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Balor01
2011-01-05, 08:46 AM
Abominations are one of the monsters existing in my re-shaped local D&D setting, but as I started to think of this a bit more, I realized, there is not much fluff regarding these creatures, that would help me predict their actions. They are very strong creatures and would surely effect the world, but how? Here are some of my thoughts, I'd be glad if you upgrade them with your ideas of these epic creatures.

Atropal - seeks to unite necromancers and arcanist liches to make an entire world undead.
Anaxim - Is seeking out its creator, hacks apart ANYTHING that comes across.
Phane - Wants to turn the fate of the land for the worse ... hmm, how with its strange time-shifting abilities?
Infernal - attempts to infiltrate strongest kingdom and spreat tyrannical rule all over the world
Phateon - causes volcanoes to erupt and attempts to spread this area
Xixecal - creates winter and attempts to spread this area?
Chichimec - ? have no idea what sort of agenda would this feathery thing have
Dream larva - roams small region making it sort of a "Bermuda triangle"
Hecatoncheires - just travels randomly, slaying all

hamishspence
2011-01-05, 09:08 AM
Chichimecs might seek to create an "air empire"- commanding various races on the Plane of Air.

Chilingsworth
2011-01-05, 09:24 AM
Chichimecs might seek to create an "air empire"- commanding various races on the Plane of Air.

Or act like Hecatoncheires, but exclusively in the sky or on the Plane of Air?

Eldan
2011-01-05, 09:30 AM
At least the Hecantoncheires, and perhaps a few others, Im' not sure, have actual mythological background you could look into. They were created to overthrow the titans and guard Tartaros, so I could see them being responsible or divinely created to keep the other abominations in check.

hamishspence
2011-01-05, 09:30 AM
Might depend how smart or ambitious the various abominations are.

Infernals are a pretty good "schemer" (and one plays that roll in the sample Epic Handbook adventurer) but the others might be more "rampagers".

Elder Evils are basically abominations + large area effects- maybe some could be modified to make them like those, and used this way as campaign bosses?

Balor01
2011-01-05, 09:46 AM
So Hecantoncheires is not primal rage incarnated?A s for others, do you think they would try to enforce their essence upon the world (death, cold, fire ...)?

hamishspence
2011-01-05, 09:50 AM
It does say "incredible strength and ferocity":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecatoncheires

I could see some of them as seeking to spread their trait- an atropal trying to create a worldwide zone of death- xixecal trying to freeze the world, and so on.

Others might be more circumspect- or have less apocalyptic goals.

Yora
2011-01-05, 09:52 AM
Don't bring up real mythological creatures when discussing a D&D monster that uses the same name. :smallbiggrin:

Like gorgon, or kobold, or deva.

Chilingsworth
2011-01-05, 09:55 AM
I don't think an Anaxim would nessicarily attack everything it comes across. Since it's looking for its creator, it would likely be willing to comunicate with others for this purpose, whenever able. Also, since it's sapient and not evil or chaotic neutral. Still would likely attack anything that threatened it, tried to enslave it, or made it particularly mad, though.

hamishspence
2011-01-05, 09:55 AM
it was more a response to:


At least the Hecantoncheires, and perhaps a few others, Im' not sure, have actual mythological background you could look into.

Even if D&D modifies creatures a lot- there's usually something of the original in there- even if not by the same name.

Catoblepas is closer to the D&D gorgon, for example.

Eldan
2011-01-05, 10:17 AM
I don't see D&Ds Hecantonkheires as very far from their mythological origins in terms of abilties. They are big, have a hundred arms and are strong. That's basically it, really.

hamishspence
2011-01-05, 10:24 AM
4E modified them slightly by making them Animates (equivalent of constructs)- but aside from that, they played the same role. I think they were in The Plane Below.

It also had Xixecals as versions of Primordial Colossus- with just the ice keyword- though there was one unique version which was an intelligent servant of the primordial that created them.

Paseo H
2011-01-05, 10:28 AM
I'd prefer to pretend that atropals just don't exist, they're so squicky on so many levels that I'd prefer to focus on other abominations.

Anyway, it's not just the standard types of abominations that might serve you...how about humanoid abominations? Lately I've made three humanoid abominations, they start out mortal but then something happens:

Merlin - Young man who becomes a master wizard, enters an eldritch location where one can gain one great boon at the cost of something just as great...he sacrifices his humanity and his magical ability to gain a few broken tricks plus a sure path on the road of the truth, instead of fumbling in the dark. He still looks mortal, save for many disfiguring magical tattoos, and other small things that make him seem 'off.'

Yseult/Tristen - Young woman who has joined Merlin as an accomplice, she seeks after something that she doesn't even know what it is, and upon going to the same eldritch location with Merlin, she too sacrificed her humanity, but kept her magical abilities.

Both of them have completely divorced themselves from normal mortal drives and motivations, their morality now decided by what will put them on the path to their goal. Also, they often smell of rotting flesh, because they often engage in necromancy and use zombies as cheap labor.

The third is a little different:

Kaeli - Former soldier, hand picked for a super soldier experiment. The ultimate aim was to create an army of Godmode Sues utilizing blood and body parts of an Eldritch Abomination they had imprisoned. Towards the end, a spanner was thrown into the works, and the commander in charge decided to take her and do some emergency surgery to see if some results could be salvaged.

After replacing her heart with the eldritch's heart, her inner self changed massively. Her blood turned purple, she could know everything about a given area at will, the entire life of a person at will, and could teleport herself through space and time at will...normally within ten days one way or the other effortlessly, but with more effort could do even more.

She is honorable and good, but her limited omniscience and her ability to travel through space and time has given her an alien perspective, far removed from the norm. One way to look at it, she's basically Dr. Manhattan with boobs.

Those might give you some idea of adaptions you could make with your setting's abominations.

hamishspence
2011-01-05, 10:30 AM
Sandstorm has the Marruspawn abomination- but that follows the "living superweapon gone bad" principle.

Looks like a jackal-headed man.

EDIT: But then, they all do. The Abomination is a little fiercer-looking though:

Ordinary Marruspawn:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87628.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87629.jpg
Abomination:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87630.jpg

Closet_Skeleton
2011-01-05, 10:40 AM
At least the Hecantoncheires, and perhaps a few others, Im' not sure, have actual mythological background you could look into. They were created to overthrow the titans and guard Tartaros, so I could see them being responsible or divinely created to keep the other abominations in check.

The mythological hecantoncheires weren't created to do anything, they just allied with the gods against the Titans after being given birth to by the same beings that gave birth to the Titans.

Balor01
2011-01-05, 11:54 AM
I'd prefer to pretend that atropals just don't exist, they're so squicky on so many levels that I'd prefer to focus on other abominations.
Elaborate on that squickiness, PLEASE! :smallbiggrin:

Besides being a big, rotting fetus with necrotic powers ... Oh that is soooo necro ...

I am also wondering if abominations sense each other at great distances ... and if they sense biggest, bad-assiest prey, like an, say, an empire to ruin.

Paseo H
2011-01-05, 01:19 PM
There's something creepier about undead babies than just mere undead.

Keinnicht
2011-01-05, 01:31 PM
There's something creepier about undead babies than just mere undead.

I'd like to take this moment to make you feel better by reminding you that technically Atropals are aborted fetus zombies, not baby zombies.


Yeah. Those things are the most bothersome monster ever. Although the Angel of Decay's picture in Libris Mortis is definitely tied for squick.

Paseo H
2011-01-05, 01:36 PM
I guess one way to put it is, hearing about atropals take away sanity points from me irl.

Keinnicht
2011-01-05, 01:55 PM
I guess one way to put it is, hearing about atropals take away sanity points from me irl.

Oh god. You know what I just noticed? Atropals are large.

They're ten foot zombie abortions.

Mordokai
2011-01-05, 01:58 PM
Meet Atropus (http://s1.zetaboards.com/Shadows_of_Siranda/topic/1021709/1/http://s1.zetaboards.com/Shadows_of_Siranda/topic/1021709/1/), The World Born Dead.

He's like grand daddy of atropals :smallbiggrin:

AslanCross
2011-01-05, 05:48 PM
Meet Atropus (http://s1.zetaboards.com/Shadows_of_Siranda/topic/1021709/1/http://s1.zetaboards.com/Shadows_of_Siranda/topic/1021709/1/), The World Born Dead.

He's like grand daddy of atropals :smallbiggrin:

Which is a planet-sized severed head that represents the stillborn reality that had to die so that the universe would be created.

Elfin
2011-01-05, 05:58 PM
Don't bring up real mythological creatures when discussing a D&D monster that uses the same name. :smallbiggrin:

Like gorgon [snip]

Actually, aren't those based on the gorghain from Babylonian mythology? Demonic, metal bulls?

AslanCross
2011-01-05, 06:05 PM
Actually, aren't those based on the gorghain from Babylonian mythology? Demonic, metal bulls?

Gygax actually based the D&D gorgon on the catoblepas. I don't know why they had to make another actual catoblepas in MM2.

hamishspence
2011-01-05, 06:07 PM
I though catoblepas- though Wikipedia suggests the bronze bulls from the Jason myth (Khalkotauri):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)

might also have played a part.

The petrification may come from Greek gorgons- breath from catoblepas, bull shape from catoblepas, Khalkotauri, or maybe Gorghain as well.

(Also- catoblepas as a name occurred in D&D fairly early on- well before 3rd ed).

Gorgon is oldest- in 1974- whereas Catoblepas was 1977.

Urpriest
2011-01-05, 07:14 PM
Which is a planet-sized severed head that represents the stillborn reality that had to die so that the universe would be created.

Y'see, if I had seen that sentence without the context, I would assume we were talking about Exalted.

Yora
2011-01-05, 07:35 PM
I though catoblepas- though Wikipedia suggests the bronze bulls from the Jason myth (Khalkotauri):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)

might also have played a part.

The petrification may come from Greek gorgons- breath from catoblepas, bull shape from catoblepas, Khalkotauri, or maybe Gorghain as well.

(Also- catoblepas as a name occurred in D&D fairly early on- well before 3rd ed).

Gorgon is oldest- in 1974- whereas Catoblepas was 1977.
Catoblepas is a different creature. In MM2 or FF, I think. :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2011-01-05, 07:39 PM
From 1977 it was a different creature.

But the 1974 Gorgon may have owed something to the catoblepas in its design.

Craftworld
2011-01-05, 08:33 PM
I like the Phane, and its time shifting powers. However I am not totally familiar with it. I don't know how long it takes for it to use its powers but I have some ideas based on guesses.

Any amount of time- It uses the powers after an event happens to take a favorable side to it prior to that event happening to get an advantage.

Long period- Uses its powers less frequently but offset by more powerful abilities.

Short period- Used the powers to quickly shift its position when attacked to one of greater strength...such as up on a tall platform when the PCs find it.

All said, I am not familiar with it so I could be totally wrong.