Campaign that gets into mindflayer origins

[daremetoidareyo]

The story for this world is that each of the humanoid kingdoms has developed a cloistered realm to protect from illithid hunting parties. Gnomes took to the sky, Elves magic woods, dwarves migrate underground, orcs and goblins just run around everywhere. Humans built a magically protected bubble that is impenetrable, and regulates its population by kicking out a certain number of people every year by expelling them. Humans that grew up in this world are told that there is a disease that nearly wiped humans out long ago. That is a lie.


This world is the Gith homeworld, where illithids used selective breeding of all the races to create the ancestors of the githyanki and githzerai. The terror of this option is that goblins, elves, humans, svnifelbin were slowly merged on purpose to create the perfect thralls. The original rebellion and escape happened here on this world. Forcing the illithids to start fresh. The humanoid adaptations are such that the illithids just barely get by.


The elder brain on this world is the mastermind behind the rift between the githzerai and githyanki races, he spends much of his energy communicating with extraplanar agents to so hatred between those factions. If this elder brain is destroyed, those races stop fighting eventually, and in the future will work together to make illithids go extinct. They then become one united race, and with their collective knowledge and cultural trauma, use tsochar grafts paired with slaad egg incubation to accidentally evolve themselves into proto-mindflayers, The Tsochar/limbo slaad egg thing necessitate beget the transformation and brain eating and all that. They then actually evolve into mind flayers. Who reach out and plague the universe, assembling a coterie of angry enemies who hunt them down, pinning them at the end of the universe fling, where the beleagured nearly rendered extinct mindflayers, fling themselves back in time to restart this terrible cycle.


The setting of this world is approximately a million years or two after the big gith rebellion. The Mindflayers are barely squeaking by on this planet as food has become ridiculously scarce. This particular prime material plane has been shielded by ancient magics to prevent easy transportation between the planes, but communication is relatively easy between the planes.


That means that the expulsions from these humanoid kingdoms are just barely keeping this elder brain and mindflayer society alive, as they must continually hunt for more brains to eat. The Rulers of the cloistered kingdoms are aware of this, but need to keep some semblance of self-sustainability in their kingdoms. Elfs excommunicate criminals. The gnomes run a giant kingdom in the sky, built upon a floating rocks. They have a representation monarchy, but most of the wealth and power belongs to a wizard who developed a way to summon creatures from the plane of air, after which he binds them into working in brothels, so a significant portion of the gnomes have air bloodlines. I need to work on the dwarven defense system, but hope to have that developed soon.


This future isn't guaranteed to repeat itself, but mind flayers need to continue to exist on this prime plane. If the Elder brain dies off, in a far future the githyanki and githzerai patch things up. If he continues to exist, the denizens of this world have to pay the price of protecting the githyanki and zerai from themselves.


The PCs will finally left with two options: allow the status quo wherein they and all races on the planet are unwitting illithid fodder in hopes of breaking this eternal causality cycle....or...killing the all of the mindflayers and saving the world, but consigning the gith to their terrible fates to become their own oppressors.


I've developed a myconid group that has been trying to communicate with humanoids about their turf issues, and one of their gift offerings are mushrooms that act similarly to the drug found in "John dies in the End," time dilation, simulacrums performing acts for you before you even encounter a place for the first time, & weird instructions, that, when followed, facilitate just barely the most useful result possible.


Suggestions and ideas? Particularly in regards to how dwarves protect themselves, how orcs and goblins interact with other races, whether or not to even bother with dragons, & how to put the PCs in possession of all of this knowledge in order to make a decision on how to act on it by the time they are high level.

[Sorrcerousflux]

Well this is certainly complex, Id suggest less races and no dragons; dragons are to buff and the more races there are the less control the illithids have witch makes them look dumb.

As for how they defend themselves? magic. Arcane, divine it dosnt matter; magic is really the only way to beat illithids en mase. anyway.

[LarwisTheElf]

As for how to get this knowledge into the PC's hands, I'd suggest two things.
1) Give each player a different piece of knowledge regarding the mind flayers. Maybe something related to their back story or something. When they bring all the pieces together, they get a clearer picture of what's going on.
2)Create a high level NPC that has come back from the future (maybe he/she accidentally hitched a ride with the flayers). If the PC's hunt down ilithids, he becomes a BBEG to oppose them (in order to save the future). If they decide to try to break the cycle, he can be their patron. Either way it works out.