Aberration origins [Archive] - Wizards Community

Aberration origins [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Rotipher
06-01-05, 05:51 PM Hi, all! I only just finished reading the "Book of Aberrations" -- later than most folks, probably, but I'd been out of the country -- and I was curious as to what folks thought of the proposed origins for the various aberration races and monsters. Are many people adopting these ideas for their own game campaigns, as given in the BoA? Are DMs picking and choosing among the various proposed origins -- other planes, other times, alien gods, etc -- and if so, what alternatives are you selecting for specific races/creatures? Do any of you have other origin-ideas, that the book didn't mention?

Personally, I've been toying with the idea that aberrations IMC are actually exactly what their name implies: sheer accidents, spontaneously generated by the abnormal interplay of stagnant arcane magics and powerful psychic or natural energies. (If anyone's ever read the original "Elfquest" comics, the accidental creation of that quintessential aberration, Madcoil, is what gave me the idea.) Unleashed by random catastrophe and uncontrolled by any spellcaster, such arcane forces can fuse existing lifeforms -- any being is theoretically susceptible, although arthropods and mollusks tend to survive the process better than vertebrates; hence, aberrations' tendency toward the tentacular and chitinous ;-) -- into abnormal conglomerates, imbued with powers akin to whatever toxified magics (often mind-affecting) had energized their creation. Most such grotesque hybrids die instantly, and those which survive are one-of-a-kind individuals, hence are usually evolutionary "dead ends" that can leave no descendents. Those aberrations which I'm not interested in establishing as full-fledged races IMC -- most of the truly weird latecomers from the MM II & III, for example -- can still appear in my games as unique monsters, perhaps newly-generated in some magical catastrophe, or perhaps unaging abominations born in accidents of centuries past: solitary, mysterious, and malicious.

However, on rare occasions, an aberration might be generated which is able to reproduce alone, either because it's derived from a species that already needed no mate to breed -- e.g. gricks are part-worm hermaphrodites; rust monsters IMC acquired parthenogenesis from the same giant aphids which gave them their insectile features -- or because the creatures that fused to create them were of different sexes (e.g. aboleths = male kraken + female giant fish + ?????), thus melding into an aberration which had both genders. This is how those aberrations I want to present as breeding, self-sustaining species IMC got their start; it even accounts for why so many aberrations of interest -- aboleth, illithids, beholders, tsochari; neogi are dorky Spelljammer leftovers I don't intend to use IMC, and grells are so savage that they'll work better for me as yet another spontaneously-generated, ravening, and unique monster -- can and do reproduce without partners. It's these "established" aberration species which a character with Knowledge (dungeoneering) may be able to recall documented information about, and it's these which would boast their own civilizations and cultures rather than just existing as freakish loners.

This might not be as over-the-top as tracing things to the Far Realm -- not for me, thank you; an indifferent Lovecraftian cosmos doesn't blend well with heroic fantasy, IMO, so I'll save Cthulhu for other games -- or as elaborate as the pseudo-scifi origins proposed in the "Book of Aberrations". But it's a theory which I think will fit better into the overall themes of my campaign setting -- not to mention giving me an excuse to use lots of miscellaneous icky oogie-boogie aberrations IMC *once*, for their unmatched shock- and surprise-value, and never again ;-) -- so that's what I'll be going with for my homebrew games. If other DMs choose to go with the BoA origins, or mix-and-match various creatures with the BoA's selection of origins, or concoct their own backstory as I'm doing, then -- as I said -- I'd love to hear about them! So, please, fill us all in on your own aberration-origin stories. :-)
Lord1066
06-02-05, 12:50 AM While that is a good creation myth for some Aberrations, you must look at the intelligent ones more carefully. These have old societies which is part of what gives them an edge over most other races. Aboleth's have MASSIVE amounts of lore due to the fact that they have a racial memory and originate from an insanely long time ago. Illithids are able to shape events because they have future knowledge of these things. It's hard to believe that these races would come forward to such heights of knowledge and power if they were created during a magic storm sometime during the lesser creatures history.
Slagger the Chuul
06-02-05, 06:53 AM Personally, I can always come up with my own explanation for why aboleths have a vast amount of knowledge, or illithids are good at planning.

That said, the origins presented in Lords of Madness present some nice ideas to kick off with.

Oh, and having a copy of "I, Tyrant", I'm disappointed that they don't cover some of the little details on beholders (like defecating in cubic volumes, or what beholders taste like).
was_fired
06-02-05, 08:04 AM Personally I'm not a fan of a lot of the histories they came up with in lords of madness. The solution is simple: It is what they THINK their history is. Aboloths could be a recent invention of a powerful race built to act as guardians. Their "racial" memory is just that much programing designed to aid them in the protection and mantainence of these great cities.
Rotipher
06-02-05, 03:58 PM Aboleth's have MASSIVE amounts of lore due to the fact that they have a racial memory and originate from an insanely long time ago. Illithids are able to shape events because they have future knowledge of these things. It's hard to believe that these races would come forward to such heights of knowledge and power if they were created during a magic storm sometime during the lesser creatures history.

Well, since many aberrations -- possibly even ALL aberrations except illithids (who acquire mortality from their ceremorphosis-hosts), IMC; I'm still working out the details, and agelessness would help build up these beings' "unnatural" aura -- don't age as conventional creatures do, the first aboleth could've come into existence a lllooooooonnnngg time ago ... perhaps, even, as an accidental byproduct of the primal energies which *created* my homebrew campaign-world! This would give them a similarly-antique pedigree to the ones from the BoA, as well as contempt for the current roster of deities (who had no hand in the world's creation), and a sufficient stockpile of secret lore from the (literal) dawn of time. Previous universes and creations, etc, don't fit my homebrew cosmology; backdating my aboleths to the planet's origin should be more than enough to impress and intimidate "lesser races". Indeed, aboleths were most likely the *first* breed of aberrations IMC, or at least the first self-perpetuating type ... although I suppose there might be a singular aberrant monstrosity or two, left over from the same era and remembered only by the aboleths, lying in hibernation at the bottom of the ocean or in the depths of the earth.

As for the illithids, their life cycle pretty much *requires* them to originate in a context where conventional humanoids exist, which rather precludes the BoA's various "alien universe" theories (Xoriat nonwithstanding), IMO. I don't like the "invaders from the future" idea -- I don't want to tie down the course of future events IMC; determining the future is what heroic PCs are for! -- and mind flayers meddling with history smacks far too much of science fiction (e.g. the "temporal cold war" from "Enterprise") for my tastes. (Who's to say the stars in a fantasy-world ever DO burn out, over time...?) In any case, illithids really aren't as powerful a force IMC as they are in some other game settings -- at present, I'd planned for there to be just ONE elder brain in my campaign world, with other mind flayer settlements being subsidiary outposts of a dozen or fewer individuals; the humanoid population of my game setting simply isn't high enough to sustain huge numbers of illithids -- so having them try to steer the destiny of the world would overstate their impact: for the most part, their "Overbrain" is concentrating on survival and on playing other subterranean races against one another to keep them from targeting illithids, not on world domination. *Individual* flayers who've gotten too ambitious to put up with the elder brain's autocratic domination are much more of a direct threat than the overall illithid civilization, IMC.
Rotipher
06-04-05, 12:38 AM No other ideas for aberration origins? C'mon, somebody else out there must like icky oogie-boogies! :-/
Mister dead
06-05-05, 10:16 PM In my setting, Abberations are simply nightmares made physical through the underworld.

Someone dies and goes to hell, someone gets tortured by his greatest fears and horrors from the deepet recesses of his mind. Someone decided to ressurect this said soul. Said soul gets shoved back in his material body, bringing back all sorts of horrors and tentacled(6 headed, gazillion eyes, brain eating, whatever/etc..)
Critters back with him.

Really makes dealing with dead people and hell a lot less safe. At least in my game.

And it makes Abberations less of a true species, and more of a freakishly abnormal horror. Something that truly is a nightmare made flesh.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rotipher 06-01-05, 05:51 PM	Hi, all! I only just finished reading the "Book of Aberrations" -- later than most folks, probably, but I'd been out of the country -- and I was curious as to what folks thought of the proposed origins for the various aberration races and monsters. Are many people adopting these ideas for their own game campaigns, as given in the BoA? Are DMs picking and choosing among the various proposed origins -- other planes, other times, alien gods, etc -- and if so, what alternatives are you selecting for specific races/creatures? Do any of you have other origin-ideas, that the book didn't mention? Personally, I've been toying with the idea that aberrations IMC are actually exactly what their name implies: sheer accidents, spontaneously generated by the abnormal interplay of stagnant arcane magics and powerful psychic or natural energies. (If anyone's ever read the original "Elfquest" comics, the accidental creation of that quintessential aberration, Madcoil, is what gave me the idea.) Unleashed by random catastrophe and uncontrolled by any spellcaster, such arcane forces can fuse existing lifeforms -- any being is theoretically susceptible, although arthropods and mollusks tend to survive the process better than vertebrates; hence, aberrations' tendency toward the tentacular and chitinous ;-) -- into abnormal conglomerates, imbued with powers akin to whatever toxified magics (often mind-affecting) had energized their creation. Most such grotesque hybrids die instantly, and those which survive are one-of-a-kind individuals, hence are usually evolutionary "dead ends" that can leave no descendents. Those aberrations which I'm not interested in establishing as full-fledged races IMC -- most of the truly weird latecomers from the MM II & III, for example -- can still appear in my games as unique monsters, perhaps newly-generated in some magical catastrophe, or perhaps unaging abominations born in accidents of centuries past: solitary, mysterious, and malicious. However, on rare occasions, an aberration might be generated which is able to reproduce alone, either because it's derived from a species that already needed no mate to breed -- e.g. gricks are part-worm hermaphrodites; rust monsters IMC acquired parthenogenesis from the same giant aphids which gave them their insectile features -- or because the creatures that fused to create them were of different sexes (e.g. aboleths = male kraken + female giant fish + ?????), thus melding into an aberration which had both genders. This is how those aberrations I want to present as breeding, self-sustaining species IMC got their start; it even accounts for why so many aberrations of interest -- aboleth, illithids, beholders, tsochari; neogi are dorky Spelljammer leftovers I don't intend to use IMC, and grells are so savage that they'll work better for me as yet another spontaneously-generated, ravening, and unique monster -- can and do reproduce without partners. It's these "established" aberration species which a character with Knowledge (dungeoneering) may be able to recall documented information about, and it's these which would boast their own civilizations and cultures rather than just existing as freakish loners. This might not be as over-the-top as tracing things to the Far Realm -- not for me, thank you; an indifferent Lovecraftian cosmos doesn't blend well with heroic fantasy, IMO, so I'll save Cthulhu for other games -- or as elaborate as the pseudo-scifi origins proposed in the "Book of Aberrations". But it's a theory which I think will fit better into the overall themes of my campaign setting -- not to mention giving me an excuse to use lots of miscellaneous icky oogie-boogie aberrations IMC once, for their unmatched shock- and surprise-value, and never again ;-) -- so that's what I'll be going with for my homebrew games. If other DMs choose to go with the BoA origins, or mix-and-match various creatures with the BoA's selection of origins, or concoct their own backstory as I'm doing, then -- as I said -- I'd love to hear about them! So, please, fill us all in on your own aberration-origin stories. :-)
Lord1066 06-02-05, 12:50 AM	While that is a good creation myth for some Aberrations, you must look at the intelligent ones more carefully. These have old societies which is part of what gives them an edge over most other races. Aboleth's have MASSIVE amounts of lore due to the fact that they have a racial memory and originate from an insanely long time ago. Illithids are able to shape events because they have future knowledge of these things. It's hard to believe that these races would come forward to such heights of knowledge and power if they were created during a magic storm sometime during the lesser creatures history.
Slagger the Chuul 06-02-05, 06:53 AM	Personally, I can always come up with my own explanation for why aboleths have a vast amount of knowledge, or illithids are good at planning. That said, the origins presented in Lords of Madness present some nice ideas to kick off with. Oh, and having a copy of "I, Tyrant", I'm disappointed that they don't cover some of the little details on beholders (like defecating in cubic volumes, or what beholders taste like).
was_fired 06-02-05, 08:04 AM	Personally I'm not a fan of a lot of the histories they came up with in lords of madness. The solution is simple: It is what they THINK their history is. Aboloths could be a recent invention of a powerful race built to act as guardians. Their "racial" memory is just that much programing designed to aid them in the protection and mantainence of these great cities.
Rotipher 06-02-05, 03:58 PM	Aboleth's have MASSIVE amounts of lore due to the fact that they have a racial memory and originate from an insanely long time ago. Illithids are able to shape events because they have future knowledge of these things. It's hard to believe that these races would come forward to such heights of knowledge and power if they were created during a magic storm sometime during the lesser creatures history. Well, since many aberrations -- possibly even ALL aberrations except illithids (who acquire mortality from their ceremorphosis-hosts), IMC; I'm still working out the details, and agelessness would help build up these beings' "unnatural" aura -- don't age as conventional creatures do, the first aboleth could've come into existence a lllooooooonnnngg time ago ... perhaps, even, as an accidental byproduct of the primal energies which created my homebrew campaign-world! This would give them a similarly-antique pedigree to the ones from the BoA, as well as contempt for the current roster of deities (who had no hand in the world's creation), and a sufficient stockpile of secret lore from the (literal) dawn of time. Previous universes and creations, etc, don't fit my homebrew cosmology; backdating my aboleths to the planet's origin should be more than enough to impress and intimidate "lesser races". Indeed, aboleths were most likely the first breed of aberrations IMC, or at least the first self-perpetuating type ... although I suppose there might be a singular aberrant monstrosity or two, left over from the same era and remembered only by the aboleths, lying in hibernation at the bottom of the ocean or in the depths of the earth. As for the illithids, their life cycle pretty much requires them to originate in a context where conventional humanoids exist, which rather precludes the BoA's various "alien universe" theories (Xoriat nonwithstanding), IMO. I don't like the "invaders from the future" idea -- I don't want to tie down the course of future events IMC; determining the future is what heroic PCs are for! -- and mind flayers meddling with history smacks far too much of science fiction (e.g. the "temporal cold war" from "Enterprise") for my tastes. (Who's to say the stars in a fantasy-world ever DO burn out, over time...?) In any case, illithids really aren't as powerful a force IMC as they are in some other game settings -- at present, I'd planned for there to be just ONE elder brain in my campaign world, with other mind flayer settlements being subsidiary outposts of a dozen or fewer individuals; the humanoid population of my game setting simply isn't high enough to sustain huge numbers of illithids -- so having them try to steer the destiny of the world would overstate their impact: for the most part, their "Overbrain" is concentrating on survival and on playing other subterranean races against one another to keep them from targeting illithids, not on world domination. Individual flayers who've gotten too ambitious to put up with the elder brain's autocratic domination are much more of a direct threat than the overall illithid civilization, IMC.
Rotipher 06-04-05, 12:38 AM	No other ideas for aberration origins? C'mon, somebody else out there must like icky oogie-boogies! :-/
Mister dead 06-05-05, 10:16 PM	In my setting, Abberations are simply nightmares made physical through the underworld. Someone dies and goes to hell, someone gets tortured by his greatest fears and horrors from the deepet recesses of his mind. Someone decided to ressurect this said soul. Said soul gets shoved back in his material body, bringing back all sorts of horrors and tentacled(6 headed, gazillion eyes, brain eating, whatever/etc..) Critters back with him. Really makes dealing with dead people and hell a lot less safe. At least in my game. And it makes Abberations less of a true species, and more of a freakishly abnormal horror. Something that truly is a nightmare made flesh.