>>17476855
No, they understand what the kids actually mean. They also prefer modern art, and other less "clear" art forms as they can truly appreciate them in ways our humanity cannot comprehend.

We need some Hipster Mind Flayer drawfaggotry up in this thread right now.

>>17476923

>less clear art forms
>"Yeah, I'm into more... obscure types of squiggles. You wouldn't understand, you dumb surface dweller. Now let me eat your brain."

HIPSTER ILLITHIDS

>>17476923

>They also prefer modern art

So they are the pretentious art snobs of the Underdark?

>>17476956
We aren't pretentious, man! You just can't appreciate these deep lines the way we can. It's far too much for your Mind. Here. Let me take it for you.

>>17476956

"Slave, I know that you cannot possibly appreciate this piece, but I will tell you of it anyway. This was made two years ago by a young half-elf in Zurikstead; it is an expression of his pain and anguish at being an outcast half-elf artist, and is frankly genius in how much torment leaks through every inch of it. You cannot appreciate the subtlety running through its squiggles, but I can."

"I can, because I ate him."

"He was delicious."

>>17476998
>this picture
>It made my fucking day

>>17476956
Actually that would be beholders.

"No, the reason you can't comprehend what you are looking at, surface dweller, is because you have TWO eyes located NEXT to one another, that can only see HALF of the object that you're lookign at as opposed to 2/3rd of it from multiple angles."

~Disintegrate~

"Bloody art critics."

... Why do I love this thread so much already?

Stat me, chav.

>Does this mean a Mind Flayer can be confused by a little kid's scribbles?

Quite the opposite, really. I'd think a mindflayer would understand them better than any human, save for the human child him or herself. Look at this bit from what you quoted:

>They project thoughts and feelings to each other in a way non-illithids can scarcely comprehend

Why do you figure that is? Why couldn't a psion grasp how Illithids communicate as easily as one of them? The answer is incredibly simple, really.

Thought process.

See, it should go without saying that Illithids don't think the way people do. They're about as alien as they come, hailing from another plane of existence and having senses humans couldn't even dream of. The way adult Illithids contextualize everything is entirely different from the way an adult human would.

Notice how I said "adult?" That's important.

See, by the time we reach adulthood, we've settled down into our perception of reality, grown accustomed to our senses and what they tell us. A child that grows up blind has a much easier time of it than a recently-blinded adult, and not just because he's had more time to deal with it. It's because, during his development, his ability to understand his world didn't hinge on being able to see, and as such the littler things like tying his shoes blinded are much easier to him.

If children of any race are a mostly-blank slate, it would make sense that human babies and recently-hatched Illithid larvae (assuming the latter is truly sentient) would have the closest mental states, that would only become increasingly more divergent as their lives progressed.

Because of this, the younger the child is, the easier it'd be for a mind flayer to understand. Just like for human adventurers, who can clearly and plainly understand the Illithid larvae's seemingly mindless drive to feed.

>>17477124

>>17477124
>Skull looking up her skirt
lol

>>17477124

>picture of mind flayer hooker
>insightful commentary
>notsureiftroll.jpg

>>17477260
It was a bad picture choice.

The only mindflayer pics I have on my computer are shit like this, for some reason.

>>17477282
...that's amazing


So extrapolating on this, do Mind Flayers have the ability to pick up on subtext and shit in literary works as well as art? What about stuff like pottery?

And why did they develop this kind of weird-as-fuck ability and language if they're all telepathic and all speak Undercommon? Code makes no sense, what Mind Flayer would think he'd get stolen from; illithids are all super-fucking-arrogant, right?

>>17477287
It's cool, Illithid tits turn me on a hell of a lot too.

Fuck it, might as well ask.

Where do illithid tadpoles come from exactly? Do they vomit them out or is there a cloaca? This might be important because a player has declared an interest in shoving his (spiked) mace into the "tadhole" of an illithid that ate his friend.

>>17477287
I think we all know the reason.

>>17477124
......clap...clap...clap clap clap clapclapclap

does this mean they communicate through art too? i know about the telepathic thing, but what if they send art to each other in the same way that humans send a letter rather than calling?

time for some romantic mind flayer writefaggotry.

>>17477348

>>17477124
>>17477287
Any more pictures of mindflayers with tits?

>>17477081

>Mind Flayer/Beholder hipster wars

Thank you, new game story hook.

>>17477292
>do Mind Flayers have the ability to pick up on subtext and shit in literary works as well as art

You know how their art looks crazy and wrong to human adventurers? Our art likely looks profane or plebeian to their eyes. We paint only with what we can see; to them, that's ignoring some of the most important senses, and is downright ignorant. Literature might have more merit because of the mind's eye, but it'd still lack that inherent psychic residue so much of their artifice gives off, and therefore look childish or incomplete to them. The same for pottery, having a tactile element.

>And why did they develop this kind of weird-as-fuck ability and language if they're all telepathic and all speak Undercommon

I would imagine that stock-standard telepathy and knowledge of undercommon really only came about after the whole empathic communication thing. If I had to guess, I would put forward that telepathy and undercommon were either the result of studying the lesser races and attempting to mindsculpt them more efficently, like how a smith uses tongs and a hammer to beat iron in addition to the raw power of the forge, or that they learned undercommon out of sheer necessity of trading with the other denizens of the underdark. I'd put money on the first one, though.

>>17477348
>does this mean they communicate through art too

When's the last time a human adventurer saw something mindflayers made and got this horrible, prickling sensation on their brain that they felt was completely wrong? That's almost every single time a human sees things that a mindflayer makes. I would posit that this is because of the human mind trying to interpret something it simply doesn't have a sense for.

So, to answer your question, yes. To extrapolate, what must a mindflayer nautilus be like to one of them, then? It would be a concert of artifice and psychic resonance conducted by an elder brain, seeing them safely through the cosmos.

>>17477292
They actively meddle in surface politics, not for fun or evil's sake, but to make sure their future empire doesn't collapse because of stupid bullshit. The fact that they even acknowledge that they're capable of stupid bullshit proves that they aren't arrogant (at least not to a fault). As for having a written system that most people can't read? Why WOULDN'T they want something like that? Elder brains can and do die to the githzerai/githyanki/adventurers so they aren't reliable forms of information storage, nor are they easily hidden or passed on to future illithids. And qualith acting as code is just a side benefit of being a telepathic race, I doubt they even knew undercommon before they time traveled.

>>17477436
Next campaign, we play hide-the-elder-brain. All Illithid campaign?

>>17477306
From Illithid Biology on Wikipedia (seriously):

>Illithids are hermaphroditic creatures who each spawn a mass of larvae twice in their life. The larvae resemble miniature illithid heads or four-tentacled tadpoles. Larvae are left to develop in the pool of the Elder Brain. The ones that survive after 10 years are inserted into the brain of a sapient creature. Hosts are determined in a very specific manner. Hosts generally are humanoid creatures that are between 5 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 2 inches. The most desirable of races for hosts are Human, Drow, Elves, Githzerai, Githyanki, Grimlock, Gnoll, Goblinoid, and Orc. Upon being implanted, the larva then grows and consumes the host's brain, absorbing the host's physical form entirely and becoming sapient itself, a mature (but still young) Illithid. This process is called ceremorphosis. Illithids often experiment with non-humanoid hosts, but ceremorphosis involving other creatures usually fails, killing both host and larva.

>>17477461
I know that part, I'm asking *where* they come from. As in which hole.

>>17477461
you left out that part where the elder brain munches on the larvae

Actually this is fairly accurate. Mindflayers are a hermaphroditic and spawn a batch of eggs that hatch into tadpoles on occasion, usually three or four times during their lives unless caused to do so more or less often by the elder brain.

As a result, sexualization is utterly absent in their art. There isn't any purpose or drive in them for it, and they do not gain any sort of pleasure from what another being might term 'sensual' or 'erotic'.

The same for beholders, actually, which makes it even more likely that their art - derived from senses that humans are essentially crippled in - actually makes more sense to each other than it does to anyone else. While the illithidae cannot perceive the physical properties or scales of the beholder sculpture or painting, they can percieve the intensity of the beholder's passions and mad desire to create within it. Likewise, being creatures of higher intellect and no small amount of insanity, and perceiving things with eyes designed to emit as well as absorb radiations beyond the scale of most mortal beings, see things in mind flayer art that normal creatures can't even imagine.

>>17477348
>implying people don't reply with art
>>17477367

What about other race art styles? Like Gnolls and Yuan-Ti? What about Githzerai and Githyanki, for that matter?

This shit is getting epic.

>>17476855
>Does this mean a Mind Flayer can be confused by a little kid's scribbles?

In the manner that an adult human can, yes.

Children don't use four-pronged styluses that use psychic energy to make marks on a paper in straight lines.

>>17477081
>implying a beholder would even bother to talk to a normalfag
>IMPLYING THEY'RE NOT ALL PLOTTING AGAINST ME ANYWAYS

GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY ART COLLECTION

>>17477619
Actually, there is a thread in the archives about various other species art styles. Nagas create landscapes in small scale using their bodies, grimlocks and morlocks use a metal stylus to make etchings on skullbones like scrimshaw. Gnolls don't have their own art forms, per se - they collect slaves who do create art and use them as bartering materials to other gnolls ("I'll have my weaver make your dancer a set of silks if you let me borrow the talents of your letherworker.")

>>17477619
I imagine it looks something like this.

>>17477715

Clearly that is a Githzerai work, you philistine.

Look at how he's kicking, he's obviously a monk.

>>17477729
Nonsense, you uncultured swine. Githzerai are taller than that.

>>17477715
I call foul

It's clearly a Mind Flayer propaganda piece. Look at how elegant those squiggles are.

Oh shit

IDEA FOR A VILLAIN:

Mind Flayer version of Grand Admiral Thrawn

Conquers nations and knows their strategies inside-out by kidnapping their most famous artists and musicians and forcing them to paint/play for him

Lair like a museum but full of glass cages for these overworked artists, some of them dead in the cages from pure stress

This thread makes me so happy.

>Mind flayers understand and can speak Undercommon, when verbal communication is necessary.

How do they do this and what does it sound like? They don't have a mouth or even a jaw, they have a lamprey-like hole.

>>17477871
I like to pretend they burble.

>>17477715

This is the most beautiful piece of art I have ever laid my tentacles on! The elegance, the hidden layers of meaning, it brings tears to my eyes!

>>17477871
Well, they'd still have vocal chords, given that they metamorphized from humanoid species, even though they have no lower jaws. I imagine it'd sound a bit like a guy who lost his lower jaw to cancer trying to talk: wet, slurred, and unpleasant.

So would the Adversary be a dyslexic mind flayer, since his mind is still that of the host and not the mind flayer itself?

>Adversary

Wait. So, the idea of a lone virtuous mindflayer is actually more believable than the lone virtuous drow?

>>17477982
Anything is believable. Few things are plausible.

>>17477982

No, it's not really a mind flayer, it's a person who had TOO MUCH HIGH WILLPOWER MAN to be consumed by the tadpole.

An actual Mind Flayer is still evil as fuck, it's just there's one legendary dude in the world who will win the contest of wills and keep his NEWLY AWESOMEIZED body

>mfw it's some random fucking peasant nobody cares about instead of a PC

>>17478005
There was a strange mix of herbs involved, as well. So he had a little help from regular ol' nonmagical herbalism.

>>17478005
>Wakeman, an enterprising trader and scholar of Underdark exotica, allowed himself to be captured by the illithids on one of his expeditions. Through the use of a non-magical mixture of various herbs that Wakeman named laethen, he was able to preserve his consciousness through ceremorphosis, and learned to use his psionic powers to keep from having to consume brains. Thus he worked against the illithid plots from within. The legend of the Adversary was born from his frequent sabotage, though the actual acts were never connected to him. The players' characters in the adventure become his agents in stopping the illithids' plans, as his own movements rely upon secrecy from his "fellow" illithids.

>For another person to imitate Wakeman's deed would require at least one dose of laethen (the making of which Wakeman kept secret) and to be put under ceremorphosis within a week of consumption. The drug only has a 40% chance of success, and the new illithid must also never consume a brain, for the act destroys the host's personality and replaces it with the illithid personality.

>>17477686
Give! Giiive!

>>17477982
The adversary isn't "truly" an illithid, he used a potion to give himself a 40% chance to retain his mind, and if he ever ate a brain the illithid tadpole's consciousness he kept suppressed would kill him and take over. It's a human wearing a VERY elaborate disguise, not a purple Drizzt.

>>17478033
>the new illithid must also never consume a brain

I'm curious about this part, would it apply to someone attending a performance eating? It's the psionic part of the brain that's important after all, not the nutrients.

>>17478116
>>17478033

How would he not starve, though; Rings of Sustenance couldn't possibly sustain a Mind Flayer's need for psionic power, and you can't exactly sip from a brain

.../can you/?

>mfw Mind Flayers drinking Brain out of a wine glass

>>17478145
Apparently he survived on ambient psionic energy, like one of those "psi vampires". How he managed to survive in an illithid community without ever being seen eating a brain is beyond me. Just imagine the peer pressure, it'd be like turning down alcohol at a kegger.

>>17478199
CMON BRO, JUST TAKE A BITE ALREADY

>>17478199
I would imagine that he would only "eat" privately, and that he would still kill the slave, crack their head open, and chuck out the brain. After all, a person without any food packaging or fruit peels in their trash is mighty-suspicious.

>>17478220
What if he used an incinerator, and made it real big and threw stuff into it regularly enough to make it look like he was burning things?

Illithid are probably not expecting psionic illusions from their own kind. Sure the adversary is some sort of Illithid boogeyman to them but their scholars believe that it is physically impossible for a host mind to survive ceremorphosis, Wakeman must have been brilliant. Speaking of which, he's probably been perceived "eating brains" numerous times and nobody stops to question whether it was an illusion or not.

Also, if I were in charge of the fluff I would say that he uses his psychic power to "digest" other sources of nutrients into something that can sustain his Illithid body and gets the rest of his stamina from drawing on ambient background psionic waves.

>>17478250
"... But when the other people in the village checked Bob's waste incinerator, all they found were the charred remains of ILLITHID SKULLS!"
*children gasping*

Many other creatures are said to be able to survive off of the psychic energy around them.

Maybe Wakeman found a way to just drain the energy from a brain instead of merely eating it?

>Yeah I'm on the brain drain diet. I don't eat the brains like some savage but squeeze the psychic energy out and drink it. With my mind.

So what did his potion do exactly? Did it suppress the personality of the tadpole and rewire the brain to draw from his memories instead? Making him a Human brain inside the body of a sleeping Illithid? Like some sort of slimy flesh-suit?

Or did it perhaps separate his "soul/mind" from his "brain" temporarily and once the ceremorphosis was complete it wore off and superimposed it back over his Illithid body, kind of like a non-magical version of the supernatural soulforce that animates a Lich corpse? Making him an Illithid possessed by a Human?

Man, how did this guy do something like becoming an Illithid without MAGIC?

>>17478206
Okay man I'll eaOH SHIT BRO I forgot my striator in the thrall pens, I'll eat it on the way there...

Also I can't help but think the illithid's telepathic conversations are in greentext.

>walk into brainstop
>the cashier is a drow
>she cracks her whip at me
>grey matter falls out of my pockets
>she starts accusing me of stalking her four centuries before she was born
>the cashier is a beholder with polymorph eyebeams
>burst into treats
FUCKING BRAINSTOP

>>17478333

Apperantly with herbs, luck and willpower.

>>17478337

It was hotter when it was a drow.

>>17478337
>illithid telepathy is psychic greentext

CANON

>>17478337
>FUCKING BRAINSTOP

>>17478264
Wakeman didn't have to deal with the illithid's paranoia of the adversary at first, because he's the CAUSE of it. Fun fact: residual habits (like tapping your foot or humming) from the host body are relatively common among the illithids, they just go to great lengths to hide these habits because they're scared shitless of being lynched thanks to the adversary "myth".

>>17478337
>burst into treats
>literally
took me a moment to get. Well played sir.

A letter to a mind flayer from his greatest foe, a Paladin sworn to slay their kind.

"It has come to pass that I must rely on uncouth means in order to assassinate you. I sent this letter knowing that you would read it, but made sure that you were not close enough to read my mind and find out that these four qualith lines have been written using a concentrated, odorless poison. The first lethal dose is at 'uncouth'. I am willing to accept my punishment for using poisons against you, but I feel your end is more important than my title."

>>17478337

I always thought it would be similar, but always in fours. The average illithid can fully focus on four thoughts at once, in addition to the background brain chatter we have.

>Four drow slavers before me, lightly armed save for their orc guards.
>Maaz'dull is next to me, his hungry thoughts is radiating, making me hungrier. He still owes me several scrolls he borrowed.
>Should it turn hostile, mind control the body guards to attack the slavers, non fatally to allow us to eat their brains.
>My Duegar slave is getting sick, should make a good male tonight. Inquire drow about duegars.

>>17478458
>Well fucking played

I remember a book in 2e that said that undead are functionally invisible to the Illithids. No body heat, and no mental emanations. The Illithiad, I think the book was called. Mind flayers used to crap themselves and panic at even a hint of necromancy in an area. Especially since a Wight, Shadow, of Vampire in the slave pens can infect the whole stock and turn formerly obedient thralls into invisible killing machines.

>You're now imagining an entire campaign based on vampire githzerai trying desperately to infiltrate mind flayer communities to topple them.

>>17478337
I need to screencap this but I forgot how.

>>17478503
Printscreen button on the keyboard, paste into paint, crop as needed, save.

>>17478491
>Alhoon
>Alhoons (also called illithiliches) are illithids that have grown powerful enough in magic to become liches. Alhoons are generally pariahs in illithid society because they go against most illithids' eventual goal; to merge with the Elder Brain, both physically and psionically. Alhoons, on the other hand, are more concerned with their own personal survival. When discovered near illithid communities Alhoons are mercilessly hunted down

In theory, couldn't the writing instruments of the illithid plus a bit of artificy or steampunk involving a very long roll of paper be used to make a machine that can record dreams and make them visual?

>Illithid

>Not being a Ulitharid

>Have two extra tentacles

>Twice as long as the others

>Superior in everyway

>Second only to the elder brain

>>17478491
Oh fuck yes.

>>17478491
They're only "invisible" to the elder brain, and from behind walls. Their eyes can perceive them, and they can smash them to redeath with their tentacles, it's just that undead are immune to their primary form of attack, and their brains can't be eaten. It's an unsettling fear, but not crippling.

>>17478546
>Alhoons are generally pariahs in illithid society
Say no more.

>>17478564
What if Illithids paint and write with, like, utensils made of bone and flesh?

Maybe they wrap parts of the nervous systems around a bone and use that to pen their qualith, and in doing so can channel their emotions and desires into whatever it is they're writing?

...shit, what if ALL illithid furniture is made out of people?

>Illithid wakes up to get coffee
>walks over to a dude pinned on the wall with a coffee machine where his heart used to be
>slices open his arm and gets himself a steaming cuppa
>PERSON IS STILL ALIVE WTF

Now that's some adventurer wtfery right there. Players expecting to find treasure find horrible tortures instead.

>>17478337

>>17478546
>>17478576
So what happens when an Ulitharid becomes an Alhoon? Ulithahoon or Alitharid?

>>17478626
Pretty sure it's still an Alhoon.

>>17478643
>>17478626
Ulitharoon sounds better.

>>17478598
>implying I don't loot the coffeemachine

my paladin has been looking for a good coffee machine for THREE HELLISH PLAINS so far, and this is the first one he's found that can actually put out a good one. hell YES he is taking it.

and no, it's not a "sin" or "falling", this guy is obviously getting relocated to a MUCH better kitchen.

>>17478626
I don't think the universe can take that much arrogance in one being.

>>17478626
Yuufuxzdup

An ancient Mind Flayer word that means "fallen Ulitharid".

Actually I think it'd be Ulihoon for smoothness's sake. Or maybe UltrALhoon.

>>17478598
That seems a little too barbaric for the illithids. They might make something like that as way to break their thralls, but for furniture? Here's the stats for the qualith "pen", it's just a magic/psionic item, not a bundle of nerves.

>>17478668
So an Ulitharid becomes an Alhoon and decides to join the navy. He now thinks himself unstoppable, and rewrites all history books in order to tell better of his greatness. His friends think he has become too arrogant and blames his friend who gave him the idea, and who is famous for his protection spells.

>>17478697
I am disappointed, both by the idea that an Illithid wouldn't just make people into furniture for shits and giggles, and by how...dull...that magic item description is.

It's not BARBARIC to make people into furniture!

It's recycling!

>>17478720
Hipsters fucking love recycling

>>17478720
>"My home is a hybrid now"

>Yuufuxzdup

>You fucked up.

I see what you did there.

>4Chan
>Qualith is written in four lines which make no sense unless read together
>4Chan threads often make no sense without context, and even then are quite mad
>Both tend to have absurd amounts of emotion poured into their writing; whether 4Chan has such in a metaphysical manner is yet to be seen...
I think we need a new board. /q/, for Qualithchan.

>>17478697
Cripes, they need 1500 gp JUST TO WRITE IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE?! They are hipsters. "I used to write in common, but I couldn't make the lines expressive enough so I now use this to make the lines flare and swirl with my thoughts."

>>17477410
>I would posit that this is because of the human mind trying to interpret something it simply doesn't have a sense for.

You know, this kind of thing never made sense to me. Nuclear radiation is something humans cannot sense either; the most you'll feel is a slight iron taste from the iron atoms ionizing in your tounge. But it doesnt mindfuck you or feel wrong to you. here's been a case of a few children playing with an abandoned X-Ray or radiation treatment machine on a junkyard and carrying the naturally fluorescent material back home. It ended up killing a bunch of people and making another bunch of people sick, but nobody ever felt something 'wrong' until it was too late. We cannot see ultraviolet rays or infrared rays either, those are an everyday part of the natural light spectrum.

What I'm trying to say is: if you don't have the faculties to understand or sense something it should just fly past you, literally 'go over your head', not mess you up.

>>17478866
Imagine this:

Radiation.

With magic.

From BEYOND REALITY.

>>17478866

>>17478805
Do mind flayers have the psychic equivilant of Twitter

What about Facebook

>>17478827
They can probably make the lines with a quill&ink, their claws, or even their skull-dissolving enzymes if they wanted to, the striator is just easymode. Like how we use a keyboard instead of drawing our letters in paint.

=======
~~~~~~~~
|\|\|\/|/|

Pah! I for one care not for this modern illithid hipster hogwash, for I am very clearly human!

>>17478994
Man.

Never thought of it that way. You just blew my mind with that.

>>17478994
Deep.

As.

Fuck.

>>17478994
>enjoying Dracolich Era 2
>enjoying anything made by Fleshware after they were bought by the Ethergaunt Association

__ II ///
~~~~~

>>17479032
-------~
----------------------
--------------
`\______|

>2012
>using verbal communication
>ISHYGDDT

>>17479066
>>17479081

Okay so

Back on topic before we just devolve into hilarious but misleading squiggle jokes

How DO mind flayers in other communities, well, communicate with each other? Letters seems too mundane for our hipster psychics here.

>>17479181
Mental greentext.
Pay attention.

>>17479066
>not enjoying Spell Wars: The Old Mindrapublic
>hating fun

^v^v^v^v^v===

;;;::;------------

\/\/\______/V

<>[]----=+~~

>>17479186

No, I mean

Mind Flayer telepathy only carries a certain range before it stops

How do two groups like cross-planet or cross-planar communicate with each other? Like, what /items/ do they use, not how it looks

>>17479202
Hmm, maybe they have devices that allow them to communicate intra- and inter- planally?

Dunno, other than magic.

>>17479202
I'd imagine something like small crystals that carry mental imprints, what with mind flayers being psionic and D&D psionics=CRYSTALS EVERYWHERE

>>17479202
they astral project

in one of the first books about Drizzt, a number of them are doing that and he cuts their silver cords like an asshole

Wasn't intercommunity messaging handled entirely by elder brains in their mysterious ways with normal mindflayers not doing that shit short of walking there and having a chat?

>4317
>still using magical stylus instead of a psy-sensitive computer
___ _ _______ _
__ _ ____ __ ___ __
_ _____________ _
_________ ____ ___

>>17479181
The elder brains can do long distance communication between each other, so it would be more or less EXACTLY like the extranet in mass effect. Any illithid can access it for knowledge or to communicate, but it might have to wait awhile if it wasn't important. A warning of a gith attack would have precedence over a search for brain seasoning for example.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Extranet#Communications

>>17479287
>PLEASE HOLD. CONNECTING TO ELDER BRAIN SYSTEM FORSHEK'NIGURA TO CONTACT YOUR RELATIVE FHAGRASHA
>*dial-up screech*

Elder Brains are computer servers.

OH SHIT

IS THIS COMPATIBLE WITH NECROPUTER?!

>>17479324
If it isn't, we'll make it viable.

>>17479324
Nope, illithid psionics don't work right with undead, remember? Alhoons and illithid pariahs would probably use it to swap gith porn without the elder brains knowing, like a nercomantic TOR browser.

.. / .-- --- -. -.. . .-. / .-- .... .- - / - .... . / -- .. -. -.. / ..-. .-.. .- -.-- . .-. ... / .-- --- ..- .-.. -.. / - .... .. -. -.- / .- -... --- ..- - / - .... .. ... / -- . - .... --- -.. / --- ..-. / -.-. --- -- -- ..- -. .. -.-. .- - .. --- -. .-.-.- / .. - / --- -... ...- .. --- ..- ... .-.. -.-- / .... .- ... / . -. --- ..- --. .... / .-.. .. -. . ... .-.-.-

>>17479360
>ILLITHID FASHAKA! WHY DO I HAVE NUDE THRI-KREENS PASSING THROUGH MY SYNAPSES
>I do not know what you mean, Elder Brain. Are you sure it's not... Umm... Okay, I'm lost.
>YOUR BRAIN IS NOW PART OF THE COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE. ENJOY YOUR ETERNITY AS A SINGULAR BEING.

>>17479324
Psionics and undead aren't compatible - you have to manually convert it first. That's what fucking happens when you have two different industry standards, though. The illithids should get with the program and just convert to the much more popular necromputers, though. Fucking hipsters.

>>17479324
>>17479335
>>17479360
>illithids are hipsters
>they use MAC/psionics
>necromancers have computers
>they use necrocomputer

does this mean necromancers are windows?

>>17479404
Which makes Bill Gates some kind of Archlich. I suspected as much.

>>17479324
Necrocomputer >fag-ass elder brainputer.
bring it on fanboy!

>>17479413
Whathassciencedone.jpg

>>17478720
>>17478771
>>17478598
Shit, now I have a mental image of Mind Flayers as using Vicissitude from V:TM. Everything is flesh-based. IIRC in Planescape Torment when you read the history of the Gith, it even says 'the illithid only understand flesh'

>>17479413
Does that mean the Apple board of directors are Elder Brains?

Wait a second.

>hipsters that pretend to not be hipsters
>introverted
>incapable of feeling positive emotions
>communicate almost exclusively through mental forums

Jesus Christ, they really are us in the future.

>>17479434
>>17479420
>>17479413
What about Linux?

>>17479434
What is Steve Jobs then?

Hey fagisits, Lich here, i'm better than you on everything you do.
fuck you.
I'm going to play some games and conquest some countries.
You know? all of them.

>>17479456
What ABOUT Linux?

>>17479456
Wasn't there a thread that discussed wizards making an internet-equivalent on the plane of dreams? That could work.

>>17479464
>ENJOY YOUR EXORCISM.EXE'S HOMOSEXUAL ENTITY OF UNDEAD ORIGIN WHO MAY POSSIBLY BE OBESE

So much win in this thread.

Liches use Portals OS run on necromputers, devices made of mindless undead used as logic gates kept on faster-time pocket planes accessed via micro-portals connected to I/O devices. Illithids use Brain OS, an OS named for a food, run on sleek but expensive elder brains. Dwarves and gnomes sit in dark basements building clockwork difference engines powered by magic which are only loosely connected by virtue of being based on similar principles.

Windows, Apple, and Linux.

>Rotting fromosi
No, captcha, the pocket plane has Gentle Repose cast on the entire plane.

>>17479502
The mental image of an obese lich you just sent made me realize something. For a period after becoming a lich, if the wizard was obese before, the fat will stay there until the nearly halted progress of decay gets rid of it. Stuck as a fatty with no way of burning it off besides carving yourself up. Quite a state.

Yech! It smells like Illithid in here.

We're raiding your underwear dimension next tuesday, hope you're prepared.

>FROM THE MAKES OF THE ctHBRAIN 3.0, WE NOW ANNOUNCE.... THE cthBRAIN 4.0! NOW WITH THOUGHT ACTIVATED SCRY-VISION, ALLOWING YOU TO SEE YOUR COLLECTIVE WILL RELATIVE OVER HALF A PSIONIC RADIUS AWAY! BUY NOW*

>*Warning: The CthBRAIN system requires a GobT&T Fieldworking plan in order to be used. This can not be used with the Gnomesingular or EventHorizon telepathy plans. ALL HAIL THE ELDER BRAIN.

>>17479464
>implying you're the only one capable of necromancy
>implying we didn't orchestrate multiple zombie invasions across the kingdoms you intend to conquer
>implying they didn't train an army of paladins in response to this, which will wipe out your minions
>implying their high priest isn't going to cast "spark of life" on you when we tell him too
>implying we aren't going to rip the location of your phylactery from your then-vulnerable mind

Enjoy your puppets, you glorified puppet.

>>17479502
Enjoy your brain AIDS YOU FAG!
lololololol

>>17479593
Does spark of life return an undead to life for a time or just remove the immunities? Because I can scarcely think of a more apetizing brain than a liches if it were edible.

>>17479593
We're all puppets. Tee hee hee.

>>17479593
>Implying you didn't make that up right now while you feing you where an edgy and kewl autor on stardrows.
>Implying i'm not getting raiding your elder brain right now with mental-AIDS

>>17479671

You can't be a Lich,
those are
smart and can
into grammar.

>>17479638
It doesn't specify, but if it did it would be risk, a lich's mind would be delicious indeed, to the point you might try to savor it. The duration is short enough that the brain might desiccate or even cease to exist while being eaten.

>>17479638
>>17479720

I wonder if Mind Flayers who learned Necromancy did it explicitly for some kind of Fake Life spell so they could each liches

EXTRAPOLATION

Can Alhoons and Ultrahoons eat Lich Brains?

>>17479671
>>17479606
Are you festering cadavers suggesting that the clerics of Ilsensine can't cure you minor migraine of an alliction? Also Ilsensine is described as a tree whose branches reach all minds and knowledge. Is Ilsensine the Illithid internet?

>>17479918
It's just a 7th level cleric/druid spell, so I'd assume the high level clerics of Illsensine would keep it handy, and maybe even create and distribute magic items capable of casting it across the various illithid settlements.

>>17479918
This also extends to other undead. Considering many of them have been alive for a great deal of time they likely have rich memories and knowledge of ancient cultures. A necromancer illithid and a cleric of Ilsensine wander into a nercopolis, animate and then consume the greatest minds of a civilization.

>>17480066

> A necromancer illithid and a cleric of Ilsensine wander into a nercopolis...

That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke

>>17479918
Mind flayers learn necromancy and become alhoons because they want to use good computers.

>A necromancer illithid and a cleric of Ilsensine wander into a nercopolis

And then the gith had paladins.

>>17479936

pretty sure the problem with eating undead brains has less to do with them being rotten food, and more about getting the thoughts and memories of something that's passed beyond the mortal coil one too many times jammed straight into your mental asshole.

>eat a liche's brain
urgh...
>hey wanna know what lies beyond the veil
no
>see, there are these old ones and
shut up
>...and they kind of do this thing where the entirety of existence is a cacophonous dirge played for a blind idiot god
SHUT UP
>...whose maddened fever dreams form the basic building blocks of reality, and
FFFUCKING SHUT UP
>...eternal torment of the unknowable, but it's kind of-
SHUT THE FUCK UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
>......nothing but pawns in a game played ironically by unseen masters of form and thought, and
SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP
>...even if you rebuild your empire they will find you, because
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH
>...no escape...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
>...kind of funny, if you think about it for a second, and
UUUUUWWAAAOOOOOOAAAAGGGHHHHDON'T NEED EYES WHERE I'M GOINGOOOOOOSSHHHHITTT SON

Archived.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17476855/

>>17480265
That kind of crazy knowledge is the territory of alientists and demiliches, not "regular" liches. The worst "backlash" they'd get is hundreds of years worth of fruitless arcane research, a crippling fear of death, and an urge to hide all of their small shiny objects in ridiculously complex ways.

Do demiliches and liches even HAVE brains anymore? I figured their minds were maintained by magic, and their squishy bits all rotted away.

>>17480348
IF IT THINKS

BY GOD

WE CAN EAT IIIIIIIIIIT

>>17480317

maybe the whole "don't eat undead brains" thing is elder brain propaganda, then. i mean, illithids want to live forever. they THINK they can achieve this by merging with the elder brain, but of course what actually happens is that the elder brain just eats them so IT can live forever. i would think that if an illithid chowed down on a liche's brain, it would learn about alternate methods of immortality, such as lichedom, which would also explain why alhoons are so stigmatized - they're basically walking, talking proof that the elder brain is full of shit about it being the only option available. if this occurred and illithids stopped merging with the elder brain, it would lose its power base.

maybe illithids can eat all the undead brains they want, but they don't because the elder brains convinced them all that it would be bad.

>>17480348
Depends on the lich, most are skeletons, but a few just look like very dessicated corpses. Those might have shriveled up brains that go back to being juicy once you cast spark of life on them. The skeletal ones hinge on the idea that it can restore organs.

>>17480405
That... sounds about par for course for elder brains, actually.

>>17480411
What if the dessicated ones are crunchy and delicious?

>>17480459
>>17480405

That's fucking GENIUS

I wonder if any Alhoons realized this. It's a pretty big, stupid hole for a bunch of super-geniuses, not to realize your afterlife is being eaten by a thing smarter than you.

>>17480405
They don't eat undead brains for the same reason we don't eat rotted meat infused with elemental entropy, shit just aint healthy. The illithids as a whole see joining the EB as an afterlife. Becoming an alhoon is the equivalent to spitting in the pope's face and saying heaven sucks. During a perpetual inquisition. The brains don't really see the existence of alhoons as a threat to their rule, but they're probably scared shitless of the prospect of being revealed as monsters that eat the brains of their minions. Which is something an alhoon might do for fun.

maybe undead brains give them the shits because theyre all rotty

>>17478491
>>17478546
>>17478582
>>17478643
>>17479392
>>17479918
>>17480510
>>17480512
1st/2ed Mind Flayers were terrified of undead, the stock ones from the Monster Manual actually didn't have any ability to even harm them at all. Anything tougher than a zombie/skeleton would make them abandon their slaves to slow it down so they could run like hell.

You know, I've been wondering something about the elder brains. During whatever cataclysm that forced the mind flayers to travel back in time, they sacrificed a LOT of elder brains to power the spell.

>illithids
>sacrificing elder brains

This just doesn't seem like them, even in such a desperate situation. I'm thinking the elder brains were nothing more than a sort of AI created by the illithids during their reign, to catalog information and help pilot the nautiloids, but after the psionic storm caused by the time travel spell they gained sentience (if they didn't already have it) and seized power while the illithids were little more than refugees.

>>17480510

hmm...i am intrigued by your religious metaphor for illithid society. it WOULD explain how they were able to construct an empire that spanned most of the universe, AND provide credence to that nagging rumor that their origins were human. humans fukken LOVE that religious shit, and some sort of knowledge-worshipping psychic cult seems right up their alley.

also it works as an in-joke that in the D&D universe, psionic humans eventually spread like a plague across the universe, erecting an invincible star empire whose only weakness was indescribable levels of hubris, and whose only means of salvation was...time travel.

huh.

>>17480728
Woah, now THERE is an interesting campaign idea. The illithids realize that humans are their descendants, and start actively teaching them the art of psionics to spur along their evolution into illithids. Not an evil scheme, but a genuinely benign attempt to uplift them. It'd be fun to see how PCs react to this, especially the human ones.

>>17480791
>descendants
Hrm, meant to say ancestors, but then again if the illithids are the ones who caused them to evolve...fucking time travel.

>>17480791

If Illithids already time-travelled back with no apparent consequences my guess is that they are here to stay, and no longer require the events that lead up to their future.

That means canon D&D is probably a "river" pattern, where the Illithid future is just one of many possible ones, and them going back just invalidates it happening in this stream without invalidating themselves. This means that, potentially speaking, the Illithids could destroy this world entirely, and nothing would happen.

If it wasn't the case, they'd've noticed, I'm sure, and their fucking about with Gith would've had bigger timey-wimey consequences. So if the sequence of events has already happened/will happen/can happen/does not need to happen

Do the illithids realize this?

>>17480955
They do, to an extent. They realize that their empire did, can, and likely will exist, but they also realize that it can fail. That's why they screw around with surface kingdoms, to learn everything possible about politics so they don't fuck it up.

>>17480791
Well, that would be their ancestors and not descendants. But the idea is cool, although it has already been used in a way in Doctor Who, in the end of season 3 of the new series, where the human race is brought back from the end of the universe through a time machine in order to serve the BBEG by killing their own ancestors. The BBEG had a "Paradox Engine" running so it wouldn't cause, well, a grandfather paradox, but this is something else entirely, since the mindflayer HAVE to NOT fuck up in order to have been created at all in the first place!

>>17481259
Mind flayers have been time travelers from a distant future since 2e. I liked the music from that scene, though.

>>17480955
It probably operates on a non-continual scale, in which time travel has no attending paradoxes whatsoever. Send tomorrows stock information to yourself yesterday? Sure, it arrives on your ipad, which you now have two of, and the laws of physics don't care, allowing an object to exist in multiple points of space at the same time.

>>17481259

Mind Flayers predate your grandfather paradox, and also we already said D&D operates under different rules because the mind flayers have been making paradoxes for basically the whole fucking time they've been here

>>17481786

So...is this where Mind Flayer tadpoles come from?

>>17478005

Book of Exalted Deeds has a Lawful Good Illithid Monk in it :v

>>17480955

Its important to note that although their time travelling didn't FUCK UP THE TIMESTREAM ZOMG, it did obliterate about 99% of the elder brains who catalyzed it.

>>17484953
Who is that way from magic.

Also the Adversary might be evil, it just fucking hates illithids. Much like the Githzerai are evil and fucking hate illithids.

>>17484953

how does that work?

iirc, according to Lords of Madness, illithids are literally, physically, mentally incapable of feeling anything "good" or otherwise altruistic. i don't recall the exact wording, but it was like, "the closest thing to happiness that they are capable of experiencing is the satisfaction of utterly conquering an enemy, which they experience most strongly right after eating someone's brain"

anyone got a screencap of this LG illithid monk? unfortunately, i only have the sinister-and-goateed Book of Vile Darkness in my possession, and not its clean-shaven mirror-universe doppelganger.

>>17485016

Wasn't magic. They were victims of a slave uprising and imprisoned and tortured by their former slaves. Then they were freed by an adventuring band and eventually adopted the creed of mercy and kindness that the adventures had show them.

>>17485087

BAM

>>17485117
>band of adventurers
>find imprisoned illithids
>set them free

isdisniggaserious.tiff

>>17485203
>female mind flayer

...what?

About the psionic undead brain : been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Take a lot of Brains-in-jars, shelf them near each other, mind-link yourself permanently to one you dominate forever, and voilà, you've got your eternal personal thought-assistant. Also, since they come from Libris Mortis, each of them has a cumulative 1% chance of upgrading by 1 HD every year. Fun Fact : the Arcane version of the Genesis spell allows for the creation of a personal demi-plane where you control the timeflow. Hoorray for overclocking!

>>17485254
>>17485239
>>17485203

>>17485254

I'm guessing they are meaning a gender, not a sex with that one.

Maybe being constantly raped by Duergar broke its mind and it formed a feminine personality?

>>17485254

Phenotypal female. Assuming Illithids can take on characteristics of their hosts, one can maintain a feminine figure but still be hermaphroditic.

>>17485203

I like how a simple group of retarded mind-blasted thoroughly dominated slave dwarfs apparently not only rose up, but had the physical strength and class levels to beat down an incredibly high-CR creature with a huge array of personal powers, /and/ somehow found a mystical artifact or psionic talent to suppress the Illithid's single most powerful weapon for a duration long enough to actually /make the illithid a slave/ in ironic punishment.

I actually find this less believable than "spared by adventurers", because there's always one group of retards who look at a dungeon crawl and go "HEY GUYS LET'S ALL TAKE PACIFIST FEATS".