Mindflayer History Was /Just how big is "known space"?/

Some quick responses based on the Githyanki,
Githzerai, and Gith Pirates to the Illithid History
subject. I'll try to keep quotes to a minimum and just
add new information. This stuff is all based on Canon,
but includes a large amount of conjecture on my part.
Use it if you want, and if you don't want to, just
ignore it. It's the Truth for my games, but might just
be BS for yours.

--- David Shepheard <david_shepheard@???????.com>
wrote:

> >> [Ben Wafer] Wait, what? Are you sure about that
> >> Adam? I thought the sphere-and-plane-spanning
> >> illithid empire was way older than that. The
> >> Illithiad has this to say about the collapse of
> the
> >> illithid empire: "In truth, the illithid loss was
> >> so great, that the mind flayers have not fully
> >> recovered from it, even millennia later." To me
> that
> >> places the fall of the illithid empire a minimum
> of
> >> 2,000 years ago (probably longer), 

That would be pretty close to the history of the Gith
races. Selective breeding of the Gith servitor race
must have taken at least five hundred years, if humans
were the original race as mentioned often in Gith MM
entries, and probably even longer, as they keep using
the term 'ancient masters'. Then comes the time
necessary for the freed Gith to become the three
separate races.

> > Lords of Madness places the illithid empire in the
> > distant future,

My problem with this is the Gith races, who don't seem
savvy enough to travel back in time to fight the
Illithids, then be crazy enough to just start fighting
themselves. 

For me it's easier to believe that the Illithid empire
was 2000 years ago, spanning a trio of spheres.
Eventually the simultaneous rebellion of there great
servant race the Gith, and several other races on 
various worlds. The empire fell, as the Gith unity.
Some took to the stars in the illithid's spelljamming
vessels, eventually becoming the Pirates of Gith. The
Lich Queen took her Githyanki to the astral plane,
where they developed the Silver Swords to combat the
Illithids who followed them there, and harbored a deep
resentment of the Githzerai for years. While the
Githzerai went to Limbo, all the beter to defend
themselves against both the Githyanki and Illithids. 

This makes life interesting for the illithids, who
would have to travel in packs when traveling through
the planes, and in great numbers on there vessels when
spelljamming. Though now the Great Illithid Empire is
a distant memory in the heads of the oldest elves, and
myth only on the worlds effected by it. And the
Illithids are traders and slavers who travel the stars
and wait for the day spheres will again fall before
them.

Jon

"Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of
reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no
less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I
burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content."
  	
— "Queen of the Black Coast", Robert E. Howard, Weird Tales, May 1934.

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