D&D: Secrets Of The Mind Flayers
Knowledge is power, but for a Mind Flayer, knowledge is also a seasoning that will make your brain even more delicious. Learn about them at your own risk.
Alright let’s talk Mind Flayers. In 5th Edition, they’re positioned as the scions of a once-great empire that spanned the cosmos, aeons before the gods of the “present day” in D&D. These alien creatures are masters of the mind, but their empire fell when their psionic experiments rose up against them and overthrew them, with the working-class seizing property from those that had it and scattering the parasitic upper class to the void. Which I guess makes the Githzerai and Githyanki socialists? Either way, the Mind Flayers have some hidden secrets that even aboleths, who remember basically everything, don’t remember.
They’re one of the villains at the heart of Baldur’s Gate 3, and though BG3 is delayed, we’re still getting pumped by taking a look at the secret lore of the Mind Flayers.
In the video above, Adam Lee, a writer at Wizards of the Coast and one of the chief people behind much of the lore you should know, talks about the secret history of the Mind Flayers. These creatures are an alien threat. They’re parasites that colonize an area secretly, taking people over from the inside out. Someone might be infested with an intellect devourer, or they might be the thrall of a Mind Flayer, and they make an insidious threat because Mind Flayers can do so much through proxies.
They lend themselves well to adventuring structures, because a Mind Flayer can hide behind minions and thralls and allies as you work your way more and more towards the true threat at the heart of everything. And with their powerful psionic abilities, they might outclass the party, they may leave, or they might be slain only to send a psionic message back to the Elder Brain, lurking somewhere. They’re a monster that keeps on giving, which is why they’re such an iconic part of D&D.
Illithids drive Baldur’s Gate 3–implanting the protagonist with a mindflayer tadpole (which will consume you if you’re not careful), and they threaten Faerun, arriving in waves as their nautiloid ships descend on Baldur’s Gate. How will you fare against them?
Happy Adventuring!
