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<blockquote data-quote="opacitizen" data-source="post: 8032958" data-attributes="member: 7023208">You can certainly do this, hammer away at the fluff (and mechanics) and change everything to your liking in your world. It's your world and your fun, after all. On the other hand, serious modifications of a core concept practically change the core concept. A mind flayer that isn't flaying minds, so to say, is not a mind flayer, it just looks like one. A great white shark that eats plankton is not a great white shark but a whale shark (which does exist and eats plankton and is an amazing creature, but it's not a great white.) A dog which has beaks and meows is not really a dog. A two inches tall giant is not a giant.Or maybe they are, in your world (again, it's yours to shape), but in that case you're looking at having to redefine a ton of things during world-building. Mind-flayers won't be as big a threat. If there's an easy way to turn them, maybe they've all been turned ages ago by some crusaders, and are now known as mind watchers. Great white sharks are no longer feared, and maybe never have been. But then there's some other apex predator that fills their role. Bull sharks, maybe — but then all the seaside horror stories are and have always been about them, so your change isn't real. Unless you eliminate the concept of meat eaters in your world altogether. Also, if anything can be a dog, then the word &quot;dog&quot; starts losing its meaning. It will be like &quot;thing&quot;. And a Conqueror of Two Inches Tall Giants won't command much respect, likely (unless these new giants have some weird and vicious trick up their sleeve to compensate for the loss of their height.)So... can you do anything to your illithids? Sure. Have fun. Will people outside your circle think of your illithids as illithids? Some will, some won't. (There will be more of the latter, I think.) Will this bother you? Well, that's up to you.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="opacitizen, post: 8032958, member: 7023208"] You can certainly do this, hammer away at the fluff (and mechanics) and change everything to your liking in your world. It's your world and your fun, after all. On the other hand, serious modifications of a core concept practically change the core concept. A mind flayer that isn't flaying minds, so to say, is not a mind flayer, it just looks like one. A great white shark that eats plankton is not a great white shark but a whale shark (which does exist and eats plankton and is an amazing creature, but it's not a great white.) A dog which has beaks and meows is not really a dog. A two inches tall giant is not a giant. Or maybe they are, in your world (again, it's yours to shape), but in that case you're looking at having to redefine a ton of things during world-building. Mind-flayers won't be as big a threat. If there's an easy way to turn them, maybe they've all been turned ages ago by some crusaders, and are now known as mind watchers. Great white sharks are no longer feared, and maybe never have been. But then there's some other apex predator that fills their role. Bull sharks, maybe — but then all the seaside horror stories are and have always been about them, so your change isn't real. Unless you eliminate the concept of meat eaters in your world altogether. Also, if anything can be a dog, then the word "dog" starts losing its meaning. It will be like "thing". And a Conqueror of Two Inches Tall Giants won't command much respect, likely (unless these new giants have some weird and vicious trick up their sleeve to compensate for the loss of their height.) So... can you do anything to your illithids? Sure. Have fun. Will people outside your circle think of your illithids as illithids? Some will, some won't. (There will be more of the latter, I think.) Will this bother you? Well, that's up to you. [/QUOTE]

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