wingsandsword said:
Illithid do not sexually reproduce, their produce a clutch of tadpoles which when matured, are introduced into the ear of a restrained humanoid. The tadpole devours it's way in, consumes most of the brain (growing and gaining sentience in the process), and fuses to the brain stem, while the body metamorphoses over several days into another illithid. The process obviously utterly kills the victim, and they cannot be brought back with any means short of True Ressurection or a well worded Wish/Miracle. Thus, Illithid could use drow to reproduce, but the Drow would'nt like it very much.
From what you say, they don't mate and can't produce hybrids; they instead spawn these tadpoles that are inserted as parasite into a host and will mutate the host into a new illithid after having eaten the host's brain from the inside. However, I think I read somewhere that the tadpole going into the brain of certain creatures can result in either a) the tadpole and the host both dying, since the host cannot be transformed (I read somewhere that the Illithiad mentions which races fall into this catagory), or b) the host metamorphosizes into a being that isnt an illithid, but has illithid-like qualities (an illithid-kin, if you will). Urophions, which are illithid/ropers, are an example of such beings. I read in an archived thread that there's article in Dragon magazine expanded on the concept, listing a few more such hybrids.
Isn't the tadpole thing called ceremorphesis?
The problem with that half-illithid/half-drow, is that drow are either one of the races that dies when they try to make them illithids, or are transformed into normal illithids (sorry, I cant remember which). Even so though, this doesn`t make the listed creature totally unusable. I think the Dragon article I mentioned talked about a svirfneblin/illithid being. Svirfneblin (deep gnomes) usually just die when illithid tadpoles try to go through ceremorphesis with them, but I read in the thread about the Dragon article, that by using a specific psionic power during the process, allowed the tadpole thing to succeed, and gave the creature new powers. Its feasible that a similar process was used during the creation of the half-drow/half-illithid creatures.
And I remember I have Lords of Darkness now... I need to get into that book again.
Catsclaw
