Page 82 - Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations

Illithids place very little value on the life of any individual Illithids need one brain per month to meet their minimum
thrall, but they abhor wastefulness. A thrall that kills itself physiological needs for survival. Many eat more than that,
and possibly others by causing a tunnel under construction to depending on their status within the community and their
collapse has wasted not only its own life (a demonstrably useful personal success at hunting. Even the most compulsive brain
commodity) but also the lives of other trained thralls and the gourmand is restrained by the need to protect the community’s
time needed to redo the work. Consequently, the barracks whereabouts and by the elder brain’s commanding presence.
include large classrooms and training pits, where new thralls The fact that mind flayers can exercise control in their

train for the work they are destined to perform as slaves. In appetites does not lessen their hunger for more brains. They
some cases, thralls are brought back for retraining if they prove have arrived at a peculiar solution to this problem: performance
unsuitable for their assigned work because of advancing age, eating.
physical infirmity, injury, or a rebellious temperament (though Illithid performance eaters train to extract every possible

thralls in this last category more often than not end up on the nuance from the eating experience. They give careful con- FLAYERS CHAPTER 4

menu). The mind flayers have developed a highly effective sideration to how the victim is fed and treated prior to the THE MIND
program of rewards and punishments to spur training. By the performance, how it is restrained during the performance,
time a thrall completes its indoctrination, it is docile, ready to and the physical process of extracting and consuming the
work, and eager to please. Older thralls carry out most of the brain. This exquisite culinary event is shared with the

instruction, under the supervision of five mind flayers. audience through telepathic means, so that every illithid in
attendance experiences the meal as if it were the one eating
Bazaar the brain.
When goods are brought in from outside, they are “sold” in Adventurers captured by illithids often suffer this fate. Their

the bazaar. Here mind flayers purchase fine cloth or tailored unusually active, exploit-filled minds are widely acknowledged
clothing, meat and other food besides brains, psionic or (rarely) as the most delightful to illithid senses. Further, free minds
magic items, books, furniture, and all the other necessities of that have never been enthralled are considered superior to
daily life and study as a mind flayer. those of slaves. Through performance eating, every mind flayer

This area is instantly recognizable as a market. Tables bearing in the community can experience the thrill of eating such a
goods of every variety line the chamber in orderly rows. Mer- fine brain.

chants with wares to sell haggle soundlessly with customers Much of the time, this auditorium is empty. Eating perfor-
over goods and services. The “merchants” are duergar thralls mances occur several times a week, but most are small events
who purchase goods from outside vendors in Upper Lagurno. with only a dozen or so mind flayers in attendance. Large,

Merchants of other races are not brought into Hidden Lagurno, multimeal special events that draw most of the community
except as thralls. occur perhaps once every two weeks.
Despite their alien nature, mind flayers carry on the business The hall also hosts other activities including lectures,

of buying and selling in a familiar way. The chief difference is demonstrations, debates, and even theatrical performances.
that mind flayer communities operate without money. Their Sometimes thralls are forced to perform classical plays.

economy is based on a complex system of barter for services,
favors, or training. Cheating and fraud are impossible because Laboratories and Workshops
the elder brain makes note of every transaction and enforces These rooms could be the well-stocked labs of any college of

the system. It’s not uncommon for a mind flayer to owe dozens wizards or alchemists. They are filled with books and scrolls,
of debts and be owed just as many in return, with no doubt bubbling beakers, complex mechanical apparatuses in varying
that all will be paid. stages of completion, and cadavers and body parts that appear
Although they have no need for money, some illithids do to be the objects of study.
accumulate gold, silver, and other forms of treasure for its Mind flayers are curious; it is one of their few admirable qual-

beauty, for its usefulness in procuring objects from other ities. When they turn their powerful intellects to a problem,
races, or because of an innate desire to hoard. This acquisi- they investigate all potential channels for solving it—psionic,

tive behavior is not considered aberrant unless it becomes magical, and scientific. Illithids can be found working on any
obsessive. number of devices in their labs, some of which would horrify
any nonillithid investigator. On a typical day, ten illithids
Performance Eating Arena occupy the labs, along with fifteen thrall servants and another

This chamber forms a stadium. A stage occupies the lowest, ten to twenty thralls being used as test subjects.
central spot, with stone benches arranged in a semicircle above
it. The stage features a wooden stock shaped like a small table Nutrient Vats
with a hole in the center. The tabletop is hinged so that it can Dozens of stone vats, each the size of a large laundry tub, dot

be opened like horizontal stocks and then clamped around a the floor of this chamber. Occasionally, a bubble rises slowly
person’s neck, with the trapped person facing the audience. to the surface of one of these steaming pots, struggling to

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