What do you think?
Rate this book
The Illithiad
All things mind flayer!
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 20, 1998
About the author
Bruce R. Cordell
166 books124 followersBruce R. Cordell authored books for Dungeons & Dragons over the course of 4 editions (2nd Edition through 5th Edition D&D). These days, he’s a senior designer for Monte Cook Games, LLC designing Numenera , Gods of the Fall, and The Strange. Also a novel author, his credits include several titles set in the Forgotten Realms. Bruce’s tenth novel, Myth of the Maker, is just out from Angry Robot Books:
http://brucecordell.blogspot.com/2017...
http://brucecordell.blogspot.com/2017...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 24, 2021
Another of the 2nd edition AD&D books focused on one of the game's most iconic monsters. This time, Mind Flayers.
The book feels more first-person than the last with a narrative fiction about it being a real book in the setting compiled from the notes of an explorer who has recently mysteriously vanished. Like the Beholder book is looks at physiology, culture, abilities, variants, and so forth giving a fairly complete dossier on all your mindflayer needs for a sub-100 page book and most things are disgustingly illustrated.
Instead of a cross-section the biology section features a labeled illustration of a dissected Mind Flayer which detracts from the Natural Philosopher feel of the Beholder book but does make sense given the book's fiction of a rogue merchant conducting a one-man fact-finding mission on the Illithid. Plus it's a grossly cool illustration. It goes into detail about the Ceremorphosis reproduction of Mind Flayers (They insert a tadpole in to your ear, tadpole eats your brain and hijacks your body transforming it into an Illithid). There are even some hints given about Mind Flayer origins implying that they are displaced from time as they just 'appear' in the history of other species from seemingly thin air.
The cultural notes are about what you'd expect. Mind Flayers are another slaver species and everything revolves around slaves blah blah blah. It's shorthand for hideously evil. The book does take time out to try to mitigate it, though? Like at a couple of points it says that Mind Flayers do care for their brainwashed thralls/food sources and there's even an Illithid club devoted to the thralls. It is weird and doesn't jive with a race whose food source is also their labor pool. I don't think it's necessary and it smells of "but the good masters!!" rhetoric from Confederacy apologists. Moving on from that it does give Mind Flayers some culture including an artform: telepathic taste-shared performance eating wherein the Mind Flayer waxes poetic as it uses its psychic powers to share the flavor and emotions of the victim. This is creepy. I like it. It makes way more sense than the Mind-Flayers-Secretly-Care-About-Their-Chattel-Slaves schtick. There is also a Mind Flayer society discussed whose goal is to use the arts to instill horror in metahumanity and conduct experiments to find out how to best do that. One Mind Flayer NPC detailed even practices musical instruments and composing to product discordant music intended to frighten metahumans on a primal level. It also does some things that don't work. Like every Illithid is expected to end its life by having its brain be consumed by the Elder Brain of the settlement. Every Illithid will however live on in the Elder Brain as a separate consciousness. Something that is clearly untrue as the Elder Brain doesn't act like it would if every Illithid inside it were a separate psychic entity. I would probably scrub that and that Illithids feel it is a duty to add their knowledge and skills to the collective database of the species for the good of it. This also goes along with their lawful natures better than merely making them too stupid to realize the elder brain just eats them.
There's a lengthy section of crunch detailing stats for Mind Flayer variants and a whole slew of different psionic powers which I think are more useful for ideas of what Mind Flayers CAN do rather than to be taken as literal powers. But that's just me and I can't get my friends to wrap their heads around THAC0 anyway sooo...
I love the art in this book. 3.x solidified the idea of Mind Flayers as blue-ish and that has pervaded ever since but there's something primal in the cover illustration. More natural flesh-toned Mind Flayers strike a chord with me that plants them firmly in the uncanny valley and makes them that much creepier. A lot of the internal art has an almost Van-Goghlike surreality to it. This is perfect for such nightmarish monsters with the power to strike you at your very thoughts. The detailing of an Illithid settlement with maps and lengthy notes is as wonderful here as it was in the Beholder supplement. An all-around solid book.
The book feels more first-person than the last with a narrative fiction about it being a real book in the setting compiled from the notes of an explorer who has recently mysteriously vanished. Like the Beholder book is looks at physiology, culture, abilities, variants, and so forth giving a fairly complete dossier on all your mindflayer needs for a sub-100 page book and most things are disgustingly illustrated.
Instead of a cross-section the biology section features a labeled illustration of a dissected Mind Flayer which detracts from the Natural Philosopher feel of the Beholder book but does make sense given the book's fiction of a rogue merchant conducting a one-man fact-finding mission on the Illithid. Plus it's a grossly cool illustration. It goes into detail about the Ceremorphosis reproduction of Mind Flayers (They insert a tadpole in to your ear, tadpole eats your brain and hijacks your body transforming it into an Illithid). There are even some hints given about Mind Flayer origins implying that they are displaced from time as they just 'appear' in the history of other species from seemingly thin air.
The cultural notes are about what you'd expect. Mind Flayers are another slaver species and everything revolves around slaves blah blah blah. It's shorthand for hideously evil. The book does take time out to try to mitigate it, though? Like at a couple of points it says that Mind Flayers do care for their brainwashed thralls/food sources and there's even an Illithid club devoted to the thralls. It is weird and doesn't jive with a race whose food source is also their labor pool. I don't think it's necessary and it smells of "but the good masters!!" rhetoric from Confederacy apologists. Moving on from that it does give Mind Flayers some culture including an artform: telepathic taste-shared performance eating wherein the Mind Flayer waxes poetic as it uses its psychic powers to share the flavor and emotions of the victim. This is creepy. I like it. It makes way more sense than the Mind-Flayers-Secretly-Care-About-Their-Chattel-Slaves schtick. There is also a Mind Flayer society discussed whose goal is to use the arts to instill horror in metahumanity and conduct experiments to find out how to best do that. One Mind Flayer NPC detailed even practices musical instruments and composing to product discordant music intended to frighten metahumans on a primal level. It also does some things that don't work. Like every Illithid is expected to end its life by having its brain be consumed by the Elder Brain of the settlement. Every Illithid will however live on in the Elder Brain as a separate consciousness. Something that is clearly untrue as the Elder Brain doesn't act like it would if every Illithid inside it were a separate psychic entity. I would probably scrub that and that Illithids feel it is a duty to add their knowledge and skills to the collective database of the species for the good of it. This also goes along with their lawful natures better than merely making them too stupid to realize the elder brain just eats them.
There's a lengthy section of crunch detailing stats for Mind Flayer variants and a whole slew of different psionic powers which I think are more useful for ideas of what Mind Flayers CAN do rather than to be taken as literal powers. But that's just me and I can't get my friends to wrap their heads around THAC0 anyway sooo...
I love the art in this book. 3.x solidified the idea of Mind Flayers as blue-ish and that has pervaded ever since but there's something primal in the cover illustration. More natural flesh-toned Mind Flayers strike a chord with me that plants them firmly in the uncanny valley and makes them that much creepier. A lot of the internal art has an almost Van-Goghlike surreality to it. This is perfect for such nightmarish monsters with the power to strike you at your very thoughts. The detailing of an Illithid settlement with maps and lengthy notes is as wonderful here as it was in the Beholder supplement. An all-around solid book.
May 17, 2020
Awesome fun read.
May 7, 2021
Thorough and deep delve into the mysterious mind flayers. Excellent resource whether for 2nd, 5th, or any other edition of D&D
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews