Maanzecorian (meaning "creed leader" or "creed liaison" in Undercommon)[8], was an entity that embodied the mind flayer concept of complete comprehension of knowledge.[4] The illithid god of secret knowledge was one of the first casualties in Tenebrous's search for his wand.[9]
Description[]
Maanzecorian appeared as a 10‑foot-tall (3‑meter) illithid with purple-green skin and yellowed tusks on the sides of his tentacles.[6]
Personality[]
Like his superior Ilsensine, the vain Philosoflayer believed the illithids to be the natural rulers of all planes and worlds and born dominators of all other races, those lesser breeds fit only to be their food and slaves.[6][10] However, the sagacious deity also considered that there were valuable things to be learned from other minds before consumption, the act of devouring brains a delight made all the sweeter if looked forward to and indulged in later on.[6]
The mind flayer god of secrets was a veritable treasure trove of lore and knowledge, some of it of multiversal importance and other pieces seemingly innocuous bits of trivia and personal information.[9] The Philosoflayer had a desire for omniscience so great as to be a risk to his own life.[11]
Powers[]
Maanzecorian's avatar had a vast array of magic at their disposal. It could cast domination, hypnotism, hypnotic pattern, rainbow pattern, and power word stun three times per day. Once per day he could create a disjuncton, screen, or call down a weird on a nearby group of creatures.[6]
Possessions[]
A silver crown levitated above Maanzecorian's head with a gem of brightness embedded inside, though the light had no ill effects on illithids.[6]
In pursuit of his ambition to know all things, Maanzecorian collected books on every topic in every language, incluing many qualith supplemented versions.[11]
Realm[]
Maanzecorian's realm was on the second layer of Gehenna, the violent and inhospitable mount of Chamada.[7] The conceited god's palace was known as Rictus, a lavish abode furnished with jet, jade, ivory, marble, and various types of skins, and which also housed a great library of arcane works.[6]
He also had a base for his spies and proxies near the Caverns of Thought in the Outlands known as the Rotting Oracle. The structure was half-sunk in an oily mire, and housed the end of a one-way portal from Gehenna between two of its pillars.[9][12]
Activities[]
On rare occasions, due to the small size of his clergy, Maanzecorian would attend the conclaves of his priests as an avatar to converse, meditate, and share knowledge, preferring to do the lattermost activity directly rather than with omens. If a situation seemed highly favorable, it was possible he would even appear to negotiate conflicts between mind flayers and other races.[6]
Relationships[]
Though always deferential to Ilsensine,[6] the Great Brain was also Maanzecorian's rival, hence the Rotting Oracle to spy upon it,[12] and he didn't always share all he knew with his superior.[6] Aside from her, his only ally was the drow goddess of vengeance Kiaransalee.[13]
Maanzecorian had many divine enemies, including most of the Dark Seldarine, the gods of the duergar, Shevarash, Dugmaren Brightmantle, and Callarduran Smoothhands.[14]
Worshipers[]
Illithid religion was different in many ways from most faiths in that it lacked the mystical element. As a race able to naturally plane shift, the Outer Planes were not considered to be a mythic realm, and nor was it envisioned an afterlife since illithids didn't believe they had god-governed souls. So long as their own brains were returned to the elder brain, as they incorrectly believed, an illithid would live on as part of the collective, joining mind and spirit with those before them.[4][15][16] Though the illithid gods had a lack of petitioners from their patron race because of this, only worshipers were needed for gods to sustain themselves,[15] but even the description of worshiper could be considered a stretch.[16]
The illithids followed their deities not because of any promise of life after death, but because they truly believed such entities were worthy of being worshiped, holding ideals, beliefs, and goals they shared.[4][15] The illithid deities were unconventionally venerated,[16] as manifestations of ideal mental states (both philosophical and psionic) that mind flayers revered.[4] Sometimes illithids meditated on these concepts while performing physical movements to help them achieve the right state of mind, which was often mistaken for worship.[4] However, while the mind flayers acknowledged the existence of divine beings,[4] might have envied the knowledge of their gods,[16] and sometimes even supplicated and entreated outer-planar entities for favors,[15][16] their innate, overwhelming egotism prevented them from truly "worshiping" them.[16]
As an abstract, Maanzecorian was considered narrower in scope than Ilsensine, who embodied psionic union with the self and the realm of universal knowledge. Maanzecorian represented the ideal of total understanding, a state in which one's thoughts, experiences, and innate talents were all simultaneously brought to the forefront rather than conceptualized one at a time as needed. Mind flayers that emulated Maanzecorian had long been fascinated by the perfect memories of the aboleths,[4] who possessed a racial memory that passed from one generation to the next and could always be flawlessly remembered,[17] leading to frequent conflict between the two races.[4]
Clergy[]
Maanzecorian's priesthood was concerned with pursuing and exploiting knowledge (such as that gained from exploring new territory), and negotiating with other races, always to be done from a position of strength and with an element of condescension. His following was not only small, but also select,[6] the veneration of Maanzecorian never having been able to reach Ilsensine's level of influence,[15] although the clergy was kept small partially because Maanzecorian didn't want to give off the impression that he was trying to usurp Ilsensine's primacy.[18]
Even so, illithids that once revered him were dismayed to wake one sleep-period to find they could no longer channel divine spells, and their prayers went unanswered even in the forms of signs. Divination into his realm eventually made clear a single, inescapable conclusion: Maanzecorian had been slain.[10] In Oryndoll, the Cult of the Philosoflayer was a minor faction of the Venerator Creed before Maanzecorian's death, since which the Elder Conclave had begun a vast effort to reobtain his knowledge before it was lost to Gehenna or some avaricious entity elsewhere. They once had a small house of worship called the Cenotaph of Maanzecorian.[1]
Pen’serre, a small illithid settlement roughly translated as "Place of Contemplative Study" busily analyzed the ramifications of Maanzecorian's death both on its own and for their race specifically around the mid-13th century DR. As part of their studies, the Awaiter Creed illithids sought to locate, retrieve, and preserve the remains of the Philosoflayer's library, a challenging task given that it was raided upon his death by various factions, scattering the contents across the multiverse.[11]
History[]
Little was known about Maanzecorian,[11] and given that the illithids themselves were mysteries of the cosmos, it was practically impossible to discern the origins of him or Ilsensine.[15]
Sometime in the mid‒14th century DR, Maanzecorian was believed to have been killed by Tenebrous, a shadowy manifestation of Orcus, after his defeat at the hands of Kiaransalee.[3][19] Upon discovering that Maanzecorian, being a deity of secrets, knew information that could lead to the location of the Wand of Orcus, Tenebrous ripped that knowledge from Maanzecorian's mind before uttering the Last Word, destroying the deity's essence. His realm of Rictus boiled away along with him,[3] and whatever remained had been crumbling to pieces without its deity.[20]
Hananolith clutching his head in pain before it implodes.
The death of god had many repercussions, and as a god of knowledge, information literally comprised much of his spirit. Wisps of his very essence scattered from Maanzecorian's dying body, bathing the surrounding area in eons of collected secrets. Random bits of knowledge would come into the minds nearby uninvited, similar to one of the disorienting psychic storms of the Astral Plane. Though a few of his proxies, namely mind flayers known as Dleniacorus and Hananolith, managed to escape, their ties to him were too strong and they soon died in unimaginably horrific agony.[9]
Rumors and Legends[]
With Maanzecorian's death, Ilsensine became the undisputed supreme god of the mind flayers.[21] However, even when annihilated by the power of the Last Word, it was possible that Maanzecorian wasn't truly dead. A minor remnant of the Philsoflayer resided on the far flung world of Penumbra, a massive ring that was to the sun in its center what a plate was to a pea, and the former capital (not homeworld) of the illithid empire.[22]
On the ring long abandoned by the mind flayers themselves, residing in one of his temples not entered in ages, was a pale reflection of Maanzecorian's power, barely capable of forming a shadow of an avatar. This was the last trace of Maanzecorian's being in the multiverse, at least for some time.[22] Mind flayer colonies still adhered to Maanzecorian's precepts in late 15th century DR,[4] but the true fate of the Philosoflayer, whether he still remained or had been truly scourged from reality,[22] was uncertain.[4]
Appendix[]
Further reading[]
- Colin McComb (December 1995). “Liber Malevolentiae”. In Michele Carter ed. Planes of Conflict (TSR, Inc.), pp. 1–64. ISBN 0-7869-0309-0.
- Derek Guder (November 2012). “History Check: The Shadow that Was”. In Christopher Perkins ed. Dragon #417 (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 11–15.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Eric L. Boyd (November 1999). Drizzt Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark. Edited by Jeff Quick. (TSR, Inc.), p. 83. ISBN 0-7869-1509-9.
- ↑ Wolfgang Baur (August 2007). “Enemies of My Enemy”. In James Jacobs ed. Dungeon #149 (Paizo Publishing, LLC) (149)., p. 56.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Monte Cook (December 2, 1997). Dead Gods. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 37. ISBN 978-0786907113.
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 Mike Mearls, et al. (November 2016). Volo's Guide to Monsters. Edited by Jeremy Crawford, et al. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 80. ISBN 978-0786966011.
- ↑ Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel (2003-10-24). Underdark Dungeons (Zipped PDF). Wizards of the Coast. p. 3. Archived from the original on 2016-11-01. Retrieved on 2018-09-11.
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 Carl Sargent (May 1992). Monster Mythology. (TSR, Inc), p. 68. ISBN 1-5607-6362-0.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Colin McComb (October 1996). On Hallowed Ground. Edited by Ray Vallese. (TSR, Inc.), p. 176. ISBN 0-7869-0430-5.
- ↑ Owen K.C. Stephens (March 2001). “By Any Other Name: Races of the Underdark”. In Dave Gross ed. Dragon #281 (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 48–49.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Monte Cook (December 2, 1997). Dead Gods. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 18. ISBN 978-0786907113.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Bruce R. Cordell (April 1998). The Illithiad. Edited by Keith Francis Strohm. (TSR, Inc.), p. 41. ISBN 0-7869-1206-5.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel (2003-10-24). Underdark Dungeons (Zipped PDF). Wizards of the Coast. p. 3. Archived from the original on 2016-11-01. Retrieved on 2018-09-11.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Monte Cook (December 2, 1997). Dead Gods. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 17. ISBN 978-0786907113.
- ↑ Eric L. Boyd (November 1998). Demihuman Deities. Edited by Julia Martin. (TSR, Inc.), p. 23. ISBN 0-7869-1239-1.
- ↑ Eric L. Boyd (November 1998). Demihuman Deities. Edited by Julia Martin. (TSR, Inc.), pp. 13, 18, 26, 33, 54, 57, 71, 129, 143. ISBN 0-7869-1239-1.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 Bruce R. Cordell (April 1998). The Illithiad. Edited by Keith Francis Strohm. (TSR, Inc.), p. 40. ISBN 0-7869-1206-5.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 Richard Baker, James Jacobs, and Steve Winter (April 2005). Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations. (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 71–72. ISBN 0-7869-3657-6.
- ↑ Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Christopher Perkins (2014-09-30). Monster Manual 5th edition. Edited by Scott Fitzgerald Gray. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 14. ISBN 978-0786965614.
- ↑ Carl Sargent (May 1992). Monster Mythology. (TSR, Inc), p. 61. ISBN 1-5607-6362-0.
- ↑ Monte Cook (December 2, 1997). Dead Gods. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 8. ISBN 978-0786907113.
- ↑ Jeff Grubb, Bruce R. Cordell, David Noonan (September 2001). Manual of the Planes 3rd edition. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 111. ISBN 0-7869-1850-8.
- ↑ Monte Cook (December 2, 1997). Dead Gods. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 124. ISBN 978-0786907113.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Bruce R. Cordell (1998). Dawn of the Overmind. (TSR, Inc.), pp. 10, 22. ISBN 978-0786912117.
Connections[]
Faerûnian Pantheon
Akadi | Amaunator | Asmodeus | Auril | Azuth | Bane | Beshaba | Bhaal | Chauntea | Cyric | Deneir | Eldath | Gond | Grumbar | Gwaeron | Helm | Hoar | Ilmater | Istishia | Jergal | Kelemvor | Kossuth | Lathander | Leira | Lliira | Loviatar | Malar | Mask | Mielikki | Milil | Myrkul | Mystra | Oghma | Red Knight | Savras | Selûne | Shar | Silvanus | Sune | Talona | Talos | Tempus | Torm | Tymora | Tyr | Umberlee | Valkur | Waukeen
The Morndinsamman
Abbathor | Berronar Truesilver | Clangeddin Silverbeard | Deep Duerra | Dugmaren Brightmantle | Dumathoin | Gorm Gulthyn | Haela Brightaxe | Laduguer | Marthammor Duin | Moradin | Sharindlar | Vergadain
The Seldarine
Aerdrie Faenya | Angharradh | Corellon | Deep Sashelas | Erevan | Fenmarel Mestarine | Hanali Celanil | Labelas Enoreth | Rillifane Rallathil | Sehanine Moonbow | Shevarash | Solonor Thelandira
The Dark Seldarine
Eilistraee | Kiaransalee | Lolth | Selvetarm | Vhaeraun
Yondalla's Children
Arvoreen | Brandobaris | Cyrrollalee | Sheela Peryroyl | Urogalan | Yondalla
Lords of the Golden Hills
Baervan Wildwanderer | Baravar Cloakshadow | Callarduran Smoothhands | Flandal Steelskin | Gaerdal Ironhand | Garl Glittergold | Nebelun | Segojan Earthcaller | Urdlen
Orc Pantheon
Bahgtru | Gruumsh | Ilneval | Luthic | Shargaas | Yurtrus
Mulhorandi pantheon
Anhur | Bast | Geb | Hathor | Horus | Isis | Nephthys | Osiris | Re | Sebek | Set | Thoth
Other gods of Faerûn
Bahamut | Enlil | Finder Wyvernspur | Ghaunadaur | Gilgeam | Lurue | Moander | Nobanion | Raven Queen | Tiamat
Greater Gods of Faerûn
Amaunator | Asmodeus | Bane | Chauntea | Corellon | Cyric | Ghaunadaur | Gruumsh | Kelemvor | Lolth | Moradin | Oghma | Selûne | Shar | Silvanus | Sune | Tempus | Torm
Gods of Faerûn
Angharradh | Auril | Bahamut | Berronar Truesilver | Beshaba | Garl Glittergold | Gond | Ilmater | Loviatar | Luthic | Malar | Mielikki | Sheela Peryroyl | Sseth | Talona | Tiamat | Tymora | Umberlee | Waukeen | Zehir
Exarchs of Faerûn
Abbathor | Arvoreen | Baervan Wildwanderer | Bahgtru | Baravar Cloakshadow | Brandobaris | Callarduran Smoothhands | Clangeddin Silverbeard | Cyrrollalee | Deep Sashelas | Dugmaren Brightmantle | Erevan Ilesere | Fenmarel Mestarine | Fzoul Chembryl | Garagos | Hoar | Hruggek | Jergal | Labelas Enoreth | Lliira | Maglubiyet | Malar | Marthammor Duin | Milil | Obould | Red Knight | Sharess | Shargaas | Shevarash | Shiallia | Siamorphe | Solonor Thelandira | Thard Harr | Uthgar | Valkur | Vaprak | Vergadain
Greater Deities of Faerûn
Angharradh | Bane | Chauntea | Corellon Larethian | Cyric | Garl Glittergold | Gruumsh | Horus-Re | Kelemvor | Lathander | Moradin | Mystra | Oghma | Shar | Silvanus | Sune | Talos | Tempus | Tyr | Yondalla
Intermediate Deities of Faerûn
Abbathor | Arvoreen | Baervan Wildwanderer | Berronar Truesilver | Beshaba | Callarduran Smoothhands | Clangeddin Silverbeard | Cyrrollalee | Deep Duerra | Deep Sashelas | Dumathoin | Erevan Ilesere | Flandal Steelskin | Gond | Hanali Celanil | Helm | Ilmater | Isis | Labelas Enoreth | Laduguer | Lolth | Mask | Mielikki | Nephthys | Osiris | Rillifane Rallathil | Sehanine Moonbow | Segojan Earthcaller | Selûne | Set | Sharindlar | Sheela Peryroyl | Solonor Thelandira | Thoth | Tymora | Umberlee | Urdlen | Vergadain
Major Deities of Faerûn
Angharradh | Bane | Bhaal | Chauntea | Corellon Larethian | Garl Glittergold | Gruumsh | Horus-Re | Lathander | Moradin | Myrkul | Mystra | Oghma | Shar | Silvanus | Sune | Talos | Tempus | Tyr | Yondalla
Other Deities of Faerûn
Auppenser | Abbathor | Arvoreen | Auril | Baervan Wildwanderer | Berronar Truesilver | Beshaba | Callarduran Smoothhands | Clangeddin Silverbeard | Cyrrollalee | Deep Duerra | Deep Sashelas | Dumathoin | Erevan Ilesere | Flandal Steelskin | Gond | Hanali Celanil | Helm | Ilmater | Isis | Labelas Enoreth | Laduguer | Lolth | Mask | Mielikki | Nephthys | Osiris | Rillifane Rallathil | Sehanine Moonbow | Segojan Earthcaller | Selûne | Set | Sharindlar | Sheela Peryroyl | Solonor Thelandira | Thoth | Tymora | Umberlee | Urdlen | Vergadain