Mind Flayer Campaign

I have been working on an idea for a month or so and am interested in feedback. The basic idea is that all the characters are mind flayers, and are part of an Illithid inquisition tasked with invading the surface world.

I do not want to start them off as ultra high level characters, as regular mind flayers are considered level 15 that is an issue. Also at issue is the alien mindset of Illithid society and the requirement that all characters be of the same race. In order to provide more variety for the characters I am allowing all of the Psionic Classes, and some monster specific prestige classes for the characters.

I am considering a variety of other ways to work within the scenario and help keep things interesting and to maintain campaign variety. One idea is that all players have a thrall that is equivalent of a 3rd level, and that they will begin play as their main character's thralls. This way there will be a variety of character races, and it fits with Illithid society. The players will never play both characters at the same time, but the different adventures would be geared for the different sets of characters.

The players would begin the campaign as the thralls, preparing the way for their masters to enter into the upper world, and would advance until the Illithids would become an advancement rather than just high level starting characters.

Anyway....I really was just looking for feedback on this idea. What do you think? Any recommendations, or books I should check out?

Thank you for any help or feedback you may have.

Be careful what you put your mindflayers against. Most of their powers are mindaffecting, and those are powerfull. Expect them to go through enemies with an CR of 4+ over their level, but with low willsaves, with ease. Creatures immune to mindaffecting will be very tough. An undead a few levels below the groups level can pose a big enough challenge.
You may want to adjust the xp the mindflayers earn based on how tough an encounter is from their perspective.

Interesting idea.

You might check out Savage Species, if you can get your hands on a copy, although you may not want to buy one. You could set up the mind flayer as a 15-level class that the players advance through - minor abilities to begin, and then slowly gaining abilities as you go on. SS has a lot of examples of this, and may even have a (3.0) example of a mind flayer that you could adapt to 3.5.

I still think it would be fun to have Mind Flayers take over the world and extinguish the sun - and then have a group of PCs deliberately turn themselves into Vampires in order to have one last go at defeating them.

Plot ideas:
1) Part 1 - Find the path to the surface: The Mindflayers have to map a route to the surface that IS useable for the movement of slaves and good back to the underdark. This means they will have to work with, kill, or enslave races on the way.

2) Part 2 - Life on the surface: Now that you are on the surface build a foothold! This is your keep, your stronghold from this point you will raid the lands around you. Man it now.

3) Part 3 - Location, Location, Location: So, you have a nice keep on the broder lands, but where is the food? What can they do to stop you? What are the movements of the herds? Map the surface, mostly recon.

4) Part 4 - Weaken the herd: You now know the lay of the land and guess what, you don't have the numbers to take it over! Time to be the power behind the thrones, how can you take over from within?

really neat idea. i can't stress to you enough the importance of Lords of Madness to really add to a campaign like this.

Great idea! The only thing you need to ask yourself is whether or not you have a group you trust to do this without it turning into a power-mad murder fantasy.

I think running a group of mind flayers would be a challenge, myself, as there may be some players who would have a rough time getting into character.

Just want to say first of all, thanks for the feedback. Keep the ideas coming, I am really glad to be getting so much.

Yes, Lords of Madness is definitely a necessary sourcebook. I am not sure how hard it will be for the players to get into their characters; I know it could go bad, but the palyers I have currently are very good and I think they can handle it. That said, the total alien perspective may be hard to role play....any ideas on how to make it easier?

I am thinking about eventually having the game reach a big city. Do you think it would be easier to hide in a city or harder? City vs. Outskirts as far as hiding goes....I don't know. Also thinking i might use an ancient empires spin as overarching plot. Since the Illithids are both ancient and future empire it could work.

Anyhow thanks for the feedback and keep it coming.

buy this book: Unveiled Masters: The Essential Guide to Mind Flayers by Paridigm press. It is the single greatest mind flayer resource ever written IMHO

I think that the campaign should be 100 percent thralls, with the mindflayers being NPCs. HOWEVER, give the characters psionics and access to mind flayer grafts and magic items, just to make sure no one mistakes these guys for being ordinary evil adventurers (if there is such a thing).

Remember that mind flayers have a LOT of enemies, not just the poor suckers they're invading. The drow, duergar, derro, aboleth, drow, svirfneblin and beholders are all problems underground. And any of them knowing that they're dealing with mindflayers and their thralls will use lots of constructs and mindless undead as weapons against them.

A mindflayer invasion is also serious enough that the surface will likely be sending adventurers, or their counterparts, down at them. If any adventurers escape (and eventually, they will), it's just a matter of time before the heavy hitters of the surface world come their way, gunning for squidheads.

And, of course, let's not forget the gith ...