# Intellect Devourer
***
DON'T CRY, WHELP, WE HAVE NO INTENTION OF EVER *eating your brain. In fact, your brain is going on a wonderful journey. Your cerebromorphosis will be rife with pain, transformation, and reeducation to fit our purposes. While I can't say anything as comforting as "You won't feel a thing," I can assure you that once we're done, the memory of the pain will no longer exist as your mind will no longer be your own*
***
-- Qorik El-Slurrk, *Mind Flayer Cerebromancer*
***
Intellect devourers are not a race onto themselves, per se. Like mind flayers, intellect devourers are the result of other species being experimented on and altered to create a new species. In this instance, the brain of the original host is turned into a creature in its own right. The process, referred to as cerebromorphosis, typically results in a perfectly obedient watchdog for an illithid settlement, but sometimes, whether it be as a result of an inexperienced cerebromancer or the intervention of a higher being, the original identity of the host remains, forever trapped in the form of a body-snatching monster. This is often a struggle for free-willed intellect devourers.
### Xenomorphic Origin
***
Bred as perfect watchdogs for the Underdark, intellect devourers are well-suited for service in a mind flayer community. They have psychic powers that make thralls more pliant, they can infiltrate the communities of other sapient species, and they can detect the existence of intelligent beings, even through solid walls. Intellect devourers, when not operating a body that is not their own, look very much like an exposed brain with cat- or dragon-like legs. They stand approximately one foot tall, weigh around ten pounds, and are covered in a crusty coating that preserves their grey matter. 
### Genuine Puppet Masters
An intellect devourer's most powerful ability is the source of their name, the ability to literally consume the mind and identity of their victims. Once an intellect devourer successfully consumes a person's mind, the victims are left as a drooling husk, at which point they cannot hope to fight off the intellect devourer as it replaces their brain and assumes their identity. Upon devouring a mind, the intellect devourer knows everything the victim knew: all of their relatives, mannerisms, secrets, and personality flaws. They can then replicate the existence of their victim, and even the person closest to the puppet may never know the difference. 
### A Product of their Upbringing
An intellect devourer is brought into this world through the perversion of an intelligent humanoid's brain. The process of cerebromorphosis begins with the kidnap, torture, and brainwashing of a young person. This continues on until the individual reaches physical maturity, at which point the brain is extracted, treated with various eldritch and alchimical salves, and psychically altered into mutation.

<img 
  src='http://fierydragon.com/dragonsbreath/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/08.jpg' 
  style='width:315px' />

### Natural Spies
Free-willed intellect devourers often find employment by the less scrupulous as spies, due to their extremely relevant skill set. Intellect devourers are far more gifted at infiltrating organizations and extracting accurate information than any other race, due to their physiological predilections.
### Intellect Devourer Names
Most intellect devourers do not have names. They are often assigned serial numbers or group names by the mind flayer community they serve, but typically they remain unnamed, individually. Those who manage to retain their identity through cerebromorphosis will often go by their birth names at first. However, even those "lucky" few often ultimately confuse who their original identity was, and will take on a new name to reflect their new life. Oftentimes, these new names will be related to the mind or brain, as this aspect of their lives has risen from the source of the spirit and knowledge to the entirety of their beings, in a way that the "bodied" cannot possibly understand.

**Intellect Devourer Names:** Ego, Id, Marrionette, Self, Cerebro, Psi, Verstand, Memory, Esprit, Ubermensch, Umysl, Gogomen, Rozum, Thought, Dream, Traveller, Epiphany, Revelation.
\page

### Intellect Devourer Personality
The process of cerebromorphosis is a drawn out, tortuous one. Those intellect devourers who retain individuality or escape the range of the elder brain's influence often develop personality quirks.
##### Intellect Devourer Quirks
| d8 | Quirk |
|::|:-------------|
| **1**| You are more literal since your cerebromorphosis and no longer understand turns of phrase as well.|
| **2**| Now without a true body, your lack of body language while in possession of someone is a tell.|
| **3**| You have a tick or fidget that you can't stop.|
| **4**| You are extremely withdrawn, and your depression seeps into your "performances" as other people.|
| **5**| You forget to feed your host body, often resulting in its swift death.|
| **6**| You get sucked into acting like someone else and forget who you are sometimes.|
| **7**| You get claustrophobic in skulls and prefer to remain yourself.|
| **8**| You retain your original voice, which seeps out telepathically.|

### Intellect Devourer Traits
Your Intellect Devourer character has the following racial traits.

**Ability Score Increase.** Your Intelligence score increases by 2.

**Age.** Intellect devourers are only made once the brain reaches maturity, and are therefore always "adults." Provided that they are willing to consume at least one mind per month, they can live into whatever age their original brain would reach infirmity.

**Alignment.** Cerebromorphosis involves reeducation and brainwashing, so most intellect devourers are lawful evil. Most that venture into the good alignment don't live very long, as destroying a person's mind is a decidedly evil act.

**Size.** All intellect devourers are tiny.

**Speed.** Your base speed is 40 feet when not inside someone else's skull, otherwise use the host body's speed.

**Blindsight.** When not hijacking someone else's senses, you can use telepathy to sense your surroundings out to 60 feet. You are effectively blind beyond that. While occupying a host, you use the host's senses.

**Devour Intellect.** Once per short rest, you target one creature you can see within 10 feet of you that has a brain. The target must succeed on a DC 12 Intelligence saving throw against this magic or take 11 (2d10) psychic damage. Also on a failure, roll 3d6: If the total equals or exceeds the target’s Intelligence score, that score is reduced to 0. The target is stunned until it regains at least one point of Intelligence, each point lost requires one day of rest to recover.

**Body Thief.** Once per long rest, you can initiate an Intelligence contest with an incapacitated humanoid within 5 feet of you. If you wins the contest, you magically consumes the target’s brain, teleport into the target’s skull, and take control of the target’s body. While inside a creature, you have total cover against attacks and other effects originating outside its host. You retain your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, as well as your understanding of Deep Speech, your telepathy, and your traits. You otherwise adopt the target’s statistics. You knows everything the creature knew, including spells and languages, although you do not gain the ability to cast spels you otherwise would be unable to cast. If the host body drops to 0 hit points, you must leave it. A protection from evil and good spell cast on the body drives you out. You are also forced out if the target regains its devoured brain by means of a wish. By spending 5 feet of your movement, you can voluntarily leave the body, teleporting to the nearest unoccupied space within 5 feet of the body. The body then dies, unless its brain is restored within 1 round.

**Convincing Actor.** You have advantage on all deception and persuasion checks when attempting to pass yourself off as your host.

**Detect Sentience.** You can sense the presence and location of any creature within 300 feet of you that has an Intelligence of 3 or higher, regardless of interposing barriers, unless the creature is protected by a mind blank spell.

**Telepathy.** You can communicate telepathically with any being that has a language within 60 feet of you.

**Abberant Nature.** You don't require sleep, but you must consume at least one mind per month in order to stay alive. Any host body requires normal nutrition. 

**Languages.** You can understand Deep Speech, speak it when you have a mouth, and read it when you have eyes. You can also speak, read, and understand any languages your host knows.