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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 732720" data-attributes="member: 2067"> ILSENSINE The OvermindAlignment: Lawful EvilWorshipers: Illithids, Psions, SagestDomains: Evil, Knowledge, Law, MadnessFavored Weapon: TentacleHome Plane/Domain: Sheol/The Caverns of ThoughtPantheon: IllithidDivine Rank: Greater Deity (18)Classes: Telepath, Bard, Wizard, Seer, LoremasterPortfolio: Illithids, Mentalism, PsionicsB]Salient Abilities[/B]: (23) Alter Form, Alter Size, Alter Reality, Avatar, Call Creatures (Illithids), Clearsight, Control Creatures (Illithids), Create Object, Create Greater Object, Divine Blast, Divine Blessing (Intelligence), Divine Creation, Divine Inspiration (Dread), Divine Recall (new discoveries), Extra Domain (Madness), Extra Sense Enhancment (ESP, Sight, Sound, Touch), Know Secrets, Mass Divine Blast, Possess Mortal, True KnowledgeSpecial Possessions: NoneAlternate Domains: NoneSymbol: A glowing, two-tentacled green brainDESCRIPTIONIlsensine takes the form of an immense brain, with two tendrils flailing out from it, glowing spectrally green. It drifts silently in the air, communicating only through telepathic conversation, drifting it's tentacles accross anything putting out mental energy almost as if tasting it. The Overmind is capable of consuming things by absorbing them through its tentacles, which seem to dissolve the very essence of physical being with a mere touch. The god-brain is considered incorporeal in most all dealings with it.DOGMADomination and supremecy are the commandments of the Overmind. The mind flayers must never succumb to any other life force, and must always strive to dominate and enslave all others, because all others are weak and ineffectual. The illithids are the natural peak of existence, and the Overmind their own natural peak. The world must be made to realize this -- especially those who think that they are superior to the illithids through some foolish virtue of kindness or benevolence. This is a laughable quality, fit only for those who truly lack intelligence -- cattle, to feed the growing illithid empire.CLERGY AND TEMPLESProper clerics of the Overmind are few. It is worshiped by mind flayers in general, and thus by many psionicists by extention. Also, the odd human cultist pays this deity of dark and forbidden knowledge much honor. The true cleric of Ilsensine generally doesn't reveal his allegience, except in the company of illithids. Here, the clerics are considered no more key to the enlightenment of being than wizards, bards, or psionicists. In fact, clerics are often seen as rather lesser, persuing goals other than pure attainment of psychic perfection. They tend to create cloistered societies where extreme forms of devotion are practiced -- clerics are likely to try to provide ways for the brain to survive out of the body, for instance, or to attempt to go into self-sustaining trances, or travel the Astral plane and leave their body to rot and die, simply as the experience.Temples to the Overmind, because of the experimental nature of the clerics, tend to be elaborately macabre and hideous compositions of metal, fluids, glass, and stone. They are something out of a mad scientists' nightmare, in general. Less extreme temples don't commonly exists, as the Overmind is seen as being more or less omnipresent, just like thought itself, and so needs no special house or sacred ground.RITES AND RITUALSWorshipers of Ilsensine show their homage in many minor ways, offering their dreams to the Overmind, as well as their discoveries and knowledge, and that of their enemies. They often spend the better portion of their resting time in a zoning trance, or perhaps trying to arrive at a way to liberate thought from mortal flesh (the ultimate form of which is the illithid's method of extracting the brain, freeing it...and then consuming it for their own domination). They enjoy 'mind-liberating drugs', which they often push on companions (often spiking various foods and drinks even if the companion would rather remain a slave to the flesh).In more massive gatherings, worshippers will engage in simultaneous mass halucinations (often led by a cleric, for the magical power they can provide), or sometimes they will prepare the sacrifice and acquisition of a particularly intelligent or knowledgable scholar.MYTHOGRAPHYIlsensine, though the mind flayers would like to think of it as startlingly original and unique, is, in truth, part of many larger themes in religious belief.One of the major themes is that of spirit vs. flesh. The illithids, as a very mind-based race, have always struggled with the dichotomy between the free, unfettered, uncontrolled thought, and the seemingly limited fleshy form. Illithids preach that they have the ideal physical form for mental persuits, but they have yet to completely liberate themselves from their bodily needs...which is why they worship and devote themselves to any god at all. Ilsensine, to them, is a tool that can lead their people to further greatness, or a greatness from which they have descended, to exact the deity's will.It is this resistance to a fleshy form that has caused Ilsensine to take on such an idealized, metaphorical form, depending less and less upon substantial being to support it. Thus, even the physical form of Ilsensine is insubstantial and incorporeal.They have also cleverly solved the philisophical dillema presented by their rigid hierarchy and order of the world (as evidenced by their placement at the peak of everything) combined with their persuit of something as typically free as liberating thought from flesh. The mind flayers see it as two forms of servitude...one can be a servant to their bodily forms -- the fleshy bags that lesser beings wield ineptly -- or one can be a servant to the one true mental form, Ilsensine. Illithids thus "liberate" the mind from the body (quite literally), and consume it themselves (putting it to work for a superior being), considering this greater slavery a gift. This, odly, is the origin of the euphamism that many illithids enjoy employing when threatening lesser beings, calling their method of diet a "gift of freedom."LEGENDSNot entirely surprisingly, there are few legends about Ilsensine, as it is seen more as a passive entity of insubstantial nature, rather than an active personification of anything in particular. Events in illithid history are not allegoricized like they are in other cultures, so Ilsensine hasn't inherited the status of a racial god quite like others -- for instance, the rebellion of the Gith is not considered a revolution of the Gith lords from Ilsensine, but a true failing of the flesh of the mind flayers themselves, not their god (who is beyond such concerns as slavery, since all minds join it's essence eventually, in death if not in life). Even creation myths are not directly attributed to the deity, in general, the mind flayers espousing themselves as incarnations of the deity's own sentience (and so something of an avatar in and of themselves), or as trying to attain that form (and thus beginning as something else). Ilsensine thus has little personality or substance, which, the illithids assert, is exactly the point.ETC.PrC's· Brainmaster: They focus on more and more efficient ways to strip the brain from the flesh, eventually able to do it to multipule beings simultaneously with their mind blast.· Husker: A class that focuses on meditation, learning less and less reliance on the phsyical form, developing psionic and monkish abilities, eventually becoming merely a disembodied mind.Plot Hooks· I don't know it, but I do: There's one piece of knowledge the mindflayers need before they can achieve a level of transcendence and power heretofore unknown...and it resides in the mind of an ex-wizard who splintered his personality and disabled his body in a magical experiment gone awry. Can the PC's prevent the tentacles of the illithids from getting this insane man? Can they keept the secret themselves after he lets it slip?· Ghosts of the Known: A town has reportedly been infested by illithids who seem to be insubstantial, passing through walls, coming through cielings, attacking the populace...only, they seem strangely ineffective, unable to extract brains, and frustrated at this. The truth perchance lies in the artifact they used to gain enlightenment, and it's connection to the powerful local necromancer -- perhaps the Illithids have taken a decidedly negative turn on their path to mental energy?</blockquote>

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