The Adversary
In the 2nd Edition AD&D adventure Dawn of the Overmind, author Bruce Cordell revealed the nature of the Adversary. This being was an illithid created from the host body of a man named Strom Wakeman, a character referenced in some of Cordell's other 2nd Edition works, most notably as the "author" of The Illithiad supplement.
Wakeman, an enterprising trader and scholar of Underdark exotica, allowed himself to be captured by the illithids on one of his expeditions. Through the use of a non-magical mixture of various herbs that Wakeman named laethen, he was able to preserve his consciousness through ceremorphosis, and learned to use his psionic powers to keep from having to consume brains. Thus he worked against the illithid plots from within. The legend of the Adversary was born from his frequent sabotage, though the actual acts were never connected to him. The players' characters in the adventure become his agents in stopping the illithids' plans, as his own movements rely upon secrecy from his "fellow" illithids.
For another person to imitate Wakeman's deed would require at least one dose of laethen (the making of which Wakeman kept secret) and to be put under ceremorphosis within a week of consumption. The drug only has a 40% chance of success, and the new illithid must also never consume a brain, for the act destroys the host's personality and replaces it with the illithid personality.
Read more about this topic: Illithid
Famous quotes containing the word adversary:
“Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing—he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)