Biology of the Illythid

[LadyTevar]

Nitram has never seen this, and had no idea how Illythids reproduce. He doesn't believe me about the cycle of egg>'tadpole' in BrainPool>HostBody.

Can someone find where biology of the Illythid first appeared?

Their lifecycle falls more under biology rather than ecology, even if they are parisites - Phong

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

GO look up the D&D Psionics Handbook.

Illithids are formed when tadpoles are placed into some poor sod's head, where they consume and assimilate him. Neothelids are formed when something goes HORRIBLY wrong with the process. Illithiliches (AKA Alhoons) are vampire illithids.

Anything else? I am of the opinion that no illithid could stand after seeing another illithid in the buff...

[Vendetta]

The tadpoles also live in a special spawning pool where the colony's master brain resides don't they? (IIRC the master brain is the brain matter of expired colony members, which retains some kind of function after death, assuming it isn't too horribly fucked up.).

[Xisiqomelir]

Can someone find where Ecology of Illythid first appeared?

The Illithiad, which is now horrendously out of print. I'll dig up a page reference at some point in the near future.

[Tasoth]

I do believe in second addition they laid tadpoles and place them in the brain pool. Third edition they implant larvae in the head via the ear of a sentient being. I noticed when I read it and think its kinda dumb. Thats also given by the Half Illithid template.

[LadyTevar]

Thanks everyone. Now maybe Nit will believe me when I compare Go'a'ulds to Illythids?

[PrinceofLowLight]

The tadpole thing is kind of silly, IMHO. Supposedly they had a ginormous population on the Astral plane, which seems a little hard to believe if that was their only method of reproduction.

Maybe they bred Giths for implanting?

But it says that non-humans who get implanted just turn into Half-Illithids. Curiouser and curiouser.

[frigidmagi]

The Giths were human at one time. In fact it's stated that we can still interbreed with them, which I guess isn't saying much in D&D, but still!

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

The Giths were human at one time. In fact it's stated that we can still interbreed with them, which I guess isn't saying much in D&D, but still!

It does mean something now, ebcause anybody and his brother can be a half-Gith if their parents were horny and desperate enough... And where did you get that from, the Giths being formerly human thing?

[SirNitram]

The Giths were human at one time. In fact it's stated that we can still interbreed with them, which I guess isn't saying much in D&D, but still!

It does mean something now, ebcause anybody and his brother can be a half-Gith if their parents were horny and desperate enough... And where did you get that from, the Giths being formerly human thing?

2nd Ed guide to the Astral Plane gives the entire history of the Gith.

In short, they're humans who were herded into the Astral and experimented on when the Illithids still had a vast, multi-planar empire. One of them developed psionics in this terrible treatment(Why? ..Well, partly because the experiments were psionic, partly because the Astral is conductive to such, and partly for pure plot advancement), and apparently hones them to such an edge that she helps her people rise up and smash the empire. Then the splitting of the Gith into the three factions came.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Three? I thought there were only the githyanki and githzerai?

[SirNitram]

Three? I thought there were only the githyanki and githzerai?

Three, yes. There's also the Gith Pirates, who fled to Wildspace. They have, among other things, the wierd ability to cause certain spelljammers to shift into the Astral, where they can launch ambushes from.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Tellme about it....

too bad the Deodanths aren't allowed in AD&D proper...

imagine Half Drow / Half Gith space pirates......

or should I say hairless drow, with Psionics, and a funky space shifting ability/time stopping abilities....

litterlally they can perform the blink ship/ and time shift ability (enabling them to have two identical ships running around for a very, very short period)

[The Dark]

I think the AD&D 2e MM had the information on the Illithid's reproduction, but I sold my 2e books a couple years ago. Other sources I do still have:

Dragon #255 lends indirect evidence in passing, discussing the Ceremorph (illithid-kin) known as a Mozgriken:
"Gnomish body chemistry normally rejects attempts at larval implantation, often killing both illithid larva and the potential host...The larvae chosen for gnomish impantation are usually the smallest, most timid specimens in the brine pool, fodder for the elder brain..."

From Spelljammer, the Concordance of Arcane Space mentions that the "life-pool" can move Spelljamming ships, and counts as 2 crew members for air purposes. The Lorebook of the Void mentions "...the elder brain-pools of the illithids, where the young swim and grow..."

And yeah, the Pirates of Gith were nasty. 7-11 HD, able to be fighters, mages, clerics, or multi-class fighter with either of the others. All of them can use astral spell, plane shift, and ESP, and they can shift small elven ships to the Astral. Extreme xenophobes, and special enemies of the elves (to get their ships) and illithids (because of their racial history).