Ilsensine

The God-Brain
Deity of illithids, mental domination, and psychic magic
Alignment: Lawful evil
Domains: Evil, Law, Knowledge, Magic, Trickery
Subdomains: Deception, Discipline, Divine, Slavery, Thought
Favored Weapon: Unarmed strike or tentacle

The mind flayers themselves do not know if Ilsensine is their creator or if he merely “adopted” them, but regardless the God-Brain epitomizes everything the illithids strive to be: pure thought, unfettered from physical constraints and bent on the domination of all minds in creation. Almost all illithids venerate Ilsensine, though outright worship is uncommon: to most illithids, Ilsensine is an ideal to strive for, not a cause to dedicate onesself to. Most mind flayer cities, cells, or ships contain a shrine to Ilsensine. The rare temples of the God-Brain are complex networks of curving halls patterned after the tangled gray matter of a humanoid brain. Its unholy symbol is an illithid’s head grasping the world in its tentacles.

Ilsensine’s priesthood is small and secretive, and many cults contain more psychics than clerics. Priests of Ilsensine are respected but not envied, because they forgo the honor of joining with their community’s elder brain upon death, instead allowing their spirits to join Ilsensine in his otherworldly realm, the Caverns of Thought on the Astral Plane. Ilsensine’s priesthood is devoted to archiving the history and knowledge of the illithids, as well as honing their mental powers to their utmost potential. Their ability to control the undead (which are immune to most telepathic attacks) makes them feared by other illithids.

On rare occasions, cults of Ilsensine crop up among human psychics. These deviant cults seek to emulate mind flayers, sometimes even cannibalizing other humans’ brains, and are often led by an illithid cleric.

Ilsensine is a being of pure mental energy with no real form, but when it deigns to communicate with its followers, it projects the form of a massive green brain with thousands of ganglia trailing off into the distance.