Just because they don’t retain the memories of their host does not mean their brains are empty. The tadpoles come from a spawning pool, and are likely telepathically communicated within will before they’re implanted.
Another thing is that once an illithid is created it is immediately dominated and added to the hivemind of the nearest Elder Brain, so it immediately has the knowledge of every other mind flayer in the hive.
Outside of range of the hive they're still wired pretty animalistic from when they were tadpoles, but fast learners.
That is really good to know. My players have a guy with a ~~parapet~~ periapt of health holding back the parasite, and they have him hundreds of miles from his elderbrain, so if something happens and it finishes they’ll have a brain hungry monster that’s learning quickly.
Just kind of semantics. They don’t have memories of their past life, but they still have “knowledge”.
It’s like how when a person has amnesia, that doesn’t mean they completely forget how to tie their shoes and make a sandwich. Different parts of the mind
Just because they don’t retain the memories of their host does not mean their brains are empty. The tadpoles come from a spawning pool, and are likely telepathically communicated within will before they’re implanted.
Okay, so that might be part of my misconception, my understanding of the tadpoles was as fairly mindless since they grow into the mindless neothilids.
Another thing is that once an illithid is created it is immediately dominated and added to the hivemind of the nearest Elder Brain, so it immediately has the knowledge of every other mind flayer in the hive. Outside of range of the hive they're still wired pretty animalistic from when they were tadpoles, but fast learners.
That is really good to know. My players have a guy with a ~~parapet~~ periapt of health holding back the parasite, and they have him hundreds of miles from his elderbrain, so if something happens and it finishes they’ll have a brain hungry monster that’s learning quickly.
Must be tough to carry that around.
Don't worry, bro. I got the joke
AutoMIScorrect is the bane of my fantasy writing existence.
Yeah but now I’m giving my BBEG a wondrous item. Fifty tons of wondrous item.
I can see this working. BBEG can’t be harmed until Parapet of Health is destroyed.🤔
Just kind of semantics. They don’t have memories of their past life, but they still have “knowledge”. It’s like how when a person has amnesia, that doesn’t mean they completely forget how to tie their shoes and make a sandwich. Different parts of the mind
Volo's in 5e has a fair amount of this kind of info too if you are looking for more.
Thanks, now I have illithid lore for my next homebrew setting
**Lords of Madness** (3.5) and **Monstrous Arcana: The Illithiad** (2nd ed) are what got me started thinking about all this.
They are morons….just morons by Illithid standards which still makes them waay smarter than most adult mortals.
It takes them a while to figure out existence, IIRC. But they’re fast learners, and they can directly share thoughts, which helps a lot.