What do your characters use to disguise themselves?
I ask because I finally made a mind flayer character who I have discussed with the DM will be disguised as their former self (the patriarch of a Baldurian noble family)(also one of the Balsurian noble families that are heavily into devil cult stuff) and I was wondering how your characters do it.
The few Illithid I have that disguise themselves do it through two types of polymorph enchanted jewelry. The first and likely least common you'll come across (for expenses and crime reasons) is a commissioned polymorph spell with a preset appearance. No matter what, the wearer will always look like what was described in the spell; it doesn't matter who puts it on.
The one you're realistically most likely to come across on the surface, and the one that Thez uses, is a magic prosthesis. Still based on the polymorph spell, but functions differently. It reads the base meat of the individual and aesthetically undoes the damage. While on a human, all it would do is remove scars and blemishes, but on an illithid that uses a human as a base, and depending on the strength of the spell itself, it will do its best to undo the ceremorphosis, as it will read it as one large scar. If your Illithid doesn't have mental partialism and doesn't know what their host looked like, they likely won't even know that's what's happening, which is the case for Thez. The differences between these two: The first is meant to be a disguise, so it changes the appearance of everything that's worn by the wearer, so clothing and accessories that fit the squid, will fit the disguised body. It's likely that a colony illithid could probably get this from their creative creed through psionic circuitry or purchase it from some crime organization/shady wizards through human enchantments. The prosthesis is very likely to be found anywhere on the surface that has money and a significant amount of danger. Seeing as it's a prosthesis, it's not going to be able to alter any clothing. Along with that, results may vary based on the strength of the enchantment itself. You don't need a heavy-duty full-body spell for just a scar on the face. Thez just happened to be lucky that a fire wizard wasn't so lucky sometime in their youth.
But! Not everyone is going to be hyper against Illithid; crime organizations do dealings with Illithid all the time, and some cities, like Athkatla, won't even give a shit so long as your illithid follows the local laws (and spends lots and lots of money). Even bg3 as an example, Omeluum was allowed to be out in the open and undisguised because of their affiliation with the Society of Brilliance. Not saying they'll be NICE, but Faerun isn't as hyper-segregated as dungeon cover art depicts it. Illithid make excellent assets, and there's no shortage of Illithid getting kicked out of their hyper uptight communities. There's probably a good amount of squid mercenaries working out in the open on the surface at any given time, and Illithid will usually latch onto the first god in sight after getting kicked out, so they're not unheard of in monasteries either. There are actually a few named mind flayers who end up in good-aligned religions in canon. While they're rare, you can probably find one or two hanging out in any big city just living their lives like anyone else, so you might not even need a disguise if they have a reputable organization backing them up. While your character is likely to have issues with paladins and do-gooders who don't care about the actions of an individual over the situation they were born into, you'll probably have little issue with rogues, spies, thieves, and, depending on the god, even clerics, as a few of the crime-related characters might have already worked with or been around illithid in the past. But that's up to your dungeon master, and if your fellow players want to set aside their biases and stereotypes to work for the greater good.
If your players are worried about brains, eating humans is actually pretty rare for illithid, as it's a waste of resources, even in colonies. Illithid mainly eat lizardfolk, a species humans also see as pests, and will do their best to exterminate them on sight. And you only need one a month to stay in good health, too. Though this may be something your Dm will change for balancing reasons. If they want some good psionic drawbacks, Illithiad has some really good ones in chapter 3 that can easily be converted into whatever system you're using.
