. This could be a start, but I'd have to say that such a creature wouldn't want to draw attention from other mindflayers, so I'm not sure he'd be group material. Ofcourse, he could still adventure with his old mates, but as they'd be monsters too that would be unlikely.

Would make a cool campaign though.

The other characters are his thralls? Maybe not, most players would object to that. The only thing I can imagine is that all partymembers agree that they need each other to acomplish a common goal.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I would recommend playing a psionic illithid//wizard/mind mage.

Illithid are typically lawful evil, and obey the elder brain in all things. Anything that serves the elder brain is enough reason for an illithid to adventure. For example, your long-term task could be establishing a spy network, finding and bringing back new spells and powers, and/or killing important figures of good and chaos.

[Inevitability]

In the far future, mind flayers desparate to escape a dying universe travel back in time to find a new home. Various scouts are first sent back, their goals to find areas in space and time where many powerful psionic beings can suddenly appear without significantly changing the timeline.

Many scouts were sent to many different times, your illithid amongst them. Several scouts discovered the underdark, and reports from several points in time indicated large parts would remain unoccupied for millenia, so there the empire fled.

Your illithid, however, was sent to explore an age long after humanoids had conquered the world, which made it impossible for thousands of illithids to suddenly move their technology and knowledge there without possibly erasing their future selves from existence. Your illithid, not deemed worthy the huge expenditure of magic necessary to move someone through time, was left behind.

So now we have an illithid to who the current mind flayer colonies are but pale shadows of a long-forgotten galactic empire. He's bound to no elder brain, not related to other illithids and free to study arcane magic.

What are his goals? Perhaps he simply wishes to return to his own time. Perhaps he thinks that if he just transforms this world enough, he can make it suitable for illithid habitation. Maybe he simply wants to study. It's up to you.

[dboxcar]

I just had to chime in to admire Dire_Stirge's backstory here. Makes me want to play that character!

[Inevitability]

I just had to chime in to admire Dire_Stirge's backstory here. Makes me want to play that character!

Thank you! :smallsmile: