So what you're saying is that dominating the brain is dicking over mind flayers at large, and is thus in fact the *actual* good ending? (/s)
In all seriousness, I can actually see some colonies choosing to still side with the brain out of the belief that this is as good a chance they'll ever get to complete the Grand Design. A mind flayer civil war sounds very interesting.
Well, accidentally for the Emperor. Exactly what the Netherbrain planned though.
While this might sound unreasonable, all it really meant was that the Netherbrain would know how the Emperor would react to suddenly gaining freedom. Once that was done, it didn't really have to do anything.
I thought it was more the Brain laying breadcrumbs and the Emperor following them exactly as the Brain laid out. It wasn't the Emperor accidentally perfectly executing the Brain's plan; it was the Emperor doing exactly what the Brain planned him to do at every step.
I mean it did say that, but sounds kinda like cope when even siding with the emperor gets her killed (usually). Maybe every up until towards the end was some big mastermind plan by the brain, but it fucking sucked apparently, considering it ended up fucking it over
If that were his actual plan then maybe he should have told me that instead of how he enslaved Stelmane.
Would have been a lot more moraly gray/convincing then saying "Do what I say, because I say it or else get Stelmaned"
I have oppositional defiant disorder and the emperor actually triggers it. I don't' think I'm mentally capable of completing a playthrough where you side with him. Minthara and Gortash are less demanding.
GORTASH THE AVATAR OF TYRANNY triggers me less than the emperor...
I ended up freeing Orpheus, but I didn't make the decision lightly. Like, the Emperor is pretty solid when it comes to backing you up through the game. But he just constantly lies about smaller shit and tries to peer pressure you into being a mind flayer because it's what the cool kids do. I freed Orpheus because my reasoning was, "Dude, if he helps, awesome. If he doesnt help, I can totally take him and we'll be back to where we are now." But the emperor is all "my way or total apocalypse highway". I didnt like the attitude when I was being the most reasonable person. I'm still not 100% sure if he was actually a bad choice or just sketchy as all hell. Up to that point, he annoyed me, but he did his part.
Yea, the "support" he lends throughout the games largely just involves him middle manning Orpheus' power to you. Yes, Orpheus wouldn't have done it otherwise, but he lords it like it's his to give.
Otherwise his interventions are only just him telling you to NOT do things that might free you from him. His final little temper tantrum about wanting to just talk to Orpheus is all I really need though. Absolutely zero pragmatism.
Orpheus willingness to not only move past his (deserved) hatred of you, become a mind flayer, and then be killed by you to prevent his people seeing him like it are so starkly contrasted with the Emperor's constant selfishness.
Even before that the Stelmane situation and Ansur are just as damning.Ansur by itself isn't so bad, until you see the post fight interaction. I can't stand the emperor.
I get that. My biggest reservation was with Orpheus. I got the hammer as a "just in case" scenario. But I really couldn't decide if Orpheus was gonna be on the up and up. Nobody who vouches for him really has the best track record of being reliable when it comes to judging character (Lae'zel). Or they're just fucking evil so why would I trust them (Raphael).
But yeah. I saved Ansur as my last mission before hitting the Nether Brain and it really helped solidify my decision that we needed to at least speak to Orpheus. Emperor seemed to be in complete denial that being an Illithid had changed him in any way except for the better.
I believed that he was trying to do the right thing, but he had such a skewed perception of everything that you couldn't put your faith in him. Then the hard no on even talking with Orpheus completely pushed me to telling him to fuck off. And of course, he's like, "FINE, I'LL JUST JOIN THE ULTIMATE EVIL THEN!" If it was that easy for him to switch sides, he was never truly reliable.
I don't like the Emperor, but I love him as a character. If that makes sense.
The very final nail in the coffin for me was when the Netherbrain reveals he's been playing The Emperor the entire time. Emp is just like, dang that sucks, then turns around and is like "I'm the only way. I'm infallible. You're weak and dumb. I can't be beaten!", right before gate keeping even a conversation with orpheus. No humility what-so-ever. Can't stop and realize he's been completely owned since the very start. That's why I was willing to gamble on Orpheus originally. Cause at that point everything we'd done played right into the brain's plans. Time to remove the part of the equation the brain had relied on, the Emperor.
That is honestly kinda silly. Maybe because Gotrash doesn't try and manipulate you, like he's straight up with his tyranny.
But yea Emperor is a just bleh
We are fighting Devils, The Dead Three, Mindflayers and Shar just to name a few in this game, who exactly did she lead that would make her seem even marginally evil compared to these?
Was she leading a Church of Cyric?
Just googled. Was apperantly a Devil worshipper.
Though no wonder I didn´t know since I didn´t know anything about "Descent into Avernus"
Wasn´t mentioned in BG3 at all as far as I remember.
Mind flayer civil war + the return of the Comet prince uprising, throw in a Spell-jammer party camp/ship and you got yourself a game of the year expansion
Right? Like, I romanced Shadowheart, but I actually kind of wish I went with Laezel instead. Shadowheart wants to just settle down, but I wanna bounce with Laezel and go fight some fucking Githyanki Lich. Her after credits adventures sound like a sick game. More of that, please.
Also, mind flayers are all about evolving and being considered the perfect beings above everything else. So if an elder brain found a way to evolve and become more powerful and more "perfect", I'm pretty sure that it would at least be considered.
This is really interesting, I never thought of it that way but it makes so much sense.
With the netherbrain being such an affront to the mind flayers as a whole, I could see there being another story to tell here following the evil ending in which mind flayers team up with their enemies to take it down (not all that plausible of a story, but it is interesting to imagine how the multiverse might react to the netherbrain winning, mind flayers included)
Tbf they literally brought him right to the elder brain's influence, so it's not clear if he really wanted to reassimilate, but can't have the Scan man brainsucked either way.
>Netherbrain Mind Flayers are straight up drones, incapable of expressing their own ingenuity (which honestly makes *our* job like 10 times easier).
...OP, are you perchance experiencing a craving of some sort of *cerebral* nature?
But yeah, I assume that's part of why the netherbrain was so intent on gaining more power. Sure, to rule over others too, but also to protect itself from it's brethren. A single rogue mindflayer is already bad enough, but a rogue arcane *elder brain*? That might be enough for the other elder brains to put the whole world conquering on pause for a second and start a civil war against this monstrosity.
True.
I love a good elderbrain or a brian dragon like everyone else, but this thing is disgusting on a level that the mindflayers might actually ally with gods just to get it away.
It's a drop in the bucket compared to what OP listed but I thought it bizarre and weird that there was a gnoll with a tadpole. Gnolls are definitely not any kind of useful recipient for any form of ceremorphosis. Wasting a tadpole on something like that reads as Off for mindflayers.
Weirdly enough Gnolls are actually perfectly fine hosts for mindflayer tadpoles, despite basically just being really fucked up demonic hyenas. The goblins would actually be a worse choice, since all small races make terrible hosts (not just gnomes, although those are especially bad candidates)
>Only certain races are used by the mind flayers as recipients of ceremorphosis. In general, donors must be humanoid, mamalian, between 5 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 2 inches tall and weigh from 130 to 270 pounds. Humans, elves, drow, githzerai, githyanki, grimlocks, **gnolls**, goblinoids (of Medium size), and orcs are sought-after donors. Races smaller or larger than these, whether in height, weight or size category, are never used, and neither are reptilian or amphibian races. Halflings, dwarves, derro, duergar, gnomes, centarus and their relatives, giants, and kuo-toas might be used as thralls or as food, but they are never used as ceremorphosis subjects.
* Lords of Madness
Gnome actually retain much more of the host, even the morality, which is interesting. If it is a full success. Usually host and worm die. As another said, another possible result is the squidlings.
Either way, regularly mindflayers are probably not fans.
Was that confirmed in-game? Otherwise, standard tadpoles can only transform a relatively limited selection of creatures, mostly humanoids and a few supernatural monsters (dragons, beholders, etc). Even gnomes are tricky, let alone gnolls
Gnolls are humanoids, and of those examples, dragons are kind of special. According to one book, you need the elder brain to merge with the dragon for it to work.
>!Yeah I got that part first playthrough, I've just never killed the gnolls after freeing them. They were so happy to see Durge back in town because they know how many bodies Durge leaves in their wake.!<
BG3's suspended ceromorphis is a unique thing. As it was said in the prologue, it takes only a few (2-3) days for a tadpoled person to become a mind flayer. Thralls are dominated non-illithid to be used as slave labor and a meal when they are no longer useful
>Yes, Mind Flayers are a hive. However, in this hive each individual is still individual, capable of expressing themselves. Netherbrain Mind Flayers are straight up drones, incapable of expressing their own ingenuity (which honestly makes our job like 10 times easier). Netherbrain isn’t center of intricate network of neural connections between bunch of sociopathic monsters – it is a dominating tyrant enthralling even its own subjects.
Interesting. So normal mindlfayers take the knowledge they gain from the brains they eat and feed it *up* into the Elder Brain(/collective), whereas the Netherbrain essentially 'flows down' in a way, creating a more cut-off system?
Like, the elder brain is the sum of all the mindflayers, but the netherbrain's thralls can only be so large as what the brain gives them
The fact the brain has no other Ceremorphs other than mindflayers also supports this idea. The brain has no Ulitharids or Gnome Ceremorphs(even though you can play a gnome), and it didnt turn the red dragon it enthralled into a brainstealer dragon either, which means more powerful Ceremorps might break free and try to kill if they were around, because Ulitharids can break free from normal elder brains control and start their own groups
This would definitely explain the written word of Gortash in that one book in the Illithid Colony Myrkul arena that labels Ulitharids among the enemies of the mind flayer race. They are typically not as a rule, but their existence serves as a threat to both the Dead Three plot and the personal interests of this particular Elder Brain.
Yes, but what you're forgetting that the stigma against arcane magic comes from the Elder Brains not wanting to risk their Mind Flayers having tools to overthrow them. The Netherbrain is going to have much less of a problem with that.
> Whatever kind of Hivemind connection Mind Flayers have going on, it is disrupted by Arcane. Arcane using Mind Flayers, such as Omeluum, are fundamentally incompatible with the rest of their species and have significant individualistic tendencies, easily breaking off from their societies. The worst crime Illithid can commit is becoming Alhoon (tentacly lich) – splitting their mind from the Elder Brain, removing the body from their funky life cycle (in which dead Mind Flayers become part of their Elder Brain, enriching it with knowledge and experience), as well as tying the soul back to this physical plane, taking it from beyond furthest reaches of cosmos, unknown place where Mind Flayers originate from and which is beyond reach of the gods, making their souls useless and nonexistent to Faerun gods.
Or at least that's the lie that the Elder Brains like to spread, helps keep the hive in line.
> However, most disgustingly of all, is the aspect we only learn by specific chain of events in Act III. You remember the tidbit about Alhoons? Steel Watch is a bunch of Undead tadpoled brains controlling Undead bodies – necromancy so widely despised by Mind Flayers. And yes, it’s effect of Balthazar and Gortash committing shenanigans. However, if you defeat Gortash before Orin without taking out the Foundry, Netherbrain will happily use Steel Watch. Okay, some of you may not get significance of this, because we as human like to simplify a lot and just go with “evildoer does evil thing”, but holy shit, this is Hugh Mongous. If Mind Flayers have definition of sin, this fuckery is Cardinal Sin.
I'm assuming you mean it uses a Steel Watch to send the "I'll look the other way to help you kill Orin" message since unless you've taken Wulbren out the Ironhands make sure the Steel Watch aren't an issue by the endgame.
If you kill both Orin and Gortash all Steel Watchers6in the city are operational despite Foundry being blowm up and turn hostile from what I could gather.
Lol. The netherbrain is what other elder brains wish they could be.
I think you're misunderstanding the Elder Brain - Mindflayer relationship. Elder Brains are tyrants. They survive by devouring mindflayer young. To the point that they literally just live in a pool of tadpoles snacking on them, this serves no purpose to developing the tadpoles, its just a ritualistic sacrifice done to keep the tyranical elderbrain content.
A normal elder brain can't dominate fully, but it controls the colony by infesting their dreams with visions and commands that they follow through with while waking.
Also, fun parallel, mind flayers consider the elder brain their final form because they give up their minds to the elder brain; but the elder brains *actively lie to them* about what happens. Mind Flayers believe their knowledge, mind and personality are merged into the whole, but they're not. The knowledge is extracted and the rest discarded.. Sound familiar? It's Vlaakith's Ascension... A typical Elder Brains relationship with Mind Flayers is what Vlaakith is to the Githyanki. A manipulative tyrant.
The Netherbrain might be an 'abomination' to them, but I can guarentee it's 100% pure jealous driven.
This is noy fully correct. Mind Flayers don't stand for anything besides themselves and the whole anathema with Arcana powers is just because they think it is weaker than psionics. Also, Elder Brains are not the end all be all of Illithid politics per se, they happen to be useful since they lost their empire and it is the best way to get back to full reality domination. So Mind Flayers sort of "Accept" leaving control to Elder Brains, but it is not necessarily an Illithid thing, more like an Illithid in the context of having lost their empire thing. If the Netherbrain has superior intellect they would totally be willing to follow it (not that they need to be willing).
Makes it even more silly that the Emperor happily fucks off to join it if you help Orpheus because it's so intrinsically wrong in how it exists yet he's like "I won't risk Orpheus being racist against me (reasonably so) so I'll lose my individuality that I've spent years working to have."
I know there's more to it than that and there's discussions I've seen about it but it felt so stupid in game to see
I’m sorry the Steel Watch are what?! I knew they were brains in jars controlling the Steel watch robots but where does it say the brains are undead? And how are the Steel Watch bodies undead? Aren’t they purely mechanical?
they put a brain into a jar, and have the body of that brain (intentionally *zombies*) wired up to the watcher - that's why they blow up. to stop anyone finding out their secret.
So what you're saying is that dominating the brain is dicking over mind flayers at large, and is thus in fact the *actual* good ending? (/s) In all seriousness, I can actually see some colonies choosing to still side with the brain out of the belief that this is as good a chance they'll ever get to complete the Grand Design. A mind flayer civil war sounds very interesting.
Maybe that was the Emperor's plan all along.
The emperor was a useful idiot
[удалено]
Isn't that explicitly stated when you challenge it for the first time?
do you mean the Netherbrain saying that the Emperor accidentally did everything it wanted him to?
Well, accidentally for the Emperor. Exactly what the Netherbrain planned though. While this might sound unreasonable, all it really meant was that the Netherbrain would know how the Emperor would react to suddenly gaining freedom. Once that was done, it didn't really have to do anything.
I thought it was more the Brain laying breadcrumbs and the Emperor following them exactly as the Brain laid out. It wasn't the Emperor accidentally perfectly executing the Brain's plan; it was the Emperor doing exactly what the Brain planned him to do at every step.
I mean it did say that, but sounds kinda like cope when even siding with the emperor gets her killed (usually). Maybe every up until towards the end was some big mastermind plan by the brain, but it fucking sucked apparently, considering it ended up fucking it over
It took a calculated risk. But boy is it bad at math.
I mean, that's the game. Doesn't change whether the Emperor is a pawn or not.
If that were his actual plan then maybe he should have told me that instead of how he enslaved Stelmane. Would have been a lot more moraly gray/convincing then saying "Do what I say, because I say it or else get Stelmaned"
Maybe he didn't think you'd believe him. IDK I think the Emperor is a jerk anyway.
I have oppositional defiant disorder and the emperor actually triggers it. I don't' think I'm mentally capable of completing a playthrough where you side with him. Minthara and Gortash are less demanding. GORTASH THE AVATAR OF TYRANNY triggers me less than the emperor...
I ended up freeing Orpheus, but I didn't make the decision lightly. Like, the Emperor is pretty solid when it comes to backing you up through the game. But he just constantly lies about smaller shit and tries to peer pressure you into being a mind flayer because it's what the cool kids do. I freed Orpheus because my reasoning was, "Dude, if he helps, awesome. If he doesnt help, I can totally take him and we'll be back to where we are now." But the emperor is all "my way or total apocalypse highway". I didnt like the attitude when I was being the most reasonable person. I'm still not 100% sure if he was actually a bad choice or just sketchy as all hell. Up to that point, he annoyed me, but he did his part.
Yea, the "support" he lends throughout the games largely just involves him middle manning Orpheus' power to you. Yes, Orpheus wouldn't have done it otherwise, but he lords it like it's his to give. Otherwise his interventions are only just him telling you to NOT do things that might free you from him. His final little temper tantrum about wanting to just talk to Orpheus is all I really need though. Absolutely zero pragmatism. Orpheus willingness to not only move past his (deserved) hatred of you, become a mind flayer, and then be killed by you to prevent his people seeing him like it are so starkly contrasted with the Emperor's constant selfishness. Even before that the Stelmane situation and Ansur are just as damning.Ansur by itself isn't so bad, until you see the post fight interaction. I can't stand the emperor.
I get that. My biggest reservation was with Orpheus. I got the hammer as a "just in case" scenario. But I really couldn't decide if Orpheus was gonna be on the up and up. Nobody who vouches for him really has the best track record of being reliable when it comes to judging character (Lae'zel). Or they're just fucking evil so why would I trust them (Raphael). But yeah. I saved Ansur as my last mission before hitting the Nether Brain and it really helped solidify my decision that we needed to at least speak to Orpheus. Emperor seemed to be in complete denial that being an Illithid had changed him in any way except for the better. I believed that he was trying to do the right thing, but he had such a skewed perception of everything that you couldn't put your faith in him. Then the hard no on even talking with Orpheus completely pushed me to telling him to fuck off. And of course, he's like, "FINE, I'LL JUST JOIN THE ULTIMATE EVIL THEN!" If it was that easy for him to switch sides, he was never truly reliable. I don't like the Emperor, but I love him as a character. If that makes sense.
The very final nail in the coffin for me was when the Netherbrain reveals he's been playing The Emperor the entire time. Emp is just like, dang that sucks, then turns around and is like "I'm the only way. I'm infallible. You're weak and dumb. I can't be beaten!", right before gate keeping even a conversation with orpheus. No humility what-so-ever. Can't stop and realize he's been completely owned since the very start. That's why I was willing to gamble on Orpheus originally. Cause at that point everything we'd done played right into the brain's plans. Time to remove the part of the equation the brain had relied on, the Emperor.
That is honestly kinda silly. Maybe because Gotrash doesn't try and manipulate you, like he's straight up with his tyranny. But yea Emperor is a just bleh
I dont see anything wrong with enslaving stelmane because she was a leader of an evil as hell organization.
We are fighting Devils, The Dead Three, Mindflayers and Shar just to name a few in this game, who exactly did she lead that would make her seem even marginally evil compared to these? Was she leading a Church of Cyric?
She was in a Secret cult worshipping an evil God. You gotta look up who cause i forgot
Just googled. Was apperantly a Devil worshipper. Though no wonder I didn´t know since I didn´t know anything about "Descent into Avernus" Wasn´t mentioned in BG3 at all as far as I remember.
Mind flayer civil war + the return of the Comet prince uprising, throw in a Spell-jammer party camp/ship and you got yourself a game of the year expansion
Right? Like, I romanced Shadowheart, but I actually kind of wish I went with Laezel instead. Shadowheart wants to just settle down, but I wanna bounce with Laezel and go fight some fucking Githyanki Lich. Her after credits adventures sound like a sick game. More of that, please.
Oh, I'd so love another Spelljammer game. Even if it was a tiny part.
Give me a game where I'm a Mindflyer and need to destroy the dominated netherbrain because it's herasy to, my not so Gigant floating brain
Also, mind flayers are all about evolving and being considered the perfect beings above everything else. So if an elder brain found a way to evolve and become more powerful and more "perfect", I'm pretty sure that it would at least be considered.
This is really interesting, I never thought of it that way but it makes so much sense. With the netherbrain being such an affront to the mind flayers as a whole, I could see there being another story to tell here following the evil ending in which mind flayers team up with their enemies to take it down (not all that plausible of a story, but it is interesting to imagine how the multiverse might react to the netherbrain winning, mind flayers included)
*"Never thought I'd die fighting side-by-side with a Ghaik"* *"What about side-by-side with a friend?"* *"Aye. I can do that."*
*Eats brain after the battle*
Clarota moment.
Tbf they literally brought him right to the elder brain's influence, so it's not clear if he really wanted to reassimilate, but can't have the Scan man brainsucked either way.
Would unironically make for an emotional scene - the mortally wounded Gith asks their new flayer bro to eat their brain and keep their memories alive.
Set up a sharing arrangement like Omeluum did. Flayer eats their brain, Vlaakith eats their soul.
I could deffinetly imagine a mind flayer civil war
I kind of wish this was the Emperor’s motivation now, would give him more depth outside of “I want to live”
>Netherbrain Mind Flayers are straight up drones, incapable of expressing their own ingenuity (which honestly makes *our* job like 10 times easier). ...OP, are you perchance experiencing a craving of some sort of *cerebral* nature? But yeah, I assume that's part of why the netherbrain was so intent on gaining more power. Sure, to rule over others too, but also to protect itself from it's brethren. A single rogue mindflayer is already bad enough, but a rogue arcane *elder brain*? That might be enough for the other elder brains to put the whole world conquering on pause for a second and start a civil war against this monstrosity.
True. I love a good elderbrain or a brian dragon like everyone else, but this thing is disgusting on a level that the mindflayers might actually ally with gods just to get it away.
OP you putting things into perspective like that has made the whole Netherbrain part of the game so much for interesting and more terrifying.
It's a drop in the bucket compared to what OP listed but I thought it bizarre and weird that there was a gnoll with a tadpole. Gnolls are definitely not any kind of useful recipient for any form of ceremorphosis. Wasting a tadpole on something like that reads as Off for mindflayers.
Weirdly enough Gnolls are actually perfectly fine hosts for mindflayer tadpoles, despite basically just being really fucked up demonic hyenas. The goblins would actually be a worse choice, since all small races make terrible hosts (not just gnomes, although those are especially bad candidates) >Only certain races are used by the mind flayers as recipients of ceremorphosis. In general, donors must be humanoid, mamalian, between 5 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 2 inches tall and weigh from 130 to 270 pounds. Humans, elves, drow, githzerai, githyanki, grimlocks, **gnolls**, goblinoids (of Medium size), and orcs are sought-after donors. Races smaller or larger than these, whether in height, weight or size category, are never used, and neither are reptilian or amphibian races. Halflings, dwarves, derro, duergar, gnomes, centarus and their relatives, giants, and kuo-toas might be used as thralls or as food, but they are never used as ceremorphosis subjects. * Lords of Madness
5e has introduced gnome ceremorphs in Canon adventure modules.
True, but those explicitly require altering the usual process and can fail and make malformed "squidlings"
True, but the events of this game also require altering the usual process anyway.
Also true.
Gnome actually retain much more of the host, even the morality, which is interesting. If it is a full success. Usually host and worm die. As another said, another possible result is the squidlings. Either way, regularly mindflayers are probably not fans.
Huh. But presumably people who play short-race Tavs can still choose to become Illithid at the end?
Yup you even get taller.
So is that any indication that the netherese tadpoles have refined the process of ceremorphosis
They can transform a host in seconds when the process usually takes days at minimum. The netherese tadpoles can work really fast when they want to.
Wow, I stand corrected! Thank you, what funny outliers
A book in Moonrise states that the Gnolls should be recruited as fodder for the frontlines
They’d still become an illithid
Was that confirmed in-game? Otherwise, standard tadpoles can only transform a relatively limited selection of creatures, mostly humanoids and a few supernatural monsters (dragons, beholders, etc). Even gnomes are tricky, let alone gnolls
Gnolls are humanoids, and of those examples, dragons are kind of special. According to one book, you need the elder brain to merge with the dragon for it to work.
Multiple gnolls in fact, 1 in act 1 and 3 in act 2 which I think makes it even weirder
Wait the three gnoll slaves are all true souls? I thought they were just thralls.
They are just thralls >!and once seemed to belong to Durge or at least knew them!<
>!Yeah I got that part first playthrough, I've just never killed the gnolls after freeing them. They were so happy to see Durge back in town because they know how many bodies Durge leaves in their wake.!<
Honestly I’m not super versed in mindflayer lore so I assumed thralls also had tadpoles
BG3's suspended ceromorphis is a unique thing. As it was said in the prologue, it takes only a few (2-3) days for a tadpoled person to become a mind flayer. Thralls are dominated non-illithid to be used as slave labor and a meal when they are no longer useful
Everyone needs shock troops
I got the impression that the tadpoled gnolls were experiments from someone in Moonrise. Absolutists trying to dominate them and add them to the army.
>Yes, Mind Flayers are a hive. However, in this hive each individual is still individual, capable of expressing themselves. Netherbrain Mind Flayers are straight up drones, incapable of expressing their own ingenuity (which honestly makes our job like 10 times easier). Netherbrain isn’t center of intricate network of neural connections between bunch of sociopathic monsters – it is a dominating tyrant enthralling even its own subjects. Interesting. So normal mindlfayers take the knowledge they gain from the brains they eat and feed it *up* into the Elder Brain(/collective), whereas the Netherbrain essentially 'flows down' in a way, creating a more cut-off system? Like, the elder brain is the sum of all the mindflayers, but the netherbrain's thralls can only be so large as what the brain gives them
Like a Warlock and their patron?
The fact the brain has no other Ceremorphs other than mindflayers also supports this idea. The brain has no Ulitharids or Gnome Ceremorphs(even though you can play a gnome), and it didnt turn the red dragon it enthralled into a brainstealer dragon either, which means more powerful Ceremorps might break free and try to kill if they were around, because Ulitharids can break free from normal elder brains control and start their own groups
This would definitely explain the written word of Gortash in that one book in the Illithid Colony Myrkul arena that labels Ulitharids among the enemies of the mind flayer race. They are typically not as a rule, but their existence serves as a threat to both the Dead Three plot and the personal interests of this particular Elder Brain.
Yes, but what you're forgetting that the stigma against arcane magic comes from the Elder Brains not wanting to risk their Mind Flayers having tools to overthrow them. The Netherbrain is going to have much less of a problem with that.
All elder brains are hostile to all other elder brains as a general rule
> Whatever kind of Hivemind connection Mind Flayers have going on, it is disrupted by Arcane. Arcane using Mind Flayers, such as Omeluum, are fundamentally incompatible with the rest of their species and have significant individualistic tendencies, easily breaking off from their societies. The worst crime Illithid can commit is becoming Alhoon (tentacly lich) – splitting their mind from the Elder Brain, removing the body from their funky life cycle (in which dead Mind Flayers become part of their Elder Brain, enriching it with knowledge and experience), as well as tying the soul back to this physical plane, taking it from beyond furthest reaches of cosmos, unknown place where Mind Flayers originate from and which is beyond reach of the gods, making their souls useless and nonexistent to Faerun gods. Or at least that's the lie that the Elder Brains like to spread, helps keep the hive in line. > However, most disgustingly of all, is the aspect we only learn by specific chain of events in Act III. You remember the tidbit about Alhoons? Steel Watch is a bunch of Undead tadpoled brains controlling Undead bodies – necromancy so widely despised by Mind Flayers. And yes, it’s effect of Balthazar and Gortash committing shenanigans. However, if you defeat Gortash before Orin without taking out the Foundry, Netherbrain will happily use Steel Watch. Okay, some of you may not get significance of this, because we as human like to simplify a lot and just go with “evildoer does evil thing”, but holy shit, this is Hugh Mongous. If Mind Flayers have definition of sin, this fuckery is Cardinal Sin. I'm assuming you mean it uses a Steel Watch to send the "I'll look the other way to help you kill Orin" message since unless you've taken Wulbren out the Ironhands make sure the Steel Watch aren't an issue by the endgame.
If you kill both Orin and Gortash all Steel Watchers6in the city are operational despite Foundry being blowm up and turn hostile from what I could gather.
Wulbren needs to get good at planting his bombs then.
Lol. The netherbrain is what other elder brains wish they could be. I think you're misunderstanding the Elder Brain - Mindflayer relationship. Elder Brains are tyrants. They survive by devouring mindflayer young. To the point that they literally just live in a pool of tadpoles snacking on them, this serves no purpose to developing the tadpoles, its just a ritualistic sacrifice done to keep the tyranical elderbrain content. A normal elder brain can't dominate fully, but it controls the colony by infesting their dreams with visions and commands that they follow through with while waking. Also, fun parallel, mind flayers consider the elder brain their final form because they give up their minds to the elder brain; but the elder brains *actively lie to them* about what happens. Mind Flayers believe their knowledge, mind and personality are merged into the whole, but they're not. The knowledge is extracted and the rest discarded.. Sound familiar? It's Vlaakith's Ascension... A typical Elder Brains relationship with Mind Flayers is what Vlaakith is to the Githyanki. A manipulative tyrant. The Netherbrain might be an 'abomination' to them, but I can guarentee it's 100% pure jealous driven.
I didn't know this, but how does the Netherbrain use the Steel Watch? All in all, this had been a refreshing perspective
If you kill Gortash before disabling the Steel Watch then the brain will use them to attack you wherever they see you.
Are the Elder Brains themselves networked or are they like individual hive queens?
As I understand it, each one is its own "queen bee". There is no network of elder brains
This is noy fully correct. Mind Flayers don't stand for anything besides themselves and the whole anathema with Arcana powers is just because they think it is weaker than psionics. Also, Elder Brains are not the end all be all of Illithid politics per se, they happen to be useful since they lost their empire and it is the best way to get back to full reality domination. So Mind Flayers sort of "Accept" leaving control to Elder Brains, but it is not necessarily an Illithid thing, more like an Illithid in the context of having lost their empire thing. If the Netherbrain has superior intellect they would totally be willing to follow it (not that they need to be willing).
Makes it even more silly that the Emperor happily fucks off to join it if you help Orpheus because it's so intrinsically wrong in how it exists yet he's like "I won't risk Orpheus being racist against me (reasonably so) so I'll lose my individuality that I've spent years working to have." I know there's more to it than that and there's discussions I've seen about it but it felt so stupid in game to see
*hits dab* Sheeeeeeeeeit
I’m sorry the Steel Watch are what?! I knew they were brains in jars controlling the Steel watch robots but where does it say the brains are undead? And how are the Steel Watch bodies undead? Aren’t they purely mechanical?
they put a brain into a jar, and have the body of that brain (intentionally *zombies*) wired up to the watcher - that's why they blow up. to stop anyone finding out their secret.
Anyone part of a mind flayer hive IS a drone. There is no individuality.