1. Aboleth/Alghollthu - D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, PF2E, 5E
I mean what else was it ever going to be. If you know me at all, you knew that this was coming. Aside from being, in my opinion, the best Big Monster Evil Guy aberration out there, the aboleth is not only my favorite aberration, but also my favorite monster in all of D&D lore. Yes I chose them independently of that and tried not to let my bias filter in here, but let’s be honest, I made this list so you’d have to hear me talk about them. So let’s go.
Of the Big 3, the aboleth is easily the least recognizable between itself, the beholder, and the illithid, and this is a tragedy that must be rectified because by lore they are infinitely more powerful than either species ever could hope to achieve. For in almost every lore from Golarion to Faerun, it is the aboleth who came first of all things. Or at least close.
Before any gods ever arrived, it was the aboleth that stirred the primordial fabric of the world. In some tales, they came from a distant planet, or the Far Realm or other alien plane, but sometimes they simply came up from the creation of the earth itself. The aboleth fought all sorts of aggressors to maintain their dominion over the world. Neothelids, xiomorn, serpentfolk, intellect devourers, and every wave of new threat were not enough to contain their empire. And when the Gods came, they too would have to maintain themselves against these creatures.
Different editions tell it differently, but the long and short of it as that finally, it took divine entities such as this to finally give the universe a new lease on life beyond the rule of the aboleth. Yet still they lurk in subterranean depths, ever seeking to restore their empires to what they once were. The pathfinder aboleth were born with two rules of their empire. The first was that life existed to be controlled. And the second was that it was the aboleth who would control. And by whatever means necessary they will see this come to reality.
There is an infinite amount to say on the lore of the aboleth and I intend to do so, but I wanna take a moment to say that I feel like Wizards somewhat sells aboleth short in the power department. At least based upon their lore they certainly do. The aboleth were supposed to have been able to LITERALLY face off against the Gods, and yeah this might have been as a whole empire, but surely this deserves something more than a CR 7? My rule of thumb has always been to say that the stat block of CR 7 for aboleth only indicates the actual CIVILIAN aboleths, and that any aboleth worth their salt will be more than that. And this isn’t saying CR 7 with their intellect cannot be a match for a party either, but lore-wise it doesn’t match up super effectively. Paizo made it far more reliable in terms of lore by giving us the fact that the aboleth are just one of a much larger breed of species called the alghollthu and gave us variants much more powerful than the typical aboleth. I do enjoy though that at least CR 7 gives us room to class and advance the original model as well. I think CR 10 in 5e still isn’t the right call. They either had to be on par with beholders (as in CR 13 at least) or given more variants to choose from, so I side with Pathfinder in a mechanics field.
Let’s take a look at the actual mechanics that come with this rating though. Whichever edition we’re looking at, we’re looking at an aquatic foe (sort of, more on that later) that can deal some decent but not crazy damage with three to four tentacle attacks. The real danger lurks in the secondary effect. Those struck must make a Fortitude save against the primordial slime which is left on them from the attack. This slime slowly soaks into a creature’s skin and causes it to only be able to breathe water and suffocate in the air. Why is this helpful to a creature that is fighting in water? Wouldn’t they want their enemy to suffocate in the water? Well this goes back into an aboleth psyche. Most times, they don’t wanna kill their foe, but rather enslave them. Their slaves won’t be much good in their kingdom if they can’t breathe underwater. Even if fighting to the death, this will mean you can’t flee from their domain. Air is toxic to you now. You’re stuck with the aboleth. Aboleth that do have means of going on land (which I’d argue they definitely do) now also become incredibly lethal when they touch you and make your existence death. In Pathfinder and 3.5, this slime also reduces a creature’s Constitution or natural armor respectively, so it even further weakens them should the aboleth decide they aren’t worth the trouble. Even getting close to an aboleth runs this risk as a cloud of this same slime constantly exudes around them when in water.
In Pathfinder and 3.5, an aboleth is also outfitted with a number of psionic abilities, which fits into their mental persuasions. These powers mostly consist of several different illusions capping off with 3 uses of dominate monster per day. 5e simplifies things slightly by boiling their psionic capabilities down into three uses of... charm? person? Hmm... yeah don’t really like that. For one, you boosted the CR so shouldn’t it get better? You boosted illithids up to Dominate from Charm? And the lore is all about how aboleth can enslave people’s minds, which takes a lot more than a Charm. Also DC 14 is very beatable at this stage, that seems a bit low, so why not at least make that a Dominate?
Not to say that 5e doesn’t give them some unique upgrades. For one, an aboleth who speaks telepathically with a creature AUTOMATICALLY knows their greatest desires which is even more useful perhaps than the Nothic’s Weird Insight. They also have legendary actions for some physical attacks or psychic damage. Finally, they are given the benefit of regional effects and lair actions, which is always awesome, even if to me it seems maybe a little bit much for a creature that supposedly existed as a whole co-mingled society. But let’s go through them anyhow.
Regionally, there isn’t much uniqueness for most of this. Water within the area is foul and things are covered in primordial slime. Some of it is left a bit vague and for the DM to fill in which is nice. The aboleth can also create illusory images of itself all throughout its region for whatever distractive or luring purpose the creature desires. Within the lair itself, an aboleth can trigger phantasmal forces on a massive area of creatures, cause pools of water to swell out and grab people who are on land, or deal some minor psychic damage.
All of this is a lot for a creature of its CR so I can’t dislike the rating too much especially when there are so many additions out there both in homebrew and in-game that can be added. Despite this, I feel the aboleth is super slept on as a creature. I know big fans of D&D that have barely heard of this creature or if they have, have never actually used them and that’s a shame.
Before even looking at the lore, I have to admit that I think the aboleth scratch a Lovecraft itch which is in a lot of ways, far better than actual Lovecraft creatures. It hits every subject of an evil villain and exceeds expectations in every one. They are intense schemers, and have several different plans running contingently at any given time. They exist forever and have a memory which never loses track of even the most infinitesimal detail. They are horrors from other worlds, beyond comprehension but also capable of manipulating entire empires with their psychic powers and infiltrative roleplay. They are spoken of as the bogeyman and forgotten deities of most dark and violent tales, and most commoners probably believe or hope that they’ve gone extinct. They are the perfect villain and I’m not done trying to convince you on that in the least bit.
The tales speak of creatures that are not quite mortal but not quite divine. Separate and distinct from these comprehensions of mortality and even separate from undeath in a way that speaks to some other nature of being. In their time, the alghollthu created all manner of beings, many of them living now as lost adherents to their cause. They are responsible for the chuul, the skum, the cloakers, the ugothol, the ixitxachitl, the ceratioidi, the gillmen, and endless more both vile and known. Some even contest that it may have in fact been the aboleth that gave rise to life as we know it and not the Gods, a sentiment considered blasphemy in most faiths.
Once again we have a splintering of editions here, so I’ll do my best to keep distinct those separate visions starting by looking at 5e. Everything I’ve said as of yet is mostly the case of all editions. The aboleth had an empire that was ancient even when the divine first came and lost this first universal empire against the divine. Each edition treats the aboleth like the past chaos that preceded creation, such as the titans of the Greek pantheon, the darkness of the Bible, the Giants of Norse mythos, the Tiamat of Babylon, or, you know... all of Lovecraft’s creations. Could go on and on about these different example of primeval chaos (cosmic egg, Apophis, Vishnu, separation of the Dreamtime) but you get the idea. In 5e the aboleth is much the same, with a memory for all that preceded this. Not only do the aboleth have a flawless memory of their defeat, but when they devour other beings they also gain the memories of this creature, infinitely expanding their consciousness for each life they consume. Even before resorting to this consumption they can read a creature like a book to know whether they might be more suited to servitude than as an addition to their mental library.
The aboleth of this continuity, as well as others, have fled to the deepest recesses of the ocean, into primordial underdark lakes, and even into the Elemental Plane of Water to continue and unwravel their schemes. They are surprisingly adept at diplomacy, able to promise those they encounter the grandest of treasures and rewards through their knowledge of their desires. Even in death, their villainy does not end as their bodies will coalesce in the Plane of Water and form once more, memory intact to seek vengeance on those who had slain it. Throughout their infinite lives, the aboleth’s ultimate plot is to overthrow the divine and regain their place as rulers of the multiverse.
Aboleth were psionic masters, on par with mind flayers but without the disposition against the arcane that they had. While certainly self-centered, the aboleth were not at all above putting themselves at the basest of means in order to achieve their goals. Their unending memory made them alien to other creatures in mindset but this still allowed them to have traditional social interactions between the most aberrant and humanoid of civilizations. While the aboleth did not worship the Gods, and were famously atheistic in that respect, they did however build a reverence for beings known as the elder evils. There were still cities built for the Aboleth, but few lived to witness their bizarre, cyclopean styles.
I’ll admit I don’t know how I feel about the extended addition of 5e about how aboleth can’t die. I get why they added it, so that it might seem more plausible that the creature can actually face off against Gods, but I feel like this could’ve been bypassed by just giving the creature more powerful variants in the first place. Also it doesn’t quite achieve the Lovecraftian inevitability concept I think it’s going for. What I might suggest instead is that the memories and consciousness of a given aboleth who has died are instead absorbed into another aboleth form. This means that in a sense you don’t die, but also you don’t die in a very weird otherworldly sort of way that fits more with their theme. To me at least. But for the edition, the way it’s written also does the job ok.
I don’t really understand why I don’t see aboleth get more use in 5e. 5e definitely gave them more prominence in the base material than 3.5 and has featured them a few times throughout their modules. They’re even one of the few creatures that have Legendary Actions and Lair Actions, which means Wizards expects them to be treated like a big deal. So... where are they? Why do I so rarely see them used or even mentioned?
Ah well, let’s dig in to 3.5. I’m mostly just going to be noting the differences instead of going over things over and over again, especially because there is still Pathfinder to go. In 3.5, aboleth are a bit more natural in that they have at least some fashion of traditional life cycle, even if they still absorb the memory of their parents. We get very little outside of this from the base text, but the Lords Of Madness once again widely elaborates on this creature. In this, we learn that they are born fully mature and grow continuously, though sometimes at a slower rate.
They were the first, once again, though in this case supposedly spawned directly from the Elder Evils. I find the Elder Evils a bit difficult to incorporate in the cosmology personally and often kind of cannibalize them as Great Old Ones in the Elder Mythos. Though hinted at, there is less in this continuum about an actual conflict with the gods and yet the aboleth still despise them as younger and less mature beings than them. Even beyond the extent of their hidden cities, some of their species still take root within the ruins of their smote empires. Several times, the aboleth have arisen and overtaken the world only to be eventually repelled once more in a continuous cycle of rising tides. But they always return just as the seasons.
The aboleth here have a keen obsession with ancient artifacts, as many aberrations seem to as we’ve seen. The aboleth especially enjoy enslaving creatures that might teach them greater skills in the arcane. They also of course have great arcane skill of their own, being especially gifted in glyphs (which are I guess distinct from runes in D&D. Wonder if sigils are also their own thing).
Their reverence is a strange thing, devoted to five Elder Evils out of respect but not quite to the level of faith that most races come to. They believe the Elder Evils will persist beyond the existence of this world. The Elder Evils they follow are as follows: Bolothamogg who exists as the gaps of darkness between the stars. Holashner who exists beneath earth and swallows earth and magma and leaves behind a strange mineral known as bilestone. Piscaethes, whose blood supposedly formed the aboleth and who sees the expanse of possible worlds. Shothotugg who bleeds parasites and poison into the fabric of the universe. And Y’chak who supposedly created all the gods of destruction and death that mortals now worship. Even within the text, 3.5 acknowledges how these creatures have resemblance to Outer Gods of Lovecraft.
Beyond their usual manipulative rulerships, the aboleth form alliances with many aquatic races as well as notably unique relations with a few notable races. The drow often come into contact with them, sometimes erupting into conflict, but with a few finding mutual interest in a faith of Ghaunadaur, which is largely despised by their respective races. Despite their fear of the illithid, the aboleth often make alliance with them, if nothing else to learn more about their strange newness. The ixitxachitl were once made by the aboleth but at some point split from them, even though they occasionally will ally with them. The kopru have similar histories of lost aquatic civilizations that they seek to renew through alliance with the aboleth. Kraken often form alliance with the aboleth as titanic war machines or even despotic rulers. Kuo-toa, while not created by aboleth like the skum, often can be found cowed into servitude as land infiltrators. Beyond this and their own creations, aboleth have skill in summoning devils, creating constructs and oozes, and bringing derro as faithful adherents under them. Yeah, they can do it all.
Several variant aboleth also exist here. Their are amphibious aboleth (if I’m honest I think all aboleth should be) that can move a bit more on land and breathe air or even the more dreaded aerial variants that can freaking fly and live in the clouds. There was also a contingent of aboleth at one point that travelled into the Nine Hells and began a civilization within the River Styx, developing skills that made them entirely independent of their species. And as we begin to speak on variants, this is of course the best time to look into the absolute insane cosmology of aboleths, or rather alghollthu that Pathfinder has given us.
Ah beloved Pathfinder you have done it again. You’ve taken my fav creature and made it even more spectacular in ways I could never have imagined. If only you didn’t have a system that was almost ENTIRELY dedicated to combat, I’d play you every single day of my life (I know PF2E supposedly fixes this, but I haven’t had the honor of playing in it yet).
The alghollthu of Pathfinder follow every hallmark of ancient civilizations and conflict with the gods that D&D does but add on to it an even better layer. That is, we actually get to see a glimpse of the history of one of the alghollthu’s empires. The Azlanti Empire was the foremost empire in Golarion for some time and that was thanks to its hidden benefactors. The aboleth controlled humanity for millennia from behind the curtain, manufacturing an entire faith for the people of the world and giving their play things advances in technology and magic beyond the progress of their own means. And when their creations finally started getting wise to their machinations, the alghollthu LITERALLY SUMMONED A COMET AND BLEW UP THE WORLD SO THEY COULD BUILD UP AN EMPIRE AGAIN IN THE FUTURE! Sure, it didn’t quite go how they expected but this event, Earthfall, is one of the driving and most momentous moments in Golarion’s history creating a thousand year era of darkness from the debris kicked up into the atmosphere that would later give rise to some of the most major empires and gods the world had ever seen. We actually get to read about how the alghollthu steered human evolution and oh my God I love aboleth.
Now of course, the alghollthu are waiting, plotting their next move in ancient cities where some of the same aboleth who constructed Earthfall cannot wait to build a new empire once more. They have somewhat less control of the Darklands in this continuity, preferring the vast oceans since the Darklands of Pathfinder are so massively populated by threats as it is.
The alghollthu have additional dictums that were constructed to help understand their life. They seem to reproduce by splitting themselves with both halves retaining the memories of the last, which led to the dictum that they are many and one and most aboleth treat their own kind as equal to them. They then created glyphs from their original planet in order to conquer the universe and topple over divinity and this was their final dictum. Their history shows also that the alghollthu are not beyond self-sacrifice and are all too ready to die to see the greater being that they are rise to power.
Upon Golarion, the alghollthu ruled the oceans while the xiamorn ruled the land. It was here where they experienced the rise of the Azlanti empire, but we can assume that many other planetoids throughout the cosmos experienced similar interactions with other contingents of the alghollthu. Beyond sigils and lesser forms of magic, the alghollthu gained talents in psionics and fleshwarping, as well surely as many more magical means.
The alghollthu have come into conflict with elves in Golarion more often than any other humanoid race, most likely since they could retreat to the First World. They also are considered the arch-nemesis of the xiomorns and the two cultures learned extensively from one another.
As well as some other creatures we mentioned, the aboleth are believed to have created the abhominal, deep walkers, merfolk, mimics, shell sentinels, paguroida, and even the dreaded shoggoth. Again, a lot. The aboleth find great joy in creation it seems. But beyond this, the alghollthu also evolved and mutated themselves into distinctive forms and casts that make up the society. Socially, these were split between the aboleth, vidileth, and omnipath, but many other variants designed for specific tasks have appeared since.
The weakest of these was the enisisyan, a CR 4 creature which serve as psychic weakeners for the alghollthu. They have the power to allow for more powerful aboleth to control one another and also weaken the Will of any creature nearby. They also enhance the mental powers of the vidileth or omnipath which they are assigned to or even other creature’s that same creature assigns them too. They themselves are immune to mind-affecting effects. Their existence is in direct contrast to the law of alghollthu being in control, which lends to my point later on alignment. They are bred to serve the greater species alone but recently they have begun to communicate and form a more complex relation of their own.
The next were the aboleth themselves, or the civilians of their species but we’ve talked a great deal about them. They are socially above some of the more powerful entities we’ll discuss but we’ll move ahead to the uldraaghu of CR 10. These creatures are designed as architects of the species non-euclidean civilizations. This comes as a result of their unobstructed control of physical matter. They can shape water as easily as clay beneath their hands, freezing creatures in place or pushing them away by means that subvert the usual saves. They have greater control over the forming of glyphs and have heightened spell casting tailored for craftsmanship but also swift extermination, with disintegrate being the pinnacle of this power. An uldraaghu lacks the psionic manipulations of most alghollthu though and is therefore in its own distinctive caste outside of the hierarchy.
The plizeazoth are like dumb tanks to the aboleth, with a CR 12 and psionic energies channeled into a ballistics arsenal of mental assaults. Even their physical attacks leave psychic remnants in target that they can implode for crippling effect as a free action. Ultimately however these creatures are simple predators for the aboleth to unleash on their foes. Sometimes they are given the place of relentless taskmasters over the enslaved however. Slowly however, they are gaining more sentience and may yet be a fully formed species amongst their fellows.
The vidileth, or veiled masters, are the next in line of true societal castes of the alghollthu. With a CR 14, veiled masters have an insane list of spells at their disposal reaching up into 6th level casting. Beyond their regular enslaving ability they even have quickened dominate persons and mass suggestion spells. It has greater power over sigils and runes than most creatures and have tentacles that can all deliver electricity and a stagger effect to anything they touch (oh thank God it’s not stun). They can also bite you to suck away a huge portion of your memory and give you a negative level. Veiled masters serve as the manipulators behind the entirety of aboleth civilization, as if the lesser kind were not bad enough. They also have the ability to impersonate humanoids naturally and often are deeply infiltrating world governments.
Finally, the omnipath of CR 18 serve as a sort of mental storage of all aboleth consciousness. They also empower all aboleth near them and are often at the center of any aboleth civilization worth it’s salt. But that’s not all they are, as they have a three-tiered bite which’ll leave you shaken and staggered, three sniper shots that’ll leave you stunned (hey there CR 18, let ‘em have it), and a once per day astral projection spell on to of their otherwise 7 level deep spell table. Wait they can dominate at will! An omnipath may have several fragments of its consciousness walking the surface at any given time, but almost none will ever encounter one in its home. For the most part, they are conduits of communications and information for other aboleth to use however.
Keep in mind in all of this that an aboleth is far beyond the sum of their parts or stat blocks. They are inherent schemers that have plans predating the lives of even the most ancient of dragons. I have several campaigns going in my world right now where everyone has independently decided to use aboleth for different purposes and someone made a joke about how what if it was all actually the same aboleth and I was like ‘The funny thing is that ISN’T farfetched. They definitely could have this much going on.’ They are masterminds beyond Gods. Basically, everything the DM knows about the world, an aboleth also knows by ten times. They can go anywhere and know no bounds.
One thing that somewhat restricts them is their aquatic nature, but this barely qualifies. For one, we can see that there are variants that can exist above water. For two, aquatic adventures can work in any campaign if set up properly and so long as your DM is kind with the strictures of what water breathing does (it allows for casting and speaking, at least to some degree, and I’ll stand by that because the alternative ISN’T fun). For three, aboleth are incredibly intelligent and definitely have means to bring them to the surface, including spellcasting or whatever else is necessary. For four, you can have the party face off against them in intermediary substitutes such as the Far Realm or the Astral Sea.
I do have, one small complaint about the aboleth. I know. My favorite monster and I still have constructive criticism. I don’t get why an aboleth is Lawful Evil. Like, ok it enslaves people and has an empire, but this isn’t their whole psyche. Their long term manipulators that will do anything to achieve their goals, regardless of ideas of chaos or law. Two rules about how they are supposed to rule doesn’t really add up to a fully established structure of law. I feel like their description fits more with Neutral Evil, especially considering how both the other Big 3 are already Lawful Evil. Put some variety in there. But this is a minor nitpick that ultimately doesn’t matter much.
I love the aboleth. I hope I’ve inspired you to love them too now. They are the inspiration for writing this list in the first place and I’m so glad that we’ve gotten here.