Dungeons & Dragons Race Lets You Play as a Half-Mind Flayer

An innovative Dungeons & Dragons race gives players the chance to build a character infected with a mind flayer's tadpole. Later this year, Larian Studios is set to release the beta version of Baldur's Gate III, the latest installment of the popular Dungeons & Dragons franchise of video games. The new game will focus on the mind flayers, a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster known for their fearsome psychic powers and eating the brains of their victims. Mind flayers procreate through a process called ceremorphosis, a process in which living victims are implanted with a tadpole, which inserts itself into the brain and gradually transform their body into that of a mind flayer.

While the protagonists of Baldur's Gate III will undergo ceremorphosis, they'll be somehow able to resist the transformation process, at least at first. Players who want to build a character who survived a similar experience can do so, thanks to a race created by DMs Guild creator Zavier Bates. The mullitharid, one of several playable races found in the DMs Guild supplement Forgotten Gifts, is a person whose body somehow rejected ceremorphosis, leaving them half transformed and rejected by the mind flayers that created them and by normal society. While they don't have the same innate psionic powers as a mind flayer, the mullitharid can use a limited psionic mind blast to attack foes, which they can use once per short or long rest. Additionally, mullitharid have resistance to spells and other magical effects and can communicate with others telepathically.

Several of the new playable races in Forgotten Gifts are "hybrid species" that mix together two races in interesting ways, but the mullitharid might be the most intriguing. While it's not a full playable mind flayer race, it does give players a fantastic tie to these malevolent monsters and sets up some great roleplaying opportunities. Forgotten Gifts also comes with 13 new subclasses, several new feats, and a handful of new spells to try out in your next campaign.

Forgotten Gifts is available now on the DMs Guild for $7.99.