Ep. 224 Psionic Creatures

What do a brain-eating squid creature, a giant praying mantis, and a snake person have in common? They’re all psionic — and that’s about where the similarities end. In this episode of FGGGbT, we tackle the most challenging taxonomy of the season: psionic creatures. Unlike the undead or the Fey, this group has almost nothing in common except one thing — the power of the mind.

They kick things off with the most iconic psionic creature in D&D: the mind flayer — part Cthulhu, part Billy Corgan, all terrifying — breaking down their reproductive cycle (ceremorphosis), their elder brain hive mind, and whether their brain-eating habit is a dietary preference or a biological necessity. From there they explore the Githyanki and Githzerai — two genetically identical races who responded to mind flayer subjugation in completely opposite ways, one militaristic and dragon-riding, one monk-like and meditative — before moving to the Thri-kreen, the praying mantis creatures whose entirely open telepathic society raises a disturbing question: what would a world with no mental privacy actually look like?

They also dig into the Yuan-Ti and their cold, emotionless psionic manipulation, the convergent evolution of psychic powers across wildly different species, and the Elan — a human who voluntarily transforms into an entirely new psionic creature — asking whether gaining mental powers is enough to make you a different species entirely.