Creative Director
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Does anyone know which issue(s) of Dragon contains the Ecology of the Aboleth? I have every issue of Dragon since #234 and I can't seem to find it.
I can't recall the issue #, but I remember looking at it when I was writing the aboleth chapter for Lords of Madness. It's a fun article, but there's not much at all about the aboleth's ecology and society; it's basically five new stat blocks for five tougher versions of aboleth. Which is fun, but it's also the same thing that beholders and illithids kinda do, so it's not a route we chose to support in Lords of Madness.
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I can't recall the issue #, but I remember looking at it when I was writing the aboleth chapter for Lords of Madness. It's a fun article, but there's not much at all about the aboleth's ecology and society; it's basically five new stat blocks for five tougher versions of aboleth. Which is fun, but it's also the same thing that beholders and illithids kinda do, so it's not a route we chose to support in Lords of Madness.
Would you happen to remember if it was a 2nd edition, 3.0, or 3.5 article?
Anyways, from what you've described, I doubt I'll find what I'm looking for: how an aboleth goes about creating skum. I love 'Lords of Madness,' but I didn't see much info about skum (perhaps I just missed it). Does the application of an aboleth's slime simply turn a humanoid into a skum? If so, how long does it take? Or is there another procedure involved in the transformation. The Monstrous Manual only states that skum are created by aboleths from human stock. Say a PC was enslaved by an aboleth and infected by the aboleth's slime, would they eventually become a skum? How long would it take? Perhaps I should take out my 'Night Below' boxed set after all these years and take another look...
ALways try the Dragondex for questions like this.
The entry:
"Ecology of the Aboleth, The" Brandon Grist 131(36) D&D1
Title/Author/Issue(page)/Game System
Stefan
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I can't recall the issue #, but I remember looking at it when I was writing the aboleth chapter for Lords of Madness. It's a fun article, but there's not much at all about the aboleth's ecology and society; it's basically five new stat blocks for five tougher versions of aboleth. Which is fun, but it's also the same thing that beholders and illithids kinda do, so it's not a route we chose to support in Lords of Madness.
Didn't realise that was you. I really liked that chapter (in an excellent book) - inspired me to use aboleth in my upcoming campaign.
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Creative Director
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The article was actually a 1st edition article. Which means it predates the skum, so nope; nothing for ya on that topic there, alas.
I originally toyed with including a "skum template" in Lords of Madness, but decided against it. There's too many templates in the game as it is, and it's cool to have a specific type of servitor race.
In any event, I see the skum as an engineered race over the course of generations; they're not created by transforming other creatures, but shaped and formed over decades and centuries by aboleth biomancers (to make up a new word). They used humans as the original stock, but they're not human no more. When they need more, they probably put a bunch of skum into a room and turn on Barry White music to set the mood.
Mind flayers already have the transformation aspect pretty much covered anyway.
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Creative Director
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Didn't realise that was you. I really liked that chapter (in an excellent book) - inspired me to use aboleth in my upcoming campaign.
Yup! I did the aboleth chapter, the beholder chapter, the aboleth and beholder related new monsters, the sithilar, the zeugalak, and several of the prestige classes. The cerulean sign stuff was from me too; a sort of D&D version of Lovecraft's elder sign.
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The article was actually a 1st edition article. Which means it predates the skum, so nope; nothing for ya on that topic there, alas.
I originally toyed with including a "skum template" in Lords of Madness, but decided against it. There's too many templates in the game as it is, and it's cool to have a specific type of servitor race.
In any event, I see the skum as an engineered race over the course of generations; they're not created by transforming other creatures, but shaped and formed over decades and centuries by aboleth biomancers (to make up a new word). They used humans as the original stock, but they're not human no more. When they need more, they probably put a bunch of skum into a room and turn on Barry White music to set the mood.
Mind flayers already have the transformation aspect pretty much covered anyway.
Many thanks!
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ALways try the Dragondex for questions like this.
The entry:
"Ecology of the Aboleth, The" Brandon Grist 131(36) D&D1
Title/Author/Issue(page)/Game SystemStefan
Neat. I didn't even know an index for Dragon existed. Thanks.
PS, i recently bumped the thread that has the Ecology Of index in it. :)