[VRGtR]: Alhoon's ramblings and discussions of them

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Yeap. What HB says is true. That story was never canonical...
but I don't really care about canon. I care about ideas. And I prefer the alien-minded, cosmic-horror version of an all-powerful immortal creature that has to suddenly deal with mortality.

Then it would be good to have a background of how this alien form of life ended up in Ravenloft. I mean there are other Illithid-God-Brains out there, so what is so special with this one except his curse of not being immortal. I believe this is part of the poor writing that some of us here criticise VRGtR for. Sure we have a motive for abducting people, he experiments to get back it's immortality, but what else drives that massive chunk of brains? At least with the psychic mentality thing the God Brain was trying to experience other peoples existence since the Elder is trapped within his pool of sludge.

At least they had a new idea about Mt. Grysl in this one, except of making it just a regular part of the illithid complex.

[alhoon]

It's not that the God Brain's motives were explained in the past, as far as I remember.
Bluetspur was always supposed to be like this, I think. I just like the new curse better.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

It's not that the God Brain's motives were explained in the past, as far as I remember.
Bluetspur was always supposed to be like this, I think. I just like the new curse better.

The Elder Brain's motives were a bit vague in the Red Box and Domains of Dread

"Those heroes who have escaped Bluetspur claim that the god-brain constantly intruded on their subconscious minds, drawing forth their darkest thoughts. It may be that the lord must live vicariously through other sentient beings, which would certaintly be in keeping with the dark powers' predilection for torturing their captive domain masters."

I personally prefer the human psion Seldrid story from the Book of Sacrifices, it sounds more tragic for an ex-human to have all this power but sacrificing some of the things that distinguishing him as human, experiencing feelings and emotions directly and not having a body and be trapped in a briny pool deep underground. The "beware what you wish for" is more fitting for a gothic villain, and although Bluetspur is the least gothic doamin out there, I like this tragedy in the God-Brain's background story. It could also be used as a horrifying surprsise in a cosmic horror senario. Imagine the horror of understanding that this alien being was once human, which means that potentially anybody could be like this!

Also the loss of immortality for me is more fitting to Duke Gundar as he is described in The Book of Secrets, where after finding the Hymn of Life, the magic of the pillar gives him a semblance of life and the ability to be fertile and have children but also slowly age, which horrifies him as he could potentially die a natural death. In my campaign vampires cannot bear children and all dhampir's are descendants of Nharov Gundar or maybe of some other vampire using the 4th level spell Mimic Mortal from Strahd's Nova Arcanum to bear children. So dhampir's are more of some kind of calliban more closely resembling "witchers".

PS (from Domains of Dread)
"The lord of Bluetspur is keenly aware of the Hlgh Master Illithid’s plots to usurp it and seems to enjoy its rebelllous servant. The god-brain knows that it possesses the power to crush the High Master at any time, so it does not worry about these plans."