Human breeding stock required to support Mind Flayer / Illithid Community

[Perun]

Must Illithids eat human brains? Or even humanoid brains?

The most sustainable course of action would be to breed Trolls (if they require sapient brains to survive), Hydras*(if they only require sentient brains) or other regenerative monster stock to meet basic food needs, and leave the tasty humanoid brains for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner -- and for when you want to spawn new mind flayers.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Human brain would be considered either a delicacy or something not-so-pleasant (because it's essential in their reproductive cycle).

Trolls and hydras are good solutions. I'd say goblins and orcs would fit the bill as well, as would any other naturally short-lived race.

Regards.

 

[Drowbane]

I don't think that would work, sorry Mind flayers hate light, and humans need it. If you raise humans in such an environment, they might refuse to reproduce due to depression. You also might have too many humans to actually control, so they would outnumber you and rebel.

Mind flayers could use grimlocks; they're suitable for implantation and consumption, or at least were in the Illithiad. Grimlocks don't mind the dark, although there's still that issue of keeping them under control.

Mindflayers don't have issues with keeping humanoids under control. They're psionic like that.

 

[Yair]

Assume it takes 9 months to bear a child. Assume forced breeding that is 100% efficient. Assume that your females can have one baby every nine months indefinitely and still remain healthy. If you have 10 females, you can start a cycle such that there is one child born each month.

Thus, absolute bare minimum, you need nine women to keep an illithid fed. For a colony of 100 mind flayers, you'll need 1000 women, absolute minimum. And a paltry few men to keep them pregnant.

Now, you break the assumptions, that number rapidly skyrockets into the many thousands. That's not what I'd call tenable.

I'm having thoughts of a Cylon breeding farm... hmm, add some Illithid biotechnology... yes, it looks like a good evil infrastructure/background piece...

 

[hong]

Where do I sign up?

Get in line, you.

 

[Hrihayal]

Taking real world population growth figures into account, which is a
1.14% (2006 est.) for the world and peaks w/ Liberia w/ 4.91% (2006 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2002.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_growth_rate_world.PNG

Assuming a growth figure of 3% and 1.200 human brains (12 month times 100 illithid)
there would be a need population of 40.000 human to get a steady supply (400 humans per illithid).

The Dark Sun comparison below would even call for 120.000 humans to supply the 1.200 brains per year...

There was a discussion on the WotC Dark Sun Forum where they estimated the required slave population to provide 1000 sacrificial victims to the Dragon / ''Dragons levy''

Q.: ''I'm trying to think of the exact demographics of the city states and i am using the reference that Borys would ask for 1,000 slaves each year from each citystate.
This makes me think that due to Athas's high death rate and large slave population and made me begin to think. Exactly how many people would be in a citystate so that this high death rate and birthrate were able to atleast produce 1000 slaves for harvest every year.''

Reply: ''Since that time I noticed that on the quick reference card for Gulg, found in The Ivory Triangle, it states: Quote: Population: 13,500 (race: *snip* ... class: 34% slaves, 26% judaga soldiers, 7% templars, 5% hunter nobles, 16% freemen, 4% foreigners and visiting merchants, 8% miscellaneous).
Soooo...if that's the case, [...] math shows that the listed population couldn't at all support the levy, at least not without an outrageous population growth percentage; even at a high 1%, Gulg would have a slave population growth under 50/year, and no matter how high (and highly unlikely) you want to make that percentage you're never going to come anywhere near the 1000 slaves needed each year. --> Realistically speaking, you'd need a pool of at least 100,000 breeding individuals, per city state, per year, from which to draw a 1000-individual levy.''

Population & Demographics of City-States
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=780548

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The idea reminds me of the Barbara Hambly trilogy starting with "The Time of the Dark". A fantasy world is invaded by aberation type monster which wells up from underneath the ground and wreaks havoc on the world. Much of the trilogy is spent trying to figure out why the "Dark" have come and how they were driven away in ancient times. It was eventually determined that they kept humanoid herds in their homes under the earth which served as both food and "breeding pods". The herds had evolved to be of low intelligence, mostly blind and lived only on a moss that grew in the caverns.

The invasion, it eventually turned out, was based on a very mundane climate change which effected the life cycle of the moss and herds. It was a blow to the people's egos when they eventually realized that the great ancients had never really driven back the Dark - when climate patterns changed back, the Dark would happily go back to the 'agricultural' model they prefered, and until then they would hunt the wild human stock. :\

 

[Hrihayal]

<away in ancient times. It was eventually determined that they kept humanoid herds in their homes under the earth which served as both food and "breeding pods". The herds had evolved to be of low intelligence, mostly blind and lived only on a moss that grew in the caverns.>

Like Spelljammers Ortlings, who survice on Comet Ice with some Ice Algae in it;
very cool Idea, need to think on this one!

thanks! : )

 

[Umbran]

Trolls and hydras are good solutions. I'd say goblins and orcs would fit the bill as well, as would any other naturally short-lived race.

The controlling issue isn't how long the race lives, but gestation period and/or how long the thing takes to develop to adulthood. In that sense, humanoids in general are a pretty weak choice, as they don't have short gestation periods, and have very long development times. Bovines or Ovids (cows, sheep, goats) would be a better choice. The masters get the brains, the slaves get the rest of the meat...

 

[Perun]

The controlling issue isn't how long the race lives, but gestation period and/or how long the thing takes to develop to adulthood. In that sense, humanoids in general are a pretty weak choice, as they don't have short gestation periods, and have very long development times. Bovines or Ovids (cows, sheep, goats) would be a better choice. The masters get the brains, the slaves get the rest of the meat...

Meh, I should have explained myself better. Goblins have often been portrayed as a fecund race in D&D, and I was going on the assumption that illithids require brains of sentient creatures. Obviously, if they don't, there's a huge number of more breeding-efficiant races.

 

[lukelightning]

You ever hear about the dyslexic mind flayer?

He tries to eat your brian

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitstaff.