Intellect Devourer Dictator (Basic Lore)

Intellect Devourer Dictator (CR 35)
Pure Evil - Medium - Aberration
Intellect Devourers look like a rounded fleshy mass, usually a glistening grey-pink, with four powerfully clawed legs holding it up. Savants who know such things claim that they look exactly like large human brains, torn from their skulls, with legs. They have no evident heads or eyes, no muscles or ribs or evidence of breath. It is obvious that they are very alien indeed. Intellect Devourers are suspected of being from another Plane, although which it might be is speculative at best. What is known, is that Intellect Devourers possess weird, eldritch abilities, able to shrink and grow in size, project shimmering attacks like heat-waves in the air, and they are known for crawling into the dead and 'wearing' their bodies in a manner most horrid. Intellect Devourers are inimical to all life, but they particularly target sentient beings. They greatly relish those with the Spark, but they will attack and inhabit anything intelligent. In a pinch, they have even been known to attack and wear animals, but such things are apparently rare. If an Intellect Devourer attacks, kill it with sword and fire, because if you are defeated, your flesh will become the property of the...thing. Intellect Devourer Dictators are much larger and more dangerous than lesser Intellect Devourers, not least because of their ability to bind others to their awful alien will. Dictators are especially awful for their powers to leave their victims alive enough to serve 'useful purposes' even after the Intellect Devourer has chosen another body to steal. This power endears them to slavers and other dealers in flesh, such as Hobgoblins, Aranea, and occasionally even Bandits. Dictators, like lesser Devourers, may haunt ruins and wildernesses, dungeons and caves and swamps, all manner of semi-deserted places, where intelligent creatures go, but not often, and often alone. Unlike lesser Devourers, Dictators are sly and clever enough that they prefer to hunt right in the heart of Civilization. Indeed, Dictators are usually found only in the truly greatest of cities, Dimensional Nexi, and as a result, they can be found almost anywhere in the greater Realms. Like all Intellect Devourers, they are bad at mimicking the normal behavior of their victims, but they can be extremely effective at kidnapping those who draw their interest...to the extreme detriment of their victims. If Dictators are suspected to have infested an area or, heaven forbid, a city, getting powerful heroes to root them out is a very high priority, as an Dictator infestation can easily 'core out' even sizeable communities, even entire nations or planes of Reality, very quickly indeed. Intellect Devourers are far more destructive to communities than other flesh-stealing monsters. Wise governors act immediately and vigorously to any suspicions. The size of a man, Dictators can attack in a massive wave of eldritch rays, or they can sneakily cause all manner of havoc by forcing others to act. If they are victorious in battle, they wear the bodies of their victims like horrific trophies, and will privately revel in them in ways most unwholesome, until they grow bored and sell them on, or murder them for sport. Like other Intellect Devourers, Dictators delight in all manner of debauchery, and will frequently use their meat, when it is ending its useful fun, to attack neighboring cities, begin wars to cover their tracks, or seek to insinuate their way into nearby nations, or Planes of Reality, in search of more flesh to wear. Dictators tend to target the rich and powerful, making the damage they can inflict with their vile behavior very severe indeed.