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Elder Brain - final thread!

BOZ, I'm a GREAT Illithid fan and I always look after anything I can find about them. So I swa thing and I just had to donate my 2 cents! Well I took a first look at it and I think it's a tad weak, I always imagined them at something like demigod status when you think of it that they are tens of thousands to maybe even millions of years old and with all that knowledge of thousands of illithid in them...

So I dug up a few Elder Brain make ups or conversions to see if there's some interesting stuff for you among it to maybe add to your concept!

But alot is in second edition draft but it's just about the idea behind some stuff.... hope it's some help. Your concept is way to weak in my own opinion. But that's just me :)

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Elder Brain

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(Artwork by Mike Moon)
Climate/Terrain: Illithid Colony Hive only
Frequency: Unique (1 per colony)
Organization: Tyrant
Activity Cycle: Constant (Always awake, always active)
Diet: Exclusive (feeds off of "royal jelly" supplied by specialized worker Spawn)
Intelligence: Genius - Godlike
Treasure: Varies
Alignment: LE
No. Appearing: 1 per Hive
AC: -10 (outer covering) or -8
Mv: 0" + special
HD: 5 (outer covering) or 11
THACO: NA (attacks only by innates or psionics
# Att: Operate up to 4 abilities per round (see below)
Dmg/Att: See below
SA: See below
SD: See below
MR: Special
Size: L (10'+ diameter)
Ml: Fearless (20)
XPV:

Description: The Elder Brain is the master of the Illithid Colony. It is the height of Illithid evolution, receiving the full benefits of any adapted traits the colony has acquired. It appears only in the central chambers of the Illithid hive, surrounded by vast, deep pools of digestive enzymes and other chemicals it uses to feed. It will always be accompanied by swarms of Spawn. The outer covering of the Elder Brain is a hard, ceramic-metallic, coral-like growth (AC -10) with millions of tiny, clear filamentous tentacles leading out into the enzymatic pools. Once this protective shell is breached (after taking 30-40hp damage to one particular area), the actual creature itself is exposed.

The Elder Brain looks exactly like what its name implies: A mass of pink and grey, pulsating cerebral tissue. Physically, the Elder Brain is quite helpless - it depends on the hundreds of thousands of Hive servitors to provide a living barrier between itself and any possible harm. As far as psionic or, if the creature has survived long enough to develop them, magical powers go, it is the most dangerous opponent of all Illithid creatures.

Combat: A newly born Elder Brain has all of the following abilities:

Regeneration (3hp/rnd, automatic)

Immunity to Fire, Cold, Electricity, Acid, and Poison (automatic)

Telekinesis (max 3,000lbs, divided up as it sees fit among multiple targets. In the War, the Elder Brain used this power to throw opponents into the enzyme pools surrounding it.)

Telepathy (permanently in contact with all Illithid, Spawn, and any other Elder Brains on a given world)

Domination (Dominate any number of sentient creatures whose total HD/Levels do not exceed 30. Treat this as a willpower contest with a magical sword, with an Ego score of 80.)

Chemical Fabrication (Ability to produce up to 10lbs/rnd of most chemicals - basically anything the Elder Brain has encountered before. In the Illithid War, the Elder Brain produced poisons and other toxins, then used its Telekinesis to hurl globules at the party.)

Heal any Illithid lifeform, including itself, of up to 30hp/rnd by touch. While doing this, the Elder Brain cannot perform any other non-automatic activities.

Generate Clone (Initial clones had all memories of the original entity, but were entirely under the control of the Elder Brain. As it became more skilled at this particular ability, it began giving the clones missions to accomplish and would not maintain continuous telepathic contact - our Heroes wised up and began checking for mental communication. Instead, the Elder Brain would let the clone contact it. Also, until the Elder Brain had appropriated the original's magical abilities (if any), the clone didn't have them either. This ability was used primarily to replace key government figures, or to "subvert" spies. Later, after the Elder Brain captured the Drow wizard Lizarren, it began using its more complete clones as assassins and saboteurs. The more accurate a duplicate, the longer it took to produce. A basically "generic" duplicate could be grown in 1-2 months. The more advanced, magically empowered Lizarren breed took 3-4 months. Each Hive could grow only 2-3 clones at a time.)

Its psionic abilities are as follows (ref. The Complete Psionics Handbook and The Will and the Way). Please note that this is only a general guideline, to show what the Desert of Dreams Hive developed. This list includes most of my DM notes, but I purposely left some abilities unlisted to account for changes during the campaign. Other Hives are perfectly capable of evolving different abilities.

Psionicist Level: 20
PSPs: 228-440 (Wis, Con, Cha increased as the Elder Brain matured. In theory, a fully functioning Hive, with its Receptacle spawn, would have virtually unlimited PSPs.)
Disciplines: All
Sciences: 10 - Aura Sight, Detonate, Disintegrate, Life Draining, Domination, Ejection, Mindlink, Mindwipe, Probe, Psychic Surgery.
Devotions: 25 - Combat Mind, Spirit Sense, Control Body, Adrenalin Control, Body Control, Mind Over Body, Share Strength, Empathy, ESP, False Sensory Input, Life Detection, Mind Bar, Post-Hypnotic Suggestion, Sight Link, Sound Link, Synaptic Static, Telempathic Projection, Inertial Barrier, Molecular Manipulation, Chemical Simulation, Astral Projection, Contact, Cannibalize, Enhancement, Gird, Magnify, Psionic Sense
Defense Modes: All
Attack Modes: All

Unique Ability: Drain Magic (IC: 10, MC: 4 per spell point drained, Range: 100yds, Prep: 3, AoE: 1 magical effect). Permanent items affected by Drain Magic are treated as if they were successfully hit with a Dispel Magic. Charged Items could be drained of charges, using the most expensive spell point cost doubled. Because of the way magic works on Avamor, it was possible for a spellcaster to dump extra spell points into his own spells in order to maintain them. At this point, it becomes a contest between how much the Illithid can drain and how much the wizard can put into his spell. The Drain Magic ability does not tell the user how many spell points he or she is going to have to absorb. If the user attempts to drain more magic than he has PSPs, he loses hit points in place of PSPs. If the user dies in the attempt, all of the drained spell points detonate as a fireball of magical energy (no fire damage). The user is, of course, unresurrectable at this point.

Drain Magic can affect spells that are still in the process of being cast. In effect, the Illithid could drain away all the magic powering a spell before its casting was complete.

Note that certain Artefacts and Relics are immune to this power. In fact, any attempt to Drain Magic from an Artefact, or magical node, is likely to result in the immediate and spectacular death of the creature making the attempt.

Note: Specialized forms were grown to act as organic Receptacles for use by the Elder Brain and certain other Illithid forms. Normally, these biological creations held between 20 and 130 PSPs. They had no combat abilities to speak of, though they could run fairly fast at 15" ("Not fast enough for a Fireball!" - Archimage Zenki). The Desert of Dreams Elder Brain sent most of these Receptacles along with the Illithid Elders to the Karanukese and Empire of the Hartland front lines to act as reservoirs for Illithid and Elders draining magical spells - which proved to be a mistake. There were very few Receptacle-spawn left in the Hive when the Seven and several hundred thousand Plainsriders knocked a big hole in the outer Hive walls.

Also, the Desert of Dreams Elder Brain developed the ability to lend its own PSPs to Illithid and Illithid Elders over great distances (at an exchange of 1:1 to 10:1, depending on range) as well as drain PSPs from its servitors.

Primarily, the Elder Brain oversees the incorporation of new life forms, and modifies existing Spawn to instill new abilities in them, as it keeps track of its various minions and their tasks.

Over the course of the campaign, the Elder Brain also gained access to the following magical abilities. Also shown are those abilities it would have gained, if it had survived long enough. Players reading this section should hope and pray their DM isn't so cruel as to give a Hive an Archimage to play with.

Magic Resistance (10-70%)

Damaged only by magical weapons (+1 to +2. It would have gained immunity to +3 weapons in another 2-3 days)

Death gaze (as the Beholder attack)

Flesh to Stone (as the Beholder attack)

Call Lightning (as Storm Giant)

Gate (As Lizarren was subverted, the Elder Brain gained knowledge of various creatures it could summon and control from other planes. It would have taken another 4-5 months to develope this ability as an innate.)

Access to wizard spell levels 1-9, as 23rd level caster (The Elder Brain was only a few hours from gaining this ability).

Ecology: The Elder Brain cannot survive environmental exposure for more than a few weeks (less in a desert environment). It is essentially helpless without its servants, unless it can reach out through its telepathy and domination to take control of other beings. The Elder Brain is a tyrant. Its one driving goal is to convert an entire world's ecology over to the Illithids'. It will do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal, even sacrificing itself to preserve a fellow Elder Brain and give its "brother" a better chance.

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Another little exerpt:

The center of a community is its elder-brain, a pool of briny fluid that contains the brains of the city's dead mind flayers. Due to the mental powers of illithids, the elder-brain is still sentient, and the telepathic union of its brains rules the community. The elder-brain has a telepathic range of 2 to 5 miles, depending on its age and size. It does not attack, but telepathically warns the mind flayers of the presence of thinking creatures, so a mind flayer within its telepathic radius can be surprised only by non-intelligent creatures. The range of the elder-brain determines the territory claimed and defended by the community, though raiding parties are sent far beyond this limit.

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Can't find the two sites I was really looking for.. I have them in my favorites back at home.. I'm at my University room now so... if interested it'll just have to wait!

Sorry for pushing my opinions on this :p But always nice to see the worl you do around here. I use it alot and can apprechiate it! So thanks m8!

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Chauncey Koziol

Update: 2024-08-21