CHAPTER 4
Thralls Illithid communities are filled with slaves or, more correctly, thralls. Thralls do all menial work in illithid society. They are the household servants, public workers, and draft animals. They even fill the ranks of the mind flayer armies, where
their role is largely to serve as cannon fodder while powerful illithids wreak havoc on the enemy with mind blasts and mental domination. Newly captured slaves are subjected to inspection and disinfection, followed by constant psychic bombardment to ensure that they become docile and willing thralls. Those lucky few who managed to escape from thralldom describe it as a waking nightmare. The slave is always aware of what he is doing and is filled with revulsion at his deeds, but is powerless to resist illithid commands. The hopelessness and horror of this mental captivity bears down on the thrall as a constant weight. Many thralls are captured in raids, but not all. Some are bred selectively for strength, docility, or even coloration or height. Few thralls die of natural causes. Most become meals for their masters. Their usefulness doesn’t end at death, either. The bodies (minus the brains, of course) are fed back to other thralls. In addition to the tasks they perform, thralls provide another service to their masters. Illithids have a need to dominate lesser creatures and take great pride in the quantity and quality of their own personal thralls. An illithid with an especially valuable or exotic thrall enjoys great prestige among its peers, while an illithid without thralls is considered weak and incompetent.
THE MIND FLAYERS
In a very literal sense, the mind flayers created the githyanki and githzerai. They are the ultimate result of generations of selective breeding of illithid thralls. The base race from which these two derived is unknown; gith progenitors might have been brought to the distant past from the illithid empire at time’s end, or they might have simply been a race of the mundane world captured during the first great mind flayer incursion from the future. Even the gith do not know. In any event, they are now sufficiently removed from their origins that the base stock is of interest only to historians. The githyanki and githzerai are more similar than either race ever admits. There can be no doubt that at some time, not that long ago (in absolute terms), these two races were actually one. The split actually occurred after the gith won their freedom from the mind flayers. The schism that divided them into two camps was philosophical and social, not racial. The hatred that it spawned was so intense, and still runs so deep in both societies, that they can’t coexist on the same plane. The githyanki have chosen to live in drifting fortresses secreted on the Astral Plane, while the githzerai hide their monasteries in Limbo. From these strongholds, both races foray to the Material Plane to seek vengeance on the mind flayers. The githyanki are primarily a race of warriors and wizards, while the githzerai favor the monk and rogue classes. While it is clear to outsiders how much these two groups could help each other, the thought is anathema to them. If githzerai encounter githyanki, they gleefully slaughter each other. Only the immediate opportunity to slay their common foe causes them to stop fighting and work together. This animosity serves the mind flayers well. If the gith ever were to unite, combining their unique strengths and their vast knowledge of the planes, the future would look bleak for mind flayers. Clearly it is in the illithids’ best interest to keep their two most relentless foes at each others’ throats as long as possible. Specifically, the mind flayers take steps to prevent their enemies from becoming too numerous or too powerful. They recruit spies among the githzerai and githyanki: members of those races who, through blackmail or a desire for vengeance, have turned against their own people. These agents not only keep the mind flayers informed about their enemies’ plans, but also continue to stir the coals of racial hatred, assuring that the two races remain separate. The illithids, on the other hand, are immune from such machinations, thanks to the all-sensing elder brains. No spy could operate for long within a mind flayer community without being uncovered, and the punishment would be the simplest and most effective of all: death without joining the elder brain.
MIND FLAYER GOALS Mind flayer society is unique in that illithids know their destiny is to dominate the universe. Illithids are not foolish enough to believe that the future cannot be changed, however, so they are not complacent. They know that the githyanki and githzerai in particular might inadvertently alter the future by destroying the illithid race. Elder brains excel at seeing the big picture. They take a long view that exceeds most races’ lifetimes. Their active schemes might involve plans that won’t reach fruition for decades or centuries. This sort of long-range planning makes it nearly impossible for outsiders to deduce what a group of mind flayers is planning. Sometimes, the mind flayers themselves don’t entirely understand why the elder brain instructs them to do certain things. In the short term, though, mind flayers work toward a few recognizable goals. They oppose and kill githyanki and githzerai wherever and whenever they locate them. They establish links to nonillithids who can be of service to them while scouting others as potential targets for raids. They seek to maintain a steady influx of brains for nourishment. They expand their knowledge in every area. Only through knowledge can they make accurate predictions about the future.
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