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Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations
Supplement
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C
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D
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D E S I G N E R S
R ICHARD B AKER , J AMES J ACOBS , S TEVE W INTER
D E V E L O P M E N T T E A M
M ICHAEL D ONAIS , A NDY C OLLINS
A R T D I R E C T O R D & D
D AWN M URIN
C O V E R A R T I S T S
W AYNE E NGLAND , E D C OX
I N T E R I O R A R T I S T S
S TEVE B ELLEDIN , M ITCH C OTIE , E D C OX ,
D ENNIS C RABAPPLE -M C C LAIN , S TEVE E LLIS ,
W AYNE E NGLAND , C OLIN F IX , D ANA K NUTSON ,
D OUG K OVACS , C HUCK L UKACS , J IM N ELSON ,
M ICHAEL P HILLIPPI , W AYNE R EYNOLDS ,
R ICHARD S ARDINHA , D AN S COTT , R ON S PENCER
G R A P H I C D E S I G N E R
D EE B ARNETT
C A R T O G R A P H E R
D ENNIS K AUTH
G R A P H I C P R O D U C T I O N S P E C I A L I S T
A NGELIKA L OKOTZ
I M A G E T E C H N I C I A N
J ASON W ILEY
E
D
I
T
O
R
S
M ICHELE C ARTER , R AY V ALLESE
M A N A G I N G E D I T O R S
K IM M OHAN , C HRIS T HOMASSON
D E S I G N M A N A G E R
C HRISTOPHER P ERKINS
D E V E L O P M E N T M A N A G E R
J ESSE D ECKER
S E N I O R A R T D I R E C T O R R P G
S TACY L ONGSTREET
D I R E C T O R O F R P G R & D
B ILL S LAVICSEK
P R O D U C T I O N M A N A G E R S
J OSHUA C. J. F ISCHER , R ANDALL C REWS
Resources: The Illithiad by Bruce R. Cordell; I, Tyrant by Aaron Allston; Night Below by Carl Sargent; Return to the Temple
of Elemental Evil by Monte Cook; Player’s Guide to Faerûn by Richard Baker, Travis Stout, and James Wyatt; Book of Vile
Darkness by Monte Cook; Faiths and Pantheons by Eric L. Boyd and Erik Mona; Complete Divine by David Noonan; Underdark
by Bruce R. Cordell, Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel, and Jeff Quick; Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, by Monte Cook and John Tynes
(based on the work of Lynn Willis and Sandy Peterson); “Llurth Dreier: City of Ooze,” Polyhedron #140, by Eric L. Boyd; “Eye
Wares: Potent Powers of the Beholders,” Dragon #313, by Michael Mearls.
Based on the original D UNGEONS & D RAGONS ® rules created by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and the new D UNGEONS & D RAGONS
game designed by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Richard Baker, and Peter Adkison.
This product uses updated material from the v.3.5 revision.
This Wizards of the Coast ® game product contains no Open Game Content. No portion of this work may be reproduced in
any form without written permission. To learn more about the Open Gaming License and the d20 System License, please visit
www.wizards.com/d20.
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First Printing: April 2005
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D UNGEONS & D RAGONS , D&D, D UNGEON M ASTER , d20, d20 System, W IZARDS OF THE C OAST , Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, Lords of Madness, and all
other Wizards of the Coast product names, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., in the U.S.A. and other countries. All Wizards characters, character
names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof are property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Distributed to the hobby, toy, and comic trade in the United States and Canada by regional
distributors. Distributed in the United States to the book trade by Holtzbrinck Publishing. Distributed in Canada to the book trade by Fenn Ltd. Distributed worldwide by Wizards of the
Coast, Inc., and regional distributors. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork
contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. This product is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places,
or events is purely coincidental. Printed in the U.S.A. ©2005 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
Visit our website at www.wizards.com/dnd
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Contents
Grell Philosopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Embrac 154
Kigrid 155
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Introduction
Among the most iconic elements of the D UNGEONS & D RAGONS
game are its unforgettable monsters. Dragons roam the skies,
seeking towns to burn and plunder. Hordes of ravening orcs
lurk sullenly in the wastelands and barren places, waiting
for the chance to sweep down on the unsuspecting lands of
humankind. Demons and devils pry and push at the borders
of their infernal planes, seeking the opportunity to enter
the world and wreak their terrible evil. Bizarre, antediluvian
monstrosities—things of deadly eyes, squirming tentacles, and
mind-poisoning horror—lurk in the deep and remote places,
dreaming terrible alien dreams of conquest and dominion over
the world outside. These are the aberrations, creatures whose
very existence outrages nature, creatures that belong to distant
times and dimensions of cosmic terror.
Aboleths, or the deep masters, are the loathsome lords of the
underground seas. Perhaps the most alien and inscrutable of
all the major aberration races, the aboleths are mighty psions
and mages whose sinister infl uence wells up from the deepest
places in the earth.
Beholders, the terrible eye tyrants, command fearsome
innate magical power. With a single glance they kill, paralyze,
confuse, or enslave their foes. Rapacious and arrogant, a single
beholder can easily become the overlord of its own realm of
evil.
Mind fl ayers, or illithids, are brilliant, cruel, and terrify-
ing creatures. Mind fl ayers might comprise the single most
dangerous threat to the dominion of humanoids in the daylight
lands of the surface world.
Neogi, the slave takers, are a race of greedy and sinister
merchants who spin their webs of gold and misery across the
human world.
Grell, or the eaters, are an alien race of predators that haunt
the wild and lonely places of the world. Armed with an inde-
cipherable admixture of alchemy and science, the fearsome
grell ruthlessly destroy all other races that blunder into their
territory.
The Tsochari, or the wearers of the fl esh, are a race of
invasive parasites that wear the stolen bodies of their victims
so that they can pass in human society.
The six races mentioned here pose the most widespread
and virulent threats to humans and other good races. They
combine magical power, ruthless genius, and cold, calculating
malice; they are alien and inscrutable, things born of madness
and nightmare. Brave indeed are the heroes who venture into
their domains.
Of course, the Far Realm and the deep, dark places of the
earth are responsible for spawning forth many more creatures
than these. Many other aberrations can be found in this book,
including the half-farspawn, a new template for the offspring
of creatures that have consorted with aberrations; the psionic
psurlon; and the bizarre silthilar, masters of grafts.
THE BOOK OF
ABERRATIONS
While this book might seem to be intended primarily for
Dungeon Masters, the monsters discussed in this tome are so
powerful, iconic, and prevalent in the D&D universe that any
player wishing to know more about his character’s adversaries
should be interested in the information contained herein.
Chapter 9 includes a number of feats, spells, and prestige classes
for characters whose principal enemies include monsters of the
aberration type. While the focus of this book is on aberrations,
many of these new rules elements can apply to other creatures.
New aboleth, illithid, and silthilar (a new aberration swarm)
grafts can benefi t an adventurer in any sort of campaign, as
can any of several new domains and magic items.
Naturally, Dungeon Masters will fi nd dozens of new mon-
sters, monster feats, monster spells, and tremendous amounts
of hidden lore about these same creatures. Everything you need
to highlight an iconic aberration race in your campaign (or to
survive such an event, if you are a player) can be found in this
book. Each chapter devoted to one of the major aberration
races also includes an encounter site, complete with keyed
locations and ready to be used in an existing campaign.
Unlike the creatures that populate Draconomicon or Libris
Mortis, aberrations share few common characteristics other
than a broad thematic link. Other than the fact that they’re
all inhuman monsters that have powerful magical abili-
ties and dwell deep underground, aboleths, mind fl ayers,
and beholders do not really share any common origins or
physiology. Therefore, the major races of aberrations are
each discussed in their own chapter, with little reference
to other aberrations.
The major aberration races include the following monsters:
WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY
Lords of Madness makes use of the information in the three
D&D core rulebooks— Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s
Guide, and Monster Manual . In addition, it includes refer-
ences to material from several D&D supplements, including
F iend Folio, Monster Manual II, Epic Level Handbook, Miniatures
Handbook, Libris Mortis, and Expanded Psionics Handbook, as
well as the F ORGOTTEN R EALMS ® supplements Underdark and
Unapproachable East. Although possession of any or all of these
supplements will enhance your enjoyment of this book, they
are not strictly necessary.
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o single common characteristic easily distinguishes
an aberration from any other sort of creature, or
signals a kinship to creatures of this type. Some
are intelligent, some are not; some are humanoid in
shape, some are not; some possess innate magical powers,
and some do not. This book is chiefl y concerned with those
aberrations that pose a pervasive and signifi cant threat to
humankind. While a creature such as a carrion crawler is
certainly a dangerous monster, it lacks the intelligence to
entertain dark schemes against the creatures of the world
above. It is simply an unreasoning beast, albeit an unusually
bizarre and alien one.
Creatures such as aboleths, beholders, and mind fl ayers are
far more signifi cant because they represent entire societies of
unhuman and amoral intelligences that regard humans and
humanoids as potential slaves at best, or, more likely, bleating
cattle awaiting slaughter. These intelligent, evil aberrations
do share some common characteristics, even if they are not
remotely related to one another.
the depths of space and reality with the aid of the Ebon
Mirror, a powerful artifact that allowed him to see into
strange and terrible places indeed. The Codex Anathema
records the frightful visions he observed in the Ebon
Mirror, along with rambling essays in which Iphegor
describes his own fi ndings and conclusions about mat-
ters no sane being should dwell on for long.
The Codex includes accounts of astral voyages into
the dim antediluvian eons when aboleths ruled over
the world, frenetic narratives about passages into the
depths of the Far Realm, and dialogues with illithid
sages and tsochari imposters. Studies and observations
about creatures such as beholders, chuuls, psurlons,
and beings clearly originating outside of nature
comprise a large part of the Codex. Overall, the book
is poorly organized, consisting of a haphazard col-
lection of essays, narratives, notes, and odd arcane
formulae jotted down in whatever order Iphegor
happened to think of them.
No one knows Iphegor’s fi nal fate, but it is said
that the Ebon Mirror still exists, buried in some
dreadful dungeon. To stare into its depths is to risk
life and sanity—yet secrets of untold power might lie
within its starry void.
THE CODEX ANATHEMA
Over a thousand years ago, the wizard known as Iphegor of the
Ebon Mirror composed a terrible book, the Codex Anathema. A
student of distant places, times, and planes, Iphegor plumbed
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