The aboleth depicted in the monster manuals is actually just one variety of this ancient, terrifying race. The aboleth are a sect within the greater Cult of Cthulhu. In contrast to the Phrenic Hegemony, who style themselves the star-spawn of Great Cthulhu, the aboleth are His shadow. Such was Cthulhu's power that even His shadow brushing against the mortal plane created a race of monsters bent on subjugating all life.
Every member of the aboleth race is an extrusion of Cthulhu's shadow. While they do not share a single mind, they share a single will that allows them to harmoniously coordinate in a fashion normally found only among hive races like the Formians. Aboleth cannot be killed in the conventional sense: as extensions of a greater whole, a dead aboleth will be regrown as easily as a fingernail. The majority of aboleth consider death to be a minor inconvenience or even a standard method to send away ignorant adventurers, though a few hold grudges against their would-be killers.
The aboleth are divided into at least two sub-races: the aquatic alghollthu (aka othagu) and the parasitic lethid. While both are in fact the same species, since the aboleth do not have a fixed life cycle, there are some noted psychological differences. The lethid display a cruel streak that informs a number of anomalies in their behavior, while the othagu display a loneliness that compels them to constantly create new "friends." All varieties of othagu are free-living organisms, while only some lethid varieties are free-living. Many lethid are parasites which live inside or attached to a living or dead host creature and either influence or outright control their host. As a result, they have earned the moniker "possessors." The free-living varieties control multiple thralls using psychotropic slime secreted from their skin. This slime shares a common origin with the mutagenic slime produced by the common aboleth variety (which is a form of othagu).
By contrast, the phrenic scourges are largely cold, unfeeling and focused on intellectual pursuits. Everything they do serves the purpose of ensuring the Hegemony's security and dominion over all other life. Thus, the scourges find the aboleth actively disturbing. While both are disdainful of other life, which they consider cattle, the aboleth display emotions and quirks that confound the otherwise unfeeling scourges.
The aboleth share a number of similarities with their opposing faction the Phrenic Hegemony, which is not a coincidence. The two sects are locked in a continuous arms race for reasons that other races do not comprehend. The phrenic scourges are parasitoids that reproduce with the bodies of dead hosts, while several lethid subraces are parasites that control the hosts they attach to. The phrenic scourges have bred a number of subraces that gained traits from their hosts, while the aboleth have engaged in experiments to give aboleth traits to enslaved subjects. The phrenic scourges have engineered slave parasites such as intellect devourers and puppeteers to control hosts of other races, loosely mimicking the capabilities of the lethid.
The othagu in particular make extensive use of aboleth hybrids, and several of the more common varieties of othagu are actually hybrids of aboleth and other creatures. The races they engineered, both free and still enslaved, are typically aquatic, amphibian and/or shapeshifting monsters, but not always aboleth hybrids. The abollar is a notable example of a human/aboleth hybrid, while the skum, gillmen and deep ones (who may in fact be the same species) are examples of engineering. The aboleth create slave races through outright crossbreeding, flesh warping magic, or a poorly understood pathogen (such as their slime). It is believed that a number of monsters and races, such as the merrow, thrallspawn and ith-kon, were the result of aboleth or scourge experiments.
Sources: Slave Lords of Cydonia, Monster Menagerie: Horrors of the Aboleth, Forgotten Foes, Tome of Beasts, Pathfinder Bestiary 6, Pathfinder Advanced Race Guide, Dungeon Crawl Classics #29, Dungeon Crawl Classics #35, Possessors: Children of the Outer Gods, Bloodforge, Dragonstar.
Useful links:
- https://alzrius.wordpress.com/tag/aboleth/
- http://threehsofgaming.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-legend-of-aboleth-remnants-of-great.html
- https://wjcuffe.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/endless-blue-week-76-the-aboleth-puppeteers-of-the-deep/
- https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Aboleth
- http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Chulorviah
- https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/possessor/
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