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It has been blocked from my thread necromancy. Dratted anti-magic technology!!!!Mine, too. Besides, I forgot how far the thread had diverged from its original topic by the time it died. Perhaps it's best to move on.
Reincarnation? A NEW THREAD!?!?! then we can talk about updating the battle intellect devourer or the ustilagor! even though uh hmm they are not as far as I know OGl open. :P
Creative Director
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I'm pretty sure the poor ustilagor isn't open content. Which is fine, because as interesting as they were, I never really liked the idea of them being baby intellect devourers. It seems too mundane.
Intellect devourers need a more horrific method of reproduction. Likely something involving a host.
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I'm pretty sure the poor ustilagor isn't open content. Which is fine, because as interesting as they were, I never really liked the idea of them being baby intellect devourers. It seems too mundane.
Intellect devourers need a more horrific method of reproduction. Likely something involving a host.
Something more Ridley Scott??
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I'm pretty sure the poor ustilagor isn't open content. Which is fine, because as interesting as they were, I never really liked the idea of them being baby intellect devourers. It seems too mundane.
Intellect devourers need a more horrific method of reproduction. Likely something involving a host.
Yep, they aren't open, since the only 3E version of them seems to have been in Dragon magazine.
I personally like the idea of smaller intellect devourers. Not capable of taking over anything but animals, perhaps, but as they consume brains they gain in size and mental prowess. But the ustilagor just doesn't do it for me. I'd rather they'd been linked to IDs in some way other than being larvae. But since they aren't open, I don't have to worry! (doing my best to restrict my game to OGL monsters)
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Creative Director
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Something more Ridley Scott??I'm pretty sure the poor ustilagor isn't open content. Which is fine, because as interesting as they were, I never really liked the idea of them being baby intellect devourers. It seems too mundane.
Intellect devourers need a more horrific method of reproduction. Likely something involving a host.
Yup, or something more Clive Barker or David Cronenberg even.
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Two ID ridden hosts 'hook up,' and nine months later, one of them gives birth. The baby is raised as a normal member of it's species (by normal members of its species, as the IDs have better things to do), until puberty, when it gets a headache, and it's skull ruptures from the inside, as the new ID breaks it's way free from the skull, like a bird from an egg.
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Yup, or something more Clive Barker or David Cronenberg even.Something more Ridley Scott??I'm pretty sure the poor ustilagor isn't open content. Which is fine, because as interesting as they were, I never really liked the idea of them being baby intellect devourers. It seems too mundane.
Intellect devourers need a more horrific method of reproduction. Likely something involving a host.
I can just picture the rotting corpse moving after you with little grubs falling off of it. You destroy the corpse to find a bloated ID coming out of its mouth and spewing grubs at you. She was pregnant and wanted a host for her babies. The small crawling teeth filled putrescent things that they are.
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Two ID ridden hosts 'hook up,' and nine months later, one of them gives birth. The baby is raised as a normal member of it's species (by normal members of its species, as the IDs have better things to do), until puberty, when it gets a headache, and it's skull ruptures from the inside, as the new ID breaks it's way free from the skull, like a bird from an egg.
That is... horrific. Sir, I bow to you.
A drow noble in 2nd Darkness was boasting of her hunting abilities to my character and mentioned that chief among her conquests was an intellect devourer.
My character responded, "What'd you do, starve it to death?"
It was worth the whipping.
Still, an ettin would be dead once the intellect devourer got in there. The intellect devourer would sit inside one of the ettin's heads and control the whole thing from there.Yep.
But, what if the coup de grace attempt doesn't kill the helpless victim? It does about 40 points of damage, on average. Ettins typically have 65.
Coup de graces force you to make a fort save with a DC equal to 10+damage dealt so unless a nat 20 is rolled.....
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That is... horrific. Sir, I bow to you.
Thank you!
But, in retrospect, I can't imagine an ID wanting to hang out in a body for 9 months being pregnant.
The alternative is even worse, that only one of the partners needs to be an ID, and the unsuspecting mother won't find out until her child reaches puberty and his head explodes that she was used as an incubator...
And, sometimes, the process doesn't work, and, instead of an ID, the child ends up a human sorcerer with the Aberrant bloodline, or some sort of psionically-empowered person. (and occasional headaches, as he feels his brain squirm around in his skull, as if shifting position, but he *probably* doesn't have to worry about it ever finishing it's growth cycle and ripping out of his head...)
Again, the design goal of the intellect devourer is to allow an unusual combat in which you fight two foes back to back. When the intellect devourer is in the host's body, it's not just physically inside it. It's mentally and magically and even spiritually inside of it. For all intents and purposes, the intellect devourer IS the host body while it's inside the host body.
It doesn't retain the host's memories or knowledge, but it DOES get to use the vast majority of the host's skills, feats, and abilities. It can be a complex thing to run, and there's certainly not enough room in the monster stats to cover ALL possible permutations. Some day, I suspect that there'll be a bigger article or entry that talks about intellect devourers at which point we'll have the luxury of saying more about them. Until then, of course, these messageboards work great as a forum to clear things up!
Thank you. From the bottom of my black heart, thank you.
Very soon my players will have the displeasure of facing the Corpse Train. A caravan of motley vagabonds who travel from place to place telling phenomenal tales and hosting banquets of debauchery. Hidden inside the main carriage is the gentle chamber. A room where corpses never rot, where no living man has ever left of his own free will. The terrible three have doppelgangers, hags, heroes and villains alike in their quiet menagerie. All waiting to live again, but only as puppets with very deep strings.
I almost feel sorry for my players ;)
Almost.
I'm pretty sure the poor ustilagor isn't open content. Which is fine, because as interesting as they were, I never really liked the idea of them being baby intellect devourers. It seems too mundane.
Intellect devourers need a more horrific method of reproduction. Likely something involving a host.
I agree there. How about this:
Rather than devouring the brain of it's host, it instead implants a larvae in the host's cranium. The first effect of this larvae is to render the host more prone to control from the mother ID, treating every telepathic command from them as a suggestion with a -4 to their saving throw. Each week the larvae grows, consuming parts of the host's brain and draining 1 point each of intelligence, wisdom and charisma, and gaining it's own abilities in return (each point it consumes increases it's own scores by one). When the larva's own prowess in two scores exceeds the host's, it starts to mature and take control. Until the host is actually dead, the host can try and resist control - this can be treated as a dominate effect, but with a -4 penalty on the subject's save.
When one of the host's mental scores reaches zero it dies and the larva matures and consumes the rest of the host's brain. Within a week it's mental scores increase to their racial norm, or to the highest mental score of the host, whichever is lower. However, if the new ID's mental scores are not up to their racial normal it is considered a runt by its peers. As such, Intellect devourers always try and select the most mentally strong hosts that they can find for gestating their larvae - wizards and sorcerers are preferred.
During gestation, a cure disease can kill the parasitic larva, or a DC25 Heal check can remove it from the host's cranium. Lost mental attribute points can only be restored with a greater restoration, regeneration or similar powerful effect. The host will unfortunately have a strong aversion to any treatment, even if the larva is not in any form of control.
Intellect devourers often select gestation hosts from the cream of society, or from adventurers, and will either keep them close or else recall them to it's lair before the larva reach maturity. A technique that some use is to use a host body to lure a group of adventurers close and then either overpower them, or use it's reduction and invisibility powers to implant larvae in the spell-casters while they sleep, before returning in another body for the party to 'complete' the adventure and depart, not knowing the seeds they bear.
Does anyone have a colorful anecdote of using an ID on a PC in the middle of the night?
Wow.
4 months without a response, then the floodgates are opened.
Thanks all for responding. I have to admit, the Hydra thing IS cool, even if it's not technically rules compliant. I may use that in my home game too, once my players are high enough level to survive that nightmare.
I can just see them:
"Yawn. A Hydra? That might have been tough 5 levels ago."
*players quickly kill the hydra*
"Wait, what? HOW MANY intellect devourers?"
:D It just takes one Intellect Devourer to have a few levels of Psion (telepath) and the Mind Link power to coordinate all the others, and you have a potent beastie.
One thing about intellect devourers, they don't have to come out and fight, they can flee invisibly, get another body and come back for round #2.
I'm wondering if any of the posters to this thread have read the first entry of Lost Cities of Golarion yet? :)
Cheers, JohnH / Wanda
A VERY cool thread! Thank you for answering so many questions, James!
This monster has always been one of my favorites, but I never really used them 'cause I didn't know how. Now I do. Now I will. Thank you so much!