Feeding a flumph

Question

My players have decided to befriend a flumph.

Flumphs feed by siphoning mental energy from psionic creatures, and they can be found lurking near communities of mind flayers, aboleths, githyanki, and githzerai.

None of my players have natural psionic abilities like mind flayers do. How might they feed their flumph?

Beyond creatures with natural psionic abilities, what other spells, abilities, etc would provide sustenance for it? I’m looking for anything RAW or RAI as to suitable spells or anything else from lore about how flumphs feed.

Answer 1

A flumph is an intelligent creature. It should know a way.

This creature is perfectly capable of understanding that it will need an energy source. If it is following the party, then it must be aware of a solution.

It has an intelligence of 14, and is familiar with its own physiology, so it should be able to advise the party on where to find an energy source.

As the GM you'll have to come up with a sidequest and invent an energy source. Perhaps the party has to take down a psyonic creature, or perhaps there is an object somewhere which the party can capture.

How might they feed their flumph

It's not a pet turtle. It's there because it wants to be, and it's not their property. Flumphs are people too!

Answer 2

Lore from previous editions:

According to "The Ecology of the Flumph" (Dragon Magazine #246, p.78), flumphs also preyed on "frogs, lizards, and small rodents", which they partially liquified with acid, then sucked up through their tentacles (as the flumph's mouth was just for air intake).

Although this article is from a previous edition of D&D, it still might serve your purpose to add flavor to your campaign. Flumph tentacles still do acid damage in 5e, and I don't see a rule indicating flumphs can't consume regular nutrients.

Answer 3

I would like a side Slaad with my meal please.

Summon Aberration says:

You call forth an aberrant spirit. It manifests in an unoccupied space that you can see within range. This corporeal form uses the Aberrant Spirit stat block. When you cast the spell, choose Beholderkin, Slaad, or Star Spawn. The creature resembles an aberration of that kind, which determines certain traits in its stat block. The creature disappears when it drops to 0 hit points or when the spell ends.

It's going to be up to the DM if this works, but Slaadi are psionic creatures. The summoned Slaad spirit does not itself get the innate spellcasting feature, so it will be up to the DM if the summoned Slaad is psionic enough to feed your flumph.

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^{Credit to AncientSwordRage for header joke.}