Petitioners, Divine power, Illithids… wait, what?

[Quertus]

So, obviously D&D, but I’m not sure which edition(s) or setting(s) this applies to. I recall reading that someone (perhaps the other deities) were surprised that the Illithid deity didn’t have petitioners, as Illithids get eaten by the Elder Brain, and that therefore deities don’t actually need petitioners (to survive / maintain their divine power), just followers.

That all makes sense, except… 1) I know Illithids at least exist in the Forgotten Realms, where deities couldn’t be bothered about their petitioners until they got kicked to Toril for failing to do their duty. But ok, they had some petitioners, so the idea that a deity could survive with no petitioners might have been novel, even there.

But 2) things (including, say, adventurers like the PCs) sometimes kill Illithids, meaning that there is such a thing as a dead Illithid, and therefore there should be such a thing as an Illithid petitioner. Now, if this is the Forgotten Realms where that statement was made, then maybe their deity just left all of them to the Wall of Shame? Maybe? But I’m pretty sure Illithids canonically exist in multiple settings, and they are canonically a spacefaring race in multiple Crystal Spheres, so there certainly ought to be dead Illithids producing Illithid petitioners from non-Toril worlds. Granted, you could have settings not share their outer planes, but then that brings up huge issues for deities who canonically exist in multiple worlds - they now have to have a presence in each copy of these outer planes, are aware of and can utilize these duplicate planes, etc. And I believe FR not only has one or more such deities, but also has Elminster canonically traveling to modern Earth, so (unless that’s Time Travel), that’s multiple reasons even FR denizens should expect to be familiar with Illithid petitioners.

And 3) if being eaten by an Elder Brain actually does prevent the formation of a petitioner, then that’s a really powerful, soul-absorbing ability… which sounds exactly no worse than becoming a petitioner and being absorbed by an outer plane to my ears. So either Illithids who learn the truth are overreacting, or normal races are underreacting.

Which leads me to wonder 4) if an Illithid were a Pokémon, and its first evolution was into Elder Brain, should its second evolution (after absorbing enough souls) be into a plane or demiplane or something?

[Buufreak]

To point 2. I believe it is canon that Mulhorand, a location of Toril, opened portals and stole real world Egyptian slaves, who brought their faith with them. In turn, such deities began existing in the realms. So that is both an example of Toril to Earth portals, and the wibbly wobbly state of being that is divinity in the realms.

Trying to say all of that as agnostic and rules friendly as possible. I tried, guys!

[Satinavian]

I have seen official D&D stuff stating Illithids don't even have souls.
I have seen official D&D stuff stating that indeed the gods that exist in several settings are copies and not the very same individual.

Official D&D lore is a mess, especially when doing the multisetting, multiversion, all sources valid thing. Trying to arrive at a one true answer is an excercise in futility.

[Mastikator]

Since a mind flayer can turn into a true lich, a mind flayer must have a soul. But I wouldn't expect their souls to go to the outer planes when they die, I expect their souls to return to the far realm. Unless they're devoured by the elder brain in which case they're truly deleted.

I think the next stage of evolution of an elder brain is something similar to an elder evil, like Hadar. Basically yes I agree with you, more akin to a demiplane than a creature.

I wouldn't consider becoming a petitioner the same as being deleted, petitioner gradually find eternal rest when they are "complete" or continue if they find new meaning, being devoured by a mind flayer or elder brain is an abrupt and violent end with no regard for loose ends or purpose.

[Anymage]

2: An illithid who dies in such a way that their body can't be recovered to feed to an elder brain might become a petitioner, and Ilsensine is just surprising for being able to subsist on such a small number as opposed to the numbers that other gods get. Or maybe Ilsensine just noms any souls that happen to come his way, leaving most illithids thinking they'd rather be subsumed into an elder brain. I'm not up on my realms lore.

3: Melding into a plane isn't like a twilight zone episode where people are their normal selves one day and disappear the next. People would continue to grow and evolve. Likely in ways that would seem odd to the living, to whom form and physicality are mandates instead of just habits. You plus many lifetimes of growth might well decide that melding into the purest essence of your ideals is how you want to spend the rest of eternity. Soul devouring/destruction is in fact an abrupt and usually unwilling erasure.

4: Presumably an elder brain who grew large enough would be able to extend their control significantly farther, and would become a regional effect more than just a local one. Following that evolution path would be growth until the elder brain had sole dominion over a whole planet.

Another path might well be gathering enough psychic might to become a nonphysical entity that's closer to a demiplane than a creature, with the end goal of becoming a god. I can't recall if there's any specific lore (and as mentioned upthread, D&D lore is often a contradictory mess of whatever a given writer thought was cool at the moment), but these are my most plausible guesses.

[Anonymouswizard]

Since a mind flayer can turn into a true lich, a mind flayer must have a soul. But I wouldn't expect their souls to go to the outer planes when they die, I expect their souls to return to the far realm. Unless they're devoured by the elder brain in which case they're truly deleted.

That only works if you use the Far Realm backstory, there's also the Time Travelling Transhumans one. Probably another couple if you poke around obscure books. I'd presume that if they're not related to the Far Realms the souls are either bound to their remains or wander the ethereal.

Also who's soul is it? The original host's? The tadpole's? A new one formed at the moment of ceremorphasis?

[OldTrees1]

Here are my thoughts on Illithids since their canon is obscure and contradictory:
A) A deity without worshipers, followers, or subjects gets no petitioners. As a general rule of thumb, despite Ilsensine being revered by some Illithids, I don't think Illithids worship, follow, or are subjects to a deity. However I don't hear of Ilsensine doing much, so maybe deities that only get respect/reverence but no worship/souls end up being weak and not doing much.
B) Illithid might have souls since they can become liches. I would assume their soul comes from the tadpole. However any question of souls needs to answer the problems of mind vs soul.
C) I think of their aberration nature manifesting as a violation of temporal causality. They exist from the future before their cause, or in spite of there being no cause for their existence.
D) Illithids and Elder Brains are different species with the Elder Brains duping the Illithids.

So I do expect some Illithids to exist post mortem on the outer planes.


However following your thoughts, if you want there to be a pokemon evolution, the final evolutions of an elder brain might be "a mind not bound to flesh" and then "a concept not bound to a mind".

[Mastikator]

That only works if you use the Far Realm backstory, there's also the Time Travelling Transhumans one. Probably another couple if you poke around obscure books. I'd presume that if they're not related to the Far Realms the souls are either bound to their remains or wander the ethereal.

Also who's soul is it? The original host's? The tadpole's? A new one formed at the moment of ceremorphasis?

Who's to say the Far Realm and Time Traveling Transhuman backstories aren't one and the same? I'd be surprised if time worked the same in the Far Realm as it does in the material plane. As for the question of the soul, there is no doubt in my mind that ceremorphosis kills the host, whether the host's soul is consumed by the transformation or sent into the afterlife is not something I can answer, but either way the mind flayer's soul is not the host's soul. Nor can I say when a soul is formed, and prefer it to be a mystery.

After all, a mind flayer rarely has any memories of its host, and I imagine that for those that do, it is no different than the memories they can take from thralls by reading a thrall's mind.

[Satinavian]

Since a mind flayer can turn into a true lich, a mind flayer must have a soul. But I wouldn't expect their souls to go to the outer planes when they die, I expect their souls to return to the far realm. Unless they're devoured by the elder brain in which case they're truly deleted.

Maybe. But then we have the statement that Mindflayer liches were kinda invented not by mindflayers pusueing lichdom but by some human. And that most of them(the Alhoons) are somehow are not real liches, only the Illithilichs are. Also that the human inventing mindflayer liches turned himself directly into an elder brain keeping personality, knowledge and sense of self without ever becoming a Illithid or Ulitharid or any other abomination.

Do Mindflayer liches really proof mindflayer souls or might it work differently? Or, wait, isn't it suddenly that Illithiliches are made from Alhoons and lichom for mindflayers is a transformation from undead to different type of undead ? Unlike every other kind of lich ? Even if Illithids had a soul, would the undead Alhoon even still have it despite being, well, dead and without a soultrapping phylactery ?

[Mastikator]

Maybe. But then we have the statement that Mindflayer liches were kinda invented not by mindflayers pusueing lichdom but by some human. And that most of them(the Alhoons) are somehow are not real liches, only the Illithilichs are. Also that the human inventing mindflayer liches turned himself directly into an elder brain keeping personality, knowledge and sense of self without ever becoming a Illithid or Ulitharid or any other abomination.

Do Mindflayer liches really proof mindflayer souls or might it work differently? Or, wait, isn't it suddenly that Illithiliches are made from Alhoons and lichom for mindflayers is a transformation from undead to different type of undead ? Unlike every other kind of lich ? Even if Illithids had a soul, would the undead Alhoon even still have it despite being, well, dead and without a soultrapping phylactery ?

It only takes one true mind flayer lich to prove that mind flayers have souls. As for how souls "work", I prefer not to speculate on. If a single mind flayer puts its soul into a phylactery, then that is proof positive that it has a soul.

[Satinavian]

And what if Illithilich phylacteries don't contain souls, considering how different they are from regular lichs ?

But honestly, i have no problem with Illithids having souls and Illithilichs using them. The statement that Illithids don't have souls was an example of how contradictory an all-official-sources Illitid lore is. Of course it would not be a good example if not other official sources would ascribe souls to illithids. The contradiction is the point of bringing it up.

[Quertus]

Nor can I say when a soul is formed, and prefer it to be a mystery.

Oh, then I’ll spoil this.

Spoiler: Half-remembered module

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There’s a module that discussed this. So if it’s an official module, and if it’s canon, then souls were created long ago, are finite in number, and dispensed through multiple locales on the Positive Energy Plane. Or maybe they’re created as needed, and dispenses through multiple locations on the pep? I don’t recall - either would fit what I remember of the module. Regardless, when one of these soul distribution nodes is disrupted, it results in stillbirths in the module. Which implies that souls are required for life, and that creatures don’t have souls until they’re born in D&D.

So remember murderhobos, you need to wait until after the delivery if you want to optimize your chances of earning XP for both.

Which, even if I’ve remembered and interpreter the module correctly, tells us almost nothing about Illithids, as they aren’t born.

And, on an unrelated note,

Spoiler: More module

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Still, this is really odd, given that the outer planes are made of souls - it means that the outer planets are made entirely of inner planar material, and the material of just a single inner plane at that.

Forget the normal elemental deities - the (hypothetical) god(ess) of the pep is where it’s at!

[Crake]

Well, if bg3 is to be considered canon, we have an official source saying that illithids dont have souls

[Vyke]

Well, if bg3 is to be considered canon, we have an official source saying that illithids dont have souls

I've not played it yet but how reliable is that source? Could they just be wrong?

[Amnestic]

I've not played it yet but how reliable is that source? Could they just be wrong?

Spoiler: BG3 Spoilers

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The information comes directly from Jergal, the (former) God of Death, and we've got no reason to believe he's lying to us about it, so I'd say generally it's a very reliable source.

[Mastikator]

Spoiler: BG3 Spoilers

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The information comes directly from Jergal, the (former) God of Death, and we've got no reason to believe he's lying to us about it, so I'd say generally it's a very reliable source.

In BG3 it's definitely true. But with so many retcons and contradictions I'm tempted to say there are multiple canons. The DM can choose whether mind flayers have souls and are correct either way. However IMO whichever you pick you should be consistent with that. If they have souls then it's possible to revive them, or for them to turn into a proper lich, etc

[Beelzebub1111]

Which leads me to wonder 4) if an Illithid were a Pokémon, and its first evolution was into Elder Brain, should its second evolution (after absorbing enough souls) be into a plane or demiplane or something?

Illithids are a split evolutionary tree. Stage 1 is tadpole. Branch 1 is if it is inserted into someone it becomes either a mind flayer or an Ulitharid on shiny odds. Branch 2 is if the elder brain in the spawing pool dies and the tadpole survives, it goes down the Neothelid line.

elder brains are [[something else]]

[Vyke]

Spoiler: BG3 Spoilers

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The information comes directly from Jergal, the (former) God of Death, and we've got no reason to believe he's lying to us about it, so I'd say generally it's a very reliable source.

That seems reasonable.

[Psyren]

Well, if bg3 is to be considered canon, we have an official source saying that illithids dont have souls

Spoiler: BG3 Spoilers

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The information comes directly from Jergal, the (former) God of Death, and we've got no reason to believe he's lying to us about it, so I'd say generally it's a very reliable source.

Actually, he doesn't quite say "Illithids don't have souls." (And even if he had, it's also possible that he's speaking about a general case, from which there can be specific exceptions.)

To start with, his exact words were as follows (bold mine):

Spoiler: BG3 Epilogue Quote

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"Didst truly believe thy ploy would succeed? Didst believe I would not notice?

Thou sought to bolster thy strength by taking away the souls of mortals. But souls vanish when their hosts become mind flayers. Didst think the other gods would not notice?

Gods thou may be, but thou hast proven thyselves fools, every one.
...
I overestimated thee - but they did not. Vermin, away; thou wilt trouble us no more."

In broad strokes. his claim is totally true; Ceremorphosis overwrites the original host completely, eradicating their existence (personality, soul, memories etc.) Regardless of the individual you started with and any morals or relationships they originally had, the end result is a Monster Manual entry; a pawn (albeit a powerful one) of its Elder Brain.

But we have evidence of a more nuanced take in the margins - first, within the lore of Baldurs Gate 3 itself, and secondly, from other D&D sources. "Souls vanish" in the context of his statement means mortal souls, as per the preceding sentence; however, it doesn't mean the resulting creature is without any kind of soul, especially not in 100% of all cases.

Spoiler: BG3 counterexamples (major spoilers) + D&D lore

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We are shown two examples of mindflayers within BG3 itself that clearly retain the memories and personality of their mortal lives - Omeluum, the mindflayer arcanist in the Underdark, and The Emperor himself, aka Balduran, founder of Baldur's Gate.

Omeluum tells you it was "born" with a propensity for arcane magic that interfered with the Elder Brain's control - this is exactly the same kind of deviation that leads some mindflayers to become alhoons and illithiliches (which are different in 5e, though related.)

For Balduran, the reason for retaining his independence isn't explicitly stated, but it likely ties to his strong personality (see below.) A legendary adventurer of his stature, one who befriended Great Wyrms and founded a metropolis, is the perfect example of someone whose sense of self would be too strong for even an Elder Brain to totally overwrite into being nothing more than a mere pawn/MM entry; there is even a name given to this phenomenon in the Illithiad, "partialism."

The Emperor definitely retains Balduran's memories/personality, and even a sense of his heroism, albeit twisted. Whether it retains Balduran's soul or simply has had its own shaped by the strong host memories and personality is something we're not clear on, at least not yet.

Both of these counterexamples are consistent with what we know of ceremorphosis and mindflayer psychology from D&D proper.

TL;DR - the quote above doesn't actually say what a lot of people are saying it does, and even if it does, there are/can be exceptions that prove the rule.

[Satinavian]

Actually, he doesn't quite say "Illithids don't have souls." (And even if he had, it's also possible that he's speaking about a general case, from which there can be specific exceptions.)

To start with, his exact words were as follows (bold mine):

It is another conversation, not the epilogue one where he clearly says they don't have souls. It starts with him asking you

Spoiler: BG3

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"Consider, mortal : Do Illithid posess souls ?"

If you answer
"I am not sure, don't all living things ?"
he followes with
"No. Nor canst thou count mind flayers among them.
Yet the Three amass an illithid army, void of apostolic souls that could imbue them with power.
A flock without souls - yet to what end, mortal ? "

Similar for the other answers. He is extremely clear about mind flayers not having any souls, not just not having the same souls as their larval hosts. He is also clearly not talking about "mortal souls" or whatever, he is obviously talking about the genuine stuff, that is relevant for afterlifes and powers the gods.








Also i am pretty sure that D&D does not treat souls as synonymous with personality and memory.

[Psyren]

It is another conversation, not the epilogue one where he clearly says they don't have souls. It starts with him asking you

Spoiler: BG3

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"Consider, mortal : Do Illithid posess souls ?"

If you answer
"I am not sure, don't all living things ?"
he followes with
"No. Nor canst thou count mind flayers among them.
Yet the Three amass an illithid army, void of apostolic souls that could imbue them with power.
A flock without souls - yet to what end, mortal ? "

Similar for the other answers. He is extremely clear about mind flayers not having any souls, not just not having the same souls as their larval hosts. He is also clearly not talking about "mortal souls" or whatever, he is obviously talking about the genuine stuff, that is relevant for afterlifes and powers the gods.



Also i am pretty sure that D&D does not treat souls as synonymous with personality and memory.

That's stronger but still not definitive - his "apostolic souls" qualifier leaves gaps you could drive a wagon through. It means that whatever they do have (which could indeed be nothing, I'm not ruling that out entirely) can't nourish deities and probably won't supply an afterlife. But it doesn't counter any of what I said about Omeluum or the Emperor, nor Mastikator's correct references to Illithids being capable of pursuing true lichdom, nor anything to do with Ilsensine/Maanzecorian etc.

[NichG]

Going off of BG3 stuff to make a headcanon that makes sense to me at least - illithid reproduction is the way it is specifically in order to create the phenomenon of a mind without a soul, and its necessary for them to do precisely that in order to exist outside of the Far Realms and to avoid hard metaphysical rules that apply to souls but not e.g. 'information' or 'cognitive agents' in an abstract sense - perhaps relating to time travel origins or just various protections and prohibitions created by the various gods as part of managing the realms. So then the manifestation of arcane magic by chance would be a consequence of that process being faulty - e.g. it fails to fully insulate the mind from having (attracting?) a soul. The reason alhoons and such are considered such an abomination to illithid hive minds (outside of the being out of control aspects) is that in order to progress in that direction, the illithid is effectively either nurturing a soul fragment left over from the transform or doing something to graft an artificial soul onto themselves like a prosthetic. So proper illithiliches would be illithids who managed to set up synchronization between their mind and their artificial soul, and then installed that artificial soul into an object as a backup device. I think that's consistent with what we know about e.g. demilichdom involving progression by stealing the souls of others - at some stage you're rendering souls into some kind of generic soul-stuff and overwriting it with more of yourself.

For normal illithids, that 'backup device' should be the elder brain they serve, so pursuing the alternate approach is both an act of rebellion against the individual elder brain but also threatens to create something that to other illithids would look like an elder brain under the sole dominion of a single illithid - e.g. rather than a servitude to the group but in such a way that the group also reflects you, if such a thing were to succeed (at least in the ways that a normal illithid would view success) it would basically permit the same kind of architecture but without the 'group' having to reflect its servants' minds at all. From an outside point of view it might as well be an academic distinction since there'd be no way to identify 'individual illithids' between the behavior of hive-controlled bodies and the thought patterns of an elder brain; you'd have to do very careful experiments trying to let something like a partialist illithid form and then see if there's any contagion to the elder brain itself over time if that illithid weren't just destroyed.

I guess this would suggest that if you wanted to try to make lots of arcanist illithids for some reason, see if you can have ghosts possess them or do experiments with Magic Jar or something? Sounds like the sort of thing that would cause you to go through a lot of apprentices though...

Spoiler: BG3 spoilers

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So from this point of view, the long drawn out ceremorphosis of BG3 is a philosophical Ship of Theseus sort of construction. Rather than going in a moment from 'you before, with your soul' to 'mindflayer after, with no soul and no memories', there's a stretched out period in which the tadpole is influencing you but you may also be influencing the tadpole, combined with direct intervention in parts of the process that would normally make a clean cut. It leaves the player to decide if a character continuing in a form in which even their soul has been replaced would satisfyingly count as still being that character or not by intentionally pushing the edge of how much could actually still be preserved even with that deletion - goals, memories, skills, emotional responses, etc. And of course it does so in a sufficiently ambiguous way that the player can justify their decision - if the player decides that deleting the soul deletes the self, then they are free to conclude that the Emperor is just emulating those things to be manipulative and its all 100% fake; if the player decides that there's more to the self than the soul, then the player could conclude that the Emperor's inconsistencies are just a manifestation of a complicated three-way internal struggle between Balduran, the tadpole's innate templated personality, and the elder brain's influences over a long period of time during the rapid formation of the gestalt.

But that seems to be maybe an intentional pattern in BG3's writing, of doing it in such a way that when you view any character in the game from the entirety of their possible dialogue tree the characters tend to look inconsistent in their personae; but when you commit to reacting in a coherent way, you also get a coherent (but distinct) take on each given character.

[Witty Username]

A quick jaunt to the wiki,
Illithids don't worship deities often, and the pair of deities they have are more often used as frameworks for discussing philosophy than objects of veneration.

I think 3.5 has a small chunk for mind flayer deities but as I recall, its more of an AD&D thing where everyone had a god in package.

As for petitioners, gods needing them is specific to the Forgotten Realms, and even then there are exceptions with Ao, the elemental lords, and demigods like Jergal.

--
A campaign adventure of the mind flayer god trying to establish a foot hold in the realms after Ao banished them from it would be pretty cool.

[Psyren]

Ultimately my position is that {redacted}'s statement is authoritative and broadly correct, but that either (a) there can either be exceptions to the rule, or (b) if his statement is absolute, that lack of a soul does not always have the implications in this case that we believe it does for other creatures.

[Mastikator]

I think there is a strong case to be made that in D&D a creature's soul is not their true self. The case is the river styx, it removes all memories and everything that makes "you", "you". Is an imp really the same person as the one they were in life? I think not. The soul is just another organ. Meanwhile if we go with the BG3 lore that illithids do not have souls, there are still illithids that do all of the memories of the host and identify with them. (admittedly, most illithids do not, and are truly a "new person")

I think that if you turn into an illithid and keep all of your memories then you are still you to a far greater extent than if your soul was thrown into the river styx. Furthermore, people gain new experiences as time moves on, they add to themselves. I think we should think that either you are not who you were 10 years ago, or an illithid can potentially be the same person before they were illithid.

[J-H]

This sounds like a great idea for a quest. Gather your party, travel to the Outlands, and go find Ilsensine to ask.

Please let us know how it goes, but only if you can still communicate in a comprehensible and non-memetically dangerous fashion when your quest is complete.

[Amnestic]

Ed Greenwood has offered/confirmed this, if that helps.

[Psyren]

Ed Greenwood has offered/confirmed this, if that helps.

Love it! And Ed Greenwood acknowledging Spelljammer confirmed as well

[Witty Username]

Given a quote from Elminster is used to introduce the Spelljammer setting as I recall, that tracks.

[Mastikator]

Ed Greenwood has offered/confirmed this, if that helps.

This seems to track with the "their soul goes back to the far realm" idea.