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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 1421207" data-attributes="member: 3649">Read up on some real-life master-slave (you, in the back.. not the sexual kind, dumbo) dynamics. Some pretty simple things let normal humans enslave their own kind, creating behaviours in very short periods of time that seem utterly at odds with any form of rational thought. Look at the Elizabeth Smart case, or at various descriptions of cults and how they wear down a persons will to resist. Then there is Stockholm Syndrome, where people come to identify and sympathize with their captors. (Though that's probably not going to come into play with mind Flayers; they're too unlike the slaves. With Drow? Yeah, that's going to work.) Charm makes them see you as a trusted ally and bestest buddy. The Mind Flayer has a pretty decent Cha so your normal human is likely to be blowing the oppossed Charisma checks to avoid doing non-suicidal things against his will. Thing like eat your child's brain, let the mind flayer mate with you, beat your best friend, kill that stranger, stuff like that. Of course, the memory of doing those things apparently of your own free will and liking them doesn't go away when the monster lets the charm fade.  Charm lets the mind flayer be your best pal. A best pal who is a sadistic, evil, hyper-intellegent monster who delights in your pain, confusion, misery and self-loathing. We've all known a friend-of-a-friend who's in a bad relationship and we all wonder 'well, why doesn't she just leave'? This is something like that; the charming effect is a one-way street.  It becomes, in some ways, a vastly more sick tool that Domination because it doesn't allow puppet-like control. There's that sense and memory of devotion and caring that comes with friendship. That more than anything will wear away at a person.  We have Detect Thoughts, an at-will power. It can know what you are thinking at any time, day or night. It can turn the power of your dreams against you. Use the names of family and friends, which it can learn with a few well-asked questions. (It's like 'Don't think of a white elephant'. Ooops. Sorry. Unless you have the concentration of a monk, you just thought of a white elephant. Same principle applies.) Any escape plan you think of, it knows, right then. Then we have the Suggestion power, which lets the mind flayer gradually pick and pick at that barrier of what you will and will not do. Used over time, it's a gradual nudge here and there to get them used to doing horrible things, or used to obediance. It helps form patterns, and most people live by patterns.  Then we have simple pain and abuse. Your average PC hero probably isn't going to succumb to the starvation, pain, and constant abuse but most people will. These things wear people down in a shockingly short span of time, until, yeah, you'll do pretty much what you're told to do. Especially because you remember that suddenly this Thing can become your best friend on earth.  It cares for you, and likes you; it told you, and your best friend would never lie to you, would he? He tells you you're a worthless slave, so of course that's what you must be. He only beats you or drills holes in your head when you anger him. If you tried harder, if only you were not such a useless sack of dung, he wouldn't have to hurt you. Indeed, you are the one making him hurt you! It's your fault, you filthy useless thing. How dare you? You should be good. If you cared, you would be good. And we all want to be good, don't we? Of course we do.  That's just off the top of my head, and I'm not an Int 19 (which is the Int of the most basic, stupid, crummiest Mind Flayer) super-genius sadistic monster.</blockquote>

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