Beneath the ink-black veil of the night sky, the old pier jutted out like a boney finger into the roiling depths of Hopewell Point Bay. Its timbers, weathered and warped by ages of relentless tides, creaked mournfully with each step. Few dared to tread its decaying planks, whispers of its sinister reputation echoed through Hopewell Point like a chilling winter wind. Tales spoke of lost souls drawn to its edge by an irresistible force, only to vanish without a trace, swallowed by the murky depths below.
The moon cast an sickly pale light on the water, shadows danced in a macabre ballet beneath the pier's rotting beams. Strange, otherworldly shapes slithered in the darkness, their forms twisting and contorting in ways that defied reason. Some said the bay itself was a gateway to realms beyond mortal comprehension, where ancient, eldritch entities lay dormant, awaiting the chance to reclaim what was once theirs. The night wore on, the whispers grew louder, the air thick with a palpable sense of dread.
Those who gazed upon the pier from afar could feel its malevolent presence, like a festering wound upon the earth's surface. They knew, deep down, that to venture too close was to court madness and despair. And so, as the stars faded into oblivion and the first light of dawn pierced the horizon, the pier stood silent once more, a silent sentinel guarding secrets best left undisturbed in the depths of the abyssal bay.
Overview
Are you looking for a Eldritch1 boss monster for the conclusion of your First Act?
Are you wanting armies of thralls, comprised of various linages, to throw at your players?
Do you want to use the official Lore Bard Homebrew Kuo-toa Monitor stat block in your next campaign?
Then do I have the monster for you!
The Aboleth is a fantastic monster to bring to your table if you want to have some Cosmic Horror tied into your campaign as well as Gothic and Folk Horror2, which can be used to create longer lasting effects on your players or even give them unique custom Feats that relate to the Astral Sea. However, let’s discuss the important notes of the Aboleth’s fluff text.
The most important, in my opinion, piece of fluff is that the Aboleth’s existed and ruled over the Mortal realms before the gods existed3; once the gods arrived on the scene they were kicked to the curb like yesterdays trash. The Aboleth’s have never forgotten the gods destroying their empires and stripping them of their power, and they will never forgive that. This is partially due to the fact that an Aboleth never truly dies, upon their death the spirit is returned to the Elemental Plane of Water where their new body coalesces over a period of time. I love, LOVE, monsters that never truly die; because now, you have an enemy that can come back stronger and more angry at the Adventurers, and will remember details about them and use their minions to torment the Adventurers.
Expanding on the idea that they never forget, this brings me to the next important piece. The phrase “an elephant never forgets” is extremely relevant here as Aboleths will not forget across generations. This extends past grievances, an Aboleth’s mind is a vast repository of shared knowledge from a lifetime of lifetimes, and it is a perfect genetic memory. This leads to them being patient and meticulous planners that rivals the current gods. They also have the ability to consume a creature and learning its experiences and knowledge —which gives me plenty of nefarious ideas— or they will probe a creatures mind with it’s telepathic abilities to lean the creatures secrets. This telepathic connection is stranger than just a data transfer, while it is in it’s lair the Aboleth can override an enthralled creatures senses granting them an illusion of whatever the Aboleth had promised.
Finally, we should note that the Aboleth is an aquatic creature. Sucks if you are running a desert campaign, but great if you are running a pirate campaign. This, however, will make it difficult for your players to easily access the Aboleth’s lair and may require them to go on smaller adventures to gather items, allies, and spells to face the Aboleth.
Stats
Ok, there is quite a bit to cover with the Aboleth, it may be the largest stat block I have broken down so far, so let see what our beastie can do.
The Aboleth has a High armor class and slightly below average Hit Points, they are slow on land but speedy in the water. Unless your party has swim speeds or a spell4 that allows them to better move in water, the Aboleth will be swimming circles around them.
Having high Con, Int, and Wis saves will make the Aboleth save fairly often against most saving throw spells5. Additionally with a Passive Perception of 20 means most players will have a difficult time sneaking up on it, unless magically enhanced.
Jumping down to the abilities, Amphibious won’t make too much of a difference, but it will allow for more Roleplaying. Now your Aboleth can be on land for extended periods of time to further their plans.
The Mucus Cloud will be a great ability to use if the Aboleth is outside of their lair and is at less than half health. The fallout of the ability is minorly inconvenient for the players that fail, for up to 4 hours they can only breathe underwater. While this isn’t fatal, it can be annoying if one of the players needs something specific after the combat that they can only get from the surface.
Much like Amphibious, Probing Telepathy has no mechanical benefit, but will provide the opportunity for Roleplaying in and out of combat.
In the actions we have two attacks and a thrice-per-day ability, additionally the Multiattack only covers one of the attacks, so if you choose to make a Tail attack, you will only get one attack.
The Tentacle attack is a whole ass game mechanic within itself. Beyond the basic 2d6+5 bludgeoning damage you will be dealing with your +9 to hit, there is a delayed effect Disease that can prove to be fairly dangerous. For starters the creature (your player) will have to make a DC14 Constitution saving throw or be diseased. Initially this disease does nothing, a 1 minute6 timer starts; once that timer is up the affected creature gains a sickly appearance as their skin becomes slimy and translucent. The actual effects of the Disease are that the creature cannot heal lost Hit Points outside of water, and takes 1d12 acid damage every 10 minutes they spend, unmoisturized, outside of water. This can only be removed if the creature is the target is the Heal spell or a disease-curing spell of 6th level or higher.
Now the caveat of 6th level or higher means that there are exactly five7 spells8 your players can use to relieve this; however, Mass Heal and True Resurrection are both 9th level spells and this becomes a non-issue by the time players are that level. That leaves us with: Heal, Heroes’ Feast, and Lesser Restoration. That last spell, Lesser Restoration, is what is most-likely going to be used, since it is the one that will be more readily available for in combat use, especially with the removal of Conditions. Heroes’ Feast requires 10 minutes to cast, and Heal is too valuable with its 70 Hit Point refresh, let’s face it 70 Hit Points is greater than removing a disease on a player, at least from a player perspective. If the Aboleth’s Lair is underwater then the party can heal up underwater and “keep on keepin on” towards the final fight, if they aren’t there yet. Now Heal may be used if the fight requires it, but since Heal one targets one player your party may not prioritize the disease.The Tail attack is arguably better when it comes to damage output, but the limitation of one attack per attack action makes it relegated to the go to Reaction attack, an Attack of Opportunity I feel is where this attack is best used. I would actually recommend using the Tail attack exclusively as a Reaction ability, triggered by being hit for 15 or more damage from a melee attack.
Next we have Enslave, If you use this against a player I will personally come to your table and take your DM screen away from you. Seriously, never use this against a player outside of some extremely specific instances.9 Use this ability against, allied NPCs or some rival Adventurer, if you do the latter mid-fight you can make a very creepy situation. Yes, there is the “reroll the save if the effected creature takes damage”, but the likely hood of removing a Player Character from the table is too high for this to be used against your players, especially if they are your friends. Seriously, just don’t.
Then we have the Aboleth’s Legendary Actions. There isn’t a Move action, but that’s alright it usually doesn’t matter much. Now, the Detect action is interesting, if the Player’s go invisible they aren’t guaranteed to stay invisible. The Tail attack reappears here, and it fits for a Legendary Action, as well as a Reaction as I noted earlier. Finally we have Psychic Drain, all those thralls that the Aboleth have milling about now become Hit Point batteries. When you use this the players will panic plan to split attacks against the Aboleth and attacks against the thralls, or the casters start using their AoE and Multi-Target spells exclusively on the thralls while the Martials focus on the Aboleth.
I’m not going to breakdown the Lair Actions and Regional Effects, this post is already long enough10, but I will say that I personally feel that the most useful Lair Action would be the Psychic attack, its low enough damage to not effect players too terribly and few characters will have resistance to Psychic damage so the the Player’s at the table will flinch and gawk at the hit.
Combat Example
The Aboleth is a pure Boss monster, the abilities and fluff text tell us that these beasties are servant’s to no one. With that, our combat example will be a boss fight in it’s Lair. The combat example will include 1 Aboleth and 24 thralls, 4 using the Bandit stat block and 20 using the Commoner stat block, against 4 twelfth level Adventurers.
The time had come, our Adventurers have battled through cults and conspiracy to find their way to the heart of their rival Phen’thandantul the Master of Tides. Diving to the depths of the harbor off of Hopewell Point, swimming into the the maw of danger itself, our Adventurers needs more than their wits and luck to survive.
Feel free to monologue here, be bold, be arrogant, be obnoxious. An Aboleth sees themself as an actual god, and they the right to say it. Let the voice resonate around the players as they enter the lair, well before they come face to face with the Aboleth, speak to them individually by name, call upon their weaknesses and backstories, let the Aboleth know them as well as they know themselves.
The Aboleth will not fight the directly at first, make some of the thralls —the ones with the Bandit stats, fight the players first. The players will, inevitably, burn through a valuable resource or two trying to take out the thralls. Let the first Lair action taken by the Aboleth be the Phantasmal Force and generate the illusion of more thralls for the Adventurers to fight. As a reminder, if a creature fails against Phantasmal Force, their mind WILL rationalize their interactions with the illusion, so if they swing their weapon or cast a spell at an illusion, their mind will fill in the gaps to why the blade or spell didn’t hit. This will allow you to prolong the fight and put stopgaps between the players and the Aboleth, and really that’s exactly what you want. Additionally you want the illusions to be in-line with the Adventurers Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws11, you want them to question themselves and their surroundings.
Finally on the Aboleths first turn, simply keep a distance between it and the Aventurers. You should only engage with the Adventurers if they force your hand, attempt to keep at least 15 feet away from the closest Martial player and try to break sightlines with Casters; If you can, using 3D underwater combat, use pits and alleys to break line of sight and pull Adventurers into ambushes. Once the Aboleth falls below 90 Hit Points is when you are going to want to start using the Psychic Drain legendary action, typically I would use this just before the end of the round of combat or right before the Lair action, whichever is more convenient for your encounter.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, use the Aboleth. It is an underused and underloved creature that sits right towards the front of the Monster Manual, being over looked for more classic monsters like Dragons or Liches. It allows you to lean into the cosmic horror that everybody secretly loves, even if they deny that they do. Just don’t Enslave your players characters, I will find out if you do…12
We do not use the “Lovecraftian” adjective here, because:
1. He was a terrible Xenophobe
2. Eldritch sounds creepier
3. Eldritch is already in DnD, thank you Eldritch Blast
We enjoy a sprinkling of Horror in our games here at Casa del Lore Bard
Brief reminder, this is specifically for the Forgotten Realms, your homebrew world and mine do not have to follow this, but it is a great source for plot.
The spells Freedom of Movement and Alter Self will allow this to happen easily.
Fun Fact: about 55% of spells that require a saving throw are either Con, Int, or Wis.
10 individual turns or 10 full rounds
There are seven, sort of, but Raise Dead and Resurrection requires to the target to be dead, which is a far greater issue than the disease.
In the Player’s Handbook at least. I forget if
Literally, only if the player is in on it, or if the Character is like a Doppelganger, or some other mischievous shapeshifter that the rest of the party is unaware of.
Adding a footnote here just to make it a smidge longer
Seriously, use these more against your players, make it something your players remember.
This is a joke…or is it?