Digital sketch/painting of an aboleth, a marine monster of the D&D universe. This particular specimen is unique, created for a private D&D Dragonlance campaign. Commission for A. T.
This is not just an aboleth: this creature is so gigantic, so antique, that it is as powerful as a god.
Abolets were depicted in various ways in the D&D universe, from stingray-like creatures to almost-wormish ones, with shark-like or tentacled maws. The few characteristics always in common between the different editions are the three eyes, positioned one under the other, four or more tentacles and a relatively small caudal fin compared to the head. This representation is designed based on the commissioner’s vision, also giving additional characteristics, such as the luminous runes and magical tentacles, linked to the particular history of this specimen. The small dinner in front of the aboleth? It’s a dargonesti (marine elf od the Dragonlance fandom).
This aboleth has found a slumbering infant god, hidden away in the primordial oceans of Krynn, as far below the bottom of the seas as their surface is from the skies above. The hidden godling, borne of the joy of the Creation of the world, dreams in her slumber. The aboleth has fed upon those dreams, hiding in the god’s shadow and empowered by its dreams, reaching outward to the world above, to enact a war on Creation itself– and the dargonesti is both the first casualty of this, and perhaps amongst the world’s only champion against this umbral nightmare.
Sketches
Details
Art process video
Use of this artwork
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Copyright 2024 Elena Zambelli, All Rights Reserved.
Created on: 06/01/2024
Last page edit: 05/04/2024 – 22/08/2025
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