Remember . . .

[alhoon]

As I recall from 2nd edition and I see it ended up in the recent Book of Aberrations, aboleths have memories that they inherit from their ancestors and also get memories from their victims.
It takes them time to peruse through their loooong memories for something obscure that their great-great-great-grandfather learned or experienced but they can do it.

So what if Azalin got hold of an Aboleth and placed it in a lake in Darkon?
With his ability to easily check a subject's memory he could use the Aboleth as a giant library.
While that could not circumvent his curse or even the vast knowledge of the aboleth wouldn't contain much info about the surface land, it would be quite helpful for info about the seas of Ravenloft, the Subterranean realms and the false history of the plane.

[Jasper]

The DPs would most likely have it be knocked around a few times in transport giving it amnesia

[Jester of the FoS]

One alien intelligence that mental contact with causes insanity linking minds to an entirely different alien intelligence that mental contact with causes insanity.

I'd say humans are the middle ground between aberrations and undead and able to read both minds with the normal side effects (mind-shattering madness). Undead and aberrations might be more incompatable, especially when they are as long lived and able to think up their own unique ways of thinking as both liches and aboleths are.
It'd be an interesting quest, get heroes to 'kidnap' an infant aboleth, but I can see it being a fruitless one as Azalin tries to mentally contact it only to find nothing but mental static and fuzzy images and philosophy that is the antithesis of his own.
-OR-
The aboleth has the more powerful mind and exerts its mental dominance knocking back Azalin and letting it get a peak in HIS mind. He's just made his worst enemy.
-OR-
The plan works brilliantly. Until the Darkon memory effect kicks in and the DP warp the creature's memories until it thinks it's never left some tiny lake in Darkon.

[Faust]

There are probbaly some aboleth in undergorund lake in the mountain of misery...

[vipera aspis]

i could see the beast being very lovecraftian. existing for centuries(or so it thinks), haveing a "lottery" donated to it by(or of) the towns folk every 10 years. Azalin allows this because he doesn't want a unpernounceable name consisting of six pages of letters in his Book of Names.

*untill the lottery is forgotten, the town is wiped out, and the pc's decide to go visit an old friend in "random town" and find it strangely empty and the lake devoid of fish...*

[alhoon]

Remember all:Azalin's plans to learn new magic are bound to failure as plans to get away from Darkon; not to find aberrations and use them. He isn't cursed to never be able to make a plan work.

I'd say humans are the middle ground between aberrations and undead and able to read both minds with the normal side effects (mind-shattering madness). Undead and aberrations might be more incompatable, especially when they are as long lived and able to think up their own unique ways of thinking as both liches and aboleths are.
It'd be an interesting quest, get heroes to 'kidnap' an infant aboleth, but I can see it being a fruitless one as Azalin tries to mentally contact it only to find nothing but mental static and fuzzy images and philosophy that is the antithesis of his own.

Interesting. However I believe that Azalin would look for info, not point of view. While something may be irrevelant to the aboleth and interesting to Azalin or vice versa, the fact is that it is there.
Also who said an infant aboleth? I'm talking about a fully developed one. Like the scenario Vipera Aspis proposed (but with less dramatic effects).

-OR-
The aboleth has the more powerful mind and exerts its mental dominance knocking back Azalin and letting it get a peak in HIS mind. He's just made his worst enemy.

Azalin is a Darklord. His power over memories is donated by the Dark Powers, so it is vastly more powerful than the aboleth's powers. Aboleth's are ancient and immortal but not deities. So they can't defy the rules of the Dread Realms.

-OR-
The plan works brilliantly. Until the Darkon memory effect kicks in and the DP warp the creature's memories until it thinks it's never left some tiny lake in Darkon.

Azalin can choose to stop the process if he choose so.

So why I told the Frat about that? It gives potentional adventure hooks:

1. The PCs have to find and capture an aboleth.
2. The PCs have to find and capture an outlander aboleth that came from Azalin's homeworld 5 years ago. Azalin wouldn't pass that chance.
3. Azalin has succeeded in such a plot centuries ago (or perhaps as Faust said perhaps he didn't have to bother at all). And as Vipera Aspis suggested the aboleth (200 years old now, so much bigger and powerful) with its spawn kill the wrong man in the "random town" and a bunch of "meddling do-gooders" (PCs) come with weapons drawn.

[cure]

I think the Mountains of Misery have an older name whispered, if sparingly, among the Dwarves, the Mountains of Madness. They are the ideal place for Lovecraft. Aboliths, abberations, ruins predating the dawn of man, and terrors in utter isolation from (human) civilization, that is what should lurk in the Moutains of Misery. Azalin taking an interest in the area would be a perfect introduction to their unknown past and dreadful present.

[The Lesser Evil]

Hmm... All of this talk of memories makes me wonder- can Azalin restore memories that have been lost via "natural" ways, ie amnesia brought on by brain trauma or emotional torment. It would make for a particularly adventure if some amnesiac heroes had to go to the King of Darkon to have their memory restored...

[VAN]

I think that Azalin can do almost everything if he wants. But I think it would be better if these players ask a cleric to help them. Azalin isn't famous to do favours and if he does he always has something in mind!

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Given that Ravenloft doesn't seem to have an Underdark to speak of, it's unlikely that the Land of Mists has an indigenous aboleth population (i.e. nobody down there for them to eat). I suppose the DPs could've added an aboleth or two to their demiplanar monster-menagerie -- if they took illithids, can D&D's other race of Cthulhoid aberrant oogie-boogies be far behind? -- but such critters' ancestral memories would relate the histories of their worlds of origin, not the Core's history.

[alhoon]

Wel, Rotipher, you have a point, but let me address your very logical questions.

Aboleth don't always live in Underdark . Most live in underwater cities beneath the ocean. While I wouldn't include an aboleth city beneath the core's seas, I will put in my campaign a small aboleth community with 12 - 15 members in the deepest crevices of the Sea of Sorrows and another similar community in the Noctural sea.

And of course the aboleths there will only have about a century's or two worth of real memories of the Core's seas. These memories aren't very useful for Azalin since he was around all that time.
But aboleth would have millenia of false history in their memories and also may have some memories from Azalin's home plane.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Wel, Rotipher, you have a point, but let me address your very logical questions.

Aboleth don't always live in Underdark . Most live in underwater cities beneath the ocean. While I wouldn't include an aboleth city beneath the core's seas, I will put in my campaign a small aboleth community with 12 - 15 members in the deepest crevices of the Sea of Sorrows and another similar community in the Noctural sea.

And of course the aboleths there will only have about a century's or two worth of real memories of the Core's seas. These memories aren't very useful for Azalin since he was around all that time.
But aboleth would have millenia of false history in their memories and also may have some memories from Azalin's home plane.

Isn't Shay-Lot an abandoned Aboleth city?

[alhoon]

What is Shay-Lot?
Well an abadoned aboleth city you'll probably say but I don't mean that. I mean where is it? Why do you believe it is such a city?

The name sounds familiar but I don't remember anything.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Okay, if it's *false* history that Azalin's gleaning from the aboleth, then it could work. OTOH, doesn't Azalin know darn well that such "history" is bogus...? I have to wonder why he'd bother, unless he thinks he might track down the odd DP-planted magical relic or portal from the domains' falsified backstories.

Some OTHER evil wizard, now -- say, perhaps, certain high-ranking members of the (in-game) Fraternity of Shadows? -- might buy the aboleths' recollections of fake history hook, line, and sinker. Hmmm.... perhaps some sort of deal (probably involving a steady supply of human sacrifices/slave-breeding stock/lab rats) could be worked out?

[alhoon]

Yes, Fraternity would also like to have the memories but it isn't as easy. Members of the Frat would also know the history is false, but Aboleths are masters of illusion anyway. . .
Yes, I can see the Frat working with an Aboleth.

About Azalin, while he knows the history to be false, it may give him clues for portals out of Ravenloft, of the Dark Powers nature and other things Azalin is interested in. Also don't forget that an Aboleth knows many things beyond history. So an aboleth living (more or less) peacefully in a lake in Darkon killing just a few humans per year is for Azalin an extensive Library . Aboleths collect the memories of those they eat so Azalin could "feed" the aboleth with an assortment of sages and have a standard memory to look.
-For example if he is interested to check if this new plan of warship in Martira Bay is good, he can check the aboleth's vast memories for a similar ship. While he could take the time to check about 10 - 20 admirals/ship engineers/captains/sailors memories it is easier (and safer) to check the aboleth.
- If he needs to know what happened in his absence to the sahuagin communities of the Core, he can check the aboleth.
- If he needs to know where the gate to the subterranean ruins of X temple of the Y god is he can check the aboleth.