The Aboleth Psychic Mind Cloud Thing

[Trevor Bright]

So my DM and I are looking at Aboleths. He explained them to me, and I don't know exactly which version this is from but I think it's 3.x, that all Aboleth are connected via a psyonic "cloud" that every Aboleth has the ability to draw from. That means that a "baby" Aboleth is really just a small adult since he has access to and know about everything eveyone of his species has done over the past however long this ability has been around, and then some. Is this correct? And if it is, is it possible for a non-Aboleth to access said mind cloud thing? My idea, that he said was possibly possible, was that someone change in to an Aboleth (via polymorph or some other means) and then (with the right feats: IE: Assume supernatural Ability) use their ability to connect to the memory cloud thing. Then after having some magical tests done (like Detect magic/detect psyonic/whatever else needs to be done to figure out how it works) a player could access it and then have access to all the knowledge that Aboleth's have. They'd know just about everything assuming nothing back fired and everything went according to plan. Is that feasible?

[DrMotives]

The book you're talking about is probably Lords of Madness, which establishes aboleth as even more Lovecraftian than mind flayers. In keeping with this, and knowing anything about Lovecraft, this cannot possibly go well. This is forbidden knowledge, and learning it drives you mad & evil. If you don't want that fluff, you probably shouldn't take the rest of the Lovecraftian aboleth concepts from LoM.

[torrasque666]

Assuming that your DM isn't homebrewing things, I believe he's trying to explain their genetic memory to you.

Basically, Aboleths pass their memory down through the generations so each newborn Aboleth, while not possessing the memory of all Aboleths does possess the memory of all Aboleths in their lineage. All the way back through time. (This is why Illithids freak them out. They don't know where Illithids came from, because Illithids came from the future.) In fact, Aboleths use this knowledge to find out exactly how far removed from each other they are, by comparing which is their last common ancestor.

Merely Polymorphing into an Aboleth wouldn't give you any genetic memories, since as is evident with things like the Half-Dragon, genetics don't change due to Polymorph, or most other forms of polymorphic magic.

Your idea about tapping into the genetic memory is one that is... not to be taken lightly. From Lords of Madness, page 19.
Aboleth memories are legion and predate those of all other races. Mere access to such a vast wealth of memories would quickly and irrevocably drive human minds insane, but aboleths do not have human minds. It takes time for them to retrieve specific bits of information from their memories; aboleths take great enjoyment from simply wading through their racial memories and can spend years observing just the memories of one or two ancestors.(emphasis mine) Basically, trying to access the sheer vastness of Aboleth memory is asking for your brain to liquefy and ooze out your ears, tear ducts, and/or nostrils.

[Trevor Bright]

Ah. Bad idea. Gotcha. Lol

I was thinking of doing this thing with a 5e bard. Trying to use True Polymorph that I get around my last level to try and achieve this. Now I know better. Thank you very much for stopping me from doing something terribly stupid :smallbiggrin:

[ZeroiaSD]

Ah. Bad idea. Gotcha. Lol

I was thinking of doing this thing with a 5e bard. Trying to use True Polymorph that I get around my last level to try and achieve this. Now I know better. Thank you very much for stopping me from doing something terribly stupid :smallbiggrin:

Yea, it's kinda "plug your mind into the minds of a thousand generation of malevolent aliens," bad :)