Mind Flayer (5e Race)
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This page is incomplete and/or lacking flavor. Reason: Incomplete history, physical description, and H&W table. What exactly telepathy entails should be detailed.
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This page is of questionable balance. Reason: This race allows you to command a small army, and if you're lucky, a boss. An ability score increases by 3. Steal Brain can allow you to have, theoretically, an infinite amount of intelligence. It is easily exploitable. Increasing intelligence should not be a thing period. The whole race reads like a class, with traits that compliment, and work off of each other. Racial traits should be a small amount of bonuses, and maybe an action or two. See 5e Race Design Guide.
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Mind Flayer
The mind flayer is a four or six tentacled, purple, intelligent race of creatures that primarily dwell in the underdark. They can control and steal minds.
Physical Description
History
Mind flayers, also called illithids, are the scourge of sentient creatures across countless worlds. Psionic tyrants, slavers, and interdimensional voyagers, they are insidious masterminds that harvest entire races for their own twisted ends. Four tentacles snake from their octopus-like heads, flexing in hungry anticipation when sentient creatures come near.
In eons past, illithids controlled empires that spanned many worlds. They subjugated and consequently warped whole races of humanoid slaves, including the githyanki and githzerai, the grimlocks, and the kuo-toa. Conjoined by a collective consciousness, the illithids hatch plots as far-reaching and evil as their fathomless minds can conceive. Since the fall of their empires, illithid collectives on the Material Plane have resided in the Underdark.
Most illithids belong to a colony of sibling mind flayers devoted to an elder brain-a massive brain-like being that resides in a briny pool near the center of a mind flayer community. From its pool, an elder brain telepathically dictates its desires to each individual mind flayer within 5 miles of it, for it is able to hold multiple mental conversations at once.
Solitary mind flayers are likely rogues and outcasts. Mind flayers who seek out magic and attempt to achieve lichdom are known as alhoons.
Society
Mind flayers live in groups of siblings commanded telepathically by an elder brain.
Mind flayers come into being through a process known as ceremorphosis, in which a specialized tadpole is inserted into a humanoid victim via an orifice of the face which then latches onto the brain stem. The physical process then turns the being into a mind flayer over a period of a week, completely transforming the creature's anatomy. At this point, the fledgling mind flayer undergoes education and acclimation before being considered a mature member of mind flayer society, a period that is around 20 years.
Mind Flayer Names
Mind flayers are usually named after their skills. Common names are Mindblaster and Deathseer.
Male:
Female:
Mind Flayer Traits
Ability Score Increase. Age. {{{age}}}
Alignment. {{{alignment}}}
Size. Speed.
Languages. {{{languages}}}
|summary=
|abilities=+2 Intelligence and choose 2 from Intelligence,Wisdom or Charisma.-->
|age=Mind flayers live to age 500.-->
|alignment=Illithids normally have a natural tendency towards hierarchy, discipline, and cruelty, and most have an alignment of lawful evil. If a Mind Flayer is not in a Hive Mind Colony or far from an Elder Brain, they can develop a personality, guided by their curiosity and hunger for knowledge and possibly over time developing a concept of morality and ethics, becoming chaotic good or legal good
|size=Mind flayers range from 4 feet to 9 feet. Your size is Medium
|speed=Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
|trait2=Steal Brain
|description2=As an action on your turn, you can steal the mind of any creature grappled by you. You make an attack roll, and, on a hit, you stab your claw into their head. you deal the creature (2d12) piercing damage. If this reduces the target to 0 hit points, you take out it brain and eat it. Then you learn some of its memories or recent thoughts of the DM's choosing.
|trait3=Mind Blast
|description3=You can, as an action on your turn, loosea wave of psionic energy against a creature you can see. The target must succeed a Intelligence saving throw with a DC equal to 8 +your Intelligence modifer + your profciency bonus or take (2d6) psychic damage. At 6th level it increases to 4d6 and at 11th level the target is stunned for one round. Once you use this feature you must fnish a short or long rest to use it again.
|trait4=Tentacles
|description4=As an action on your turn, you can make an attack roll at a target of your choice with 5 feet of you. on a hit, the target is dealt (1d8) psychic damage and grappled.
|trait5=Telepathy
|description5=You have telepathy up to 120 feet.
|trait6=Dark Spell Casting
|description6=You can cast detect thoughts and levitate at will.
|languages= You can speak, read, and write Deep Speech, Undercommon, and Common.
Random Height and Weight
| Base Height | Height Modifier* | Base Weight | Weight Modifier** |
|---|---|---|---|
| ′ ″ | + | lb. | × () lb. |
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*Height = base height + height modifier | |||
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