Dustin finds a strange little creature in his trash can and names it D’artagnan, or Dart for short. When he shows the boys, they’re all immediately convinced it’s from the Upside Down—especially after Will has another strange vision. Will’s visions worsen, and he starts seeing a giant creature that we eventually come to know as the Mind Flayer. When Hopper awoke, he vomited a dark substance. Realizing he was trapped, Hopper continued through the tunnels looking for a way out. He eventually came to a point where several of the tunnels intersected, filled with several animal carcasses. Discovering that the vines were vulnerable to fire, he fashioned a makeshift torch out of a piece of an animal carcass and one of his sleeves. As he futilely tried to dig a way out, he was overcome by exhaustion and stopped to rest. He was then ensnared in a mass of vines. Eventually, he was found by Joyce and Bob. After Hopper was freed, soldiers from the lab arrived and urged them to leave shortly before burning the tunnels. Suddenly, Will, who was waiting above ground with Mike, collapsed and began convulsing on the ground. 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.

Pieces of the Mind Flayer could only operate when psychically linked to the Upside Down's hive mind (via a gate). However, if the gate closed, the Mind Flayer's particles wouldn't die, unlike the Demogorgons, or the Spider Monster. The particles would instead scatter and turn dormant; if and when a new gate was opened, the particles could immediately reconnect with each other and continue to serve the hive mind's will. Stencils pumpkin pumpkins patrol paw logo culture pop halloweencostumesPumpkin stranger things carving Demogorgon upside flayer elevenPumpkin stranger things deviantart. Dustin is the only one not with the group. He’s hanging out with Steve and new addition to the gang, Robin, as well as Lucas’s younger sister, Erica. These four have infiltrated the Russian underground base and are learning—often the hard way—about its secrets, which they’re able to later pass on to Joyce, Hopper and Murray when they infiltrate the base to destroy the machine that’s keeping the gate open. During this mission, Hopper “dies” but is actually just transported, somehow, through the gate and into a Russian prison. Instead, even when aware of the option of serving in the afterlife, the last desire of most illithids upon death [49] was to be rejoined with its elder brain, thus attaining a form of immortality by having its life experiences merged into the elder brain's consciousness. Elaborate funerary jars, also known as brain canisters, [47] with the individual's biography inscribed in Qualith were commonly used by mind flayer colonies to preserve a dead mind flayer's brain until it was consumed by the elder brain. [2] Gods

Illithids were megalomaniacal in the extreme, tyrants driven by an immense ambition [16] and intrinsically ruled by an overwhelming sense of self-importance. [22] The mind flayers sought nothing less than world domination, [16] knew their destiny was mastery over the universe, [22] and the ultimate prize they yearned for was complete dominion over all the planes of existence, with the power to reshape reality and all within it to fit their otherworldly designs. [16] However, mind flayers did not believe themselves to be horrifying monsters. [21] 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.

Will had another vision later that day. He went to have a bathroom break in the middle of the night and was returning to his bedroom. However, he saw a red light illuminating the walls of his house. The front door swung open, revealing the Upside Down beyond it, where the red storm violently raged once again. Will walked out into the Upside Down and witnessed the obscured but distinctive silhouette of the Mind Flayer, or "shadow monster", amongst the clouds. Stranger flayer demogorgon stencils scanncut costume upside Stranger things pumpkin stencil printable Pin by nathan on cool pumpkin carvings Pop Culture Pumpkins: Free Stencils for All Ages [Printables Some illithids dedicated themselves to studying and honing their innate abilities. Known as illithid psions, they were capable of even more remarkable feats of psionic power, including telekinetic abilities akin to mage hand and telekinesis; further mental control abilities such as charm person, command, sanctuary, fear, crown of madness, phantasmal force, and confusion; and even divination abilities such as guidance, true strike, see invisibility, clairvoyance, and scrying. [2] Combat While it did not actually harm them, illithids absolutely despised sunlight, avoiding it at all costs. [57] They required only the heat created by the geothermic processes of planets to survive. [23] Most mind flayers could not imagine living in the sun without some form of protection. from the desiccating effect it had on their skins to the clouding of their vision, and the mere thought of being immersed in sunlight was as horrifying to them as drowning in blood would be to a human. [23] [42] On October 29, 1984, Vecna began acting through the Mind Flayer in his first attempt to conquer the world and exterminate humanity.

Stranger things: mike (pumpkin stencilPumpkin demogorgon stranger things stencil pumpkins carving culture pop halloweencostumes upside down Stranger things: mike & eleven (pumpkin stencilPumpkin stranger stencils things stencil eleven tumblr halloween claudia resize them. Pop Culture Pumpkins: Free Stencils for All Ages [Printables While certain essential biochemicals and hormones could only be found in brain matter, illithids ate brains more so for the psychic quotient of sentient gray matter than the physical nutrients. [59] Their all-encompassing neurology granted them a unique digestive system, one that was, in a sense, cognitive and self-aware, allowing them to extract more than nourishment from their food. [18] The next morning, Will informed Joyce that Hopper was in trouble after seeing him through his connection with the Mind Flayer. While they were able to figure out where Hopper was in Will's drawings, they did not know the actual location. Just then, Bob arrived, and because of his talent in solving puzzles, Joyce enlisted his help. Bob realized that the drawings were a map of Hawkins, and was able to pinpoint Hopper's location.

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 [ ] After the fireworks fizzled out, the proxy monster regained its composure; it launched a spiked tendril directly at Eleven, only to be intercepted by Billy. The creature, enraged by Billy’s betrayal, launched a dozen more tendrils at him, fatally wounding him. At the same time, Hopper and Joyce reached the Soviet control room and disabled the Key machine. Hopper was thought to have perished in the process, but had survived by escaping to another platform within the same room. He was soon captured by Soviet forces. Despite having an episode named after it, the Mind Flayer is not physically present in said episode.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] Like other races, the illithids claimed to have deities of their own. [8] [22] These revered beings were not deities per se, yet nonetheless divine entities capable of granting divine powers to their followers, even non-illithid ones. [2] [49] However, like the promise of an afterlife, this did not hold as much allure for the mind flayers as it did to other races. Channeling the power of another being, even one as supreme as a deity, did not seem to interest the illithids as much as developing their personal psionics. [8]

Psionic energy was extracted from the brain by an illithid in the victim's last moments of activity. [2] The psychic essence freed from brains was nourishing in a way far more efficient and potent than flesh could be alone, metaphysically reenergizing their metabolism so well that only one intelligent brain was needed per month for them to remain healthy. [59] Without this minimum requirement met, a mind flayer would slowly suffer physical debilitation and grow so weak that they would die in four months. Ideally they would eat a brain a week so as not to feel deprived, but most mind flayers fell between the two and ate brains about once every two weeks. [59] [57] 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. The influence of Ilsensine was important in the conflict between mind flayers of Oryndoll and the duergar. In the time when they had invaded the shield dwarf kingdom of Shanatar and captured many shield dwarves, the mind flayers had no gods. However, when the dwarves began to stage uprisings and rebellions, the city was plunged into chaos. The only reason it did not fall to the duergar rebellions was because of the sudden appearance of the mind flayer god Ilsensine. Since Ilsensine's appearance, the mind flayers became deeply religious and began to develop formidable psionic powers. [50] Ilsensine's favored proxy was Lugribossk. [51]With the Mind Flayer at his side, Vecna’s powers greatly expanded. The Mind Flayer’s body could split into smaller pieces while sharing a collective consciousness. These smaller pieces could possess other creatures and beings, tying them to the same core consciousness; through the Mind Flayer, Vecna could connect various lifeforms to a shared hive mind, with Vecna's will at the top of the chain. Through the hive mind, a diverse range of beings fell under Vecna's control, including "Demogorgons", Will Byers and the tunnel-organism in 1984, the "Flayed" of 1985, and "Demobats", as well as the roots and vines strewn across the surface of the Upside Down. 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-13 th 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 [ ] Although mind flayers willingly came together to achieve an end, they were always vying for more control in the community, but even then they were always beneath the elder brain. [4] While individual mind flayers might have, at one time in their past, retained a certain degree of independent thought, after the collapse of the illithids' empires it was generally agreed upon by them that their survival required complete obedience to the elder brain. [2] Meanwhile, the kids have been learning more about the Mind Flayer’s plans and discovering that more and more people from the town have been “flayed” — aka taken over and are now essentially mindless zombie puppets.