Illthari

The Illithari, also known as devourers, are a race of demons in service to the Black Order. They are renowned for their vast libraries of occult knowledge, and have entire worlds dedicated to the preservation and pursuit of information.

Overview
Preservers are information brokers first, demons second. The exact role they serve in the Black Order is largely unknown, but they are often seen on battlefields acting as both support and offensive casters.

Illithari are driven by an instinctual need to gather and preserve the knowledge of the universe. They tirelessly catalog, explore, record, and collect data from every living thing. If it exists the preservers either have a book on it, or will very quickly develop one.

Their seemingly benign goals are contradictory to their methods. Preservers gather information typically through the death of the organism. Beneath their tentacled faces is a maw filled with multiple jaws of razor-like teeth. They draw in their potential source of information and sink their teeth into their victim's brain. Once attached they will quite literally drain the information out of them. Aftermaths of preserver attacks leave little more than withered husks behind; emaciated corpses of skin and bone. After they have collected enough data, they return to a safe location and begin to record the information they gained on black-carapace tomes. These tomes are then transported back to one of the Illithari's many library worlds and is stored there for later use.

In recent years however, the devourers have taken to other tasks. They created a slave-race called preservers to catalog and record information. To facilitate this, they spliced in a limited psychic ability to see the future, so that preservers could take over the reigns of record keepers for the Black Order.

Description
Devourers possess a shield-shaped torso made from exoskeleton. Their faces are little more than a mass of tentacles, draping downward like a curtain covering their face. Their arms are long and skeletal, ending with thin sharp fingers and a two thumbs.

Their primary method of movement is levitation, though how this is achieved is unknown. They possess no external organs or limbs to account for their ability to hover. Nevertheless, devourers can hover anywhere from 5 to 50 feet off the ground. When Illithari need to cover vast distances, they typically cast fly upon themselves as an at-will spell.

Combat
Every single piece of information acquired by the preservers was taken by force. Typically they utilize magic to cripple their victims, preferring to use paralytic spells such as hold person or charm. When these fail, the preserver falls back onto combat magic to subdue their foe. If ever forced into melee, the preserver will make every available attempt to disengage to safe distance. As a result, preservers tend to ambush their victims to give them little chance to react. Otherwise they travel in hunting packs of anywhere from two to seven.