Hello all, Ric here doing a breakdown video on something a little different, a favourite
ship design from a more fantastical setting, but one that
sticks out to me for its eldritch inspiration and
foreboding presence.
The first appearance of and Illithid Nautiloid was in Dungeon magazine #28
which featured a crashed nautoloid, just after the release of the spelljammer setting, which
heavily features space travel, a twist to the usually
medieval Dungeons and Dragons.
The Nautiloids are the Illithid’s trump card, and a fiercely protected ship.
They are not only vessels designed for traversing the vast skies, but
also exiting a planet’s atmosphere to reach space and
beyond into the wildspace and astral seas of the multiverse.
They can also jump through dimensions and the differing planes of reality, so you
know… pretty powerful ships.
The Mind Flayers (as the name suggests) feast on the brains of sentient creatures and it
is the need to consume them that had led the Illithid
Empire to create these vessels.
Although the origin of the Mind Flayers is lost, these ships certainly
aided in their spread across multiple worlds, and realities,
expanding their reach.
With a multiverse out there of minds to consume, why limit themselves to
their home system?
Or era as some suspect they are time travellers.
The Nautiloids were created as scout and colonisation ships, dispatched to
survey the stars for a suitable home, one rich in
intelligent life.
Once a world had been found, the ship could subtly land (preferably in water) and
begin the domination of the local populous using the mind flayer’s psychic abilities
to enthral people.
From there, they could infect select thralls with their Illithid offspring, the tadpole
parasites and birth new Mind Flayers, expanding their
colony.
As new mind flayers were created from the converted captives, a Nautiloid did not need
to have a large crew to set up its colony and typically
a vessel (depending on size) had a crew of around 10 to
30, although it was likely that only a few of these were Illithid and the rest were thralls
and slaves to the Mind Flayers.
Over the iterations of Dungeons and Dragons, there have been numerous depictions of the
Nautiloid and although they all share features, there
have been several versions, notably in scale and
armaments.
Generally however, a ship was classified as such by the resemblance to a Nautiloid
cephalopods which ties in very well with the look of their crew, the Illithid themselves.
The main features are a spiral shell, underslung keel
and the front mounted tentacles or arms.
The overall silhouette therefore resembles an ocean dwelling
creature and cuts a distinctive impression, sailing
through the astral sea.
Another eerie factor of these vessels is their near silent operation, not only
for the fact that, you know… space… but also that the psychic communication favoured
by the Illithid means that very little noise is generated,
by the crew or the ship itself.
The exact method of crafting these vessels is not entirely certain with several stories
told over the changing lore of Dungeons and Dragons, but
perhaps both are true.
One tale tells how the Illithid claimed a planet with giant snails on it and
harvested them for their shells, converting the mollusc’s
home into a star faring ship.
This seems rather impractical but who is to say, it could simply be the
initial step.
The other origin is that these vessels were grown and nurtured into this form.
The bioorganic look of them, including their fleshy-esc
interiors seems to support this more than the
hollowed out shell origin, unless both are true.
Inside, the corridors are full of organic curves, while
the lighting is not from torches, but dimly lit orbs that float ethereally.
The doors are also simply orifices that contract and open in reaction
to physic commands, or potentially being tickled.
During construction, tubes are snaked throughout the vessel as veins and pumped full of a solution
of liquefied brain-matter which will act as the nervous system of the ship, organically
transmitting impulses throughout it from the various controls
and psychic commands.
This complex system of nerves, effectively gives the ship a rudimentary
intelligence of its own, although it is not truly
sentient or aware.
It is more like an organic computer, awaiting input which gives it a high level of
autonomy.
The helm of the vessel is generally one of several models of spelljammer helm, a term
given to the navigational device of most spacefaring ships
in dungeons and dragons.
These designs vary from a throne, a series of them, a pool or a console.
The pool seems to be the most common helm, but all
of them require both physical manipulation and psychic control, narrowing down the potential
pilots to such telepaths.
However they are constructed, the sad truth is that they are increasingly rare and the
art of making new ones has been lost, primarily due to the
collapse of their Empire at the hands of the Gith, their
own thralls who threw off their psychic shackles and turned on their captors.
The vessels themselves were armed with fairly rudimentary devices for defence, but on par
for the science fantasy settings they were found in.
They are not really that armoured, despite that large
shell that makes up their hull, they generally are only about the strength of reinforced
wood.
Although the addition of extra armour was possible and generally added by ships that
would be expected to face much combat, at the cost
of cargo capacity.
They come equipped with at least 4 Ballistae, which each requiring a gunner team
of 3, and a single Mangonel for hurling projectiles or
explosives.
Other models, depending on how advanced they are may actually feature more arcane
defences, such as some form of energy weapon fired from a mounted turret.
All Nautiloid feature grasping tentacles at the fore of the vessel
which make up roughly half the ship’s length and these
serve several purposes.
The primary two are that they can grasp and snare other creatures or even ships, although
they are rather slow to react.
While in flight however, they can bunch up and tie together to form a solid
spire that can be used to pierce an enemy vessel, effectively creating a spiked ram.
More recently, we have seen them be used to snare other creatures
by having some form of teleportation mechanism behind them, so that when they tag
a creature, that creature is then captured and
teleported inside the Nautiloid.
They have a carrying capacity of 17 to 35 tons, again dependent on the scale of the
ship.
There are other classes of Illithid vessel too, such
as the Lance, a narrower vessel and the larger dreadnaught.
The dreadnaught was known for carrying an Elder Brain inside it, the hive mind generator
creature of the Mind Flayers and as such was a far
more defendable ship.
When it comes to the naming of Nautiloids, they tend to be named after concepts
of thought, such as Id Ascendant or Lucent Edict
although occasionally they just have edgy names like Void Reaper.
So that is a Nautiloid; a far more fantastical interpretation from a setting that is likewise
as strange.
I love the concept of the vessel being so uniformly
in keeping with its crew and creators and the
setting of Spelljammer itself remains pretty unique too.
I don’t often lean this far into fantasy on this
channel, but occasionally it’s nice to take a step into the strange.
So until the next video, thank you for watching, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see
you next time for another lore video on a sci-fi topic.
Thanks again and goodbye!