Aboleths Lore
From HGWiki
Journal
This battered journal has been down here for years, judging by the looks of it. The entries are undated, and appear to be the work of an unhinged mind, at best. The owner of this book was apparently on a quest to find his sister, taken by aboleths as a slave. The only rational-appearing entries are the first few:
"I've located a portal to the Far Realm, deep underwater, where I expected the aboleth city to be. It seems the lords of madness have relocated to the realm of madness. Now, to find a way to open it and reach Rachel.
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I consulted with the Sage, who claimed to have no knowlege of the Far Realm. I did find a book in his library on it, and 'borrowed it' to make a copy. I doubt he'll miss it in the meantime, he was preoccupied with some business about a crown.
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According to the book, there is no water in the Far Realm. Strange, the aboleths must've found a way to take it with them, for they can't survive long without.
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Stuck in my quest for information about the Far Realm, I sought out those who might know more. A sage in Waterdeep directed me to a paladin of the Topaz Order. They are apparently an order dedicated to the defense of humanity against the mind-poisoning powers of aberrations like the aboleths. I am to seek out one Halvar Marth for more information. Surely they will help me!
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Halvar was most welcoming until he found out that I was looking for a way to open the portal to the Far Realms. He insisted that the risk to humanity was far too great. I will have to make other arrangements, it seems.
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Someone approached me today, an agent for someone named Ulrexis. He'd heard of my quest, and is willing to help - and for free! Apparently he is a sage, interested in studying the Far Realm, and knows how to open the portal, if I but show it to him.
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I met Ulrexis today. He is very reclusive, and refuses to shed any of his robes, dispite the heat. Apparently he suffered some horribly disfiguring calamity as a youth. There's an odd smell about him as well, sort of musty and dank. Damned sage is probably rotting away, hidden away from the sun all the time.
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Ulrexis seems as driven as I to reach the portal. It seems he has some sort of magical enchantment that spares him the need for sleep - and he resents the precious little time I spend sleeping greatly, insisting that we press on."
The next few pages are fragile, and cruble to the touch. Everything after seems to be the babbling of a lost mind.
The Aboleths are an ancient race of aberrations. Some believe they are trying to return the Elder Evils to the Prime Material Plane. Other believe the Elder Evils are attempting to negotiate with the Aboleths ...
Eldest
Aboleths are characterized by their ancient nature. They remember the rise and fall of countless nations, the foundation of the first religions, the formation of mountain ranges, and the creation of the seas themselves. They have had more time to build their empires than any other race; these empires rise and fall on a geologic scale through the eons. They are primal forces, unknowable to anything but their own kind.
There can be no accounting of the history of the aboleth race. The creatures have existed for millions of years, and any chronicle of their history with even a small level of detail would require a tome thousands of pages in length. Still, despite its age, the aboleth race follows certain inexorable trends, just as the life and death of mountains and oceans follows a cyclic path.
To understand the source of the aboleth race, one must first realize that other entities existed long before even the aboleths themselves. Their goals and desires were alien and unknowable to humankind. Yet they did exist, in the spaces between reality and possibility. Modern sages theorize that these creatures might be the primal source of the dimension known as the Far Realm, while others argue that their presence only enabled the existence of this dimension, and that the Far Realm is but one of a myriad of their workings. Sages refer to these beings collectively as the Elder Evils.
One of the Elder Evils was the source of the aboleth race. The aboleths know this entity by the name Piscaethces, which roughly translates as "Blood Queen", for it is from her blood that the first, primal aboleth was spawned. Piscaethces has since retreated from the physical world, and although insane cultists periodically attempt to call the Blood Queen back, she never stays for long. Her interests lie beyond this dimension. The aboleths themselves understand this, and they know that the Blood Queen didn't spawn them out of scientific curiosity or a need for companionship. At best, the foundation of their race was a cosmic accident that came about merely as a by-product of the interaction between the Blood Queen's body and the material world. Yet this concept does not trouble the aboleth; if anything, it has liberated them. If their progenitor is uncaring and unfeeling to them, they are free to make their own progress through existence without fear of reprisal or desire to please. What the aboleth race has done and continues to do, it does for itself.
Since their inception, aboleths have founded countless empires in the watery reaches of the world. Their first empire remains their longest-lived and most expansive. Built when the world iself was a barren rock of boiling seas and choking skies, this empire spanned the globe. With the world already under their control, the aboleths turned their intellects to other pursuits, primarily the creation of minions to perform the dreary, day-to-day tasks of keeping their empire running. They experimented with countless forms of life, including constructs, oozes, elementals, vermin, and eventually more complex creatures like animals, magical beasts, and even humanoids. The world of the primal empire was a place of eternal night, truly vast oceanic gulfs, and twisted monstrosities fashioned by the aboleths in thier own image. For timeless ages, this primal empire prospered - until disaster struck.
What precisely destroyed the primal empire is known only to the aboleths, and they do not speak of it, even among themselves. Sages of other races have posited theories. Perhaps their slave races managed to rebel against them. Perhaps some great natural disaster struck. Perhaps the aboleths turned on themselves in a fit of self-destruction. Perhaps the Blood Queen or another of the Elder Evils returned and wreaked unimaginable devastation.
One popular theory holds that the slave races developed something new over those millions of years, something the aboleths had no prior experience with and were thus wholly unprepared to defend against. This theory claims that the slave races developed faith and found that there were creatures above the aboleths - creatures with power even more awe-inspiring. Apparently, these slaves called the deities into being, and the deities smote the aboleths to a shadow of their former glory. This, if true, would go a long way toward explaining the aboleth race's cultural disdain for divine magic.
Whatever the cause of it, the primal empire's devastation was not quite complete. Ruins of the empire survived here and there - terrible structures founded on vile and unclean geometric principles. The aboleths themselves were obliterated, down to a single survivor. This is that survivor, from whom sprang anew the aboleth race. It is the eldest surviving aboleth anywhere, and is unspeakably ancient. And, unless your imagination is getting the best of you, its three eyes look somewhat irritated to find you in their sight.
Pygros Nethertouch
Like its positive energy twin, the Negative Energy Plane is relatively empty. It contains no true elemental forms or versions of Material Plane creatures, and its outsiders are few and far between. Despite this, adventurers report recently having seen negative energy elementals and fundamentals, but the speculation is they're just creatures shaped from negative energy by powerful magic - sort of energy golems, really. This creature puts the end to such speculation. It is a true death elemental, but it doesn't hail from the Negative Energy Plane, or anywhere in this existence. It is the proxy of Atropus, sent to negotiate with the Aboleths as part of its effort to return to this reality, via the Far Realm.
