#illithidae

Image by Thomas M Baxa, © TSR, Inc.

[The last of the illithdae from Dragon 150, and the one that I think was best served by Lords of Madness. D&D 3.5 gave it its own unique ability, a sonic scream that acts as a lo-fi version of an illithid's mind blast. The Dragon Magazine version comes in multiple HD forms, but I took the Lords of Madness approach, and just used the highest HD version.]

Saltor CR 5 LE Aberration This creature resembles a hairless monkey the size of a goat, with a long canine muzzle surrounded by thin, flexible tentacles. It carries a spear in its hands, tipped with a stone point.

Saltors are illithidae that are fairly close relatives to mind flayers themselves, being the equivalent to an illithid as a monkey is to a human. Unlike true mind flayers, saltors do not have extreme sexual dimorphism—males and females look functionally identical to each other. They do undergo a form of ceremorphosis, however, raising tadpoles in pools and placing them in the partially emptied skulls of humanoids. Saltors use small humanoids as their hosts and do not compete with illithids for corpses.

Saltors typically live and travel in groups. A troop will have a central hub containing its breeding pool, and then bands will split off in order to forage. They are omnivorous with a taste for fungi and meat, and especially prey on small humanoids such as derro or svirfneblin in order to use their corpses to reproduce as well. Saltors prefer to attack from ambush and keep at range, hurling magic missiles and javelins to weaken prey before closing to melee. Their terrible scream acts as both weapon and alarm call, and a lone saltor that screams will likely have a half dozen of its fellows close behind to back it up.

Of the various kinds of illithidae, saltors are among the most likely to be found in a mind flayer colony. Mind flayers see them as just the right combination of useful and disposable, and saltors for their part view illithids as something like demigods. In addition to acting as foot soldiers and laborers, saltors may be found serving mind flayers as experimental subjects, sacrificial victims or emergency rations, all of which the saltors accept as their rightful place.  

A saltor stands about three feet tall. Their own technology is at a Stone Age level, and they covet metal weapons and tools. Saltors advance by class level, and often take levels in barbarian or psychic.

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:

Image by Thomas Baxa, © TSR Inc.

[I can kind of understand why, of the four illithidae introduced in Dragon 150, only three of them made it into Lords of Madness in D&D 3.5. The cessirid and the kigrid are somewhat redundant mechanically, both of them having a bite that inflicts pain poison as their primary unique ability. But from an ecological standpoint, they're quite distinct. Cessirids are pack hunters that cooperate readily with mind flayers, and kigrids are usually solitary and generally uncooperative. So I tried to give them different SLAs and other abilities to give the kigrid its own mechanical identity.]

Kigrid CR 8 NE Aberration This creature looks something like a reptilian bear, with dark skin and long curved claws on all four of its limbs. It has a broad beak like that of a parrot, around which four small tentacles dart and writhe.

A kigrid is a member of the illithidae, having an ecological niche similar to a bear or boar on the Sunset World. They are voracious omnivores, and among the most intelligent of the illithidae. Their intelligence is turned primarily towards devious ways to set ambushes and protect their lairs. They are gifted vocal mimics, and use a combination of mimicked speech and their inherent climbing ability to lure prey onto ledges and cliffs before attacking.

A kigrid will usually attempt to pin down a single opponent and rip them to shreds before moving onto the next target. In order to keep themselves properly paced, they use overwhelming grief to deny enemy actions. Few kigrid ambushes are launched without a blur spell to minimize successful attacks. Kigrids are stubborn foes, and once their blood is up will readily fight to the death.

Kigrids spend most of their lives alone, but associate in pairs in order to court. They prefer to lay their eggs in the corpses of large creatures, and lay a large number of eggs at once. The weakest of the larvae become part of the provisions for the stronger siblings. Once they reach maturity, the surviving siblings may travel together for a while in order to tackle larger prey, but these associations are rarely loyal ones. Their upbringing leads kigrids to view each other as food or rivals more than allies, and cannibalism is a fairly common outcome of kigrid interactions. Kigrids are valued as physical labor by mind flayers—they can carry incredible loads, and their tentacles are as prehensile as human hands. Due to their stubborn independence, however, most kigrids have to be controlled by charm magic, rather than joining a colony of their own free will.

Image by Thomas Baxa, © TSR, Inc.

[Dragon 150 has two articles about the illithids. One was a piece of fiction/ecology titled "The Sunset World", and the second was an installment of "The Dragon's Bestiary" focusing on natives of that planet, the illithidae. Three of the original monsters, the kigrid, embrac and saltor, were converted to D&D 3.5 in Lords of Madness. The fourth, the cessirid, was not.]

Cessirid CR 7 LE Aberration This creature looks something like a hyena, with a hunched back studded with two rows of short spines. Its head ends in a hooked beak, and four ribbon-like tentacles dance around its maw.

A cessirid is a pack-hunting carnivore found on planets terraformed by the mind flayers. They are sometimes called “illithid hounds” by adventurers, because illithids use the creatures as guard animals and trackers. Cessirids are rigid minded and very hierarchical. Every cessirid in a pack knows its place and how to challenge for leadership through contests of athletic prowess, and a lone cessirid is usually one that has been ejected from its pack, or is the sole survivor of a hunt gone wrong. Cessirid packs are very territorial, and clashes between packs, unless mediated by a more intelligent mind flayer, usually result in fatal violence.

Cessirids are well-versed in teamwork. They communicate with each other silently through telepathy while surrounding prey and setting up ambushes, and then strike in unison. They are as comfortable in the water as on land, and their ambushes may be from underground rivers or pools. A cessirid’s tentacles aren’t powerful enough to attack on their own, but secrete chemicals that cause incredible pain when smeared on an open wound (such as those inflicted by their shearing bites). Their magical abilities are used to position themselves, or to flee from a losing battle.

Cessirids lay their eggs inside of fresh corpses. They believe that the more intelligent a victim, the more cunning and skilled the young who grow up inside its carcass will be; this appears to just be a superstition. Cessirid larvae do not take over the tissues of the cadaver the way that illithid tadpoles do. Instead, they feed within the tissue until emerging as Tiny sized "puppies". Once emerged, the young are trained in the art of combat by the rest of their pack. Those that are hesitant towards violence are usually killed and eaten by their siblings.