Aboleth

Aboleth
Vital statistics
Name	Aboleth
Homeworld	Abeir-Toril
Culture
Primary Languages	Abolethian
Secondary Languages	Underdark, Aquan
Deities	Blood Queen, Juiblex (few), Tharizdun (fewer)
Characteristics
Other Information

"The cool, refreshing water suddenly erupts in a storm of reaching, grasping tentacles. The tentacles connect to a primeval fish, 20 feet in length from its bulbous head to its crescent-shaped tail. Three slit-shaped eyes, protected by bony ridges, are set on atop the other in the front of its head, which remains just beneath the surface as it attacks."

- Unknown adventurer

The Aboleth is a revolting fish-like amphibian found primarily in subterranean lakes and rivers. It despises all non-aquatic creatures and attempts to destroy them on sight. Aboleths is one of the most ancient creatures existing in the Magickverse. The omnivorous aboleth will eat any organic matter, usually algae and micro-organisms, but they are also fond of intelligent prey so they can absorb nutrients and information at the same time. Aboleth have no natural enemies, as even the mightiest marine creatures give them a wide berth.

History

The aboleths are said to be the first mortal race, coming into being millions of years ago when the Elder Evil; Piscaethces accidentally brushed against the Material Plane from her original home in the Far Realm. The aboleths, with their perfect racial memory, remember this period with crystal clarity, believing they know for an absolute fact that they were the first mortal race and that they precede the first of the powers that other races call "gods." The aboleths built a global aquatic empire when the Oerth was still a desolate place of boiling oceans and unbreathable air. With their dominance established, they began to create other forms of life with their arcane science: Oozes, Elementals, and eventually monsters and humanoids. After timeless ages, this empire fell, the victim of perhaps a slave rebellion, or the return of one of the Elder Evils, or a civil war. The most popular theory among those sages who concern themselves with these blasphemous tales is that the mortal races developed something new: faith, and that it is mortal faith that called the first true deities into being, and that these deities destroyed the aboleth empire so that their worshipers could inherit the world and flourish. Over the millennia, however, there have been countless cycles when the aboleths managed to conquer vast new empires, only to lose them again as the eons turn.

Culture

Personality

Aboleths are cruel and highly intelligent, making them dangerous predators. They know many ancient and terrible secrets, an aboleth is born with a racial memory, each individual inheriting the memories of its ancestors. Furthermore, it assimilates the memories of those it consumes. An aboleth's memories are stored in an ever-growing part of its brain which extends down its back as it ages. Aboleths enjoy spending time lost in particularly fine memories of their ancestors, and if they have nothing better to do, they may relive entire portions of their lives.

Faith

Aboleths have no gods. While they acknowledge the presence and power of gods, they have memories of a time long before any modern gods were worshiped and recall such Gods' birth and often demise within their own lifetimes. They are not concerned with an afterlife since they intend to live forever, considering death a failure. They do have a certain respect and reverence for the ancient beings known as the "Elder Evils." They do have a single god known as the Blood Queen.

Other sources also indicate that a minority of them worship Juiblex. And an even smaller amount worship Tharizdun.

Languages

Aboleths speak their own language, known as Abolethian, as well as Undercommon and Aquan.

Government

The entire collection of Aboleth cities are known as the Aboleth Dominions.

Lands

Aboleths are originally native to the Far Realm, though they have migrated to Prime Material Realm, where they inhabited the Underdark. There, the vast majority of Toril’s aboleths dwell, though they can be found elsewhere, most commonly haunting ruins, deep lakes, or old temples. In some of these places the Kuo-Toa foolishly serve them.

Aboleth cities are vast affairs of bizarre and alien architecture, located deep underwater. The Shape of Water, located in the Underdark's Glimmersea, is the largest known Aboleth city. This is where the leaders of the race reside and hold council. They dwell in the Sunless Sea, in the Lake of Ebon, in the Forbidden City, and beneath the Isle of Dread.

The Art of War

Aboleths are smart enough to refrain from immediately attacking land dwellers who draw near. Instead they hang back, hoping their prey will near the water, which they often make appear cool, clear, and refreshing with their powers of illusion. Aboleths also use their psionic abilities to enslave individuals for use against their own companions.

An aboleth attacks by flailing with its long, slimy tentacles, though it prefers to fight from a distance using its illusion powers.

An Aboleth underwater surrounds itself with a viscous cloud of mucus roughly about a foot thick. Any creature coming into contact with and inhaling this substance will lose the ability to breathe air for three hours. This is why Aboleth Mucus is used in a variety of different underwater potions.

Appearance and Physiology

Aboleths resemble enormous, prehistoric fish, measuring some 20 feet in length from snout to tail, with our 10-foot-long tentacles sprouting from behind its massive head. Though Aboleths continue to grow for the entirety of its life. Aboleths do not die of age, and so live on indefinitely barring violence or disease, and therefore can grow to indefinite lengths. Its rubbery skin is blue-green with regular gray splotches running along its sides. An Aboleth has a pink belly, with a lamprey like mouth. Four pulsating blue-black orifices line the bottom of its body and secrete gray slime that smells like rancid grease. It uses its tail for propulsion in the water and drags itself along with its tentacles on land. Out of the water, an aboleth's membrane-like skin dries out quickly, but this does not prove fatal. Instead, the aboleth will eventually enter a state of suspended animation, called Long Dreaming, a fate considered far worse than simply dying. It forms a tough, waterproof membrane, but, once the membrane is pierced, liquid floods out and death is usually not far off for the aboleth. An Aboleth weights about 6,500 pounds.

Reproduction

Aboleth have both male and female sexual organs, and when they breed they do so in private. A mature aboleth reproduces once every five years by concealing itself in a cavern or other remote area, then laying a single egg and covering it in slime. The parent aboleth guards the egg while the embryo grows and develops, a process that takes about five years. A newborn aboleth takes about 10 years to mature.

An aboleth brood consists of a parent and one to three offspring. Though the offspring are as large and as strong as the parent, they defer to the parent in all matters and obey it implicitly.

Magical Abilities

An Aboleth's psionic arsenal is limited only to illusion casting abilities, other than their ability to enslave other living beings. But they are capable of using them at will, automatically causing their targets to be affected by them.

Aboleths are capable of telepathically attempting to enslave a single living creature at a time, as long as they are within thirty feet of its body. If the Aboleth can successfully enslave a creature, they will listen to its telepathic commands, though it will not fight on its behalf. This is only ended if they are freed from the Aboleth's control by the Aboleth, or if a Remove Curse or Dispel Magic spell is cast upon the enslaved. The control is also broken if the Aboleth dies or travels more than one mile from its slave.

Perhaps the most devastating attribute possessed by the Aboleth is its slime. The slime is secreted from its tentacles and anyone who is struck by one is afflicted with its slime's affect. The one hit by a tentacle beings to transform over the next hour, the skin gradually becomes a clear, slimy membrane. And an afflicted creature must remain moistened with cool, fresh water or will begin to die, which is why they generally stay in water. Aboleths use this ability to keep slaves. This same mucus is the only way Aboleths breathe at all – if robbed of the ability to extrude aboleth slime, they suffocate in water or on land. If someone casts a Remove Disease spell on the afflicted creature before the transformation is complete then they can be saved from the affliction.

In the darkness of the subterranean dwellings they live in, they developed Darkvision, which allows them to see everything with 60 feet of them without actually employing sight.

Relations

Aboleths are utterly self-centered as a race; they know they were among the first beings in existence, and see all else as theirs. Their enmity towards other races stems in part from their perception that these "upstart" races have stolen what is rightfully the aboleths'. All that stops them from conquering the surface is their weakness on land (though an aboleth is always a fierce opponent) and the fact that they would rather enjoy themselves than waste time subduing feeble creatures such as Humans. By contrast they are greatly unsettled by the Illithids due to their lack of information over that race's creation.

The species known as Kuo-Toa often willingly serve the Aboleths that live in areas that they do also, worshiping them as gods.

Notable Aboleth

• Sharshazaluk