Flayer Wars

The Flayers Wars was the result of declining quality and number of humanoids available to the eight Illithid city-states of Ráglauth. By 1943 LE, the city-states of this moon had been the supreme powers for a millennia. They owned most of all the humanoids on Ráglauth. For the illithids of Ráglauth, these humanoids, or thrall, served two main purposes, food and as the maintainers of their grandiose cities.

In 1943 LE, the Thrall Minister of Penumbra summoned all the other Thrall Ministers of the other seven city-states to the Convening Ruin. At this neutral place, they discussed their declining thrall populations as well as the thrall's century of declining health. The Thrall Minister of Penumbra was the first to speak:

We face extinction in a couple generations. The thrall population in all our cities is declining in health and numbers. Without a new population of thralls to up-breed to, ours will continue down this path of reduced psyches and declining litters. Our Thinker Creed has come up with the most obvious answer, to survive we must take the thralls of the other city-states. I sense in some of you that you already know this.

- Shussgo, Thrall Minister of Penumbra, excerpt from his book - "There Can Only Be One"

Later that day, the city-state of Penumbra started what would become known as the Flayer Wars, with a surprise attack on their closest rival. The war lasted 25 years. Each time a city was taken, the defeated thrall population was added to the victor's. The defeated illithids were often given no mercy. When Penumbra took cities, they not only took the thrall population, but also imprisoned its elder brain. If their was a highest rule or law in mind flayer culture, it is that elder brains are untouchables, that if the city around them falls into ruin, the elder brain must be left unharmed. Normally, an elder brain can easily take care of itself by shunting its body into the Astral Sea. This flight to safety was prevented by Penumbra' War Creed. Using arcane magic of thrall creation, they locked the area down with a Travel Impenetrability Ward. The elder brains were then imprisoned inside devices crafted from the crystalline innards of a still-living Primordial. These devices, a product of Penumbra's Creation Creed, would go on to become the illithid's salvation. These Silver Mirrors allowed the newly formed Suellk Empire, to plan invasions on other worlds, supplying their forces with goods and soldiers by passing through these mirrors.

With the Silver Mirrors, the illithids no longer had to raid to survive, but could look to establishing a base on another world, and supply it by using the Silver Mirrors. This is exactly what they did in the First Suellk Invasion, and in the Second.

- Admiral Hullbreaker, retired, giff professor of the Girderhead Institute of War, excerpt from his war history lesson - "The Suellk Invasions"