Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is The Monster Fact, a short-form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.

In today's episode, we return to the rich world of dungeons and dragons to discuss another creature from its various monster manuals, and I have to say it's one of the weirder ones

they've ever rolled out. It is the Eton Seromorph.

To back up, we need to establish, first of all, what an Eton is. Named after a giant from

French traditions, the D&D Eton is a two-headed giant whose main superpower is that two

heads are better than one, at least when it comes to wisdom perception checks

and related saving throws. Their exact origins, we're told, in the Fifth Edition Monster Manual,

may involve cursed orcs and a temple to the two-headed demon lord Demogorgon, but who can say for sure?

That's the Eden. But what is a seromorph Eden?

To answer that question, we have to enter the world of the mind flares.

More formerly known as the allithids, they're an alien species that once dominated the inner

planes, depending on their own terrifying psionic powers to enslave humanoid species, and also utilizing

their astral planes spanning nautaloid vessels. Individual mind-flayers resemble purple-fleshed

humanoids with heads like tentacled cephalopods. Despite their power, they are a civilization in

decline, reduced to plotting and studying in their underdark colonies, as well as other far-flung locations in the multiverse.

Christian and I devoted an entire stuff to blow your mind episode to these fantastic creatures back in, I believe, 2016, titled The Body Illithid Science of the Mind Flayers.

So go back and find that if you want a more in-depth rundown.

We can't possibly go into as much detail today, but the key thing to keep in mind about the

mind-flayers is their method of reproduction.

As detailed in Volos Guide to Monsters, elithids are hemaphroditic and lay eggs

at key points in their life cycle before succumbing to old age or injury and being dissolved

...