Rules for Skum

[atemu1234]

I've looked at Aboleths and Skum descriptions and read Lords of Madness, but where the hell do the skum come from? Cross-breeding? Magic? Anyone know where these mysterious beings come from?

[John Longarrow]

Well, when a Mommy Aboleth and a Daddy Aboleth love each other very much...

You KNOW this had to happen.

IIRC, it is similar to dumping mucus on a helpless victem and wait.

[atemu1234]

Well, when a Mommy Aboleth and a Daddy Aboleth love each other very much...

I actually had debated making that the title. Thought it would be cornball.

[Gemini476]

Lords of Madness page 31, top of the right column.

They're "created from human stock", whatever that may mean. Forced Uruk Hai-style crossbreeding? Magical Owlbear-esque experiments? Forced slime-based corruption? Who knows.

[TerrickTerran]

I want to say in 2nd ed. they explained it as transformation from the mucus but that could be wrong.

[Gemini476]

I want to say in 2nd ed. they explained it as transformation from the mucus but that could be wrong.

...Well, I found something on page 36 of Lords of Madness that seems to contradict that a bit.

14. Breeding Cavern
This cave smells of sickness and rotten food. Several shallow pits line the northern wall, and blood-stained manacles dangle from iron hooks driven into the wall above the pits.

Female prisoners who are enslaved and won’t be missed by anyone in town face a truly terrible fate here. Zlorthishen uses them as incubators for new skum. The birthing process is nearly always fatal, and the remains are fed to the skum or the ooze in area 12. If the PCs are searching for a missing female NPC, she might well be imprisoned here.

That doesn't answer what exactly happens, but perhaps that's fortunate.

TMI: the race.