Illithids

The Illithid, or Mind Flayer, are so insidious, diabolical, and powerful that all denizens of the dark fear them. A mind flayer is a strange creature, standing some six feet tall, and humanoid only in most terms. Its flesh is mauve and rubbery, glistening with chill slime. The creatures head looks rather like a four tentacled octopus, made all the more horrible by a pair of bloated white eyes. Its mouth, a revolting thing like a lamprey's maw, constantly drips with oily slime when its not siphoning out the brains of living prey. Mind flayers hate sunlight and avoid it when possible. They normally live in huge Underdark cities of two hundred to two thousaneIllithids. The center of the community is its Elder-brain, a pool of briny fluid that contains the brain's of the cities dead Mind-flayers. Due to the mental powers of the Mind flayers, the Elder-brain is still sentient, and the telepathic union of its brains rules the community.
Mind Flayers have no real family structure. Their social activities include eating, communicating with the elder-brain, and debating which tactic is the best to conquer the Underdark. For amusement, they inflict pain on their captives and force slaves to fight in gladiatorial games. Mind flayers are arrogant, veiwing all other races as cattle to be fed upon. They prefer to ear the brains of thinking creatures. They live about 125 years. They are warm blooded amphibians, and spend the first 10 years of life as tadpoles in the elder-brain pool until they either die or grow into adult Illithids. Illithids are hermaphrodidic and each can produce one tadpole twice in its life.

Creating your Illithid: Illithids have mauve pinkish skin, and they are hairless. Choose the pinkish skin tone you can find. Naming your Illithid is tough. Names are often strange and hard to pronounce.
Some Examples: Chtu'toor, Thzz'k'morn, Vesstra, Ilix'ith, Sszthul. Double check with another Illithid before you choose your name, to make sure it is acceptable.

Illithids are magical beings, with powerful psionic powers. They have the ability to read thoughts, control minds, and crush the willpower of their enemies. With skills such as these, it is hard to find proper skills to manifest these powers in. Two Illithid classes are presented.

Psion: A mind flayer devoting their time and energies into their psionic powers is known as a Illithid Psion. Their psionic powers are great. They are able to halt battle, weaken foes, and make allies fight as enemies. They also train in magical powers to further augment their awesome psionic talents.
Skills: Meditation, Evaluating Intelligence, Magery, Musicianship, Provocation, Peacemaking, Discordance.
These skills run the gamot of this Mind Flayers powers. With these musician skills, the Illithid is able to mimic psionic powers against their foes. Their most powerful attack, however, is known as the Mind Blast, which is a talent, rather than a feat of magic. With a Firehorn, a Illithid Psion will be able to use their mind blast against a foe with deadly resolve. Psions are more a-typical Illithids, and are a welcome force in battle, if you are sure they are fighting on your side.

Spellmind: A mind flayer devoted to the magical arts is known as a Illithid Spellmind. While their psionic powers are still great, they choose to focus their time on the magical arts. A Illithid's genius and ability to devour knowledge gives the Spellmind a great advantage over other spellcasters. A spellmind learns quickly, and becomes quite a spellcaster.
Skills: Meditation, Evaluating Intelligence, Magery, Resisting Spells, Inscription, Wrestling, and other skill of choice.
The Spellmind devotes its time to becoming a powerful spellcaster, and learning forbidden knowledge and information. Their attitude towards the magical arts sometimes puts them in conflict with the Elder-Brain, but generally Spellminds are great assets to an Illithid community.

Magic: Illithids can become great spellcasters. With the ability to learn from the minds of those they devour, to read minds, and learn secrets, a Illithid has powerful tools to learn the arcane arts. However, Illithid's favor certain types of magic over others. Elemental magics are almost worthless, in the Mind Flayers eyes. They favor weakening spells, illusions, and the Mind Blast spell. Their favored spell would be Mind Blast, after casting weakening spells. They also sometimes learn electricity spells, but avoid most other elemental spells. Healing spells are favored also. Often Illithid's will guise themselves in Incognito spells, when entering a human city.

Roleplaying a Illithid: These strange and alien beings should be left to only the most experienced of roleplayers. Mind flayers rarely speak, instead using telepathic communication, or their own strange and alien tongue. Their alien appearance is even harder to roleplay in game, making macros for your tentacles are recommended. They commonly wear dark purples with signs of death around them. Using your profile to describe yourself is also immensly recommended. Illithids will speak in emotes, ( *A voice enters your mind, "Greetings, human."* ). Or, they will use party chat to speak telepathically. Using items to make your appearance as an Illithid better, is acceptable.
Illithids must eat every other day. Devouring the brains of sentient creatures is the most positive, because you can learn the knowledge of the being you eat. Also, animals, and creatures which are not sentient are considered distasteful to a Flayer. Dining on brains can be a regular event. Either on Npc's, the local Orc tribe, or the Elven clans.
Make you Mind Flayer unique. Do you favor one type of brain over another? Do you have a distaste for a certain race of slave? Are you fond of your slaves, or do you kill them for sport whenever you've the chance? Give your Illithid something that will make it unique. Find ways for it to come alive to those roleplaying with you. Its a hard experience, but well worth it.