Aberrations- Help Me Use 'Em

[Rechan]

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.

This is a good point. Also, "What do you want to accomplish with the story?"

I don't want to get artsy fartsy, but aberrations are just a tool you can use to illustrate a story with a theme. For instance, "Aliens" is a good example of skittery, sneaky, creepy, monster-burst-out-of-your-chest scary. But "The Mist", while it has crazy scary monsters in it, is about human nature when the pressure is on. "The Thing" or "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is about paranoia, "Who's one of THEM and who's one of US?", with a survival component.

 

[Stormtalon]

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.

*ahem*
YOINK!!

Now that that's out of the way, there's lots of good ideas in here for sure. Heck, watch "Killer Klowns From Outer Space," even -- those things are almost the epitome of aberrations, and they've got an agenda for sure.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

You mentioning The Mist reminds me of a side-quest/event in one campaign I played in. It was essentially a fantasy version of The Mist, a powerful in-the-open cult had opened up a gate to a Far Realm type dimension and out powered all these aberrations and of course the mist.

It was fun for the DM to go crazy with NPCs, we ranged from having in the beginning the NPCs turning to the cultist with them to lead them. Then they accused them (accurately of course), then decided that the gods that they had turned away from had cursed them.

Even had inner-party turmoil. I very much was against going out and taking on whatever lay out there (one difference being that the idea of monsters in the mist is far from unbelievable) while other players were more gunho.

Though our ending was more action-packed, we went parkour style jumping from rooftop to rooftop to stay above the mist while avoiding any aberrations. In the end we found out the majority of the town that had seeked shelter in the catacombs had committed ritual suicide.

 

[Rechan]

Another monster that is so easy to reflavor as an aberration: the Pod Demon from MM2.

*ahem*
YOINK!!

Heh.
[sblock]I've used that trick twice now. Once as a ward/guardian magical effect. The other time... The PCs were walking through demon-infested colony and were feeling rather cocky; I wanted to shock them back to reality. I had them make fort saves; the people who failed puked.

For the rest of the session, I would have PCs make fort checks, or say, "Your stomach feels ill", but never follow up with the evil vomit.

I think it would also work great if they are just exposed to some sort of energy. Like a meteor strike, or an artifact, and if they've been in the area too long, just hit them with it.[/sblock]
This reminds me. When you plan on throwing aberrations, it's also a good idea to just throw weird stuff that has no relation to them whatsoever, but just is odd. For instance, a fleshy membrane over a door/walls. Slime that bubbles up from the ground. Empty cocoons/fleshy pods. Etc. Don't explain it.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

This reminds me. When you plan on throwing aberrations, it's also a good idea to just throw weird stuff that has no relation to them whatsoever, but just is odd. For instance, a fleshy membrane over a door/walls. Slime that bubbles up from the ground. Empty cocoons/fleshy pods. Etc. Don't explain it.

ESPECIALLY if the aberrations are being more subtle in whatever they are doing. It draws the focus of the players away from it, so you can play with them more and such without having an instant, "I KNOW!" scenario.

My campaign setting with the covering over the sky is used a lot in this regard. The PCs have no clue what it is, nor probably will ever but it is always there and can draw their attention while I sneak in something. Even if the aberrations are behind the oddness, if the players/PCs don't know this, they need not.

 

[Nifft]

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.

In my previous setting, gricks were larval grell.

Gricks didn't develop intelligence, though: they gained sentience by eating humanoid brains. Each grick gains a portion of the experiences & memories of its victims; a grell may know secrets long lost to mortal races.

Cheers, -- N

 

[AngryMojo]

If you can find it, the 3.5 book Lords of Madness really helped flesh out aberrations. I remember reading the mind flayer chapter in-depth, and it really helped me with my illithid encounters.

For example: Illithids in and of themselves have a completely alien mindframe. While the basic goals may seem similar to any other villain (slaves, power, rule the world, etc.) their means and motivations are completely different. Mind flayers feel no positive emotions whatsoever, to the extent of not even understanding what positive emotions are. Happiness means nothing to them, because they have no understanding of it. Imagine this cold, clinical approach to a race that lives off human brains, and you'll have some truly frightening experiences.

It's been mentioned that you can alter something PC's take for granted, like floors being underneath you, or dungeons being mostly on a level field. I like playing around with writing. When creatures are so odd and obscure, their written language is likely to be undescernable as such. Going on with the mind flayer example, you can throw in a scenario where the PC's need some arcane lore to continue a campaign, and it happens that the only holders of that knowledge are mind flayers. And suddenly, those odd crystalline formations on the wall are actually mind flayer writings. One room where some thralls were kept just has some odd way of treating humanoids, like having them face the ceiling for several hours a day. If a mind flayer is questioned, he alludes that crystal is like a cookbook.

Aberrant is more of a descriptor for tone and mood than mechanics. Many people have referenced Lovecraft, read some of his stuff for inspiration. Barnes and Noble has a large hardback of his complete works for under $20. I'd call it a must-have for any gamer's library.

 

[Kinneus]

Thanks for all the advice, everybody. Especially Rechan and Fallen Seraph. I think I'm starting to get them, now.

 

[Rechan]

For example: Illithids in and of themselves have a completely alien mindframe. While the basic goals may seem similar to any other villain (slaves, power, rule the world, etc.) their means and motivations are completely different. Mind flayers feel no positive emotions whatsoever, to the extent of not even understanding what positive emotions are. Happiness means nothing to them, because they have no understanding of it. Imagine this cold, clinical approach to a race that lives off human brains, and you'll have some truly frightening experiences.

This reminds me of something that I now want to put out.

I shall now provide tons of spoilers to the movie "The Forgotten" to make my point.
[sblock]The movie "The Forgotten" is about a mother who is told she "created" 8 years of memories of her son. It embarks her on a journey to find the truth when she discovers someone else suffering the same situation.

What's really going on: aliens are running a test. They are observing the bond between a mother and her child. Because they are trying to understand love. To paraphrase one of the aliens: we can observe it, measure it, quantify it, but we don't know how or what it is.

Now, instead of aliens, replace Illithids, or Aboleth. Instead of "Love between mother and child", replace something else entirely. A whole adventure where the PCs are guinnea pigs inside a mental rat maze, for the illithid's understanding.

You really want to throw the PCs for a loop? At the end of an adventure, where they clearly destroy some illithid or something of that nature, at the beginning of next session, hand them new identities. They share similarities with their existing characters. Tell the PCs "Play this straight up." Now, insert dreams or flashes of the characters in a tank with something stuck to their scalp, over their chest, or glimpses of purple faced, white eyes peering down at them. Have it slowly wind down where the PCs "get" that something is amiss - they're not who they are, something like that, they destroy some sort of artifact - and they all simultaneously wake up inside pods with things attached to their scalps, inside the Illithid Mind Lab.[/sblock]

Something else I've been pondering recently: aberrations as bio-technology. Recently I was watching the first season of Babylon 5. In an episode, they discover bio-tech. Imagine a "sensor" created by recreating the tissue of several different species' sensory organs and programming that to give you data of some fashion. Or creating a data storage unit by replicating the neural pathways of the brain. Along with this was, naturally, a biological superweapon - it grafted itself onto a target, overrode him, and started growing armor and an organic energy weapon.

I could see this being reproduced with experimentation on aberrations.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I like the idea of aberrations as colonisers. They seek to "terraform" new worlds into something more suitable for them but with enough of the original world remaining for them to be able to grow their flocks and herds of humans, elves etc....

Basically, alien, psychotic gardeners.