Illithid Sex

See, the 'official' name for Mind Flayers is 'illithids', so, it's sort of a pun on 'illicit' and...oh, forget it.

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Mind Flayers
In vast, deep, underground cities sprawls the Empire Of The Mind Flayers...both the most widespread and the weakest of the Three Dark Powers Below. ("Weak" being a rather relative term, of course...)

Arithian history begins in ancient and forgotten times, easily 50,000 years in its past. At that time, there are few records of intelligent surface-dwellers; the only races whose recorded history goes back so far are those who dwell in the darkness below. Secure in their caves, they created many forms of life, opened portals to other worlds, built empires and dominions that spanned creation, and grew old, insular, corrupt, and debased.

The mind flayers (their racial name for themselves is purely psionic, and cannot be pronounced by humans) were the most comprehensible of the older races. They were also the masters of creation, breeding many subject races in their great vats. They enjoyed the taste of sapient thought, and crafted beings for flavor as well as utility. Many of the surface races, though they know it not, began life as cattle.

Something happened, though, long ago, which caused the fall of the great empire. To create servants worth feasting upon, the Mind Flayers needed to give them souls. The Flayers themselves, soulless and godless, did not understand that soul-stuff calls to soul-stuff. The servitors needed gods, believed in gods...and found gods. Some claim their belief created the gods from the raw energy of the universe; some claim their need called out to already-existing gods who took them in and appeared to them as they believed. Either way, the gods empowered the slaves, enabling them to rebel. (Tens of millennia later, the same would occur on Skallidane). The Empire, vast and disconnected, did not fall all at once, nor did every slave rebel, but bit by bit, it crumbled, and the freed races fled upwards, finding a surface world free of any dominant power.

Today, most of the great empire is in ruins. Many of the former cities, outposts, and fortresses are in ruins; others are held by new powers. A few places, though, are still in the control of the Flayers; such locales are deep, hidden, secret, and deadly.

Very recently, a great psychic tremor -- and an equally great physical one -- passed through all of the Underworld. Sensing that the world has changed greatly, the ancient powers, long content to sit and dream alien dreams of forgotten glory, are extending their tendrils outward and upward...


Culture
Psionics informs everything Mind Flayers do. They exist in a world alive with thought. They build their cities of psychoactive crystal, and their language is a mixture of simple words and complex psychic overtones. Their writing, a seemingly random sequence of colored shapes and lines, is likewise imbued with psychic impact; to a Mind Flayer, each shape and color triggers a stored memory of a complex concept. A red triangle of a certain size and shape might mean 'Enemies are approaching'; a green hexagon following it might impart 'The are beholders, six of them'. Almost imperceptible differences in shade, size, and angle can change the meaning of a symbol dramatically, and a non-psionic, or a psion who has not absorbed the training of the Mind Flayer, can not easily learn even the simplest part of the language.

Mind Flayers cannot conceive of other thinking beings as possessing any inherent right to exist. They are food, slaves, and entertainment, nothing more. The best one can hope for from a Mind Flayer is to be seen as an amusing pet; this is where other races' psions tend to be categorized. Among themselves, they lack any emotions of love, affection, or compassion, but they also tend to lack the virulent hatred and treachery which define the other great powers of the Underworld. Mind Flayers can cooperate, form successful communities, and work together for a goal. They are not prone to self-sacrifice or to put any kind of collective good ahead of their own, but they do understand the concept of "Either some of us die, or all of us die" and have traditions and means of choosing a sacrifice when it is necessary.


Biology
Mind Flayers are naturally hermaphroditic, and mostly disinterested in sex. Indeed, it is almost never the case that two will mate. Rather, at a random point late in a Mind Flayer's life, it will spontaneously impregnate itself. The young grow inside the parent, using their latent psionic power and direct, physical, connection to its nervous system to control it, forcing it to seek out shelter and isolation. Then they burst forth, killing the parent, but devouring its mind and some portion of its memory and personality, allowing it to 'live' in a way, scattered among its 5-10 children. Because the children, at first, share portions of a single mind, they will cooperate and help each other, until the squirm (collective noun for a Mind Flayer kids) has grown strong enough to rejoin greater civilization. By this time, most of them will have died, prey to other forces of the Underworld; usually, no more than 1 to 2 survive to adolescence. The adolescents have developed enough experiences of their own that they are unique beings, and have only a dim sense of ever 'being' their parent.

Mind Flayers are basically humanoid in shape, with flexible cartilage for bones and a head which looks like a 4-tentacled octopus. They live on a diet of fungus, insects, and brains. They do not need much brain to live -- once a month is sufficient -- but they need at least a pound of it. Sapient brains are much preferred, both for flavor and the fact that they need the neurochemicals of a thinking mind to fuel their own psionic powers. A Mind Flayer denied access to sapient brains for three months loses all of their psychic abilities; this is a common form of punishment or control among the community.


Outcasts
Of course, there are always exceptions. For as long as any can recall, some Mind Flayers, a rare few, have not been content to be part of the complex and convoluted machine which Mind Flayer society. They desire power for its own sake. Often unable to find this among their fellows, who will swat down the impudent one, they leave to become lords of their own pretty domains. It is these renegades and radicals who were the first to sense the great change which came upon the world, and it is they who have begun to explore the long-forgotten routes to the brightly lit hell which is the surface.