The Aboleth is a pretty nasty customer in a standard fantasy setting, it turned out that it wasn’t that hard to convert it into a monstrosity that could terrorize the steampunk airship lanes or even space fantasy. It just needed help from its little friends.
The Space Fantasy (or Steampunk) Aboleth has the same stats, but gets three new abilities, Telepathy, Curse of the Aboleth, and Children of the Aboleth, as detailed below.
The Aboleth is a legend, like the Kraken of old, that is used to scare children and newly recruited space crew to keep their eye on their sensor screens. If humanity knew the truth about this bizarre race of intelligence, they would be terrified into never leaving home.
These aberrations soar the depths of space/sky as easily as a whale swims the sea. Yet as the Aboleth hunts large space ships filled with intelligent beings, not plankton. Using its illusionary powers, the creature slips under sensors and attaches itself to the hull of the ship using its lamprey-like mouth. Using subtle telepathy, the monster assess how long the ship will be in space and uses its high Wisdom and Intelligence to plot the next move.
If there is plenty time before the next stop, the Aboleth will be very cunning in its tactics, using illusions and telepathy to slowly manipulate the crew, causing paranoia as well as luring space men out of the air dock and close to it’s cloaked form. If the astronaut comes close enough, the creature will use its Str 26 to rip open the suit and touch the crew member with a tentacle to begin the Special Attack Transformation. From here, the Aboleth starts its true attack.
A failed Fortitude save means the crewman must be moistened with cool fresh water, which may be feat on a space ship for an extended period. Unfortunately, the crew does not have that long to wait.
Within half an hour, a second skin grows over the infected crewman. This skin seals the fluids within the body and even acts like a biological enviroment suit. Ripping the suit, which has a DR of 2/+1, will expose space man to the dry air and possibly inflict 1d12 drying damage on him. The crewman’s life, however, is not his own anymore.
The space man is now a Child of the Aboleth, a minion that lives only to serve its master, which shares a telepathic link the child. The Child will now use its technical knowledge and the creature’s intelligence to slowly take over the ship through technical sabotage and infection, since the Child also possesses the Transformation and Children of Aboleth special abilities.
The creature tries to carry several Children with it, so freshly created Children on a ships crew will try to open air locks to let the monster’s previous infected victims inside to help take over the ship. If the monster doesn’t have much time with a ship before it finds a safe dock, then the Aboleth may just try to release as many Childern as it can and try a boarding maneuver. If it can successfully infect several crewmen or passengers, then it may call them back and then leave the ship to find prey that it can assimilate at its leisure.
The Children of Aboleth have a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with the creature. If given time, the Aboleth tries to create more Children since they are the monster’s eyes, ears and arms upon encountered vessel. Eventually, every Child serves its true purpose, which is to be absorbed as nutrients to the growing monster. The monster’s single-minded goal is to grow until it reaches 24 HD, where it will begin to bud into 3 younger 8 HD aberrations that all have the memories of the parent and its Children.
The Space Fantasy (or Steampunk) Aboleth has the same stats, but gets three new abilities, Telepathy, Curse of the Aboleth, and Children of the Aboleth, as detailed below.
The Aboleth is a legend, like the Kraken of old, that is used to scare children and newly recruited space crew to keep their eye on their sensor screens. If humanity knew the truth about this bizarre race of intelligence, they would be terrified into never leaving home.
These aberrations soar the depths of space/sky as easily as a whale swims the sea. Yet as the Aboleth hunts large space ships filled with intelligent beings, not plankton. Using its illusionary powers, the creature slips under sensors and attaches itself to the hull of the ship using its lamprey-like mouth. Using subtle telepathy, the monster assess how long the ship will be in space and uses its high Wisdom and Intelligence to plot the next move.
If there is plenty time before the next stop, the Aboleth will be very cunning in its tactics, using illusions and telepathy to slowly manipulate the crew, causing paranoia as well as luring space men out of the air dock and close to it’s cloaked form. If the astronaut comes close enough, the creature will use its Str 26 to rip open the suit and touch the crew member with a tentacle to begin the Special Attack Transformation. From here, the Aboleth starts its true attack.
A failed Fortitude save means the crewman must be moistened with cool fresh water, which may be feat on a space ship for an extended period. Unfortunately, the crew does not have that long to wait.
Within half an hour, a second skin grows over the infected crewman. This skin seals the fluids within the body and even acts like a biological enviroment suit. Ripping the suit, which has a DR of 2/+1, will expose space man to the dry air and possibly inflict 1d12 drying damage on him. The crewman’s life, however, is not his own anymore.
The space man is now a Child of the Aboleth, a minion that lives only to serve its master, which shares a telepathic link the child. The Child will now use its technical knowledge and the creature’s intelligence to slowly take over the ship through technical sabotage and infection, since the Child also possesses the Transformation and Children of Aboleth special abilities.
The creature tries to carry several Children with it, so freshly created Children on a ships crew will try to open air locks to let the monster’s previous infected victims inside to help take over the ship. If the monster doesn’t have much time with a ship before it finds a safe dock, then the Aboleth may just try to release as many Childern as it can and try a boarding maneuver. If it can successfully infect several crewmen or passengers, then it may call them back and then leave the ship to find prey that it can assimilate at its leisure.
The Children of Aboleth have a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with the creature. If given time, the Aboleth tries to create more Children since they are the monster’s eyes, ears and arms upon encountered vessel. Eventually, every Child serves its true purpose, which is to be absorbed as nutrients to the growing monster. The monster’s single-minded goal is to grow until it reaches 24 HD, where it will begin to bud into 3 younger 8 HD aberrations that all have the memories of the parent and its Children.
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