Ancient race of fish-like amphibians with three eyes and four tentacles

The Aboleth are an ancient race of fish-like amphibians, usually found lurking in subterranean waters. One resembles a huge, slimy fish, with three large eyes and four long, sticky tentacles arranged around its mouth. An aboleth secretes an oily, foul-smelling slime, polluting the water where the creature lurks.

Adult aboleths make up the majority of this species' population. They're often alone in a domain they control from a submerged lair.

They stay in contact with their peers through the dreams that lead them to the memory sanctum.

Aboleths are aquatic, tentacled aberrations that look like a mix of cliones, cuttlefish, sea anemones, and none of them all at once. Aboleths are nightmares of the deep, covered in a dangerous mucus and possessing the ability to invade dreams. They prowl dark waters and hatch terrible plans that threaten the future of the entire world.

Origins of the Aboleths

On the surface, aboleths are all but unknown, while they are as mysterious as they are feared in the Netherworld. It's difficult to gather and analyze information concerning them. The texts they leave behind are written in Deep Speech, a language that has nothing in common with other tongues on Eana, neither in its structure nor phonemes.

It's possible to gain information from the chuuls' sacred chants and the walls of their temples.

Their perspective is biased, just like subterranean or surface-dwelling cults looking for salvation in the worship of Blackwater. These groups are aware of some facts and details, but rarely see the whole picture.

There are also ruins marked by their presence. These are cultural sites for chuuls and humanoids, sometimes including an adult aboleth's palace from where it dispenses revelations.

The Travelers brought many creatures to Eana through their portals, the ateaks. These beings, some of which are intelligent, learned to adapt to their new environment but frequently represent threats to natural balance as the druids see it. Bringing aboleths to Eana was certainly the Travelers' worst mistake, and they paid for it with the annihilation of their civilization at the hands of a meteorite summoned by the aboleths that fell in the region currently known as the Eolian Isles.

Masters of Plots

Before the coming of the gods, aboleths lurked in primordial oceans and underground lakes. They reached out with their minds and seized control of the burgeoning life-forms of the mortal realm, making those creatures their slaves. Their dominance made them like gods. Then the true gods appeared, smashing the aboleths' empire and freeing their slaves. Aboleths have never forgotten.

Eternal Memories

Aboleths have flawless memories. They pass on their knowledge and experience from generation to generation. Thus, the injury of their defeat by the gods remains perfectly preserved in their minds.

Aboleths' minds are treasure troves of ancient lore, recalling moments from prehistory with perfect clarity. They plot patiently and intricately across eons. Few creatures can conceive of the extent of an aboleth's plan.

Gods in the Lake

Aboleths dwell in watery environments, including ocean abysses, deep lakes, and the Elemental Plane of Water. In these domains and the lands that adjoin them, aboleths are like gods, demanding worship and obedience from their subjects. When they consume other creatures, aboleths add the knowledge and experiences of their prey to their eternal memories. Aboleths use their telepathic powers to read the minds of creatures and know their desires. An aboleth uses this knowledge to gain a creature's loyalty, promising to fulfill such wants in exchange for obedience. Within its lair, the aboleth can further use its powers to override senses, granting creatures, such as its followers, the illusion of promised rewards.

Enemies of the Gods

The aboleths' fall from power is written in stark clarity on their flawless memories, for aboleths never truly die. If an aboleth's body is destroyed, its spirit returns to the Elemental Plane of Water, where a new body coalesces for it over days or months.

Ultimately, aboleths dream of overthrowing the gods and regaining control of the world. Aboleths have had untold eons to plot and to prepare their plans for perfect execution.

Could it be that the aboleths are older than the gods... that before the divine ones came to be, such horrors shaped the multiverse? Now there's a chilling thought.

An Aboleth's Lair

Aboleths lair in subterranean lakes or the rocky depths of the ocean, often surrounded by the ruins of an ancient, fallen aboleth city. An aboleth spends most of its existence underwater, surfacing occasionally to treat with visitors or deranged worshipers.

Aboleth

Ageless Alien Mastermind

In aquatic abysses, aboleths dream of dead empires and orchestrate plots that unfold across ages. These elusive, amphibious immortals physically and mentally overwhelm their victims and transform creatures with a slimy, aberrant infection, reshaping other beings to serve them beneath the waves.

Aboleths possess terrifying intellects and have alien mindsets. These creatures possess perfect memories of proto-worlds and incomprehensible dominions from the multiverse's earliest eons. Their secrets are innumerable and unfathomable. Aboleths lurk in places awash in primordial mysteries: the ruins of aquatic empires, hidden magical nexuses, or weak places between planes of existence. In these lairs, aboleths dream of epochs past, collect throngs of psychically dominated servants, consume the minds of unwitting victims, and prepare for their return to power.

Aboleths' alien goals and methods are often mysterious to other creatures. Roll on or choose a result from the Aboleth Schemes table to inspire an aboleth's schemes.

The lies we call reason are fragile things, vulnerable and raw on the shores of eons. But in the dream-vaults of dread ancients roil seas of terrifying truth. Our age is an island, and the ebb of primordial tides avows the Stygian wave.

Aboleth Lairs

Aboleths usually dwell in submerged ruins and caverns. They keep air-filled spaces for their terrestrial servants and to hold treasures that would be damaged by water.