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Aboleth entry in 5e Monster Manual
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6402080" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>I think I like the new bit of lore, and I am <em>not</em> going to make sense of this, because that's pretty much how nearly every sci-fi TV series gets spoiled. I'd rather enjoy seeing players like you torture themselves into trying to make sense of it, when there is no sense to make. And you know what? You <em>think</em> that by ignoring this bit of lore in your games will make the aboleth "problem" disappear, but it won't. It will always come back to haunt you... perhaps from the plane of water <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I thought the same about a similarity with fiends not being truly dead unless killed on their home plane.</p><p></p><p>But the whole "extraplanar" thing was silly in 3e, i.e trying to shoehorn every monster carrying that label into functioning the same way. Especially since the same label was used for characters entering some sort of transformation at high level (e.g. some prestige classes) and for the temporary effects of spells. The reborn/reincarnate concept is essentially a narrative concept, and handling it with mechanical labels is the really silly thing.</p><p></p><p>I agree that the plane of water is not a brilliant <em>narrative </em>choice. This is my own guess/interpretation of the choice: </p><p></p><p>- they just didn't want the aboleths to reappear in the same place, and probably also thought that they needed a "special" place rather than reappearing at random in the material plane, therefore they had to pick another plane in the multiverse</p><p>- they could have picked abyss or hell, but perhaps they thought "oh, not again, let's think of something different"</p><p>- I am sure they considered the far realm, I don't know if maybe they thought it's not common enough (while OTOH almost every fantasy setting has elemental planes) or "too far" for the aboleth to come back</p><p></p><p>Actually I don't know if the MM says specifically where are the aboleths from... are they from the far realm, from the material plane, from somewhere else, or we just don't know?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Is this what the MM say about them, or is it just your own twist? This is totally fine, but I thought that their memory was not collective, just that each aboleth has perfect memory of itself + inherited memories from parent(s) + acquired memories from eaten victims.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Does it really say "reincarnate"? If this is the word used, then it's a poor choice, because by the concept they clearly just come back as aboleths, and "reincarnate" creates confusion with the spell, which is obviously not what happens to them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6402080, member: 1465"] I think I like the new bit of lore, and I am [I]not[/I] going to make sense of this, because that's pretty much how nearly every sci-fi TV series gets spoiled. I'd rather enjoy seeing players like you torture themselves into trying to make sense of it, when there is no sense to make. And you know what? You [I]think[/I] that by ignoring this bit of lore in your games will make the aboleth "problem" disappear, but it won't. It will always come back to haunt you... perhaps from the plane of water ;) ;) I thought the same about a similarity with fiends not being truly dead unless killed on their home plane. But the whole "extraplanar" thing was silly in 3e, i.e trying to shoehorn every monster carrying that label into functioning the same way. Especially since the same label was used for characters entering some sort of transformation at high level (e.g. some prestige classes) and for the temporary effects of spells. The reborn/reincarnate concept is essentially a narrative concept, and handling it with mechanical labels is the really silly thing. I agree that the plane of water is not a brilliant [I]narrative [/I]choice. This is my own guess/interpretation of the choice: - they just didn't want the aboleths to reappear in the same place, and probably also thought that they needed a "special" place rather than reappearing at random in the material plane, therefore they had to pick another plane in the multiverse - they could have picked abyss or hell, but perhaps they thought "oh, not again, let's think of something different" - I am sure they considered the far realm, I don't know if maybe they thought it's not common enough (while OTOH almost every fantasy setting has elemental planes) or "too far" for the aboleth to come back Actually I don't know if the MM says specifically where are the aboleths from... are they from the far realm, from the material plane, from somewhere else, or we just don't know? Is this what the MM say about them, or is it just your own twist? This is totally fine, but I thought that their memory was not collective, just that each aboleth has perfect memory of itself + inherited memories from parent(s) + acquired memories from eaten victims. Does it really say "reincarnate"? If this is the word used, then it's a poor choice, because by the concept they clearly just come back as aboleths, and "reincarnate" creates confusion with the spell, which is obviously not what happens to them. [/QUOTE]
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Aboleth entry in 5e Monster Manual
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