There's a really great 3E supplement called Lords of Madness that posited that mindflayers didn't so much conquer the distant past, but the far far future. They are the last and greatest masters of the multiverse, spanning even into the planes themselves, but some great threat (an enemy they can't beat, a slave uprising, or maybe just the inevitable end of everything) forces them to make an escape. To do so, they travel back in time, to the distant past, and their creation of the gith is their first attempt at restarting their empire. The mindflayers don't remember how they conquered the multiverse the first time, but they know that they did/do win. Had the great quote: "In the impossibly far future, when stars are reduced to pale, red cinders flickering coldly over somnolent worlds, the illithids will rise from their subterranean dens to face the languid twilight and establish once more the empire they lost. They will be stronger, crueler, and hungrier than ever, and all hope will die."
It's tied very much to the real world history of how TSR and later Wizards of the Coast developed the various settings and products over the years. AD&D, which started in the mid/late 70s, set most of its adventures in Greyhawk, which is Gary Gygax's world. There was also a parallel product line simply called D&D (a.k.a. "Basic", "B/X", or "BECMI" D&D), and it gradually developed a world for itself called Mystara. Around the mid-80s, Gygax's rivals pushed him out of TSR, and TSR bought Forgotten Realms, Ed Greenwood's setting, to basically take the place of Greyhawk. Around the same time, Tracy and Laura Hickman created the Dragonlance setting. So when AD&D switched from 1e to 2e around the end of the 80s, they had three main established AD&D worlds - Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms - and one B/X setting - Mystara. Now during the days of 2e, TSR came out with a lot of new campaign settings, but two in particular affected the ongoing mythology that we now have in Forgotten Realms. The first was Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, which created the idea that the worlds from Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms were all in what you might call solar systems, and you could travel through outer space to go from one world to the other. The physical laws of outer space were very different from how they are in the real world, and spaceships worked via magic rather than technology. The mind flayers got a lot of their development in the Spelljammer material. The other campaign setting that affects Forgotten Realms is called Planescape, which basically took the idea of the Great Wheel cosmology and made it a full fledged campaign setting that you could explore. So while Spelljammer made it possible to travel between worlds in physical space, Planescape detailed how they were all connected through the various outer planes where everyone generally went for their afterlife. Around the end of the 90s, Wizards of the Coast (which at the time was known for Magic: the Gathering) bought TSR and D&D and tried to find a way to unify the product lines, so AD&D and B/X D&D were both replaced with D&D 3e/3.5, and the Forgotten Realms was firmly established as the official setting for that edition. Then they came out with D&D 4e, which had its own setting, often referred to as the Nentir Vale or Points of Light setting, and it contributed the idea of the Feywild and the Shadowfell, which have since been incorporated into the Forgotten Realms cosmology. Now they're on D&D 5e, which returned to the Forgotten Realms as the official setting. Obviously things have been revised and expanded a lot throughout the various editions - ideas have been added, dropped, replaced, and refined - so what we have today is basically the *current* version of the Forgotten Realms, but you can find different versions of things as you look through the publication history. One of the nice things about D&D is that you can pick and choose whatever ideas you want to incorporate into your own game, so it's ultimately up to you to decide how you want things to work ;)
@@fieryalbino I just did a random Wikipedia deep dive into the System behind DND lore while working on my own setting and your resume is very much appreciated (and also very correct the way I see it)
I WANT SPELLJAMMER 5E MAN! STOP TEASING ALREADY! Besides, my players at level 6 just found out they've been stuck on a dome on the rim of Realmspace's crystal sphere. I need WotC to complete their Spelljammer for 5e before these guys get out of the dome!
DoughyInTheMiddle what I've heard from a couple of friends is that the rules for 2e and 5e are similar enough that you only need to make minor tweaks to it
Well, it is more that the majority of Spelljammer rules are related to navigation, world building, and such. All the core races (except the Dracon and the Giff races) are in 5E in various forms, like the Illithids in the video. The most specific rules (like the phlogiston erupting in fire if a flame is conjured there or radiant dragons) can be accounted for on the fly, so a campaign that ends up on a ship in outer space with 5E rules should require no more work from the DM than, say, a campaign that ends up in a ship on the high seas.
Thank you Mike Mearls, you've just told me one of the major things I needed to create a Blake's 7 style campaign. Now weather to link them/allie them & the EB with Primus of Michanus & work in a "Face Faction" for controlling/guiding the pmp surface folk to their will
Pretty wild to realize that Mike Mearls was probably already helping consult the team at Larian on the early development of Baldur's Gate III when this video was made. Watching this makes me wonder what 5E Spelljammer would have been like if Mearls had stayed in charge of 5E and not been shuffled off to appease internet buttinskis. The hints in Dungeon of the Mad Mage suggested a system with much more thought put into it.
I think a discussion about the planes and how things work would be nice. It's an interesting thing but, it spins my head a bit so I have to tweek it to work more like real life with planets and space and things... ANYWAYS. An episode on the muliverse and planes would be nice.
The general speculation is that the next supplement (whenever it may arrive) might be a Guide to the Planes, and feature various player options from each of the different planes. So I think you can definitely expect more stuff on that matter to fuel our excitement.
I've already decided that if I ever wanted to shake my world to the core, Thousands of the nautaloids would show up out of nowhere and the flayers aboard them would essentially take over the world. Should be fun.
I was going to have the characters find a crashed nautaloid in a mountain, discover their world is populated by descendants of escaped slaves of the mind flayers from millennia ago, and they would inadvertently set off a homing beacon that brings the Gith and mind flayers back to the world, continuing their war against each other and wreaking havoc on the planet.
MatthiasCorvinu I was thinking of a mobile sentient world , pockmarked by pools of brain fluid each containing a linked mind flayer hive overlord. Thus is born the mind flayer God , come to devour the populations of entire planets , before moving on to the next.
I've already read about Mind Flayers when I was reading the Monster Manual. But it's interesting how I developed a concern about them after watching Stranger Things 2. I hope the Stranger Things series continues to use the D&D monsters and concepts to explain the strange events that happens in the series
I like the idea that there are all these crystals filled with various dnd worlds, even my own homebrew world is out there somewhere. Especially the fact that I don't really use Gith, so a few Elder Brains were able to flee to an entirely new World Crystal to hide.
Something they didn't go as in depth about was that the tadpoles can create one of two types of 'mind flayers'. Either the Illithid, which is the standard Mind Flayer, or the Ulitharid, which is a bigger, more elite version of an Illithid that will eventually leave the colony and become an Elder Brain itself. Can find all this lovely information in either Volo's Guide to Monsters (5e) or the Book of Aberations (3.5, which the lore of which can of course be used with 5e and also contains a bunch of info on all sorts of other aberations)
I'm wondering if they'll release Spelljammer before or after Planescape. Combining the campaigns would be neat but the purpose of Sigil kind of messes with the idea of Spelljammers.
I recently had a campaign arc all about re-enslaved brainwashed Gith, an Alhoon and a Neolithid, so I was kinda hoping for more about Neolithids and how those come about rather than space travel. But this was definitely interesting!
Based on the Volo's Guide entry, they could grow to respect other creatures if they have no influence from an Elder Brain. They'd probably have to be an arcanist to force them from the colony and actively avoid being within 5 miles of an Elder Brain. But a society that would be willing to have a brain eating "person" among them must have a VERY good reason to have them around (something that would likely have to deal with its superior intellect. Maybe a military strategist for a war centric society)
I thought they got rid of the crystal sphere and phlogiston thing. Also, they don't even use the word "prime material" anymore. Which I like. It's just called "material". But I am glad they kept with the cosmology with the Feywild and Shadowfell
In my D&D world, the Mind Flayers are the only species able to withstand the insanity of seeing creatures from the Far Realm. They also have a machine that anchors the material plane to the other planes so the Illithid are able to Ceremorphis the angels and demons.
will w He hints at this when he says the Gith have stopped them many times before. The Mind Flayers are the "Architechs" and the Prime Material Planes are the "Good Place".
Hey why did you suddenly go mono for no good reason at the end? I'm on headphones and was scratching the one ear the mono sound was in when it switched so the video seemed to go silent for a moment...
Jonathan Herzog It is kind of fun , just don't over think it , but what I always can't seem to figure out is the Spell Jammer cosmology in regards to the multiverse. If you take a spell jammer to hell , is there a whole hell space waiting to be explored there.
From the way Mearls described it, it seems like spelljammers can only travel between different material planes, though I suppose it's possible that different material planes could have their own corresponding planes, like how Eberron does (though I think Eberron is probably a crystal sphere that makes an exception to how the planes usually interact).
KadzarTathram It could be that only the prime material planes change , and the other planes are constant , and shared by them , but that would make travel from one prime to the other possible via planar travel. I guess restricting that kind of travel through very rare uncharted natural portals could be a solution to unwanted prime to prime hopping.
Traditionally, in 2E Spelljammer, the ships always travelled through the Prime Material plane, yes. Outer space, the phlogiston, et al, was part of the Prime Material Plane and access to the other planes was usually restricted until one had entered a new crystal sphere.
@D&D Beyond So uh...you wanna by chance explain why you all ban a compendium style website from existing.....and yet you all seem to expect people who already bought your expensive books to repurchase the content on D&D Beyond website to be able to access a digital compendium? That not seem a tad bit greedy? Sure you want people who haven't bought the books to pay something and not just have a bunch of free content but why do those who already bought the books have to buy the same content again just to have access to a compendium? You do realize most players have purchased the physical or digital books already that play the game enough and seriously enough to want to use a compendium for quicker character or encounter building right? Not to mention color me confused on why so much content is hidden behind a license wall from Roll20 since that website mutually gains you all D&D players who in turn buy your content. So many spells blocked from the list on there because of license bs. Why? Would love an official response to these questions even though I highly doubt I will get one.
