10 Things You Didn't Know About Dungeons & Dragons’ Aboleths from CBR.com
10 Things You Didn't Know About Dungeons & Dragons’ Aboleths
Published Mar 22, 2020
Aboleths are some of the most powerful creatures in Dungeons & Dragons, and there are likely many things you don't know about them.
Possibly the most ancient creatures in Dungeons & Dragons lore, these aquatic monsters are inscrutable in their motives. Spending their time planning and waiting for whatever scheme it is they hope comes to fruition. Their three-eyed and alien faces giving some sense of their primordial origins.
The Aboleth are antagonists in Dungeons & Dragons, lore keepers and ancient evils, they glide in the deepest regions of oceans across any plane with water. Whether they hide from someone or something is up for debate as they do not like to make their presence known unless their plans are already well in motion. These are some things that will help to understand the Aboleths and why they do the things they do.
10 The Aboleth Are The Oldest Of All Creatures
As stated in the monster manual, the Aboleth are the oldest creatures that have existed from time immemorial. They have seen the worlds that D&Ds mythos takes place in evolve and form from nothingness. They have seen the rise and fall of untold species and those species' greatest empires. For them, other creatures mean little as their lives are but blips on a cosmic scale.
The Aboleth predates the gods as well, which means they may well be the oldest. However, it still begs the question of what beings in the unknowable darkness before time began made the Aboleths themselves?
9 The Aboleth Have Several Mouths
The Aboleth has a variety of holes across the front and side of their bodies. These are mouths, they are not gills, though they swim in the ocean they have no need for those. These mouths are important as they can be used to determine the Aboleth's age and intelligence. An older Aboleth will have many mouths through which to articulate their preposterously hard to learn language.
The more mouths they have, the more tones they can make at once, which is an indication of its ability to consider and reason its actions. Though naturally intelligent, the more mouths they have, the more intelligent a particular Aboleth will be.
8 They Hear Through Their Skin
The Aboleth's skin functions much like a giant ear, it can pick vibrations and sensations throughout the water around it. This makes an Aboleth very difficult to surprise in its aquatic environment. It also makes it skin a sensitive organ for the Aboleth and will cause the creature a great deal of frustration if harmed anywhere on its body.
Their skin also has a prismatic glitter about it while alive. This is the Aboleths latent psionic energy which is so powerful it manifests physically on its skin.
7 They Coat Their Body In Mucus
The Aboleth has no gills that allow it to breathe underwater, instead, it relies on a mucus it produces. This mucus has a variety of uses for the creature. The Aboleth covers its body in the mucus which combines with the water around it, allowing the creature to effectively live in the deep ocean. In this way, its whole body becomes a lung.
This mucus is produced from a special organ inside the Aboleths body which it can then excrete. This mucus is viscus as the name suggests and can also be used offensively. The Aboleth may shoot it through their tentacles on the front of their face at a foe to cover them in the goop.
6 The Mucus Is Dangerous To Land-Based Creatures
Though the mucus the Aboleth produces is necessary for it to live, this mucus also is very dangerous. If the Aboleth forces another creature to come into contact with the mucus and enough covers their extremities the victim will undergo a transformation.
The victim's skin will slough off or become transparent. This mucus covering will become their only means of breathing and render it impossible for a land-based creature to breathe air again. This makes the creature more susceptible to the Aboleths psionic powers, and if the condition is not cured in one minute after contact the change is permanent.
5 The Aboleth Have Slaves
Once a creature is covered in the mucus and has been subjected to the powerful psionic mind manipulating abilities of the Aboleth they are functionally its slaves. They are stuck beneath the surface to toil for the Aboleths schemes and desires until it dies. It is very much a right of passage in Aboleth society that when an Aboleth is old enough to dominate another creature with its psionic power it is considered an adult.
The slaves don't specifically have a set role in Aboleth society, but whatever role they end up filling is likely to be horrible or result in death. Safe to say that being a deformed creature far beneath the ocean in a strange environment enslaved to an elder monster is an unpleasant fate.
4 The Brain of Aboleth Is 1/5th Of Its Mass
The Aboleths brain is absolutely massive, maybe not so big as the Illithid Elder Brain, but it is 1/5th of three tons, which is roughly 600 pounds of brain. The brain is so large in the creature that it needs a separate heart just to circulate all the necessary blood in its body.
There's an enzyme that flows into the multiple lobes of an Aboleths brain which allows it to use its prodigious psionic abilities. This enzyme is produced in the secondary heart. The blood that comes from this second heart is an inky black due to this enzyme. The Aboleths brain also continues to grow over the course of its life, able to reach all the way to its tail in older specimens.
3 They Have Perfect Memories
The strange thing about an Aboleth, and likely the most important, is they have a genetically inherited memory. They inherit the memories of all their forebearers back to the first Aboleth. When they say that they were the first creatures to exist, it might well be true as each remembers the place and time that every other species was created. They even remember each individual god's creation.
However, what sets them apart from other long-lived creatures is that their memory is perfect. The memories they hold can be called back individually with perfect clarity. Essentially each memory does not degrade and can be recalled with perfect accuracy, making them fantastic long term schemers.
2 They Eat Intelligent Land-Dwellers
The favored food of an Aboleth is a land-based creature of any type, as long as it is intelligent they are the preferred delicacy of the species. They cover any victim in their mucus coating as it makes them easier to digest and enhances the flavor for the Aboleth. This makes every Aboleth slave just a mere few seconds away from becoming a snack at any one time.
The Aboleth can survive indefinitely on underwater creatures such as octopus and fish, these are just bland for them. The suffering and the nature of the thoughts that go through their victim's minds are the reason they prefer intelligent food. If it can scream and plead it will likely make a good meal for an Aboleth.
1 Aboleths Fear The Mindflayers
It is said the Aboleth does not fear any god. They know the gods, who they are, where they were born, their powers and abilities are all laid bare for the Aboleth. There is only one creature the Aboleth fear above all, and that is the Illithid, also Known as Mindflayers.
The Mindflayers and Aboleth at times have worked in a concert given their devious natures and psionic abilities being similar. However, of all the creatures in the known universe of D&D, it is only the Mindflayers the Aboleth do not recall the creation of. They don't know the Illithids origins or their true powers, this horrifies the Aboleth as to them the Mindflayers are truly unknown.
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