Page 72 - Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations

From these fragmentary glimpses into the dim past and ness, planning, correcting foreseen mistakes, and gathering
the oral histories of several long-lived races, scholars have strength for the time when they return to ascendance.
concocted the following “history” of the illithid race. In the impossibly far future, when stars are reduced to

Its origin is simply unknown. Wherever they came from, pale, red cinders flickering coldly over somnolent worlds,
in time so ancient that no record of it exists, illithids ruled a the illithids will rise from their subterranean dens to face the
vast, worlds-spanning empire. languid twilight and establish once more the empire they lost.
This empire, built on a foundation of slavery and domina- They will be stronger, crueler, and hungrier than ever, and all
tion over whatever other races existed at that time, dwarfed hope will die.
everything that has come since. At some point, certain of
those enslaved races developed a degree of resistance to the LANGUAGE

psychic shackles of the illithids. When they had gathered Mind flayers have no spoken language of their own. Among

sufficient power, the slaves revolted. How it was done no one themselves, they communicate entirely by means of telepathy FLAYERS CHAPTER 4

can say, but the slaves succeeded in toppling their masters and accented with tentacle motions. At first, their telepathy is THE MIND
winning free. The age that followed was one of unrelenting short-ranged and limited to creatures within their line of

revenge as desperate pockets of illithids were hunted and sight. As a mind flayer matures, it gains much greater control
exterminated. and power, plus the ability to maintain communication with
The freed slaves were not free of strife, and they fell to multiple minds at once.
warring among themselves. This had two effects. First, the Mind flayers understand and can speak Undercommon,

feuding branches of ex-slaves became what are now known as when verbal communication is necessary. Due to their high

the githyanki and the githzerai, who make war on each other intelligence, most mind flayers know a number of other lan-
to this day. Second, the illithids that eluded their vengeance guages, too—usually Common, Elven, Aquan, and Infernal.

were able to regroup and escape to defensible fortresses While they despise speaking any language aloud, mind flayers

deep underground, where the gith races chose not to pursue find it useful to be able to read texts produced by humans or
them. by their common subterranean rivals, aboleths and drow.
This account is basically true in its outline but is flawed in Mind flayers use a unique written language known as Qual-

one astounding respect. While the rebellion of the gith did ith. Qualith has no spoken form; it is a record of pure telepathic
indeed take place in the past—about two thousand years ago, communication. Qualith script resembles four parallel lines of
to be precise—their mind flayer masters had themselves just raised dashes and spaces, intended to be read by touch. Each

arrived in that era from the unimaginable future. line carries an independent train of thought, but to understand
At the very end of time, the mind flayers faced extinction at the message, all four lines must be read simultaneously. The

the hands of some unknown adversary. Caught in the throes cadence of the writing attempts to capture the rhythm and
of defeat, harried in their crumbling capitals and universities sensation of multilayered telepathic communication. The effect
(lesser outposts had fallen eons before), the surviving illi- is nearly impossible for nonillithids to understand or translate
thids concocted a desperate plan. As their last bastions were without years of study (DC 35 Decipher Script check).
assailed and their psychic defenses breached, the mind flayers Qualith script is common throughout most illithid archi-

sacrificed countless ancient, potent elder brains to produce a tecture. In many cases, it runs in unbroken expanses on

psionic maelstrom of unimaginable proportions. The ensuing every wall. Explorers and intruders who don’t understand
cacophony of energy demolished the very laws that support the significance of the geometrical markings mistake them

the structure of time. The illithids and all that remained of for religious symbols or decorative carvings.
their decadent civilization were hurled backward across the
ravaged barriers separating the ages to arrive in the present RELIGION
world, but thousands of years ago, as recorded in the Sargonne Illithid religion differs from most theologies in that it lacks any
Prophecies. concern with the afterlife. Mind flayers know what becomes of

The illithids’ staggering gamble paid off. Upon arriving in them when they die—they meld with the elder brain. Instead,

the human world of several thousand years past, they quickly mind flayers revere a deity whose philosophies mirror their
enslaved the humanoid race known as the gith, seeking to own: that knowledge is the greatest commodity, darkness the
reestablish their empire in their new age. After centuries of greatest illumination, the mind the greatest power, and illithids
servitude, the gith successfully rebelled against the mind the greatest race. They have such a deity in Ilsensine.

flayers. Much of the knowledge and wondrous magic brought Ilsensine resides in the vast Caverns of Thought beneath the
to the distant past from the illithid empire at the end of time surface of the Concordant Domain of the Outlands. It has no
was destroyed in this rebellion, and for long years the mind physical body but manifests itself as cohesive thought in the

flayers were scattered and disorganized in its wake. shape of a gigantic, pulsing brain. Ganglia of infinite length
While the rebellion of the gith was a great catastrophe, the trail outward in all directions from its glowing shape and reach

mind flayers are a patient race. They need only wait in the dark- to all corners of existence. Through these ganglia, Ilsensine
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