A really, really smart fish.

[Voadam]

You know, those big goofy fish that store all of the memories of the folks they eat.

They do? I haven't read the MM entry on them in a while (probably since the 1e MMII) just the srd one as I have never used them. I don't see anything like that in the srd entry and don't have my 3e MM with me, what does the flavor text actually say about this?

 

[eris404]

Another way of thinking of it is that the overwhelming majority of the memories are either useless trivia or redundant. If you're feeding every old person to the thing, you're getting what? The combined knowledge of thousands of 2nd level commoners?

Well, arcane knowledge aside (and some other good suggestions, such as language), what if the lich could access someone's personal memories for other reasons:

1. Passwords, locations of valuables, secret hideouts, secret passageways into the King's throne room
2. Use someone else's memory of a place or thing for purpose of spellcasting (such as teleport)
3. Use knowledge of stored memories to convince people that s/he is holding the spirits of their loved ones hostage
4. Combining memories to make a very detailed history of an event, a place, a thing, etc.
5. Amusement - "listening" to other people's memories and stories is like a movie or soap opera
6. Keeping someone's special knowledge away from anyone else.
7. Combining the skills of experts like sages, alchemists, etc.

I don't know that the description of the aboleth really allows for this, but it's an interesting idea anyway.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Had a tangent of thought:

Based on AU's Akashic... perhaps it can concentrate 'racial memories'?

Possibly everyone has echos of past stuff floating around in their heads? If you get enough 'echos' about the same subject, then you can get a more detailed view of it. Perhpas the Lich is trying to find things long out of living memory?

 

[Krieg]

---Looks around, eyes getting wide.

"Oh My God"

---stumbles back to low magic grim & gritty home brew, muttering under breath.

 

[Umbran]

1. Passwords, locations of valuables, secret hideouts, secret passageways into the King's throne room

These aren't functions of it having eaten a great many folks over time. These are the results of it having eaten one specific person while that person had knowledge that was tactically useful at the time. This is making the aboleth into a sort of interrogation device.

Personally, if I were a lich, I'd prefer to interrogate using Insanity Mist to drop the subject's will save, cast Detect Thoughts and then say, "Whatever you do, don't think about the location of the rebel's secret base!"

You are a lich. Do you want a free-willed, evil, powerful creature who could eventually turn on you walking (or swimming) around with all your secrets?

Remember that Dominate spells can be defeated with a whole whopping Protection from Evil. I doubt any lich would count on it for the long term. At some critical instant, the darned thing will make a will save, and all heck will break loose.

2. Use someone else's memory of a place or thing for purpose of spellcasting (such as teleport)

Nothing about the aboleth so far suggests that it would allow the lich to do such. And if he's using other magic to manage it, he doesn't need the aboleth.

Uses 3,4,and 5 are decent.

6. Keeping someone's special knowledge away from anyone else.

Killing the person would have much the same effect

7. Combining the skills of experts like sages, alchemists, etc.

Yes. See above. Do you want to keep an evil creture captive with all that knowledge? At what point does the aboleth become more of a danger than a study aid?

I don't know that the description of the aboleth really allows for this, but it's an interesting idea anyway.

I don't know either, as the ability is only described in flavor text. But we haven't given the lich any really grand access to the thing's memory as if it were an extension of it's own. So far, the aboleth is at best a library with a will of it's own. A library that can lie to him...

Now, I might see an aboleth wanting to eat al these people to gain power for itself. This may exactly be the process for becoming an aboleth mage. And a lich might make an alliance with the critter. But we all know how alliances betwen evil beings go...