Soooo, I'm looking through Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and I'm going through Bluetspur.
Like this is the first time I ever actually read through it, normally I'm more interested in the monsters, Ancestries, Classes/Subclasses, Spells and equipment when it comes to DnD books.
But I've read through The God-Brain's section of Bluetspur and it mentions The God-Brain's research had an unexpected result, a truth so mind-bendingly alien to it that it went crazy from it.
Which got me thinking because it sounded really familiar: the idea of an Ilithid Elder brain going bonkers after being exposed to something.
Because it brought to mind The Thoon. Which was introduced in 3.5E's Monster Manual 4 or 5.
Basically the background of Thoon Mindflayers is that at one point, an Elder Brain when on an expedition to the Cavern of Thought in the Deep Caverns.
For those of you who don't know, the Deep Caverns are a place in the Astral Plane where all the Gods of the Aberrant Species dwell, The Beholder's Great Mother calls the Deep Caverns home.
And so does The Mindflayer's own God, Ilsenine. Which was a massive surprise for me to learn that the Species of Psionic squid-faced Aberrants with a detest for Magic actually worship a God.
That was until I learned that it was Arcane Magic they hated.
Basically you don't go to the Deep Caverns if you value your sanity.
So. Anyways, back on track: The Elder Brain goes on the expedition and something happens to it during that time, what exactly happened is unknown.
But when the Expedition returned, The Elder Brain was basically just ranting about The Thoon.
What The Thoon is, isn't made cleary: it could be a God, it could be a philosphy or anything. But as a result, The other Elder Brains booted this corrupted Brain from the collective.
But this Thoon Brain started gathering followers and started going on the hunt for this mysterious substance called Quintessence.
And it's through this Quintessence that they basically go from just pure bio-mechanical tech to a mixture of bio-mechanical and regular weird ass tech.
The Thoon are pretty cool; as a result of their use of Quintessence, they've got a bit more variety to them than regular Illithid collectives and The Quintessence is pretty much meant to be used as an flexible plot hook.
The Thoon could be mining it from a nearby mine, or abducting people and turning them into sleeper agents in order to extract the stuff from the local population of a town or what have you.
But it got me thinking: what if this revelation The God-Brain came across that led to it going crazy and start eating it's own kind in order to ascend.
Was The Thoon and instead of becoming dedicated to it like The Thoon brain did, The God-Brain instead tried to ascend to Godhood for some reason?
I mean, it's just as likely that The God-Brain discovered something as equally as mind-breaking to it as The Thoon was to The Thoon Brain.
The Mind Flayers, to my knowledge at least, don't exactly come from The Far Realm. They, in 3.5E at least, come from the fucking future and travelled back in time to try and get their empire started.
It's also why Aboleths don't like them (at least in 3.5E): Aboleths have a genetic memory dating back to the dawn of time. They've seen the creations of everything else in the Multiverse.
Then one day these squid-faced fuckers with psychic abilities and a penchant for sticking their babies in the heads of other living creatures just randomly pops up seemingly out of nowhere.
I'd be a bit confused as to where the fuck these things came from too if I were an Aboleth.
"Ooh, what the fuck? I don't remember these things being made. Oh cool they're psychic to0-WTF WHY ARE THEY STICKING THEIR BABIES INTO PEOPLE'S HEADS, THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
