#neothelid

[shanaraharlyah]

When your brain worm eats all the other brain worms.

[drferox]

Fantasy Ecology: Vampire Illithid

I'm really sorry Nucklavee, you missed out again, 6 votes to 8. One day you'll get your chance, you weird skin-weilding beastie.

Illithids, commonly called Mind Flayers, are a common and notorious foe in Dungeons & Dragons. They make an excellent BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) because they are extremely dangerous, able to be leveled, organized, and intelligent enough that you might be tempted to think you can reason with them.

And the whole 'brain eating thing' is just icing on the squishy, salty cake.

There's a bunch of cannon information on them, and other abberations, in the Lords Of Madness book, which is highly recommended if you're into that sort of thing.

They are an excellent horror monster with a strong sense of 'other', in part because of the frankly bizarre reproductive cycle that involves taking a sapient humanoid host for the body and parasitising it while it's sill alive.

But Illithids are more complicated than they look (and they already look complicated), and they look like they're actually being domesticated or farmed.

I present to you the so-called Vampire Illithid.

You can see this dude (gender neutral, they're canonically true hermaphrodites like most snails are) looks an awful lot like the classic Illithid, but with several vital differences.

Normal is a healthy (?) purple-blue colour. The vampire is pale.

Normal is intelligent, conversant and refined. The vampire is feral and animal-like.

Normal feeds mostly on brains. The Vampire feeds both on brains and blood.

Normal clothes itself. The vampire does not.

Normal barely contains its seething rage. Vampire makes no such attempt to.

Normal exist and reproduce in a colony. Vampire does not, usually solitary, not known to reproduce.

Normal Illithids prioritize the destruction of Vampire Illithids.

Normal is connected to the Elder Brain. Vampire is not.

The conclusion this leads me to is that a Vampire Illithid is not really a 'Vampire' like we think of other vampires, it is simply a domestic Illithid that has become freed somehow.

Freed from what?

From that mysterious Elder Brain they so carefully tend and feed their young to.

The 'Normal' Illithid life-cycle looks like this:

Adult illithid spawns into a briny pool, releasing thousands of tiny 'tadpoles'. In this pool lives an Elder Brain, a separate highly intelligent entity that controls the illithid society.

The Elder Brain snacks on these tadpoles, as well as the brains of dead illithids that are ritually collected and fed to it by the illithid attendants.

If a tadpole survives for a decade, it is given a humanoid host and grows into the illithids we know so well.

That illithid goes about its life until it dies, and its brain is fed to the Elder Brain again.

It is not clear how the Elder Brain reproduces.

There are some variants on the normal Illithid, a lot related to studying different fields, being extra strong or extra clever, but the Vampire Ilithid is most interesting, and I don't think it's got anything to do with vampires at all. We just mistake it for one because of the paleness and consumption of blood. The Vampire Illithid is cut off from the Elder Brain. It's free from its influence, and as a result is wild, animal-like and feral. And the Elder Brain hates it for it, demanding its domestic Illithid destroy them any time they can.

Couple that with the cannon that the Elder Brains actively deceive Mind Flayers into believing their consciousness will live on in the Elder Brain after their brains are consumed by it, and it looks to me like the Elder Brains are actively domesticating Illithids.

And why wouldn't you? You get a bunch of servants to feed you their tadpoles and other brains, build you nice pools and such. The illithids earn bipedalism, and are discouraged from breaking away from society or seeking immortality in any other way, aside from having their own brain eaten.

The Vampire Illithid is freed. It's feral in the literal sense of the word, broken away from the Elder Brain. It used to be the illithids we know, but it's lost that connection somehow.

The body of an illithid - the humanoid bit with two arms and two legs, is artificial. It's stolen from a humanoid host (and they're fussy about them not being too short) that has a mature tadpole implanted within it. This is what I mean by them 'gaining bipedalism'.

Those tadpoles can be implanted into other creatures, but most are not viable.

However, the Neothelid is what happens when an illithid tadpole is not given a host, and just has to learn to hunt on its own. Initially it hunts other tadpoles - there's nothing else in its pool other than the Elder Brain - but it will eventually emerge from the water to hunt small animals like rats and frogs, growing larger until it can take down sapient prey. This is the real, natural, illithid. They are also described as feral and animal-like, just like the Vampire Illithids without an Elder Brain to rule them.

The Neothelid is the real, natural, untamed illithid. And if you have Vampire Illithids running around without the control or rules of a society, these things are going to be in the water. They can grow ridiculously huge, by the way.

So where does the blood feeding come from?

Illithids in cannon have conscious control of their digestive system, which means they pick up hormones, enzymes and neurotransmitters from their means which they would not make themselves. So they eat brains because they need to (though this probably means they would very much like chocolate and intestines as well).

A Vampire Illithid lacks the intelligence of its former state, but still has an unfortunately small and poorly structured mouth, so is limited to eating all the squishy bits it can get. Again, it probably also likes intestine.

It’s also walking around on a literally stolen, parasitised body. No wonder it looks pale and half dead, because it technically is.

So next time your group of adventurers clear out a Mind Flayer Cabal, make sure they get every last one, or they're going to find Vampire Illithids showing up, and those things have no qualms about where they leave their tadpoles and Neothelids a decade later.

[shadow-gharug]

Es que quiero que me demanden? XD son respectivamente un Intellect devourer, Neothelid y un Tarrasque Nota: solo basados, no me demanden pls xD

[ulitharidsavant]

The Illithid Life Cycle

Greetings humans. I would like to share with you the gloriously complex and superior life cycle of the Illithid species.

this will be a multiple-repost series, so if you are interested in more, check the notes periodically.

I hope this will make your kind appreciate the great honor your species is going to be given, to be incorporated into this cycle.

OK, so lets start with something important. The life cycle of the common illithid is not actually the natural life cycle. This should be clear upon analysis of our breeding habits. Our current life cycle is the result of a symbiotic relationship with a species known as the Elder Brains, the mature form of an Intellect Devourer. So in this post, I will cover the natural life cycle first.

An illithid is produced as a batch of tadpoles from the parent. In most cases, this tadpole is excreted from what was once the genitals of the host, which have since been adapted to tadpole production. The tadpole is excreted into some water-based fluid, and if it survives long enough without being euthanized, eaten, or taking a host, it matures into a Larva, seen below.

These larva will remain barely sentient without any consumable grey-matter. They will, however, continue to grow in size and power. Eventually they will attach to a sentient host and consume it, gaining full consciousness in the process. However, since their prey is typically dead when it is consumed, the larva will be driven insane. The influx of psychic energy triggered by the introduction of sentience will in turn trigger massive physiological changes, resulting in the next form, a Seugathi, seen below

Over time, the Seugathi will increase in size, intelligence, and psychic power as it continues to consume not just grey matter (like a respectable Illithid) but the rest of the body as well. Eventually it will reach the next stage in it’s development, a full grown Neothelid, seen below:

These monstrous creatures are utterly insane and hyper intelligent. They will lash out at any sentient creature, including other illithids, hoping to boost it’s own intelligence so that it may continue to ponder the unknowable questions of the universe with increased processing speed. They are likewise capable of producing illithid tadpoles. However, they never lay them in a pool that has an Elder Brain, resulting in them always becoming Seugathi, and they typically eat their Seugathi children before they can fully mature to gain their collected intellect. Only when a Neothelid dies are it’s children able to mature into other Neothelids.

[desertdruidcrafts]

Neothelid and Purple Worm minis for d&d. The Purple Worm also has a 3-part version for more dynamic boss battles.

[dailybestiary]

Neothelid Overlord

The neothelid, as I’ve written before, was Pathfinder’s answer to D&D’s proprietary mind flayers. But it served another purpose as well. Remember that, originally, Pathfinder was not a game system; it was a game setting—and as such, it needed to differentiate itself from the other 3.5 settings out there.  Neothelids, with their wormlike shapes, suite of mental powers, and seugathi servants, confirmed what other early Pathfinder products had already begun to suggest: Golarion was a world where Lovecraft’s Old Ones and Outer Gods had a definite footprint...or rather, a definite pseudopodprint.  

The neothelid overlord is a neothelid on its way to becoming…something else.  Something much closer to those entities that dwell in the blackness between the stars. The overlord’s head splits.  Its consciousness begins to transcend its biology. Its tails dig as if they want to become roots.  Its psychic powers become true psychic magic.  And just looking at it risks madness.

At CR 20, neothelid overlords are campaign-ending villains.  Defeating a conclave of these creatures should be the culmination of years of effort in game time (and possibly even real time).  Of course, failing to defeat a neothelid overlord conclave…well, that doesn't even bear thinking about.

Adventurers bring down a city’s ruling class of necromancers…in the process, exposing a subterranean kingdom of ghouls to the notice of the surface world as well.  But it turns out the ghoul kingdom is a necessary evil, for they are all that keeps a neothelid overlord in check in his mushroom-forest vault.

Strange benefactors have aided a party of adventurers against demons and devils throughout their career.  But then these same benefactors begin to suggest strikes against druid stone circles, goodly temples, and even angelic redoubts and hidden celestial cities—a pantheistic hatred alarming in its intensity.  Careful investigation uncovers seugathi cultists and rumors of dark wormlike lords older than the gods themselves, who worship Powers from a reality that predates this one.

The world of Chasm should have split in two—as is all too apparent from the near-bottomless canyon that circles the planet like a hellish meridian.  The only thing holding the shattered sphere together is a monstrous bhole trapped in stasis long ago.  Now, a neothelid conclave seeks to awaken the bhole and free the worm to split Chasm like an apple in an offering to their dark gods.

—Occult Bestiary 36–37

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Which Edition of D&D had the best design/artwork of a Neothelid?

Second Edition

Third Edition

Fifth Edition

Voting ended onMar 23

[cagemasterfantasy]

DND Monsters: Neothelid

From: Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

Gargantuan Aberration, Typically Chaotic Evil

AC 16 (natural armor)

HP 232 (15d20 + 75)

Speed 30 ft.

Str 27 +8 Dex 7 -2 Con 21 +5 Int 3 -4 Wis 16 +3 Cha 12 +1

Saves Int +1 Wis +8 Cha +6

Senses Blindsight 120 ft. (blind beyond this radius)

CR 13

Traits

Creature Sense. The neothelid is aware of the presence of creatures within 1 mile of it that have an Intelligence score of 4 or higher. It knows the distance and direction to each creature, as well as each creature's Intelligence score, but can't sense anything else about it. A creature protected by a mind blank spell, a nondetection spell, or similar magic can't be perceived in this manner.

Magic Resistance. The neothelid has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Actions

Tentacles. Melee Weapon Attack: +13 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 21 (3d8 + 8) bludgeoning damage plus 11 (2d10) psychic damage. If the target is a Large or smaller creature, it must succeed on a DC 18 Strength saving throw or be swallowed by the neothelid. A swallowed creature is blinded and restrained, it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside the neothelid, and it takes 21 (6d6) acid damage at the start of each of the neothelid's turns.

If the neothelid takes 30 damage or more on a single turn from a creature inside it, the neothelid must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution saving throw at the end of that turn or regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a space within 10 feet of the neothelid. If the neothelid dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by it and can escape from the corpse by using 20 feet of movement, exiting prone.

Acid Breath (Recharge 5–6). The neothelid exhales acid in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw, taking 35 (10d6) acid damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Spellcasting (Psionics). The neothelid casts one of the following spells, requiring no spell components and using Wisdom as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 16):

Spells can be found in my tags except for Feeblemind which has a link that describes what it does

At will: levitate

1/day each: confusion, feeblemind, telekinesis