22 Uktar 1458
Attn: Unit employees
It has come to my attention that some of you, particularly new Creed members and transfers from other units, do not have a clear idea of the standards and expectations of your role here. I have personally witnessed employees leaving their posts and neglecting their responsibilities, as well as spreading frankly concerning misinformation about the process of ceremorphosis itself. Therefore, this document will serve as both a brief review of ceremorphosis, and an agenda of the tasks that should be performed on each day of the tenday cycle per cohort. If shifts overlap or sufficiently-trained apprentices are present, responsibilities may be divided as you see fit. Menial tasks should be delegated to the department thralls, but do not leave thralls unsupervised in the Unit, particularly in the company of newborn illithids.
Day 1: On the day of tadpole insertion, hosts experience headache, fever, nausea, and progressive memory loss.
Tasks:
1. Coordinate the delivery of tadpoles and hosts with the appropriate departments
2. Insert the tadpole into the appropriate facial orifice. Either the eye or the ear will suffice, though I've been told – loudly and with many expletives – that the eye is the more painful method of the two
3. After insertion, hosts should immediately be restrained in the pods for both their safety and our own
4. At the end of the day, assess hosts for early symptoms of ceremorphosis, which include fever and headache, followed by memory loss. Fever is the most immediately quantifiable symptom, and can be monitored along with other vital signs measured by the pod's sensors
Day 2: On the second day, hosts often become violent and unruly due to confusion, hallucinations, and an increasing sense of desperation as their symptoms worsen. Fever and nausea continue. By the end of the second day, some graying of the skin should be visible if ceremorphosis is proceeding at a normal rate.
Tasks:
1. Prevent dangerous or self-injurious behavior. At this point, ceremorphosis is already irreversible, and struggling or trying to escape will only reduce the host's quality of life. However, humanoids are irrational creatures, and any attempts at explaining this to them will only cause further distress. If they are in danger of injuring themselves, a mind blast, psionic suggestion, or sleeping potion will all prove effective at preventing this outcome. I have always been a proponent of the idea that there is no need for the host to be conscious throughout this long and painful process.
2. Assess for early external signs of the transformation such as skin discoloration
Day 3: Expected symptoms include loss of hair and teeth, as well as bleeding from all orifices as the mucous membranes begin to shed due to accelerated cell turnover. The skin will also continue to turn gray, and may display a mottled pattern of darker coloration. This is normal, and the outer layer of skin will detach later in the process.
Tasks:
1. Continue to manage pain and prevent injuries
2. Report any absence of visible signs of ceremorphosis by the end of the third day
3. From this day onward, tilt pods into an upright or slightly reclined position to prevent aspiration of blood or vomit, particularly if hosts are unconscious
4. Ensure that the department thralls clean the pods daily and dispose of any biohazardous waste
Day 4: The host is either unconscious or confused and in severe pain. Internal organs shift and reposition, modifying their functions. The most significant changes occur to the digestive tract, but the respiratory and circulatory system also undergo modification to make oxygen storage and transport more efficient and change the composition of the blood itself.
Tasks:
1. Periodically monitor hosts' vital signs. Many internal changes occur on the fourth day, and this is the most common time for catastrophic errors such as internal bleeding to occur. Unfortunately, healing potions often cannot repair the root cause of such conditions because they occur as a result of the ceremorphosis process itself.
2. Assess the host's level of consciousness. Some are still conscious and responsive at this time, though usually quite disoriented. Others are somnolent or completely unresponsive. If awake, the hosts often show signs of pain and distress, and it is best to render them unconscious via psionic suggestion. Mind blasts are too violent and should be avoided during this time.
Day 5: By this stage, the host's personality has completely disappeared as the tadpole consumes the rest of the brain. The host is now considered to be an illithid, albeit not yet fully formed. Dramatic bone growth and remodeling occurs. The cranial sutures open, and the skull softens and changes shape as it elongates. The long bones of the limbs and digits significantly lengthen as well. Sometimes the spinal vertebrae also lengthen slightly, causing the host to gain a few inches in height, but the increase in limb length is proportionally greater than any increase in height gained in this manner.
Tasks:
1. Assess reflexes and responsiveness to ensure the host's brain (aside from the brain stem) has been fully consumed. Expected results include:
- No response to direct commands, even when issued with psionic suggestion
- No eye opening in response to light, but pupils should still constrict in response to light if eyelids are held open
- Limbs are often rigid and extended, both due to decerebrate posturing as well as ongoing changes in bone and tissue composition
- Absent or abnormal response to a mild pain stimulus. Due to the high level of background pain the body is experiencing (and the tendency of some illithids in the Creed to become overly enthusiastic when testing this) I no longer recommend examining pain responses directly.
- Brain stem reflexes should still be present. However, it is not necessary to assess these reflexes, since if the tadpole consumes the brain stem the host will simply cease spontaneous breathing and die. If a host dies in this manner but the tadpole is still alive, the tadpole should be culled and the corpse immediately disposed of to prevent the risk of neothelid formation.
Day 6: Many visible changes occur as the mandible and maxilla (upper and lower jaw bones) demineralize and each divide into two portions. These four protrusions serve as a nexus for rapid tissue growth and soon lengthen into tentacles. Contrary to a common misconception by humanoids and even some illithids, the tentacles do not emerge from the mouth or throat. The outer layers of skin are also shed at this stage, causing a minor amount of blood loss. Mucus secretion from the underlying skin should begin soon after. Occasionally, newborn illithids will gain sentience and awaken early, in which case it is important to keep them calm and contained in their pods because their bodies are not yet finished changing
Tasks:
1. Monitor tentacle development to ensure correct number and proportional size, and ensure that the tentacles don't fully cover the mouth and obstruct the airway as they grow
2. As in earlier days, ensure that the pods are tilted into a semi-vertical position, and that the department thralls dispose of any waste
3. Report any cases of ulitharid development or abnormal ceremorphosis to myself or Qrr'Dekvin
Day 7: The physical changes of ceremorphosis should be complete early on Day 7. The tadpole is now attached to what remains of the brain stem and fully integrated into the body, and anatomy and tissue composition has changed significantly from the original host. Now that the transformation is complete, the tadpole's latent intellect awakens and a true illithid is born. A newborn illithid is physically very similar to an adult, though it still lacks fine motor control and sometimes the tentacles require several more days to grow to their full length. Teeth harden immediately, but nails are still soft for the first few days of life. Some psionic ability is present, but it is often weak or difficult to control.
Tasks:
1. Be present throughout the day, as newborn illithids may awaken at any point
2. Once an illithid awakens, release it from the pod and assess basic skills such as ability to walk and speak
3. Document each illithid's chosen name, which they should spontaneously decide shortly after birth
4. Escort newborns to the bathing facilities and ensure that they are supervised while someone else stays behind to monitor the remaining pods
5. Provide newborns with a set of basic robes and a calming resonance stone
6. Offer water, tea, or a thin broth and ensure that newborns are able to drink it. Sometimes there may be confusion or difficulty due to illithids' unique anatomy
7. Escort them to the communal dormitories reserved for each new cohort. Provide a brief explanation of their illithid nature and place in the colony before allowing them to rest
Day 8: Unless there is a severe case of partialism, a newborn illithid is mentally a blank slate and requires care and education to develop into a productive member of society. Other branches of the Nourisher Creed deal with education of novices until they apprentice to a Creed, but we are charged with assessing newborns' basic capabilities and providing them with their first meal.
Tasks:
1. Conduct a brief walking tour of the colony and answer any questions that may arise.
2. Take newborns to the thrall caverns and assess their ability to dominate minds. Even with immature psionics, newborns should be capable of issuing brief commands to members of lesser species and inducing behavioral compulsions for several seconds at a time.
3. Ensure that every newborn is able to consume its first brain
4. Document any newborns that are unable to dominate or mentally subdue a thrall, but still help them if necessary. We are civilized beings living in a communal society, not animals that subscribe to a 'survival of the fittest' mentality. Some may call mentally weak newborns "mind failures," but I prefer the term "late bloomers" because many of them will prove perfectly able to dominate lesser creatures later on when their psionic powers mature.
5. Visit the dormitories again in the evening to ensure all is well. Some newborns may be lonely or emotionally fragile despite the presence of their cohort and resonance stones, and may need additional reassurance. Late-presenting physical defects, particularly those involving the digestive system and other internal organs, may also manifest at this time
Day 9: On the third day of life, psionics become stronger and illithids gain greater control of their tentacles. Nails have hardened, and tentacles have reached their full length. Some newborns are able to connect to the colony's telepathic network and begin gathering information on their own, while others need further coaching.
Tasks:
1. Observe newborns' behavior and demeanor, checking for any mental deficits
2. Screen for partialism by asking if newborns have any memories prior to ceremorphosis
3. Hand off the newborns to the Novice Division for further education and training
Day 10: Unit-wide day off
Days 11-20: Research and education, preparation for the next cohort
