Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Aboleth

Fishy aboleths are sovereigns of the dark seas, lords of fallen societies, superb puppet masters behind the scenes, or an excellent introduction to Lovecraftian horrors.

A recently unearthed artifact offers a key to translating aboleth glyphs without risking madness.  Incensed, an aboleth autarch begins erasing glyphs from the aboleth language one by one, rather than see them sullied by lesser minds.  But these same glyphs influenced the creation of modern humanoid alphabets, whose letters soon begin vanishing as well.

Aboleths revere no gods—their shared race consciousness stretches back before even deific time, and they see no need to revere such impertinent latecomers.  But one aboleth is buying up all the divine artifacts the strange ships of Leng can bring it—from this world and a few beyond.  Such a hunt comes with expenses, and the aboleth has enslaved an entire colony of deep dwarves to mine the rubies required.

The people in the port of Gaskin’s Crag have always had somewhat pallid, piscine countenances—leading travelers of an occult bent to suspect aboleth influence.  What no one expected was for the aboleth in question, the Sublime Lurker in Oily Prepotence, to reveal itself—and seek aid against an even elder evil.

Pathfinder Bestiary 8

1 comment:

  1. Pathfinder fans should of course also check out James Jacobs and Greg A. Vaughan's Into the Darklands. For 3.5 fans, Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations is required reading for its discussion of glyph magic and its weaving of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones into aboleth life. The Forgotten Realms Underdark book is good as well.

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