Ea R'lyeh Aboleths.

[HoneyBadger]

Since Aboleths seem to be very psychically attuned-even moreso than Illithids in the game-and I don't want to make this just about giving them new units, does anyone have any ideas for psionic abilities they might possess?

[HoneyBadger]

Kristoffer, when you were designing Aboleths, outside of what's already hardcoded into the game, how did you envision the nation? Did you go any deeper or further with them than is presented in the game? They seem to have a different lifecycle than any real life creatures that I'm aware of, and are weirder in Dom3 than even the D&D versions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboleth

They do, apparently, have what amounts to an amphibious "secondshape" that allows them to go on land, in D&D, by the way, which I find interesting.

Have you had any thoughts about upgrading/updating them?

[Carcaroth]

I'm certainly not Kristoffer, but I do think the most interesting way to handle it would be a series of holy spells that transform your freespawn from the mothers/that one pretender into more specialized unit. I don't know about the grafting idea, though it would be interesting if it could somehow be integrated as an in-combat secondaryeffect with MR to resist, but the enslavement and multi-phase of life thing makes me think the spells should all create, well, more aboleths.

If one pulls from DnD, particularly the really entertaining Lords of Madness book, there were flying and Stygian varieties of aboleth, and given the good weaponry/stats basis, you could probably do quite well just working with them as a chassis. Even the Abomination could quite reasonably be considered an aboleth variant.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, I've thought about summons that gave you versions of the Mothers which would produce new types of spawn, but to be honest, I was planning on using that particular idea for a middle age Aboleth mod nation. Also, undead Mind Lords.