Illithid in Ravenloft

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Illithid in Ravenloft

Post by The_God_Brain »

Anyhoo....

Continuing our discussion from the other board, before it got, um...distracted....

Any thoughts on use of Illithid or dark psionic powers in general in the Land of Mists? I'd be interested to hear them!
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Post by ScS of the Fraternity »

Ideas for illithids, eh?

There's always the old idea that Bleutspur is in fact the Moon of Ravenloft.

The moon would be like any other domain, though its sky is actually pointed towards the rest of the demiplane - which apears to be a frothing ocean of mist broken by islands of land. The illithids may have adapted the spelljamming nautilus ships for travel between the Lands of Ravenloft and the moon, supported high above the plane in the ether. At the behest of the God Brain, the illithids are tentativly preparing to invade the plane below them.

The invasions begin with great caution - especially since the illithids have only a limited ammount of materials with which to make their ether-craft. The nautili saucers begin by scouting the land at night and interrogating individuals they catch at night. These specimines are questioned and returned, with their memories errased.

The God Brain is concerned that the humans of different domains may react differently to mental control, or carry diseases dangerous to illithids, or react adversly to cerebromorphisis - thus the illithid scouts disect humans and other animals to learn more about their future victims. As well, the illithids also implant human specimines with monitoring devices and mind-controlling implants - so as to use these specimine to observe.

Eventually, the illithids may decide that a given domain is weak enough to be conquered, rich enough to warrant the effort, and isolated enough that the conuest won't alert the rest of the demiplane to the illithid threat. In which case, the illthids prepare to launch the invasion. The begin to breed war machines, which function much like living exoskeletons - as well as preparing a series of weapon grafts - training elite squads of illithid warriors, and even breeding special warrior thralls.

The invasion itself is preceeded by an intensified scouting operation. As the hour draws near, the illithids sacrifice stealth for efficiency - the lights of illithid saucers are spotted often in the night - illithid agents spread chaos in society to reduce effective resistance - and the illithids and their unwitting slaves begin to build forts in hidden places and stockpile weapons.
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Post by The_God_Brain »

ScS of the Fraternity wrote:Ideas for illithids, eh?

There's always the old idea that Bleutspur is in fact the Moon of Ravenloft.
You know, thats a pretty good idea!

I actually had an idea once for a campaign in which the Core was being invaded by aliens. I never really thought of making them Illithid, though...I guess I thought that might be too powerful. But my idea was pretty similar to yours...the invaders begin cautiously. At first, they infiltrate several different domains with shapechanger/spies and collaborators. Then, they invade a weakened domain after a Darklord has been killed or invalidated. It was an opportunity for player in my group to play agents of Darklords working together, as in secret several of the Darklords would want to address this threat without arousing too much attention. Pretty neat, but making it work without changing the mood of Ravenloft would be tricky.
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Post by Jester of the FoS »

I've thought that the Illithids bore a slight resembalance to the War of the Worlds Martians so if I went with the Moon angle I'd bring in modified cylinders and tripods.
(This should really be considered for Wiccy's WotW QtR article, making the martians as bodiless Mind Flayers.)

Another idea I'd change is the use of slaves and how the Thanni are still (partially) enslaved by the Illithids. I'd make the surface more hospitable and occupied by several small camps and settlements of Thanni that have escaped or were freed along with several newcomers who have entered the land and become trapped. The land would be more like The Time Machine with the Illithids replacing the Morlocks as the subteranean creatures that feed on the surface dwellers.
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Post by ScS of the Fraternity »

Well, as for power there's no need to worry. If we assume that cerebromorphisis is more difficult for Ravenloft illithids, then the number of mind flayers becomes limited. In this situation, the illithids must preserve themselves, so they must rely on thrall warriors. The illithids themselves rarely appear - perhaps 1 on every ship or in ever base. The real fighting is done by engineered thrall warriors. Some may be humans who have been enhanced with illithid grafts, symbiots or certain templates. Others may be creatures similar to ogres, trolls or bugbears, altered to fit the illithid alien motif.

As for the Ravenloft theme, that's a hard one. The idea for an adventure would be to focus on the insidiousness of the invasion. The actual invasion may not happen for the PCs, but it is hinted at.

For example, the players start off at early levels investigating mysterious sightings of lights and the disapearance of several villagers. The PCs consult a diviner, though the seeress is of no good - she is too distracted by confusing nightmares - something about great giants striding across burning cornfields and massive tentacles reaching down from the blackened sky.

After a time, more of the missing villagers reapear, though most are deeply disturbed. Many complain of nightmares, while a few of them begin to exhibit a strange compulsion to read and study maps and books. PCs who exhibit too much interest are visited by the minions of a local lord - men who dess in black robes. These officials warn that the local noble will brook no more foolishness from the adventurers and that they will be banished from the area if they don't let the matter drop.

A short time latter, the seeress contacts the PCs and signals that she needs to speak with them - that she has seen a terrible vision that she can only discuss with them in person. When the PCs arrive, they find her murdered. Convieniently, the men in black robes appear shortly afterwards to charge the PCs with the murder.

Naturally, the PCs are caught in the preliminary buildup of the invasion. They might uncover the secret landing sites that will soon be the supply depots for the invaders. They will battle with the minions of the mind flayers and eventually uncover the terrible secret.
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Post by Wiccy of the Fraternity »

David of the Frat wrote:I've thought that the Illithids bore a slight resembalance to the War of the Worlds Martians so if I went with the Moon angle I'd bring in modified cylinders and tripods.
(This should really be considered for Wiccy's WotW QtR article, making the martians as bodiless Mind Flayers.)
You know, I really like that idea for the GE WotW article I'm working on. I won't have them bodiless though, just a different form of mindflayer-like creature. It also makes it easier to design the Martians themselves, they are being a nasty pain in the rear to get right, lol.
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Post by William Blackmoor »

I don't think that Bluetspur is on the moon. The proximity of the Shattered Passage - Mistway and the Black Spire/Song of obscene Hunger-Mistway seems to suggest that Bluetspur still lies south of Kartakas and Hazlan, but below the ground, part of Ravenlofts Underdark.
This theorie would better explain the Thaani, who could have escaped via tunnels. Maybe the Illithids did battle Hazlans El'Koth in the (false) past? :D
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Post by ScS of the Fraternity »

Well, if we were to use the mist ways to piece together Ravenloft as a 2 dimensional plane, then you are probably correct. However, the idea that Bleutspur is on the moon is just one idea made up by fans, an idea we don't expect to be backed up by game evidence.

I do like the idea of the illithids battling it out with the el koth. That could lead to an adventure plot for players - delving into the depths the ruins of an El Koth city to find an artifact that they used to fight off the illithids.
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Post by Gemathustra »

William Blackmoor wrote:I don't think that Bluetspur is on the moon. The proximity of the Shattered Passage - Mistway and the Black Spire/Song of obscene Hunger-Mistway seems to suggest that Bluetspur still lies south of Kartakas and Hazlan, but below the ground, part of Ravenlofts Underdark.
If that's so, then why does Bluespur have a surface, and a sky, albeit a sky without stars or other heavenly bodies.
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Post by William Blackmoor »

Maybe the "sky" is just the ceiling of a gigantic cave, that makes up the "surface" of Bluetspur. That would explain why there are no stars. Were Bluetspur on the moon, stars could be seen. The red glow on the "horizon" might be nothing more than glowing magma, radiation or glowing fungi.
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Post by Jester of the FoS »

Bluetspur has got to be one of the most impossible domains to do things with, especially as the basis for a long term campaign. So much simply revolves around scary inhuman monsters devoid of any synpathy or recognisable characteristics. Not very Ravenloft-y, no human soul or tragedy.

One idea would be to play up the necassity of humans in the ecosystem. Humans (and humanoids) are labourers with Illithids being the upper class that probably do little physical activity.
Humans are also the food (braaaains), the bringers of more knowledge (more braaaaains) as well as the means for tadpoles to become full mind flayers. Without humans there can be no future generations and the God Brain will just eat them all.

So, with the lack of readibly available grey matter you figure mind flayer society is in a bit of upheaval at the moment. The 'true' flayers try to maintain their aloofness and lack of labour while the younger insist that there might need to be a change in order. Slaves are becoming a premium so alternate methods might be needed. At the same time raiding parties and slavers are hunted and humans are bought in bulk from other lands. Those who wander in are given special attention.
But some alliances may need to be struck with less reputable humans in exchange for more slaves in greater numbers. Envoys might be sent through the mists to establish trade routes for human cargo. At the same time undead may be prized for their durability as slaves so magic and the dead might become part of twisted experiments. Necromantic Illithids... And there are always constructs so some investigate such matters.
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Post by ScS of the Fraternity »

Here's a tasty thought to snack on:

Illithids are usually occupied with cosmic schemes - such as the conquest of the Cosmos or the destruction of the Sun. However, in Ravenloft, there is no real goal for the illithids. The mind flayers have no real enemies in their domain (the dark ones are no threat), but instead must scavenge for every grey matter morsal.

So, what has changed about their society? This would be like a dark age for the mind flayers - one which the God Brain is in no position to fix. I imagine that the result is much like an message-board-junkie being cut off cold turkey (something we can all relate to).
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Post by Matthew L. Martin »

Here are some notes I put together a couple of days ago about the problem of illithids in Ravenloft and my halting steps towards correcting it.

Ravenloft has had a sizeable mind flayer population since the Black Box, and yet, while Bluetspur's been the subject of an adventure, it's never felt like a wholly comfortable fit. I think a lot of that is the genre baggage and assumptions that illithids carry, and those don't fit easily with the Gothic tone of the Dread Realms.

Gothic horror, while about many things, has at its roots the violation of moral and natural law--from _The Castle of Otranto_ to _Frankenstein_ to _Dracula_, it's about the foul and unnatural acts of its villains. The illithid, though, is a creature rooted in Lovecraftian horror, and that's a style where the horror is rooted in the utter meaningless of law, virtue, and reason. If Gothic horror is about moral and spiritual criminality, Lovecraftian horror is about moral and spiritual anarchy. The latter premise vitiates the horror of the former--if all goodness and rationality are illusory, what's so terrible about a murderer, a diabolist, or a vampire? And in a universe of Gothic horror, Lovecraftian creatures are generally out of place. While they can make an interesting change of page, often they're nothing more than repulsive but shallow bundles of tentacles and Madness checks.

However, I think a Lovecraftian worldview on the part of a character or monster is workable in a Gothic environment. For example, the 'mad scientist' archetype so beloved of old horror films would agree with Lovecraft's 'enlightened' sorts in the premise that morals are meaningless human constructs.

On that premise, about a year ago I came up with some ideas for reconstructing the illithids of Ravenloft. They've been on the back burner since then, and I've finally decided to throw out what I've got. The result winds up as an odd crossbreed between Gothic and Lovecraftian horror, but I think that's a good niche for them.

Most everything about the illithids in this concept is rooted in their philosophy of the universe. To the illithidae, all reality is simply the product of the mind, either alone or in aggregate. Psionics are the most obvious example of this. They believe that in producing their superior intellects, this iteration of reality has served its needs, and therefore, they intend to scrap it and replace it with something 'better'--something more congenial to them and their ambitions. They do so not only through physical changes, but through attempts to understand and break down the mortal mind and thus, in their view, weaken the underpinnings of the universe we know. Their hostility towards the sun lies not only due to its incompatibility with their physiology, but to its symbolism. The sun represents an ordered, clear, rational, benevolent universe--everything they abhor.

At the root of this is not only a megalomaniacal pride, but a cold and bitter envy. They are an ancient race, and long fallen from when they dominated countless realms. They blame the 'uncooperative structure of present existence' for this, and they intend to break it down and punish it before creating their new order. They also hate feeble mortal races, so feeble and undirected in the use of the mind, for holding reality up. They are cold and precise geniuses dedicated to the triumph of irrationality, lawful creatures pursuing careful plans to bring the world to chaos, and mental titans enslaved to an insane vision of the universe.

This grants a touch of irony to the Illithid God-Brain's curse. The God-Brain hungers to experience life, to know the triumphant joys and bittersweet sorrows of everyday mortality. Yet it drives its thralls onward in a futile, insane effort that, if it were somehow to succeed, would bring down everything on which those pleasures and pains depend, replacing it with a blank canvas on which nothing would be painted but its own unsatisfying dreams.

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Post by Bluebomber4evr »

William Blackmoor wrote:Maybe the "sky" is just the ceiling of a gigantic cave, that makes up the "surface" of Bluetspur. That would explain why there are no stars. Were Bluetspur on the moon, stars could be seen. The red glow on the "horizon" might be nothing more than glowing magma, radiation or glowing fungi.
That doesn't explain the frequent lightning storms described in "Thoughts of Darkness," so I think we can rule out Bluetspur being underground.

Besides, it was once part of the core, and its two mountains were part of the Balinoks. So the underground thing really makes no sense at all when you look at that.

I always envisioned Bluetspur as torn from some alien world (perhaps visitable via the Spelljammer setting).

As for the mind flayers' presence in Ravenloft being an ill fit, I would agree, but I beleive they were kept (whereas other ill-fitting races such as the drow were not) because TSR had published a Ravenloft adventure based around the Mind Flayers, and removing them from the setting would have invalidated it, thus driving down sales for the module.

I think Matthew L. Martin's theory is perhaps the best attempt at making the illithids fit Ravenloft that I have seen to date.
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Post by Jester of the FoS »

Something ScS said struck me. The Illithids have no real enemies in Ravenloft unlike the Realms where they are at war with half the Underdark or other settings where the githyanki and githzeria are both equally at war with the Flayers.
It would almost be peaceful without these packs of racial advasaries.

But, of course, Mind Flayers are individualitic and evil and probably do not work well together unless forced to or against a common foe. Placed into Ravenloft with a God-brain they do not always agree with that has commited horrible crimes and devoid of readily available food and labour probably puts a great deal of stress on the community. I can see a lot of factioning and friction.
Imagine those that side with magic and sorcery, who think these are the way. Another faction might be one that sides with the undead or other unpopular groups for the Flayers. A third might be those the strictly follow the path of the mind and psionics. There are those who wish to remain in their cavern home and those who wish to leave and seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Splintering sub-communities and plots within plots as everyone tries to scheme and betray everyone else to allow their own faction to gain the upper hand. Everyone seeks something that will give them the advantage.

Sitting in the middle of this is the God-brain, a vast repository of knowledge that simply cannot be satiated with not knowing everything. As Socrates said, the more I know the more I realize how little I know. It desires new experiances and knowledge that its useless physical body cannot provide and that the Mind Flayers are uninterested in seeking. It knows all these factions threaten itself but at the same time it has never experienced rebelion and all these splinter groups bring new ways of thinking and new philosophies that might lead to new information and ideas, too attractive an idea to pass up. It 'walks' the tightrope between giving these sub-groups too much freedom and too little.

I have been doing some thinking over my version of the God-brain, which side of the argument I lean to and I thought of an interesting sin. The God-brain (IMHO) seeks new knowlegde, thoughts and ideas and long ago realized that the Mind Flayers, as superior as they are, were simply too alien and different from these lesser humans to see their perspective. It was a whole different viewpoint, a new slant on life, that they were incapable of seeing and thus so was the God-brain. So it had a human brain added to its own, it allowed a lesser inferior being to become part of the collective. Unthinkable to the Mind Flayers and untterly damning.
Of course, with this newfound human perspective, memories and soul the God-brain's future actions and immorality damned it into the Mists.
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