Pathfinder #1 makes brief mention of aboleths and their possible connection to rune magic and the fall of Thassilon, as well as their creation of other monstrous races like the faceless stalker.
As someone who may soon use aboleths to some extent in a Varisia-based campaign, I wondered what other information might be available (or upcoming in future products): Where do aboleths reside now? Do they rule an aquatic or subterranean empire unknown to the surface races, or are they far less numerous today? Do they indeed practice a form of magic that resembles that of the Runelords? (This is by no means an exhaustive list of the questions floating about in my brain right now, but I wanted to keep this relatively short.)
Thanks in advance for any info.
Creative Director
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Pathfinder #1 makes brief mention of aboleths and their possible connection to rune magic and the fall of Thassilon, as well as their creation of other monstrous races like the faceless stalker.
As someone who may soon use aboleths to some extent in a Varisia-based campaign, I wondered what other information might be available (or upcoming in future products): Where do aboleths reside now? Do they rule an aquatic or subterranean empire unknown to the surface races, or are they far less numerous today? Do they indeed practice a form of magic that resembles that of the Runelords? (This is by no means an exhaustive list of the questions floating about in my brain right now, but I wanted to keep this relatively short.)
Thanks in advance for any info.
Aboleths have a pretty important role in Golarion, one that we're revealing slowly but surely. If you've read Lovecraft (primarilly "At the Mountains of Madness"), using the aboleths in a role similar to the star-headed old ones (called elder things in the CoC rules) is a safe bet.
A few other quick notes:
1) Aboleths mostly reside in the deepest part of the oceans. A few dwell in the underdark as well... but not as many; they're primarilly deep sea monsters. They can, of course, live anywhere there's a lot of water though.
2) Their deep underwater sea cities were once quite enormous, rivaling and likely exceeding anything any of the terrestrial races have yet accomplished in Golarion. The current aboleth empire is certainly much smaller than that... but that doesn't mean that it's small compared to other contemporary empires!
3) Aboleths do indeed have a strong tradition of glyph-based magic. The runelords' development of this magic stems from the fact that Thassilon was settled by exiles/travelers from the now-sunken realm of Azlant, and the people of Azlant had much more regular contact with the Aboleths.
ALSO: Check out the aboleth chapter in WotC's Lords of Madness. Our aboleths are developing in a somewhat different role, but if you were to use the Lords of Madness aboleths, they'd fit in perfect anyway. They're pretty close.
Personally, after reading AtMoM, I sympathized with the Elder Things (as did the narrator -- "whatever else they were, they were men!"). I kinda doubt you're planning to show aboleths in that positive a light... o.O
One request, art-wise: can you return them to having the weirdly tubular eyes they used to have, incredibly wide and not ball-shaped at all?
Thanks very much, Mr. Jacobs. All that should help me quite a lot.
I sympathised with the elder things, too. Thats why I kind of lament the aboleths taking thier role. there's only room for ONE ancient alien race after all.
I don't know about that...
The Elder Things did, after all, have their titanic wars against the Mi-Go, the Cthulhi, and the Yithians in ancient times. And all of these were starfaring races.
...It'd be kinda nifty to have a star-head colony on Golarion, still vital, perhaps covertly aiding the modern ape-descended life forms against their vile enemies the Aboleth Imperium... ^.^
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Creative Director
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Personally, after reading AtMoM, I sympathized with the Elder Things (as did the narrator -- "whatever else they were, they were men!"). I kinda doubt you're planning to show aboleths in that positive a light... o.O
One request, art-wise: can you return them to having the weirdly tubular eyes they used to have, incredibly wide and not ball-shaped at all?
Yeah... Lovecraft does end up making the Elder Things pretty sympathetic (part of the cool of that story, in fact, that we get a monster for the monsters, with the initial "monster" of the elder things being "out-monstered" by the shoggoths).
Aboleths are not going to be sympathetic. And I do indeed like the long thin eyes rather than the round eyes, but we'll see...