Look at this coward needing a reason for violent conflict that isn't self-evident.

Quote from: This Guy on April 06, 2021, 03:08:11 PM
Look at this coward needing a reason for violent conflict that isn't self-evident.

Excuse me?

If you need a reason to justify violent conflict to yourself by making a race evil or whatever, you have a lack of appreciation for violent conflict.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on April 06, 2021, 02:32:08 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 06, 2021, 01:10:27 PM
How does that even work? Do they only eat the brains of Bad People?

I know that there's fluff that mindflayers prefer smart people, but do they have to eat sentient brains? Couldn't they just eat livestock brains to survive?

Depends on what fluff you're using. Lords of Madness specifies that the brains of sentient creatures with actual experiences are tastier and more nutritious to illithids than, say, brain-fried slaves or animals.

That doesn't even cover ceremorphosis, where the illithids insert a tadpole into a victim's head (via the mouth, nose, or ear canal). The tadpole crawls up into the person's brain and begins chowing down, destroying the victim's mind. Then the tadpole begins transforming the victim's body over the course of a week until presto, new illithid!

Illithids always use sentient creatures for ceremorphosis. Humans, elves (including drow), both flavors of gith (that must really piss the githyanki and githzerai off), grimlocks, gnolls, medium-sized goblinoids, and orcs are all ceremorphosis candidates. Other races are typically eaten or enslaved. The exception, of course, is the urophion, which is the illithid version of 'I got drunk last night and did what?' because it's the result of implanting a tadpole into a roper.

So yeah, illithids are bad news.

Yeah this is sounding more and more like tentacle vampires, especially re: brains/blood of people being more satisfying than animal brains/blood and the process of generating new illithids. Never read Lords of Madness, always wondered how they made more of them.

Pretty much. The illithid feeding requirements from Lords of Madness specify one fresh brain a month minimum, ideally one fresh brain a week. How illithids  sustain any population is beyond me, particularly as they live underground and hidden. They'd make more sense as solitary predators.

Yeah I could see making a small reform group out of this bunch, get an appropriately empathetic group to try and campaign to restructure some kingdom for Illithid Integration. Makings of a good black comedy scenario there. I'll just file that away for later.

Considering Mindflayers/Illithid were introduced as part of the Cthulhu mythos stuff back in the day, it should surprise no one that they are deeply unsettling and inimical to the rest of the D&D races.

Quote from: This Guy on April 06, 2021, 03:11:53 PM
If you need a reason to justify violent conflict to yourself by making a race evil or whatever, you have a lack of appreciation for violent conflict.

I enjoyed playing the Command & Conquer games. Those didn't have evil races.

Quote from: ScytheSong on April 06, 2021, 04:05:45 PM
Considering Mindflayers/Illithid were introduced as part of the Cthulhu mythos stuff back in the day, it should surprise no one that they are deeply unsettling and inimical to the rest of the D&D races.

I'm quite partial to the Phrenic Scourges. They're open game content.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 06, 2021, 04:08:21 PM

Quote from: This Guy on April 06, 2021, 03:11:53 PM
If you need a reason to justify violent conflict to yourself by making a race evil or whatever, you have a lack of appreciation for violent conflict.

I enjoyed playing the Command & Conquer games. Those didn't have evil races.

Very good, carry on then! I'm not familiar with these Phrenic Scourges, what's the summary?

Quote from: This Guy on April 06, 2021, 04:10:31 PM


Very good, carry on then! I'm not familiar with these Phrenic Scourges, what's the summary?

Considering both Mindflayer and Illithid were trademarked by TSR, and WotC has maintained that trademark, I think they were being cautiously euphemistic (Phrenic meaning "of or related to the skull").

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/phrenic-scourge/

Dreamscarred Press used them when they couldn't use mindflayers.

The same book with them also had substitutes for yuan-ti, umber hulks, beholders, etc.

I took a look at the phrenic scourges. Interesting design and they fit the 'horrid tentacle monster' mold better, with less idiocy in regards to their diet.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on April 06, 2021, 02:32:08 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 06, 2021, 01:10:27 PM
How does that even work? Do they only eat the brains of Bad People?

I know that there's fluff that mindflayers prefer smart people, but do they have to eat sentient brains? Couldn't they just eat livestock brains to survive?

One of the two was shown keeping a kobold around as food while with the group.
The other one saw? No clue. I guess it ate evil brains or subsisted on animals? Dont recall if was ever said. Been 2+ decades.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 06, 2021, 03:34:46 PM
Pretty much. The illithid feeding requirements from Lords of Madness specify one fresh brain a month minimum, ideally one fresh brain a week. How illithids  sustain any population is beyond me, particularly as they live underground and hidden. They'd make more sense as solitary predators.

2e's Illithiad goes into alot of detail about how the mind flayers pull all this off. They've had a lot of time to get very good at this too.