Item Manual:
Crafting Items (Toys)Bottles of sapienceThese contain the extracted thoughts of a sapient creature, and are the basic currency of the illithid crafting economy. They can’t be directly purchased on embark or from caravans, but can be produced from brain jars, which can. Bottles of sapience are best made from the brains of sapient creatures at the Altar to the God-Brain, but the illithids can also obtain them by performing various blasphemies against the natural world, to please the Elder Evils associated with such perversions. Specifically, they can sacrifice stones at the Altar to the Burrowing worm for a 10% chance of receiving a bottle in return, or logs at the Altar to the Black Mother for a 25% chance of receiving a bottle. They can also sacrifice vermine corpses or body parts to the Black Mother for a 50% chance of receiving a bottle.
Because of a bug in the current version of dwarf fortress, in adventure mode bottles of sapience are extracted from weapons and tools rather than brains. This is because these items should be obtained in a rough one-to-one ratio with your actual number of kills.
Can be purchased on embark and from caravans. Can’t currently be made. Can be converted into bottles of sapience at the Altar to the God-Brain or into 20 food at the Kitchen. Currently the most cost effective way to purchase food during embark.
Can be purchased on embark and from caravans. Can’t currently be made. Used with reactions at the Altar to the All-Seen Eye to produce food at a slow rate, while consuming bottles of sapience. Bring one or two along at embark.
Can be purchased on embark and from caravans, or made via reactions at the Altar to the Burrowing Worm. Basic component of the illithid ranged weapon economy, used to create both the weapons themselves and their ammo. You should probably bring one or two with you on embark, as the reagents needed to make your own are non-trivial.
One of the quasi-living aberrant entities used by the illithid civilization. Gives birth stones of its material in response to reactions found at the Altar to the Black Mother.
Can be purchased on embark and from caravans. Can’t currently be made. Trains the specified skill via reactions found at the Altar to the All-Seeing Eye, while slowly consuming sapience. Illithid adventurers can also use these, if they find one or purchase one in a town.
Made via a reaction at the Altar to the Violet Flame. Used to construct a Shrine to the Violet Flame, which can be used to trigger manual traps built from igniferous materials. In adventure mode, it is used to catalyze casting of fireball spells.
Used to catalyze sapience-producing reactions in adventure mode. Most illithids begin wearing two of these gloves, both in adventure mode and in fortress mode.
Produced via a reaction at the Temple to the God-Brain. Meant for use in danger room traps.
Standard illithid body wear. All illithids start wearing one. Can be made out of leather or cloth. It provides basic protection for the whole body, defending against weak attacks and contaminants.
An isolation suit augmented with scale mail. Basic whole-body protection.
A thin isolation suit supplemented with a set of small armored plates. Basic whole-body protection. Useful protection for ranged combatants.
Standard illithid body armor, a set of armored plates meant to be worn over an isolation suit. Many illithids start out wearing a set of armored plates in addition to their isolation suits. These armored plates provide good protection for the core body; however, there are sizable gaps between each plate, and on average 1 out of every 10 attacks will end up bypassing the plates completely.
Military grade illithid body armor, a set of armored plates meant to be worn over an isolation suit. These armored plates provide 100% protection for the core body.
Military grade illithid body armor. Like the isolation suit, protects the entire body, without the large vulnerable areas left exposed by a set of armor plates. Only 1 out of every 20 attacks is capable of bypassing thus armor. Illithids are typically do not start out wearing these.
Military grade illithid body armor. Can be made out of metal or leather. Although each individual sigil only has a 33% chance of intercepting a given attack, an illithid can stack up to 15 armored sigils. Can be crafted in adventure mode.
Standard issue illithid head protection. Many illithids wear these masks as a matter of course, although the masks have only a 50% block rate.
Military grade illithid head protection. Can be worn along with an illithid mask and a cap.
God-brain weaponsOverview of illithid psionic weaponry (touchstones and crystals)Illithid melee weaponry consists of tablets and crystals imprinted with the psionic essence of various weapons. Touchstones are large and unwieldy, requiring two hands use properly, and depend on the skills of the illithid invoking the tablet to direct the attack (so in order to effectively use, say, a bronze psionic touchstone (swords) the illithid must itself be a competent swordsman). In contrast, psionic crystals are much easier to manipulate as they levitate before the user instead of needing to be carried, and contain the extracted memories of lesser races to direct the attack, with the illithid manipulating these memories (meaning that a bronze – set psionic crystal (swords) is best used by a master druid, as is a bronze – set psionic crystal (maces)). Psionic crystals come in basic, greater, and master forms. Basic crystals are inferior to touchstones, but allow a greater degree of flexibility in your army since the various crystal types all use the same skill. The other two are better.
These are the basic weaponry of the illithid empire. They are made at the forge, with no need for bottles of sapience or other exotic materials, and are carried by starting illithid adventurers and illithid siege groups. They use the standard skills in combat.
These are the advanced weaponry of the illithid empire. They are made at the Altar to the God-Brain, and require metal bars and bottles of sapience. There is currently no way to let you choose what type of metal the reactions use, it will automatically choose the closest bars, so you will have to use careful stockpile management to control the material used. Sorry about that. All crystals use the Druid and Fighter skills in combat, so as long as your troops don’t grow too attached to their weapons you can easily switch between damage types, or even over to ranged weaponry. As noted above, basic crystals are inferior to touchstones, while the other types are better. Basic crystals require 10 bottles of sapience, greater crystals require 30, and master crystals require 90.
Illithid infiltrators will carry these, as they are the illithid dagger equivalent. As you might guess, getting hit in the head with one of these is NOT fun.
A weapon trap component, created at the Altar to the God-Brain. They strike 10 times with low force edged attacks. They can dismember an unarmored target and chop exposed bits off an armored target, but don’t do much damage to armored bodyparts.
One of the quasi-living aberrant entities employed by the illithid empire. Created via a low probability invocation reaction at the Altar to the Burrowing Worm. Hateful stones use Intimidate and Fighter in combat, but are too large to be used by basic illithids. If you have a large amount of non-economic stone you want to get rid of, you can run it through this reaction.
I’m pretty sure I stole the name for this item from the Infernum RPG.
Anyway, the Bile Cougher is another of the quasi-living aberrant entities employed by the illithids, and their main ranged weapon. Unlike the mother stone and the Hateful stone, which look like rocks, the Bile Cougher is a tapered, grub like entity with a nasty set of jaws. When left to its own devices, the bile cougher remains completely inert, however they can be directed to spit various types of ammo at phenomenal speeds, and can be ordered to bite enemies that close to close range. Bile cougher attacks are governed by the Druid skill and either the Archer or Fighter skills for long and close ranged attacks, respectively. They are mode from Caskets of Bilestone at the Alter to the Burrowing worm. They have three ammo types: bile stones, bile spikes, and deadly bile spikes. Bile stones are weak projectiles that can be made directly from rocks by the bile cougher. Bile spikes are made from caskets of bilestone, and actually have a fairly wide contact area, due their uneven profile. Deadly bile spikes are slender needles, and made out of a material that vaporizes a temperatures much above that of the deep tunnels, releasing a deadly cloud of nerve toxin
(shamelessly swiped from this thread, thanks guys!). Deadly bile spikes are also made from caskets of bile stone.
ADVENTURER: In adventure mode, you can create a flaming bile spike if you have a violet altar and a bottle of sapience. This bile spike will start to burn on your next turn, so make sure you immediately get rid of it either by shooting it with a bile cougher or just throwing it away (based on the fireball reaction in Deon’s genesis mod).
Illithid woodcutter’s tool. Made from wood at the Shrine to the Black Mother. Lousy combat weapon, don’t issue them to your troops.
Nasty spear type weapon. Uses the Bite and Fighter skills in combat. A two handed weapon for basic illithids, a one handed weapon for master mind flayers.
Nasty dual sword-type weapon. Uses the Wrestle and Fighter skills in combat. A two handed weapon, attacks can be made with the left claw, right claw, or both together.
Weapon and Spear trap component. Effectively a longer menacing spike
A nasty weapon trap weapon. Attacks 10 times, lethally perforating anything that triggers its trap.
(modified according to Death Angel's design)
A massive pair of revolving rings, one within the other. In combat, it fires hyperkinetic rods at increadible speeds. Uses the Druid and Archer skills. Due to its massive size, even a skilled Druid will have a much reduced rate of fire with one of these, but each hit is likely to sever the struck body part, and direct hit to the body core will blast the target backwards through the air. These are produced at the Altar to the Enclosing Sky. The lapis exultant rings require a blue gem to synthesize, and the penumbral adamantine rods require a purple gem. If you did deep enough, you may find an alternative means of creation
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Topic: All hail the mighty Illithid Empire (version 3/df .25) (Read 6196 times)