Best/most preferred breeding stock for mindflayer brain harvesting

[Shador]

I'm trying to determine what woul be good races for mindflayers to enslave and breed for a food source. I know they prefer intelligent races, and more savage ones tend to be less tasty and desirable. They would also need a race that can breed and reproduce very quickly to sate their races needs of at least one brain a month, and preferably one a week. My first thought was possibly kobold brains. They have very quick gestation cycles. I'm not sure how tasty their brains would be though. Also considered rat folk. In Pathfinder at least they get a +2 int race modifier, and breed probably at similar rates to kobolds. What do peoples think?

[Falontani]

Cranium rats

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Anything hiveminded by a vermin lord (BoVD); note that you can use polymorph or aspect of the wolf to override a creature's type restrictions for this. You have lots of bodies, all of which share the (rather insane) benefits of being a hivemind.

If need be, get yourself an at-will item of acorn of far travel and use it on a bonsai oak tree so all participants count as being in the same 5' space no matter how far apart they actually are.

And make sure at least some of them have regeneration so you can harvest the same creature innumerable times.

[Shador]

Anything hiveminded by a vermin lord (BoVD); note that you can use polymorph or aspect of the wolf to override a creature's type restrictions for this. You have lots of bodies, all of which share the (rather insane) benefits of being a hivemind.

If need be, get yourself an at-will item of acorn of far travel and use it on a bonsai oak tree so all participants count as being in the same 5' space no matter how far apart they actually are.

And make sure at least some of them have regeneration so you can harvest the same creature innumerable times.

The hivemind/vermin lord is an interesting concept. I'll be GMing the campaign so just looking for a good concept of slave race they may be using/pursuing for brain cattle. so I guess I could just say mindflayers could feed on brains of vermin that have been enhanced by a hive mind, but would like to get other peoples opinions on if that could/should work.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The hivemind/vermin lord is an interesting concept. I'll be GMing the campaign so just looking for a good concept of slave race they may be using/pursuing for brain cattle. so I guess I could just say mindflayers could feed on brains of vermin that have been enhanced by a hive mind, but would like to get other peoples opinions on if they could/should work.As I mentioned, there are spells that can make you count as a creature of the animal type, even for humanoids, so a vermin lord could make a hivemind out of a bunch of humans under the aspect of the wolf spell, each with an acorn from acorn of far travel.

[Shador]

As I mentioned, there are spells that can make you count as a creature of the animal type, even for humanoids, so a vermin lord could make a hivemind out of a bunch of humans under the aspect of the wolf spell, each with an acorn from acorn of far travel.

Hmm, very interesting, and a fun minmaxy player move. Though the context for this is more for a campaign I'll be GMing, so I think I'm looking for something more story and flavor driven then cheesy player minmaxy driven. And mindflayers using druid/nature magic might be a hard sell as far as keeping things immersive, and isn't exactly what I'm looking for. And I Can't imagine mindflayers enjoying eating the same person over and over again.

[DMVerdandi]

How absolutely horrible would it be if they were using awakening on livestock, having like small rural classrooms, and educating them about language, and adventure, and love. Then they send them away all through this...hole...

Big Babe/Animal farm/Promised neverland type shenanigans.
[They are harvesting the brains of these now aware animals that actually never leave the farm, which they discover is a chamber in an underground Illithid nest]

[The Glyphstone]

Ratfolk sound like the best combination of utility and safety - I'd be cautious about trying to breed a hive mind or anything super-high-INT, since that becomes a dangerous prisoner. But average Int 12 is okay, and anyways this is still going to be the Mind Flayer equivalent of oatmeal. The more varied experiences a brain has had, the 'tastier' it is, so while slaves bred for their brains will keep the colony alive, they'll still want 'wild' captives as cerebrophagic prime rib.

[Karl Aegis]

They can Plane Shift. Groups of them can strike anywhere at any time. They have no need to breed slaves for food.

[Shador]

They can Plane Shift. Groups of them can strike anywhere at any time. They have no need to breed slaves for food.

And I'll be having them still do that. as someone stated earlier, slave bred meals will still be like oatmeal for them. but the more they go out on hunts, the more they open themselves up, and more vulnerable they are. And if they do that too often, it may attract an army if Gith or any number of other things coming to knock down their door. having a safe steady supply of food/slaves can be invaluable if your trying to keep a low profile.

[frogglesmash]

They can Plane Shift. Groups of them can strike anywhere at any time. They have no need to breed slaves for food.

Breeding slaves is more convenient, and requires less effort.

[lord_khaine]

Breeding slaves is more convenient, and requires less effort.

Its actually the other way around.
When it takes 10+ years to raise a single slave, theft is suddenly an easier solution.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Its actually the other way around.
When it takes 10+ years to raise a single slave, theft is suddenly an easier solution.

Not if you can set up a nice, solid slaver infrastructure. Keep slaves for defense and manual labor, and the food is merely a nice side-effect.

I like the "establish yourself as a God" plan. You get a community that serves you, and you can regularly eat the dying "to help them ascend". If the community is large enough, you can get enough people on the brink of death (the elderly, the sick...) to keep a cabal of Mind Flayers fed with very little risk.

[Mechalich]

I like the "establish yourself as a God" plan. You get a community that serves you, and you can regularly eat the dying "to help them ascend". If the community is large enough, you can get enough people on the brink of death (the elderly, the sick...) to keep a cabal of Mind Flayers fed with very little risk.

At one brain per month the community has to be really big to sustain any significant number of Illithids.

Consider that the global death rate is currently around 8 per 1000, meaning that out of every 1000 people 8 die per year from all causes. A single Illithid, with 1000 people to support it, would cause a death rate of 12 per 1000 without any other help. That might, might be sustainable, assuming the illithids keep other causes of death down, but we're still talking about 1000 slaves per illithid, which means that a community of 100 mind flayers would require a massive 100,000 person metropolis to support it.

That is admittedly, with humans. If you could significantly accelerate the turnover, by using a species that happens to be sapient by matures rapidly and dies young you could reduce the number significantly. Now, most of the standard races, and even some of the supposedly rapid-breeder humanoids like goblins don't really push it down by much (Pathfinder gives goblins adulthood at 12 years, which is only 25% better than humans at 16). You really need something that matures at like 5 years old and dies at 20 for this to even come close to working, and you'll still need hundreds of slaves per illithid.

[Efrate]

Kobalds live super short cycles so they work. A little bit if illusion or a dominated dragon of any type will secure their compliance easily enough. They can be taken away for "apothesis" after proving their worth and easily explained away.

[Psyren]

I'm trying to determine what woul be good races for mindflayers to enslave and breed for a food source. I know they prefer intelligent races, and more savage ones tend to be less tasty and desirable. They would also need a race that can breed and reproduce very quickly to sate their races needs of at least one brain a month, and preferably one a week. My first thought was possibly kobold brains. They have very quick gestation cycles. I'm not sure how tasty their brains would be though. Also considered rat folk. In Pathfinder at least they get a +2 int race modifier, and breed probably at similar rates to kobolds. What do peoples think?

PF doesn't have mindflayers (product identity and all that) so the implications of fast-breeding and intelligent races on Golarion for ceremorphosis weren't really explored.

As far as mindflayer diets in more general terms - while they certainly prefer a more intelligent brain like a drow, getting one every week would be like getting steak every week - needlessly extravagant/impractical when ground beef will do the job. Especially when the steak in this case has pretty decent odds of killing them first.