cure wrote:Simply not having the Mind Switch psiconic power fits somewhat nicely with the Apparatus experiments. Their goal, so far as the God-Brain was concerned and we should assume it orchestrated the entire episode, was exploring a different avenue for its transference into a humanoid form.
Actually, it just occurred to me, considering your considerations...
What would happen if the God-Brain unlocked S's bracers, put them on a few of its lobes, and then killed itself? Would the God-Brain's intellect be stored in the bracers, just as S's had when she was killed?
Could an S-clone body hold the God-Brain's consciousness?
Could the God-Brain use this method to obtain the body it has always desired?
And just how pissed would Azalin be as he realized that his "Little Scholar" has escaped him?
My name is lost to me
I know not who I am
And I await the crimson fires
That'll wash this world away!
- Wolfbait, "In My Lonely Time Of Dying"
Ahem... It's not that easy to circumvent a darklord curse. It wouldn't work, the GB would survive in a worse condition than it was and the DP would laugh. Quite like Azalin trying to break his curse.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia My DMGuild work!
Ahem... It's not that easy to circumvent a darklord curse. It wouldn't work, the GB would survive in a worse condition than it was and the DP would laugh. Quite like Azalin trying to break his curse.
I dunno, the dude could try. It sounds like an interesting story.
Nice, Cure! I like that track of thought for the God-Brain's darklordship.
Going along with that thought...what could be ultimately blasphemous for an illithid elder brain? Cure has suggested a religious change or slef-elevation.
What else would be an illithid social taboo?
Necromancy is generally detested because illithid feel vulnerable against the dead as psionic control doesn't work. This doesn't seem viable in any way.
Illithids as a culture nigh universally want their brains joined with the elder brain upon death so that their knowledge might continue on. What if an elder brain refused this practice or restricted it for some reason? That would be the illithid equivalent of desecrating a body/denying a proper burial etc. This is a possibility.
Lastly, what if the God-Brain held humans in high regard...perhaps even over its Illithid servants? This would be an ultimate crime in the eyes of all Illithid. Some event where the God-Brain chose humans over its illithid flock to their detriment would certainly get the attention of the DP's. As to what this event might be or why it happened I'll leave to others.
The argument for a human past in the case of the God-Brain is that gothic horror requires that we can, to an extent, identify with the villan and his fall. The error should be comprehensible and an error we ourselves could make.
In the case of the God-Brain there are problems however.
First the immergence of an elder brain is, to the best of my knowledge, nowhere explained in canon. Putting humanity in its past leads us down the road, although does not quite oblige us, to answer that question.
Second, we revisit an already well explored theme: the human that made himself into a monster (literallly or figuratively). We already have Virundus, the Three Hags, Azalin, Strahd, Drakov, and Mordenheim in this genre.
Third, we are also doing ok on the-monster-that-wants-to-be-human front: Adam and Harkon.
Fourth, it would be nice to relate to the god brain without reducing its alienness, or even better while increasing its alienness.
So why not having something wildly alien doing something that is comprehensible but is not uniquely human and hence does not require a human past?
The curse of wanting to experience corporeal existence is not a curse to want to be human. It is a curse to want to have characteristics that humans share with extremely alien creatures that include illithids themselves. There is no reason to suppose that the God-Brain is more jealous of humans than of illithids, indeed quite the contrary.
As to the ultimate crime of the elder brain, the charm of it attempting to usurper the position of the illithid god(s) is that we can understand that, undestand the motivation of that, perhaps even see it as not wholly wrong in the circumstances, say following the murder by Orcus of one of the illithid gods and the consequent vaccuum and uncertainty within the cultural imaginary of the illithids, but knowing of this does not change the fact that the elder brain is itself wildly alien to our experience. We can understand wanting to be god. But we really can't understand having the power that makes that ambition somewhat plausible.
If one prefers a more alien God-Brain origin than the BoSacrifices version, one idea I came up with that I think keeps that while retaining the emphasis on betrayal and 'exceptional' evil that makes darklords what they are:
Illithid elder brains, according to Lords of Madness and other sources, are in one way a terrible lie fed to the illithids--while mind flayers believe that their consciousnesses survive death in union with the elder brain, in truth, once the elder brain gets started, all that happens is an absorption of knowledge from the new additions.
What if the God-Brain is the first elder brain--the one that created the entire concept and deception of the elder brains and illithid society for its own self-aggrandizement? That certainly sounds worthy of darklord status. The curse is one manifestation of the fact that it's unable to do anything with this grand power and unending life beyond simply try to add more empty facts and gurgle away in its pool.
Matthew L. Martin wrote: Illithid elder brains, according to Lords of Madness and other sources, are in one way a terrible lie ..... What if the God-Brain is the first elder brain--the one that created the entire concept and deception of the elder brains and illithid society for its own self-aggrandizement?
Wow... VERY nice. I like this one.
"We're realistic heroes. We're not here to save the world, just nudge the world into a better place."
Insofar as the Dark Powers and/or the Mists seem to be somewhat unbound by time this is indeed possible.
Further, if they managed to grab Vecna, then why not?
It also does underwrite the God-Brain title, as this creature lies at the beginning.
As to the Illithid gods, perhaps they know, or least suspect, that the creature is locked away in the Demiplane of Dread and are perfectly content with the situation. Indeed perhaps their very emergence into existence was predicated on the disappearance of the creature from the wider world. Not that the God-Brain would appreciate the irony, but its imprisonment would have arguably saved it from destruction at the hands of Orcus/Teniberous.
What are the implications, however, for the Thanni? Does this make them an immensely ancient people? Or are they just so much false history dreamt up by the Dark Powers with the additional edge of irritating the God-Brain as their is all this mythology about it preying on them without it having actually had the pleasure of devouring their brains (at least until very recently)?
Also the question of whether time passes normally in Blutspur is implied. For how long does the God-Brain think that it has been imprisoned? And if this is different from the truth of the matter, is the difference because the Dark Powers had the God-Brain on ice for eons, actually ripped it out of ancient history only very recently, or time runs very slowly indeed in Blutspur.
Nice, there is also precedent in Forgotten Realms for Illithid to directly incorporate knowledge from eaten brains into their own mind albeit that sometimes this can drive them insane (for them that is).
Perhaps the God-Brain was the first illithid to manage the process and accumulate so much knowledge, power and mass that it became the first elder brain? As was suggested before- it's darklordship would be triggered by tricking its fellow illithid into giving it thier brains (knowledge) after death with false promises of continued existence.
I don't see Ilsensine being displeased by this occurance as the selfish acquisition of knowledge is that deity's perogative so blasphemy might be out the window on that one (not that illithid are that religious anyway- Ilsensine is simply a deity most in line with their racism, selfishness and thirst for knowledge).
Archedius wrote:As was suggested before- it's darklordship would be triggered by tricking its fellow illithid into giving it thier brains (knowledge) after death with false promises of continued existence.
That's what all Elder Brains do.
And By Ilsenine's myriad tentacles! He is the patron of the race. He created the Illithid.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia My DMGuild work!
cure wrote:Actually, it just occurred to me, considering your considerations...
What would happen if the God-Brain unlocked S's bracers, put them on a few of its lobes, and then killed itself? Would the God-Brain's intellect be stored in the bracers, just as S's had when she was killed?
Could an S-clone body hold the God-Brain's consciousness?
Could the God-Brain use this method to obtain the body it has always desired?
And just how pissed would Azalin be as he realized that his "Little Scholar" has escaped him?
My guess is that it would either kill her or just do it very slowly. That is if Azalin didn't find out first. Maybe to further frustrate the GB any sensations eating, sex, emmotions, touch are all horribly dulled.
Matthew L. Martin wrote:What if the God-Brain is the first elder brain--the one that created the entire concept and deception of the elder brains and illithid society for its own self-aggrandizement? That certainly sounds worthy of darklord status. The curse is one manifestation of the fact that it's unable to do anything with this grand power and unending life beyond simply try to add more empty facts and gurgle away in its pool.
Now that would explain a lot. Just one question: the illithids came from an impossibly distant future, so how does the God Brain fit into that? Was it on the ships that pierced time-space? Or is it some primeval entity out of the past--the progenitor of the entire illithid race, be it through evolution of existing life or a wholly artificial genesis like chuuls?
"Money is the root of all evil...I think I need more money."
Well, the only real 'proof' that the illithids came from the future is that the aboleths supposedly cannot remember the origin of the species. (Maybe they all got drunk that weekend and can't recall much else besides.) There is also the suggestion that the illithids can't recreate in the present their spacejammer technology (for travelling between crystal spheres). That said, ever seen an illithid with a AK-47 or a hand laser? Racial supremacist propaganda would be my interpretation. But if one prefers, and if it does not disturb your understanding of the Dark Powers, the God-Brain was snatched from whatever place in time (past, present, or future) that it inhabited. Logically, it would be the past. But delving too much into the details would oblige us to say exactly by what means elder brains are created, a matter upon which I believe canon is silent.
Last edited by cure on Tue May 26, 2009 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
cure wrote:Well, the only real 'proof' that the illithids came from the future is that the aboleths supposedly cannot remember the origin of the species. (Maybe they all got drunk that weekend and can't recall much else besides.) There is also the suggestion that the illithids can't recreate in the present their spacejammer technology (for travelling between crystal spheres). That said, ever seen an illithid with a AK-47 or a hand laser)? Racial supremacist propaganda would be my interpretation. But if one prefers, and if it does not disturb your understanding of the Dark Powers, the God-Brain was snatched from whatever place in time (past, present, or future) that it inhabited. Logically, it would be the past. But delving too much into the details would oblige us to say exactly by what means elder brains are created, a matter upon which I believe canon is silent.
Lords of Madness states they come from the future--literally the End of Times. Plus remember that time is not always linear in the multiverse, and in the Deep Ethereal the whole concept of time loses meaning as you near the edges of known existence. The Realms of Dread may be timeless in the sense that it has always existed and exists in all times. It's only after one enters that existence that they are "positioned" in the space-time flow (quantum physics and D&D ). Then again it doesn't matter "when" the God Brain first came into being if you think about it like that. Only that it did.
And actually they're quite capable of making spelljammers. They just can't recreate the event that allowed them to go back in time. As for other tech, I refer to their biomancy. Their technology seems animal-based in the type of matter it uses, not mineral as ours is. Besides, who needs guns when you can just mind blast someone almost at will?
Finally, elder brains are formed by the fusion of illithid brains in the brine pool. If enough illithids survive an elder brain's death it's possible for them to recreate it by the same means they sustain and grow it.
"Money is the root of all evil...I think I need more money."
). Then again it doesn't matter "when" the God Brain first came into being if you think about it like that. Only that it did.