It depends on your timeline. If, as you say, the illithids have been on Athas for a long time, then natural selection would have it’s effect. In my example, if the campaign starts at Free Year 10, the illithids have been on Athas a mere 4 years.
You’ve given me an idea, however. Without the elder brain to nurture the strong tadpoles and absorb the weak tadpoles, there is no way of ensuring quality illithid breeding. Therefore, 9/10 illithids born on Athas can be like the savage yaggols from the Dragonlance setting, and some failing to even full go through ceremorphosis, becoming half-illithids (as in the 3.5e template).
I may use that Yaggol in my campaign… I read something recently in a source book about Mind Flayers that have either separated themselves from an Elder Brain or been exiled from one and they become very crazy, so I hear… I don’t remember what book that was, maybe Dungeoneer’s, maybe something else.
How about instead of more savage you go the other way with them?
Their minds have become so developed and advanced and they are so reliant on psionics for everyday things that they have all but abandoned using physical means for most everything. With generations of neglecting their bodies, they have evolved to become a head attached to a mostly withered husk of a body. Their head possesses a tight, expressionless face with a superior brain trapped inside. They hover in place as gaunt, pale white humanoids with minimal movement from their extremities. Their nearly naked bodies reveal little care for physical needs as they manipulate their surroundings with the power of the mind.
Any you can still give them spikes:
Their once menacing spikes protrude from their body with a rubbery curled appearance.
No, Rovewin, you did not. The entire point is to change them from what we see in other settings. I don’t understand why people want to change Dark Sun, by adding things from other settings to it. Dark Sun is unique. If you’re going to add things, you must change them to make them as unique as Dark Sun itself.
Yeah, I’m not seeing the “too far”. That could have just been description - there’s no specific need to change the mechanics/ stats to allow for that description, unless you want to.
Especially if you just give them a psionic Mage Hand effect that mimics what they’d normally do physically.
It COULD also have been a description of their changed (mechanical) abilities, if you want(ed). My point being it doesn’t have to be.
(I do understand that redking is quite excited about 3e mechanics and probably sees everything though that lens; no judgment. )
I’d like to see the mechanics fit the fluff. I was a 2E holdout forever, probably until 2008. 3.5e finally turned me around when I realized that when done properly, the mechanics can fit the fluff in 3.5e. 2E fluff was the best, but the mechanics didn’t really represent it.
Sure. Mechanics SHOULD fit the fluff, but there’s sometimes a way to reconcile them w/o changes to the mechanics.
I’m a big fan of doing things like changing the description and reskinning a displacer beast as a dual whip-tailed scorpion monster or something.
Making the stats and description agree isn’t the same thing as letting the description FORCE a change to the mechanics.
I’m happy to let/help folks use description to drive stats, but I’m against being a slave to that.
There’s a way to swing that overly-cerebral Mind Flayer description to still work just fine with the standard version’s stats, if a person wanted, and still have a different FEEL to the Flayer. It’s just a matter of personal preference.
PS: I also don’t really see the point of Mind Flayers in DS, Psurlons are VERY similar; but to each their own.
I am also a fan of doing this. However, I prefer to add rather than replace or subtract. So if there is a beast similar to a displacer beast with a scorpion stinger, for example, just let the PCs wonder ‘what the hell did we just fight’, rather than saying that these are displacer beasts and replacing them.
The place of mind flayers in DS is in the context of an adventure instead of a supplement. That way the mind flayers only happen in DS if the PCs actually participate in the adventure. See Expedition to the Barrier Peaks for something similar. Are there really robots in Greyhawk? Most say no, but there are PCs in some groups that have fought robots and won.
I’m not huge on mind flayers on Athas. I’ve seen various ideas about mind flayers and most of them position mind flayers deep in Athas’ historical narrative. My approach is minimalist. It’s saying “here, if you want mind flayers in your DS campaign, here’s how you can do it without warping the setting”.
Keeping the setting intact and following broadly the Dark Sun themes is my MO.
Right. I did this with some of the new monsters in Faces of the Deadlands - and i promise you’ll never figure out what monster I started with (for at least one of them). I’d never say the phrase “reskinned displacer beasts” to my players.
Ah, nice. That’s how I’d do it, were I so inclined.
Thats been my rationale as well. They went through the trouble of building an entire underground city. Seems extreme unless it was to assault a huge conclave of illithid.
Mmm, that’s an assumptive reach, but its not illogical. Could be.
But, I believe the Girhyanki have nesting colonies/facilities to mature their young. I’m sure many are on/in Prime worlds, and that very few are on worlds known to have Mind Flayers (that’d be the Githyanki playing with fire).
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