The Rights of the Thrall.

  The Illithids, or by their common name, Mind Flayers, are incredibly intelligent beings with strong psychic abilities. Standing at humanoid height, the Illithid is a lanky figure with off colored purple skin. Their most striking feature is their head, for it is vaguely squid shaped with four tentacles jutting out of its face. These tentacles are quite versatile and can be used as weapons or tools to help them gather food. The mind flayer diet is unique for they subsist off of humanoid cranial matter, or brains. The illithid uses its tentacles to latch onto the cranium of a humanoid being, and uses them in combination with a lamprey-like mouth to extract its victim’s brains to devour. It is a truly grizzly diet and lifestyle, for the Illithids go so far as to psychically dominate and enslave other sentient humanoid races, keeping them around not only as an easy food supply, but as a source of slave labor. These individuals are referred to by the Illithid as ‘thralls.’ What is even more fascinating is that the thrall is used in the illithid reproductive cycle. The illithid, when born, is just a simple tadpole that is by itself harmless and barely sentient. However, through a process called ceremorphosis, this ‘tadpole’ is inserted into a humanoid’s ear and the tadpole burrows into the brain and takes over, warping the body and the mind in the process, creating a new mind flayer and the destruction of the host humanoid. 
          The illithid culture is highly xenophobic, where the illithid believe that they are the ‘master race’ so to speak. They have a very strict hierarchy, with the illithid race on the top, and everything else on the bottom. However some illithid philosophers have pondered about the moral value of the humanoid races and their place in the world.  A typical question is: What kind of rights should be given to them as opposed to a regular beast of burden, for humanoids are more cognizant, useful, and necessary for illithid. Many said that there is no distinction between the thrall and the beast, however ever since the famed illithid philosopher Seilku wrote his essay “The Worth of the Beast,” that idea has widely been discredited. The below segment, “On the Rights of the Thrall” was written by an esoteric illithid by the name of Jirsk, discussing the paradoxical relation between thralls to the illithids. He further argues that the thralls should be treated in a certain ethical manner, not for the thralls benefit, but for the illithids as a race. Although there are some flaws in his argumentation, it allows for a closer look into the mind flayer mentality. Soon after the publishing of this paper, he vanished mysteriously .Unfortunately, I do not own the entire essay, but I do possess a large fragment of it, and if I ever come to possess more, I will display them here.  This text has been translated from the original quaalith:

  To our kind as a whole, the paradox of the thrall has been a thorn in our side for aeons. The thrall differs from the typical beast of burden by having the capability to naturally develop a consciousness along with the basic animalistic instincts that mark a true beast. Their baseness, balanced by their higher functioning thought processes, is what makes their minds a true delicacy and what allows us to use them as reproductive vessels for our offspring. When we insert our young into the thrall, our young feast upon its conscious mind, growing in strength and power, while weakening the thrall, until our spawn has completely consumed the hosts mind and body, leaving nothing but true illithid in its place.  The undominated thrall, or ‘free’ thralls as well pose a risk to us. The ‘free’ as I shall call them, dislike our glorious race and have gone so far as to develop enough skill to pose a serious threat to our kind for they are just capable enough to wield deadly magics and weaponry.  Our own resources have the capability of rebelling against us! Due to these facts, the thrall’s status in our society is still somewhat ambiguous.  Within the thrall are a multitude of paradoxes, which I shall go over, and in time argue for certain rights that we shall need to bequeath them if our species is to survive. 

  The first and probably most important paradox of thrall is the fact that we use it for two competing and mutually incompatible resources: Reproduction and food. As is obvious, if one uses a thrall’s brain as sustenance, the thrall dies, thus making it an invalid target for ceremorphosis. On the other hand, if one uses the thrall for ceremorphosis, the resource is consumed in order to create another one of our kind. These uses of the thrall are mutually incompatible with one another and both are absolutely necessary for the perpetuation of our species. It seems to be a divine joke that our kind is so dependent on these inferior beings, but without them our species would cease to exist. We are forced to use them like a lowly parasite uses a host body for sustenance! The very thought sickens me.  We must choose to satisfy only one of our basic instincts of almost every species: eat, or reproduce. I shall address this problem later on in the paper. 

  This brings me to the second paradox that results from the dialectic relationship between the thrall and our own race. That is, we are utterly dependent on the thrall for our survival. This is a cruel, but obvious fact. As a species, the illithid race is one that prides itself on its rightful supremacy. However, without these lowly creatures, it would not be able to last beyond a single generation. Our offspring would forever be stuck in an underdeveloped setting due to a lack of hosts, and we would all die from lack of sustenance.  So I will have to raise the radical question of whether we as a kind can truly call ourselves independent autonomous beings if we depend on other lower beings for survival. It is a truly monstrous thought to think of, but one that must be considered and answered appropriately.

  The third paradox is that this resource we must admit we are dependent upon to live, in its natural state, objects to being used as such.  I have touched upon this paradox in the opening, but I wish to highlight my point here. Our very own resources possess at least a limited consciousness and because of that, naturally develop a free will and a resistance to being subservient to our superior race. We are forced to either trick them, or coerce them through magic and psionic abilities to follow our orders. To think that a species as mighty as the illithid risks a rebellion from their own food supply and reproductive processes! What a laughing stock the other species must make of us! Humanoid societies, be they elves, or humans, or even drow, will almost undoubtedly try to flee from one of us if we are spotted. The worse alternative is that they will try and attack us, for if that path is taken the Illithid could potentially risk life and limb. Although very few humanoids do pose a threat, it has been well known for some vagabond adventurers to actually seek out and exterminate our kind as some kind of genocide, much like the Gith did in days of old (Editor’s note: The Gith refer to the Githyanki and the GIthzerai, two humanoid races that were subservient thralls to the mind flayers for hundreds of years until they rose up in rebellion. After earning their freedom, they moved to different planes of existence.). To this day there is enmity between the Gith and Illithid Races, and the same can be said of the current races that our inhabiting the world. We as a race constantly provoke an illithid holocaust every time we go on raids or collect new thralls, for that angers these beings, and these beings are creatures of revenge and of a perverted ‘morality.’  

  Others might argue that thralls, if cultivated and bred properly, can last indefinitely, thus taking out the concerns raised by the first two paradoxes. However, I would like to point out the largest flaw of this is that even if we were to breed enough to last, the paradox is not solved, we simply have enough resources to keep on going. The paradox lies within each and every thrall, and creating more thralls simply means that we have more thralls. The paradox lies within each and every thrall that exists. It lies not only within the thrall, but within every humanoid, thrall or free! If we have a surplus of thralls, all that entails is that the illithid society is faring well at the moment. The instant there becomes a scarcity of thralls, due to disease, or lack of nearby humanoids, or whatever other reason, the illithid must be forced to make the choice of whether they want to further their own life, or the next generation’s.

          As for the third paradox, there is no solution. Right now, no illithid society has the resources to completely dominate the entirety of the humanoid empires, because once again, there are those who do pose a threat to us and are not to be trifled with. Even if this were to happen,  we could not change the fact that they are born with consciousness and free will. The only thing that can subdue such a thing is our psionic ability to dominate the minds of said humanoids. Also, if we learned anything from the Gith rebellion, it is that there will always be those thralls who cannot be coerced, no matter how strong the powers we might have.  It would take an impossibly massive amount of power, time, and resources for the illithids to subdue all the humanoid lands.

          This leaves the illithid race in a predicament. We are dependent on the thrall for survival, but its uses are incompatible with each other, and it objects to being used as such. It is a miracle our race has survived for as long as we have in this era. What are we to do then? That is the next question that we must ask ourselves. The answer is radical, and requires a long explanation, but for the continuing survival of our race, I believe that there is no other option. The only answer is that we allow the thrall to keep their willpower, and that we adopt a more humanoid ethic for pragmatic reasons.

          We must adopt a humanoid ethic for the reasons that if we do not, we will always be loathed by the Free. If we adopt their moral viewpoints, it will ‘humanize’ us to them, and reduce the prejudice against the Free have against our kind. For the individual who might argue that a humanoid ethic and the illithid lifestyle are mutually exclusive, I would disagree with them.  Upon reading some humanoid philosophers such as Machiavelli or Rand, one can find some philosophies that are quite compatible with our way of life. In addition to this, the only humanoid philosophy that is absolutely necessary to adopt is the idea that humanoids should be granted basic ‘rights.’ This in itself does not contradict any way of life we may possess. Even the fact that we must use the humanoid to eat and reproduce does not contradict our, or their philosophy, because many humanoid philosophy promotes the survival of the individual or race over other moral concerns such as murder. For example, if a humanoid was dying and could only survive through the killing of another individual, many of their philosophies would say that this is a morally acceptable act to perform. Therefore, if an illithid needs brains to eat, the humanoid philosophies could not object if it was for survival value, and although many humanoids might not like this fact, they must admit that it would then be wrong to condemn our kind if we are feeding only for survival.  

  However, in order for us to convince the humanoids that we are truly these ‘tormented’ beings that only take humanoids for food and reproduction, we must allow humanoids to retain their free will and visibly remove thralldom from our way of life. In order to resist murder, we must publically do away with such things as thralls and slaves. We must show the humanoids that we ‘value’ their free will and rights to exist.  If we continue to subjugate their mind, it will reveal us as the ‘cruel monsters’ that we are, and therefore invalidate our claim to equal rights. This is a difficult thing for our kind to sacrifice, I am aware, however, in order to prevent more slaughter on our side, we must allow this subspecies free will and not interfere with their lives except for times of feeding and reproduction. It is a cruel trade-off, but it must be done for the survival of the glorious Illithid species.

Translators Notes: Illithids are the property of Wizards of the Coast. I did not create the race nor do I claim to do so.  Also, discuss this article in the comments below! If you wish to write something in reply to this or any other article and get it published on this site, please contact me at fantasticalphilosophy@gmail.com