Wandering Monsters: Through the Vast Gate

Before I talk about the foulspawn and gibbering mouther, I want to point out how odd it is that they do not want to tie the origin of aberrations to the Far Realm because it “might not be a part of every DM’s cosmology and campaign”, but are totally fine making assumptions about what other planes exist (Ravenloft), how they are arranged (the Great Wheel), and what goes on there (like the Blood War).

Why the favoritism? What about people who think that the Great Wheel is not particularly interesting or creative, or even simply feel that it is not appropriate for their campaign setting? What about official campaign settings that do not include those things? There is no need to make so
many “traditional” assumptions, which among many other bizarre decisions
is something that continues to confuse and frustrate me.

Anyway, on to something less mind-boggling.

Foulspawn
I never used these guys, but there were a few instances where I wanted to (which is a start). My biggest issues are that they just look like ugly, skinless humanoids (gross, but not too interesting), and that despite being warped by the “incomprehensible” energies of the Far Realm can be easily categorized into four distinct types: just cut out the middle man and give us a table of mutations and powers.

Otherwise I like the mix of abilities: teleporting, psychic screams, cascading rage, and reality distorting blasts (which should be able to teleport creatures hit by it, too). I think what would make both them and other aberrants/aberrations even better is to further establish the Far Realm, giving it its own cosmology and/or demiplanes, possibly even a pantheon, just so that you can give them more thematic powers.

Gibbering Mouther
I like the origin of being created from a mass of humanoids. Gives me an Akira vibe, though you could take a page from Fullmetal Alchemist and have cultists sacrifice groups of people to willfully create them. Of course I see no reason tying them more closely to the Far Realm and have them be heralds of some eldritch god, which could also have the added benefit of giving them something to work with in encounters.

Star Wars As Lovecraftian Horror-Fantasy

I mentioned in my review of Edge of the Empire that I know of Star Wars, but am not really a fan of it. Gamma World came out some three years ago, and I have on occassion thought of running a campaign by taking the Star Wars universe, and cramming everything onto one planet.

In this setting alien species would either be mutants or actual aliens from other worlds or dimensions, while planets would be represented either as geological regions or locations; Tatooine would be a desert, Hoth a frozen wasteland, Dagobah a swamp, Naboo an island chain, Coruscant a bit city, etc.

While playing The Old Republic another thought occurred to me while I watched my jedi smack humanoid-sharks with a sci-fi bokken (that apparently everyone has): why bother with the sci-fi elements at all? Also, what if the world was the battleground for numerous aberrant stars vying for control (making the name Star Wars a literal thing)?

The high concept is a…relatively nightmarish world where mortal races get caught up in the conflict between the denizens of various otherwordly entities, giving rise to many bizarre creatures that you would expect to see from Star Wars, like those aforementioned shark-people or gungans.

Just kidding, even Cthulhu has limits.

If you want to use some 4th Edition flavor, the Feywild could be a major player (though it could have also been destroyed).

In this setting the Jedi would be an order designed to instruct people on the proper usage of psionics (aka, the Force), which in most cases can cause insanity to those “gifted” with it that go untrained, the Sith would be those that have been corrupted by elder gods, lightsabers could be psi-blades, spaceships become airships, and various types of warforged take the place of droids.

Hyperspace would be a method of travel by which travelers exploit distortions in space and time due to the Far Realm encroaching on the world. The Death Star could be a kind of gate intended to allow an elder god to enter the world, or a weapon to destroy the prison of one. Maybe the world is a prison, and it is designed to destroy it? Maybe it will only annihilate all life to pave the way for a new race of an elder god’s design?

Wandering Monsters: Things From Beyond the Stars

Tentacled horrors from beyond the stars? Sign me up.

The aberrant/aberration category includes most of my favorite monsters; mind flayers, intellect devourers, beholders, grells, aboleths, chuuls, fell taints (despite the name), mutated/warped things, and more. I am a huge fan of Lovecraft’s works, my second long-term 4th Edition D&D campaign took place in Eberron’s Shadow Marches, involving a number of star cults trying to summon an aberrant star, and one of my first 5th Edition homebrews were conversions of those very cultists.

In short I really, really dig this sort of thing.

For me the aberrant/aberration definition is spot on. In the game Eternal Darkness there is a part where you play a character who can perform autopsies on the creatures you kill. A lot of the descriptions are great, but I distinctly remember the one concerning a creature that looked like two headless humanoid bodies fused at the waist, where he makes mention of the corpse’s anatomy making no sense (a lack of organs will do that).

I like the mention of psionics–which will hopefully not take a year or two to see the light of day–though I have nothing against some sort of sanity-stripping magic system, especially for the warlock and options like the alienist prestige class/paragon path.

The concept of the Far Realm is something I was pleased to see in 4th Edition, though I was disappointed that it never really got elaboration. I get the reasons for wanting to avoid making certain things official or assumed in everyone’s campaign, but it would be great to finally have one or more optional planes get some decent page-space this time around (not that every aberrant critter needs to have other-worldly origins).

Given that my group virtually never breaches the first 10 levels in any edition, beholders are not something we have a lot of experience with. Despite this we are still very well aware of their eye rays (especially the save-or-die ones), so having a variation among eye rays could be nice for mixing things up and keeping characters on their toes. I also like the variation in size and appearance. The gauth is nice for giving low-level parties a taste of eye-ray volleys, while the hive mother allowed you to challenge epic characters. I also liked the DiTerlizzi drawings in 2nd Edition’s Monster Manual (especially the one with crab pincers for some reason).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.

I always took these variations to mean that beholders were highly mutable rather than prone to wildly unique, isolated accidents. At any rate unique or no, I think having a table or list of optional traits to let you cobble together your own beholder would satisfy both camps.

The mind flayer is in my top ten favorite monsters, and the description is spot on with my expectations; tentacles, mind blast, domination, thralls, eats brains, ceremorphosis…basically everything that you would expect. I like the mention of psionics (crystals or no), which I take to mean that the initial version will not use spell-like abilities.

I am hopeful that the flat math will prevent low-power thralls like orcs, bugbears, and grimlocks from being too weak to threaten the characters without having to inflate their Hit Dice or lump on class levels.

Finally, I am curious as to if/how/when they will integrate past content, such as thoon (including both illithid disciples and the machines), neothelids, alhoon (ie, illithi-liches), and whatever those illithids with really long tentacles were called.

I have only ever used an aboleth once, and that was when we were playing A Sundered World so I did not use it “officially”, though they also rank among my favorites. As with mind flayers they are pretty much what I expect, and again I hope that the flat math will make it easier to employ low-level threats without disrupting encounter difficulty one way or the other.

Aside from 3rd Edition’s Lords of Madness I do not recall much flavor content pertaining to them,  but I like the potential plot hooks that their genetic memory (and, to a point, their ability to go dormant) allows for.

Now that I am chomping at the bits to run a campaign another brimming with eldritch horrors from beyond space and time, hopefully we get some quality, insanity inducing aberrant art tomorrow.