What a fascinating and challenging topic. I had not reviewed these various Mind Flayer posts in earnest until now. Amazing that such work has been put into the prospect of Mind Flayers on Athas, and if nothing else, the inclusion of the Dark Cupula on almost every serious map of the Anattan continent has led many of us I think to serious contemplate their inclusion.
Redking presents my hesitation well. Mind flayers are a difficult proposition for many reasons. Canon, established timelines, considerations of tone, and the consideration of injecting more “traditional” monsters into the unique bestiary of Athas definitely present challenges.
We do however have the precedent of Black Spine. According to this campaign boxed-set, both githyanki and githzerai hazarded upon Athas thousands of years ago. Thus, it could be argued, it is not impossible that illithids found their way to the universe of the Dark Sun as well.
To me, illithids are horrific monsters. True abominations. Ceramorphosis is shockingly disturbing. If Rajaat assigned a Champion to annihilate such parasitic and wantonly evil beings, in this case, Rajaat was right. If we are to place them in the world, I would cast my vote for them being in origin alien to the planet, much as the giythyanki and githzerai. I would prefer them in a small, isolated region. They are monsters best presented, in my opinion, when the campaign wishes to channel H.P. Lovecraft. They should be the stuff of a short adventure, a romp into the aberrant. Appropriately played, illithids of almost any variety are extremely powerful, even for Dark Sun heroes, and are very challenging. Geniuses and dominators, they would certainly have an array of mind-scrubbed servitors and layers of psionic defenses and more. Even a Champion would have been pressed to have cleansed them.
Therefore I consider their presence on Athas, though as an exception. A single ship may have crashed, somehow navigating to Athasian Space, or a single party may have breached the planar gulfs between universes and arrived on Athas. No further should come. Nor do I like the idea of them constantly threatening all of Athas. Perhaps they did, for one moment, as did the githyanki in Black Spine, but that moment has past. Any remaining threat, for now anyway, is in a realm which one ought not to go. If they were otherwise, we would suspect that the Dragon and/or combined might of the SKs would have annihilated them in the past. Therefore, in a discreet realm of supreme evil, let them remain, says I.
As to the Dark Cupula, I still maintain strong reservations. All respects to Sysane, but I see no need for it. The illithids would have most certainly remained underground, and therefore there would be no reason to dim the sun around their lands. Or so I assess.
