Aberrations- Help Me Use 'Em

[Kinneus]

I'm starting to really dig aberrations, and I want to use more of them. Maybe even have a solid campaign built around them as the 'ultimate evil'. I love the whole Lovecraftian angle of the Far Realms, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to use these creatures. They seem to primarily come in two flavors:

1. Stupid and animal-like, such as the grick and the balhannoth. These just seem like hungry animals. The only thing that really differentiates them from a wolf or bulette are the tentacles.

2. The beholder, aboleths and the mind flayers. These seem too civilized, too 'in-the-world'. They seem to have understandable motives including gaining power, slaves or wealth (or, in the mind flayer's case, brainz).

I guess what I'm looking for is more stuff like the Fell Taint or the Star Spawn from MM2. Beings who are clearly 'alien', and have clearly alien motives. A big scary monster that wants to eat you and a race of schemers that want to enslave you don't seem quite terrifying enough for the Far Realm.

How would you use aberrations for a 4e campaign? How would it progress, who would the rank-and-file soldiers be? How would you strike a balance between the stupid, hungry animals and the drow-like schemers? How would you make them seem suitably alien?

 

[Rechan]

Illithids/Beholders/Aboleths as a race certainly can be looking to enslave/gain wealth, but individuals and individual groups can have their own plots.

Consider wanting to be worshiped. Wanting more power. Or that one of the aberrations gets it in their head that they have insight into one of the Entities Beyond, and therefore are carrying out its wishes. Experimenting to create new entities. The aberrations could be all about "Making more of myself". Or opening a bigger hole in the Far Realms, to let more things cross over.

Eberron is a good example of the above; in Eberron, there are 6 epic level entities known as the Daelkyr, who are from the Plane of Madness; they came to Eberron, tried to take it over, and in the process mutated/created monsters to act as their soldiers. They are clearly insane, and molded entities in their representations of Art. They are locked away, and the Aberrations in Eberron are working to free them. Humans will worship the aberrations in cults, etc.

Dungeon had a 3 part arc that involved the Kaorti; a group of Ioun priests who meddled with Knowledge they Should Not, got sucked into the Far Realms (and trapped), and manipulate someone to get them out. They need an artifact, which has bene tainted by the far realms; it goes off, mutates people, etc etc.

Don't forget about the Foulspawn, which are "Humanoids that got zapped by the far realms". The Far Realms bleeding over into the real world can result into a lot of freaky stuff. Grell are also intelligent (Int 10 and 16, respectively).

 

[Rechan]

1. Stupid and animal-like, such as the grick and the balhannoth. These just seem like hungry animals. The only thing that really differentiates them from a wolf or bulette are the tentacles.

2. The beholder, aboleths and the mind flayers. These seem too civilized, too 'in-the-world'. They seem to have understandable motives including gaining power, slaves or wealth (or, in the mind flayer's case, brainz).

A lot, a lot of non-aberrations fit into these categories.

1. Ankhegs, owlbears, basilisks, insects/spiders, low level undead, manticores, wyverns, oozes of all kinds.

2. Lich, Rakshasa, Slaad, Fomorians, Hags, Dragons, Oni, Vampires, the list goes on.

My question to you is: how do you use the above? The same can be said for aberrations.

Another thing to consider is that Aberrations always seem to have the tentacles because D&D has turned everything else that would be considered aberrant into other categories. Like oozes. A fleshy, giant amoeba would be pretty dang aberrant, but it's a different category and pretty common, so when you want "Alien" feeling, you got to reach for the tentacle.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I really like emphasizing the concept that Aberrations are from the space between spaces, from realms where dimensions intermingle, etc. Their influence in our world is one that draws the madness of theirs into our own. Essentially they are a world level and madness inflicting disease.

Generally speaking I like having their actual intentions being hidden and unknown. There may be visible signs of it (in one campaign setting of mine the whole sky has become a endless darkness with tendrils that wipe clean all it touches). But no one knows that it is caused by aberrations, nor that aberrations walk amongst them. Less intelligent aberrations can be a sign of this as well simply a side-symptom of this change. But once more since without research, intelligence and investigations the PCs (NPCs) can't tie it back to their source.

Their actual means of causing the change can be done in whatever means you feel is alien. In the above campaign the aberrations have made deals with various Mega-Cabals (think like Cyberpunk companies) and are allowing them access to aberration knowledge knowing the more people grow to accept this other world the easier the madness will spread. Also have a hand in the workings of the PCs, as they hunt down the plot behind the aberrations by piecing it together it actually makes it into a reality.

 

[Mouseferatu]

One of the best ways to make effective use of aberrations is simply not to have their actual motives play into the story at all. Let the PCs wonder why they did what they did.

If you'll forgive a touch of personal horn-tooting... I wrote a Lovecraft/"Shadow Over Innsmouth"-inspired adventure for Dungeon called "The Last Breaths of Ashenport." (I think both the 3E and 4E versions are still available in the free sample issues of Dungeon, if you're not a DDI subscriber.) In that particular adventure, I used Dagon's worshipers and servants as the villains, so it's more demonic than Far Realms, but I think the atmosphere and the techniques would carry over just fine. You might find something helpful in there.

 

[Kinneus]

A lot, a lot of non-aberrations fit into these categories.

1. Ankhegs, owlbears, basilisks, insects/spiders, low level undead, manticores, wyverns, oozes of all kinds.

2. Lich, Rakshasa, Slaad, Fomorians, Hags, Dragons, Oni, Vampires, the list goes on.

My question to you is: how do you use the above? The same can be said for aberrations.

My question isn't so much 'how can I use them' as it is, 'how can I use them and make them feel different from ankhegs, owlbears, basilisks, lich, rakshasa, etc.'
Slaad are a good example, actually. I almost kind of wish slaad were aberrations. They have that alien, otherworld feeling, they have that madness and depravity feeling, they have utterly inscrutable motives.
Huh. I might just re-skin them as abberations. Thanks for the idea!
Fallen Seraph's advice is more what I have in mind. I like having their motives be mysterious and terrifying. With a vampire, you know they want A) blood and B) possibly something else, like power or to serve an evil god. With a lich, you know they want A) more arcane power, and maybe some B-motives. With a owlbear, you know they want A) to eat you or B) to be left alone.
I want players, when confronted with an abberration, to have no idea what it wants, what it'll do, or how to explain its actions. My problem is that currently, the 'big' abberration types are far too predictable. Mind flayers want A) brains and B) more psychic power, to become an elder brain, etc. Aboleth want slaves. Gricks just want to eat.
What's a good example of a truly 'alien' aberration, with truly 'alien' motives? And how would you use it in a campaign?

 

[Rechan]

As far as "Making them seem alien"? Well, a lot of things in D&D should feel alien. The motivations of the Fey. The mindset of dragons. The schemes of a lich. The mechanization of a god. But when it comes down to it, it's very hard to pull off "A mere mortal/human cannot understand/fathom it", when obviously we can since a human came up with the idea and humans are playing in the game with it.

The way to make something feel really alien:
1) Give it a different mindset. It simply lacks something that we take for granted - morals, universal concepts like love/greed/honor, acknowledgment of sentience or souls, good or evil, etc. And unlike many popular culture robots/AI/aliens, the entity doesn't care that it lacks this understanding.

2) The Unknown. Leaving some things simply Unexplained can really make you feel off and disturbed and unsure.

3) Different physiology/architecture. An Escher painting is a good example. A beholder's lair, for instance, is completely 3D because it can fly - so you can have tunnels that are in the ceiling going between different levels, or ones slanted at a 70 degree angle. Or organic walls, with doors that are orifices. A room filled with slime that can be breathed. Make it gross and organic, and it will feel weird.

4) Random chaoticness. This sort of plays back to #2. It doesn't make sense because it's not meant to - for instance, a cult collecting bent pennies or all left-handed tools. A mist that just does something different to each person it encounters. This also applies to something like physics - when something reacts in a way that you don't expect it to, when it should? That's alien.

5) The threat of conversion. It's one thing to be enslaved or eaten by the monster. But imagine being transformed into that monster. Or being made into Something Else. Entities exposed to aboleth slime become amphibian, with a jelly-like skin. Illithids implant tadpoles into the brain of humanoids; that's how they breed. Parasitic creatures that take over the host, or use the host as an incubator ("Aliens" xenomorphs, Slaad).

 

[Rechan]

I want players, when confronted with an abberration, to have no idea what it wants, what it'll do, or how to explain its actions. Instead, mind flayers want A) brains and B) more psychic power, to become an elder brain, etc. Aboleth want slaves. Gricks just want to eat.
What's a good example of a truly 'alien' aberration, with truly 'alien' motives? And how would you use it in a campaign?

Part of the problem is that your players all ready know the monsters. Why do they know what illithids or aboleth want when they meet them? Because they're established. If your players had never heard of an illithid, they'd not know.

Besides, just because it's knowable doesn't make it any less alien. Almost any species, for instance, has the drive: food, reproduction. That doesn't make Xenomorphs from aliens any less freaking scary. Or the entity from the movie "The Thing".

Many "alien" entities' purpose is to just propagate and expand. Consider "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "The Faculty", "Slither" or any other "conversion/enslavement" movie with mind-controlling parasites.

Or hell, Cthulu's whole shtick is that when he wakes up he'll eat the universe. That's pretty easily understood.

Another thing is that if you make your whole campaign about encountering the weird, alien, exotic, unknowable... the players are soon going to be not surprised by the 24th "alien, unknowable thing". It's becoming common to throw alien things at them.

 

[Rechan]

But, to just answer your question: how to make them feel different?

You don't even have to change the monster at all. All you have to do is toss in something from the list I posted above. For instance:

The characters vomit. They begin to puke up a chunky slime. Gallons of it. As if there was no end to it. And when they finally stop, and pick themselves back up, the vomit attacks them. In this situation, any ooze works. And they will have no clue where that came from.

You can't think of a good use for Gricks? Pair them with Foulspawn. Now, the gricks are hunting dogs. Alternatively, maybe they're a larval form of Carrion crawlers, or some other aberrant beast - they're mindless, yes, but that's only because they're too young.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

To build off what Rechan is talking of, I find it best not to think of Aberrations on a monster by monster basis. I find it vastly better to think of them on a atmosphere, story based side. Think about, which aberration (either wholesale or refluffed) best fits the atmosphere at that moment in time, so don't go, "okay how do I fit a Illithid in", go okay, "I want a feeling of isolation and paranoia which aberration fits that".