Aboleth + Celestial Forge/Inspired Inventor+ setting

Arimai said:
Interesting. So the Aboleths are the equivalents of the Primogenoi in their setting then or the Great Old Ones of WH40K?

As to gigayear I've only encountered it as the notation of Ga, GA if used in conjunction with "years ago" and last the more informal Gyr in Scientific American and Popular Science
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Yup, more or less, but for the DnD setting.... And in reverse.
The Aboleth have psionic tech that always works. Antimagic doesn't effect it.
In the canon timeline Aboleths were present from the begining. And the gods have admitted that they have needed to reset the laws of the universe more than once.

View: https://youtu.be/e-GnePtr0sE?si=S06SCWZkIK10xWVn

View: https://youtu.be/p-55tnCRMcQ?si=p2m0sVosgp5hcvde
The whole magic-changes-with-Mystra thing is the most recent one, but there are multiple 'leftovers' that survived rhe purges and changes.

The Spellweavers are another leftover from the opposite direction.

After the establishment of the first Magic, when the Gods segmented the universe to defy and destroy the Abolethic Sovergnity, the SpellWeaver Empire formed.
But the gods once more hit the reset button, making the massive enchantments and spells the multiarmed species relied upon unstable. Any spellweaver you find nowadays in DnD will be working towards the ultimate goal of resetting the universe (or destroying it) back to those conditions.

View: https://youtu.be/1dVqacMP_jQ?si=-nJfiFEdObEPBLC1

Same sort of deal with the Shoth- though they are from Pathfinder, these are the first Slimes. The True Slimes.
The Slimes from the First Magic, before the Demons established themselves and the rest of the slimes became daemonic.
Slimes that are the cheerful Borg of DnD. They have spaceships, and will assimilate you into them if they have a chance, but they rarely force it.

View: https://youtu.be/u0jjTA7a1FA?si=uZfjGhfnHg6FaQUR

Oh, and here's a playlist of other abberations and ancient monsters that helps flush out the DnD / Pathfinder cosmology.
The Aboleth are not always malicious.
The Spellweavers are truely alien.
The Mindflayers are from the future.
The Beholders are both amazing (they have spaceships) and paranoid.
The Shoth are cuddly borg.
The LeShay are to Elves what Elves are to Humans... Or Orcs.
Etc

Oh, and I can't remember where I read the term Gyr to refer to gigayears. It feels like it fits though.
 
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Hmm, Celestial Forge can always be a bit nerfed for specific situation. Like not giving materials, items and people to host via perks. Give them skills, knowledge of how to get materials, methodology, intuition... It should slow things down a little bit. Maybe include a little side-effects because of interactions between of some perks.

Not sure about setting. Depends more on what you like and what story you have in mind. It should be at least something dangerous and resource scarce. 🤔​
 
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Andre Chaos said:
Hmm, Celestial Forge can always be a bit nerfed for specific situation. Like not giving materials, items and people to host via perks. Give them skills, knowledge of how to get materials, methodology, intuition... It should slow things down a little bit. Maybe include a little side-effects because of interactions between of some perks.

Not sure about setting. Depends more on what you like and what story you have in mind. It should be at least something dangerous and resource scarce. 🤔​
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Yeah, CF is a bit much for Abloleth!SI on a colony ship.
Besides- aboleths have something similar naturally- their ancient memories. They can master any skill that any other aboleth of their liniage did before spawning the next generation with frightening ease.
Possibly even better options with their mastery of memory, as they can make liquids that download memories to those that touch it.
Gotta love flavor text!
 
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Mr. Cloak said:
master any skill that any other aboleth of their liniage did before spawning the next generation with frightening ease.
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Huh, sounds like a good place to put a little package of infohazardous data. Inject it right into skill information so the next generation was obedient to their knew masters... Suddenly got this odd thought, not sure why.

How about trying it in some specifically built challenge world? Let's say Aboleth colony ship suddenly got into some chaotic and unprecedented eldrith anomaly. And they get stuck in some dimention, small area of land surrounded by the Pale. However, sometimes this patches of non-existence dissapear and let them observe new lands. Sometimes dangerous and already filled with aggressive competitors. Just imagine starting to build industrial base, but suddenly lands filled with Biters are your neighbors.

I can even find some explanation of what is happening. This dimension is a stomach of ineffable eldritch entity, which feeds on conflicts of different things. Celestial Forge could be other such entity, but parasite of the first. It just using our Aboleth as mean to get inside and start its life cycle.​

Edit: Ok, maybe my thoughts got into really odd places.
 
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Andre Chaos said:
Huh, sounds like a good place to put a little package of infohazardous data. Inject it right into skill information so the next generation was obedient to their knew masters... Suddenly got this odd thought, not sure why.

How about trying it in some specifically built challenge world? Let's say Aboleth colony ship suddenly got into some chaotic and unprecedented eldrith anomaly. And they get stuck in some dimention, small area of land surrounded by the Pale. However, sometimes this patches of non-existence dissapear and let them observe new lands. Sometimes dangerous and already filled with aggressive competitors. Just imagine starting to build industrial base, but suddenly lands filled with Biters are your neighbors.

I can even find some explanation of what is happening. This dimension is a stomach of ineffable eldritch entity, which feeds on conflicts of different things. Celestial Forge could be other such entity, but parasite of the first. It just using our Aboleth as mean to get inside and start its life cycle.​

Edit: Ok, maybe my thoughts got into really odd places.
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Less odd than you think.
The Aboleth generally work together because they all remember, however distantly, being the First Aboleth- the first one to become self aware and be a Sophont.
You could see that as an infohazardous package... In the same way culture, or language is.
Not religion. Aboleths are unable to believe, and their souls are guarded.

That description sounds a bit like a more stable chunk of the Far Realms.... Which is supposed to be a place of infinite life and power, so the rules there are sketchy.
There is an opposite realm to the Far Realms, a place of ultimate order, stagnation, and stillness, called The Gyre.

Energy in DnD is emitted from the Far Realms, then passes through the various elemental, material and moral planes to be flavored, used, and changed, eventually to end up being sucked away as it is all expended by this plane of Ending, aka The Gyre, to be concentrated until the ultimate end of the cosmos, whereupon the flow will reverse, allowing the current version of the universe to cycle.

The Far Realms are always encroaching on the other planes, because The Gyre and Far Realms attract each other, with the Gyre being the ending state prior to the formation of the Far Realm.

The Gods want to prevent this, because the current state if the universe is artifical, and constantly fighting to hold The Gyre away from The Far Realms.
 
Arimai said:
The scientific notation is in Latin Giga (10^9) annum or Ga, past tense GA.
Americanized layman term is Gigayears or Gyrs but this isn't usually used in formal publications
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I got that when I looked it up, but I read it in context somewhere else. A fanfic, but a weird one... Maybe an Avengers fic? Or Gravity Falls? It was a weird one. Rather good though. Had a superweapon living inside the Earth that liked to be read stories to stay calm and comfortable made from the minds of the dead from a galactic conflict.
 
Mr. Cloak said:
I got that when I looked it up, but I read it in context somewhere else. A fanfic, but a weird one... Maybe an Avengers fic? Or Gravity Falls? It was a weird one. Rather good though. Had a superweapon living inside the Earth that liked to be read stories to stay calm and comfortable made from the minds of the dead from a galactic conflict.
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Do you have a link? I look forward to this fic
 
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