Bay 12 Games Forum

Tested my first illithid adventurer.
The a generator defaulted to a mind flayer fleshwarper.  Fleshwarpers have good natural weapons, so I buffed up my agility, toughness, and healing.  For skills, I chose striker, for use with my natural attacks, as well as Knife user, to try and make sure I started with a thought extractor.
Started at an illithid town, with a thought extractor in my backpack and a psionic touchstone of spears in my hand.  So I guess I didn't need to spend points on Knife User.  I immediately put away the touchstone, I want to use my natural attacks.
A glance at my inventory shows that I'm wearing a set of iron plates over a pig tail fiber isolation suit.  Armor plates aren't great as far as illithid armor goes, they leave a lot uncovered and they only block 90% of the shots directed at what they do.  But it's a lot better than nothing.
Walking around the house, I talk to the 'thid standing in the doorway.  He doesn't want to come with me, but he directs me to a group of human bandits that have been causing problems lately. 
Approaching the bandit camp, I draw the attention of two human spearmen.  They come after me, so I back away to get some space and start attacking them.
I quickly discover that my fleshwarped sword and spear are of little use against these guys (stopped by their plant fiber clothes... go figure), but my fleshwarped mace does plenty.  I loosen up a bit after the first guy goes down, deciding to attack randomly for a while.  My fleshwarped sword soon redeems itself, slicing off the poor guy's hand.
Moving in again, I spot a human crossbowman.  I close cautiously, keeping trees between me and him when I can.  I take a couple of silver bolts, one strait to the leg and one to the chest, which is fortunately blunted by my armor plates.  While I’m moving in, I draw the attention of a maceman, so I break cover and run up to the crossbowman.  His last panicky shot glances off my armor just before I bash his head in with my mace. 
His maceman buddy goes down no problem, but I’m pretty banged up by this point, and the bandit leader quickly demonstrates he can hit me a lot easier than I can hit him, so I stay out of his way as much as I can, while watching for good chances to slam his head or chest with my mace.  A couple of square shots later and he’s done.
Now that I own the bandit camp, I it’s time to do some crafting.   I take out my copper thought extractor and drop it on the ground, then take a walk around the camp, collecting corpses (I need their brains).  A few minutes later, I’m in possession of 17 bottles of sapience, the basic ingredient of illithid crafting (during the extraction process I make the unfortunate discovery that apparent everything counts as a sapient brain, including rocks.  Not sure what’s up with that).
Anyway, I decide to test out armor making.  A quick search of the camp turns up a leather robe.  That plus 10 bottles of sapience equals one leather psionic sigil, and it’s the right size for my illithid.

Tomorrow I'll visit an illithid castle, and test Fortress mode.

Bronze Colossus:  A weeping bronze statue.  Much more valuable than the default bronze statue.  The tears can be collected and used as cheep booze (at the kitchen).  These nigh-indestructible monsters have been known to make grown men cry, now you can return the favor!

Hydra:  Drops two gemstones that can once again be used as a source of cheap booze (originally, a river sprang forth from the spot where the hydra was killed, that's why it got the name "hydra").  It's teeth also keep regenerating after it dies, so you can use its skulls to make lots of bolts and arrows (at the smelter).  This reaction should still work even if you use the skulls to make totems, since it depends on reaction classes.

Dragon:  It's teeth can be used in upright spear traps as "Menacing Dragon tooth spikes."  Reactions are available at the smelter to carve dragon tooth swords, spears, and knives from the default spikes.

Level 1:  Illithid Outpost
outpost overseer:  outpost mind or elder brain
outpost second:  outpost mind or elder brain
outpost guard:  3 war slave (basic)
champion:  hero slave (3rd level)
tax collector:  outpost mind or elder brain
hammerer:  master or archmaster
dungeon master:  archmaster mindflayer

Level 2:  Illithid City
city overseer:  elder brain
city second:  elder brain
city councilors:  3 master or archmaster illithids
city guards:  3 war slaves, 3 adventurer slaves

Level 3:  Illithid Deephold
deephold overseer:  elder brain
deephold second:  elder brain
deephold councilor:  6 master illithids
deephold guards:  3 war slaves, 3 adventurer slaves, 3 hero slaves

Monarch: 
master overseer:  elder brain
overseer second:  elder brain
general:  slave general
astrologer:  void master mindflayer
high priest:  grigori illithid

Reactions marked with a *P* create psychic pollution, which can stop the hearts of slave casts.  Use the workshop profile (Shift P) and burrow system to keep slaves away from workshops where these reactions are being used.

Library:
   use boxes of crystallized knowledge to improve the skills of your illithids.  Use workshop profile (SHIFT P) to assign workers for most of these reactions.

Altar of the god brain
   free wealth (debug rxn):  way too many bottles of sapience and some gems.  gems are reagents of different rxns
   employ spatial warp:  Your illithids can gather food from the safety of the tower.

Altar of the Black Mother
   make axe:  make an axe from a bar of metal
   invoke aberrant entity, mother stone:  create a mother stone to create more of a given type of stone.
   feed mother stone:  feed the nearest mother stone a bottle of sapience, causing it to give birth to a stone of its type.
   
Altar of the Burrowing Worm
   invoke aberrant entity, poison:  dispose of stone debris.  small chance of creating a bar of boil-able inhaled poison.
   invoke bilestone:  dispose of stone debris.  small chance of creating a casket of bilestone.
   invoke bilestone, black diamonds:  guaranteed creation of 3 bilestone caskets.

Altar of the violet flame
   invoke aberrant entity, consecrate alter:  expend 3 rubies, 1 red diamond, or 1 star sapphire to create an altar to the violet flame (item).
   invoke latent fire:  give 1 wood log to receive 1 bar of latent fire

shrine to the violet flame, construction requires an altar to the violet flame (item)
   invoke ignition fire:  give 1 wood and 1 bottle of sapience to create a bonfire.  Supposed to allow you to ignite 'fuses' made of latent fire stockpiles, which are in turn hot enough to boil the poisons obtained from the burrowing worm.  In practice, the bars of latent fire don't seem to ignite each other, even though they are hot enough.  Bit of a problem.

Altar of the enclosing sky
   invoke aberant entity (hyperaccelerator):  requires 3 star sapphires, some lapis lazuli and a ton of sapience.  Creates a telekinetic hyperaccellerator; a weapon composed of psychically levitated rings.  This weapon is too large to be wielded by basic flayers, requiring master flayers or better, and is heavy enough to slow the wielder to a crawl.  However, this weapon is powerful enough to dismember anything it hits, including megabeasts and HFS.  Not too useful against many small enemies.
   invoke rod:  ammo for the above.  Requires 3 of any purple gem, and a lot of sapience.

Smelter
   open brain jar:  extract a preserved brain from a brain jar (trade good)
   use casket of bilestone (cutting, stabbing, or blunt):  make 100 units of specified ammo from a bilestone casket.
   employ mother stone (animal caretaking):  try to coax the nearest mother stone into spawning a stone of its type.  Free reaction.


Butcher
   you can butcher intelligent creatures.

Kitchen:
   extract sapience (butchery):  Extract bottles of sapience from brain jars, brains, or corpses (brains and corpses handled by generic "extract sapience from sapient brain" reaction.
   distill brain drink (brewing):  Create an alcoholic drink from the brain of a sapient creature.