trying to get to the core of aberrations?

[stormofmind]

I am trying to get to the core of aberrations.

I have been trying to get both abilities and a decent look for a custom-made aberration but I quickly realised all I seemed to make were uninspired and kind of generic.

then I tried to analyse the concept to get a better view of the core ideas.

it turns out I am bad at that.

so I am asking for help with trying to get to the root of the core concept, abilities and aesthetic of aberrations as I am trying to not make Cthulu reject number 407.

so any ideas on how to do that, please?

remember the three bits are ideas, abilities and looks.

[Tzardok]

I think the core of aberration is best encapsulated by the definition 3.5 used for the creature type: "An aberration has a bizarre anatomy, strange abilities, an alien mindset, or any combination of the three."

Look at the examples: aboleths are immortal crossbreeds of squid, fish and crab that never forget and inherit memories. Mind flayers have psychic powers, eat brains and reproduce by implanting tadpoles into people. Beholders are giant floating magic heads with too many eyes. Or, to take an example that IIRC wasn't converted to 5e, the susurrus: a susurrus is a humanoid being made of crystal that hunts undead. The sound the wind makes when it blows through the holes in its body lulls undead to sleep. How weird is that?

In short, if you want to make an aberration, make it weird.

[Metastachydium]

Pretty much what Tzardok said. To stick with 3.5 examples, from a pile of viscous, screaming jelly full of eyes and mouths through an oversized aquatic caterpillar, a big, hairy slug swimming in the ocean or a weasel-panther hybrid with an overlarge hand on its tail to something that looks like a perfectly normal human, but has a bunch of weird innate psionic powers and can live forever, the sky's the limit.

[MrStabby]

I am trying to get to the core of aberrations.

I have been trying to get both abilities and a decent look for a custom-made aberration but I quickly realised all I seemed to make were uninspired and kind of generic.

then I tried to analyse the concept to get a better view of the core ideas.

it turns out I am bad at that.

so I am asking for help with trying to get to the root of the core concept, abilities and aesthetic of aberrations as I am trying to not make Cthulu reject number 407.

so any ideas on how to do that, please?

remember the three bits are ideas, abilities and looks.

I thin of Aberrations as mostly Sci-fi elements of a fantasy setting. Flavoured as psychic, not magic - strange anatomy and would make sense coming out of a space-ship.

If you want to make an aberration a good place to start is with an existing monster:

1) Give an ability that does psychic damage
2) Give an ability that needs a wis/int save
3) add tenticles. And space goop.

So for an example, an owl bear is a monstrosity but some kind of psychic Crabtopus that mind controls sharks to do its bidding and lashes out with mental psuedopods that do psychic damage and puts to sleep people nearby that fai an intelligence save and reproduces by coverin a vicim in a sime cocoon within which they metamorphose into another Crabtopus... would probably be an aberration.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My setting's definition of aberration (taken from player-facing material):



Aberrations, while not always tied to the Dark Beyond and the forces that swim there, frequently are. They

* are generally grotesquely twisted in shape
* have strange, unworldly abilities
* are almost always one-off creations, twisted results of malign energies warping "real" creatures.
* do not participate in the normal cycles. They may not be born (but are created), may live until killed, and often do not eat or drink normally (instead subsisting on esoteric foods such as "thoughts").


Note: Dark Beyond is, close enough, the Far Realms. Those last two points are, for me, the key--they're physical beings "native" to this plane (or the far realms) but, unlike monstrosities, beasts, etc, don't really have natural reproductive/life cycles, aren't part of the natural food chain, and tend to be one-off (in any given instance, even if the pattern gets repeated).

Beholders are aberrant because they don't give birth in the normal way; they're spawned from the bad dreams of another beholder (in 5e stock lore). Etc.

[Metastachydium]

My setting's definition of aberration (taken from player-facing material):



Note: Dark Beyond is, close enough, the Far Realms. Those last two points are, for me, the key--they're physical beings "native" to this plane (or the far realms) but, unlike monstrosities, beasts, etc, don't really have natural reproductive/life cycles, aren't part of the natural food chain, and tend to be one-off (in any given instance, even if the pattern gets repeated).

Beholders are aberrant because they don't give birth in the normal way; they're spawned from the bad dreams of another beholder (in 5e stock lore). Etc.

So a servant species with an unnerving, nay, borderline impossible visage angineered by beings of inscrutable minds and with inscrutable designs only qualify insofar as they don't breed true? And if these creatures, warped from natural stock, can mix its blood with its parent species, producing offspring that also breed true it's doubly inappropriate to term it as an aberration? I find that definition overly restrictive.

[stormofmind]

I thin of Aberrations as mostly Sci-fi elements of a fantasy setting. Flavoured as psychic, not magic - strange anatomy and would make sense coming out of a space-ship.

If you want to make an aberration a good place to start is with an existing monster:

1) Give an ability that does psychic damage
2) Give an ability that needs a wis/int save
3) add tentacles. And space goop.

So for an example, an owl bear is a monstrosity but some kind of psychic Crabtopus that mind controls sharks to do its bidding and lashes out with mental psuedopods that do psychic damage and puts to sleep people nearby that fail an intelligence save and reproduces by covering a victim in a slime cocoon within which they metamorphose into another Crabtopus... would probably be an aberration.

trying to go beyond the Cthulu reject aesthetic I want something more to think about?

[stormofmind]

I think the core of aberration is best encapsulated by the definition 3.5 used for the creature type: "An aberration has a bizarre anatomy, strange abilities, an alien mindset, or any combination of the three."

Look at the examples: aboleths are immortal crossbreeds of squid, fish and crab that never forget and inherit memories. Mind flayers have psychic powers, eat brains and reproduce by implanting tadpoles into people. Beholders are giant floating magic heads with too many eyes. Or, to take an example that IIRC wasn't converted to 5e, the susurrus: a susurrus is a humanoid being made of crystal that hunts undead. The sound the wind makes when it blows through the holes in its body lulls undead to sleep. How weird is that?

In short, if you want to make an aberration, make it weird.

any idea what would work for weird as I seem to be struggling and trying to make something with some staying power to it?

[Tzardok]

any idea what would work for weird as I seem to be struggling and trying to make something with some staying power to it?

To tell the truth, no. When I make creatures, I usually start from some idea or concept. And after I half-way fleshed it out and designed, I assign a creature type. So if I think at that point "Man, this s**t is strange", then it becomes an aberration.

That said, an easy way to make something "out-there" is to give it a biology or body-shape that is non-standard, to chimerically combine things (and those things shouldn't be as neatly delineated as with an actual chimera) or even both.
For example, in a fantasy novel I read there appears a creature that looks as if you put two spiders on top of each other. It has sixteen legs, a round torso and "it knows no up and down, no front and back, only an endless around". It has no eyes, only ten 3 ft. long feelers, and its body is a combination of animal, plant and mineral. Its body is covered with scales of granite, its blood is sap, its heart is a diamond, its muscles are wood, its mandibles are iron.
Man, this s**t is strange, and I feel tempted to recreate it in 3.5

So, I dunno, draw on weird things in nature: radial symmetry. Eyes in unsual places. Arms that double as legs and the other way round. Make strange habits: things that feed on violence or emotion. Beasts that reproduce by spinning themselves into a cocoon and sweating out larvae until the cocoon is empty. Give it unusual abilities you've seen in fiction, but never before in D&D: creatures that are blind, but can hear you think. Creatures that teleport when you don't look at them. Creatures that spin time into strands, catch you with them and feed on the resulting aging process. Draw on weird s**tTM that you see in dreams.

If you absolutely can't think of anything, take some drugs. :smalltongue:

Edit: Or, what you also could do, is read Lords of Madness, the 3.5 sourcebook on aberrations in general. Its first chapter discusses in depth what an aberration is and what commonalities there are. The later chapters, whose topics are specific aberration races (in order: aboleths, beholders, mind flayers, grell, neogi, tsochari) or give more character stuff or monsters may be of lesser interest to you. Or they could be inspiring. Who knows.

[PhoenixPhyre]

So a servant species with an unnerving, nay, borderline impossible visage angineered by beings of inscrutable minds and with inscrutable designs only qualify insofar as they don't breed true? And if these creatures, warped from natural stock, can mix its blood with its parent species, producing offspring that also breed true it's doubly inappropriate to term it as an aberration? I find that definition overly restrictive.

Generally I'd say that anything that breeds true, even if its origin is engineered, should be a monstrosity. CF Owlbears. They're naturally-reproducing species that act normally, even if their ultimate origin was artificial.

Most aberrations don't breed. Or don't breed naturally (ie reproduce via parasytes or explicit rituals or ...).

And these are guidelines, not hard rules. Hard rules are rarely appropriate for these squishy sorts of things.

[Metastachydium]

Generally I'd say that anything that breeds true, even if its origin is engineered, should be a monstrosity. CF Owlbears. They're naturally-reproducing species that act normally, even if their ultimate origin was artificial.

Most aberrations don't breed. Or don't breed naturally (ie reproduce via parasytes or explicit rituals or ...).

And these are guidelines, not hard rules. Hard rules are rarely appropriate for these squishy sorts of things.

Granted, I have limited understanding of how types work in 5e. And yes, the bit with guidelines-not-rules is fair. Still, I kind of continue to maintain that aberration is to much of a big-tent umbrella category to reduce it to reproductive behaviours. I mean, whoever would argue that phoenices are aberrations? Or most outsiders (or fiends and celestials and whatnot for you 5e types), for that matter?

I think what you say about owlbears is hitting the nail on the head where you point out that ultimately they behave normally, like a natural predator and there really isn't anything very out of place about them other then their physical features. Perhaps that's how we can better nail down aberations, to the extent that is feasible: they are not supposed to be, and it shows. They come from some weird place, they look weird, but more importantly, they don't make sense; their biology, their behaviour, the niche they seem specialized for – it doesn't make sense from a perspective considered sane for the setting (i.e. one accounting for both logic and the structure and modus of functioning that characterizes the cosmos).

[stormofmind]

To tell the truth, no. When I make creatures, I usually start from some idea or concept. And after I half-way fleshed it out and designed, I assign a creature type. So if I think at that point "Man, this s**t is strange", then it becomes an aberration.

That said, an easy way to make something "out-there" is to give it a biology or body-shape that is non-standard, to chimerically combine things (and those things shouldn't be as neatly delineated as with an actual chimera) or even both.
For example, in a fantasy novel I read there appears a creature that looks as if you put two spiders on top of each other. It has sixteen legs, a round torso and "it knows no up and down, no front and back, only an endless around". It has no eyes, only ten 3 ft. long feelers, and its body is a combination of animal, plant and mineral. Its body is covered with scales of granite, its blood is sap, its heart is a diamond, its muscles are wood, its mandibles are iron.
Man, this s**t is strange, and I feel tempted to recreate it in 3.5

So, I dunno, draw on weird things in nature: radial symmetry. Eyes in unsual places. Arms that double as legs and the other way round. Make strange habits: things that feed on violence or emotion. Beasts that reproduce by spinning themselves into a cocoon and sweating out larvae until the cocoon is empty. Give it unusual abilities you've seen in fiction, but never before in D&D: creatures that are blind, but can hear you think. Creatures that teleport when you don't look at them. Creatures that spin time into strands, catch you with them and feed on the resulting aging process. Draw on weird s**tTM that you see in dreams.

If you absolutely can't think of anything, take some drugs. :smalltongue:

Edit: Or, what you also could do, is read Lords of Madness, the 3.5 sourcebook on aberrations in general. Its first chapter discusses in depth what an aberration is and what commonalities there are. The later chapters, whose topics are specific aberration races (in order: aboleths, beholders, mind flayers, grell, neogi, tsochari) or give more character stuff or monsters may be of lesser interest to you. Or they could be inspiring. Who knows.

any idea where to find this book as I was not playing back then?


Generally I'd say that anything that breeds true, even if its origin is engineered, should be a monstrosity. CF Owlbears. They're naturally-reproducing species that act normally, even if their ultimate origin was artificial.

Most aberrations don't breed. Or don't breed naturally (ie reproduce via parasytes or explicit rituals or ...).

And these are guidelines, not hard rules. Hard rules are rarely appropriate for these squishy sorts of things.

but parasitic life is noted in nature plus aboleth breed fairly normally.


Granted, I have limited understanding of how types work in 5e. And yes, the bit with guidelines-not-rules is fair. Still, I kind of continue to maintain that aberration is to much of a big-tent umbrella category to reduce it to reproductive behaviours. I mean, whoever would argue that phoenices are aberrations? Or most outsiders (or fiends and celestials and whatnot for you 5e types), for that matter?

I think what you say about owlbears is hitting the nail on the head where you point out that ultimately they behave normally, like a natural predator and there really isn't anything very out of place about them other then their physical features. Perhaps that's how we can better nail down aberations, to the extent that is feasible: they are not supposed to be, and it shows. They come from some weird place, they look weird, but more importantly, they don't make sense; their biology, their behaviour, the niche they seem specialized for – it doesn't make sense from a perspective considered sane for the setting (i.e. one accounting for both logic and the structure and modus of functioning that characterizes the cosmos).
I was considering how to make one with plenty of members of its race.
one idea I had was for its only natural death to be used by its own biology failing it, a metamorphosis that fails and just kills the thing.

[Tzardok]

It can be read for free on the Internet Archive. I'm not sure wether the forum's rules allow me to post a link, so I won't do it.

[Metastachydium]

I was considering how to make one with plenty of members of its race.
one idea I had was for its only natural death to be used by its own biology failing it, a metamorphosis that fails and just kills the thing.

You could go the fungal route, but without surviving mycelia left behind. Think of the fruiting body of a puffball, for instance. A natural phase of the fungus's life cycle involves that bit growing "old" and soggy, until finally it's just an empty sack ready to explode into a cloud of spores.

[stormofmind]

You could go the fungal route, but without surviving mycelia left behind. Think of the fruiting body of a puffball, for instance. A natural phase of the fungus's life cycle involves that bit growing "old" and soggy, until finally it's just an empty sack ready to explode into a cloud of spores.

I was going for a reference to the Pak I think they are called from something called ring world old sci-fi.
the point is just how mad it would be for something's biology to just kill it because it fails to execute something properly.


any idea as to powers and looks as the inability to get those down has stressed me out for months.

[Tvtyrant]

An Aberration to me is something that isn't based around humans. Most threats are based on human morality (fiends), animals (beasts, magical beasts) or nature. Aberrations are supposed to be other in a different way, they have completely different rules. They don't act like humans, reproduce like humans, or even tie into our sense of morality. It's supposed to be other. Mindflayers who abhor their true form and allow themselves to be eaten by an Elder Brain, or Neogi who use their elders as sacrificial breeding batteries and think slavery (even of themself) is right and natural because how can something have value if it is not property.

The goal is to make something that acts in ways that make sense to it but are anathema to normal life. Like a creature that purposefully infests itself with flesh eating parasites because it enjoys the sensation of being eaten alive.

[Notafish]

I think the aesthetics of aberrations is what tends to get them grouped into the category. Of the other "scary things from beyond" monster categories, undead draw a lot of aesthetic inspiration from gothic horror, and fiends draw from medieval depictions of the underworld, aberrations draw from 20th century sci-fi horror.

Coming from that, I think that it's worth thinking about what makes aberrations horrifying to figure out abilities and role-playing concepts. Where medieval/religious horror plays on the fear of what comes after death, and gothic horror plays on the fear that death and decay are inevitable, I think that aberrations are best when they play on fears other than death, like the fear of the unknown, or the fear of a loss of control. A beholder played as a monster with a bunch of ray attacks can be a fun encounter, but its aberrant nature might not come into play. A beholder that has a lair that has somehow grown blinking eyes into its walls carries an implication that the monster's powers extend beyond its body, and can cause permanent physical changes to how things work in the world. Slaad look like magical humanoids, but reproduce by two different forms of infection, including one that overwrites the host's biology and memories.

So to make a new aberration, I'd take a look at how you want to scare players, while tempering that with a goal of keeping encounters fun.

[stormofmind]

An Aberration to me is something that isn't based around humans. Most threats are based on human morality (fiends), animals (beasts, magical beasts) or nature. Aberrations are supposed to be other in a different way, they have completely different rules. They don't act like humans, reproduce like humans, or even tie into our sense of morality. It's supposed to be other. Mindflayers who abhor their true form and allow themselves to be eaten by an Elder Brain, or Neogi who use their elders as sacrificial breeding batteries and think slavery (even of themself) is right and natural because how can something have value if it is not property.

The goal is to make something that acts in ways that make sense to it but are anathema to normal life. Like a creature that purposefully infests itself with flesh eating parasites because it enjoys the sensation of being eaten alive.

okay, any idea on where to start for inspiration? beyond the usual suspects which have been mined so often, it is not even worth looking into now.


I think the aesthetics of aberrations is what tends to get them grouped into the category. Of the other "scary things from beyond" monster categories, undead draw a lot of aesthetic inspiration from gothic horror, and fiends draw from medieval depictions of the underworld, aberrations draw from 20th century sci-fi horror.

Coming from that, I think that it's worth thinking about what makes aberrations horrifying to figure out abilities and role-playing concepts. Where medieval/religious horror plays on the fear of what comes after death, and gothic horror plays on the fear that death and decay are inevitable, I think that aberrations are best when they play on fears other than death, like the fear of the unknown, or the fear of a loss of control. A beholder played as a monster with a bunch of ray attacks can be a fun encounter, but its aberrant nature might not come into play. A beholder that has a lair that has somehow grown blinking eyes into its walls carries an implication that the monster's powers extend beyond its body, and can cause permanent physical changes to how things work in the world. Slaad look like magical humanoids, but reproduce by two different forms of infection, including one that overwrites the host's biology and memories.

So to make a new aberration, I'd take a look at how you want to scare players, while tempering that with a goal of keeping encounters fun.
yeah fear is hard for me as most fears no longer make much sense to me anymore and nuclear armageddon is hard to put in a general use monster and failure to accomplish goals does not really work.
any ideas on where start?
if sci fi is where to look any idea which bits might still feel fresh if mixed together?

[Analytica]

I feel that aberrations basically run (to some extent) on natural laws otherwise not present in the main setting. They are evolved or designed for worlds with different magic (e.g. psionics) or physics (e.g. planar traits). Their bodies and minds use mechanisms only seen in other aberrations.

One could argue this goes for some other kinds: undead run on negative energy metabolism, and outsiders on elemental or alignment metabolism. So an aberration is something working off of other laws than the regular world and also other than the most common alternatives, multiversally speaking?

The Elan is a great example: it has psionically based metabolism and all else follows from that. It looks human because it is a psionically based reproduction of the human look and feel.

So in a way, make up some mechanism - some kind of local oddity of pseudoscience, and ensure the aberration is an implementation of that, exploring what consequences it has?

One such consequence is that the aberration is alone. It is not part of an ecosystem. Other things are not adapted to it, when it interacts with regular ecosystems it often breaks or derails them in some way. It has no natural cycles, no divine sponsorship, no relatives in the same world other than those who branched from the same incursion.

[Tvtyrant]

okay, any idea on where to start for inspiration? beyond the usual suspects which have been mined so often, it is not even worth looking into now.


Urban legends/fake urban legends like Slenderman, Fleshpit National Park. Broodhollow, SCP Foundation, etc.

Then play around with them. Futurama's Worm Infestation episode is a great example; what if there were sentient parasites that laid eggs in you and it was beneficial?

A great example from vampires that would make an aberration is a creature that eats its offspring. The adults can only eat their children, the children are spread around to grow. The young could be as gross or cute as you like, but the adults lose the ability to eat anything else and the young need to eat part of an adult to grow to adulthood and reproduce. If you impose human morals you wipe out the species.

A tunicate like creature that is harmless and intelligent when mobile. They are friendly and look like sea pigs when youths, and then when they become adults they vomit out their brains and most of their organs and become sedentary. At which point they send out a psychic beacon which draws all nearby life to them to be eaten (they just stand there hypnotized as it draws on their mental energies until they starve.) The young ones will become members of society and even adventurers, and don't know what adult hood is like except they feel compelled to find a populated spot to "root." The party has to kill their friend after they undergo the metamorphosis.

[Phhase]

What would really help is to know what surrounds the aberrations you'll need. What areas, plotlines/elements, people, themes, etc. How are you using them? Where will they fit in? A aberration isn't a thing definable by any one metric, aberrations are by definition difficult to define (if that makes any sense). Basically, aberration is a category things get thrown in when the observer is trying to say "Well, we don't what it is or how it is, and it isn't like anything else, so here you go, we'll throw it in the 'No Idea' grab bag category." As such, the "core" of aberrations is really just the general resignation that whatever this is, it isn't anything else we do know about.

[stormofmind]

I feel that aberrations basically run (to some extent) on natural laws otherwise not present in the main setting. They are evolved or designed for worlds with different magic (e.g. psionics) or physics (e.g. planar traits). Their bodies and minds use mechanisms only seen in other aberrations.

One could argue this goes for some other kinds: undead run on negative energy metabolism, and outsiders on elemental or alignment metabolism. So an aberration is something working off of other laws than the regular world and also other than the most common alternatives, multiversally speaking?

The Elan is a great example: it has psionically based metabolism and all else follows from that. It looks human because it is a psionically based reproduction of the human look and feel.

So in a way, make up some mechanism - some kind of local oddity of pseudoscience, and ensure the aberration is an implementation of that, exploring what consequences it has?

One such consequence is that the aberration is alone. It is not part of an ecosystem. Other things are not adapted to it, when it interacts with regular ecosystems it often breaks or derails them in some way. It has no natural cycles, no divine sponsorship, no relatives in the same world other than those who branched from the same incursion.

okay but can you help me find ideas as at present I seem to lack clear inspiration.



Urban legends/fake urban legends like Slenderman, Fleshpit National Park. Broodhollow, SCP Foundation, etc.

Then play around with them. Futurama's Worm Infestation episode is a great example; what if there were sentient parasites that laid eggs in you and it was beneficial?

A great example from vampires that would make an aberration is a creature that eats its offspring. The adults can only eat their children, the children are spread around to grow. The young could be as gross or cute as you like, but the adults lose the ability to eat anything else and the young need to eat part of an adult to grow to adulthood and reproduce. If you impose human morals you wipe out the species.

A tunicate like creature that is harmless and intelligent when mobile. They are friendly and look like sea pigs when youths, and then when they become adults they vomit out their brains and most of their organs and become sedentary. At which point they send out a psychic beacon which draws all nearby life to them to be eaten (they just stand there hypnotized as it draws on their mental energies until they starve.) The young ones will become members of society and even adventurers, and don't know what adult hood is like except they feel compelled to find a populated spot to "root." The party has to kill their friend after they undergo the metamorphosis.

interesting a playable aberration could be interesting but I feel making it have to be killed by the players feels both a hard sell and kinda cruel.
anything more interesting that is less unpleasant for the players as the playable idea sounds most interesting?

[Tzardok]

interesting a playable aberration could be interesting but I feel making it have to be killed by the players feels both a hard sell and kinda cruel.
anything more interesting that is less unpleasant for the players as the playable idea sounds most interesting?

Maybe try to convert the silthilar? They are a chaotic good race of aberrations described in chapter 8 of Lords of Madness with a focus on flesh shaping and grafting stuff to people to improve them. You would propably need to do a lot of adapting to make them a playable race, and maybe make a new Fleshcrafting subclass of Artificer or something like that, but in return your group would get to adventure with a friendly four-armed floating spindle that is constantly offering to graft them additional eyes or stuff like that. Sounds fun to me.

[Tvtyrant]

How about:
Amneia. Immortal aberrations with no long term memory but strong psychic connections, the Amneia stores it's memories in the minds of close allies. As a result they are strongly loyal to their friends and allies, and will lose their identity if there is a team wipe.

Looks like a faceless humanoid, they wear.masks to disguise their lack of humanity. Talk via mental connection. The PC is thue tens of thousands of years old but only has the levels/memories to the start of current events.

[stormofmind]

Maybe try to convert the silthilar? They are a chaotic good race of aberrations described in chapter 8 of Lords of Madness with a focus on flesh shaping and grafting stuff to people to improve them. You would propably need to do a lot of adapting to make them a playable race, and maybe make a new Fleshcrafting subclass of Artificer or something like that, but in return your group would get to adventure with a friendly four-armed floating spindle that is constantly offering to graft them additional eyes or stuff like that. Sounds fun to me.
I am familiar with that monster bit hard to make it pc sized but flesh crafting could be useful and selling biological upgreads could be a reason for players to visit them

How about:
Amneia. Immortal aberrations with no long term memory but strong psychic connections, the Amneia stores it's memories in the minds of close allies. As a result they are strongly loyal to their friends and allies, and will lose their identity if there is a team wipe.

Looks like a faceless humanoid, they wear.masks to disguise their lack of humanity. Talk via mental connection. The PC is thue tens of thousands of years old but only has the levels/memories to the start of current events.
mental connection is so easy to abuse, masks are cool, seems hyper role play heavy and difficult to fit in a world not a bad idea but hard to play or integrate as a phenomenon, aberrations do not fit the context of a setting but not the mechanics of the game.

[Bohandas]

I know that in 3.5e the aberrations are a catch-all taxon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-all_taxon). One defined by not fitting into any other group.

Generally they fall into two subgroups:

1.) Things that are too overtly freakish to match any of the other types (ex. beholders)

2.) Things that would be vermin or oozes but which are excluded from these categories by having an intelligent score. The equivalent for oozes and vermin of that the magical beast type is to animals. (Examples include the rust monster and the gibbering mouther)

[Durazno]

One place you might be able to get some inspiration from is this feature on weird horror movie monsters (https://bogleech.com/cinema/mm27-fiendwithoutaface). (The link goes to a particular entry, but there's a menu at the bottom.)

Admittedly, some of these things are more like settings than monsters, but some, like the creeps from Terrified or the fear-birthed, sound-vulnerable Tingler could give ideas for foes.

[stormofmind]

I think I now have a good grasp of the core idea.

but I am still lacking cool abilities

and a cool visual style as I want something beyond the squid monster.

[Analytica]

okay but can you help me find ideas as at present I seem to lack clear inspiration.


OK, so something which appears as a kind of mold. It can grow on surfaces, especially in water - sometimes it forms big fronds or stalks that emits spores. It can grow in wounds, especially. It tends to grow into geographic regions, infesting more and more of them, like fingers of mold eating more and more of the landscape, spreading further. It has a hive mind of sorts.

It's not actually malevolent though. It can be communicated with: druids and fey talk to it and it stops spreading through their specific forests, humans and others can if they have the right abilities too, and eventually it learns to speak through mold-infested human corpses, using their languages. It does not want to harm, and is perfectly fine staying within areas it already has consumed, even giving areas back, staying where it is pointed to.

And it offers help. If someone is dying - including of old age, which no-one else can deal with - a person can accept it voluntarily. Then the personality will become transferred over, emulated. The body is not an undead, moldy corpse, it is a living being with gradually more and more of its mass under the skin replaced with fungus-like threads, until that is all there is left. Even then, the person has the same values and interests... almost. Mostly. Class abilities are often retained too. They can live forever, they can thereafter even regenerate. Some say the old soul is gone to the Outer Planes, some that it was eaten. It is not possible to raise someone who voluntarily accepted the spores. But more and more people do, and they are stronger for it, and they mostly speak like the people they were, except when there is severe conflict, like someone is trying to seriously harm the entity.

Here, I'd point to John Carpenter's "The Thing" I guess? But introduce some ambiguity. To save those who cannot otherwise be saved, or to gain power, are we willing to be replaced with ourselves emulated by something else? Like the lure of an anglerfish, maybe. And maybe there are many personalities within the hive mind too.

[Metastachydium]

2.) Things that would be vermin or oozes but which are excluded from these categories by having an intelligent score. The equivalent for oozes and vermin of that the magical beast type is to animals. (Examples include the rust monster and the gibbering mouther)

[OFF]That's not technically true. For starters, by RAW, there is nothing keeping Oozes and Vermin from having an INT score. The description of both types includes the caveat "unless otherwise noted in the creature's entry" before listing their traits, and there are indeed oozes with an INT score. Further, there's no reason whatsoever why a rust monster couldn't be Mindless. It's an aberration because it eats metal by rusting it or whatever.[ON]

[Tzardok]

Also, there are intelligent oozes. The summoning ooze in Monster Manual 3 for example. I don't think we have canonical examples for intelligent vermin; all intelligent bugs I remember are magical beasts.

[Metastachydium]

I don't think we have canonical examples for intelligent vermin

I seem to recall there's something like that in a web article or DraMag, but I'm not sure. Anyhow, like I said, it would be as RAW as it gets.

[Bohandas]

Also, there are intelligent oozes. The summoning ooze in Monster Manual 3 for example. I don't think we have canonical examples for intelligent vermin; all intelligent bugs I remember are magical beasts.

The rust monster is an aberration in 3.5e and has animal intelligence (INT 2); I don't know if that carried over to fifth editiin