Mind Flayers?

[Castellan]

I ran a long-running Forgotten Realms game that had mid-flayers as the main baddies. I stole plot elements liberally from Piratecat's story hour and used Mind Flayers instead of ghouls. I also used lots of the grafts that were included in several supplements as well as using the psionic symbionts that were in the Fiend Folio (at work now, so can't be sure where they were).

In fact, the only reason our group isn't going back to that game is that the party is currently all astrally projecting and one of the PCs had a symbiont take him over, caught up with the rest of the party, and is about to start killing their unconscious, unprotected bodies on the material plane.

Rather than slay them all, I put the game on hold for the forseeable future.

I found that rolling Mind Flayers into the game was very easy, and I often stole plots from other modules and changed the background info so that Mind Flayers were the big baddies. In my game, the church of Tyr was splintered and the militant arm of the church was unknowingly under the control of Mind Flayers.

I included ulitharids, gave them unique powers (mostly spells from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, so the players wouldn't recognize the effects), and moved brain golems around the Underdark, acting as "wireless base stations" and linking individual Mind Flayer communities together into a world-wide beowulf cluster of Elder Brains. It was pretty exciting while it lasted

 

[Voadam]

In fact, the only reason our group isn't going back to that game is that the party is currently all astrally projecting and one of the PCs had a symbiont take him over, caught up with the rest of the party, and is about to start killing their unconscious, unprotected bodies on the material plane.

"Good bye Neo."

 

[Paradigm]

Paradigm Concepts Inc. (the guys who do Arcanis and a bunch of race/monster books) got permission to do a whole sourcebook on mind flayers, I forget the name of it though.

Unveiled Masters. It is out of print, but you can get it on PDF here!

 

[Crothian]

Unveiled Masters is one of those little gems that came out of the Third Party Publishing glut. It is a great book written by some of the more creative people in the industry. It is one of the truly rare products that has solid rules for those of you wanting it for d20 and it has great writing and ideas that can be imported into other systems. There are not many books I speak this highly about.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

It's not just mind flayers; there's a handful of monsters in MM that don't appear in the SRD, and thus are considered IP.

Yup. And then there's there's the Classics of Fantasy which can replace 'em. You can find it included in The Iconic Bestiary:
http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=20637&it=1&filters=100_0_1100

You can get it on its own:
http://www.roninarts.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=37&products_id=324

And you can read a review of it here:
http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2165107

Ari Marmell and Keith Baker are the credited writers, and Ari says,

Thus, The Iconic Bestiary - Classics of Fantasy is aimed at gamers and publishers alike. Presented herein are seven new monsters, fully ready for use. Each one of these creatures correlates to one of the iconic monsters not included in the SRD. They are not the same creatures in disguise, but rather occupy the same niche, and possess comparable though not identical abilities.

Of course, you can also still pick up the Unveiled Masters: The Essential Guide to Mindflayers book at Troll and Toad for $1.99. Looks like they've got 21 in stock as I'm typing this.
http://www.trollandtoad.com/p140388.html

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Remember that mind flayers are WOTC protected product identity -- i.e., not released under the OGL. It's not possible to make third-party d20 adventures or campaign settings with them. You'll have slim pickings.

Of course but as in Iconic Bestiary you can always have a "Tentacled Brain Devourer" or a "Shadow Cat" with a little creativity.

To put in some words Unveiled Masters is a great resource and so is the Ithilliad both had better fluff on Mindflayers than the 3e offerings at least in my opinion, YMMV. But Lords of Madness was one of WoTC's best for 3e and it deserves some spotlight.

 

[LoneWolf23]

Remember that mind flayers are WOTC protected product identity -- i.e., not released under the OGL. It's not possible to make third-party d20 adventures or campaign settings with them. You'll have slim pickings.

That's something I never understood.. Everyone already directly associates Mind Flayers and Beholders with D&D, so why add another layer of copyright to them?

 

[Rechan]

Bah, mind flayers! Gimmie ABOLETHS.



"Where Madness Dwells", an adventure by Inner Circle, had illithids at the heart of an insane asylum.

I came up with a creature idea; head hunters. Basically feral, gorilla-bodied mind flayer spawn that hunt like a wolf pack, coordinating via telepathy. Mind flayers use them to guard their territory, and to collect heads for consumption.

 

[Crothian]

That is a very good adventure that I've never had a chance to run

 

[Jhaelen]

That's something I never understood.. Everyone already directly associates Mind Flayers and Beholders with D&D, so why add another layer of copyright to them?

You might as well ask:
"Why create a trademark for 'Windows' - everyone associates it with Microsoft anyway!"

'Windows' is associated with Microsoft because it's trademarked. If it wasn't there'd be a 'Windows' from every other software company.