Today we're talking about the aboleth!
That's the original, AD&D Monster Manual 2 illustration for the aboleth. Here's the two newest versions, from 4th Edition...
...and concept art from D&D Next:
Remember in Ridley Scott's Alien, when the whole movie you just saw little glimpses of the alien and then at the end when Ripley blew it out the airlock you saw the whole thing and even with its giant spine protrusions and cockroach-black skuttliness it was just a guy in a suit with a dick-shaped helmet? I think the newer pictures of the aboleth are kind of like that, except replace 'guy in a suit' with 'evil catfish'.
Granted, catfish are freaky-ass animals and noodling just proves we're even weirder. Still. Fish. It's not threatening, it's tasty.
Writhing mouthparts and slime and tentacles and too many eyes on something that's ambiguously a head and certainly not a face... something where you'd feel unclean knowing one had been nearby... yeah. Yeah, more of that.
As in any good Lovecraft story the real horror is that people worship this thing, this slimy spasming horror that makes you need to bathe just looking at it, there are whole temples, whole towns of people who love this thing and will do anything to enact its will. You look at the creature and it doesn't look intelligent, it looks like filth, but the wise old priest and the senator and your best friend want to attach it to your face.
And then it starts to crawl inside your thoughts and you realize they were right all along.
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