D&D 5E Mind Flayers vs. Thay

I run a Homebrew campaign on Faerun where Thay has dominated much of Faerun. Undead are used for many things now amongst the living. Not quite a zombie apocalypse but almost. Lol.

The players are fighting the undead and trying to find new weapons that could allow them to arm armies against the undead. early on they were given the opportunity to help some Mind Flayers. Specifically one character that's bordering on evil and is a warlock serving Orcus. Orcus didn't like the undead competition and has directed that player with a few things to aid. Well, one was he snuck an eldar brain back to their main region of operations.

The players have been somewhere else now for close to a decade and are returning and I plan to have the Mind Flayers to have established themselves as a powerhouse now.

My question is would an eldar brain and some of the higher level mind flayers be capable of dominating - taking over Thayan wizards minds and/or twist them to serve the Mind Flayers? Is that too "unrealistic"?

Eldars and Ulitherids have Dominate person 1 time a day each an if they've got several dozen Ilithids, a couple ulitharids and one eldar brain, could they have found a way to keep some wizards dominated, or through a number of days of being dominated, eventually simply give up their ways of Thay and join the Ilithids? (A few here and there? not like dozens of red wizards).

Sneeked, not snuck.

If you go by existing stories about mind flayers, mind controlled infiltration of the red wizards would be completly consistent. They would probably use a single weak willed (low wisdom) wizard as their agent. They would need to be subtle, since if thier attempts where discovered the red wizards would gang up and annihilate them.

Paul Farquhar said:

Sneeked, not snuck.

Click to expand...

As a reminder of the dangers of the art of nitpicking unless you're sure you're correct...:

First off, it would be "sneaked", not "sneeked".

Secondly, you're wrong

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/snuck-or-sneaked-which-is-correct

snucked? Snuggled? HEh.. Wow! #grammarpolice... But, I agree, it couldn't be a major infiltration. But I like the idea of some low level Thayan wizards as "infiltrators" to know what's going on in the area. Try to sabotage any attempts at finding their hideout and to gather information, which could be used to establish an economic foundation for them to survive as well, which would allow them to start paying mercenary armies. Arming groups, and gaining traditional followers.

Thanks! This was highly useful for me! How would they grow in power without gaining more attention than they can handle... Part of it would be slowly taking over some guards, some militia, getting more illithids created, which then go out and capture more guards and people in general. Eventually gaining enough mental information on the politics of the region to start selling rumors, trading for supplies, blackmailing low level people, after a 5-8 years of this nearly nonstop, they have enough power / get cocky enough to dominate 1-2 weaker thayan wizards and use them to infiltrate meetings with Thayan leaders and harness information from a higher level which they could then use to become even more powerful over time. so after 9-10 years, they've got a small army under their control. 4-5 lower level nobles in their bag of manipulation, control, etc. And around 2 Thayan wizards in their control.

Which secures them as an economic power, incognito.

It would be one hell of a Cold War. The Mind Flayers need to build up a critical mass of spell casters to counter enemy spellcaster divination, otherwise their spies will be uncovered sooner rather than later. But once they have enough casters under their thrall (plus their own relevant class levels) it will be very hard to keep the Mind Flayers from slowly gaining power. The two sides would be constantly draining resources and making each other waste spells, which would be a perfect setting for adventurers to tip the balance or play both sides against the other.

Also, check out Larloch and Ioulaum. Two insanely dangerous entities that might take an interest.