In this post, I decided to expand on the intellect devourer. It is a standard D&D monster, but has surprisingly little detail attached to it. There are few variants, no consistent ecology, and not enough done with the premise.
Capabilities
- Intellect devourers are able to devour and replace the brain of any humanoid creature, thereafter controlling the body like a puppet.
- Intellect devourers have dangerous psychic powers they use to subdue prey and defend themselves.
- Intellect devourers are able to scale sheer surfaces and run along walls.
- Intellect devourers come in a variety of different forms.
The host
The fate of the host body is variable, since many sources do not concern themselves with it. Some intellect devourers cannot sustain the host body, which suffers increasing gangrene until it is no longer suitable. Other intellect devourers are able to maintain the host body indefinitely.
Appearance and morphs
- Intellect devourers have quite variable appearances, ranging from a naked brain with insectoid legs to a hound with a naked brain for a head. When entering a host, they psychically shrink themselves and shed their extremities, making them appear identical to a humanoid brain.
- While most intellect devourers are brains with legs, occasionally one will develop a larger hound-like body of its own. These "battle devourers" or "intellect maulers" are unable to take host bodies, but they retain a taste for brains and the sensations experienced by others. Unbound by the size of their brethren, they are able to develop much stronger psychic and physical abilities.
- Nobody else has made the connection before, but I suspect intellect devourers may potentially mature into brain collectors, giant crustacean creatures adorned with bladders that store and digest the decapitated heads of prey.
Intellect devourers
There are several different ways in which one could design the intellect devourer. The image below collates six different possible designs.
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| ©Coool Brain |
The classic devourer, seen below, is a naked brain with vaguely reptilian legs.
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| ©MenteR |
A variation on this would be more mammalian legs, or adding a spinal cord for a tail as in the image below.
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| ©April Prime |
Or amphibian legs, as the the brain frog below...
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| ©Nebulon5 |
Or jointed bug legs, as in this model by Reaper Bones.
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| ©Reaper Bones |
Alternately, you could use tentacles instead of true legs as in the image below. Pathfinder's dwiergeth and egophage use a variation of this design.
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| ©Brian Sanchez |
Intellect maulers
The "intellect mauler" (coined by Michael Jaecks) is my term for a devourer that has become too big to take host bodies anymore. They still exhibit a taste for brains, however, straight from the skull.
Below is Sam Wood's concept art for the 3rd edition Monster Manual, starting the whole trend. Raises the question of how it is able to fit inside anybody's head.
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| ©Wizards of the Coast |
Below is April Prime's concept art for a more feline intellect devourer, here shown after enjoying a tasty brain meal. Beware its brain-sucking mouth parts!
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| ©April Prime |
Below is the battle devourer from
Neverwinter Nights. Unlike other maulers, this one is adapted specifically to physical combat by growing an armored shell. Although stronger and durable, it has not let its psychic powers atrophy in the least. It also comes in an undead skeletal variant.
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| ©Bioware |
Creation and reproduction
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| ©Wizards of the Coast |
- D&D and derivatives have been unable to agree whether devourers are artificial homunculi or self-reproducing species. I prefer a multiple choice past and future, myself.
- Intellect devourers were originally created through alchemy by the phrenic scourges and mad wizards, using humanoid brains as the raw materials. According to Dreamscarred Press' Psionic Bestiary, the intellect devourers were engineered by the Phrenic Hegemony as spies and servants. I don't know if they were the originators or learned it from something else.
- Intellect devourers were originally artificially created by alchemically preparing the brains of human beings, with the brains of children being prized for their plasticity. This process was supposedly devised by the phrenic hegemony to create short-term spies, but some rebellious devourers discovered the secret themselves and established free populations.
- However, despite their artificial origins some intellect devourers have mutated the ability to reproduce on their own without the need for alchemy. Not only that, but they are not limited to a specific single method of reproduction. The implications of this are understandably frightening, and the phrenic scourges seem to have trouble deciding whether to farm the creatures or exterminate them.
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| ©Coool Brain |
- Intellect devourers may reproduce parasitically. If one sires or bears a child through a host, then the resulting offspring will initially appear to be a normal child. When the child reaches adulthood, however, their skull may split open and their brain will emerge as another intellect devourer.
- Intellect devourers may spawn like frogs, expelling eggs into water that hatch into tadpoles and later metamorphose into adult devourers. These tadpoles are considered a delicacy by cultures that consume brains.
- Intellect devourers may produce parasitic larvae that must be incubated within a living host. The larva gradually consumes the host’s brain while they are alive and aware of this. The larva cannot control the incubator, but the process makes the host easier for the parent to dominate.
- ADDENDUM 7/6/2018: The larvae attach to the brain, but the parent may command them to remain in a dormant state so that the host may be enslaved indefinitely under threat of being consumed. (This is the modus operandi of the Brilkoun in Monster Geographica: Underground, an OGC rename of the closed content Ilkroun from Monsters of the Endless Dark.)
- Intellect devourers may grow on stalks, like fruit. I have no idea where these stalks come from, though I suspect it is not a pretty process.
- Intellect devourers may be created by brain collectors from the brains they collect. Are they the originators of the process?
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| ©Michael D. Clarke |
Diet
- According to the 1st edition Monster Manual, intellect devourers subsist on the psychic energy of their prey. This they consume from the "dying shriek" or "more subtle means."
- According to Pathfinder Bestiary, intellect devourers seemingly feed upon the sensations they experience through their hosts. This explains why they act so wanton: extreme sensations are the most tasty and filling.
- According to 13th Age Bestiary, intellect devourers feed on the memories contained within the brain they consume. After consuming the brain, they store the memories like some kind of mental larder.
- In conclusion, it seems that intellect devourers feed on psychic energy from many sources. The memories from consumed brains, sensations experienced through hosts, the mental energy released by non-hosts, and so forth... these all seem to nourish these noxious monsters.
Related creatures
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| ©Purple Duck Games |
- Ethereal Assassin. This monster is created from a humanoid brain through similar means as the intellect devourer, but serves as a spy and assassin that attacks from the ethereal plane. It first appeared in Liber Beastarius by Eden Studios and was reprinted in Monsters of Porphyra 2 by Purple Duck Games.
- Brain Collector. Also known as the neh-thalggu and yah-thelgaad, these hideous monsters collects brains in mass to fuel their hunger and psychic powers. I suspect that they may be related to the intellect devourers, perhaps their original creators and/or their final metamorphosis. (The brain collectors themselves come in a number of different morphs, depending on the artists. Some are egg-shaped, some crab-like, some flattened, and so forth.)
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| ©Christopher Burdett |
Research links
Intellect devourers
Brain collectors
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