Page 9 - Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations

otherwhen are capable of unthinkable acts that to other races of the universe could reach the Far Realm in much the same
might seem works of random and meaningless evil. way that a planar traveler could. If explorers have attempted
No known aberration races hail from such a perversion such a journey, they have not returned to tell the tale.
of the proper course of things, but the possibility cannot be Wherever the Far Realm truly lies, it is a place where all

dismissed. natural law runs amok. Aberrations are spawned in its infinite

madness, and some of these find their way—through space,
THE PLANES through time, or most commonly through planar travel—to
Various aberrations have their origins in the infinite variety the mundane realms of humanoids. Cloakers, the strange

of planes that exist beyond the Material and sinister beings that haunt the black
underground depths, originated
Plane. Just like worlds distant in
CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS AN ABERRATION? time or space, the stranger and in the Far Realm and came to the
normal world long ago. Like-
more remote planes are
wise, the terrible psurlons,
places where the very laws
of nature no longer apply.
psionic monsters of great
Capricious gods, bizarre
Far Realm.
magical phenomena, and strength, also arose in the
alien environments all com-
bine to populate the planes Ethereal Plane
with strange and fearful The swirling mist of the
beings. Ethereal Plane is home to a
Planar denizens number of strange planar
are outsiders or ele- aberrations that interact
mentals—beings that with the normal world.
might better be regard- The ethereal filcher is one

Illus. by M. Phillippi in corporeal forms. Howev- has caused tremendous
of the more common, a
ed as spirits manifested
bizarre creature whose
er, planes such as the Abyss,
penchant for petty theft
Pandemonium, or Gehenna
are also home to creatures
trouble for groups of
that are every bit as phys-
adventurers and explorers.
ical as humanoids. Few Far more dangerous and
aberration races are pow- sinister aberrations, such
erful enough to challenge as the ethergaunts (Fiend
the great outsider races for Folio page 64) and the nilshai
dominance of a plane, but planar- (Unapproachable East page 67),
dwelling aberrations control or infest also inhabit the Ethereal Plane
portions of nongood planes. or the drifting demiplanes found
Aberrations from distant planes are in in its depths. Ethereal aberrations enjoy
some ways closer to their origins than aber- easy access to the Material Plane, but at the
rations from space. Spells such as plane shift, same time remain safe from all but the most
shadow walk, gate, or astral projection offer ready A wizard lost in the Far Realm powerful and determined enemies in the
access to distant planes—and, unlike a teleport mundane world.
spell, it’s possible to set off without knowing precisely where
you’re going. Alternate Material Planes
Beyond the Plane of Shadow lie entire cosmologies only
Far Realm guessed at by the sages and clerics of humankind. Some of
While aberrations do roam the depths of the Nine Hells and these alternate cosmologies strongly resemble the familiar
the fetid layers of the Abyss, they are especially common in one multiverse, but others are strange and hostile places. Much
plane—the Far Realm. The Far Realm represents the very edge like the “otherwhen” worlds or planets remote in time or space,
of creation, the place that exists at the borders of conception. alternate Material Planes are places where almost anything
What lies beyond it is physically inconceivable and cannot be could be true.
brought into existence. It is possible that the Far Realm exists Travel from one Material Plane to another is difficult at

as both a spatial and temporal frontier as well as a planar one, best. The roads through the Plane of Shadow are dim and

and that a traveler who moves through space or time to the ends confusing, and few can find a path leading in the direction

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