IbyolethIn the rare occasion that an aboleth that is captured by a mind flayer colony, and they somehow manage to transport it back to their base of operations, they can inject a large mind flayer tadpole into its skull, and cause it to undergo ceremorphosis. This process goes very differently in the mind of an aboleth than it typically does, due to the anatomical and mental differences between an aboleth and a humanoid. This change is likely to go awry, resulting in the death of both the tadpole and aboleth. If the transformation is completed, the aboleth will change in physical appearance significantly.
The most noticable change after the process of ceremorphosis is the color change. A typical aboleth can range from a pale sky-blue to a whitish green. After the change into a mind flayer, an ibyoleth is a glimmery, rich purple color, about the shade of an eggplant. Their tentacles transform into sucker-colored illithid tendrils that they use to grab their prey and devour their brains. Their mucus cloud is a pale pink color that coats their whole body while underwater. Their alien mouths change to become more circular, almost a perfect large replica of an illithid's mouth.
The metamorphosis into an ibyoleth does not only change an aboleth physically, though. The most notable change is their mental capacity, an ability that all illithids, even elder brains, envy. Due to the physical structure of an aboleth, their brain runs all the way down their spine, ending near the bottom of their tail. This massive brain is consumed by an illithid tadpole during ceremorphosis, who has to grow to replace this whole monstrous organ. This greatly enhances and twists both the psionic capabilities of aboleths and illithids, blending them together. This lends them a few handy abilities, such as the ability to enslave people with a burst of psychic energy, or the ability to transverse the planes how mind flayers can.
Another feature that ibyoleths possess is their ability to hold memories of others that they communicate with telepathically. They are capable of absorbing all the memories of creatures they interact with in a telepathic manner, learning everything that they know and have experienced. They can also communicate any of the knowledge they know with their allies, functioning as a living archive of everything the hive has ever experienced. This is unique to ibyoleths, and is why all other mind flayers are jealous of them. This comes from their perfect memories, which they inherited from their aboleth bodies.
Because of all of these unique abilities, an ibyoleth is both treasured and despised inside of a mind flayer colony. Whenever a mind flayer feeds on a creature's brain, if the colony has an ibyoleth, they will journey back to their base and speak telepathically with the ibyoleth, so that it can compile and organize memories and knowledge that they have learned from the brains of those they devour. They do this to learn more about the behaviors of other creatures, to search for any lost lore that they would wish to know, and learn as much about the world as they possibly can, with the off chance that they may learn a forgotten secret (such as how to create a Nautiloid).
An ibyoleth who has access to a great supply of information can learn enough about humanoids and their other prey to perfectly predict the actions of individuals and societies in a variety of circumstances. For example, an ibyoleth that live in a colony near an orc tribe could use their telepathy to pretend to be Gruumsh, saying all the key phrases needed to provoke their rage, which they could use to drive off a nearby rival mind flayer colony or other enemy, without risking the lives of their own colony's members in any way. Due to this vast mental toolset, an ibyoleth will often be the core member of a mind flayer colony, the advisor to the elder brain.
Though an ibyoleth is more powerful and intelligent than an elder brain, they are normally more than willing to cooperate with the colony leader and allow it to take the lead. Elder brains possess abilities that even the ibyoleth doesn't contain, and without an elder brain or ulitharid, a colony is normally severely lacking. In the event of a colony split, the half that contains the elder brain will always keep the ibyoleth in their base. An elder brain and an ibyoleth that cooperate together can become bonded, the closest thing in a mind flayer society to a friend, the concept of which is completely alien to illithids.
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