Page 73 - Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations

taps all the knowledge that is. It peers into the minds of the convey messages across long distances. When Ilsensine needs
greatest sages of all dimensions, saps fading memories from to intervene directly in material affairs, it most often sends its
the desiccating brains of dead wizards, and stares across space proxy, Lugribossk.
and time itself to learn all there is to know. Of everything it Clerics of Ilsensine can choose from the Evil, Knowl-
surveys, it judges the mind flayers as the most worthy of mortal edge, Law, Magic, or Mind domains (see Chapter 9).

creatures. They rebuke undead.
Mind flayers do not worship Ilsensine in

the same sense that humans or elves worship RELATIONS WITH
their deities. They revere the god for its OTHER RACES

Mind flayers have no friends. If
gigantic, all- sensing
CHAPTER 4 THE MIND FLAYERS mental capacity. To an illithid treats a creature of
another race as an equal, it
them, Ilsensine is
is pretending friendship.
the ultimate form
of what an elder
Other races are useful
brain aspires to
information and
be and might when they bring
A githyanki fighter

become, in the trade goods.
duels a
fullness of un- mind flayer Ultimate-

countable eons ly, illithids
of growth. The have only
illithids envy its two ways of interacting with other
vast knowledge, races: enslavement and consump-
which in practi- tion. If an illithid treats a drow or
cal terms appears entially), it is doing so only to serve its
a duergar respectfully (never defer-
Illus. by W. Reynolds treat Ilsensine for favors own purposes.
limitless. They en-
and even supplicate it,
Of all races, mind flayers have
special enmity for githyanki and
but their innate, over-
githzerai. Both of these races
powering egoism
prevents any true

show them no mercy and re-
“worship.” hunt illithids. Mind flayers
The priest- ceive none in exchange.
hood of Il sen sine The only creatures that
is small and se- illithids fear are undead, be-
lective. Illithid cause they have no minds to
clerics live dominate. Undead cannot
monastical- be psionically detected,
ly, pursuing cannot be attacked with
knowledge mind-affecting pow-
for its own sake and en- ers, and cannot be
gaging in experiments slain by the remov-
to develop new psionic al of the
powers. Through their brain—all
worship, they enlist the characteristics that
aid of all-sensing Ilsen- make them pecu-
sine, who knows things liarly dangerous

that are hidden even to the to mind flayers.
elder brains.

Mind flayer priests are not reviled the way wizards (and
especially sorcerers) are, but they don’t mix with illithid soci- The Threat of the Gith
ety. They rarely leave their temples except when conducting The githyanki and githzerai are implacable foes of both their
important ceremonies. former illithid masters and of each other. The relationship
Taking a cue from Ilsensine, the clerics sometimes use between these three races is one of millennia-long animosity
cranium rats (see page 167 of the Fiend Folio) as spies or to and violence.

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