Help with my mess of a concept; Goolock with an elder brain as patron.

[Corran]

I am toying with a concept for a warlock with a great old one patron, and I would love to get suggestions and some inspiration. So dont be shy, feel free to advise against where you want to and offer ideas that either build on top of my own or that even go towards a completelly different direction. So, here come some questions:

1) How does the idea of an elder brain as a patron for a GOO warlock sound?

2) How about a psychic connection of sorts between the brain patron and the goolock, that can only take place when the goolock sleeps, and which basically manifests in the form of a dream or nightmare (much like the dream spell). Dont really care to justify how or why this started, it could just be sth that will never be explained. Though I wouldn't mind an explanation. But I am more interested in how you find the idea, as I wanted to go with something different than what I suspect most goolocks are forced to do, ie find a book of cryptic ancient knowledge and slowly unlock its secrets.

3) Chain or tome pact? Not interested in which is mechanically better (IMO both are equally good, or about as good, at least enough so I dont make a big deal about it optimization wise). I like very much the idea of having a pseudodragon familiar with which I would be able to communicate telepathically, but the idea of a tome which my character would use to write down his dreams doesn't sound too bad. I think I prefer the familiar, but I am not sure how to fluff getting it (it's an important feature, so I would want sth a bit different than dreaming how to do it, which would go for more other stuff).

4) THE BIG ONE.
Now, I have some idea about how I would rp this character, but I want to add something. I have a very basic idea about this extra something I would like to add, but I need some help fleshing it out some more. For those of you who have read OotS, you know how Durkon is homesick and wants badly to go back to his home? I want to add a bit of this into this goolock. Because of the elder brain's influence, the character is homesick of a home that he never knew or saw (some mind flayer city where said hive mind is located) and which would naturally not be very welcoming to him. How do I play this? I mean, I want my character to want to go adventuring and be thrilled about stuff, but part of the reason that he is adventuring would be searching for this home and for a sense of belonging that only this so called home will be able to fulfill. Perhaps also a need to be part of something bigger? But it has to be something vague that I will be able to roleplay on the side, and I am not sure how. So, in the rare moments that I will choose to do so, how do I roleplay someone homsick of a home he hasn't seen or know where it is, but at the same time he knows it's somewhere out there? Please understand, I am not looking for sth logical such as that the character could have been a freed thrall of the mindflayer city, or how could I get a sidequest out of it, or how the character would deal with the situation if he ever found that place (if something like that occurs, that would basically be the end of the character, as he would happily walk towards the city only to find himself having one brain less than what he had before he ventured there). I am just looking for some roleplay tips, just to see if I could make something good out of this little bit of extra flavor I would like this character to have.
What I have for this, is basically having my character be in love with the elder brain (idea ripped from that old comedy where the protagonist is in love with a brain in a jar; can't remember the name of the movie), so basically a ''home is where the heart is'' thing. Though I would like to have an idea for something a bit more serious, in the off chance that I will play this character in a non comic-relief campaign.

5) Any race in particular that might play well with what I have in mind?

[Cyclops08]

I am toying with a concept for a warlock with a great old one patron, and I would love to get suggestions and some inspiration. So dont be shy, feel free to advise against where you want to and offer ideas that either build on top of my own or that even go towards a completelly different direction. So, here come some questions:

1) How does the idea of an elder brain as a patron for a GOO warlock sound?

2) How about a psychic connection of sorts between the brain patron and the goolock, that can only take place when the goolock sleeps, and which basically manifests in the form of a dream or nightmare (much like the dream spell). Dont really care to justify how or why this started, it could just be sth that will never be explained. Though I wouldn't mind an explanation. But I am more interested in how you find the idea, as I wanted to go with something different than what I suspect most goolocks are forced to do, ie find a book of cryptic ancient knowledge and slowly unlock its secrets.

3) Chain or tome pact? Not interested in which is mechanically better (IMO both are equally good, or about as good, at least enough so I dont make a big deal about it optimization wise). I like very much the idea of having a pseudodragon familiar with which I would be able to communicate telepathically, but the idea of a tome which my character would use to write down his dreams doesn't sound too bad. I think I prefer the familiar, but I am not sure how to fluff getting it (it's an important feature, so I would want sth a bit different than dreaming how to do it, which would go for more other stuff).

4) THE BIG ONE.
Now, I have some idea about how I would rp this character, but I want to add something. I have a very basic idea about this extra something I would like to add, but I need some help fleshing it out some more. For those of you who have read OotS, you know how Durkon is homesick and wants badly to go back to his home? I want to add a bit of this into this goolock. Because of the elder brain's influence, the character is homesick of a home that he never knew or saw (some mind flayer city where said hive mind is located) and which would naturally not be very welcoming to him. How do I play this? I mean, I want my character to want to go adventuring and be thrilled about stuff, but part of the reason that he is adventuring would be searching for this home and for a sense of belonging that only this so called home will be able to fulfill. Perhaps also a need to be part of something bigger? But it has to be something vague that I will be able to roleplay on the side, and I am not sure how. So, in the rare moments that I will choose to do so, how do I roleplay someone homsick of a home he hasn't seen or know where it is, but at the same time he knows it's somewhere out there? Please understand, I am not looking for sth logical such as that the character could have been a freed thrall of the mindflayer city, or how could I get a sidequest out of it, or how the character would deal with the situation if he ever found that place (if something like that occurs, that would basically be the end of the character, as he would happily walk towards the city only to find himself having one brain less than what he had before he ventured there). I am just looking for some roleplay tips, just to see if I could make something good out of this little bit of extra flavor I would like this character to have.

5) Any race in particular that might play well with what I have in mind?
The race would be human and the end game would be becoming an illithid yourself. Every illithid is a former human.

The brain is in a series pool helm on an illithid spelljammer ship.
the elder brain is in the very pool that runs the ship. The brain is using the warlock pact to groom the more susceptible...psychic humans to transform. All the illithids on the ship were recruited this way.

when the DM is ready, and the campaign is completed, the ship will land and your player will joyously "go home."

The psychic connection is fine and fits the character well.

[Damon_Tor]

I guess I'm not sure why an Elder Brain would do such a thing. Maybe the goolock was the victim of ceremorphosis but his tadpole was retarded or mutated and only did part of the job for some reason. So now your dude is like 10% of a mindflayer or something and has a weird kind of a backdoor into the elder brain's mojo.

[Digimike]

It sounds like a fun concept you have there. I don't have any suggestions either way between pact and tome. It sounds like you've mostly made up your mind anyway.

As far as RP'ing, whenever I think of GOO it's always someone who's got a case of PTSD because they've been exposed to horrors mortal minds aren't equipped to handle and have hopelessly warped personalities because of it.

If it were me I'd try to play them as making grimm or morbid jokes at inappropriate social situations. Taking an extra round here or there to consider things as a giant spider is eating a party member. Or spend downtime making art and describe some really creepy stuff at the table that your character has made.

Maybe even have some Olaf from Frozen type conversations with the party, where in Olaf's case he wanted to experience summer as a snowman , in your case find "home."

For race... No real suggestions. Elves don't really dream so that sort of removes them.

[Lord8Ball]

1. An elder brain is a solid warlock patron.
2. You could be connected to the elder brain by having your body host an intellect devourer in your backstory. In that way, you'll already have a connection to the illithid society and the brain itself as one of their thralls.
Story ideas:

Perhaps you could have been sent on a mission or have some directive for which you have evolved beyond the normal intellect devourer.
For some reason, your connection has been weakened due to being away from the collective consciousness for an extended period and only fragments of the connection remain within your dreams.
You could be a fragment of an elder brain itself that has been sent away to rebuild their society after it has been destroyed.
You or your family line has been experimented on in the past and the genetic changes passed on to you.

3. I don't really know how you are supposed to get a pseudodragon storywise as an old one pact. Just a thought, but you could flavor the pseudodragon as a lesser beholder (eyeball/gazer). This familiar could form due to your genetic tampering and form from your dreams like how they are with normal beholders. It could also be transplanted for one of your missing eyes and fly around when you will it to.
4. Perhaps if you take the hermit background and get the discovery feature here is how you could implement it into his/her backstory. Your character may hold some sort of disconnect from people due to his bloodline or species which would account for its hermitage. As your discovery, you could have been drawn to some familiar energy or found some alien artifacts or language that you somehow felt an instinctual connection with. As a result of that, you are now following a vague trail to find what has become of them, assuage your nightmares, or return to where you belong.
5. Yuan-ti pureblood could work well with the experimentation origin route. Changeling is amazing for versatility and you can go crazy creating a subtly alien look for your character.

[Particle_Man]

FWIW I think that the movie was the Steve Martin classic The Man With Two Brains.

[Ganymede]

You could also mix it up by having your patron be an especially ambitious Ulitharid who, in order to amass more power, has perfected a form of quasi-ceremorphosis to create empowered thralls.

[Corran]

Thank you all for your answers. I had a long post answering to everything (also, Particle_Man, thanks for reminding me the title of that movie), but reading back on my answers before posting them, I realized I have to think this concept through, and expand it some more. You have given me stuff to think about and to look for inspiration, so I will take some time thinking this character a bit more in depth, and then I may come back looking for opinions on what I came up with, or for ideas and suggestions for the parts I am unsure how to expand. Once again, thank you all for the replies.

[rahimka]

This is a great concept, I absolutely love it.

If you go with Pact of the Chain, you could re-fluff the familiar as a psychic projection of the PC. Maybe it's an expression of that "alien" aspect within their mind, made manifest in order to more forcefully voice the influence/"guidance" of the Elder Brain. Maybe it takes the form of Pseudodragon because the character has a warped and whimsical view of the Patron and their relationship to it.

If you go Pact of the Tome, maybe its the influence of the Elder Brain driving the character to gather arcane lore and information on the world for It. Maybe THAT is the whole purpose of the relationship from the Elder Brain's perspective: it sees your PC as essentially a longterm, deep-cover agent, whose abilities and knowledge will be useful when the time is right (by consuming their brain, transforming them into an Illithid, taking direct control of their mind, etc)

As for how to RP being "homesick", consider something like Coulson's behavior in early season 2 of Agents of Shield. He's compelled to draw strange alien diagrams that he doesn't understand, over and over again. If he can't find time to let it out on paper or a wall, he'll start carving it into his own skin... So maybe your PC has a book (or two or more) FULL of sketches of the Elder Brain's home city, diagrams of neural networks (that would mean nothing to any non-Illithid), or scars/tattoos covering parts of their body from when they just couldn't control or vent the urge in any other way...

[Millstone85]

You came in possession of an illithid funerary brain jar, though you did not recognize it as such at the time. As it sat on a shelf in your house, the dreams started. They were undecipherable, except for a deep, desperate need to return home. Then the dreams abruptly stopped, and for a time you were left in mourning without knowing for whom.

The longing never went away, became an obsession. You started tavelling in search of... a presence? The... The One Who Is All? You became an adventurer so you would have an excuse for seeking far and strange places.

Recently, the dreams began anew. The One is near, in a way, and it senses you. You have something it wants, knowledge that was carved somewhere within your mind, but the One can't read it from afar.

More than ever, you must find your way home.


The race would be human and the end game would be becoming an illithid yourself. Every illithid is a former human.Or other humanoid, at least in this edition. See the description of ceremorphosis in VGtM p72.

[Ganymede]

As an addendum: if you want further inspiration as to how this character idea could play out, take a look at the film Dark City.

[Corran]

More than ever, you must find your way home.

First of all, thanks everyone for the replies and for suggesting sources from where I can draw inspiration. I will get to that during the following days (I am in no rush to finish off this character cause I wont start playing him for at least 3 weeks, so plenty of time to digest all the info you are presenting me with and to solidify the character concept).

I singled out Milestone85's line above, cause it's this more than anything else that I need to figure out for this character, or perhaps to do away with if I can't figure out some rp that I would enjoy. Let me explain what I mean:

So yeah, the character wants to find his way to this place he calls ''home''. How can I use this desire to add some meaningful quirks to my character or some potential rp with other characters? Taking up adventuring and moving from place to place (as I am assuming the story will have us do) can be explained that way, but I would like to add to that. There are a couple of approaches that I've been thinking, but none of them leaves me completely satisfied. Let me sum them up:

1) An easy way to do this, is to have the character search for clues during the adventure as to the whereabouts of the place he is looking for (or about the nature of the connection he is experiencing). Piecing these clues together with whatever he can make out of his dreams, he is slowly making progress towards uncovering the location of the place he is seeking. So this could be a massive amount of work, noted down in journals, maps, books, etc that he is carrying with him or whatever. The piecing of the clues and all this work is generally being done on the side (without influencing or messing with the campaign), and conveniently the character happens to figure it out when the campaign ends. Now, what happens then is not known and wont be explored. It could be that he finds this place and he is transformed into a mind flayer, it could be that he finds this place and ends up as a meal, it could be that the elder brain was just using the character in order to uncover sth hidden in the surface world, or sth else entirely. I am not that interested in what would be the explanation behind it all (it will remain a mystery!), but I am interested in how my character handles his desire to uncover where ''home'' is. So, in this case, it would be having the character gather clues and trying to piece them together, much like someone breaking his head to solve a very challenging puzzle. This approach fits the character in some ways, but it leaves me unsatisfied because I think it's a bit blunt and I would like something more.

2) The edgy approach would share some stuff from (1), but at some point it would make a hard turn. For example, after some time the character gets so frustrated at not being able to find this utopia he has been shown, so he decides to shape a small part of the world so that it starts looking slightly more like the home he is looking for. So in this case I get to rp a gradual shift of personality, starting as someone who is looking for sth, gets obsessed with finding it, gets frustrated because he is not finding it, griefs about not finding it, looks back at the world he is living in and noticing how ugly it is compared to what he longs to find, and finally decides to do sth about it (enter questionable actions like creating thralls and denying or messing with NPC's free will, all in the name of some form of greater good, whether that translates as a better or more efficient or more harmonious state of being, or sth like that). I wont like, I absolutely love sth along these lines, but it's not this character.

3) Or I could go with what I personally would find as a more comical approach. The character is a hopeless romantic who has fallen in love with the allien voice inside his head, and is basically searching everywhere for his love. This will be more of a long term character, so I would rather to avoid the comic relief approach.



Out of these 3 approaches, #1 satisfies me the most, but not enough to incorporate the ''homesick'' trait to my character. Because I think it is so blunt that I will end up forgetting about it.