The Gaming Den

Some Aberrations like grell, etherguants and beholders (in eberron anyways) are described as philosophers. What philosophies would they likely take interest in and how can I better play this idea off.

You could start with an intense form of racism/nationalism. Illithid, etc. generally believe that their species is teh bestor evar. EVeryone else is just food.

So, if you want, you could look at some of the speeches/books published in Europe during, say, the late 19th century when African Imperialism was really taking off and the "white man's burden" was getting revived. "Liberal" aberrations might argue that the lesser races have the right to live under the glorious dominion of their tentacled overlords, while "conservative" ones might just think of other races as food that can be raided whenever, wherever.

Also, most aberrations seem to be in to logic and coldness and all that, so maybe looking at some analytical philosophy might be worth your while, although seeing as the big analytical philosophers like Bertrand Russell were generally a bit more altruistic than the standard aboleth, you'd have to do some sharp revisions of the actual ideas presented.

Depending on your reading of Nietzsche, you could use his writings to justify a more pure, emotion-based "strong rule the weak" type thing. (I honestly don't know if that's applicable to aberrations, though.)

I don't really know much about pre-Enlightenment philosophy, though, so I can't really help you there.

You could also make a deal about a school of thought going for practicality.

As in, the 'lesser races' outnumber them and occasionally produce people even more badass than illithids or beholders or what-have-you, and Aberrations aren't dumb and know a war could go badly for them.

So they could advocate the Dungeonomicon edition of Good Neighbors, out of enlightened self-interest--making their peculiar talents useful to other races, and letting themselves be left in peace by basically not tentacle-raping random people or eating brains all willy-nilly.

After all, if you're going to have philosophy in a game world, it should mean something to the players. And players would have an interesting view of making sure that philosophical faction becomes dominant.

Or they could advocate a Sith-like philosophy of continual ruthless conflict to weed out the weak and help the strong gain levels, thereby being able to compete with humanoids that are always running around and stabbing each other in the face.

I'm going to be using an aboleth soon in my game as an NPC. He bargains with other underdark inhabitants as an "information broker". What kind of things would this guy want for payment in general? And why would he trade away secrets, when he obviously knows that knowledge is power?

Since there is an end-of-the-world scenario playing out, I have an idea for what he's going to ask from the PCs specifically. But I don't have a great feel for how to RP this guy in general. An ancient, mysterious fish that knows all the things that all of his direct ancestors knew is a bit hard to wrap your head around...

PhaedrusXY wrote:I'm going to be using an aboleth soon in my game as an NPC. He bargains with other underdark inhabitants as an "information broker". What kind of things would this guy want for payment in general? And why would he trade away secrets, when he obviously knows that knowledge is power?

Knowing what others know is power over them. It makes it easier for the aboleth to predict how others will act, and it can use that to manipulate them when brute force methods would fail.

PhaedrusXY wrote:I'm going to be using an aboleth soon in my game as an NPC. He bargains with other underdark inhabitants as an "information broker". What kind of things would this guy want for payment in general? And why would he trade away secrets, when he obviously knows that knowledge is power?

Since there is an end-of-the-world scenario playing out, I have an idea for what he's going to ask from the PCs specifically. But I don't have a great feel for how to RP this guy in general. An ancient, mysterious fish that knows all the things that all of his direct ancestors knew is a bit hard to wrap your head around...

Aside from that, some magic items to help him experience life. Magic objects which let him assume humanoid form? Things like that, I'd wager.

Any powerful magic would be worth a trade. As would an exchange of information. This could be part of some crazy plan to become a god of secrets simply by knowing more than anyone else.

Akula wrote:Any powerful magic would be worth a trade. As would an exchange of information. This could be part of some crazy plan to become a god of secrets simply by knowing more than anyone else.

I wouldn't say any powerful magic. Ones they can use: Scrying devices, information of various kinds (lore books, talking crystals, Librarian Golems, etc). But a touch to add some depth and make this Aboleth more than a monster would be a curiosity about what it's like to walk as a man or elf in society outside its pool.

You do realize that only the fact that I am currently not in possession of a copy of Photoshop is keeping me from making an animated gif to attach to an MP3 of "Part of Your World"?

Though I must admit that the basic concept behind The Little Mermaid is pretty awesome if transplanted to the context of D&D aboleths. I may in fact either write up or run a scenario.

Avor, you should have the aboleth fall in love with the heroic paladin type. Just for the sheer comedy potential.

I wonder whether the transformation magic should allow for the aboleth to punch people and affect them with Slime. Enslave is definitely going to stay available, and the rest of the psionics as well.

Mucus cloud is out, and - oh, I could make Slime deliverable through saliva. But no, it's probably best just to leave it as a psionic person. This could make a really interesting reoccuring NPC.

Yes. This is looking to have more awesome potential by the moment. I am going to sleep, and I will have to see whether this still seems like a great idea when I regain consciousness. If so, the module or scenario is going to be a solid number 2 on my list of RPG stuff to work on.

Long term, the aboleth is probably just trying to get leverage against the saughin.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Long term, the aboleth is probably just trying to get leverage against the saughin.

They're aboleth. I imagine they collect interesting memories like a magpie goes for glitter.

Also, they could be looking out for their descendants (can't remember if they reproduce asexually or not) to help give their lineage some distinction among aboleths--and score improved bonuses for negotiation, because they've been there.

Anyways, there can easily be practical/political benefits as well as knowing what walking around with two legs feels like.

Maxus wrote:Also, they could be looking out for their descendants (can't remember if they reproduce asexually or not) to help give their lineage some distinction among aboleths--and score improved bonuses for negotiation, because they've been there.

They are Asexual as they lay eggs and then fertilize them, which sounds dumb, If I were an aboleth I'd find another and we'd fertilize eachother's eggs to prevent limiting the gene pool. anyways, apparently anything that can take a humanoid shape can breed with humanoids to create halfbreeds. Which makes me wonder about the results of a druid who practices bestiality.

Maxus wrote:Anyways, there can easily be practical/political benefits as well as knowing what walking around with two legs feels like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBa9QlzEWA4

oops

Count Geiger wrote:

Maxus wrote:Also, they could be looking out for their descendants (can't remember if they reproduce asexually or not) to help give their lineage some distinction among aboleths--and score improved bonuses for negotiation, because they've been there.

They are Asexual as they lay eggs and then fertilize them, which sounds dumb, If I were an aboleth I'd find another and we'd fertilize eachother's eggs to prevent limiting the gene pool.

Argh.... Ok. I'm going to ignore that asexual crap for my game. I already have a plan for the aboleth's "love life". He's going to ask the PCs to abduct another aboleth so he can breed with it to preserve his lineage on into the next world, as he thinks this one is ending. What he won't mention is that the aboleth he's asking them to abduct is actually his own daughter. Keepin' it in the family, yo!

That wouldn't make much sense as the aboleths remember the memory of all of their ancestors. Logically, he would want one that shares as few ancestors with him as possible. Plus, the helping with rape plotline is pretty fucking bad already, I don't think you need to further squick it up.

You could do a sort of scavenger hunt plotline where he wants you to find an aboleth who meets the requirements of being A) a powerful mage, B) related to a number of important aboleths which you can just list to the PCs, and C) willing to do this with him. (If your PCs want to mind control an NPC into meeting requirement C then that is their business and any fucked up situations that result are not something that you forced them into) He should (as an info broker) have some lovely lady 'leths in mind already. Potential complications could be: that the most interested one isn't actually related to some of the aboleths that they claim to be/he heard they were, that one of them is interested but has her own list of requirements to meet and the employer doesn't meet all of them, one is actively hostile to the PCs but might go along with the idea after being smacked down, one must be rescued from a rival who is attacking her fortress the twist being that the rival would be willing to do this for help crushing the original target and can list some impressive sounding qualifications. All the while, some mysterious and evil force is killing the list, so the PCs cannot scrub every encounter. If you still want to include the daughter, she could be bumping off the rivals because she has a mate and thinks that she should take over both the family business and the family line. You could modify that with her wanting to 'keep it in the family' but I don't want to think about that. And I'm gonna stop there.

PhaedrusXY wrote:I'm going to be using an aboleth soon in my game as an NPC. He bargains with other underdark inhabitants as an "information broker". What kind of things would this guy want for payment in general? And why would he trade away secrets, when he obviously knows that knowledge is power?

Since there is an end-of-the-world scenario playing out, I have an idea for what he's going to ask from the PCs specifically. But I don't have a great feel for how to RP this guy in general. An ancient, mysterious fish that knows all the things that all of his direct ancestors knew is a bit hard to wrap your head around...

More information, preferably from sources that are unavailable to an aboleth. Given the race's hate for divinity, it could be some crazy insights of an UrPriest kept under lock-and-key, or maybe the hidden location of an ancient site devoted to The Patient One (with a peculiar aboleth-significant Touchstone ability) kept secret by a holy order.

Count Geiger wrote:They are Asexual as they lay eggs and then fertilize them, which sounds dumb, If I were an aboleth I'd find another and we'd fertilize eachother's eggs to prevent limiting the gene pool.

Learn some zoology. that's so common that we have at least an entire class of organisms that reproduce in a similar manner.

Being hermaphroditic and switching between clonal and paired sexual reproduction is a common reproductive strategy for a number of endoparasites. If you are in an otherwise unifected host, the best way to propagate your genes is to just clone yourself like crazy. But if you are competing with other parasites (or threatened by hyperparasites) then it becomes advantages to shuffle your genes via sexual reproductions.

And while it would be interesting to make Aboleths an intermediary or larval stage for some type of parasite, that seems highly implausible within the standard D&D game ecology. They'd need to infect Leviathans or other stupidly large sea creatures.

However, since Aboleths have abilities to acquire memories and abilities to manipulate biology, it could be the basis for an interesting life cycle for them to encode memetic rather than genetic diversity into their self-fertilized offspring. Such a life cycle would lead to a species whose entire "sex" drive is about acquiring new and "better" memories to pass on to their progeny. This actually dovetails fairly well with the MM description. They are reclusive, because each Aboleth is a repository of many choice memories which can be assimilated by devouring - yet they spend years with their young, because the young begin with the exact same memories as the parent - the incentive for hostility grows as life experience diverges between parent and offspring.

Josh_Kablack wrote:

Count Geiger wrote:They are Asexual as they lay eggs and then fertilize them, which sounds dumb, If I were an aboleth I'd find another and we'd fertilize eachother's eggs to prevent limiting the gene pool.

Learn some zoology. that's so common that we have at least an entire class of organisms that reproduce in a similar manner.

Being hermaphroditic and switching between clonal and paired sexual reproduction is a common reproductive strategy for a number of endoparasites. If you are in an otherwise unifected host, the best way to propagate your genes is to just clone yourself like crazy. But if you are competing with other parasites (or threatened by hyperparasites) then it becomes advantages to shuffle your genes via sexual reproductions.

And while it would be interesting to make Aboleths an intermediary or larval stage for some type of parasite, that seems highly implausible within the standard D&D game ecology. They'd need to infect Leviathans or other stupidly large sea creatures.

However, since Aboleths have abilities to acquire memories and abilities to manipulate biology, it could be the basis for an interesting life cycle for them to encode memetic rather than genetic diversity into their self-fertilized offspring. Such a life cycle would lead to a species whose entire "sex" drive is about acquiring new and "better" memories to pass on to their progeny. This actually dovetails fairly well with the MM description. They are reclusive, because each Aboleth is a repository of many choice memories which can be assimilated by devouring - yet they spend years with their young, because the young begin with the exact same memories as the parent - the incentive for hostility grows as life experience diverges between parent and offspring.

And if they can reproduce sexually (one lays eggs, the other fertilizes), that means offspring could inherit the memories. Meaning you have noble aboleth houses which got that way by having tons of memory and experiences stored away. Or the memories of a spellcaster. Whatever.

Thanks for the ideas. I like the idea of the daughter being competition rather than a mate choice, and having the mate choice be another aboleth (or a list of them). I'm not that worried about the "squick" factor with the PCs I have, nor about them having a problem coercing his "mate" into submission. They're mostly a bunch of evil fiends and I doubt most would have any problems with any of this stuff morally.

Hmm.... actually... going with what Josh said... I think I'll have him tell the PCs that he wants to mate with his daughter, when in fact he wants to eat her and assimilate her memories, and then spawn his own asexual offspring which contain them. I'll say that in-game she's an Ur-Priest or something, and has learned some kind of rare and forbidden knowledge that "Dad" covets. (I had originally planned on making this aboleth they're going to talk to an Ur-Priest, but changed him into an advanced phrenic aboleth instead. So I think I actually still have an old Ur-Priest aboleth build laying around).

I think I'll throw in the ability to mate sexually as well as asexually, and to change genders too, just to confuse them. So this aboleth will be thought of as a male, but in fact will have changed into a female and after devouring its "daughter" will lay eggs which develop without fertilization into clones of itself.

Of course... since the daughter knows most of the stuff her dad does, she will likely try to bargain with the PCs and tell them what they want to know instead of being hauled back to her Dad to be eaten.

Yeah... this is sounding sick and twisted enough for me to like it. Thanks guys!

Now to keep your players from reading this board... though if my experience with my own group is any measure, they'll stay far the fuck away from it.

This whole thread is very interesting to me. Having biological explanations for why different life forms in a game function is interesting and helpful to give structure to a game.

Dunno why you care about having them switch genders, seeing as aboleths are already described as being both male and female at the same time a lot like the slime creatures in your backyard Although they probably use psychic powers rather than calcium or chitin harpoons to establish mating dominence.

But if you go with my earlier explanation, you get a race, where the sex/reproductive drive, the fod/hunger drive and the intellectual/knowledge drive are one and the same. They would see humans are horribly confused and conflicted due to our limited and fragmentary perspectives.

Bear in mind that an aboleth absorbs the memories of anyone it consumes, and the final memory of each victim is going to be what it felt like to be consumed by an aboleth. It's easy to rationalize this away by saying they are evil and have no empathy for their victims; but it's far creepier if they honestly know that the best thing for their victims is to be devoured.