Another mind flayer ethics thread

[redking]

This post is marked 3.5e because I can't account for mind flayer lore in 4E and 5E.

Lords of Madness makes it clear that mind flayers must eat brains to survive.


Mind flayers derive vital psychic and physiological sustenance from consuming brains, but their bodies also need larger quantities of “normal” nutrition to survive. Some of this comes in the form of meat no different from what a human or dwarf would eat. Most of it is ingested in the form of a nutrient soup fermented in these vats. Proteins in many forms are added to the tanks, then siphoned off for consumption when “ripe.” Mind fl ayers derive pleasure only from eating brains. All other consumption serves to keep the body functioning and healthy but it is not a source of enjoyment

And -


A mind flayer must have a minimum of one fresh brain per month. Any less than that and it suffers physical debilitation, becoming so weak that it could die. Its ideal diet is one brain per week. A mind flayer that consumes one brain a week does not feel deprived. It can eat more than that for enjoyment and for the psychic boost, and it will if brains are plentiful.

I am not here to argue that the mind flayers are not evil, because the rules define them as evil, and their behaviour is also evil as defined. What is interesting is that the mind flayers are acting fully in accordance with their nature. They are one step up on the predator ladder than humans, just as humans are to cattle. And lets be honest, the mind flayers treat humans as beast of burden and a food source, just as humans treat livestock.

I'm sure mind flayer philosophers say much the same thing. What say you?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Well‚ they don't require a "humanoid" brain per month‚ they could drain animals. They act as their nature commands‚ but they choose to eat sentient creatures who can communicate with them. A human can very much eat another human‚ and take sustenance from it‚ but if a 17th century slaver ate one of their slaves' baby‚ they would probably be considered evil.

[H_H_F_F]

This thread could get really heated really fast, so I'll ask everyone (including myself) to please try and remain civil. Remember that you're not being personally attacked, and that tone is hard online.

That being said, I do see a huge difference between mind flayers and humans in that regard: mind flayers have to eat brains. Humans don't have to eat cattle. Actual predators would be a better comparison.

Even if we were to assume D&D humans had to eat animals, I still think your criticism doesn't stand to scrutiny, Beni. Sure, mind flayers could go for less traditionally tasty and culturally accustomed-to meats in order to harm "less evolved" beings. So could humans. This harm reduction logic would dictate going for fly larva instead of cattle. This is of course even more the case for D&D humans, who have access to giant scorpions and such.

Finally, we have the matter of empathy and communication. Both mind flayers and humans indeed enslave and consume other species which they see as inferior to themselves, but humans can talk back and cattle can't, which can be argued to create a more distinctive and therefore relevant moral category than the blurry scale of actual sentience. I disagree with the ethical premise, but more importantly, I think this arguement's internal logic is flawed.

Humans can understand cattle and other animals quite well, but can understand each other much better due to having more sophisticated means of communication and relying on the same sensory information (for instance, not having smell be an important and conciouss part of the conversation). A dog or a cow can let you know how they feel quite easily, especially when accustomed to humans who give them feedback - but no one can communicate with a human as effectively as another human.

The same is true for mind flayers. They can undersrand other species, sure, but not nearly as well as eachother. To them humans can't talk. They rely on different senses (auditory and visual information instead of telepathy) and have a far less sophisticated and precise means of communication. They belong to the exact same category as animals in that sense - their minds can be read and they can be "spoken' to and commanded, but they can't choose to initiate contact, besides using more primitive and less precise means of communication.

In short, I think the only arguement against mind flayers that doesn't also apply to humans is the "telepathy should lead to empathy" arguement. It is true that a human in direct contact with an enslaved animal about to be killed is more likely to feel empathy and change his way, though that is still not a common occurance. It could be argued that the mind flayer, with a much deeper understanding of his victim, should feel more empathy, and the lack of any counter-culture movement shows the species as a whole to be less ethical.

However, we need to remember that humans living in traditional communities, and being accustomed to seeing animal agroculture in action from childhood are very unlikely to think about it as wrong. We get used to ignoring the communication attempts of animals, and rationalizing away our empathy to them, at least to the extent that would allow us to kill and eat them. Therefore, I think the previous arguement will be a strong arguement only if we again assume a difference of type and not one of scale. Meaning, it's not that telepathy is a closer way of emotional communication than body language and sounds, and therefore should cause more empathy on average; It is that telepathy is a wholly different type of emotional communication, a direct way to feel the true horror of your victim, which would compell a human to feel empathy, and therefore damns the mind flayers for not feeling it. I don't think a strong conclusion could be made about how D&D mind flayer telepathy feels, and therefore I think this arguement cannot be completely ignored. As for the rest... I think the flayers have the upper hand on us, unfortunately.

[icefractal]

That depends on what your premise for "ok to eat" is.
If it's that nothing sentient (as opposed to sapient, so including even bugs and such) qualifies, then both mind flayers and most humans are doing something evil, and the mind flayers have a better excuse.
If it's that you can eat anything that's a certain amount "below" you, then mind flayers might be no worse than humans. How do you define "below" though? Mind flayers are smarter than the average human and telepathic, but exceptional humans can exceed an average mind flayer in both of those things. If even one in a million cows was unarguably sapient, I think that would change things.
And if it's that there's a fixed threshold for "ok to eat", regardless of who's doing the eating, then mind flayers are doing something evil and humans aren't.

Most people take the third stance.

[H_H_F_F]

That depends on what your premise for "ok to eat" is.
If it's that nothing sentient (as opposed to sapient, so including even bugs and such) qualifies, then both mind flayers and most humans are doing something evil, and the mind flayers have a better excuse.
If it's that you can eat anything that's a certain amount "below" you, then mind flayers might be no worse than humans. How do you define "below" though? Mind flayers are smarter than the average human and telepathic, but exceptional humans can exceed an average mind flayer in both of those things. If even one in a million cows was unarguably sapient, I think that would change things.
And if it's that there's a fixed threshold for "ok to eat", regardless of who's doing the eating, then mind flayers are doing something evil and humans aren't.

Most people take the third stance.

Interesting. "Killing an Int 2 and below creature is a morally insignificant action" seems to me very hard to justify, but will make for a useful standard to humans trying to say eating rocs or dogs or digesters is fine while eating humans and displacer beasts isn't.

[redking]

Well‚ they don't require a "humanoid" brain per month‚ they could drain animals.

Lords of Madness does not talk about mind flayers eating animal brains. It does say that the mind flayers need to eat other foods for regular nutrition, but for psychic energy, they need brains. And the brains have to be creatures that have had some life experiences, emotions, and whatnot. I doubt animals can meet that criteria.


However, we need to remember that humans living in traditional communities, and being accustomed to seeing animal agriculture in action from childhood are very unlikely to think about it as wrong. We get used to ignoring the communication attempts of animals, and rationalizing away our empathy to them, at least to the extent that would allow us to kill and eat them.

I had a pet pigeon. A lot of people call them "the rats of the sky", and wish that they would be culled. I can say that I had a bond with my pigeon, and the pigeon felt the same. Perhaps an argument against a mind flayer is that they would be unable to bond the same way. Then again, as aberrations, you can't really hold them to the same standard.


That depends on what your premise for "ok to eat" is.
If it's that nothing sentient (as opposed to sapient, so including even bugs and such) qualifies, then both mind flayers and most humans are doing something evil, and the mind flayers have a better excuse.
If it's that you can eat anything that's a certain amount "below" you, then mind flayers might be no worse than humans. How do you define "below" though?

In Volo's Guide to Waterdeep there is at least one place that sells dragon soup. The recipe is on page 150. There have been other references elsewhere to humans eating sentient monsters, so it is definitely a thing, at least in the Forgotten Realms setting.

Lets look at the very first meal of the mind flayer. When it is a tadpole, it is inserted into the brain of a sentient humanoid. Then it eats the humanoid brain, and takes its place in the skull cavity as a parasite while undergoing ceremorphosis. The mind flayer didn't have a choice not to eat its first meal, and a mind flayer that refrains from eating humanoid brains somehow cannot experience pleasure at all.

[Crake]

I think the issue with this discussion is that we're discussing moral relativism in a system/setting which ascribes to moral absolutism. Mind flayers are evil because the cosmic forces of good and evil ascribe their actions as evil, whether it's required by their nature to survive or not seems to be largely irrelevant in the discussion. Considering the fact that creatures can be bred or even outright created with the express purpose of their very existence being evil and abhorrent, the fact that a mind flayer's very existence is predicated on the necessity for it to devour sentient brains to survive simply means that it is an evil creature by it's very nature.

If a mind flayer wants to not be evil, it has to actually go against it's own nature, as described in the alignment description in the monster manual of "always X" alignment. First step would probably be procuring a ring of sustenance to rid itself of the need to devour brains in the first place, before maybe going into the uncarnate prestige class and shedding itself of it's mortal coil and material desires/needs.

[H_H_F_F]

I agree that the good action by a mind flayer woulf be to find a way to exist without consuming other beings. I think the same about humanoids. I don't think we were coming into this at all from a prespective of moral relativism, simply one that tried to be open minded. The question was, as far as I understood it, not one of "is eating humans a moral action" - it isn't. It was more along the lines of something luke this: Is mind flayer society actually more evil than humanoid ones, given the way those treat other beings, or are we just talking from the biased position of being prey in one case and predator in the other.

I don't think this discussion requires us to take into account alignment issues at all. We can compare these socieites as presented, and ask whther or not the difference between them is as great as it first appears.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Thank you H_H_F_F for your response, to which I mostly agree. I didn't mention vegetarianism as humans mostly because it may, incidentally, heat up the thread, but I understand that it was doomed to be mentioned. I completely agree with the fact that mind flayers do have mostly the same mindset towards humans that humans have towards cattle. We don't have to kill and enslave animals and eat meat, yet most humans do, because it makes them happy to do so, as mind flayers don't have to kill and enslave humanoids, but do because it makes them happier than eating low-intelligence/mindless creatures.

I admit that my comparison with killing animals instead was unfit. For mind flayers, every other race is equally inferior, and eating a hawk's brain or an elf's is probably the same, except the second is tastier, so why would they restrain themselves? Mind flayers can keep thralls with them as pet/slaves and even get some favored ones to the point that they postpone eating them. These thralls are almost always humanoids, because they are a bit more able to entertain an illithid than a lower-intelligence creature. They are worked to death by the illithids, and often tortured and forced to fight each other in arenas for their master's enjoyment. Now you can see that as organizing dog fights or cockfights and torturing ants by burning them with a lens. Definitely not the best side of humanity, but that's something we've done, even to this day. At least it's not gladiatorial games, where they would enslave illithids and pit them against other illithids or against lesser creatures. And that's pretty understandable, as illithids are designed as "like humans, but towards humans". Or it can be "they 'befriend' (in that they sometimes give them breaks in their works and trinkets to entertain themselves, not that they get very emotionally attached. The lore is very explicit that the latter is exceedingly rare) their cattle", which is a bit hypocritical, but once again not unseen.

No, for me, the difference is about how they see it. Humans are conscious that their actions are hurting animals. That's why they often don't eat their pets, why there are associations that try to preserve biodiversity and reduce the impact of humans on the world, even if it doesn't benefit us directly. That's why there even are some vegetarian and vegan humans. And considering the existence of druids and rangers, and Vow of Peace, I feel like it's the same or similar in the D&D world.

Illithids, on the other hand: "The mind flayers strongly believed in their manifest destiny, and viewed the task of bringing the multiverse to heel as one of great importance. The illithids instructed all who questioned this view to look at the biological facts, how they stood at the top of the food chain and how all others naturally fell beneath them. While the illithids recognized that other creatures resisted their control, they perceived this as a natural result of reality's current state, the unknowing thralls within not knowing any better than to fight their masters. [They] sincerely felt that they were giving their livestock a gift of their own when they consumed their brains."
They know that their thralls are suffering under them, but they are proud of it, and actively seek to expand their influence on the world. There is next to no record of an illithid who questioned this lifestyle (the only one I know of is Nurr'korzahg, an illithid from the Underdark who had a near-death experience and started changing his way afterwards, to the point of contemplating helping humanoids lost in the Underdark).

So in the end, you can say that most evil things the illithids are known for are some things humans did too. They are like exaggerated versions of us, in all our pride, self-centeredness and contempt for "lesser" species; but they do it because they are naturally shaped for it. And I would agree, if they even tried to understand their thrall, if even a small portion of them considered humanoids as worth their interest, or their friendship, or if they were humbler concerning their place in the multiverse. As they are now, I only see them as sadistic parodies of the worst traits of humans against other species.


(Also, minor nitpick: illithids do not absolutely need to eat brains. In Underdark, Nurr'korzahg is described as having lost all but one of his tentacles, preventing him from extracting brains and severing him from his elder brain, and he supposedly "changed his diet" to a non-brain one. He probably takes some sorts of psionic nutritional supplements (since he's a wizard, I assume he should have invented some Create Brain and Water spell), but it's possible. We could avoid lots of slavery and deaths if illithids just took some vitamin B12 (standing for Brains 12, of course).
Also I don't think telepathy changes anything in their relation to humans. Illithid brain is often described as "eldritch, alien, cold, almost emotionless, incomprehensible". To them, ours would be "painfully mundane in our thoughts, yet illogical, chaotic and submerged by emotions, incomprehensible". Just because one can read thoughts doesn't mean one can read thought processes and emotions.)

[H_H_F_F]

All good points, Beni. I wasn't familiar with your particylar example from underdark, which is very interesting and relevant. Thanks for your response.

[loky1109]

We don't have to kill and enslave animals and eat meat.
No, we have. At least our children have. With only plant food we can't take all needed amino acids to grow. Yes, now we maybe have methods to avoid it, but 50 or more years ago we definitely hadn't.
And I don't agree with word "enslave".

I do not want debate about vegetarian, but I can't ignore inaccuracies.

Have mind flayers or haven't is debatable. First, they need it for reproduction. Second, it is possible reading that they have it intellectual brains and can't replace it with animals.

[redking]

I don't think this discussion requires us to take into account alignment issues at all. We can compare these socieites as presented, and ask whther or not the difference between them is as great as it first appears.

Agreed. I accepted that the mind flayers are evil by definition in the OP. The question of whether mind flayers are evil because they must eat humanoid brains to survive is not at issue. Dragons snack on humanoids as well, and unlike mind flayers, they can choose other sources of food.

If the problem is slavery, then many human societies do that too. Mind flayers may even argue that their slavery is more humane because the slaves are kept in a charmed stupor, like an anaesthetic.

[Faily]

I don't think the evil of Mind Flayers is only because they eat brains. It's the whole package, such as them enslaving what they view as "lesser races", believing they are the superior beings to everyone else (and so the others don't matter), and the fact that Mind Flayers reproduce by transforming a humanoid into a Mind Flayer through the process of Ceremorphosis.


Ceremorphosis is the natural reproduction process of the mind flayer. It involves inserting a live illithid tadpole into the mind of a captive humanoid host, consuming their mind over the course of days and transforming the body into a mind flayer.

So it's basically that you take a living sentient being (humanoid of any kind) and forcefully eat their mind, thus wiping out their person, and changing their body to become something new. In short, this is body-horror from another dimension in D&D.

I don't think a person that has gone through ceremorphosis can be brought back by Raise Dead or Resurrection either. Maybe Miracle or True Resurrection could do it?

[afroakuma]

It's important to remember that mind flayers by their very existence are already doing something unnatural - in fact, everything about them is unnatural. The natural adult form of a flayer tadpole is a neothelid. Illithids are mutants created by an unnatural parasitic cycle that they are choosing to perpetuate, despite the fact that flayers do not need other flayers for... basically anything, really, flayer communities tend to be arrangements of convenience more than anything else.

Secondly, it's important to remember that illithids have alternatives - they just don't really want to. The comparison I once made is that fresh humanoid brains are like pizza - nobody needs to eat pizza when other equally nutritious options are available, but who's going to pick tofu and mashed cauliflower over pizza? Illithids even developed a species for the specific purpose of being brain-livestock, the oortlings, but they choose to prey on other humanoids because they like the taste.

So no, by their very existence illithids are going against their "natures," and the philosophical gap is the same as if we had a choice between regular cows and sapient cows who have built their own society, and prioritize slaughtering the latter because they make tastier burgers. There is absolutely no biological need for what constitutes "seasoning."

[zlefin]

No, we have. At least our children have. With only plant food we can't take all needed amino acids to grow. Yes, now we maybe have methods to avoid it, but 50 or more years ago we definitely hadn't.
And I don't agree with word "enslave".

I do not want debate about vegetarian, but I can't ignore inaccuracies.

Have mind flayers or haven't is debatable. First, they need it for reproduction. Second, it is possible reading that they have it intellectual brains and can't replace it with animals.

you can get all amino acids from plants, as long as you choose the right ones. Some individual plants even have all the amino acids humans needs to survive.

The problem is in certain vitamins, mostly b12 iirc.

[Beni-Kujaku]

you can get all amino acids from plants, as long as you choose the right ones. Some individual plants even have all the amino acids humans needs to survive.

The problem is in certain vitamins, mostly b12 iirc.

Indeed. Although the B12 problem only exists for full vegans. With eggs and milk, a human can be a vegetarian and still get all the B12 vitamin (and other necessary inputs) they need to survive and grow.

[redking]

The natural adult form of a flayer tadpole is a neothelid.

There is zero evidence that a neolithid can even reproduce, which makes it very unlikely that neolithids are the mature form of mind flayers. A generation of mind flayers solely consisting of neolithids is the last generation of mind flayers.


Illithids are mutants created by an unnatural parasitic cycle that they are choosing to perpetuate, despite the fact that flayers do not need other flayers for... basically anything, really, flayer communities tend to be arrangements of convenience more than anything else.

Illithids are parasites, to be sure, and the elder brains are parasitic on the illithids as well. Collaborative parasitism is hardly an argument against them. Because the mind flayers do not seem to care one whit about their tadpoles, it could be that their reproduction is an irresistible urge.

[H_H_F_F]

As a note, even B12 is only an issue for modern-fertilized agroculture, not for gatherers or traditional manure-based farming. However, this is starting to look exactly like the derailing I was worried about for this thread, so I propose we leave it be with that.

[Segev]

I don't usually put video links on here because they're long and annoying, but I will leave this one in a spoiler for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_UdgbYc3gE

This video has an interesting discussion of what I think Beni is getting at, and does reflect on the same kinds of concepts that the OP brings up.

In it the author/narrator posits that moral agency is the marker of where you have rights. While there is room to argue about edge cases and technicalities (something I know we're all good at and enjoy doing, here), he offers a definition of a "rights-holding moral agent" as: "A being who is able to assert his own rights and respect others' rights." Some obvious "technicality" questions arise around people who are mentally deficient, physically disabled, or even bound and gagged. After all, if you're unable to talk (due to being bound and gagged by your would-be oppressor), I doubt anybody (including the narrator of this video) would suggest that means you HAVE no rights. We'd agree that person is being wronged, absent some extenuating circumstances.

If we accept that definition with a generalizing caveat that extraordinary or temporary circumstances do not render a given member of a class of rights-bearing moral agents to lack those rights, nor that such extraordinary or temporary circumstances grant an entire class of beings the status of rights-holding moral agents, I think we can begin to make some headway on the discussion.

Specifically, cattle - cows, sheep, other "dumb beasts" - cannot, in general, assert their rights. They also cannot and would not respect the rights of others. They're cognitively incapable of it. The concepts are beyond them. It would take extraordinary and possibly temporary circumstances to change that for even one such creature (e.g. an awaken spell - extraordinary but not temporary, in this case).

I think we should adopt a generalized protections vs. exceptional protections stance. If a class of beings - e.g. humans, elves, halflings, dwarves, or the like - is generally able to assert their rights and demonstrate ability to respect the rights of others, it is best to extend the protections of rights-bearing moral agents as far as is societally safe to all who fall into that class. A bound and gagged elf should be released (barring very good reasons for them to be bound and gagged) and permitted his agency. A brain-damaged halfling should be protected and cared for and protected from being treated as an expendable food source or the like.

On the other hand, if a class of beings - e.g. cows, insects, fish - is generally unable to assert, respect, nor even demonstrate the cognitive ability to understand their own or others' rights, then they do not need to be considered to have rights. Exceptional circumstances/beings that have those circumstances identifiable as being responsible for their somewhat unique ability to understand, assert, and respect rights do not make the whole of that species rights-bearing moral agents; they are exceptional.

It is important to note that we do already apply this test to a degree IRL with our fellow humans. While we do respect the rights-bearing aspect sometimes beyond the ability of the individual human to assert those rights, we do NOT respect their rights-bearing nature beyond the point of their ability to RESPECT others' rights. Children, cognitively challenged people, and criminals all have various aspects of what we consider mature adult human rights denied to them. All are - generally - protected from murder, exploitation, etc. (though death penalties can happen for some crimes), but children are not permitted to enter into contracts, cannot make their own medical decisions, and are denied a number of rights because they're considered incapable of exercising them while respecting others'. We extend to children the protections of life and safety because their condition is temporary, and to the disabled such protections because their conditions are extraordinary. (There's a dangerous slippery slope when one allows that line to be crossed, because wicked people will start to look for excuses to push the line further and further; for societal health, the taboo against abusing even humans who cannot assert their rights is important.)

If it were discovered that cows are desperately trying to assert their rights, can comprehend them, and will respect those of others, we would be morally obligated to reconsider the deliciousness of hamburgers.

Mind Flayers don't have that excuse: humans can and do express their understanding of their rights whenever the mind flayers are not actively suppressing their ability to do so. Humans demonstrably can respect the rights of others. It is not morally kosher to deny humans' status as rights-bearing moral agents. As moral agents, themselves, mind flayers are violating other rights-bearing moral agents' rights, and thus fall subject to the clauses criminals do: those who choose not to respect the rights of other rights-bearing moral agents have their rights curtailed to protect those they are violating.

[Psyren]

I'm not touching the real-world morality of eating animals with a 1000-foot pole.

The important thing is what counts as evil in the fiction of D&D. In D&D, eating sapient creatures is an evil act, and eating non-sapient animals is not. Mindflayers have a choice to subsist on the latter, however bland that might be; they choose not to, therefore they are actively choosing to commit an evil act.


There is zero evidence that a neolithid can even reproduce, which makes it very unlikely that neolithids are the mature form of mind flayers. A generation of mind flayers solely consisting of neolithids is the last generation of mind flayers.

Neothelids are tadpoles that didn't get implanted, and survived the death of their Elder Brain (i.e. not getting devoured by that either). They devoured their siblings and matured to the point that they could leave their pool and consume a brain, at which point they gain intelligence, eventually growing to Gargantuan size.

[redking]

Mindflayers have a choice to subsist on the latter, however bland that might be; they choose not to, therefore they are actively choosing to commit an evil act.

Do you have a 3E/3.5E source supporting that? I've been all over Lords of Madness and cannot find anything suggesting that. In fact, everything suggests that they cannot, and even lifelong thralls make for poor nutrition.

[H_H_F_F]

I wrote a couple of paragraphs about rights-theory and how much I disagree with it in general and with the self-assertion school in particular, but this is getting out of topic. While I personally find it to be obviously wrong in many ways, it would still be an internally consistent defense for humans when discussing the Ilithid issue.

[Psyren]

Do you have a 3E/3.5E source supporting that? I've been all over Lords of Madness and cannot find anything suggesting that. In fact, everything suggests that they cannot, and even lifelong thralls make for poor nutrition.

There is a Redeemed Mindflayer in Book of Exalted Deeds named Thaqualm who has survived for years on the surface. Even if she had still had thralls, she has a Vow of Nonviolence, which means she cannot do any harm to humanoids or monstrous humanoids. As they must consume living brains to survive, that only leaves animals, magical beasts, and aberrations for her dietary needs, and only one of those is likely to be found near a monastery.

[daremetoidareyo]

Spell thematics (various humanoid sentient brains) create food and water solves this problem by level 6

[ciopo]

from a pragmatic point of view, dog eat dog, as long as you don't seek conflict on purpose, when the corpse is on the ground, meat is meat.

i.e., if you you're not actively hunting, but come in conflict anyway, and for whatever reason said conflicts ends with dead... well, I don't find the eating of the dead morally wrong, other than as derived from social conditioning.

if you don't need to eat meat, then you shoulnd't actively seek to obtain meat, since that is harmful to a fellow living being (regardless of where on the scale of mindless <---> INT>30 the fellow living being falls). But the corpse of a fellow living being is not a living being anymore, what does it matter then if it's cattle or dragon or whatever else it may be?

I am reminded of a short story I've read, where in a kitchen sink fantasy setting, a character took some octopus skewer from a food stand at the market, and unwittingly eat what were actually "mind flayer expy" facial tentacles.

What difference does it matter that it was a mind flayer tentacle, sentient specie in world, instead of octopus? the "squick" of it is only in our mind.

my opinion is that it's the murder that's evil, in context. Eating afterward? I kinda feel it's more "amoral" letting it go to waste, but here comes a bit of lawful/chaotic axis point of order about respecting the customs of the whatever former living being

[redking]

There is a Redeemed Mindflayer in Book of Exalted Deeds named Thaqualm who has survived for years on the surface. Even if she had still had thralls, she has a Vow of Nonviolence, which means she cannot do any harm to humanoids or monstrous humanoids. As they must consume living brains to survive, that only leaves animals, magical beasts, and aberrations for her dietary needs, and only one of those is likely to be found near a monastery.

This is a particular illithid and we don't know anything about its circumstances. You are making an inference about this illithids eating habits based on its vow of nonviolence, but we don't really know anything about this illithid or if the way this illithid survives is an option open to other mind flayers. You could say "well, I saw a published succubus paladin once, this is an option for any succubus", and you would still be wrong.

Looking at Lords of Madness, all I can see is that illithids need humanoid brains to survive, and the higher quality the brain, the better the psychic nutrition.


Spell thematics (various humanoid sentient brains) create food and water solves this problem by level 6

Mind flayers eat regular food too, so create food and water solves their need to regular food, but not their need for sentient brains with rich life experiences.

[Psyren]

Looking at Lords of Madness, all I can see is that illithids need humanoid brains to survive, and the higher quality the brain, the better the psychic nutrition.

Where in LoM does it say "humanoid brains?" The exact quote is (LoM 74):

"A mind flayer must have a minimum of one fresh brain per month. Any less than that and it suffers physical debilitation, becoming so weak that it could die. Its ideal diet is one brain per week. A mind flayer that consumes one brain a week does not feel deprived. It can eat more than that for enjoyment and for the psychic boost, and it will if brains are plentiful."

Your "humanoid" qualifier is not mentioned.


This is a particular illithid and we don't know anything about its circumstances. You are making an inference about this illithids eating habits based on its vow of nonviolence, but we don't really know anything about this illithid or if the way this illithid survives is an option open to other mind flayers. You could say "well, I saw a published succubus paladin once, this is an option for any succubus", and you would still be wrong.

The fact that they must eat a minimum of one brain per month, and that we have a canonical example of one that has survived for two years, is absolutely relevant information. The Succubus Paladin is not, because (a) that is metaphysical outlook rather than biological necessity, and (b) Thaqualm is in a first-party sourcebook, not a web article.

[afroakuma]

Looking at Lords of Madness, all I can see is that illithids need humanoid brains to survive, and the higher quality the brain, the better the psychic nutrition.

Where does it specify that they need to ingest humanoid brains? As far as I can see, while they require humanoids of certain types for ceremorphosis, each citation of them eating brains fails to narrow the scope to "humanoid" brains. What they do frequently cite is that illithids prioritize the brains of sapient creatures with life experience and rich emotions because eating them is more pleasurable; see above re: pizza.

At any rate, this is feeling like a thread that's more about two sides holding the line and less like a discussion with intent to persuade or be persuaded. Not saying that's a bad thing, but if that's what it's here for, I'm going to check out.

[redking]

Where in LoM does it say "humanoid brains?" The exact quote is (LoM 74):

"A mind flayer must have a minimum of one fresh brain per month. Any less than that and it suffers physical debilitation, becoming so weak that it could die. Its ideal diet is one brain per week. A mind flayer that consumes one brain a week does not feel deprived. It can eat more than that for enjoyment and for the psychic boost, and it will if brains are plentiful."

Your "humanoid" qualifier is not mentioned.

The entire context of the mind flayer section of Lords of Madness is such. Have a look at the section that talks about how many thralls that a mind flayer community would need to sustain itself. There is not even a mention of animals.

You can only say this by ignoring the context. The quality of the brains is important, and the context explains what is meant by quality. When taken in context, illithids cannot sustain themselves on animal brains.

[Psyren]

The entire context of the mind flayer section of Lords of Madness is such. Have a look at the section that talks about how many thralls that a mind flayer community would need to sustain itself. There is not even a mention of animals.

You can only say this by ignoring the context. The quality of the brains is important, and the context explains what is meant by quality. When taken in context, illithids cannot sustain themselves on animal brains.

Got it, you couldn't find a humanoid requirement citation. Whereas I have a canonical example of one surviving for years not eating humanoids. Therefore it is not a requirement, merely a choice.

[hamishspence]

Got it, you couldn't find a humanoid requirement citation. Whereas I have a canonical example of one surviving for years not eating humanoids. Therefore it is not a requirement, merely a choice.And there's no "must be humanoid" requirement for the brain-eating ability to work. As written, if a mind flayer locks all four tentacles on an animal's head for long enough, the brain will be extracted.

Mind flayers keep rothe - the cattle of the underdark, albeit magical beasts rather than true animals. They still have animal-level Intelligence though - INT 1.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/mind-flayers-and-diet.219170/

"Per Lords of Madness and the Illithiad, they can survive on lower animals (see the rothe), but sentient brains taste better."

If you subscribe to "animals have emotions, even if they don't have human-level consciousness" - then the whole "emotions (and experiences) are the meat and potatoes of a nourishing, fulfilling mind" bit from Lords of Madness doesn't really have problems anymore.

For that matter, a rothe's having spell-like abilities may possibly mean more "psychic energy" than a regular animal.

The ideal in this case, would be going after animals which are reasonably emotional, and can "remember their experiences" - the smartest and most active animals.

[redking]

Got it, you couldn't find a humanoid requirement citation. Whereas I have a canonical example of one surviving for years not eating humanoids. Therefore it is not a requirement, merely a choice.

I could posts walls of text but I doubt it would be fair use. All of the examples given are of humanoids in Lords of Madness. As for your unique redeemed mind flayer, it doesn't say that it doesn't eat humanoid brains. It says nothing of that at all. We know nothing of its eating habits. You have inferred, based on its vow of nonviolence, that it must not be eating humanoid brains, but you have not considered other options. Another option is that this redeemed mind flayer eats the brains of the terminally ill, giving them a painless death (canonical way of feeding, from Legend of Spelljammer).


And there's no "must be humanoid" requirement for the brain-eating ability to work. As written, if a mind flayer locks all four tentacles on an animal's head for long enough, the brain will be extracted.

Mind flayers keep rothe - the cattle of the underdark, albeit magical beasts rather than true animals. They still have animal-level Intelligence though - INT 1.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/mind-flayers-and-diet.219170/

"Per Lords of Madness and the Illithiad, they can survive on lower animals (see the rothe), but sentient brains taste better."

I can't find anything of the sort in Lords of Madness. People keep saying that Lords of Madness says this or that and never provide a direct quote.

[Telok]

RE: rights

The bulls in a herd of cows respect the alpha bull's mating & leadership rights among the bovine social structure. A wolf pack respects the territorial rights of other wolf packs through the canid social structure. The cows do not respect the right of a rancher to dispose of his property by selling them or moving them to another field, because thats not a cow mental or social concept. The wolves don't respect the rancher's right to fence off land or protect the herd from predation, because that's not a wolf mental or social concept. They don't think we have and "right" to fence off land, dictate which bulls & cows get to mate, or prevent wolves from hunting & eating.

So when illithids don't respect "human rights" that are a product of human society and communication... humans don't respect "wolf rights" that are a product of their society and communication.

Our concepts of land ownership and... lets use math... math are not things that exist in their world. If you try to discuss calculus with your pet dog it won't understand. It's understanding of you is primarialy emotional; food, play, pettings, punishment. Talk calculus to your dog and, even though it may recognize some words, not only are the concepts over it's head but you're being weirdly unemotional and detached with some alien mind-set that considers math important.

So when we say illithids seem alien, incomprehensible, and unemotional, tank math at your dog or cat. You're being alien, incomprehensible, and unemotional to it. Better yet, talk about dental hygene and tooth brushing to your pet after dental surgery. You may have subjected it to something good for it's long term health, but to it you took it to the nasty place for painful torture and are now being totally uncaring about it's discomfort and pain.

We are the illithids to our pets. Well... minus the brain tadpole thing.

[hamishspence]

You have inferred, based on its vow of nonviolence, that it must not be eating humanoid brains, but you have not considered other options. Another option is that this redeemed mind flayer eats the brains of the terminally ill, giving them a painless death (canonical way of feeding, from Legend of Spelljammer).

That would still, by RAW, break the Vow of Nonviolence. It is to "cause no harm" to humanoids or monstrous humanoids. As written, there is no specific exemption for mercy killings.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I could posts walls of text but I doubt it would be fair use. All of the examples given are of humanoids in Lords of Madness. As for your unique redeemed mind flayer, it doesn't say that it doesn't eat humanoid brains. It says nothing of that at all. We know nothing of its eating habits. You have inferred, based on its vow of nonviolence, that it must not be eating humanoid brains, but you have not considered other options. Another option is that this redeemed mind flayer eats the brains of the terminally ill, giving them a painless death (canonical way of feeding, from Legend of Spelljammer).

Mind you, a ring of sustenance would solve all of the dietary issues with the redeemed mind flayer, but as for acting as an "angel of mercy" of sorts, not only is that highly improbable given the dietary requirements (finding at least one such individual per month), but Exalted feats are... kinda stupid. Especially the Vow of Nonviolence.
To fulfill your vow, you must not cause harm or suffering to humanoid or monstrous humanoid foes. You may not deal real damage or ability damage to such foes through spells or weapons, though you may deal nonlethal damage. You may not target them with death effects, disintegrate, pain effects, or other spells that have the immediate potential to cause
death, suffering, or great harm. There's unfortunately not an exception for willing creatures, it's flat out yes/no. And given that it still benefits from the feat, it could not have eaten a (living) brain since taking the feat. So RAW, it could not have been eating the brains of humanoids or monstrous humanoids.

Mind you, this wouldn't be the first (or even 100th) NPC stat block to not make a lot of sense in 3.5E. So it should likely be taken with a grain of salt.

[Psyren]

I could posts walls of text but I doubt it would be fair use. All of the examples given are of humanoids in Lords of Madness.

That indicates a preference on their part, not a hard requirement.

Also, what hamish said.

[Segev]

What difference does it matter that it was a mind flayer tentacle, sentient specie in world, instead of octopus? the "squick" of it is only in our mind.

To be fair, there are people who might enjoy a handful of crunchy chocolates only to be disgusted when told it was grasshoppers that made them crunchy.



For not-starving while being ethical, a mind flayer could use a ring of sustenance or live off of "create food and water," because it makes food that will be nourishing for the recipient and thus will include a brain for the illithid.

On the subject of animal brains vs. sentient ones, it would be interesting if an illithid's intelligence is related to the intelligence of the brains it eats. Thus, one that lives on animals slowly goes feral as it loses its mind.

[H_H_F_F]

It would be interesting if an illithid's intelligence is related to the intelligence of the brains it eats. Thus, one that lives on animals slowly goes feral as it loses its mind.

Ethics arguement aside for a moment, this is a great idea.

[Cruiser1]

"Per Lords of Madness and the Illithiad, they can survive on lower animals (see the rothe), but sentient brains taste better."
If it's only a matter of taste, and not a requirement to have sentient brains in order to have better measurable stats, then a Mind Flayer could just cast Prestidigitation upon the Rothe brain to make it taste exactly like a human brain. Perhaps that's what the BoED redeemed mind flayer does.

In real life, there are an increasing number of meat substitutes on the market, even lab grown meat. That can fulfill the "I like pizza" desire without dealing with the issues of killing real animals.

It doesn't even have to be a moral issue. Real life humans may eventually only use meat substitutes (e.g. in future cities on Mars) if they're cheaper to produce but just as good. Similarly, Mind Flayers might not care one whit about humans, but instead of surface raiding and maintaining slave pens for food, casting Prestidigitation upon animal brains might become preferred simply because it's more efficient. After all, doing that avoids attracting the attention of adventuring parties who inevitably come down with their 9th level spells and kill the Elder Brain! :smallwink:

[Beni-Kujaku]

On the subject of animal brains vs. sentient ones, it would be interesting if an illithid's intelligence is related to the intelligence of the brains it eats. Thus, one that lives on animals slowly goes feral as it loses its mind.

That's what they do in Promised Neverland. It's a manga where there is a race of people (humans call them "demons") that eat brains and become more intelligent if they eat intelligent brains. This creates very interesting dynamics where humans are bred like cattle for the demon plebs‚ while a handful are trained and educated to give to the nobles‚ and the really poor demons‚ or traitors to their country‚ are left with only animal brains and left to decay and go feral. That's a really good one‚ although I didn't like the very end much. Go read it!

[icefractal]

Interesting. "Killing an Int 2 and below creature is a morally insignificant action" seems to me very hard to justify, but will make for a useful standard to humans trying to say eating rocs or dogs or digesters is fine while eating humans and displacer beasts isn't.It's arbitrary, but TBF so is any line you set, to an extent. I mean, "only eat things of Int 0" or "only eat plants" are reasonable standards, but they're still just standards someone decided on. Even normal plants are sentient to an extent, and with magic you can talk to them.

Of course if you're living in a really high-magic society, you don't have to kill anything to eat - Sustenance spells, magically created food, willing donation from regenerating creatures, or in a Druid-heavy society maybe making an official agreement with certain plants ("Produce extra fruit for us to eat, and in exchange we'll make sure you always get enough water/fertilizer/good growing land").

That last one is interesting in that you could consider it already how we interact with certain plants (fruit trees), but not with others (anything where harvesting it kills the individual plant). On the other hand, corn as a species benefits from cultivation (being ensured huge swathes of land that would usually be occupied by other plants, for one), even if individual corn stalks die. If a eusocial / hive-mind society like Formians made an agreement to sell a certain amount of their workers as food, would it be ethical to accept that deal?

[Zanos]

Seems pretty nonsensical to argue that mindflayers see human as lower cattle and that makes it the same as a human eating a cow, when there are humans that are more powerful and more intelligent than the average mind flayer, and some humans that are even more intelligent and powerful than an ulithard or elder brain, if you start breaking out some of the epic human casters in Faerun for example.

If one in every ten million cows could do astrophysics, I probably wouldn't eat cows. :smallconfused:

[redking]

Lets bring it back to the topic at hand, if possible. Some objections have been raised. Here they are.

1. There is a mind flayers in the Book of Exalted Deeds that has a vow on nonviolence. Due to the vow of nonviolence and the fact that this mind flayer has been 'redeemed', it is inferred by some readers that this mind flayer does not eat the brains of sentients at all. The Book of Exalted Deeds tells us nothing of the mind flayers diet.

2. Eating sentient brains is a choice, and it says so in Lords of Madness according to this quote from EnWorld below.


https://www.enworld.org/threads/mind-flayers-and-diet.219170/

"Per Lords of Madness and the Illithiad, they can survive on lower animals (see the rothe), but sentient brains taste better."

My counter-objections:

1. Among all the possibilities in a D&D game, how can you infer from a single redeemed mind flayer that mind flayers do not have to eat sentient brains? There are other possibilities. As an exalted mind flayer, the gods of good may have liberated the need of this mind flayer to eat sentient brains for all we know. But it doesn't say that? Well it doesn't say that this redeemed mind flayer eats animal brains either.

2. Illithiad may indeed say that, but Lords of Madness does not. In 2E there is even 'brain mold' in the Spelljammer boxed set, which obviated the need for eating brains. In my OP however, I asked for 3E/3.5E sources.

In Lords of Madness there are ONLY examples of mind flayers eating sentients. The section starting on page 74 under the title THE FLOW OF FRESH BRAINS goes into the logistics of keeping a mind flayer colony supplied with brains, and even goes into the amount of time it takes to produce a food ready sentient brains of "consumable age". Animal brains are not even hinted as being viable in Lords of Madness. Even the brains of lifelong thralls are less nutritious than that of a free sentient. That being the case, what chance does a rothe have of being a proper meal for a mind flayer in desperate need of psychic replenishment?


For reasons explained below, an illithid’s brain is anathema to its body. The process of ceremorphosis creates something closer to parasite than brain. That parasite becomes an indispensable part of the body. Its great weakness is that it does not produce the critical enzymes, hormones, or psychic energy that the body needs to survive and function. Those critical components must come from consumed brains.

Because of the mind flayer’s all-embracing nervous system, food does not pass through a simple gastrointestinal tract but through a cognitive, self-aware digestive system. That system absorbs more than just nourishment from food. It scavenges enzymes, hormones, and most important, psychic energy. Illithids are known for consuming brains, but they eat other food as well, most of which contains various amounts of these needed enzymes and hormones. Internal organs are good sources, and they rank high on illithid menus. Brains are ripe with all three and are the only external source of psychic energy.

If the mind flayer could eat animal brains to get the psychic nutrition that they require, isn't it an incredible oversight for the designers of Lords of Madness not to even mention this in passing? Even if you maintain that mind flayers can choose not to eat sentient brains, at least acknowledge that the designers dropped the ball.

[afroakuma]

2. Illithiad may indeed say that, but Lords of Madness does not. In 2E there is even 'brain mold' in the Spelljammer boxed set, which obviated the need for eating brains. In my OP however, I asked for 3E/3.5E sources.

Deeply ironic, since The Illithiad would have explicitly been on your side, while Lords of Madness took no explicit position and allows for the reader's choice of inference.


Even if you maintain that mind flayers can choose not to eat sentient brains, at least acknowledge that the designers dropped the ball.

I see no given merit to doing that. As I noted previously, the intent of this thread does not appear to involve persuasion so much as taking on an immovable stance predicated on a chosen interpretation of text without explicit answers. My choice, and that of others, is to interpret the BoED material as indicating that an explicit exception for that particular illithid is not required, else it would have been provided; and that when taken alongside the lack of explicit mandate in LoM, this indicates that mind flayers in a purely 3.0/3.5 context are not required to eat the brains of sapient beings but elect to do so.

Your choice is evidently alternative, and you are welcome to it, but I believe the alternative argument has already been sufficiently justified. If the only substantive counterargument is "but it really implies!" then that continues to come down to preferred inference, given that the BoED really implies that the mind flayer has no dietary need for the brains of sapients. Absent an explicit citation, this continues to boil down to how each individual would choose to interpret the materials available.

[Segev]

There need be no explicit exception for already-exceptional individuals when there are magical solutions that absolutely work on a limited basis. A ring of sustenance seems most straight-forward.

It would be tricky to claim every mind flayer has access to one, but not that a single mind flayer couldn't seek out and acquire one.


Ethics arguement aside for a moment, this is a great idea.
Thanks!

Maybe have it be that they can maintain their personal baseline intelligence by eating the species they cerebromorphed from, and start suffering penalties to intelligence as they starve or subsist on brains of the wrong species that are less intelligent than tey currently are. And gain stacking bonuses when they eat brains smarter than they currently are that fade if they don't maintain that quality of brain food.

[loky1109]

Sapient hydra can be solution. It can voluntary donate its brains without significant harm.

[Crake]

Seems pretty nonsensical to argue that mindflayers see human as lower cattle and that makes it the same as a human eating a cow, when there are humans that are more powerful and more intelligent than the average mind flayer, and some humans that are even more intelligent and powerful than an ulithard or elder brain, if you start breaking out some of the epic human casters in Faerun for example.

If one in every ten million cows could do astrophysics, I probably wouldn't eat cows. :smallconfused:

Yeah, when there's a fairly significant species overlap in cognitive ability, you can't really compare it to humans and animals, since there is no cognitive overlap between animals and humans, genetic disorders not withstanding. For sure there are no animals that can cognitively compare with even the most average human in the same way that intelligent humans can compare to an average mindflayer.

[Psyren]

If the mind flayer could eat animal brains to get the psychic nutrition that they require, isn't it an incredible oversight for the designers of Lords of Madness not to even mention this in passing? Even if you maintain that mind flayers can choose not to eat sentient brains, at least acknowledge that the designers dropped the ball.

You're talking about the designers that forgot to mention that monks are proficient with unarmed strikes. I think some calibration of your expectations might be in order.

[Telok]

Guy, guys, guys! We've been missing the most awesome part of this all along! An illithid's guts have their own sapient mind!

You thought your tummy grumbles were your gut talking at you? Illithid are telepaths, capable of having meaningful conversations with their (or another illithid's) lower intestine.

[Blue Jay]

From Underdark, page 20 (the blurb about mind flayers as a playable race):


"Due to their diet, if nothing else, most mind flayers are simply incapable of becoming truly good, but the occasional exceptional individual who restricts its feeding to the brains of nonsentient creatures might become neutral, or possibly even good in extreme cases."

(emphasis mine)

There it is: a RAW statement that mind flayers can choose to subsist on nonsentient brains. What effects (if any) this has on their physiology and psyche is not explained, but I think this is sufficient enough evidence to establish, as a baseline, that it's not impossible.

Circling back to the main topic of the thread, one could extrapolate from the above quote that a diet of nonsentient brains is a prerequisite for a mind flayer having a non-Evil alignment. This would lead to the conclusion that Nurr'Korzahg and Thaqualm do not eat sentient brains (Incidentally, there is also a third example, but it's rather obscure: a Good-aligned mind flayer named Ralayn is mentioned in the Underdark Web Enhancement "Underdark Dungeons," in the section titled "Disconnected Pair").

This reasoning leads to the conclusion that mind flayers are only Evil by choice, and not by nature.

But again, there are other valid lines of reasoning from this minimal statement, so the core question is still mainly a matter of personal interpretation and preference.

[Batcathat]

This reasoning leads to the conclusion that mind flayers are only Evil by choice, and not by nature.

One argument against that might be that the passage you quoted says "most mind flayers are simply incapable of becoming truly good". Not that they don't bother trying or that they're unlikely to succeed, that they are incapable of it. Though that does raise the question of why some mind flayers are capable of doing it.

[Blue Jay]

One argument against that might be that the passage you quoted says "most mind flayers are simply incapable of becoming truly good". Not that they don't bother trying or that they're unlikely to succeed, that they are incapable of it. Though that does raise the question of why some mind flayers are capable of doing it.

I hadn't thought of that interpretation, but you're right: that's completely valid.

Personally, I don't like to interpret that "incapable" thing too rigidly: I prefer the more nuanced idea that everyone has some measure of "alignment malleability," with some being highly malleable, others being highly un-malleable, and others having some intermediate degree of malleability. And populations may consist of varying proportions of each: most mind flayer cities consist mainly of un-malleable individuals that will only be converted to Good by some miracle, but a few mind flayer cities contain a noticeable minority of individuals who are more receptive to alignment shifts.

But again, the text isn't nearly clear enough for me to argue that my interpretation is the correct one. And frankly, I'm not sure I'd want the text to be that clear or rigid. I prefer the lore having enough ambiguity to facilitate and promote DM creativity: the game is better and more interesting that way.

[Dalmosh]

Homebrew...

I have a Mind Flayer PC in my current campaign, using a rebalanced version of the Savage Species monster class (weighted to the Level Reassignment Thread ECL).

It's effectively an escaped immature illithid, that needs to feed to physically and psychically grow, so its XP tracks very differently to normal PCs.

It accrues XP at a heavily reduced rate, and has to meet its metabolic needs by eating a set number of brains per elapsed weeks of Int 3 or higher, or bad things. The more (and better quality) brains it consumes above this base survival limit, the faster it accrues XP orthogonally, and levels through its Monster Class.

This is easier said than done, as the first few levels of Mind Flayer are all but unplayably weak, so just surviving in an adventure party at all is an acchievement. It starts out with two very weak tentacle whips, and lacks even basic weapon proficiencies out of the can, so it needs to prey on extremely weak and defenceless targets, or use its environment to its advantage, like setting crude snares by levitating objects and dropping them on people.

LoM makes it clear that pre-adult flayers are normally hidden and guarded very carefully by mind flayer circles. Their vulnerability at this stage is no doubt something of a taboo to such an arrogant species.

[redking]

There it is: a RAW statement that mind flayers can choose to subsist on nonsentient brains. What effects (if any) this has on their physiology and psyche is not explained, but I think this is sufficient enough evidence to establish, as a baseline, that it's not impossible.

Interesting. I accept the quote that you provided, given that it is from a 3.5 source. I just verified it myself, for what its worth.

Lords of Madness makes it clear that the amount of psychic nutrition (not to mention taste) depends on the experiences and emotional content of the brains, so it is quite possible that these good or neutral aligned mind flayers are malnutritioned. Also that it is only in the eating of brains that a mind flayer can experience pleasure, and even the brain of a lifelong thrall is not nearly as nourishing as a free sentient.


Illithids maintain large stocks of thralls, and few die natural deaths. The mind flayers’ needs cannot be met entirely through stocks of slaves, however. The races that produce desirable brains mature too slowly to be efficient livestock. Using humans as an example, and assuming that a human brain reaches “ripeness” at the age of twenty, each illithid would need more than 250 slaves just to assure its own minimum food supply. Even a small outpost of twenty illithids would need five thousand human slaves in its feed lots, and a third to a half of them would be too young for heavy work. For a healthier diet, that number doubles, and it quadruples for an ideal diet. The logistics behind such a massive program make it impossible.

Other races mature faster than humans. Goblins, orcs, and grimlocks, for example, reach consumable age in one-half to two-thirds of the time it takes a human . . . but they are not nearly as desirable as food.

Besides the logistic issues, the brains of lifelong thralls are less satisfying to mind fl ayers than the brains of free individuals. A thrall has few true experiences to remember and even fewer emotions, which are the “meat and potatoes” of a nourishing, fulfilling mind.

Human beings can also exist in varying levels of health. It takes years, decades even, of depriving your body of nutrition before the body finally fails. I expect that these non-sentient brain eating mind flayers are much the same.

[Mechalich]

Lord of Madness basically admits that their numbers don't work. To survive, Illithids need too many livestock for them to viably control them all, but if they try to duplicate that by raiding they'll leave a string of murders of truly stunning proportions. 20 Illithids kill ~1000 people a year, which is enough people to roughly double the death rate for even a major human metropolis of 25,000.

The only way Illithids can actually operate is nomadically, where they go to a region, predate it into extirpation over a series of months, and then move on to some region hundreds of kilometers away before the authorities exterminate them.

[Blue Jay]

Homebrew...

I have a Mind Flayer PC in my current campaign, using a rebalanced version of the Savage Species monster class (weighted to the Level Reassignment Thread ECL).

It's effectively an escaped immature illithid, that needs to feed to physically and psychically grow, so its XP tracks very differently to normal PCs.

It accrues XP at a heavily reduced rate, and has to meet its metabolic needs by eating a set number of brains per elapsed weeks of Int 3 or higher, or bad things. The more (and better quality) brains it consumes above this base survival limit, the faster it accrues XP orthogonally, and levels through its Monster Class.

This is easier said than done, as the first few levels of Mind Flayer are all but unplayably weak, so just surviving in an adventure party at all is an acchievement. It starts out with two very weak tentacle whips, and lacks even basic weapon proficiencies out of the can, so it needs to prey on extremely weak and defenceless targets, or use its environment to its advantage, like setting crude snares by levitating objects and dropping them on people.

LoM makes it clear that pre-adult flayers are normally hidden and guarded very carefully by mind flayer circles. Their vulnerability at this stage is no doubt something of a taboo to such an arrogant species.

Interesting. Are you playing? Or are you DMing? Note that I made progressions for most of the monsters we've reviewed so far. Currently, they're only posted at my Myth-Weavers game (the mind flayer progression is in this post (https://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?p=15608011#post15608011)).

Personally, I was imagining using a variation on the "Undead Hungers" from Libris Mortis, with nonsentient brains having only partial effects (e.g., nonsentient brains give shorter "satiation period", or perhaps even a progressively diminishing "satiation period"). But then, this sort of gritty resource-management mini-game seems to be a turn-off for most players, so I doubt I'll ever see it in action.


Interesting. I accept the quote that you provided, given that it is from a 3.5 source. I just verified it myself, for what its worth.

Lords of Madness makes it clear that the amount of psychic nutrition (not to mention taste) depends on the experiences and emotional content of the brains, so it is quite possible that these good or neutral aligned mind flayers are malnutritioned. Also that it is only in the eating of brains that a mind flayer can experience pleasure, and even the brain of a lifelong thrall is not nearly as nourishing as a free sentient.

Human beings can also exist in varying levels of health. It takes years, decades even, of depriving your body of nutrition before the body finally fails. I expect that these non-sentient brain eating mind flayers are much the same.

In this case, your original question takes on some real ethical/moral depth, because if we assume that you can't maintain a Good alignment while subsisting on sentient brains, a Good-aligned mind flayer would basically be a martyr. A ring of sustenance or other magical means of meeting dietary needs would be indispensable.

On the other hand, perhaps there are ways to balance the dietary needs and the Good alignment. You suggested a couple possibilities for this in previous posts. Alternately, Lords of Madness introduces an idea of "performance eating," where a performer eats a brain in front of an audience, and somehow the audience gains some of the nourishment. Perhaps there's a way to make that kind of "psychic nourishment transfer" morally acceptable?

[redking]

In this case, your original question takes on some real ethical/moral depth, because if we assume that you can't maintain a Good alignment while subsisting on sentient brains, a Good-aligned mind flayer would basically be a martyr. A ring of sustenance or other magical means of meeting dietary needs would be indispensable.

The mind flayers have two-tiered nutritional needs. A ring of sustenance can sustain their need for ordinary (non psychic) food without question. In relation to the psychic nutritional needs, the ring of sustenance -


The ring also refreshes the body and mind, so that its wearer needs only sleep 2 hours per day to gain the benefit of 8 hours of sleep.

"Refreshes the body and mind" could be taken to mean that it provides the psychic nutrition as well, but the context is 2 hours sleep per day.


For reasons explained below, an illithid’s brain is anathema to its body. The process of ceremorphosis creates something closer to parasite than brain. That parasite becomes an indispensable part of the body. Its great weakness is that it does not produce the critical enzymes, hormones, or psychic energy that the body needs to survive and function. Those critical components must come from consumed brains.

Because of the mind flayer’s all-embracing nervous system, food does not pass through a simple gastrointestinal tract but through a cognitive, self-aware digestive system. That system absorbs more than just nourishment from food. It scavenges enzymes, hormones, and most important, psychic energy. Illithids are known for consuming brains, but they eat other food as well, most of which contains various amounts of these needed enzymes and hormones. Internal organs are good sources, and they rank high on illithid menus. Brains are ripe with all three and are the only external source of psychic energy.

Is there any doubt that the ring of sustenance can supply enzymes and hormones? I don't think so. As for psychic energy, these "critical components must come from consumed brains".


On the other hand, perhaps there are ways to balance the dietary needs and the Good alignment. You suggested a couple possibilities for this in previous posts. Alternately, Lords of Madness introduces an idea of "performance eating," where a performer eats a brain in front of an audience, and somehow the audience gains some of the nourishment. Perhaps there's a way to make that kind of "psychic nourishment transfer" morally acceptable?

I'd liken the performance eating to tasting, but not consuming. Zero calories, but enjoyable.

Going back to the OP, the fact that the brain reward pathways of the illithid brain start firing when they eat sentient brains is a indicator that eating sentient brains is what they were born to do - not to mention that they are 'born' doing that as their very first act.

Would it make a difference if there was a clan of mind flayers that subsisted exclusively on oortlings (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Oortling)?

[Dalmosh]

Interesting. Are you playing? Or are you DMing? Note that I made progressions for most of the monsters we've reviewed so far. Currently, they're only posted at my Myth-Weavers game (the mind flayer progression is in this post (https://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?p=15608011#post15608011)).

Personally, I was imagining using a variation on the "Undead Hungers" from Libris Mortis, with nonsentient brains having only partial effects (e.g., nonsentient brains give shorter "satiation period", or perhaps even a progressively diminishing "satiation period"). But then, this sort of gritty resource-management mini-game seems to be a turn-off for most players, so I doubt I'll ever see it in action.



I DM a story-heavy sandbox world campaign for a very low op roleplay focussed group of players, so my table is probably a lot freer than many to explore interesting but mechanically suboptimal thematic choices.

Yes, I've had a look at your mind flayer progression, and its probably a lot more playable than the official one in Savage Species, which is cripplingly underpowered at lower levels, even condensing the class to fit with the reassigned LA. But whatevs, I like working with published rules as much as I am able to, and try to draw roleplay/worldbuilding potential out of this kind of stuff. As I mentioned above, the mechanical weakness of this progression fits nicely with LoM's descriptions of subadults, which I really like. It encourages a really bottom-feeding hyper-cautious style of play, which just seems to fit thematically for me, and also gives me the opportunity to reward strategic brain feeding with XP boosts; which in turn provides the player a direct incentive to play up being an amoral predatory alien in order to survive and progress in the game. The punitive side of failure to feed is mostly roleplay based, but I also impose concenctration penalty, gimped will and fort saves, fort saves vs going into a seizure or blacking out... etc. The PC tends to carry around tubs of brain pate, and plans to eventually have goblin pets that he can take tiny samples of their cerebellum out at a time with a syringe, for a temporary hit.

The player wanted the most conventional mindflayer chassis we could work, but was not interested in the Psionic Mindflayer from Expanded Psionic Handbook. I would say that it's a better choice to go with the Psionic mindflayer as a PC though, at low levels, because you have much more things in the build to customize, rather than being reliant on the cookie-cutter Monster Manual abilities that don't gel very well with low-level play, at least as interpreted by Savage Species.

With the sort of game we play, these kind of player/DM minigames are heaps of fun, and add massive amounts of nuance that we find makes the PCs and their world feel a bit more immersive.

[Blue Jay]

The mind flayers have two-tiered nutritional needs. A ring of sustenance can sustain their need for ordinary (non psychic) food without question. In relation to the psychic nutritional needs, the ring of sustenance -

"Refreshes the body and mind" could be taken to mean that it provides the psychic nutrition as well, but the context is 2 hours sleep per day.

Is there any doubt that the ring of sustenance can supply enzymes and hormones? I don't think so. As for psychic energy, these "critical components must come from consumed brains".

Hmm... maybe. However, the first line of the ring of sustenance's entry says, "This ring continually provides its wearer with life-sustaining nourishment." The only qualifier is "life-sustaining," so it's justified to rule that the ring doesn't cover dietary dependencies or inescapable cravings for undead creatures. But, arguing that it doesn't fill all the nutritional needs of a living creature comes off as little more than sophistry in support of the predetermined agenda of backing the mind flayers into a corner.

I think it's still too open to draw any real conclusions from this. In a game where the gritty survival needs are a major plot point (such as the game Dalmosh describes), I think I'd say rings of sustenance simply do not exist or are unobtainable. But, in any other game, I don't see much point in forcing the issue.


I'd liken the performance eating to tasting, but not consuming. Zero calories, but enjoyable.

That's a valid interpretation. But, they introduce "performance eating" as one of the Lagurno colony's solutions to the problem of limited brain supply, so I imagine that the audience has to be getting something meaningful out of it, otherwise there's a disconnect in the narrative. Maybe it's they get some real nourishment from it; or maybe it's just a way to get a psychic "fix" that temporarily alleviates the symptoms of psychic malnourishment. Maybe the nuances of that would make for an interesting plot point in some stories, but unfortunately I don't think we can really draw solid conclusions, either way. So, it still just boils down to the DM's preferred interpretations or the needs of the narrative.


Going back to the OP, the fact that the brain reward pathways of the illithid brain start firing when they eat sentient brains is a indicator that eating sentient brains is what they were born to do - not to mention that they are 'born' doing that as their very first act.

Well, "brain-stimulating" doesn't necessarily mean "natural." For example, the reward centers in human brains that are "naturally" stimulated by the sugars in fruits; and they're also unnaturally hyper-stimulated by the excessive amounts of sugar in doughnuts and cakes. Likewise, the illithid brain may be "naturally" stimulated by the psychic energy of non-sentient brains, and unnaturally hyper-stimulated by the psychic energy of sentient brains.

Unfortunately, this is attempting to apply a lot of "science-y" jargon and reasoning to the fantastical diet of a fictional race that was designed mainly for body horror, so who knows what rules actually apply here?


Would it make a difference if there was a clan of mind flayers that subsisted exclusively on oortlings (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Oortling)?

I don't know. I think there are just too many premises that are wide open to different interpretations for any kind of ethics discussion to get beyond the piddly nitpicking of premises you've been seeing on this thread.

So, if eating sentient brains is automatically Evil, and there are no means of circumventing the mind flayers' dietary dependency on sentient brains, then the mind flayers are truly backed into a corner and cannot be anything but Evil, except by willing martyrdom through starvation.

But, if it's possible to feed off a sentient brain in a way that isn't automatically Evil, or if there are means of circumventing the midnd flayers' dietary dependency on sentient brains, then it is possible for mind flayers to not be Evil without becoming martyrs through starvation.

Unless we somehow start nailing down additional premises, there's really no way to take this discussion on mind flayer ethics deeper than those two statements.

[redking]

So, if eating sentient brains is automatically Evil, and there are no means of circumventing the mind flayers' dietary dependency on sentient brains, then the mind flayers are truly backed into a corner and cannot be anything but Evil, except by willing martyrdom through starvation.

But, if it's possible to feed off a sentient brain in a way that isn't automatically Evil, or if there are means of circumventing the midnd flayers' dietary dependency on sentient brains, then it is possible for mind flayers to not be Evil without becoming martyrs through starvation.

Unless we somehow start nailing down additional premises, there's really no way to take this discussion on mind flayer ethics deeper than those two statements.

I don't think we can talk about mind flayer ethics without mentioning the elder brain in the room.

I think it's fair to say that mind flayers are parasites that prey on sentient beings. Mind flayers are in turn parasitized by elder brains. Given the psychic mesh network or whatever the elder brains have going on there, it's likely that a mind flayer in the vicinity of an elder brain's psychic mesh has any choice in its eating habits.

Perhaps mind flayers are not truly individuals until they are apart from the elder brains. But Lords of Madness says that mind flayers do not like to be away from the elder brain, and some even carry an illithid graft called a brainmate to maintain some sort of connection to the elder brain when they are physically elsewhere.

Based on your contribution I think it is likely that mind flayers can survive without eating sentient brains, but the fact that eating brains is their only source of pleasure puts a premium on sentient brains. What would humans do in the same situation? It's not like humans making a dietary choice have no other sources of pleasure.

[Psyren]

Blue Jay, thank you for the Underdark citation, which I had forgotten and which essentially closes the case. With that said, however:



This reasoning leads to the conclusion that mind flayers are only Evil by choice, and not by nature.


If I'm honest, I think this is a bit too simplistic a binary for their situation. I view mindflayers like chromatic dragons - yes, technically being evil is a choice for them, but you're also dealing with qualities (biological, psychological, and sociological) far too engrained and reinforced for any individual to realistically have much chance of changing them. In other words, there are components of both choice and nature to their moral makeup, not just one or the other.

Does that mean they are still Evil in D&D terms? Absolutely it does - however vanishingly unlikely it might be for any individual creature to throw off all that conditioning, it isn't impossible, and that's all that matters. Moreover, even if that minuscule chance exists, a paladin would not fall for vanquishing a mindflayer (or chromatic dragon) instead of first trying to talk it into surrendering or reforming, the way they might for (say) a bandit.

If instead one is asking whether they would be evil in terms of real world morality, that's a very different question, and one which I'd view to be out of scope for this forum.

[hamishspence]

Does that mean they are still Evil in D&D terms? Absolutely it does - however vanishingly unlikely it might be for any individual creature to throw off all that conditioning, it isn't impossible, and that's all that matters. Moreover, even if that minuscule chance exists, a paladin would not fall for vanquishing a mindflayer (or chromatic dragon) instead of first trying to talk it into surrendering or reforming, the way they might for (say) a bandit.

The excuse is better for the "Always LE" or "Always CE" chromatic dragons than it is for the "usually LE" mind flayers.

Still, a case could be made that nonevil mind flayers are rarer than nonlawful ones - they're closer to "(almost) Always Evil, usually Lawful" than "usually Evil, usually Lawful".

[Psyren]

The excuse is better for the "Always LE" or "Always CE" chromatic dragons than it is for the "usually LE" mind flayers.

Still, a case could be made that nonevil mind flayers are rarer than nonlawful ones - they're closer to "(almost) Always Evil, usually Lawful" than "usually Evil, usually Lawful".

Point - there is a subtle and ill-defined difference in 3.5 between "usually" and "always" (which is another reason I prefer Pathfinder for having done away with those unclear qualifiers).

Aboleths and Beholders are also "Usually." Does that mean you'll run into a non-evil one - probably not. And even if you run into the rare Neutral one, you're likely still in mortal peril.

[King of Nowhere]

I'd say alignment does not represent anything, and we should not try to ham-fist everything into it.

From their own perspective, mind flayers are perfectly fine fellows. In fact, if I were to have them in my campaign, I'd introduce them as such, because i prefer the shades of grey to the black and white morality. Humans are cattle, and sorry about it but we need to eat, and maybe there are contrived alternatives but they are not as nourishing, nor as tasty. And some of that cattle can get organized and they can even get dangerous, we can even respect the way they fight for their lives, but ultimately we need to eat them and we want to eat them.
I'd like to build a society of mind flayers who are very kind to each other.

From our perspective, they enslave us and they eat us, they must be exterminated whenever possible. They are like mosquitoes in that regard. Even the mosquitoes are only trying to survive, but our reaction to them is still "kill on sight".

You want conflict for your world, you get conflict. Conflict that can't be avoided with diplomacy. everybody wins.

I'm now trying to picture a human and mind flayer community coexisting peacefully. The mind flayer, by contract, only feeds on human given to them; those who are terminally old, or ill, or those sentenced to death. In turn, the mind flayers use their considerable magical power for the benefit of the community. It could provide a nice setting...

[Psyren]

^ I don't have a problem with changing their society/outlook in a custom-morality setting, but we're also talking about baseline D&D here.

Cattle and mosquitos aren't sapient so they're not the best analogy either.

A mindflayer community that subsists only on a human society's infirm and criminals would likely either be extremely small, or require a system with an absurd amount of capital punishment convictions, which hints at a much larger problem. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0875.html)

[Fizban]

The only way Illithids can actually operate is nomadically, where they go to a region, predate it into extirpation over a series of months, and then move on to some region hundreds of kilometers away before the authorities exterminate them.
Which would be aided by their innate at-will Plane Shift, which also lets them excuse themselves off to some other plane whenever the DM finds convenient. Mucks with their whole shtick pretty hard, but if I had to guess someone put it on there to guarantee they can always just one-action poof away so they can come back to annoy the PCs later.



Point - there is a subtle and ill-defined difference in 3.5 between "usually" and "always" (which is another reason I prefer Pathfinder for having done away with those unclear qualifiers).
I don't know why people always say it's so badly defined: it's right there on MM p305:



Alignment: This line in a monster entry gives the alignment that the creature is most likely to have. Every entry includes a qualifier that indicates how broadly that alignment applies to all monsters of that kind.
Always: The creature is born with the indicated alignment. The creature may have a hereditary predisposition to the alignment or come from a plane that predetermines it. It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or rare exceptions.
Usually: The majority (more than 50% of these creatures have the given alignment. This may be due to strong cultural influences, or it may be a legacy of the creatures' origin. For example, most elves inherited their chaotic good alignment from their creator, the deity Corellon Larethian.
Often: The creature tends toward the given alignment, either by nature or nuture, but not strongly. A plurality (40-50% of individuals have the given alignment, but exceptions are common.

Creatures with Always are literally born with that alignment, regardless of culture (which means their culture will embrace that alignment essentially without question). Creatures with Often land on that alignment at least 40% of the time (but less than 51%)- which with 9 alignments, or alternatively a focus on one of the two major axis which each have 3 possibilities, any way you slice it 40% is pretty high.

Mind Flayers are listed as Usually? That's the same rating as completely bog-standard PC elves. Mind Flayers live in a culture with a nature passed down by their creator- which you could pin as the Mind Flayers' god or literally the Elder Brains that create them. Either way, they are explicitly not in the category that says they have a hereditary prediposition.

So going by the MM1 alignment ratings, the answer is very clear: Mind Flayers don't have to be Evil, but they Usually are. A Mind Flayer raised outside of their culture, or even small groups within their culture, could be non-Evil, and in fact there must be such groups and exceptions (on global scale at least) or else they would be Always instead of Usually.

The reader may attempt to reconcile this with expanded fluff statements (from yet more writers, and of course the 3.5 MM1 is not the first source of the creature), as they wish.

However- the catch here is that Mind Flayers are Usually Lawful Evil. A very specific alignment which means the required non-conformists to make the qualifier Usually instead of Always, could simply be Neutral or Chaotic Evil as easily as they could be Lawful Neutral or Lawful Good (and if good/evil is the stronger polarizing force in your world, almost certainly the former), or CN, or CG. This is the part where the creature alignment description becomes "unclear," as the reader must pay attention to whether a very specific alignment is given, or a broad one: breakaways from a broad category such as Good (any), which can actually be up to three different alignments accommodating law or chaos- will be more significant than breakaways from a specific alignment such as Lawful Evil, where merely being Neutral or Chaotic doesn't count.

The description really is much of an outsider's viewpoint, and works for what it's meant to do: give us what the outsider knows, expects, or sees upon meeting the creatures. It works intuitively: if the entry gives a broad/shallow single-component alignment, then deviations from that are more significant because it was already a pretty large range. If it gives a very narrow two-component alignment, then even small deviations look significant due to the apparently very narrow conformity of the rest of the population. What it does not give is dual ratings for each component, because that level of detail is simply not something an observer would be able to pick up: you can observe that a large percentage matches a single specific alignment, or share a single component, but you can't just casually pick up the exact breakdowns of every member's possibly well-hidden attitudes. You can observe patterns that lock to a particular thing, but not magically see the entire spectrum at once without using magic to take a census.

[Segev]

^ I don't have a problem with changing their society/outlook in a custom-morality setting, but we're also talking about baseline D&D here.

Cattle and mosquitos aren't sapient so they're not the best analogy either.

A mindflayer community that subsists only on a human society's infirm and criminals would likely either be extremely small, or require a system with an absurd amount of capital punishment convictions, which hints at a much larger problem. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0875.html)

This probably wouldn't work beyond a joke in and of itself, but I just had the funny idea of a civilization of usually to always evil races, but which has deliberately set itself up with a legal system modeled on a Lawful Neutral to Lawful Good range of laws and punishments. The punishments are fairly draconian in order to serve as a deterrent, but they strove to try to keep them reserved for crimes of sufficient magnitude, as well. The plurality are reasonably law-abiding due to fear of punishment (the deterrent works to a degree), and even those who are habitual law-breakers fear punishments enough that most of them stick to the "lesser" crimes. Overall, it looks a lot like a somewhat jumpy "mostly good" civilization of traditionally-evil creatures. But it has a sufficiently higher percentage of its population committing legitimately capital crimes that the mind flayer executioners are able to maintain a reasonable population within the society simply feeding on the executed. Because the society is MADE UP of evil creatures, so they just naturally commit more crimes against the LG to LN laws that are set up. Or, rather, a statistically significant greater percentage of individuals do so.

No shenanigans, no unjust over-punishment...unless you make an argument that holding "always/usually evil" creatures to "good" standards is, itself, unjust.

[King of Nowhere]

^ I don't have a problem with changing their society/outlook in a custom-morality setting, but we're also talking about baseline D&D here.

Cattle and mosquitos aren't sapient so they're not the best analogy either.



there isn't a better analogy because we don't have sapient species that we must eat, or that prey on us. those analogies are the closest i can think of.

[Psyren]

I don't know why people always say it's so badly defined:

"Inconsistently applied" qualifiers then. Mindflayers, for example, are absolutely born evil, which is why they have to try to overcome that conditioning later (and so many fail to, if they even bother.)


This probably wouldn't work beyond a joke in and of itself, but I just had the funny idea of a civilization of usually to always evil races, but which has deliberately set itself up with a legal system modeled on a Lawful Neutral to Lawful Good range of laws and punishments. The punishments are fairly draconian in order to serve as a deterrent, but they strove to try to keep them reserved for crimes of sufficient magnitude, as well. The plurality are reasonably law-abiding due to fear of punishment (the deterrent works to a degree), and even those who are habitual law-breakers fear punishments enough that most of them stick to the "lesser" crimes. Overall, it looks a lot like a somewhat jumpy "mostly good" civilization of traditionally-evil creatures. But it has a sufficiently higher percentage of its population committing legitimately capital crimes that the mind flayer executioners are able to maintain a reasonable population within the society simply feeding on the executed. Because the society is MADE UP of evil creatures, so they just naturally commit more crimes against the LG to LN laws that are set up. Or, rather, a statistically significant greater percentage of individuals do so.

No shenanigans, no unjust over-punishment...unless you make an argument that holding "always/usually evil" creatures to "good" standards is, itself, unjust.

If they're committing enough morally-reprehensible acts that mass capital punishment is warranted, I don't see that society functioning very long. Either the murder rate + the feeding rate would outpace any kind of subsistence level, or all the other heinous crimes would lead to its collapse.

[Dalmosh]

... an illithid’s emotions are entirely negative: Anger, fear, envy, hate, shame, indignation, contempt, pride, and anxiety comprise nearly their entire emotional repertoire. The closest they come to experiencing joy is the feeling they get when eating a brain, but even this is mixed with such sadistic and hateful overtones that it can’t be considered “happiness” as most races would define it.
This constant negative emotional state colors an illithid’s every thought and perception. Because it knows no happiness, it spends no time planning how to become happy. Pride, satiated curiosity, and self-satisfaction are a mind flayer’s highest emotional states. These feelings motivate it to action.
LOM 64

Given this, how Good can a Mind Flayer really be, short of being subjected to an external magical effect like Sanctify the Wicked or a Helm of Opposite Alignment?

Normally, a Mind Flayer is neurologically incapable of compassion or empathy; so under its own steam, it is almost impossible for one to reach a "higher" alignment than LN. Such an entity might choose to act altruistically for purely rational reasons, but that is really pushing Goodness as D&D defines it.

By the same token, care and kinship to food is utterly alien to a Mindflayer, and would probably constitute a form of insanity to them. I would say that feeding on sentient brains of the helpless is not objectively evil in this sense, it is just an action inherent to being a Mind Flayer that needs radically aberrant(?) behavioural patterns or magical manipulation for one to even rationally conceptualise a good reason not to perform. What probably does make it objectively evil though, is the sadistic pleasure they derive from doing so.

[Bohandas]

I am not here to argue that the mind flayers are not evil, because the rules define them as evil, and their behaviour is also evil as defined. What is interesting is that the mind flayers are acting fully in accordance with their nature. They are one step up on the predator ladder than humans, just as humans are to cattle. And lets be honest, the mind flayers treat humans as beast of burden and a food source, just as humans treat livestock.

I'm sure mind flayer philosophers say much the same thing. What say you?

I see no contradiction between "acting according to their nature" and "being evil"

[redking]

I see no contradiction between "acting according to their nature" and "being evil"

I agree with you. Since "evil" is an objective thing in D&D, there is no contradiction. What it means is that that mind flayers did not choose to be evil, they were born that way.


I'm now trying to picture a human and mind flayer community coexisting peacefully. The mind flayer, by contract, only feeds on human given to them; those who are terminally old, or ill, or those sentenced to death. In turn, the mind flayers use their considerable magical power for the benefit of the community. It could provide a nice setting...

I can't see peaceful coexistence with mind flayers being possible, at least not peace absent coercion. Here are some coexistence scenarios I can imagine being possible.

1. A large scale human or humanoid civilization, perhaps Bronze Age to Classical Age (the smaller scale Dark Age and Middle Ages probably wouldn't have enough population or centralization to pull it off). In this scenario, an underdark community of illithids has a collaborative relationship with the leadership of the humanoid civilization. The humanoids send the illithids their slaves and criminals to eat. The illithids in turn use their psionic abilities to root out treason and rebellion, and even helps the humanoid kingdom defeat its enemies.

2. Another possibility is trickery. This works especially well for humanoid civilizations that practice humanoid sacrifice. Imagine an Aztec like humanoid civilization. It would be easy for the mind flayers to pretend to be clerics of the gods, gods that demand human sacrifice. Perhaps the humanoids used to tear out the hearts of the sacrificial victims. As masters of psionic persuasion, it would not be hard to convince the leaders of the humanoids that a proper sacrifice is eating the brains of the sacrificial victims.

3. The Morlock/Eloi scenario from The Time Machine is just as possible. The people living above ground may live an idyllic life, this idyllic life assisted by the mind flayers living underground. These happy humanoids enjoy their lives and breed with abandon. When the time is right, the mind flayers engage in brain raids, dragging their victims to their underground hives. Epic psionic powers ensure that the humanoids above ground forget the brain raid and their lost family and friends. These Morlock like mind flayers likely practice birth control to keep their own numbers in check, so they do not thin the herd so much. They do this by taking mature tadpoles that would normally be ready for ceremorphosis, and encasing them in a time freezing blanket of quintessence (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/quintessence.htm). This allows this group of mind flayers to control their population numbers exactly, because mature tadpoles can be removed from the quintessence whenever new mind flayers are needed.

All three scenarios posit a form of coexistence, but one theme stands out. That theme is parasitism. The mind flayers are parasites. They cannot transcend parasitism. Even the 'redeemed' mind flayers are existing in a body that was taken from someone else.

[Psyren]

Given this, how Good can a Mind Flayer really be, short of being subjected to an external magical effect like Sanctify the Wicked or a Helm of Opposite Alignment?

Normally, a Mind Flayer is neurologically incapable of compassion or empathy; so under its own steam, it is almost impossible for one to reach a "higher" alignment than LN. Such an entity might choose to act altruistically for purely rational reasons, but that is really pushing Goodness as D&D defines it.

Not "incapable" - it's extremely unlikely but still possible. The sample mindflayer in BoED (LG) wasn't Sanctified or otherwise magically altered - rather, extreme nonmagical circumstances put her on the road to redemption, which she ultimately pursued herself.

The circumstances of that were so singular however that I expect many mindflayers going that route would fail or even die.

[SangoProduction]

Ethics and morality require the capacity the capacity to think in such terms in order to be considered a "moral agent."
Children are not moral agent. If a parent died because their 2 year old brought a radio to their bath top, it wouldn't be legally be murder by the child. At the same time if the child brought a radio to its own bath, it would likely be criminal neglect from the parents.

A wolf is not considered a moral agent for killing a [prey animal]. And even when one offs your chickens or child, it's not that it's Evil. It's just a threat that must be taken care of.

Mind Flayers, by all means, have the capacity to think and consider the harm they cause. And they revel in it.
And then the preachy vegans come in, wanting to off all the cows so that no one eats them.

[AsuraKyoko]

I wonder if mind flayers have "Humanoid Rights" organizations like humans have Animal Rights organizations. I could easily see them campaigning for ethical treatment of humanoids: like proper cage sizes, physical and intellectual stimulation, no abusive brain growth hormones, etc. Mind flayers enacting laws for humanoid treatment that are roughly equivalent to human laws for animal treatment is a funny thought; from their perspective, they are being moral and upstanding, and not unnecessarily cruel, but from a human perspective it's still pretty terrible.

This also inspired another mental image of mind flayers having humanoid pets, just like humans have animal pets.

[Segev]

I wonder if mind flayers have "Humanoid Rights" organizations like humans have Animal Rights organizations. I could easily see them campaigning for ethical treatment of humanoids: like proper cage sizes, physical and intellectual stimulation, no abusive brain growth hormones, etc. Mind flayers enacting laws for humanoid treatment that are roughly equivalent to human laws for animal treatment is a funny thought; from their perspective, they are being moral and upstanding, and not unnecessarily cruel, but from a human perspective it's still pretty terrible.

This also inspired another mental image of mind flayers having humanoid pets, just like humans have animal pets.

While a funny image, I should remind you that most humans don't keep food animals as pets. I know some do, but most pet-animals are generally culturally not considered food-animals. And I don't even mean case-by-case; I mean by type. Even fish that we typically keep as pets are not the kind of fish we would eat.

[AsuraKyoko]

While a funny image, I should remind you that most humans don't keep food animals as pets. I know some do, but most pet-animals are generally culturally not considered food-animals. And I don't even mean case-by-case; I mean by type. Even fish that we typically keep as pets are not the kind of fish we would eat.

That's a good point (aside from a few exceptions in some cultures), but that brings up another question: do mind flayers consider certain types of humanoids to be food, an others as pets? And does that vary by culture?

Maybe one mind flayer city considers orcs to be great pet humanoids, while elves are definitely just for food, whereas another city finds the idea of eating elves to be kinda weird, but orcs are a delicacy.

[Blue Jay]

Normally, a Mind Flayer is neurologically incapable of compassion or empathy...

I don't think you can justify this assertion. It's a fantasy setting, so the source material doesn't really delve very deeply into neurological mechanisms, so reading between the lines is certainly understandable. There is talk in Lords of Madness about how mind flayers only experience negative emotions, but there's no real explanation for what causes it to be that way. And there are several examples of individual mind flayers that do display compassion and empathy, so it's clearly not completely beyond the capability of at least some mind flayers.

So, I don't think we can definitively say whether the typical mind flayer is truly incapable of those positive emotions, or if it is merely strongly disinclined to them, or even if it simply never learned how to develop them.


I agree with you. Since "evil" is an objective thing in D&D, there is no contradiction. What it means is that that mind flayers did not choose to be evil, they were born that way.

This may be true, but according to the quote Fizban provided, a creature that's "born that way" ought to have an "Always" in its alignment line, and the mind flayer entry doesn't have that. Instead, it has a "Usually," which means its alignment is more variable and malleable, and the dominant pattern might be a legacy of cultural effects. So, at the very least, we should be cautious about making a "born that way" claim, because we don't really know what causes mind flayers to gravitate towards a Lawful Evil alignment.

Complete Psionics has a "larval flayer" monster, and I was hopeful that it would shed some light here. But unfortunately, that stat block represents a tadpole that's already started on the path to becoming a neothelid. Neothelids are listed as "always Lawful Evil," so I'm afraid it isn't very informative to know that a proto-neothelid is also "always Lawful Evil." It does lend some credence to the idea that mind flayers are born evil, but it's not really conclusive.

In fact, given that larval flayers and neothelids are "always Lawful Evil," while mind flayers are merely "usually Lawful Evil," that might indicate that becoming a mind flayer actually softens the creature's innate tendency toward Evil. Eh... that might be a stretch, but it's a valid possibility.


All three scenarios posit a form of coexistence, but one theme stands out. That theme is parasitism. The mind flayers are parasites. They cannot transcend parasitism. Even the 'redeemed' mind flayers are existing in a body that was taken from someone else.

It's strongly hinted in Lords of Madness that the mind flayer is not sentient prior to ceremorphosis, so it's worth asking whether or not the mature mind flayer should be held accountable for the sins of the tadpole.

Mind flayers also undergo an extended childhood after ceremorphosis, during which they are taught and trained by other mind flayers. So, it's at least hypothetically possible that the mind flayers' evil behavior is learned during this time; and I'm not sure we've been given enough information to rule that out yet.

So, as frustrating as it is, I think we're unfortunately still stuck with "we don't really know" as our answer.

[icefractal]

People who are raised in an evil society which tells them that all others are lesser to the point of not mattering - and who have needs that are most easily and satisfyingly solved in an evil manner - tend to usually be evil. That's not surprising at all, and I don't think it implies anything about being wired that way.

Incidentally for the Ring of Sustenance - purely an opinion, but since it cuts sleep to 1/4 but doesn't eliminate it, I'd think it does the same for the Mind Flayer's psychic energy needs - cuts them to 1/4 normal, so 1/month I guess. The question still remains whether non-sapient minds provide that nourishment (and just 'taste' worse) or whether they'd suffer psychic malnutrition.

That said, once you introduce magic to the mix, malnutrition is an easily fixable problem that Restoration should easily deal with and even Lesser Restoration might be sufficient for. It's just a dietary requirement, it's not a divine edict, and I see no reason it would be any more "beyond magic to fix" than other biological requirements are.

Or just become undead. No need to eat brains if you don't need to eat at all! :smalltongue:

[Thurbane]

Weird question - does it state anywhere that the brain needs to be extracted from a living creature to have any value to the Illithid? Can they eat the brains of the dead and still survive? What if Illithids existed of the brains of the freshly dead, assuming there was no looming prospect of Resurrection or similar?

I was also looking into spell options for "creating brains", and most of the options I found produce a lifeless body...there's also the question around a newly minted body not having any experiences in it's brain.

I guess the Create Faux Human spell would work for this purpose, but then it would still be killing a (newly) sapient being. Same issues with Incarnate Construct.

Can any Polymorph effects turn an animal into a Humanoid while retaining it's animal intellect?

I also looked at Body Outside Body and Create Fetch, but they are both temporary effects and I assume the brain would disappear at the end of the duration (or when the "body" is slain).

Struggling to find a spell which creates a fresh, humanoid body, alive but without self-awareness. I might be missing something obvious.

Not that most of this is relevant to the overall thread, I just got to pondering options...

Just realised, a Human(oid) with the Multiheaded (Lernaean) template would be very popular in an Illithid community! :smallbiggrin:

[Psyren]

Weird question - does it state anywhere that the brain needs to be extracted from a living creature to have any value to the Illithid?

Yes, the victim must be alive: LoM 74:

"...Illithids must devour brains directly from the skulls of living victims to survive."


Can any Polymorph effects turn an animal into a Humanoid while retaining it's animal intellect?

Not that I know of. Anything you turned into a sapient would... be sapient, and if you're granting something sapience just so it can be devoured alive that will probably impact your alignment as much as the Illithid's.



Just realised, a Human(oid) with the Multiheaded (Lernaean) template would be very popular in an Illithid community! :smallbiggrin:

A multiheaded sapient + regeneration could work as a sustainable food source. It would probably amount to perpetual torture however. The Illithids could even do it themselves by removing the (empty) head, and then manifesting Restore Extremity (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/restoreExtremity.htm). (Again, this assumes a multiheaded food source, so that it stays alive through the removal and reattachment process.)

[redking]

This may be true, but according to the quote Fizban provided, a creature that's "born that way" ought to have an "Always" in its alignment line, and the mind flayer entry doesn't have that. Instead, it has a "Usually," which means its alignment is more variable and malleable, and the dominant pattern might be a legacy of cultural effects. So, at the very least, we should be cautious about making a "born that way" claim, because we don't really know what causes mind flayers to gravitate towards a Lawful Evil alignment.

This could simply mean there are neutral evil and chaotic evil mind flayers out there. Neither of those alignments get in the way of a tasty meal.


A multiheaded sapient + regeneration could work as a sustainable food source. It would probably amount to perpetual torture however. The Illithids could even do it themselves by removing the (empty) head, and then manifesting Restore Extremity (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/restoreExtremity.htm). (Again, this assumes a multiheaded food source, so that it stays alive through the removal and reattachment process.)

Its probably something that mind flayers have tried. It looks good on paper but there may be downsides we don't know about since we don't see mind flayer communities doing that.

[hamishspence]

If they needed to represent it that way, they could have done them as "Always evil (any)" just like half-fiends. Possibly with "Usually lawful) added to it.

Since they didn't, nonevil mind flayers being just as common as nonlawful mind flayers, is pretty RAW-consistent.

[noob]

Agreed. I accepted that the mind flayers are evil by definition in the OP. The question of whether mind flayers are evil because they must eat humanoid brains to survive is not at issue. Dragons snack on humanoids as well, and unlike mind flayers, they can choose other sources of food.

If the problem is slavery, then many human societies do that too. Mind flayers may even argue that their slavery is more humane because the slaves are kept in a charmed stupor, like an anaesthetic.

And in dnd the many human societies that do slavery are tagged evil so if mind flayer society does the same they should get the same treatment.
As for dragons snacking on humanoids it is written in few dragon descriptions (probably only in some descriptions of neutral or evil dragons).

[Dalmosh]

Quote Originally Posted by Dalmosh View Post
Normally, a Mind Flayer is neurologically incapable of compassion or empathy...
I don't think you can justify this assertion. It's a fantasy setting, so the source material doesn't really delve very deeply into neurological mechanisms, so reading between the lines is certainly understandable. There is talk in Lords of Madness about how mind flayers only experience negative emotions, but there's no real explanation for what causes it to be that way. And there are several examples of individual mind flayers that do display compassion and empathy, so it's clearly not completely beyond the capability of at least some mind flayers.

Sure, but displays of compassion and empathy don't necessitate having an emotional state behind them. An automaton can display what appears to be emotion. An intelligent one can can act according to how somebody feeling the emotion would, without experiencing it itself


So, I don't think we can definitively say whether the typical mind flayer is truly incapable of those positive emotions, or if it is merely strongly disinclined to them, or even if it simply never learned how to develop them.
OK, I haven't seen anything convincing to suggest other than the simplest reading of LoM, but these are valid positions to take if it works in your campaign.


Mind flayers also undergo an extended childhood after ceremorphosis, during which they are taught and trained by other mind flayers. So, it's at least hypothetically possible that the mind flayers' evil behavior is learned during this time; and I'm not sure we've been given enough information to rule that out yet.
A fair point.


Not "incapable" - it's extremely unlikely but still possible. The sample mindflayer in BoED (LG) wasn't Sanctified or otherwise magically altered - rather, extreme nonmagical circumstances put her on the road to redemption, which she ultimately pursued herself.

Yeah... I struggle with this.
Book of Exalted Deeds is one of the most self-contradictary and broken supplements in 3.5, and WotC are notorious for fudging sample NPCs. She appears to have the wrong number of Feats to begin with. None of Lords of Madness' authors worked on the Book of Exalted Deeds either, so it's not necessarily going to fall in line with their primary intent, just because its an official source.

That said, Player's Handbook simply defines "Good" as
imply[ing) altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
This in no way predicates having emotions. You can be rationally good without actually feeling this concern. Thaqualm's Exalted feats also don't require her to have actual emotions as far as I can see.


The circumstances of that were so singular however that I expect many mindflayers going that route would fail or even die.
Singular is the word.

Thaqualm identified as female, prior to redemption. This appears very odd indeed for a hermaphrodite, and to me at least implies a greater sense of identification with her host's body than usually seems to be the case in mind flayers. I haven't seen any other printed Mind Flayers with a gender.

She was then starved, imprisoned and abused for three years. Deprived of her natural diet and the psychic energy she needs to function normally, its very likely she was insane by Mind Flayer standards on release, and her subsequent actions, choices and behaviours may have resulted more from mental illness caused by years of acute psychic malnutrition and trauma, than a willing choice a normal mind flayer would make.

We definitely don't know the exact point that she turned Good, and I can't see anything to rule out willing magical conversion. For all we know, her horror and self-loathing may have eventually led her to a rational decision to be magically redeemed in the monastery.

Honestly, beyond the book stating that she is Good, and that her stat-block includes Exalted Feats, her backstory arc reads to me as more of a Lawful Neutral one

[hamishspence]

Thaqualm identified as female, prior to redemption. This appears very odd indeed for a hermaphrodite, and to me at least implies a greater sense of identification with her host's body than seems to be the case in mind flayers. I haven't seen any other printed Mind Flayers with a gender.

In the Starlight and Shadows D&D novel trilogy, Vestress, the mind flayer in book 2 and 3, is consistently described as having a feminine-sounding mind-voice, and described with with feminine pronouns. I believe she's also described that way in the 3.0 splatbook Lords of Darkness as well.

[Dalmosh]

Interesting

[redking]

She was then starved, imprisoned and abused for three years. Deprived of her natural diet and the psychic energy she needs to function normally, its very likely she was insane by Mind Flayer standards on release, and her subsequent actions, choices and behaviours may have resulted more from mental illness caused by years of acute psychic malnutrition and trauma, than a willing choice a normal mind flayer would make.

We definitely don't know the exact point that she turned Good, and I can't see anything to rule out willing magical conversion. For all we know, her horror and self-loathing may have eventually led her to a rational decision to be magically redeemed in the monastery.

Honestly, beyond the book stating that she is Good, and that her stat-block includes Exalted Feats, her backstory arc reads to me as more of a Lawful Neutral one

Bestow Curse, Greater could also force an alignment change.

Looking at this from another angle, its likely that the writers of BoED gave no thought to LoM when writing up this NPC. Honestly, this NPCs origin story doesn't have a lot of credibility. This illithid was shown kindness by adventurers, then it did a 180 degree change in its personality. Also interestingly, this illithid "works hard to redeem evil humanoids". Wouldn't it make more sense to try to redeem its own kind?

A better background for this mind flayer would be that it captured a holy man, a literal saint. It then fed on the saint's brain. As the mind flayer was processing the saint's experiences and emotions, it was confronted with the cognitive dissonance of its parasitic existence, introspection that the mind flayer could not have initiated by itself. Experiencing self loathing for killing a great holy man (again, a gift acquired by eating the saint's brain), the mind flayer abandoned its evil ways.

[hamishspence]

I would say that one of the biggest barriers to redemption for mind flayers is the Elder Brain, and that an "outcast mind flayer" or other such being separated from the influence of the Brain, is much more likely to change alignment than one still within its telepathic influence.


Honestly, this NPCs origin story doesn't have a lot of credibility. This illithid was shown kindness by adventurers, then it did a 180 degree change in its personality. Also interestingly, this illithid "works hard to redeem evil humanoids". Wouldn't it make more sense to try to redeem its own kind?

Why does she try to redeem humanoids specifically and not aberrations? Because that's what the Vow of Nonviolence is keyed to - nonviolence against humanoids (and monstrous humanoids). Since she dwells on the surface and regular mind flayers dwell in the Underdark, hating the sunlight, she's going to meet far more evil humanoids than mind flayers.




Looking at this from another angle, its likely that the writers of BoED gave no thought to LoM when writing up this NPC.

Lords of Madness wasn't published until nearly 2 years after BOED was. LoM came out it May 2005, BOED came out in October 2003.

[icefractal]

Sure, but displays of compassion and empathy don't necessitate having an emotional state behind them. An automaton can display what appears to be emotion. An intelligent one can can act according to how somebody feeling the emotion would, without experiencing it itselfAnd maybe all the people the mind flayers eat are just p-zombies, or are in fact trapped souls in complex humanoid-simulating constructs whose greatest wish is to be freed by having their brains eaten, but are compelled to act like that's not the case. :smalltongue:

Once you start saying that things which contradict a position are actually lies or don't count, then it doesn't seem like there's much discussion to be had on it.

[noob]

Given this, how Good can a Mind Flayer really be, short of being subjected to an external magical effect like Sanctify the Wicked or a Helm of Opposite Alignment?

Normally, a Mind Flayer is neurologically incapable of compassion or empathy; so under its own steam, it is almost impossible for one to reach a "higher" alignment than LN. Such an entity might choose to act altruistically for purely rational reasons, but that is really pushing Goodness as D&D defines it.

By the same token, care and kinship to food is utterly alien to a Mindflayer, and would probably constitute a form of insanity to them. I would say that feeding on sentient brains of the helpless is not objectively evil in this sense, it is just an action inherent to being a Mind Flayer that needs radically aberrant(?) behavioural patterns or magical manipulation for one to even rationally conceptualise a good reason not to perform. What probably does make it objectively evil though, is the sadistic pleasure they derive from doing so.

In dnd land there is a perfect purely rational argument for being good aligned and any mind flayer that is subjected to sanctify the wicked finds that argument(since sanctify the wicked is not said to give emotions and just said to make you find a reason for being good from your own reasoning).
So being perfectly rational and not led by emotion still means you can become good aligned by RAW because by RAW there is a rational argument not based on emotions for being good.

[Dalmosh]

Once you start saying that things which contradict a position are actually lies or don't count, then it doesn't seem like there's much discussion to be had on it.

I'm unfamiliar with any of the examples mentioned in this thread except for Thaqualm. If they include in-text third person perspective narration of a mind flayer feeling love, kinship, or empathy... then let's take a look.

Because I've provided you with a quote from the primary 3.5 source on this topic that states that this race does not experience such emotions. It doesn't say that they sometimes do in extreme circumstances, or that they can learn to if they are seperated from their Elder Brain, or if some food monkeys let them out of a cage.

In fact it's preceded by this paragraph

Occasionally they appear to be gripped by great anger, but it's hard for other creatures to distinguish whether that is a true emotion or a display to impress outsiders or enemies. Because of this, mind flayers are assumed to have either few emotions or tremendous self-control. Both assumptions are wrong
which reminds us that behavioural "displays" are not indicative of their true emotional state, and are generally misconstrued by humans as representing something that they do not. Though we have a tendency to overlay anthropomorphic traits on to something so alien, and perhaps even wish to read such behaviours in its actions, its true nature nevertheless remains for the most part unknowable.

[Thurbane]

You know, before this thread I'd never realised Vow of Nonviolence only applies to Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids (I was possibly conflating it with Vow of Peace).

It's totally fine for you or your party to curb-stomp Fey, Giants etc. because obviously they don't deserve the same rights or feel suffering in the same way as Humanoids do. :smalltongue:

Could Thaqualm be chowing down on the brains of evil Fey and the like for nutrition? I mean, probably not if she has retired to a monastery, but still...she wouldn't be breaking her vow if she did, would she?

[hamishspence]

Not the vow itself - but depending on motive and context, the act might still qualify as murder.

If you attack a random, evil aligned giant, with no motive other than "I want to eat sapient brain" - and you've no evidence of wrongdoing other than "they have an evil alignment",


then I could see a DM ruling "This counts as Murder because of the dubious motive and the lack of justifying context - so Evil". Exalted characters lose the benefits of Exalted feats for any evil act.

[Psyren]

It's totally fine for you or your party to curb-stomp Fey, Giants etc. because obviously they don't deserve the same rights or feel suffering in the same way as Humanoids do. :smalltongue:

Irredeemably evil ones, sure. VoNV is still an Exalted Feat, meaning that even a single garden-variety evil act will make you lose it, even if your target is otherwise fair game under the Vow itself.



Could Thaqualm be chowing down on the brains of evil Fey and the like for nutrition? I mean, probably not if she has retired to a monastery, but still...she wouldn't be breaking her vow if she did, would she?

Well, even if we go with the "must eat sapients" reading - which Underdark already refuted, but just for the sake of argument - I'd say Magical Beasts and Giants are probably more plentiful and easily caught than Fey, especially in a mountainous environment.

[Thurbane]

Not the vow itself - but depending on motive and context, the act might still qualify as murder.

If you attack a random, evil aligned giant, with no motive other than "I want to eat sapient brain" - and you've no evidence of wrongdoing other than "they have an evil alignment",


then I could see a DM ruling "This counts as Murder because of the dubious motive and the lack of justifying context - so Evil". Exalted characters lose the benefits of Exalted feats for any evil act.

Yeah, kind of assumed that. But as soon as there are any reports of Hill Giant raids or similar, it's like a dinner bell ringing! :smallbiggrin:

I think that feat kind of encapsulates some of the moral wonkiness present in the BoED; mechanically reinforcing that some races/types may be more deserving of compassion than others.

Or the idea that "poisons are bad" because they equate ability damage with suffering; then they go and introduce "not quite poisons" that cause ability damage, but are A-OK for good aligned usage! :smallsigh:

Back to the topic of gendered Illithids, I found some others:


Frr’thk: female mind flayer wizard 9 (Underdark web enhancement p. 2)
Gev’Zel: female mind flayer 6 {SS racial class} (Dungeon of the Hark online adventure p. 14)
Hypothalo: male mind flayer (Book of Challenges p.88)
Ruulam: male mind flayer Clr 5 (BoVD p.150)
Satau: male mind flayer Sor2 (RttToEE p.181)
Sugglir Wissenka: male mind flayer Shd 3/Illithid Savant 3 (SS p.88)
Xhux’uto: male mind flayer soulknife 4 (Flow of Fresh Brains online adventure p.10)

[Blue Jay]

Thaqualm identified as female, prior to redemption. This appears very odd indeed for a hermaphrodite, and to me at least implies a greater sense of identification with her host's body than usually seems to be the case in mind flayers. I haven't seen any other printed Mind Flayers with a gender.

The sample illithid savant from Savage Species (named "Sugglir Wissenka") is described as male. Interestingly, he's also the only mind flayer I can currently think of who has a surname.


Honestly, this NPCs origin story doesn't have a lot of credibility. This illithid was shown kindness by adventurers, then it did a 180 degree change in its personality. Also interestingly, this illithid "works hard to redeem evil humanoids". Wouldn't it make more sense to try to redeem its own kind?

I feel like this criticism is unnecessarily harsh. Certainly, I agree that Thaqualm's backstory seems to have skipped over some important nuances. They took what should have been an interesting and complex conversion process, and made it sound bland and simplistic. But the story is only a paragraph long: it's kind of unfair to expect a lot of nuance and detail there.

But, there's also I suggest that the reason you think the backstory lacks credibility is because you have a preconception that mind flayers are innately evil and can't change. That's why you think a backstory that involved some sort of psychic force or divine intervention is a more believable backstory.

From my perspective, I don't think the backstory lacks credibility. My preconception is that, while mind flayers strongly tend towards an evil alignment, there is some measure of diversity among them, such that some minority of them might be easy to convert to Good. Certainly, Thaqualm is an outlier among her kind, but there are bound to be some outliers, so why not Thaqualm?

[Psyren]

I think that feat kind of encapsulates some of the moral wonkiness present in the BoED; mechanically reinforcing that some races/types may be more deserving of compassion than others.

I didn't see any wonkiness from this feat. A vow specific to humanoids and monstrous humanoids makes sense, they're the most populous sapients on the Material, especially that people are likely to meet, and you can't guarantee their disposition when you do. A vow not to hurt fey and magical beasts would be all too easy to keep.

As far as the Doylist reasoning behind it, Vow of Peace is way too restrictive to be the only way to be a pacifist character, particularly in a party environment where VoPe requires you to police your fellow party members too.

[redking]

I feel like this criticism is unnecessarily harsh. Certainly, I agree that Thaqualm's backstory seems to have skipped over some important nuances. They took what should have been an interesting and complex conversion process, and made it sound bland and simplistic. But the story is only a paragraph long: it's kind of unfair to expect a lot of nuance and detail there.

But, there's also I suggest that the reason you think the backstory lacks credibility is because you have a preconception that mind flayers are innately evil and can't change. That's why you think a backstory that involved some sort of psychic force or divine intervention is a more believable backstory.

You aren't wrong in the sense that I think that it would take something extraordinary to get a mind flayers to override its natural tendencies. Not just the natural tendency to evil, but to eating and mind controlling. The equivalent would be a fish deciding to leave the water to live on land.


From my perspective, I don't think the backstory lacks credibility. My preconception is that, while mind flayers strongly tend towards an evil alignment, there is some measure of diversity among them, such that some minority of them might be easy to convert to Good. Certainly, Thaqualm is an outlier among her kind, but there are bound to be some outliers, so why not Thaqualm?

Well, this character was from the BoED. The book that had good aligned poisons and good aligned mindrape. Expectations are pretty low. Eating the brain of a saint and having a Saul on the road to Damascus moment for this illithid would have been more in keeping with the content of the book.

[Dalmosh]

Back to the topic of gendered Illithids, I found some others:
Awesome. Is it possible these are more of a 3rd ed., early 3.5 thing that was gradually replaced with a tendency to making ungendered illithids in later supplements? I kind of remember reading something that suggested a tiny % of ceremorphosis victims retain vague flickers of their past memories and personalities even after becomng an immature illithid, but I may be just confusing this with another creature. It would be a good plot hook for a PC mind flayer adventurer anyway.
(ed. "Partialism" was another 2nd ed. thing mentioned in the Illithiad)

The 2nd ed. Illithiad states on the subject
Since illithids are hermaphroditic, no sexual differentiation is possible between individuals. p12, though Lords of Madness did not reprint this line for whatever reason. This gender identification is definitely interesting anyway. Part of the reason hermaphroditism is not that common in the real world animal kingdom, is that both partners have an option of selfishly relying on the other one to produce the offspring, without investing the resources in doing so themselves. That tends to select for a system with delineated sexes.
Interestingly, Mind Flayers aren't specified as asexual or clonal, which means that they might even mate before spawning.

[redking]

The 2nd ed. Illithiad states on the subject , though Lords of Madness did not reprint this line for whatever reason.

It's been decades since I read it, but a mind flayer character in the Spelljammer novel Into the Void called Estriss was gendered, if I recall correctly. I forget what gender exactly. I think that gendered mind flayers are virtually a trope at this point. It's also possibly a crutch for authors that have trouble depicting creatures that have no gender at all.

[hamishspence]

Well, this character was from the BoED. The book that had good aligned poisons and good aligned mindrape.

Sanctify the Wicked is vastly less versatile than mindrape. The point of the other spell, generally, is to gain access to all the victim's memories, and implant new memories (and personality traits) of your choice. And all in the space of one round.

IMO it would be more accurate to describe it as a good-aligned version of the evil psionic power mind seed (which replaces the victim's personality with a duplicate of yours, to the extent of giving it your class abilities, but weaker).

Sanctify the Wicked replaces the victim's alignment with an alignment matching yours. Even then, it's only the alignment that matches yours - other aspects to the personality, the memories, and so forth, do not change. And it takes a whole year.

[loky1109]

The sample illithid savant from Savage Species (named "Sugglir Wissenka") is described as male. Interestingly, he's also the only mind flayer I can currently think of who has a surname.
Вишенка??? This means "Little cherry" in Russian. LoL.

[Psyren]

You aren't wrong in the sense that I think that it would take something extraordinary to get a mind flayers to override its natural tendencies. Not just the natural tendency to evil, but to eating and mind controlling. The equivalent would be a fish deciding to leave the water to live on land.

Something extraordinary did happen to her.


Well, this character was from the BoED. The book that had good aligned poisons and good aligned mindrape. Expectations are pretty low. Eating the brain of a saint and having a Saul on the road to Damascus moment for this illithid would have been more in keeping with the content of the book.

There's a baby in that bathwater you're slinging around.

[Bohandas]

Well, this character was from the BoED. The book that had good aligned poisons

Poisons aren't evil to begin with. They're just forbidden to paladins.

[Thurbane]

Poisons aren't evil to begin with. They're just forbidden to paladins.

BoED itself classifies the use of poison as evil (or poisons that cause ability damage anyway). If you don't use BoED in your game, your statement is correct.


Using poison that deals ability damage is an evil act because it causes undue suffering in the process of incapacitating or killing an opponent. Of the poisons described in the Dungeon Master's Guide, only one is acceptable for good characters to use: oil of taggit, which deals no damage but causes unconsciousness. Ironically, the poison favored by the evil drow, which causes unconsciousness as its initial damage, is also not inherently evil to use.

It then goes on to present Ravages (AKA Not-poisons) which inflict ability damage - you know, that thing they just spelled out as an evil act. :smallsigh:

[redking]

I read a breakdown on BoED on a philosophical level and why it is ridiculous. I forgot where I saw that post. Maybe Stacked change. Perhaps it was here. Exalted is ridiculous, frankly. I'd just ditch the exalted stuff and just allow good characters to do the things only permitted to the exalted in BoED.

I wonder what an illithid affected by a helm of opposite alignment is supposed to do. Underdark says that mind flayers can eat non sentient brains, BoED seems to infer it, and Lords of Madness does not even countenance the eating of non sentient brains in any of its examples. Is a chaotic good illithid going to refuse to snack on a massive brained oortling? How do we even know that the illithid knows that it is wrong?

[Faily]

It then goes on to present Ravages (AKA Not-poisons) which inflict ability damage - you know, that thing they just spelled out as an evil act. :smallsigh:

Oh but Ravages only harm Evil things so that makes it ok!

/sarcasm

Yeah, never liked the introduction of Ravages either. That using poison is evil because it causes suffering and pain, that I'm ok with. But then introducing something that works exactly like poison but "to be used against evil" was... so dumb.

[Psyren]

Ravages only need a minor tweak to be fine - have them inflict ability penalties instead of damage. Works the same for most mechanical situations, except you can't accidentally kill your targets, then just fluff them to not cause any pain and suffering - done.


I wonder what an illithid affected by a helm of opposite alignment is supposed to do. Underdark says that mind flayers can eat non sentient brains, BoED seems to infer it, and Lords of Madness does not even countenance the eating of non sentient brains in any of its examples. Is a chaotic good illithid going to refuse to snack on a massive brained oortling? How do we even know that the illithid knows that it is wrong?

"Does not countenance" is a very weird way of saying "is silent on the issue." As there is no contradiction, the Underdark citation stands.

[Batcathat]

I wonder if someone ever told the BoED writers that weapons actually can cause quite a bit of pain and suffering too? :smalltongue:

[noob]

I wonder if someone ever told the BoED writers that weapons actually can cause quite a bit of pain and suffering too? :smalltongue:

Hence why the only proper way to fight is exploding the heads of people through psionics or magic: no suffering because the demise is too instantaneous.

[Batcathat]

Hence why the only proper way to fight is exploding the heads of people through psionics or magic: no suffering because the demise is too instantaneous.

True. But let's not forget about the honorable rogues. A sneak attack is way likelier to kill someone instantaneously than fighting someone from the front.

[noob]

True. But let's not forget about the honorable rogues. A sneak attack is way likelier to kill someone instantaneously than fighting someone from the front.

And they can totally take wow of nonviolence if they are skilled enough because then they can sneak attack someone to death without any violence or hatred: in the blink of an eye the individual died.
Wow of peace too because there was no conflict: only instant death.

[Dalmosh]

I read a breakdown on BoED on a philosophical level and why it is ridiculous. I forgot where I saw that post. Maybe Stacked change. Perhaps it was here. Exalted is ridiculous, frankly. I'd just ditch the exalted stuff and just allow good characters to do the things only permitted to the exalted in BoED.


BoED is not my favourite supplement by a long way for various reasons. Even the stuff in it I do like. such as the Celestial Hebdomad, feels a bit bland lorewise and not easy to integrate into a campaign. Ultimately, you['re table] get to decide the splatbooks that count as canon in your campaign, and which have primacy as source material for lore on given topics. They are there to help you, not restrict you.
For me, anything that contradicts with LoM is out on this issue, and if Forgotten Realms specific material introduces an aspect I don't like, I'm happy to ignore that too as Faerun specific.
Author intent matters here, as, much as we might like, people that authored D&D supplements for 3.5, probably weren't particularly thorough in looking for lore clashes in such instances. They weren't writing computer code, but optional fluff and rules for people to add to the core three books. How reasonable is it for these authors to have had an exhaustive knowledge on mind flayers before simply plugging one into their book as a statted NPC to demonstrate their own new rules?

MMV (like LoM) clearly states that all Mind Flayers are genderless too. I personally consider the MMV section on Mind Flayers of Thoon pretty primary lore in terms of the 3.5 run, due to its setting neutrality. To me, this is the core 3.5 ruling on Mind Flayer gender, and I need to go back to earlier edition material (partialisms) to find a justification for the gendered individuals featured in other supplements like BoED. If that's a good enough reason to ignore characters like Thaqualm in the context of this thread, then have at it. It's your game.



I wonder what an illithid affected by a helm of opposite alignment is supposed to do. Underdark says that mind flayers can eat non sentient brains, BoED seems to infer it, and Lords of Madness does not even countenance the eating of non sentient brains in any of its examples. Is a chaotic good illithid going to refuse to snack on a massive brained oortling? How do we even know that the illithid knows that it is wrong?


As you've mentioned in your OP, alignment in 3.5 is inconsistent and problematic. If you don't like alignment being deterministic and simplified to this extent, then an item like that is simply going to be inappropriate for your game.

I would say... A Mind Flayer wearing this item is simply overcome with revulsion and existential horror at its species' subjugation of sentient beings, and its own dependence on this tyrannical system. It is able to conceptualise the harm this causes to sentient beings with eternal souls, and potentially understands the ultimate service this brings to lead more souls to damnation in the Nine Hells of Baator. Where it previously considered its species' view of ordering other intelligent species as right and necessary, now it reviles it. It commits itself to opposing this tyranny, finding new conceptual value in individual freedom and likely begins deriving aesthetic curiosity out of the diversity this produces. It strives to minimise harm in its own feeding however it can. It's not an Exalted character like Thaqualm, so has many clear options to pursue here that do not violate Goodness. It is likely repulsed and ashamed by the elation it receives from feeding on brains.

[Psyren]

I wonder if someone ever told the BoED writers that weapons actually can cause quite a bit of pain and suffering too? :smalltongue:

They can, but they can also kill quickly and efficiently. Presumably Paladins (like O-Chul) are trained to do the latter.

If a Paladin made a habit of maiming/mutilating his targets, and/or using more brutal weapons like a scourge or spiked chain, he'd probably fall eventually - but not for using any weapon at all.


True. But let's not forget about the honorable rogues. A sneak attack is way likelier to kill someone instantaneously than fighting someone from the front.

I don't know about that - what about a 2-handed Power Attack? Especially with Smite Evil thrown in? It's not hard to outdamage sneak attack, even in a frontal assault.


For me, anything that contradicts with LoM is out on this issue, and if Forgotten Realms specific material introduces an aspect I don't like, I'm happy to ignore that too as Faerun specific.

I'm fine with LoM being the primary source. The issue is that the primary source rule only matters when there is a contradiction, and nothing in BoED or Underdark contradicts LoM.



Author intent matters here, as, much as we might like, people that authored D&D supplements for 3.5, probably weren't particularly thorough in looking for lore clashes in such instances. They weren't writing computer code, but optional fluff and rules for people to add to the core three books. How reasonable is it for these authors to have had an exhaustive knowledge on mind flayers before simply plugging one into their book as a statted NPC to demonstrate their own new rules?

Again and as others have already said in this thread, BoED predates LoM. If anything, it's the LoM writers who should have been on the lookout.

[Dalmosh]

I'm fine with LoM being the primary source. The issue is that the primary source rule only matters when there is a contradiction, and nothing in BoED or Underdark contradicts LoM.
Surely you're not asserting that Faerun-specific content is explicitly designed to be back-ported into general D&D? I don't know much about Forgotten Realms, but I can think of heaps of assumptions in that setting that shouldn't generically apply to people's games. Ilsensine and its realm are on a different Outer Plane in Forgotten Realms, for a start.

I'm all good with people doing so, I just don't think you need to in order to remain lore friendly, if you prefer LoM's ambiguity on the subject for the tone of your game, if you're not playing Forgotten Realms.


Again and as others have already said in this thread, BoED predates LoM. If anything, it's the LoM writers who should have been on the lookout.

In the context of this thread, and what OP is asking, you are correct. It would have been better for LoM to include a short sidebar discussing this.

[Psyren]

Surely you're not asserting that Faerun-specific content is explicitly designed to be back-ported into general D&D? I don't know much about Forgotten Realms, but I can think of heaps of assumptions in that setting that shouldn't generically apply to people's games.

You're perfectly free to ignore the Underdark line. That leaves BoED (setting-agnostic, says it's possible for some Mindflayers to be redeemed) and LoM (setting-agnostic, says nothing on the subject.)

[redking]

LoM (setting-agnostic, says nothing on the subject.)

"Says nothing"? Go and read LoM and tell me that. LoM doesn't say that mind flayers cannot eat non sentient brains, but every example given is about sentient brains, including the logistics of obtaining sentient brains. LoM describes how important experiences and emotions are for the mind flayers eating brains, none of which non sentient creatures have.

I am happy to concede that Underdark says that animal brains can be eaten to sustain a mind flayer, but I'll not concede that LoM permits the same.

[Dalmosh]

LoM describes how important experiences and emotions are for the mind flayers eating brains, none of which non sentient creatures have.

Oh they have them, they just don't definitively have enough (outside of the Forgotten Realms setting). A dog is Int 2, definitely has memory, and its simplistic experience should at least be lower down on the same scale as human emotion in game terms. I think an Int 2 animal experiences fear, confusion, kinship, irritation, rage, contentment, playfulness and pleasure. Even an Int 1 reptile or fish seems to experience basic fear and aggression, and has basic spatial memory. These aren't going to be very fulfilling for a mind flayer, but they are something. In 2nd ed. mind flayers would snack on this kind of mind sometimes, even though it couldn't sustain them.

Non Int beings like vermin, as the game defines them, definitely should have nothing psychic for mind flayers to feed on though. Fine sized vertebrates too small to be represented by a stat-block probably are a no too.

[Batcathat]

They can, but they can also kill quickly and efficiently. Presumably Paladins (like O-Chul) are trained to do the latter.

Can? Sure. But even in the real world it's not that likely to die instantly from a wound and with many D&D creatures' stacks and stacks of HP it's even less likely.

But that's really beside the point. Weapons can kill painfully or painlessly and while I'm no expert on D&D poisons, the same is at least true of real life poisons. Even in the black and white world of D&D morality, saying that all poisons are evil (but practically all other killing methods are morality-neutral) is very odd.


I don't know about that - what about a 2-handed Power Attack? Especially with Smite Evil thrown in? It's not hard to outdamage sneak attack, even in a frontal assault.

Okay, so would that mean that not using a power attack when you're able to should be classified as Evil? After all, you're not doing your best to kill your opponent without unnecessary suffering.

Again, I'm mostly pointing out the absurdity of it, I know sneak attacks aren't as effective as they (at least to a rogue lover1 such as myself) should be.

(1 Just to be clear, I mean to say that I love rogues, not that I'm a lover who has gone rogue. As cool as that sounds.)

[Psyren]

LoM doesn't say that mind flayers cannot eat non sentient brains,

Right, and that's all I care about. If it did, we'd be having a different conversation.


but I'll not concede that LoM permits the same.

Noted.


Can? Sure. But even in the real world it's not that likely to die instantly from a wound and with many D&D creatures' stacks and stacks of HP it's even less likely.
...
Okay, so would that mean that not using a power attack when you're able to should be classified as Evil? After all, you're not doing your best to kill your opponent without unnecessary suffering.

This is a mindset shift issue. You're assuming that in D&D, HP = meat, and therefore that if you don't do enough damage to kill a high-HP creature in one blow that you're potentially causing suffering by "carving up their meat." But various core 3.5 sources don't support that interpretation; the PHB and Rules Compendium only define hit points as "how hard your character is to kill" with RC going on to add that they also represent "a character's ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one, divine favor, or inner power." The PHB further goes on to say that a character "isn't hindered in any way until hit points drop to zero." You can chalk that up to the non-meat aspects of HP, fight adrenaline overcoming any pain etc., but the RAW of the matter is that hp damage by itself does not constitute undue or unnecessary suffering even if it takes your paladin several hits to do so.



But that's really beside the point. Weapons can kill painfully or painlessly and while I'm no expert on D&D poisons, the same is at least true of real life poisons. Even in the black and white world of D&D morality, saying that all poisons are evil (but practically all other killing methods are morality-neutral) is very odd.

Actually, BoED very specifically says that NOT all poisons are evil.



Again, I'm mostly pointing out the absurdity of it, I know sneak attacks aren't as effective as they (at least to a rogue lover1 such as myself) should be.

(1 Just to be clear, I mean to say that I love rogues, not that I'm a lover who has gone rogue. As cool as that sounds.)

I understand where you're coming from but I don't see it as absurd at all. Or perhaps more accurately, I think that if you go in thinking something is absurd instead of evaluating all of the text sources to see how they can ultimately fit, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. (*points at sig*)

[Bohandas]

Can? Sure. But even in the real world it's not that likely to die instantly from a wound and with many D&D creatures' stacks and stacks of HP it's even less likely.

But that's really beside the point. Weapons can kill painfully or painlessly and while I'm no expert on D&D poisons, the same is at least true of real life poisons. Even in the black and white world of D&D morality, saying that all poisons are evil (but practically all other killing methods are morality-neutral) is very odd.

I agree, they were clearly grasping at straws there, which is why I prefer to use the ruling in the core rules (PHB3.5e Pg.219 column 1) that poisons are not evil

[hamishspence]

Isn't that page just one of the pages with spells - specifically, the Poison spell, with it not having the [Evil] subtype?

Or am I thinking of something different?

[Batcathat]

This is a mindset shift issue. You're assuming that in D&D, HP = meat, and therefore that if you don't do enough damage to kill a high-HP creature in one blow that you're potentially causing suffering by "carving up their meat." But various core 3.5 sources don't support that interpretation; the PHB and Rules Compendium only define hit points as "how hard your character is to kill" with RC going on to add that they also represent "a character's ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one, divine favor, or inner power." The PHB further goes on to say that a character "isn't hindered in any way until hit points drop to zero." You can chalk that up to the non-meat aspects of HP, fight adrenaline overcoming any pain etc., but the RAW of the matter is that hp damage by itself does not constitute undue or unnecessary suffering even if it takes your paladin several hits to do so.

Sure, by RAW you're entirely correct (it also means that no one's ever actually injured in battle until receiving a killing blow, I guess? Seems odd. It also leads to quite a few oddities about fall damage and what healing magic actually does). A PC could also do all sorts of things from poking someone with a dagger up to advanced torture methods without it, by RAW, causing any amount of suffering.


I understand where you're coming from but I don't see it as absurd at all. Or perhaps more accurately, I think that if you go in thinking something is absurd instead of evaluating all of the text sources to see how they can ultimately fit, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. (*points at sig*)

Perhaps. Though if we remove the idea of one method of killing someone (and pretty much only that method) is inherently Evil the rest of the pieces fit together so much better.

[Psyren]

Sure, by RAW you're entirely correct (it also means that no one's ever actually injured in battle until receiving a killing blow, I guess? Seems odd. It also leads to quite a few oddities about fall damage and what healing magic actually does). A PC could also do all sorts of things from poking someone with a dagger up to advanced torture methods without it, by RAW, causing any amount of suffering.

I think abstracting the "cinematics" of what hit point damage actually means is necessary for the game to function. Otherwise, you would need to replace hit points with something much more specific, like the Vitality and Wound Points variant and maybe some Called Shot effects on top of that. Go far enough down that rabbit hole and you might as well just scrap D&D entirely and go play GURPS or something.

As for torture, I think it's reasonable to expect the GM to be the referee there. Certainly if the PC says "I'm going to torture him for information" that should count as torture, but beyond that if you think your party's paladin or exalted character is going over the top with their descriptions, it's worth just having a brief OOC chat.


Perhaps. Though if we remove the idea of one method of killing someone (and pretty much only that method) is inherently Evil the rest of the pieces fit together so much better.

I think the issue is the "method of killing someone" tag. If a paladin makes a habit of using poison in his fights, even if he makes sure nobody actually dies from it (or the ones that do, die from something else, like a quick twist of his belt knife once they're debilitated on the ground), that would still be questionable behavior.

I would think the same if that paladin went around mutilating people - even if they don't die from it, his methods are excessive. In that respect, I think it's fine to say that poison use is generally a thing good characters should avoid.

With all that said, I think they could have done a much better job explaining why things like positoxins and ravages are okay.

[Batcathat]

I think abstracting the "cinematics" of what hit point damage actually means is necessary for the game to function. Otherwise, you would need to replace hit points with something much more specific, like the Vitality and Wound Points variant and maybe some Called Shot effects on top of that. Go far enough down that rabbit hole and you might as well just scrap D&D entirely and go play GURPS or something.

As for torture, I think it's reasonable to expect the GM to be the referee there. Certainly if the PC says "I'm going to torture him for information" that should count as torture, but beyond that if you think your party's paladin or exalted character is going over the top with their descriptions, it's worth just having a brief OOC chat.

Sure, I agree with all of that (looking too closely at HP tend to get weird results whether interpreting it as meat or an abstraction, in my experience). My point was that just because the rules don't specify that chopping at someone with a piece of metal can cause them suffering, doesn't mean it's painless. Certainly not enough to justify it as being morally neutral while calling poison capital e Evil for the same thing.


I think the issue is the "method of killing someone" tag. If a paladin makes a habit of using poison in his fights, even if he makes sure nobody actually dies from it (or the ones that do, die from something else, like a quick twist of his belt knife once they're debilitated on the ground), that would still be questionable behavior.

Why? Paladin killing Baddie McEvil with some help from poison instead of just a sword is more questionable because...?

[Bohandas]

Isn't that page just one of the pages with spells - specifically, the Poison spell, with it not having the [Evil] subtype?

It's detect evil, which specifies that animals, traps, and poisons are not evil

[hamishspence]

That the substance doesn't radiate evil energy. Its use can still be evil.



Given that multiple D&D books say slavery is evil, it's not really that different - a slave can have a neutral alignment, yet "using slaves" is evil.

[icefractal]

The main problem with poison being evil is that they never give a good reason. Causes suffering really doesn't work IMO - burns are very painful, but using fire isn't considered evil. Sure, there are some cases where it's evil by collateral damage, like poisoning a village's water supply to kill someone living there, but that would be just as evil if you did it via locate-city-bombing said village.

And while I'm fine with "it isn't chivalrous!" and having knightly orders shun using poison, I'm not going to call them "good" for that. Honorable combat has been primarily defined in history as the form of combat in which the currently powerful have the best advantage.

[Psyren]

Sure, I agree with all of that (looking too closely at HP tend to get weird results whether interpreting it as meat or an abstraction, in my experience). My point was that just because the rules don't specify that chopping at someone with a piece of metal can cause them suffering, doesn't mean it's painless. Certainly not enough to justify it as being morally neutral while calling poison capital e Evil for the same thing.

I don't think weapon damage is painless, but I do think it's fair for them to rule that it it causes less suffering than most ability damage poisons do. This is further borne out by ability damage generally being harder to resist or recover from than HP. In short, whatever game abstraction exist around hit points not being meat, ability damage is closer to that.


Why? Paladin killing Baddie McEvil with some help from poison instead of just a sword is more questionable because...?

Oh I agree it's arbitrary, but that's alignment in general - ultimately the system as a whole is intended to encourage or discourage certain behaviors from the PCs, as much as it is an attempt to model morality. They could have just as easily made, say, necromancy and binding demons completely neutral if they wanted to, but it boils down to there are tactics they just don't want ostensibly good characters to be using.


The main problem with poison being evil is that they never give a good reason. Causes suffering really doesn't work IMO - burns are very painful, but using fire isn't considered evil.

Are there even rules for burns?

[Blue Jay]

Using poison that deals ability damage is an evil act because it causes undue suffering in the process of incapacitating or killing an opponent. Of the poisons described in the Dungeon Master's Guide, only one is acceptable for good characters to use: oil of taggit, which deals no damage but causes unconsciousness. Ironically, the poison favored by the evil drow, which causes unconsciousness as its initial damage, is also not inherently evil to use.

It then goes on to present Ravages (AKA Not-poisons) which inflict ability damage - you know, that thing they just spelled out as an evil act. :smallsigh:


Oh but Ravages only harm Evil things so that makes it ok!

/sarcasm

Yeah, never liked the introduction of Ravages either. That using poison is evil because it causes suffering and pain, that I'm ok with. But then introducing something that works exactly like poison but "to be used against evil" was... so dumb.

So, I'm not really a fan of the ravage concept, either; but I think the idea is conceptually defensible. The text doesn't say that ability damage is undue suffering: it says specifically that ability damage caused by poison is undue suffering. Ability damage is a mechanical abstraction that represents a lot of different in-game infirmities and ailments. So not all instances of ability damage represent the same thing in-game.

For example, the disease called "the shakes" (DMG p. 292) causes "twitches, tremors and fits"; while the spell shivering touch (Frostburn p. 104) causes numbness. In both cases, these ailments are represented as Dexterity damage.

So, I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to claim that ravages can cause the same mechanical effects as poisons, but in an non-evil way. The book describes ravages as turning an evil creature's corruption back on itself: that's why the creature's own Charisma bonus is added to the damage it takes. So, maybe it's deemed permissible because it's making the evil creature punish itself, or because it's teaching the creature a lesson or whatever.

Personally, I feel like ravages and afflictions were an unnecessary addition to the game: rules bloat without any real improvement of the game experience. And I do agree that there's some inconsistencies (e.g., couatl venom is a poison and a ravage). But, I don't think it's fair to criticize D&D moral structures because of ugly mechanics.

It's the same thing with sanctify the wicked: just because it allows a Will save doesn't mean it's mind-controlling a creature into changing its alignment. It's explicitly not a mind-affecting spell, and it still works on creatures that are immune to compulsions. It's just a wonky choice of mechanics, not a failure of the D&D ethical/moral system.


Ravages only need a minor tweak to be fine - have them inflict ability penalties instead of damage. Works the same for most mechanical situations, except you can't accidentally kill your targets, then just fluff them to not cause any pain and suffering - done.

Well, the biggest difference is that ability penalties go away once the effect ends, so an effect that imposes an ability penalty has a duration. Plus, a penalty can't be healed in the same way as ability damage.

Actually, I started this response thinking I was arguing against using ability penalties, but I think I actually just convinced myself that I agree with you: maybe using ability penalties would be a good way to distinguish ravages from poisons better.

[Bohandas]

The main problem with poison being evil is that they never give a good reason. Causes suffering really doesn't work IMO - burns are very painful, but using fire isn't considered evil. Sure, there are some cases where it's evil by collateral damage, like poisoning a village's water supply to kill someone living there, but that would be just as evil if you did it via locate-city-bombing said village.

Or, again, by setting a fire - as you said earlier



Ravages only need a minor tweak to be fine - have them inflict ability penalties instead of damage. Works the same for most mechanical situations, except you can't accidentally kill your targets

Poisons and diseases that don't deal constitution or hit-point damage can't kill their targets either

[redking]

Apparently from the designer (https://www.enworld.org/threads/darren-drader-and-sanctify-the-wicked.135765/) of sanctify the wicked.


Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Anyone remember the discrepancy in the text of the sanctify the wicked spell from the Book of Exalted Deeds? In one paragraph it says that it can work on fiends and in the next it says the opposite. And then the template that goes with it says that the creature loses all SU abilities, yet the dragon still has its breath weapon. The developers really are the unsing heroes of the whole process, but there are times when I wish they would go over the final results with the original designer before sending it off to print. In this case they took the one thing about that book that I was the most excited about having written and completely undermined the entire concept upon which it had been based.

My original intention behind that spell and template was to allow characters to do the impossible - turn a force of evil - a fiend - into a good aligned creature. My secondary motivation behind it was to make it possible for players to play god aligned versions of lesser devils or demons that had been sanctified. I'd been watching a bit of Buffy and Angel at the time it had been designed and it seemed only logical that there should be some good aligned demons in existence. Aside from that, I originally applied the template to a bearded devil, not a red dragon.

Oh well, as a freelancer, you put your head down and keep grinding forward.

This makes a lot more sense than what appeared in BoED.

[Psyren]

Poisons and diseases that don't deal constitution or hit-point damage can't kill their targets either

"Kill or render comatose" then.



Well, the biggest difference is that ability penalties go away once the effect ends, so an effect that imposes an ability penalty has a duration. Plus, a penalty can't be healed in the same way as ability damage.

Actually, I started this response thinking I was arguing against using ability penalties, but I think I actually just convinced myself that I agree with you: maybe using ability penalties would be a good way to distinguish ravages from poisons better.

Indeed.

1) Going away is a feature, not a bug. It shows you're not actually damaging them, just weakening them, which fluffwise is what Ravages are supposed to be doing.
2) Yeah, healing penalties is way easier; Lesser Restoration takes care of all of it instead of 1d4. But a lot of evil creatures can't do that so it works great.


Apparently from the designer (https://www.enworld.org/threads/darren-drader-and-sanctify-the-wicked.135765/) of sanctify the wicked.



This makes a lot more sense than what appeared in BoED.

Sounds like he was intending it to be used only on evil-subtyped creatures, which means the other evil creatures were meant to be redeemable the mundane way - much like Thaqualm was. Brilliant!

[redking]

Sounds like he was intending it to be used only on evil-subtyped creatures, which means the other evil creatures were meant to be redeemable the mundane way - much like Thaqualm was. Brilliant!

That's right. It also clears up the issue of "holy mindrape", because when applied to a demon or devil it is more like an internalized exorcism. I wish this was the version that went to print. Poor guy.

[Dalmosh]

Reading the Thoon section in MMV...

The standard Thoon Cultist, and the Shadow Flayers they have bred are simply described as eating "brains"

The Far Realm mutated Madcrafter no longer needs to eat brains for nutrition, as all its dietary needs are fulfilled by Quintessence. Madcrafters are never-the-less "addicted to the pleasure of consuming sentient brains. Even a madcrafter that feeds on a matrix of quintessence starts to feel hunger pangs soon afterward, never feeling sated by quintessence consumption. If given a sentient brain, however, it might be lost in pleasure for hours, its hunger for quintessence forgotten."

To me this suggests that while non-sentient brains may well technically be able to provide basic nutrition to a normal mind flayer, that is all they provide. On their own, as redking asserts, they cannot satisfy a Mind Flayer's psychic cravings.

If we are considering Thaqualm as canonical, she had three years of being forcefully denied the source of her addiction, in which to learn out of desperate necessity that she could technically stay alive on (presumably?) rat brains. Her adopted lifestyle would be fairly taxing, as she would seemingly be constantly assailed by these same cravings no matter her alignment.

[Psyren]

To me this suggests that while non-sentient brains may well technically be able to provide basic nutrition to a normal mind flayer, that is all they provide. On their own, as redking asserts, they cannot satisfy a Mind Flayer's psychic cravings.

Well yeah, obviously they "crave" sapients. But a craving is, at the end of the day, something you can overcome with sufficient discipline if you care to, and thus a moral failing if you give in.

[redking]

To me this suggests that while non-sentient brains may well technically be able to provide basic nutrition to a normal mind flayer, that is all they provide. On their own, as redking asserts, they cannot satisfy a Mind Flayer's psychic cravings

The mind flayer diet can be called 'psychovorous'. It consists of two components, according to LoM. One is meat, including organs - we'll call that the enzyme component. The other is sentient brains - we'll call that the psychoactive component (though it also has enzymes).

Malnutritioned people do not die immediately. The damage to their bodies can pile up over years. The BoED exalted mind flayer might die a premature death due to lack of psychoactive nutrition. Nitpickers may point out that nutrition doesn't have a mechanical role in D&D, but common sense and verisimilitude will prevail at most tables.

If the eating of sentient brains was strictly cultural rather than biological then you would see at least one mind flayer community not eating sentient brains. Yet it is always extreme outliers, exceptions that prove the rule, that are given as examples of mind flayers not having to eat sentient brains.

Think of the extreme cost that the mind flayers are willing to bear for what some here are claiming is mere choice or preference. It doesn't add up.

[hamishspence]

The mind flayer diet can be called 'psychovorous'. It consists of two components, according to LoM. One is meat, including organs - we'll call that the enzyme component. The other is sentient brains - we'll call that the psychoactive component (though it also has enzymes).

The idea seems to be that all brains provide "psychic energy" but sapient (Int 3 or higher) brains provide a significantly higher level of psychic energy.

If "once every month" is the standard minimum for sapient brains, then "once or more every day" might be the standard for nonsapient brains.




Malnutritioned people do not die immediately. The damage to their bodies can pile up over years. The BoED exalted mind flayer might die a premature death due to lack of psychoactive nutrition. Nitpickers may point out that nutrition doesn't have a mechanical role in D&D, but common sense and verisimilitude will prevail at most tables.

If the eating of sentient brains was strictly cultural rather than biological then you would see at least one mind flayer community not eating sentient brains. Yet it is always extreme outliers, exceptions that prove the rule, that are given as examples of mind flayers not having to eat sentient brains.
The wiki article on illithids, citing many sources including Underdark (3.5) and The Illithiad (2e) suggests that only very exceptional animals provide enough "psychic energy" to sustain a mind flayer, and that quality of brain vastly effects how enjoyable the experience is, and that a mind flayer with insufficient psychic energy intake will die in four months.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mind_flayer


Psionic energy was extracted from the brain by an illithid in the victim's last moments of activity.[2] The psychic essence freed from brains was nourishing in a way far more efficient and potent than flesh could be alone, metaphysically reenergizing their metabolism so well that only one intelligent brain was needed per month for them to remain healthy.[54] Without this minimum requirement met, a mind flayer would slowly suffer physical debilitation and grow so weak that they would die in four months. Ideally they would eat a brain a week so as not to feel deprived, but most mind flayers fell between the two and ate brains about once every two weeks.[54][55]

It was common for illithids to supplement their diets with other sources, by snacking on the brains of certain creatures they considered to be delicacies. Still, without the minimum essential brainpower, a mind flayer would slowly waste away. It was possible, although extremely rare, for a mind flayer to restrict its feeding by only consuming the brains of sufficiently intelligent lifeforms. A few animals that demonstrated extraordinary intelligence, such as exceptional cats, dogs, or bears, for example, sometimes had the psychic quotient required to properly nourish a mind flayer.[33][54]


Despite being capable of doing so, a mind flayer that limited itself to such a restricted diet was rare.[33] Mind flayers savored the minds they consumed,[55] and the brains of thinking beings were preferable to those of lesser lifeforms.[6]

[Psyren]

If the eating of sentient brains was strictly cultural rather than biological then you would see at least one mind flayer community not eating sentient brains.

Why? That's like saying you would see a community of good aboleths somewhere. There's no reason for aberrations to neatly fall on a bell curve like that.

@hamishspence: The "despite being capable of doing so," clause is the important part of that cite.

[redking]

Why? That's like saying you would see a community of good aboleths somewhere. There's no reason for aberrations to neatly fall on a bell curve like that

Note that I am not saying that we would see a good aligned community of mind flayers. I am saying -


Think of the extreme cost that the mind flayers are willing to bear for what some here are claiming is mere choice or preference. It doesn't add up.

Which could be because of purely utilitarian reasons, or reasons of deprivation, or other reasons. Yet every mind flayer community is willing to bear the exorbitant cost of eating sentient brains. Something more than just a culinary preference is going on.

[hamishspence]

There's a number of factors.

The more intelligent the brain, the more pleasurable the experience. Mind flayers tend to be hedonistic.
The more intelligent the brain, the more knowledge there tends to be for absorption - Mind Flayers tend to see knowledge as power.
Consuming a brain is an expression of dominance - Mind flayers tend to be egotistical, seeking dominance. Dominating a person is more meaningful than dominating an animal.

[Psyren]

Note that I am not saying that we would see a good aligned community of mind flayers. I am saying -



Which could be because of purely utilitarian reasons, or reasons of deprivation, or other reasons. Yet every mind flayer community is willing to bear the exorbitant cost of eating sentient brains. Something more than just a culinary preference is going on.

As hamishspence stated, they are egotists and hedonists. And their brains quite literally do not work like ours (aberrations). To you, the effort of procuring sapient brains can't possibly be worth the risk of slave uprisings and adventurers kicking the door in after every raid, but to them it's an acceptable circumstance to not be forced to live on such bland fare as animals, even if they could biologically do so and survive.

To me it's like wondering why a vampire community wouldn't just live off cows. They certainly could do that and sustain themselves, but again, why would they? Sure from time to time they hear tales about how this or that community was annihilated by vengeful adventurers, but the most likely conclusion is that those were weaklings who deserved to be culled, or at worst, hey let's relocate to somewhere with slightly less resistance.

[Clistenes]

In D&D Evil and Good are absolute, objective concepts, and Mindflayers are Evil. Period.

In real life Evil and Good are subjective, relative concepts that only make sense from a human perspective. An species so alien as the Minflayers probably wouldn't have a concept of Evil or Good.

But from a human perspective, they are beings who kill sapient beings for their own pleasure and benefit, despite not needing to do it in order to survive, so, according to our perspective (the only one that matters, because Evil and Good are human concepts, and we get to define what these are...) they are Evil.


I am not here to argue that the mind flayers are not evil, because the rules define them as evil, and their behaviour is also evil as defined. What is interesting is that the mind flayers are acting fully in accordance with their nature.

So what? Gutworms act fully in accordance with their nature, and we don't want them in our bellies. Bacteria Yersinia pestis acts in accordance to its nature when it infects and kills us, but we still will take antibiotics to get rid of it. Anopheles mosquitos act fully in accordance with their nature when they suck our blood and infect us with malaria, but we still wipe them when we can...

When it comes down to it, the evilness or lack thereof of Mindflayers is irrelevant. They are inimical to humanoid life and need to be destroyed. That goes beyond concerns of Evil and Goodness.

Gnolls are CE. Lizardmen are N. Both hunt and eat humanoids... so, why does their alignment even matter...? If somebody is eating your folks, you stop them...


Lords of Madness makes it clear that mind flayers must eat brains to survive.

And humanoids need to keep their brains in order to survive.



They are one step up on the predator ladder than humans, just as humans are to cattle. And lets be honest, the mind flayers treat humans as beast of burden and a food source, just as humans treat livestock.

Lions can eat humans, but, do we accept that? Nope! We became more dangerous than they are, and put them in their place.

I am sure Mindflayers would argue that the natural role of humans is to be Mindflayers' livestock, but if humans kills them, then they are proven wrong.

"Niches", "ladders", "roles..." those are abstractions used by humans when trying to understand nature. Species aren't granted their own special place in nature. They just try to survive, and sometimes they do, and sometimes not. Predators aren't entitled their prey. The ancestors of giant pandas were carnivores, but they were unable to hunt enough of the prey species available in their environment, so they had to resort to vegetables in order to survive, and they ended evolving into vegetarians.

[redking]

So what? Gutworms act fully in accordance with their nature, and we don't want them in our bellies. Bacteria Yersinia pestis acts in accordance to its nature when it infects and kills us, but we still will take antibiotics to get rid of it. Anopheles mosquitos act fully in accordance with their nature when they suck our blood and infect us with malaria, but we still wipe them when we can...

When it comes down to it, the evilness or lack thereof of Mindflayers is irrelevant. They are inimical to humanoid life and need to be destroyed. That goes beyond concerns of Evil and Goodness.

Someone sent me a PM about this thread and this was my response.


Yeah. I totally get your point and agree. I think that the mind flayers are more akin to a dangerous predator. Don't get me wrong - the mind flayers need to be put down (because they prey on humans), but moralizing about them isn't helpful (unless it is a rallying point to get people to put them down).

I think a lot of commenters here are allowing the mind flayers more agency than they have, at least when it comes to the consumption of sentient brains. I believe that the mind flayers are acting on their natural inclinations, as aberrant as these inclinations might be to the non-aberrant races. Thus, the mind flayers are the natural enemies of everyone that they would prey upon. Whatever keeps the exalted mind flayer in BoED probably isn't something that can be replicated, and the exalted mind flayer knows it, or it would be taking the methods of survival without eating sentient brains to its mind flayer kinsfolk. There are poorer mind flayers, right? If they could get by on non-sentient brains, wouldn't they take that option, at least for a while?

[Psyren]

or it would be taking the methods of survival without eating sentient brains to its mind flayer kinsfolk.

Thaqualm is under no obligation to commit suicide.


There are poorer mind flayers, right? If they could get by on non-sentient brains, wouldn't they take that option, at least for a while?

I'm not aware of any such communities that do not subsist on slavery, raids, or both.

[Blue Jay]

Think of the extreme cost that the mind flayers are willing to bear for what some here are claiming is mere choice or preference. It doesn't add up.

I mean, for anyone who has any knowledge at all about biology and/or sociology, a lot of things about illithids don't add up. For one thing, the entire "Mind Flayer Anatomy" section of Lord of Madness is complete mumbo-jumbo (what the heck is "psychic energy," anyway)? For another, if a mind flayer's quality of life is so stringently limited by "the flow of fresh brains" that most of them have to make do with less than their ideal dietary intake, then how come they always seem to have enough brains left over to use on non-essential purposes like intellect devourers and brain golems?

But reading between the lines like this isn't really fair, because the most logical explanation for this kind of disconnect is a behind-the-scenes glitch of some sort (i.e., the writers made a mistake, or the narrative demands a rather nonsensical premise to begin with). But for an in-world discussion like this, we're not allowed to consider behind-the-scenes explanations, so it's easy to back someone into a corner by making them feel obligated to come up with an in-world justification for a "glitch in the matrix." But, the fact is that it's just not possible to come up with a glitch-free explanation for mind flayer society, because there are lots of things about them that just don't make a lot of sense if you scrutinize them deeply enough.

Here are a couple other things that "don't add up":


"The brain is clearly a physical as well as a psychic entity. It subsists by extracting presentient psychic vibrations from the tadpoles that teem around it. “Devoured” tadpoles are reduced to oily residue that dissolves slowly into the brine."

(emphasis mine)

How come the elder brain is able to maintain its vast psychic powers while subsisting entirely on non-sentient psychic energy, but the average mind flayer's relatively minor psychic needs can only be met by consuming the highest-quality psychic energy?

That doesn't really add up.


"A newly ceremorphosed mind flayer has no experience with emotions. When it suddenly becomes sentient, its mind is bombarded with thoughts and feelings from all directions. As it... acclimates to the unvarying presence of the elder brain, a resonance stone, rather than a parent, is its constant companion. In other words, mind flayers learn emotions from resonance stones, not from one another. They do not fall in love or even form friendships beyond useful acquaintances. Resonance stones fill their emotional needs."

Something here isn't adding up, either. Mind flayer emotions are supposed to be almost entirely negative. But here, mind flayers are described as having the same kinds of emotional needs that other sentient beings get from familial and casual relationships.

So, are mind flayer emotions entirely engineered by psychological conditioning from birth? That seems to imply that mind flayers might very well fall in love or form meaningful relationships if they didn't have resonance stones.

[icefractal]

For another, if a mind flayer's quality of life is so stringently limited by "the flow of fresh brains" that most of them have to make do with less than their ideal dietary intake, then how come they always seem to have enough brains left over to use on non-essential purposes like intellect devourers and brain golems?Brain Golems are pretty dumb, but that aspect makes sense if we consider a stratified society where the richer Illithids flex their conspicuous consumption by making (effectively) steak-golems while there's food rationing going on. Reasonable LE behavior. Although how Illithid society is depicted varies, and if it's more like a dictatorship where choices like resource distribution are made solely by the Elder Brains, then it doesn't make much sense.


So, are mind flayer emotions entirely engineered by psychological conditioning from birth? That seems to imply that mind flayers might very well fall in love or form meaningful relationships if they didn't have resonance stones.An interesting idea. I don't know how canonical it is, but I like the "Mind Flayers are future humans (or some other relative normal humanoids) who went back in time to avoid a catastrophe, but since the only route back was via the Far Realm, they were changed considerably in the process" idea.

And if you go with that, then a lot of their culture could stem from being (during the trip) a society under martial/emergency law, where the rulers enacted all kinds of draconian policies to ensure order. Then when the trip ended ... who wants to give up power? So they kept the rules, and even once groups split off the rules were so ingrained they were thought to be essential to survival. So a lot of "inherent" things about Illithids may actually just be very strong traditions.

[Dalmosh]

I mean, for anyone who has any knowledge at all about biology and/or sociology, a lot of things about illithids don't add up

Again, in the context of this thread, and what OP is asking, you would be correct.

But again (as is the case with gendered illithids), the reason for a chunk of this discrepancy in 3.5 is because LoM is effectively a condensed and abridged collection of paragraphs copied wholecloth from the Illithiad, but sometimes omitting necessary details needed to integrate them. LoM considered Illithiad the previous edition-neutral canon lore to update to 3.5 on Mind Flayers. Other supplements like BoED simply started afresh from their entry in the Monster Manual, which is where some of this contradiction arises.

The section on resonance stones in particular makes much more sense in the Illithiad, because 2nd ed. Mind Flayers were specifically not devoid of all positive emotion, and were described as having a range of other emotional states they lack in 3.5

Elder Brain psychic feeding is indeed odd, but Elder Brains (in this edition anyway) are (implied to be) a seperate species to Mind Flayers, so may live according to a different set of physical laws, as they are a higher order of being. The edition doesn't specificy what Elder Brains really are, where they originated, or how they came to dominate Mind Flayer colonies.

[redking]

Elder Brain psychic feeding is indeed odd, but Elder Brains (in this edition anyway) are (implied to be) a seperate species to Mind Flayers, so may live according to a different set of physical laws, as they are a higher order of being. The edition doesn't specificy what Elder Brains really are, where they originated, or how they came to dominate Mind Flayer colonies.

The elder brains feed only on mind flayers of two types. The tadpoles, and the fresh brains of newly dead mind flayers. The elder brains do not, and probably cannot, feed on the brains of non mind flayers.

The implication is that the elder brains are parasites on the collective mind flayer body.

[hamishspence]

In later editions, elder brains form from ulitharid (bigger, more dangerous, 6-tentacled illithid) brains.

It may be less "parasite" and more "the Queen of the proverbial insect colony".

[Puke]

I used to play a campaign where my character reached godhood (god of magic).

It used the demise of Illsensine to befriend the Mind Flayers.

Long story short, I brought a lot of Mind Flayers to the prime material plane and to my homeplane. I helped them sustain their thirst for knowledge and fresh brains, in exchance for them to not disturb humanoïds and go rampage. This meant they would be allowed to feed themselves as they needed to, but no more.

They helped me and the world in a lot of different ways, ultimately acting for the greater good.

We still treated the mind flayers as Evil creatures because they are inhenrently evil.

However, my friends and I view the alignment system like so :

- A creature can be Evil by nature, but it does not mean it is malevolent. Meaning being born as an evil creatures does not compel you to do evil biding.
Some things are perceived as Evil, but they are not bad guys per say.

I have a lot of exemples where one of us played a character who believed to be good, and fought for the greater good, doing good things in the grand scheme of things, and still be considered as Evil because his acts were Evil (murder, torture, theft etc...).

As for the Mind Flayers, I made a lot of "good" mind flayers appear in my campaigns. By "good", I mean cooperative, sympathetic, and not willing to eat anyone in their path. Still, they were predators and would eat anything that was not worth their consideration.

Therefore, I think Mind Flayers could be treated somewhat as the Goa'Uld in Stargate. They are predators, they take over their hosts, they enslave what they can, but not because they want people to suffer. They just consider themselves as above everything else, and are therefore a threat to innocent people. (Yes I know Goa'Ulds are depicted as BBEG and sadists, but at several occasions in the show, they are compared to humans exploiting cattle).

If you look closely, anything "evil" is "a threat to people who did not do anything to deserve a dire fate".

So, in the end, "Evil" in D&D is more like "these creatures can kill me if they want to and to achieve their goals and even if I did nothing I consider to be wrong".

[redking]

Just discovered (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Sangalor): Sangalor, a Lawful Neutral mind flayer that eats the brains of sentient (albeit evil) humanoids and is still able to maintain its LN alignment.

I don't think we can use alignment to infer that a mind flayer is abstinent from its culinary predilections based on alignment, including the exalted mind flayer. It's probably munching on evil fey, or maybe other aberrations. I don't see what the difference is between killing these creatures with a sword or psionic power and quickly removing their brains.

[Psyren]

I don't think we can use alignment to infer that a mind flayer is abstinent from its culinary predilections based on alignment, including the exalted mind flayer.

You can't infer that with a neutral alignment, it's true. But there's a vast difference in alignment between Lawful Neutral and Exalted Good. You can absolutely commit evil acts (even numerous ones) and still remain LN, the same is simply not true of being exalted.


It's probably munching on evil fey, or maybe other aberrations. I don't see what the difference is between killing these creatures with a sword or psionic power and quickly removing their brains.

While irredeemably evil fey and aberrations are probably fair game, coming across enough of them in 2+ years of adventuring and monsatic retirement on the surface for her to live on is highly unlikely.

I think the stronger tack for you is that she's explicitly an ascetic, and so is simply better able to hold at bay any mental deprivation that might result from subsisting on lesser brains - much like monks themselves are typically more able to stay physically and mentally healthy even as they live off of pretty bland foods in most narrative fiction that feature them. Thus there could still be the requirement for sapient brains that you believe there to be, but she specifically has found a very difficult/unlikely road around that.

[Blue Jay]

Again, in the context of this thread, and what OP is asking, you would be correct.

But again (as is the case with gendered illithids), the reason for a chunk of this discrepancy in 3.5 is because LoM is effectively a condensed and abridged collection of paragraphs copied wholecloth from the Illithiad, but sometimes omitting necessary details needed to integrate them. LoM considered Illithiad the previous edition-neutral canon lore to update to 3.5 on Mind Flayers. Other supplements like BoED simply started afresh from their entry in the Monster Manual, which is where some of this contradiction arises.

The section on resonance stones in particular makes much more sense in the Illithiad, because 2nd ed. Mind Flayers were specifically not devoid of all positive emotion, and were described as having a range of other emotional states they lack in 3.5

That's interesting: I've never read the Illithiad, and I didn't know that Lords of Madness was drawn from it (not until you started mentioning it in this thread, anyway). I've been intentionally ignoring most comments about the Illithiad, because redking asked us to focus on 3rd-edition sources.

Still, the basic argument I was making is that the things that "don't add up" are best explained via out-of-game factors, and your description of how LoM's material was pulled mainly from the Illithiad is pretty much exactly the kind of thing I was referring to.


Elder Brain psychic feeding is indeed odd, but Elder Brains (in this edition anyway) are (implied to be) a seperate species to Mind Flayers, so may live according to a different set of physical laws, as they are a higher order of being. The edition doesn't specificy what Elder Brains really are, where they originated, or how they came to dominate Mind Flayer colonies.

I don't think I agree with your "different species" assessment. The elder brain is described as being comprised of mind flayer brain tissue, which to me would make them the same species, in the loose way the term "species" applies in the context of fantasy biology. But, I have to admit that your use of the word is perfectly valid, and your argument makes sense.

Still, in my mind, the available lore suggests that the elder brain shouldn't be so vastly different from mind flayers as to be playing by entirely different physiological rules. But to be fair, it's fantasy, so I suppose just about anything is possible.

[Thurbane]

Just discovered (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Sangalor): Sangalor, a Lawful Neutral mind flayer that eats the brains of sentient (albeit evil) humanoids and is still able to maintain its LN alignment.

Interesting.

The only 3E source I can find on this guy is City of Splendors: Waterdeep (p. 109), where all that is mentioned is "Sangalor of the Secrets (LN illithid cleric 12 [Oghma], interrogator)", in the Skullport section.

Looks like he first appeared in Descent to Undermountain, the 2E (?) CRPG.

[Dalmosh]

I don't think I agree with your "different species" assessment.
3.5 is open ended here, so whatever works at your table is all gravy with me.

I like the elegance of how later editions explain this as the end state of the ulitharid, as hamishspense mentioned, but for me this is a bit simplistic and overt for the 3.5 lore, since even Mind Flayers do not know how Elder Brains are made (or how to make them), despite intense curisity on this subject, and their...

consciousness lies outside mind flayer experience. The nature of its intellect is a mystery to mind flayers, because even their potent psionics cannot penetrate beyond the shallowest layers of an elder brain to discern its inner workings.
And

an elder brain is timeless and ageless.

That said...

An elder brain is the ultimate stage of the mind flayer life cycle


As you note, the species concept only goes so far (in real life as in fantasy).
In MM2, the Flesh Jelly is a similar aggregate of living tissue of entities it has absorbed, but we would hardly call it human.
There are even similar entities in real life - Tasmanian Devils suffer from a form of parasitic tumour that jumps from devil to devil while they bite each other's faces. This parasite has 100% devil DNA and is best described as a parasitic vestigial clonal mammal. It's not a very pretty one though.

Since illithids and elder brains are aberrations, I like them to be really inexplicable and reality-defying. To me powerful aberrations are anathema not to just to biology, but to rationality, causality and reality itself.

My own interpretation of an elder brain, is as the vessel of a psychic spirit from the Far Realm that lives inside illithids' brains, drawing sustenance, physical form, memories and mental energy from them. I see this as a sort of forced symbiosis that the illithids have forgotten the origin of, and are unable to glean by themselves due to elder brains' vastly heightened psychic powers. It's been this way so long that the two entities form a kind of symbiotic gestalt, but that ultimately illithids are being unknowingly parasitised by something even worse.

[Batcathat]

There are even similar entities in real life - Tasmanian Devils suffer from a form of parasitic tumour that jumps from devil to devil while they bite each other's faces. This parasite has 100% devil DNA and is best described as a parasitic vestigial clonal mammal. It's not a very pretty one though.

Wow, that's freaky. Parasitic clone tumor is disturbing enough on its own, but one that's transmitted through face-biting? If there's not already some sort of fantasy monster version of that, one needs to be created immediately.

[Segev]

I mean, for anyone who has any knowledge at all about biology and/or sociology, a lot of things about illithids don't add up. For one thing, the entire "Mind Flayer Anatomy" section of Lord of Madness is complete mumbo-jumbo (what the heck is "psychic energy," anyway)? For another, if a mind flayer's quality of life is so stringently limited by "the flow of fresh brains" that most of them have to make do with less than their ideal dietary intake, then how come they always seem to have enough brains left over to use on non-essential purposes like intellect devourers and brain golems?

But reading between the lines like this isn't really fair, because the most logical explanation for this kind of disconnect is a behind-the-scenes glitch of some sort (i.e., the writers made a mistake, or the narrative demands a rather nonsensical premise to begin with). But for an in-world discussion like this, we're not allowed to consider behind-the-scenes explanations, so it's easy to back someone into a corner by making them feel obligated to come up with an in-world justification for a "glitch in the matrix." But, the fact is that it's just not possible to come up with a glitch-free explanation for mind flayer society, because there are lots of things about them that just don't make a lot of sense if you scrutinize them deeply enough.

Here are a couple other things that "don't add up":



How come the elder brain is able to maintain its vast psychic powers while subsisting entirely on non-sentient psychic energy, but the average mind flayer's relatively minor psychic needs can only be met by consuming the highest-quality psychic energy?

That doesn't really add up.



Something here isn't adding up, either. Mind flayer emotions are supposed to be almost entirely negative. But here, mind flayers are described as having the same kinds of emotional needs that other sentient beings get from familial and casual relationships.

So, are mind flayer emotions entirely engineered by psychological conditioning from birth? That seems to imply that mind flayers might very well fall in love or form meaningful relationships if they didn't have resonance stones.All excellent points. To some degree, you could probably get away with saying, "They're aberrations. The fact they don't make sense and should not work is part of that." But then, you need to have some fun coming up with where the glitches their aberrant nature create actually happen and produce the gap-closing results.

Though on the Elder Brains, much like mind flayers themselves are able to live on only one brain every month or so, the Elder Brains may live on much slower sustenance. The tadpole subsistance is mild snacking, and the real meals are the mind flayer brains they're fed when a mind flayer dies.


The elder brains feed only on mind flayers of two types. The tadpoles, and the fresh brains of newly dead mind flayers. The elder brains do not, and probably cannot, feed on the brains of non mind flayers.

The implication is that the elder brains are parasites on the collective mind flayer body.Sort-of. It seems like the Elder Brain is key to the production of tadpoles. While that may still be something the regular mind flayers participate in, the Elder Brain and its brine pool seem to be essential to the process.

The fact they seem to use "spare brains" in things when brains are so precious a commodity for food is more than a little weird, though, and maybe is where we should be looking for those aberrant "reality glitches."


In later editions, elder brains form from ulitharid (bigger, more dangerous, 6-tentacled illithid) brains.

It may be less "parasite" and more "the Queen of the proverbial insect colony".I like to think that the lie of illithids living on in the Elder Brain that eats their dead brains is only a sort-of lie: the sense of identity is gone, and if there's a soul, it goes on to the afterlife, but the memories and knowledge - which is what the illithids really value anyway - persists.

If Ulytharids really are what become Elder Brains, I further like the idea that it is no more the Ulytharid than the Elder Brain is preserving the mind of an Illithid it eats. Further, the dead Ulytharid's brain, I like to imagine, needs a critical mass of other dead Illithid brains fed to it/conjoined with it to form a nascent Elder Brain. The Elder Brain may or may not even think of itself as being the Ulytharid, but certainly will pretend to still-living illithids it recruits that it's a collection of all the illithid minds that went into it.


Wow, that's freaky. Parasitic clone tumor is disturbing enough on its own, but one that's transmitted through face-biting? If there's not already some sort of fantasy monster version of that, one needs to be created immediately.Adapting something based on the Skulking Cyst may be useful, here.

[Blue Jay]

As you note, the species concept only goes so far (in real life as in fantasy).
In MM2, the Flesh Jelly is a similar aggregate of living tissue of entities it has absorbed, but we would hardly call it human.

That's an interesting analogy that I hadn't noticed before. A couple things limit it, though: (1) I think the flesh jelly does a bit more digesting of the tissue than the elder brain does, and (2) a flesh jelly would have absorbed bits from a variety of different creatures, while the elder brain is made purely of mind flayer brains.

I'm also kind of iffy on what, exactly, a mind flayer's brain is. For example:


Over a period of several days, the tadpole burrows into the host brain, consuming gray matter and gaining body mass in a nearly equal ratio. When the process is complete, the victim’s brain is completely replaced by the tadpole’s bloated tissue.

So, the brain is gone and replaced with body of the tadpole.

Then the next sentence:

The tadpole is neurologically melded onto what remains of the lower brain stem and assumes complete control of the body’s nervous system. The victim dies irrevocably, but the body lives on with a parasite serving as its brain.

So, the tadpole serves as the illithid's brain, but uses the host body's nervous system to control it.

But, less than a page earlier, we read this:

An illithid’s nervous system is more extensive and more advanced than any human’s. Every part of an illithid’s body is “wired” into the brain with direct connections unseen in any other creature. In effect, an illithid’s entire body is an extended brain.

This sounds like the illithid hasn't just plugged into the host's nervous system and taken control, but has actually fashioned an entirely new nervous system or transformed the host's nervous system into something else.

Actually, what it really sounds like to me is that the writers don't have a good grasp on the concept of a "peripheral nervous system"; and I'm having a hard time interpreting this physiology as anything more than the result of ignorance behind the scenes.

See, it sounds like they're saying something like "the central nervous system extends throughout the body, and isn't restricted to just the skull."

But, then I find myself asking, "So, which part of the illithid is removed at the end of its life to join the elder brain?" If you read the bit about the brain canister, and look at any of the art, it looks like the illithids only seek to preserve the brainstuff that's inside the skull, and the rest of it is discarded.

So, now I think that the phrase "an illithid's entire body is an extended brain" is just a metaphor, and there really isn't that much of a difference between an illithid's "extended brain" and the peripheral nervous system of a human.

But that leaves me back at the beginning, wondering what all this text about "extensive nervous systems" and "direct connections" and "cognitive, self-aware digestive systems" is all about.


Since illithids and elder brains are aberrations, I like them to be really inexplicable and reality-defying. To me powerful aberrations are anathema not to just to biology, but to rationality, causality and reality itself.

That's a fine explanation for it, but those aren't dots that the official sources are connecting for us. Plus, it's clear from all the text about nutritional requirements that the illithids are still beholden to the principles of causality, at least in terms of their physiological needs. And special pleading on behalf of the elder brain after so much effort was put into grounding the illithids in real-world economics just isn't a very satisfying answer for me.

To me, I think the easiest and most parsimonious interpretation of the source material is that the in-world rules simply aren't as rigid as they're presented in the sourcebooks. That's also how I've come to see biology, anyway: life doesn't follow hard-and-fast "rules" so much as it loosely conforms to general patterns that vaguely resemble "rules." If we stipulate that the "rules" for illithid biology and society have some wiggle room in them, that allows us to accept all the unusual individuals without having to completely reject the "rules" altogether.

[redking]

To me, I think the easiest and most parsimonious interpretation of the source material is that the in-world rules simply aren't as rigid as they're presented in the sourcebooks. That's also how I've come to see biology, anyway: life doesn't follow hard-and-fast "rules" so much as it loosely conforms to general patterns that vaguely resemble "rules." If we stipulate that the "rules" for illithid biology and society have some wiggle room in them, that allows us to accept all the unusual individuals without having to completely reject the "rules" altogether.

That could make for interesting adventure material. The PCs are hired by mind flayers to kill Thaqualm (https://gamelore.fandom.com/wiki/Thaqualm) for the crime of 'psychic murder'. Why? Because Thaqualm said that eating sentient brains is not necessary for survival, and some mind flayers that put it into practice died of starvation.

[Dalmosh]

but those aren't dots that the official sources are connecting for us
If there is an intentionally implied read-between-the-lines explanation of Elder Brains in 3.5, this would be pointing back to their origin in the Illithiad, which was intentionally not ported through into 3rd ed..
Instead, they are unknown and unknowable and free to do what you want with. All we know is that their claim to be gestalt intelligences of the deceased mind flayers added to them is a lie.


I think the flesh jelly does a bit more digesting of the tissue than the elder brain does
That would be hard to say. We do know definitively that (unlike the illithid tadpole) the physical mass of an Elder Brain never increases or diminishes no matter how many brains it subsumes, or how many brain golems it dispatches.
Make of that what you will. While there is some quite out-there speculative theory on what is going on there in the Illithiad, that section was not copied over into LoM.

I would say that the Flesh Jelly is at least implied to grow bigger the more it engulfs (like an illithid tadpole), but since it starts at Colossal, that's up in the air.


a flesh jelly would have absorbed bits from a variety of different creatures, while the elder brain is made purely of mind flayer brains.
Not necessarily, the description includes "fur", but that is obviously going to vary depending upon what it has to engulf around it.
I see no reason why you couldn't have one entirely made from engulfed humans, or (hypothetically) for that matter, entirely from mind flayer brains.

Like an elder brain, we don't know how a Flesh Jelly begins. As far as we know from the stat block though, they are never smaller than Colossal.

[Bohandas]

The fact they seem to use "spare brains" in things when brains are so precious a commodity for food is more than a little weird, though

Not if they're really classist.

Let them eat cake.


3.5 is open ended here, so whatever works at your table is all gravy with me.

I like the elegance of how later editions explain this as the end state of the ulitharid, as hamishspense mentioned, but for me this is a bit simplistic and overt for the 3.5 lore, since even Mind Flayers do not know how Elder Brains are made (or how to make them)

I interpreted the passage about the process of crrating an elder brain being unknown as meaning that it was a secret of the mindflayers, not that it was unknown to them. Or at most, that if it was unknown to them, it was unknown due to being classified. Unknown in the same way that I can say with confidence that you don't know the specifics of how to build an atomic bomb (the general principles, maybe - implosion, wildly accelerating chain reaction, etc. - but not the specifics)

EDIT:
Similarly, they're ageless and timeless in the sense of being unaging and often ancient, not in the sense of having no beginning or end

[Segev]

Not if they're really classist.

Let them eat cake.

Possible, but most depictions of Mind Flayers show the entirety of the Flayer population being the few and elite, with the underclasses being non-Illithids. For stratification within Illithid society to extend beyond the Illithoid-kin -> Illithid -> Ulytharid -> Elder Brain layers, it'd require there to be enough Illithids of the same biological "tier" to form a socio-political structure that had some of them super-rich in brains while others are barely getting by. This seems counter to the way they're usually depicted.

[Psyren]

It's also possible that many of those examples of excess, like brain golems and intellect devourers, date back to the Illithids' much more prosperous era (which lasted for centuries according to LoM) when they had the entirety of the Gith enslaved, and therefore had far more brains handy than they knew what to do with. Current Mindflayer communities would only need to make or repair a few more to explain all the ones present-day adventurers are likely to come across.

[noob]

It's also possible that many of those examples of excess, like brain golems and intellect devourers, date back to the Illithids' much more prosperous era (which lasted for centuries according to LoM) when they had the entirety of the Gith enslaved, and therefore had far more brains handy than they knew what to do with. Current Mindflayer communities would only need to make or repair a few more to explain all the ones present-day adventurers are likely to come across.

Maybe another alternative is that when an Illithid is alone it have less competition for brain eating(and thus more brain supply) but is also less protected by other Illithids and so making a brain golem at that point is a good way to have a guardian that can stand watch day and night.

[Segev]

It's also possible that many of those examples of excess, like brain golems and intellect devourers, date back to the Illithids' much more prosperous era (which lasted for centuries according to LoM) when they had the entirety of the Gith enslaved, and therefore had far more brains handy than they knew what to do with. Current Mindflayer communities would only need to make or repair a few more to explain all the ones present-day adventurers are likely to come across.


Maybe another alternative is that when an Illithid is alone it have less competition for brain eating(and thus more brain supply) but is also less protected by other Illithids and so making a brain golem at that point is a good way to have a guardian that can stand watch day and night.

Both good possibilities.

Considering that brain golems are made from brains that...don't look like they fit in the skulls of anything most illithids have access to, I again wonder if there's not some Far Realms/Aberration shenanigans that let them make brain golems when they don't have brains to eat. Something Not Right with the laws of nature/reality/causality/resource management happens.

[noob]

Both good possibilities.

Considering that brain golems are made from brains that...don't look like they fit in the skulls of anything most illithids have access to, I again wonder if there's not some Far Realms/Aberration shenanigans that let them make brain golems when they don't have brains to eat. Something Not Right with the laws of nature/reality/causality/resource management happens.

Maybe unnatural stuff happens and multiple smaller brains merge in bigger brains during the construction process?
Just like how the flesh golem is made from M sized creatures and yet have arms that looks as if they were made of parts coming from bigger humanoids.

[Dalmosh]

most depictions of Mind Flayers show the entirety of the Flayer population being the few and elite, with the underclasses being non-Illithids.

True. Complete Psionic goes in a different direction by stating that advanced Flayerspawn Psychics can have such pronounced physical and psychological similarity to a mind flayer, that they can
probably fool other illithids into accepting [them] into the lower rungs of mind flayer society

I'm hardly going to wave Complete Psionic around as a great and consistant sourcebook, even on Psionics, but these social strata are again a 2nd ed. thing, probably continued in some form into the Forgotten Realms material, which unlike LoM, retains Illithid Creeds.

I would consider these lower rungs to be younger illithids generally responsible for dangerous duties like brain raids or more mundane tasks like thrall herding.

The Mind Flayers of Thoon bred their own subordinate strain of psychically diminshed illithids for stealth work called Shadow Flayers.

[redking]

The Thoonite mind flayers might be more interesting if they carried a psychic infection. The infection makes regular mind flayers Thoonite mind flayers. Mind flayers that succeed in a saving throw are immune in the future.

Perhaps can be done as a type of poison. Wisdom drains on a failed saving throw, and again with the secondary effect. If Wisdom goes to zero the normal mind flayer becomes a Thoonite, with the Wisdom score restored to normal.

In this way the Thoonites could become a major menace to the normal mind flayers.

[Segev]

True. Complete Psionic goes in a different direction by stating that advanced Flayerspawn Psychics can have such pronounced physical and psychological similarity to a mind flayer, that they can

I'm hardly going to wave Complete Psionic around as a great and consistant sourcebook, even on Psionics, but these social strata are again a 2nd ed. thing, probably continued in some form into the Forgotten Realms material, which unlike LoM, retains Illithid Creeds.

I would consider these lower rungs to be younger illithids generally responsible for dangerous duties like brain raids or more mundane tasks like thrall herding.

The Mind Flayers of Thoon bred their own subordinate strain of psychically diminshed illithids for stealth work called Shadow Flayers.

To be fair, in any social group, there are "rungs" and "strata," unless the group is limited to about a handful. Just how popular you are with your fellows, how many of them think more like you than like others, and how many view you as a rival will matter. But these "rungs" and "strata" will be invisible to anybody outside of it, because the group will close ranks around even the least-liked of their cadre when they come under attack. An attack on even Stinky Bob is an attack on Illithids in general, and will not be tolerated from lesser sorts. Unless Stinky Bob does more than just be the least cool, most annoying member of the group, he's part of the group. He would have to dramatically step outside the group's accepted bounds - a betrayal of some sort - to be ostracized, and even then, the group is more likely to punish him as a group rather than permit outsiders to do so. Their justice is theirs to administer, not lesser beings' to exact.

Being "the new guy" that nobody knows is going to put you on the lower rungs of any social order, naturally. So I would assume that a flayerspawn psychic would start there if he could fool illithids into accepting him as one of them. Getting up the "ranks" is more a matter of making friends and allies than anything else at that point.

[redking]

Being "the new guy" that nobody knows is going to put you on the lower rungs of any social order, naturally. So I would assume that a flayerspawn psychic would start there if he could fool illithids into accepting him as one of them. Getting up the "ranks" is more a matter of making friends and allies than anything else at that point.

I expect that you are right. The flayerspawn probably occupy a caste even lower than a urophion (roper illthid).

[Segev]

I expect that you are right. The flayerspawn probably occupy a caste even lower than a urophion (roper illthid).

If they're known not to be true illithids, certainly. I beliee the idea is that they ae so close to illithids in look and abilities that some can pass amongst illithid society as illithids. But still, being "the new guy" who just begged or bought his way into the conclave will tend to make him have fewer allies, less history, and geherally less political cachet available to maneuver within his new clique. So he starts at the unofficial bottom of the heap until he can build the relationships and reputation to be considered more influential.

[redking]

If they're known not to be true illithids, certainly. I beliee the idea is that they ae so close to illithids in look and abilities that some can pass amongst illithid society as illithids. But still, being "the new guy" who just begged or bought his way into the conclave will tend to make him have fewer allies, less history, and geherally less political cachet available to maneuver within his new clique. So he starts at the unofficial bottom of the heap until he can build the relationships and reputation to be considered more influential.

The flayerspawn may be able to fool some normal mind flayers, but I can't see them being able to fool an elder brain.

[Segev]

The flayerspawn may be able to fool some normal mind flayers, but I can't see them being able to fool an elder brain.

I don't think elder brains are any more privy to the inner minds of mind flayers than anybody else is, beyond their listed psionic powers. And, even if it were, if the flayerspawn psychic is useful to it, the elder brain - which canonically doesn't care all that much about its mind flayers, either, beyond as useful and devoted tools - likely won't rat the flayerspawn psychic out to the illithids unless it serves its purposes to do so.

[Dalmosh]

Mind Flayers want subservient thralls, and recruitment of loyal Mind Flayers. Since all illithids are built from "thrall" bodies with remodelled brains, the basic concept of a Flayerspawn shouldn't be a massive slap in the face to a Mind Flayer. If you are a Mind Flayer, and you think and act like a Mind Flayer, then the bodily process you used to get there shouldn't matter that much. What your body was before it was a Mind Flayer is beyond trivial. Since all juvenile illithids are forcefully indoctrinated for years, it would make sense to just chuck a Flayerspawn through this process and see if its up to snuff or not.

The conflict would seem to be more of a cultural one, as they are conditioned to idealise their Elder Brain as the arbiter of which tadpoles get to be implanted, and would likely despise the concept that something could become an illithid independent of Elder Brains, or that a thrall could elect to do this by itself in the first place. While illithids care nothing for their offspring, they are probably too jealous and prideful to be able to accept an illithid formed a different way than they were, because that would cheapen their image of being the absolute cream of the crop.

If illithids accepted Flayerspawn, they could potentially reverse-engineer a way to reproduce that elimated dependence on tadpoles, which would deprive Elder Brains of their food. Elder Brains would never tolerate that so it would be safest for them to publically destroy flayerspawn as blasphemies.

[redking]

I don't think elder brains are any more privy to the inner minds of mind flayers than anybody else is, beyond their listed psionic powers. And, even if it were, if the flayerspawn psychic is useful to it, the elder brain - which canonically doesn't care all that much about its mind flayers, either, beyond as useful and devoted tools - likely won't rat the flayerspawn psychic out to the illithids unless it serves its purposes to do so.

I don't buy that mind flayers with psychic abilities cannot tell the difference between a flayerspawn psychic and a real mind flayer. The flayerspawn are valid targets for ceremorphosis, so their desire to be a "true mind flayer" could be granted after all.

[Segev]

I don't buy that mind flayers with psychic abilities cannot tell the difference between a flayerspawn psychic and a real mind flayer. The flayerspawn are valid targets for ceremorphosis, so their desire to be a "true mind flayer" could be granted after all.

Through a combination of mind seed and astral seed, and maybe true mind switch, they could make it happen by possessing the tadpole as it burrows in.