Veiled Master

Family: Aboleth

Large aberration (mythos), lawful evil

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
Hit Points 300 (24d10+168)
Speed 10 ft., swim 80 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
18 (+4)	18 (+4)	25 (+7)	21 (+5)	18 (+4)	22 (+6)

Saving Throws Con +12, Int +10, Wis +9
Damage Resistances cold
Damage Immunities lightning
Skills History +15, Perception +14
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 24
Languages Deep Speech, telepathy 120 ft.
Challenge 16 (15,000 XP)

Special Traits

• Amphibious. The veiled master can breathe air and water.
• Innate Spellcasting. A veiled master’s spell casting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 19). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
  • At will: glyph of warding, suggestion
  • 3/day: major image, symbol
  • 1/day each: polymorph (self only), programmed illusion, teleport
• Mucus Cloud. While underwater, the veiled master is surrounded by transformative mucus. A creature that touches the veiled master or that hits it with a melee attack while within 5 feet of it must succeed on a DC 20 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, the creature is diseased for 1d4 hours. The diseased creature can breathe only underwater.
• Probing Telepathy. If a creature communicates telepathically with the veiled master, the veiled master learns the creature’s greatest desires and darkest fears if the veiled master can see the creature. Additionally, for each minute of continued telepathic communication, the veiled master can experience one of that creature’s memories.

Actions

• Multiattack. The veiled master makes three tentacle attacks.
• Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, 20 ft. reach, one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage plus 21 (6d6) lightning damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 20 Constitution saving throw or become diseased. The disease has no effect for 1 minute and can be removed by any magic that cures disease. After 1 minute, the diseased creature’s skin becomes translucent and slimy, the creature can’t regain hit points unless it is underwater, and the disease can be removed only by heal or another disease-curing spell of 6th level or higher. When the creature is outside a body of water, it takes 6 (1d12) acid damage every 10 minutes unless moisture is applied to the skin before 10 minutes have passed.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, 10 ft. reach, one target. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or suffer an additional 27 (6d6 + 6) psychic damage as the veiled master consumes its memories. The target’s hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the psychic damage taken, and the veiled master regains hit points equal to that amount. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. If the target’s hit point maximum is reduced to 0, it remains alive and conscious and is treated as though it had 1 hit point, but it becomes a mindless slave of the veiled master, as though affected by the veiled master’s enslave ability.
• Enslave (3/Day). The veiled master targets one creature it can see within 60 feet of it. The target must succeed on a DC 19 Wisdom saving throw or be magically charmed by the veiled master until the veiled master dies or until it is on a different plane of existence from the target. The charmed target is under the veiled master’s control and can’t take reactions, and the veiled master and the target can communicate telepathically with each other over any distance. Whenever the charmed target takes damage, the target can repeat the saving throw. On a success, the effect ends. No more than once every 24 hours, the target can also repeat the saving throw when it is at least 1 mile away from the veiled master.

Legendary Actions

The veiled master can take 4 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The veiled master regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.

• Detect. The veiled master makes a Wisdom (Perception) check.
• Mental Assault. The veiled master bombards the mind of a single creature within 60 feet with psychic static. That creature has disadvantage on all d20 rolls it makes until the beginning of its next turn.
• Psychic Drain (Costs 2 Actions). One creature charmed by the veiled master takes 21 (6d6) psychic damage, and the veiled master regains hit points equal to the damage the creature takes.

About

Aboleths are ancient nigh-immortal creatures who have wandered the cosmos through the dreamlands, often influencing or even ruling the primordial deeps long before humanoid races rose to sentience and brought with them the attention of their gods. When younger races arose upon worlds aboleths claimed as their own, or alighted upon them during their exploration of space, aboleths began to manipulate these interlopers like puppets. Some of their kind disguized themselves to walk among their pets, veiling themselves with magic to appear as humanoids. These were the veiled masters- if one were to foolishly attempt to impose human hierarchies upon this alien race, veiled masters would be considered the nobility among their aboleth kin. In truth, while aboleths do treat veiled masters with utmost respect and defer to their decisions, they are not regarded as the rulers of the race. Stranger and still more dangerous entities rule over veiled masters from the deepest trenches below the sea.

Master Manipulators. While all aboleths are skilled at domination and illusion, veiled masters are the true experts of the arcane. Veiled masters engineered their grandest deceptions and manipulations, their subtle coaxings often encouraging a rise to glory with veiled masters walking among the populace, whispering into their leaders’ ears.

The people knew the veiled masters as scholars and arcanists, with murmurs that their mysterious cabal was more than human, but veiled masters destroyed the bodies and minds of those who proved too curious. Whenever their proteges showed hubris- believing that they were greater than their patrons- these manipulators brought punishment upon them.

Should they fail to fall into line, the veiled masters unleashed their eldritch powers and rituals to invoke world-ending cataclysms while they retreated to the depths of the sea to live on, watching and waiting until the opportunity arose to walk among a new race once more and teach new lessons in secrets with too high a price.

The average veiled master measures 14 feet in length and weighs 1,500 pounds.