Best slaves for Mindflayer slaver ship?

[HoboKnight]

Hey,
so, Mind flayer slave-raiding ship. Say you have a nautiloid with a crew of 10 mindflayers and a potential of another 20 slaves purposed for acquiring more slaves. Standard operating procedure is for the ship to pop out of Ethereal plane over a settlement, attack with part of the crew and all of the slaves.
Since nautiloid is a floating ship, I think slaves should have innate fly ability. And... perhaps be easily affected by Mind Blast. That's best I can come up with.

What would be best races in 5e for this purpose?

[Psyren]

(Did you mean Astral rather than Ethereal? Nautiloids are usually traversing the former.)

They would most frequently get their hands/tentacles on Underdark races (Drow, Duergar, Svirfneblin), Gith, and of course particularly common surface races like Humans, Dwarves and Elves. But you can justify just about anything really as long as it's something they'd be interested in, i.e. something with a brain. (They probably wouldn't be too interested in scooping up Plasmoids or Warforged for example.)

[No brains]

Winged Kobolds, aka Urds have an innate fly speed and a penalty to int. They suffer a little in the power department, but sometimes a few pairs of flying hands are what you need for a situation.

Must these creatures be humanoid? Giant Owls/ Eagles/ Vultures fit what you need, and they even have some capacity to grab and carry things.

Depending on the precise nature of how a nautiloid works, these creatures being able to fly might not be an issue. If they can move in and out of ethereal without needing to be in the ship, they can benefit from the innate 3d movement of the ethereal plane. What can a nautiloid do? Does it really have no way to scoop up creatures off the ground without landing itself?

[Millstone85]

Did you mean Astral rather than Ethereal? Nautiloids are usually traversing the former.

With AAG rules, a nautiloid could just as easily plane hop from an outer, elemental or echo plane. Also from the Ethereal, with the Border being in my opinion the best choice as it would allow for one last recon before the attack. You don't want to pop up in the middle of a storm.

What can a nautiloid do? Does it really have no way to scoop up creatures off the ground without landing itself?

It does have one, as demonstrated in the opening cinematic of Baldur's Gate 3 and codified in AAG. It is a +8 tentacle attack followed by a DC 15 Con save or the target is teleported inside the ship.

Alternatively, how about slaves with a climbing speed to easily transport things up and down the tentacles? As it happens, quaggoths are favorite thralls of the illithids according to VGtM.

[Kane0]

Aaracokra/Kenku/Owlin, winged tieflings and elves

[Witty Username]

(Did you mean Astral rather than Ethereal? Nautiloids are usually traversing the former.)

If we are getting really um actually, Mind Flyers were all but eradicated from the Astral. The remaining vestiges of the Mind Flayers traverse the material.

The important part is light on Thri-kreen, they only have significant populations on Athas, and creatures of minimal intelligence take great pains to avoid that sphere.

[Millstone85]

If we are getting really um actually, Mind Flyers were all but eradicated from the Astral. The remaining vestiges of the Mind Flayers traverse the material.

Even further into ackchyually, 5e's take on Spelljammer made it so Astral Plane = Astral Sea + Wildspace, but the latter is simultaneously part of the Material, with little clarity on where exactly the pure Material begins or if treating it as a different plane even makes sense anymore.

My personal headcanon, which I have been meaning to turn into a worldbuilding thread but have kept being distracted from, is that whenever the Astral and the Ethereal interact it creates a "Material" bubble in the Astral and a corresponding "Border" bubble in the Ethereal, with further echoes inside the Positive and Negative.

[Witty Username]

Yep yep.

My personal take (since Gith still exist and would still be policing the Astral) is that things like Nautiloids exist but are mostly 'grounded'. BG3 works because the Nautiloid is promptly destroyed seemingly shortly after it went active (of the six known kidnapped 4 were from Baldur's Gate, 2 of which were grabbed during the escape through Avernus, 1 was grabbed assaulting the Nautiloid so it doesn't matter where there from, which leaves Gale who I personally think was grabbed from Baldur's Gate but Waterdeep isn't far from there in FTL spaceship terms).

There is more if we want to get into spoilers.

How I would do is keep the prisoners local unless it is specifically a Spelljammer game. If so use the spelljammer specific denizens (Giff, Elves, Gith, Arcane if they are still cannon, etc.).

Funnily enough BG3 is compatible with both versions (wildspace and the Astral sea), due to it never achieving oribit and only using its planeshift functionality.

[HoboKnight]

Super interesting answers, thanks.

Since someone mentioned stats on nautiloid from bg3... I googles this, but failed to find them. Are there any 5e statted nautiloids out there? And especially the one from bg3.

Thanks!

[Millstone85]

Since someone mentioned stats on nautiloid from bg3... I googles this, but failed to find them. Are there any 5e statted nautiloids out there? And especially the one from bg3.

There are stats for various spelljamming ships, including the nautiloid, in the Astral Adventurer's Guide.

Not specifically the one from BG3, but it could pull the same stunts. Well, assuming lucky rolls for recharging the plane hopping feature (One chance in three to be usable again after 1 minute, otherwise you must wait 24 hours). Didn't see it fail to capture anyone either. Classic cutscene perfection.

[JackPhoenix]

Super interesting answers, thanks.

Since someone mentioned stats on nautiloid from bg3... I googles this, but failed to find them. Are there any 5e statted nautiloids out there? And especially the one from bg3.

Thanks!

Astral Adventurer's Guide, p. 38.

As for the slaves, humanoids have the advantage of serving as emergency snack, but there's a value in non-humanoid ones, too.
Mind flayers are perfectly capable of catching new slaves themselves, so consider what to they want the slaves for: Bodyguards, manual labor they aren't going to do personally, finding hiding victims, catching any runners and pre-raid scouting. There's value in combining various different creatures to serve different roles.
Umber Hulks are great: Their Int save isn't the best, but they are surprisingly smart, so they can follow complex orders; they are tough and dangerous to serve in combat and strong enough to carry heavy things; their tremorsense can help find anyone hiding even through walls and other obstacles, and with burrow speed, they can break through said walls to get at them. They aren't fast, and they aren't particularly well-suited for scouting.
Orcs are a good option, too: Bad Int save; humanoid, so they can serve as food in absolute emergency; are relatively useful fighters; have strength for manual labor and more dexterous hands for more delicate work; darkvision gives them some sensory advantage over humans, and Aggressive means they can run down anyone fleeing from the raid. They can even serve as scouts, as they don't raise as much attention as the hulks, though depending on a setting, an orc being caught lurking around a village raises other concerns... but few would suspect mind flayers.
Humans serve reasonably well in most roles, depending on what they can do, and they are common. They lack any special senses or speed, so they aren't that great at chasing runners or finding anyone hiding from the raid, but they can be used as infiltrators right in the settlement itself. Same goes for any PC race options. Getting them to cooperate may be more problematic, though.
Grimlocks are are pretty bad, but have the advantage of not needing to be directly mind-controlled, as they serve the mind flayers willingly. They have blindsense, but being blind is a limitation rather than an advantage in more open areas on the surface.

[KorvinStarmast]

Drow and Quaggoth.

The drow and mind flayers were associated with each other in the Giants adventures G 1-3, which were followed by the Drow adventures (D 1-3) which tells me that the drow and mind flayers on the material plane both spend time in the Underdark. MF would pick up drow for their crew. They know who they are dealing with. And with this relationship...

Servants of the Drow. The ancient enmity between quaggoths and surface elves makes them easy converts to the dark elf cause. In recent years, the drow have taken an interest in recruiting and training quaggoths, encouraging their ferocity while strengthening their obedience. Wealthy drow houses have legions of quaggoths at their command. Even worse, the drow cultivate the quaggoths’ hatred of the elves by leading them on surface raids against known elven enclaves.

...add a few quaggoths and quaggoth thonots to round out the crew.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Whatever you pick, you can always add something big like a troll or a cyclops or a treant or a hulk or... as a miniboss to fight on the way to the ship. Preferably something from far outside of the local area, a monster the PCs might not meet for the rest of the campaign.

The theoretical possibility for a fight that lasts long enough that the PCs can start talking to the brute and maybe convince it to charge at the mind flayers with them is just a nice bonus.

[Mastikator]

I'd throw in a Lost Sorrowsworn, it has terrible mental stats and is otherwise strong, making it a good candidate for illithid subjegation. It's a pretty exotic monstrosity too, showing how far the nautiloid has traveled.