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A barren, frozen planet. A pristine icefield, burnished and cleared by constant katabatic gales. Graven in elegant Old High Martian glyphs a meter deep in the never-thawing ice, a mathematical proof of such beauty and elegance as to make a genius weep...and a series of universal planetary coordinates. No advanced species could forbear to investigate further! These are the work of the Neh-Thalggu, more commonly known as the Braincrabs. Know them. Fear them. Do not trust them. Rugose and four-limbed, the first instar is little more than a brain-shaped crustacean beast. (Little Nolzur's Intellect Devourers, came with the Alhoon or Illithilich.) They are shed when the parent has a surfeit of brains and wishes to jettison lesser ones to make room for greater. Most perish, being less clever than their prey. But if one can bring down a sentient creature through luck and stealth and devour its central ganglion or brain...it begins to grow, absorbing the knowledge and cunning of its prey, much as some sea slugs repurpose the stinging cells of their prey and make them their own. After absorbing a few brains, the instar grows into a juvenile. This involves generating more frontal eyes and a pair of brutal skull-cracking pincers. Recently-added brains are sequestered into thin-shelled bubbles, an adaptation to make sure other, stronger Braincrabs do not kill them when marauding. The juveniles are very dangerous, acting as psionic predators with the strength of a tiger and the intelligence of three or four sentient creatures, all brought to bear on the problem of obtaining more brains. Depending on its previous history, it is very likely to outwit the average sentient being. A Braincrab that has assimilated more than eight brains again metamorphoses, this time into a mountainous, many-limbed hulk, a spiny rugose colossus with a first-class think tank worth of neural tissue working for it. Psionic power abounds, and the elder Braincrab can create immersive illusions at-will or psychically dominate lesser wills. The really unpleasant bit is the way it will out-argue you and succeed. It can make an excellent claim to being a Utility Monster, better at experiencing both reality and pleasure in the cosmos than us single-brained chumps. And what gives it the most pleasure, on the level you and I could never experience? (for so it claims, and has data to back it up--is the data faked? if so, it's too good for us to be able to tell!)? Why, devouring and assimilating more sentient brains! Do you have inconvenient brains in your society? Antisocial or sociopathic ones? It can redirect those energies! Oh, it's a persuasive monstrosity! The Martians fear and detest them, of course, having as they do great juicy brains practically dripping psionic energy. But hunting something that is hunting you, while your strongest weapon is their favorite prey--it's not easy! A Martian High Intelligencer can outwit all but the eldest Braincrabs, but the gamble is a perilous one indeed. You do NOT want a braincrab with the powers of a High Intelligencer. That's how you get a planet converted to a brain farm, which in turn leads to Great Old Ones. Not even once! Oddly, the best defense against the Braincrab is a hive of the insectoid Mandibulate Commonweal. One has the intelligence of a beast, two of a slightly smarter beast, five of an average human...and a whole hive can rival a supercomputer. Their individual brains are not worth a Braincrab's attention, and yet the hivemind can outmaneuver it intellectually as easily as the workers can swarm and savage it physically. The Commonweal will not gain knowledge from the reclaimed brains, though. Only nourishment. Below, how to make a juvenile Braincrab.

Hello everyone. I finally got off my lazy butt and stopped staring at my mind flayer Bathalian long enough to paint him. I had been staring and contemplating for so long that I finally just started slapping paint on him without worrying about how he was going to look in the end. I think I am more or less happy with the results. There are some things I don't like but in the end none of that is really important. What is important is that I have another finished mini. I put so many layers on the outside of his cloak and it still wasn't enough, the darn green kept overpowering the yellow and drying darker and some of the greens turned out kind of same-y but again, he's done. And I figured he needed a pet, because no mind flayer Bathalian is complete without his intellect devourer mind eater! He was super-simple. A couple inks, a drybrush and a coat of gloss to make the brain look icky. Not too complicated. Love to know what everyone thinks, have a great weekend!

Intellect devourers were always one of my favorite D&D monsters, so I'd been planning on painting this mini eventually, but I never got around to buying it since it was kind of plain compared to most other minis. As fortune had it, though, I got it as a bonus with my last order from Reaper, so I decided to just do it. Color scheme was based on a mixture of the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual intellect devourer, the more "realistic" 3rd edition version, and a smattering of actual crabs. As usual, the process of working on it is on my blog: link Unfortunately, I wasn't sure how to handle holding a mini without a base that I could stick on top of a shot glass. I held it by unpainted parts for as long as I could, but in the end, I held it by the brain to finish off the talons. Sadly, that led to some of the paint getting rubbed off (probably could've avoided at least some of that if I hadn't been squeezing it so hard, but it's easy to forget my strength at times). Aside from that, though, I'm rather pleased with how it turned out . It was a simple mini, but I enjoyed it. C&C welcome (especially any tips for how to avoid damaging finished paint on baseless minis, short of varnishing a completed area to hold it by for the final parts).

Where My Mind Wanders (thanks to knarthex for the title inspiration): WIP here: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/72333-hey-somebody-get-after-that-brain-77027-reaper-mind-eater-wip/ This was actually fun to work on, I learned a lot from doing it (highlighting was not one of those things). I was going to leave it as is, but Guindyloo suggested that I put roller skates on him. As awesome of an idea as that is, that requires Green Stuff (which I have) and skill using Green Stuff (which I don't have), but it did put it in my head that the Mind Eater should be doing something dynamic instead of just standing there. Since it's larger than what an intellect devourer is and won't be used as a tabletop figure, I decided to use a larger base to give myself more room to play. I learned that I have some pretty light brush control when I put my mind to it, and got some xenomorphic help with learning how to do feathering for the legs. So here you have the Mind Eater running like a deer in the woods, without a care in the world! I wanted to put in some whimsy into the piece, since it gives a contrast to the horrific aberration that the figure is supposed to be. Hope you enjoy!

Gadzooks!!!! I'm actually painting something again. Here's the bad boy I've chosen this time around: I actually have a colour scheme in mind after researching other people's work on this one, and have adjusted it according to my own whims. A quick slather of Reaper Brown Liner as a primer. And here we have a couple of layers of P3 Sanguine Highlight to bring some proper base colour, might put have to touch up a couple spots. After this: drybrushing!