Home, Rules, Message Boards, The Parthenon (AIM), The Parthenon (AOL)
Back to Taxonomy of Creatures
Aberrations
Little unites the creatures collectively called "aberrations" beyond their bizarreness. The anatomy, mindset and goals of such beings are strange and seemingly illogical to humans, rendering these creatures fundamentally incomprehensible in a way that "ordinary" magical beasts are not. Something about every aberration seems so profoundly at odds with the normal laws of biology and morality that it simply defies understanding.
The origins of aberrations are as varied as their physical forms. Some are the result of corruptive magic or the warping touches of malign deities; the Twisted Twins are especially feared for their love of deformities. These are generally -- but not, unfortunately, always -- sterile cast-offs destined to die in lonely, festering resentment. Other aberrations are survivors of ancient races who have been pushed to the depths of the earth by the expansion of newer civilizations; the aboleths and beholders are said to be among these. Still others, such as the trolls, are rumored to have been spawned as slave-races bred by some nameless and forgotten evil.
Most aberrations are monstrous to human eyes. Virtually all are evil, either because they are savage brutes or because their moral codes, however lofty in their intellectual pretensions, do not encompass human concepts such as "compassion" and "pity." The more intelligent aberrations are capable of ruling far-reaching empires and spinning plots that span the course of centuries, but not of understanding the charitable impulse that motivates a man to give a loaf of bread to a beggar. This makes them formidable opponents and merciless captors, but also creates blind spots that leave them baffled by some human actions.
There are no comments on this page. [Add comment]