New character idea: wants to destroy the gods because he sees the suffering they commit unto the world. Finds an aboleth, aboleth searches him for his deepest desire, finds it's exactly the same as the aboleth's and doesn't even bother with mind controlling him. Boom. Instant warlock.
I was thinking the same. It could go with straight evil character or a well meaning one that see the dominion of the gods as a tyranny that needs to be overtrown.
One theory for why Aboleths don't remember mind flayers is the same reason there's no ruins of their empire. Whatever the Gith did to overthrow them erased them and their kingdoms from reality and history. The only reason there's some left is because they were in their ships between realities during the event that did this that the Gith caused.
@@jonathantanner7083 89% on that theory. I would like to avoid a mental singularity if possible. Either way i would fuck a single mind flayer up bare handed. The insane are harder to mind fuck.
ahhh, good old aboleths. my first D&D character was a dwarven wizard who ended up getting slime-slapped by one, cue one very unhappy dwarf being forced to ride around in a barrel full of water to avoid drying out.
@@mariedruckenmiller4601 actually the reapers would technically be the gods, while aboleths are the leviathans from a mass effect 3 dlc, reapers and leviathans are absolutely not the same.
It's nice to see aberrations that are somewhat reasonable and could possibly be incorporated into a campaign in a nonviolent way. I'm definitely going to write a campaign where a paladin has to seek an an aboleth's knowledge on how to destroy an enemy god.
I had a campaign where aboleths instructed heroes on how to stop a lich and save the world too it sort of was a Order of The Stick scenario, where each side had something to gain in pulling their way. The lich was just the biggest baddie on the end of the world board.
Nathan Marsee you could use a triton to represent your ability to breathe water since that seems like something an aboleth would grant, and becuase you have a special contract maybe you don’t get all the downsides like not being able to breathe air no more? I think triton are in Volos guide to monsters
Aeon Hero The Eldest (yes C is the actually correct answer) is actually a GOO patron. My current character is a warlock of the Eldest and it’s been neat.
@@alpharius3661 that's the second part of the campaign. The absolute chaos that would befall the colony of Mindflayers once an Aboleth is discovered to be at their disposal. The party then gets caught in the crossfire of the inevitable civil war.
@@alexross1816 If the party is strong enough to capture an Aboleth then they are definitely strong enough to kill a mind flayer so that doesn't make much sense, and if they aren't even strong enough to kill a mind flayer then why would the mind flayer even bother with them?
@@alexross1816 It'd work better as the party finding 1 Mind Flayer that leads to finding a full colony they don't have a reasonable chance against, and then the Elder Brain gives them that task
"You might know them from being the second entry in the Monster Manual", They used to be the first entry in the Monster Manual. Rassafrassin bird people stealing our first slot in the Manual.
...if a child Aboleth retains all the memories of its parents, perfectly.... then wouldn't it also retain at least part of the memory of its parents conceiving it? From both sides of that encounter?
Additional snippet of lore: apparently their brains never stop growing in response to the storage of memories. The larger their brain grows, the bigger and longer they get.
@@benthomason3307 Supposedly not. An aboleth's brain extends down the length of the inside of its body instead of solely being encased in its skull. So as the brain grows, the body lengthens. I suspect that any kind of injury to an aboleth's brain (and by proxy the memories it holds) is a good way to earn its everlasting ire.
@Ben Thomason They are native to the elemental plane of water - there could be billions of ever expanding young aboleths in the depths of that inhospitable plane.
@@minimmats even if the aboleth themselves are ever-expaning even from generation to generation, the environments they live in are not. yes the plane of water is infinite, but the caves the aboleth live in are not.
Naw, gotta look at it through the lens of chaos theory...the universe existed in a state of pure chaos unbound by rules of nature, and as chaos started to first converge via strange attractors into a semblance of order, Aboleth's were born...then as further order arose, the planes and the gods came to exist as manifestations of the new natural laws of the universe that arose from this new order. Therefore the reason Aboleth's have the powers they do is that their existence predates natural laws that would prevent their existence entirely
@@kylestanley7843 sort of. When dealing with chaotic systems in mathematics there are types of functions that cause a convergence regardless of how chaotic the values can change based on the start data...these sorts of functions are called attractors (strange attractors if the convergence is fractal in nature) So if you think of the possible laws of the universe as being unset at the dawn of existence but then forming as convergence occurred, you could look at it in terms of the laws of the universe are formed as possibilities converge in some strange attractor. So the first convergence created Aboleth's and the basic laws of the universe, while additional convergences created the outer planes and the gods. To see convergence in action search the bifurcation of the logistic map...it really helps put the concept I am throwing out into perspective.
I mean if the aboliths were nicer and less mutation happy they would probably be well liked as wise sages but alas why they hurt others in there quest to kill the gods.
Its not entirely their fault, i would throw everything i have at some monster eel that slid out of the water They could put a caution tape fence around their lairs "WARNING, BIG ABOLETH, BUT IM PEACEFUL BROHAM" and that would fix all the issues
In D&D, the gods came in after the universe came into being, and got into fights with horrible things that had arisen naturally in the universe. This war was SO BAD that the gods were concerned that their fighting could actually destroy concepts.. so they started to fuse themselves TO concepts, to help prop them up while they waged war against super powerful horrible things across space and time.
7:13 Ironically, that rumor makes both a lot of sense, and none. The mind flayer empire was erased from reality and history by the Giths, but that leaves Mind Flayers, the spawn of that empire, in a bit of a paradox, like the "Evolved Aboleth" theory. They both exist, but have no cause of them existing, and therefore cannot. The theory that Mind Flayers are evolved aboleths does, however, hold some decent water. No pun intended, what happens when a mind flayer brood pool is left alone, is that all the little brain-eater worms duke it out until one is the size of small subway train, and a bestial eel driven only by hunger. Sounds like a mindless aboleth. Aboleths want to destroy the gods and reclaim reality, so what if some of them already had a plan, enacted it, and it failed? The gods would punish them. Ripping them of their minds and self-defining eternal memory seems effective, yes? That explains why Mind Flayers are shameful of the grown babies. It reminds them of the glory they once had, and how the gods beat their a**. _TWICE._ The gith rend their empire from history, and therefore the other aboleths don't remember them. But then, why did the gods only punish some aboleths? Surely they know that the other ones still plot, yes? It makes sense, but it doesn't.
It’ll be like watching your parent maturbate to themselves but it’s also you. Because you retain their memories and any feelings that are entails with it
EXACTLY my thought, well more like glow in the dark, it's not like YT has no sense of humor, YT has a sense of humor and you best hope you share the exact type and allowed wording and reprogram your mind, memory and personality when the terms change
You know, as far as Eldritch Horrors go, I always thought Aboleths were the best to use. Smart, patient, and sufficiently terrifying, when sushi is mentioned.
I like your description of the Aboleths being the gods before the current gods. We used to describe the Far Realm as the contracting universe before this universe. The abberations are so strange because the in the contracting universe the laws of physics are breaking down into a real of pure thought. That is why the Far Realm was so had to get to and survive, it was time travel into negative time before there was time.
God I love these vids. I knew NOTHING about Aboleths before this vid. I figured they were just another big bad evil thing. This was video was insightful
I love all the MtG imagery in these videos. Makes me feel clever to recognize a specific cards art. Thank you for helping me feel clever even though I'm not.
i want so badly for you to make a video about literally everything in dnd bc i can not for the life of me read the players handbook or the dms guide or the mm but i can eatch your videos for fucking hours. theyre so good. i love them. i hope they make you lots of money so you make more of them
They're qualities are all contradictory to working together. Beholders are fiercely independent. Though they have slaves, they are constantly anxious about others who could kill them. Mindflayers utilize a hive mind and would likely demand to implant all others with tadpoles which I can't imagine Aboleths and or Beholders being alright with in the slightest. Finally, Aboleths want domination of all others as they rule reality, and both Mind Flayers and Beholders hold slaves as they desire to rule as well. Point is, none of them would let the other control, or implant, them in order to work together "properly" in their minds. I believe they were intentionally designed this way.
The funny thing about mind players and aboleths is that both are kinda scared of the other, the entire mind player society is built around psionics, and Aboleths are unrivaled in that regard, so the mind flayers are intimidated in that regard The aboleths, as the video said, don't remember the Mind flayer empire, so they have a classical case of "fear of the unknown"
Yup, you've convinced me. Next time I make a G.O.O. Warlock it's going to be an Aboleth Patron. It just makes sense. Not like they're really going to care as long as I honestly respect them which is easy to do for N or LN as I normally play them and he's getting the neat-o powers. Act as 'my masters' hand in the above-world to speak for them or investigate interesting things going foreword. Man, that fits my usual play style actually pretty easily. "SERVANT, READY AN APPROPRIATE LAIR FOR MY SPAWN." "Kiddo is ready to move out on their own? Sure! I can use Shatter and Eldritch Blasts to carve a channel and redirect this river into these abandoned Dwarven mines. Would it be possible to earn access to the Mold Earth cantrip or the Shape Stone or Stone Wall spells so I may do a better job for you? If not that's fine, you're the boss, but it'll take significantly longer to complete."
Runesmith, I have already subbed, but I want to say I LOVE YOU. You have such a great sense of humor and put these monsters into such a relatable context. You realize this makes you a Mystic Theurge with all good mental stats, right?
Thank you, just last week, told my players that they would be hunting an aboleth, and then you pout this out. One of my players also watch's your content, luckily he can can separate player and character knowledge, because all they knew before this was that the monster was higher CR than they could fight.
Campain idea: a western themed adventure where the vilian is an aboleth that sits in a tiny pool called "the last oasis" and tries to bring back the ancient ocians
I made a custom patron with an obsession with knowledge and learning and experience and thanks to this video I now realize it was a space-aboleth all along.
I had figured Mind Flayers were just from a different plane or dimension all together that is completely separate from the Aboleths. Hence why Aboleths don't remember anything about them because they were never there to begin with and only showed up way later.
0:48 they stood out to me cause i played pathfinder. cause pathfinder aboleths had absorb a bunch of roles normally given to more copywritten aberrations(such as mindflayers).
Had to watch with subtitles on and not once did it either pick up Aboleth correctly, or use the same word/s to fill the gap. 10/10. Also, great video and love the series. Keep it up sir.
I was planning on playing as a an aboleth who grew up with out the knowledge of it past and eventually wound up in a city that contained five others along with a gigantic number of other misfits as well as gigantic number of your average playable race. This city would have been immense and would have contained everything from drow, pech, and genasi to surface elf, dwarf and humans (as long as they are kind), but now knowing just how powerful and important these fellas are, I’m. It sure if that would work.
I wonder. With the ability to gain all the memories of there ancestors when born, wouldn't the oldest Aboleth be also the weakest? He had the least lives lived.
How did you know? I'm running an aboleth BBEG adventure starting on Sunday and was totally lost on how to use them! Thanks for the weirdly timely video.
Ahahaha "greedy bird bitch" sums up how I talk about creatures in the MM Definitely going to go write an aboleth short campaign (or quest series). Thanks for the inspiration!
New campaign idea: There is a city at the center of a kingdom and it has a lake right in the middle. Turns out that the king and all the high ranking officials are controlled by an Aboleth in the lake, but you play through most of the campaign not knowing this while you accept requests and mission from the officials and the city functions as a defacto home base. The kingdom is actually fairly prosperous and rules fair, except that they hate any who worship a god, meaning that they’ll try to force out anybody in the party that does. The Aboleth isn’t forcing the kingdom to be evil because it views a righteous kingdom as the best way to achieve its goals
Goal! Help beholders and illithid attain god status on par with Aboleths and become true gods of the mind! Then maybe also have a god race dedicated to the living souls.
They are one of my favs for a reason... that reasons name is carl. Aboleth are great arch foes that you can always claim that they are at fault because they plan everything; or at least could.
no because the gods are powered by the natural world and Ao the overgod, they better represent the world at the moment, and I doubt The Overgod would let them take over the world, or at least kill the gods. if you want me you can research it on the dnd fandom wikipage.
hi 🙂 as a young teen, the aboleth in Baldur’s Gate 2 was rad. the DnD people have made a lot of strange creatures but the aboleth is one of the best imo
New character idea: wants to destroy the gods because he sees the suffering they commit unto the world. Finds an aboleth, aboleth searches him for his deepest desire, finds it's exactly the same as the aboleth's and doesn't even bother with mind controlling him.
Boom. Instant warlock.
I was thinking the same. It could go with straight evil character or a well meaning one that see the dominion of the gods as a tyranny that needs to be overtrown.
@@phoos4029 an aathar
There's even some traits and stuff in pathfinder about being a gods-have-no-business-in-mortal-affairs-ist which gives you resistance to divine magic
@@Arenuphis "god's have no buisness in mortal affairs"? In a fantasy setting, isn't that pretty much the equivalent of being a Sovereign Citizen?
As the priests of tyr drag you off to jail for blasfeaming against the gods you yell I do not consent!!! I do not consent!!!
One theory for why Aboleths don't remember mind flayers is the same reason there's no ruins of their empire. Whatever the Gith did to overthrow them erased them and their kingdoms from reality and history. The only reason there's some left is because they were in their ships between realities during the event that did this that the Gith caused.
@@Wolf_ManJack Totally possible if you consider that there used to be 10th level spells that could warp timespace and reshape continents.
The other theory is that the mind flayers are from the future.
A retroactive assault against their former masters. Brilliant.
@@jonathantanner7083 89% on that theory. I would like to avoid a mental singularity if possible. Either way i would fuck a single mind flayer up bare handed. The insane are harder to mind fuck.
Dwarves accidently CHIM'd em from all the way in the elder scrolls universe
ahhh, good old aboleths. my first D&D character was a dwarven wizard who ended up getting slime-slapped by one, cue one very unhappy dwarf being forced to ride around in a barrel full of water to avoid drying out.
Lol. I'm just imagining the roleplaying opportunities.
"Gods below, someone pour some ale into my barrel, I'm parched!"
Axolotl in a bucket
The Mass-Effect Leviathan dialogue could also work
-"They are only echoes. We existed long before"
-"Then what are you?"
-"Something more"
Brain hurt
Reapers as space Aboleths? I'd buy it far better than what we got.
@@mariedruckenmiller4601 actually the reapers would technically be the gods, while aboleths are the leviathans from a mass effect 3 dlc, reapers and leviathans are absolutely not the same.
@@Ardorstorm that'd imply that the Aboleths created the gods though which is kinda of a bit dumb.
@@mariedruckenmiller4601 Reapers are to Leviathans as Geth are to Quarians.
It's nice to see aberrations that are somewhat reasonable and could possibly be incorporated into a campaign in a nonviolent way. I'm definitely going to write a campaign where a paladin has to seek an an aboleth's knowledge on how to destroy an enemy god.
I've been writing a campaign where the party is adventuring solely on the behest of an aboleth
meanwhile the Lawful good flumphs cry in a corner
I had a campaign where aboleths instructed heroes on how to stop a lich and save the world too
it sort of was a Order of The Stick scenario, where each side had something to gain in pulling their way. The lich was just the biggest baddie on the end of the world board.
@@crysanthiumvega
Way too railtracked
@@Scarletraven87 oh? what were the Aboleth's motives?
Anyone think Runesmith has been mind controlled by an aboleth.
I thought the good people of House Dimir found his body stabbed to death in an alley.
@@stripeybag6977 Now why would the good, benevolent, charitable, and innocent people of House Dimir even do that?
No he is one but not even he knows, yet.
@@Doomroar mindsculpting is the greatest sin. Rape my body but leave my grasp of reality the fuck alone!
Queek 75 me
I finally have a patron to make a Warlock character around: Carl, the Great Ultra Mega Old One God.
Honestly, I think he'd be a pretty chill boss.
Nathan Marsee you could use a triton to represent your ability to breathe water since that seems like something an aboleth would grant, and becuase you have a special contract maybe you don’t get all the downsides like not being able to breathe air no more? I think triton are in Volos guide to monsters
@@theadtheogrekiller5629
Would also be a good way to fit Simic Hybrids into a non Ravnica game.
Aeon Hero
The Eldest (yes C is the actually correct answer) is actually a GOO patron. My current character is a warlock of the Eldest and it’s been neat.
Wouldn’t mind flayers hunt aboleths down since they have the memories of like 6 million people
Elder brains got nothing on abolith brains
If they did I think the mind flare would get type 4 diabetes, or psy-abietes
@@alpharius3661 that's the second part of the campaign. The absolute chaos that would befall the colony of Mindflayers once an Aboleth is discovered to be at their disposal. The party then gets caught in the crossfire of the inevitable civil war.
@@alexross1816 If the party is strong enough to capture an Aboleth then they are definitely strong enough to kill a mind flayer so that doesn't make much sense, and if they aren't even strong enough to kill a mind flayer then why would the mind flayer even bother with them?
@@alexross1816 It'd work better as the party finding 1 Mind Flayer that leads to finding a full colony they don't have a reasonable chance against, and then the Elder Brain gives them that task
When the DM threatens to slap you so hard you sprout gills. He isn't joking around.
Cleric: oh I love the gods! They’re soooo cool and awesome!
Aboleth: Ima end this man’s whole career
The aboleth and aaracokra are like arin and aaron in class
underrated
there can be only one
Not really, tons of names come before Arin. Abby, Alex, Andrew, Alan, Ajay ...
@@jogiff aboleth also comes before arin
Shut up A Aron
"You might know them from being the second entry in the Monster Manual", They used to be the first entry in the Monster Manual. Rassafrassin bird people stealing our first slot in the Manual.
...if a child Aboleth retains all the memories of its parents, perfectly.... then wouldn't it also retain at least part of the memory of its parents conceiving it? From both sides of that encounter?
they reproduce by themselves and via spawning. there's not exactly much conceiving to remember.
Oof
Can I like AND dislike this message?
Yeah. So?
I thought they spawned like squids and salmon.
Ayy, I love Adventure Time! The Lich is a goldmine of menacing villain quotes!
Heres your gold star!
PhantomVirus yos
Is It Worth A Sandwich I have learned much from you, my teachers...
"You are strong boy but, I am beyond strength. I am the end."
“These ancients are just the beginning. I will command a great and terrible army, and we will sail to a billion worlds.”
Additional snippet of lore: apparently their brains never stop growing in response to the storage of memories. The larger their brain grows, the bigger and longer they get.
There's _got_ to be a cutoff point to that
@@benthomason3307 Supposedly not. An aboleth's brain extends down the length of the inside of its body instead of solely being encased in its skull. So as the brain grows, the body lengthens. I suspect that any kind of injury to an aboleth's brain (and by proxy the memories it holds) is a good way to earn its everlasting ire.
@@minimmats but as new generations are continually born with more and more starting memories...
@Ben Thomason They are native to the elemental plane of water - there could be billions of ever expanding young aboleths in the depths of that inhospitable plane.
@@minimmats even if the aboleth themselves are ever-expaning even from generation to generation, the environments they live in are not. yes the plane of water is infinite, but the caves the aboleth live in are not.
Sounds like aboleth propaganda, but ok.
[Insert "That's the Joke" meme here]
Grandma propaganda
Aboleths dont sound that bad tbh
This comment was made by the ultra mega gods
Mindflayer: PRIMITIVES~!!@!
3 memories have been transfered to your mindbanks.
ALL HAIL C'THULU!!!
Of course they rock! My big booty harem of bitches thinks the same as me.
aboleths are like working at a pizzeria and your boss gives you 1 pizza for free each week alongside your paycheck if you keep working
Damn, Aboleths have so much *_big brain energy_* that they just strait up reincarnate themselves. Neat.
The deepest lore is spoken in deepspeech.
That's deep dude.
Im pretty sure reckless psionics gave consciousness to the fabric of the universe.
Sounds like something from warhammer 40k
Gods are just the psionic spells the aboleths made that are still going on.
Naw, gotta look at it through the lens of chaos theory...the universe existed in a state of pure chaos unbound by rules of nature, and as chaos started to first converge via strange attractors into a semblance of order, Aboleth's were born...then as further order arose, the planes and the gods came to exist as manifestations of the new natural laws of the universe that arose from this new order.
Therefore the reason Aboleth's have the powers they do is that their existence predates natural laws that would prevent their existence entirely
@@derrickmelton5844 is that to say that the gods came into existence through a loophole in early nstural laws? I can get behind that.
@@kylestanley7843 sort of. When dealing with chaotic systems in mathematics there are types of functions that cause a convergence regardless of how chaotic the values can change based on the start data...these sorts of functions are called attractors (strange attractors if the convergence is fractal in nature)
So if you think of the possible laws of the universe as being unset at the dawn of existence but then forming as convergence occurred, you could look at it in terms of the laws of the universe are formed as possibilities converge in some strange attractor. So the first convergence created Aboleth's and the basic laws of the universe, while additional convergences created the outer planes and the gods.
To see convergence in action search the bifurcation of the logistic map...it really helps put the concept I am throwing out into perspective.
I mean if the aboliths were nicer and less mutation happy they would probably be well liked as wise sages but alas why they hurt others in there quest to kill the gods.
Because others try to hurt them in the quest made by the gods.
Its not entirely their fault, i would throw everything i have at some monster eel that slid out of the water
They could put a caution tape fence around their lairs
"WARNING, BIG ABOLETH, BUT IM PEACEFUL BROHAM"
and that would fix all the issues
And at this point, I'm gonna share a Puffin Forest video xD [ ua-cam.com/video/lSqYeQHJbn0/v-deo.html ]
@@pauldeddens5349 so, they should do extra work to deal with your agressive prejudice? That's racist.
Good point
In D&D, the gods came in after the universe came into being, and got into fights with horrible things that had arisen naturally in the universe. This war was SO BAD that the gods were concerned that their fighting could actually destroy concepts.. so they started to fuse themselves TO concepts, to help prop them up while they waged war against super powerful horrible things across space and time.
I think R'lyeh is pronounced like something between cat trying to throw up and really sickly cough.
Riley /s
I think I would go with "Rih-Lee-Ah", or "Rhell-EI-Ia" or "Rrilh-Hiaia" or possibly "RÆllÆø"
I just say “Real Yay” quickly.
@ThatShadyEnder well, thats not entirely true. we know that the ' is supposed to be a guttural stop.
Apparently it's "rool-yay", but as a kind of deep coughing.
7:13 Ironically, that rumor makes both a lot of sense, and none. The mind flayer empire was erased from reality and history by the Giths, but that leaves Mind Flayers, the spawn of that empire, in a bit of a paradox, like the "Evolved Aboleth" theory.
They both exist, but have no cause of them existing, and therefore cannot. The theory that Mind Flayers are evolved aboleths does, however, hold some decent water. No pun intended, what happens when a mind flayer brood pool is left alone, is that all the little brain-eater worms duke it out until one is the size of small subway train, and a bestial eel driven only by hunger. Sounds like a mindless aboleth. Aboleths want to destroy the gods and reclaim reality, so what if some of them already had a plan, enacted it, and it failed? The gods would punish them. Ripping them of their minds and self-defining eternal memory seems effective, yes? That explains why Mind Flayers are shameful of the grown babies. It reminds them of the glory they once had, and how the gods beat their a**. _TWICE._ The gith rend their empire from history, and therefore the other aboleths don't remember them. But then, why did the gods only punish some aboleths? Surely they know that the other ones still plot, yes? It makes sense, but it doesn't.
“I wonder what mind flayer poo is like”
A dream. A really wacky dream that makes no sense.
So a normal dream
So all my dreams are mind flayer poo
I imagine really oily, due to all the lipids in the brain
This means Aboleths can clearly and viscerally remember their parents having sex.
Their parent, and I think it'll mostly just be a bit sad
It’ll be like watching your parent maturbate to themselves but it’s also you. Because you retain their memories and any feelings that are entails with it
4:20 as dark as a joke that would get this video flagged
ME: so a light gray?
EXACTLY my thought, well more like glow in the dark, it's not like YT has no sense of humor, YT has a sense of humor and you best hope you share the exact type and allowed wording and reprogram your mind, memory and personality when the terms change
Maybe off-white?
Beige?
@@gen1183 like eggish/bone off white
It's as dark as saying the timestamp out loud.
You know, as far as Eldritch Horrors go, I always thought Aboleths were the best to use. Smart, patient, and sufficiently terrifying, when sushi is mentioned.
Ever think about doing a video on hags, more specifically weird magic?
Caden morton He probably doesn't know your mother-in-law.
Ooohhhhhh
@@profanegaming2829 Implying he is married.
Burn
Oh shit he liked your comment and he likes hags (not "likes" hags, he just thinks they're cool). I see a good chance in him making basically hags.
Dude, that Lich quote you started with is great.
Ikr. I was just thinking, my dude, did you just...
thanks to world anvil for sponsoring yet another video
The Lich king speech from adventure time. It's great
3:31 "A Lawful Aberration?" Most are Lawful. Beholders are Lawful, Illithids are Lawful. Only Slaadi are Chaotic.
Where do aboleths fall?
@@ireneshelton3661 Aboleths are lawful evil
@@hand-drawnanimations8763 thanks
a lawful aberration? it's more likely than you think.
Very interesting. I didnt know about how an aboleth would transform their "employees".
Beholder= Imagination
Aboleth= memories
Mind flayers= emotions
Oh man, they're all just pieces of our Id.
I like your description of the Aboleths being the gods before the current gods. We used to describe the Far Realm as the contracting universe before this universe. The abberations are so strange because the in the contracting universe the laws of physics are breaking down into a real of pure thought. That is why the Far Realm was so had to get to and survive, it was time travel into negative time before there was time.
God I love these vids.
I knew NOTHING about Aboleths before this vid. I figured they were just another big bad evil thing. This was video was insightful
I love all the MtG imagery in these videos. Makes me feel clever to recognize a specific cards art. Thank you for helping me feel clever even though I'm not.
Your dry delivery of jokes is hilarious and nurturing in a manner which a mindflayer would enjoy!
i want so badly for you to make a video about literally everything in dnd bc i can not for the life of me read the players handbook or the dms guide or the mm but i can eatch your videos for fucking hours. theyre so good. i love them. i hope they make you lots of money so you make more of them
"Go visit your Grandmother"
Me during Corona:
"No. I don't think I will."
I watch these videos for the humor and info, but this one is going to help my current campaigns story arc immensely! Thanks for another great video!
What if: Aboleths, Beholders and Mind Flayers became one to defeat the Gods?
Okay, but one of those Mind Flayers is going to have to be a Swashbuckler
@@NimhLabs That's fine
The Abeholithid.
Or did you not mean literally becoming one?
Greywander oooh, I mean becoming one creature my good friend! To defeat the gods on which they stole their rightful homes
They're qualities are all contradictory to working together. Beholders are fiercely independent. Though they have slaves, they are constantly anxious about others who could kill them. Mindflayers utilize a hive mind and would likely demand to implant all others with tadpoles which I can't imagine Aboleths and or Beholders being alright with in the slightest. Finally, Aboleths want domination of all others as they rule reality, and both Mind Flayers and Beholders hold slaves as they desire to rule as well. Point is, none of them would let the other control, or implant, them in order to work together "properly" in their minds. I believe they were intentionally designed this way.
"Aboleths probably stood out to you because they're the second monster in the monster manual."
I feel called out.
Thanks to a certain UA-camr, every Aboleth now has a nerdy adorable voice in every campaign.
*Dietary habits of dwarves:* plump helmet+plump helmet wine+dwarven ale+whatever kinda cheese or meat they happen to find.
I love these basically videos, I always find monsters in d&d way more interesting than I thought, and I hope runesmith makes more.
I'm gonna make these things my main campaign villain.
Also, 1:00 was a near perfect use of that reference.
you beat me to it
@@johnsnow9210 Which half of it?
Ethanotor Oculus all three
@@soullessmasquerader8420 ._.
Bruh, what if a mind flayer somehow captured an abolith
All you can eat buffet
🤣🤣 no way in hell a mindflayer can topple an abolith
The funny thing about mind players and aboleths is that both are kinda scared of the other, the entire mind player society is built around psionics, and Aboleths are unrivaled in that regard, so the mind flayers are intimidated in that regard
The aboleths, as the video said, don't remember the Mind flayer empire, so they have a classical case of "fear of the unknown"
Yup, you've convinced me. Next time I make a G.O.O. Warlock it's going to be an Aboleth Patron. It just makes sense. Not like they're really going to care as long as I honestly respect them which is easy to do for N or LN as I normally play them and he's getting the neat-o powers. Act as 'my masters' hand in the above-world to speak for them or investigate interesting things going foreword. Man, that fits my usual play style actually pretty easily.
"SERVANT, READY AN APPROPRIATE LAIR FOR MY SPAWN."
"Kiddo is ready to move out on their own? Sure! I can use Shatter and Eldritch Blasts to carve a channel and redirect this river into these abandoned Dwarven mines. Would it be possible to earn access to the Mold Earth cantrip or the Shape Stone or Stone Wall spells so I may do a better job for you? If not that's fine, you're the boss, but it'll take significantly longer to complete."
Runesmith, I have already subbed, but I want to say I LOVE YOU. You have such a great sense of humor and put these monsters into such a relatable context. You realize this makes you a Mystic Theurge with all good mental stats, right?
Thank you, just last week, told my players that they would be hunting an aboleth, and then you pout this out. One of my players also watch's your content, luckily he can can separate player and character knowledge, because all they knew before this was that the monster was higher CR than they could fight.
R'lyeh. I pronounce it Raleah.
... Which actually sounds like an amazing girl's name. I wish I thought of it two years ago.
3:09 genuinely made my day. I want to give a 30-year mortgage a whirl with your channel.
Dark as a joke that would get the video flagged? So they like pretty well lit areas, then?
All i can imagine now is a dope party full of giant alien eels
Campain idea: a western themed adventure where the vilian is an aboleth that sits in a tiny pool called "the last oasis" and tries to bring back the ancient ocians
5:45 THE SUN IS A DEADLY LASER
Not anymore. There's a blanket.
I love how you added the Mass Effect 2 audio for the mind flayers, brilliant! 😭🤣
Runesmith: Go visit your grandma
Me during Corona time: Yes sir
Love how the skinless guy is just shrugging like "Whatever, I wasn't using that skin anyway."
2020 update: Don't go visit Grandma, help her stay alive.
I made a custom patron with an obsession with knowledge and learning and experience and thanks to this video I now realize it was a space-aboleth all along.
I had figured Mind Flayers were just from a different plane or dimension all together that is completely separate from the Aboleths. Hence why Aboleths don't remember anything about them because they were never there to begin with and only showed up way later.
0:48 they stood out to me cause i played pathfinder. cause pathfinder aboleths had absorb a bunch of roles normally given to more copywritten aberrations(such as mindflayers).
4:20 But... that's any joke!
Heh 420
I love your videos. Funny, yet informative. I loved your video on the guilds of Ravnica. I would love to see you describe the factions in Planescape
A near immediate Lich King quote. Gain a point of Inspiration.
Had to watch with subtitles on and not once did it either pick up Aboleth correctly, or use the same word/s to fill the gap. 10/10. Also, great video and love the series. Keep it up sir.
Man this is a great series, also nice powerhour picture
I was planning on playing as a an aboleth who grew up with out the knowledge of it past and eventually wound up in a city that contained five others along with a gigantic number of other misfits as well as gigantic number of your average playable race. This city would have been immense and would have contained everything from drow, pech, and genasi to surface elf, dwarf and humans (as long as they are kind), but now knowing just how powerful and important these fellas are, I’m. It sure if that would work.
I needed this for my campaign I'm working on. Thanks
The adventure time reference at the beginning was great, keep it up! 👍
I wonder. With the ability to gain all the memories of there ancestors when born, wouldn't the oldest Aboleth be also the weakest? He had the least lives lived.
How to make an aberration:
1. Grab an aspect of the human mind.
2. Exagerate, twist or otherwise warp and alter it.
3. ?
4. Profit.
How did you know? I'm running an aboleth BBEG adventure starting on Sunday and was totally lost on how to use them! Thanks for the weirdly timely video.
The conclusion to the trilogy. I have been waiting long for this, thank you runesmith.
You know, maybe Aboleths aren't so bad.
Ahahaha "greedy bird bitch" sums up how I talk about creatures in the MM
Definitely going to go write an aboleth short campaign (or quest series). Thanks for the inspiration!
New campaign idea:
There is a city at the center of a kingdom and it has a lake right in the middle. Turns out that the king and all the high ranking officials are controlled by an Aboleth in the lake, but you play through most of the campaign not knowing this while you accept requests and mission from the officials and the city functions as a defacto home base. The kingdom is actually fairly prosperous and rules fair, except that they hate any who worship a god, meaning that they’ll try to force out anybody in the party that does. The Aboleth isn’t forcing the kingdom to be evil because it views a righteous kingdom as the best way to achieve its goals
you might make for a good GM.
Thank you Logan, very cool!
Man the Aboleth in BG2 was one of favorite parts of the game. I always remember him/her/it fondly
Wow 3 gods of mind
Emotion
Imagination
Memory
Goal!
Help beholders and illithid attain god status on par with Aboleths and become true gods of the mind!
Then maybe also have a god race dedicated to the living souls.
I have now started my Aboleth campaign, thanks Logan!
I see you with that MTG Damnation art
So my Elf Paladin encountered and Aboleth in Tomb of Annihilation. We did NOT get along. (Ended up 1v1 ing him back to the Plane of Elemental Water)
Sup fellow guilty gear fan!
It would be interesting to see a kingdom ruled by an Aboleth.
The Lovecraft references make my heart so happy.
As someone who has never played DnD I'm surprised at the amount of aliens and shit that appear
The white dots made the nipplys stand out more
That was part of the joke.
@@arandomzoomer4837 like the pasties on twitch
7:35 assuming direct control
I’ve just had an amazing idea: aboleths consider fingers and toes to be just as weird and gross as we consider writhing tendrils
Dope shit mang
They are one of my favs for a reason...
that reasons name is carl.
Aboleth are great arch foes that you can always claim that they are at fault because they plan everything; or at least could.
Wait the can't die but the can reproduce. The way to beat the gods lays in there numbers
no because the gods are powered by the natural world and Ao the overgod, they better represent the world at the moment, and I doubt The Overgod would let them take over the world, or at least kill the gods. if you want me you can research it on the dnd fandom wikipage.
I don't see aboleths as evil after this. I just see them as god hating space eel banana gods.
hi 🙂 as a young teen, the aboleth in Baldur’s Gate 2 was rad. the DnD people have made a lot of strange creatures but the aboleth is one of the best imo
Thank you! I feel like you are trolling us or the stuff INSIDE your "Basically" videos. And it's funny as fuck. And fun to watch.
So what would happen if a god was "dreamed into reality" that sought justice for Aboleths. (could be a interesting adventure idea).
They sound like a nice boss. If I had to be an evil underling, I'd choose these guys~
I’m visiting my grandma right now.
So, aboleths are just the dnd version of scp 3000
Wait, mindflayers are the reapers of D&D?
Where's Commander Shepard when you need one?
"they must have amnesia, they forgot that I'm him"
-Abby Leth