[Pathfinder/3.5] Consuming an Elder Brain

[Atherton]

I’m playing a neutral good artificer in a high magic homebrew campaign setting using pathfinder rules. Eventually my party is going to fight an Elder Brain.

Elder Brains sit at the top of the illithid food chain: A human goes out and has experiences, an illithid comes along and eats that human’s brain, then when that illithid dies, his brain gets incorporated into his community’s Elder Brain. Like mercury in fish, but with knowledge!

Rather than let that tasty mercury/knowledge go to waste, I want to turn the tables on the Elder Brain and find a way to permanently extract its memories or compel it to freely and honestly share what it knows and in either case neutralize it as a threat.

Level & Classes
Currently 14th level, but I expect to be level 19 by the time I put the plan in motion. I'm a pathfinder-style update of the Eberron Artificer and my party includes an Alchemist, an Arcanist, a Bloodrager, an Occultist (Radiance House's pactmaker, not the Paizo occultist) and a Witch, so we've got some magic to throw around.


Books Allowed

anything on D20pfsrd
3.5 materials published by WotC

Ideas So Far
At the moment, Scribe’s Binding (PF, Spymaster's Handbook, Pg. 29) and Sanctify the Wicked (3.5, Book of Exalted Deeds, Pg. 106) + diplomacy checks are the frontrunners but they’ve both got flaws. Scribe’s Binding isn’t ideal since the information winds up in a book/Elder Brain prison that I have to carry around, rather than just folded into my character’s knowledge. Sanctify the Wicked does a better job neutralizing the threat but it doesn’t guarantee the Illithid shares its knowledge, it takes a year and it costs me a level.

TLDR: Pathfinder/3.5 Artificer looking for ways to permanently steal an Elder Brain’s knowledge and memories.

Sorry for the lack of links, but I haven't hit my 10 posts. Hoping that'll happen responding to your great ideas.

[Slimmy]

Try to eat the elder brain. Might not be tasty but it might work.
Or, you know, drive you insane. Or both.
I can't see any dominate-type spell working.

[AvatarVecna]

The caster enters the mind of a creature, learning everything that creature knows.

The caster can erase or add memories as she sees fit and alter emotions, opinions, and even alignment.

When the caster is done, she can leave the creature insane (as described in the insanity spell) or seemingly unaffected, without any memory of the intrusion.

Severe changes to personality and changes to alignment can be corrected by a break enchantment spell (although an atonement spell might be needed as well, depending on circumstances).

Alterations to memories and subtler thoughts can be restored only through use of a miracle or wish.

This looks like a good start.

EDIT: Only issue I can see (that's it's 3.0) shouldn't be a huge issue, since 3.0 material is viable as long as it wasn't replaced with a 3.5 version.

[Zanos]

Do elder brains have any special immunity to dominate monster? I think there's a bard spell to read memories directly in core. Probe thoughts, I think?

[ATHATH]

It's "Book of Exalted Deeds", not "Book of Epic Deeds".

[Atherton]

Do elder brains have any special immunity to dominate monster? I think there's a bard spell to read memories directly in core. Probe thoughts, I think?

The problem with Probe Thoughts, Consume Brains, and similar spells is that they give answers to specific questions instead of wholesale stealing/copying memories. I suppose I could use Probe Thoughts to ask the Elder Brain how I could steal all of its memories.

[n00b17]

Well, the mind flayer Extract ability technically goes up to Large size and is extraordinary. So by RAW you could Polymorph Any Object into a mind flayer and eat it. If that's too weird for the DM(as it should be, be cause the brain is twice your size) you could Enlarge yourself and reduce the brain until it became more reasonable.

By RAW that doesn't get you the memories, but it does follow logically from the fluff you described