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The following monsters are considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and are therefore not part of the OGL:
*beholder
*gauth
*carrion crawler
*displacer beast
*githyanki
*githzerai
*kuo-toa
*mind flayer
*slaad
*umber hulk
*yuan-ti
Edit: I might be missing a few... I mean there is nothing stopping you from converting them but I don't think we will ever see them in a Beastiary.
LOL - "pesky" mind flayers.
The Mind Flayers were replaced with beings called Intellect Devourers.
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Yeah, they can't use illithids unless they want Hasbro lawyers beating down their doors.
That said, there's nothing preventing you from including them in your game, they just don't have a canon place in Golarion's story. The best way to take advantage of this is making them a new, forgotten, or mysterious threat. They're a blank canvas.
Icyshadow is quite right that Pathfinder's Intellect Devourers have taken over a lot of the illithids' territory. The Seugathi (and their masters, the neolithid) took over some of the rest.
You can also look into Phrenic Scourges from Ari Marmell and Dreamscarred Press. They're arguably creepier than mind flayers, while playing on the same themes.
Cheers!
Landon
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Well, Paizo can't use them, but you can still use the monster from the 3.5 Monster Manual. As Pathfinder is almost completely backwards compatible, you could use the Mindflayer as is, or you just adjust it to the PF rules. No one can prohibit you to use that monster for privat use.
And I think they easily find a place in Golarion. :)
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In a way, Rakshasa have seen much more use now that the Illithid are "gone".
I personally had no interest in the Illithid/githyanki/githzerai love triangle, and am happy to see ALOT more use of the animal headed bad guys.
Perhaps DnD was a little too crowded with humanoid like monsters with heads of something else, for our loveable friends the Rakshasa to shine before?
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Kind of funny, the Githyanki and Githzerai being "Product Identity". They originally came out in the Fiend Folio, which was a compilation of player submitted monsters. Somebody gave those concepts up to TSR to be used by everyone. Guess he was a tad naive....
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Actually, the illithids are present. If you know your illithid lore, you'll know that neothilids are illithids that matured without ever fusing with a humanoid host.
In other words, neothilids are the 'true' illithids, and illithids are a hybrid race of illithid larva+humanoid brain.
And the two races loathe one another.
So, the reason there are no illithids on Golarion is because 1) the neothilids ate them and 2) the intellect devourers who used to be thei illithids' pets and slaves rose up and helped destroy them, taking over for their masters.
Note neothilids are considered the great don't-test-me power of the underdark in Golarion. Even the aboleths don't mess with them, and certainly not the Intellect Devourers. The ID's did once, and the neothilids promptly moved in on some of their choice territory, and now the ID's are stewing trying to figure out how to evict a member of an average CR 16+ race.
==+Aelryinth
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The Mind Flayers were replaced with beings called Intellect Devourers.
Intellect devourers (so cute!) have been around since 1st Edition.
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Kind of funny, the Githyanki and Githzerai being "Product Identity". They originally came out in the Fiend Folio, which was a compilation of player submitted monsters. Somebody gave those concepts up to TSR to be used by everyone. Guess he was a tad naive....
Originally written up in White Dwarf magazine by Charles Stross
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Okay, it's bothering me: the correct spelling is neothelid. With an "e".
If you want to use mind flayers, it's easy to have them still around -- they're just an aboleth experiment in creating a more land-mobile servitor race with psionic powers.
Or maybe they plane-shifted in from some alternate universe? (That would let you keep the gith love triangle going.)
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In my homebrew game, while Ilithids have colonies on other worlds, they are merely visitors to the world. Basically they're space aliens, with advanced technology and spaceships. That should certainly work in Golarion I'd think, since such elements are already a part of the setting.
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In my homebrew game, while Ilithids have colonies on other worlds, they are merely visitors to the world. Basically they're space aliens, with advanced technology and spaceships. That should certainly work in Golarion I'd think, since such elements are already a part of the setting.
Maybe the ship that crashed in Numeria was one of theirs.....
*makes ancient aliens guy face*
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In my Golarian setting, that ship is an ancient Dreadnought from the original Dragon Wars in the Dragonstar setting.
I personally had no interest in the Illithid/githyanki/githzerai love triangle, and am happy to see ALOT more use of the animal headed bad guys.
I always much preferred the Githyanki/Elf/Kreen triangle.
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The Mind Flayers were replaced with beings called Intellect Devourers.Intellect Devourers are not a replacement for Mind Flayers. They were separate monsters in the original game. They appear in this one not really changed that much.
What Icyshadow is saying is the Intellect Devourers have filled the setting niche in Golarion that Mind Flayers fill in classic WotC settings.
I actually think the neothilids have that niche.
ID's are more invasion of the body snatchers. Neo's are the alien overlords with fell powers no one wants to mess with.
==Aelryinth
Neothelids are illithid tadpoles that were never implanted in a brain as detailed in Wizards of the Coast materials, but Paizo doesn't have that history for them since illithids aren't available for use but neothelids are.
If you want to have illithids in your game, perhaps instead of having them be an aboleth experiment or creation, they could be a neothelid experiment. The neothelids are given a bigger role in the Darklands in Golarion than they were in the Underdark of yore because they're not just some illithid bio-waste. The neothelid illustration in the Pathfinder Bestiary is way better than the WotC illustration for the creature and it is much more inspiring for some alien horror. If I were to use illithids in Golarion at all, I'd likely just make them a servitor race of the neothelids. (Though I'm quite happy to break ties with WotC Product Identity and likely won't be converting illithids for use.)
Illithids aren't canon for Golarion or the Pathfinder Campaign Setting though, as has already been said, so whatever you make of them is your call.
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If you want to use Illithids in something officially Golarion, just substitute the denizens of Leng which are far creepier and more Lovecraftian, have mouthfuls of tentacles, and as a bonus don't dress like they thought the "Ming the Merciless" look never went out of style, especially in purple.
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If you want to use Illithids in something officially Golarion, just substitute the denizens of Leng which are far creepier and more Lovecraftian, have mouthfuls of tentacles, and as a bonus don't dress like they thought the "Ming the Merciless" look never went out of style, especially in purple.
"Ming the Merciless" look went out of style?! When?! What?! How?! Noooo!!!!
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If you want to use Illithids in something officially Golarion, just substitute the denizens of Leng which are far creepier and more Lovecraftian, have mouthfuls of tentacles, and as a bonus don't dress like they thought the "Ming the Merciless" look never went out of style, especially in purple.
Interesting choice. I feel like they make good masterminds and excellent slavers, but don't necessarily have the invasive body horror aspect the Illithids get.
Points in their favor include coming pre-packaged with an arguably-worse nemesis (the Leng Spiders) and their agenda of slaving, selling twisted magical items, and being welcome in many shady ports (including some in the Darklands). I think their accepted existence at the edges of humanoid societies makes them creepier than illithids there.
The process of gaining tentacles, sharpened teeth, claws, horns, new skin, different organs, and reversed legs could be milked for months of brutal unpleasantness, if one were so inclined. And, at the end of the process, the denizens get a new "child" that maintains some elements of its old body and knowledge, maybe even hiding its transformation to maintain a position in society.
Dreams are nice in that you can throw them at PCs and NPCs alike, keeping the horror front and center without impeding a character's ability to adventure or fight back too much. The victim could also deprive themselves of sleep and use curative magic to slow the process. The freshly-transformed denizen's journal almost writes itself.
And traveling to the Dimension of Dreams to free someone's dreamself from Leng is just begging to be an adventure. The denizens could also transform slaves physically taken to Leng, which is harder to work in to a campaign, but is closer to the illithid's approach and still allows for the rescue mission.
In Golarion, associating them tightly with dreams makes them a natural foil for the servitors of Desna. It does risk stepping on a cool part of the intellect devourers' schtick, although you could also play with the denizens as the source of that particular power.
Cheers!
Landon
Contact me via private message here on the boards. I can help.
If you want to use Illithids in something officially Golarion, just substitute the denizens of Leng which are far creepier and more Lovecraftian, have mouthfuls of tentacles, and as a bonus don't dress like they thought the "Ming the Merciless" look never went out of style, especially in purple.
Not all have that style: picture
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Yeah... I will just keep them in my games as if they had never changed. I was never even aware there was a central world/history for pathfinder... Does anyone have a good homebrew conversion for them?
Just use the 3.5 stats and run them through the conversion guide and you should be good to go.
Kind of funny, the Githyanki and Githzerai being "Product Identity". They originally came out in the Fiend Folio, which was a compilation of player submitted monsters. Somebody gave those concepts up to TSR to be used by everyone. Guess he was a tad naive....Originally written up in White Dwarf magazine by Charles Stross
... based on stuff written by George R. R. Martin & Larry Niven.
Whatever else you may say about them, they have a heck of a pedigree.
-TimD
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Intellect Devourers handle all the brain eating stuff and the Seugathi are the Golarion combat replacements for them, from what I've heard.
Hi:
Noob question:
Illithids:
Are these pesky beings represented in the Pathfinder (Golarion) universe? I've searched high & somewhat low (but not under) & found only neothillids (probably spelled wrong)... Are these equivalent to the world's oldest fantasy RPG's "mind flayers", or am I lost (I've found aboleths, devil, demons, the drow, gillmen, etc.,)?Thanks!
QVA
I think you can use the one from that other game somethings& someotherthings 3.6 other close to its monsters guide book. Diff that with the psionic books and other things. I mean, if you own the books, can't you use them any way you want?
They're not hard to transfer over to a Pathfinder format. I plan to use them in an upcoming game in my homebrew.
I love the mind flayers. I never used them but a couple of times in my 34 years of gaming, though. But I think that's going to change soon.
As someone that had a lot of Rogues and Fighters, I hate Mindflayers, so very much!