Monster Spotlight: Intellect Devourer
This week, everyone’s favorite brain dog, the Intellect Devourer jumps into the spotlight.
A pack of these brain dogs menaced our offices today–it looked like it might get dangerous for us, but then we started talking about the merits of 7th edition 40K and why it will prove to be the superior edition of the game, and they started getting sleepy. Then I showed them my multiclass gish build that uses three different sourcebooks and they just sort of whined and gave up. They’re nestled in the corner now, and I think they’re sleeping–so I figured this would be as good a time as any to bring the Intellect Devourer into the spotlight.
Er, we mean a different kind of intellect devourer…
The Intellect Devourer is a fascinating monster–it’s been a part of D&D since the dawn of time, by which I mean, they’ve been around since the Eldritch Wizardry supplement which was one of those “before D&D was D&D” supplements. And in their earliest appearance, Intellect Devourers were fearsome. Not just brain dogs–they were demons aligned with chaos whose senses could extend into the astral and ethereal planes, and bore little resemblance to the intellect devourer that we all know and love. For instance, instead of being a brain with legs, the intellect devourer of Eldritch Wizardry was a ball-like body of sooty-black, able to hide in shadows as a 10th-level thief and vulnerable to bright light.
Anyway. Let’s get right to 1st Edition, where the Intellect Devourers began to focus more on psionics and devouring intellect–an ability they had in Eldritch Wizardry, though they were more about taking over the bodies of the people whose peoples intellects they devoured and impersonating them to fool their friends and find new prey.
The 1st Edition Intellect Devourer has much more of the familiar look. Actually I’d say it’s fairly iconic at this point–everything from the brain-like shape to the style of the legs that support it are basically still around in 5th edition (as you’ll see soon enough). They are largely unchanged from their proto-counterparts, retaining the ability to see into the astral and ethereal planes, as well as to speak any human language. Bright light deters them, and lightning bolt is bright enough to cause 1 point of damage per die of damage involved in the bolt.
The 2nd Edition Intellect Devourer is back in living color. I really like the look of this–it sets the alien tone for the creature. And it incorporates one of the variants introduced in Dragon Magazine into the main monster manual entry. Alongside the Intellect Devourer, you get the Ustilgator (or the larval form, which is a tinier version of the intellect devourer but with a spiny tendril that lets it probe someone’s mind. Its abilities are largely unchanged from the earlier editions. It still has 6 + 6 hit dice, and it has four claw attacks that each do 1d4 damage. It has special defenses that protect it as well, retaining the immunity to most magic that 1st edition intellect devourers possessed, as well as the immunity to weapons that aren’t at least +3 (and even then those only do a single point of damage).
We also get a look at what their ecology and society are like. Intellect devourers live underground, where they don’t really care about their young. Sometimes they eat them. Sometimes they don’t. Kind of terrifying–and their larva, the ustilgators, sometimes develop a symbiotic relationship with a weird underground fungus that feeds on the residual thoughts of their victims.
No wonder Mind Flayers love to both use these as guardians and as delicacies.
3rd Edition Intellect Devourers, despite being powerful creatures, did not appear in the main monster manual. In fact, they were absent from 3rd edition until the release of the psionics handbook. In this edition, though, they are much the same as before. Though some of their rules have been given a little more structure–like the supernatural ability Body Thief. This is the Intellect Devourer’s iconic “eat the brain and take over the person” maneuver. The rules for carrying out this attack are given step-by-step, and the ability is expanded: it can live for up to seven days as though it were the victim’s original brain, retaining its hit points, saves, and mental/psionic abilities, though gaining the basic identity and personality of the victim.
This of course lets it find prey. In addition 3rd edition intellect devourers are vulnerable to Protection from Evil, which can drive them out as though they were a summoned creature. But more importantly… they are also a playable character race. They do come with a steep level adjustment, weighing in at +6 — but in exchange you get so much. Like a bounty of psionic abilities like cloud mind and id insinuation.
4th Edition Intellect Devourers come in three shapes and sizes. As before, you have the larva and adult form, as well as a third high-level final form. I will say though, this is my least favorite art–there’s a lot about 4th Edition that I love, but in some places, it seemed afraid to embrace the silly/goofy aspect that is a pretty big chunk of the D&D spectrum. At any rate, the 4th edition “lots of variants” is strong here. You have three varieties of Intellect Devourers–the Ustilgator, the Intellect Predator, and the Intellect Glutton.
All three forms of the intellect devourer are fairly complex–owing to the fact that they were released in the Monster Manual III, and by this point in 4th Edition’s dev cycle, it had veered heavily into complex mechanics and powers designed to combo with one another. All three have a power that lets them deal psionic damage to a target, and they all have some form of ongoing status effect. The Ustilgator can daze opponents as it clings to them with its brain-eating tendril, the Predator and Glutton can dominate targets either by merging with their body or at range.
Whichever flavor you choose, that attack is only one method of attack. They all have strong mental attacks and curiously, a devastating claw attack that allows them to attack even the most resilient of foes.
The 5th Edition Intellect Devourer is the smallest intellect devourer we’ve seen yet, coming in at Tiny. Though, like their brethren in other editions, they still have the six hit dice that have characterized these monsters since before 1st Edition. Their claws are formidable, though this version of the monster is only CR 2, so it’s formidable for that tier of play. This is perhaps the most vulnerable they’ve ever been–with an AC of 12 and only resistance to damage from nonmagical weapons. They also lose their telepathic abilities–BUT–they make up for their relative nerfs in a big way.
It has two incredibly powerful abilities that, with a little bit of bad luck can wipe even the most experienced of adventuring parties. First up is Devour Intellect which deals a small amount of damage, but then also prompts the DM to roll 3d6 and if this beats the Intelligence of the target, they are reduced to 0 Intelligence and are stunned. This is important because it sets up Body Thief, which can only be used on an Incapacitated Target. The Intellect Devourer enters into an Intelligence Contest (and remember, targets it has devoured the intellect of are at 0 intelligence) and if it wins, it teleports into their skull, eats their brain, and assumes direct control of the body.
In addition to allowing it to impersonate the creature (gaining full knowledge of its memories), it can inhabit it indefinitely until it’s either driven out or the host body is killed. Again, on their own, these are a threat (but one a party can deal with). But for best results, combine them with something like a Mind Flayer (or another monster that has AoE stuns) and a small pack of these things can become outright deadly. If you want to make an encounter that is fairly threatening–these guys are great building blocks.
Assuming that your party has intellect to devour in the first place. I don’t know. They could all think that 4th Edition was terrible or play Chaos Space Marines–in which case they just get to watch the intellect devourers starve to death.
…incidentally does anyone know if these things make good pets? There’s one that’s just hanging around, whimpering. I think we can feed it…
