PDA

View Full Version : Need ideas for psychologically terrifying monsters.



Brennan
2010-06-05, 04:57 PM
I'm trying to make my campaign equally parts story, combat, suspense, and psychological horror. I want a creature like something out of Doctor Who to tease the imaginations of my PC's.

Because of this, I watched my favorite episodes of Doctor Who, and now I can't stop thinking about the Weeping Angels, or the Copying Monster on the plane-thing, long enough to think of my own creature.

Would any of you care to help me brainstorm? Just the concepts would be good. I can crunch the numbers for its stats and abilities myself. I'll be sure to give you credit if it's a hit with my PC's.

Greenish
2010-06-05, 05:03 PM
Undead puppies. They crawl inside unsuspecting people who try to pet them and mind-control them into doing horrible things to their loved ones.

Stevielash
2010-06-05, 05:09 PM
Some kind of creature, possibly an outsider or construct that wears the skin of its past victims like the flayes ones in 40k.

Grifthin
2010-06-05, 05:15 PM
Undead puppies who mind control people when they pet the puppie, then make them do terrible things. After said terrible things they skin them (with mind bullets) and then wear the skins.

So awesome!

hamishspence
2010-06-05, 05:21 PM
Tribbles instead of puppies-

not only do they have mind control (a la Village of the Damned) and body-wearing (like those monsters from Lords of Madness)-

-but they also reproduce at a fantastic rate, just from eating their victims.

Rapid-fire shapeshifting, like the creature from The Thing (remade version)- so they only assume tribble form to attract victims, might also help.

PersonMan
2010-06-05, 05:26 PM
@^ Not good enough. Make them vorpal and then we've got terrifyingly terrible monsters!

Greenish
2010-06-05, 05:28 PM
Use changelings. Those things are bloody creepy.

Private-Prinny
2010-06-05, 05:29 PM
http://whoyoucallingaskeptic.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/kraken-cthulhu.jpgYou know you want to.

Twilight_Crow
2010-06-05, 05:35 PM
Jabberwocky!

Eloi
2010-06-05, 05:37 PM
Djinn that make a deal to tell you the secrets of the world. Once you make the deal you gain +1 ranks in Knowledge (Forbidden Lore) every round, which reduces your sanity by 1 point. And you must either
a) Be smart enough not to take its offer
b) Fight it off.
c) Deal with being insane.

Seffbasilisk
2010-06-05, 05:39 PM
Animated Tar Baby.

Make it spelltouched if need be. Give it disguise self so it looks like a normal kiddie.

Make it cry, and stretch out it's arms for a hug...


Have it arrive in the middle of a combat, so that it seems to fit, and it's delaying them could be lethal.

The_Admiral
2010-06-05, 05:42 PM
The Blob come on you know you want to use it

Raimun
2010-06-05, 05:44 PM
Whatever you do, keep your players guessing. Anything becomes more scary when it's would-be-victims don't know exactly what they are fighting.

Also, remember contrasts. Just adding more spikes, skulls and darkness doesn't work. By that logic, undead puppies are an excellent idea. :smalltongue:

Eldan
2010-06-05, 05:45 PM
http://a4.vox.com/6a00c2252606458fdb00d09e4c81b4be2b-pi

The Tongue parasite. That's terrifying, isn't it?

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-06-05, 05:56 PM
Well, let's start out with some of mine...

Angiak: ticked off dead baby from Inuit myth (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4742202#post4742202)

Brutmim (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120271): You have made an enemy... an enemy who will destroy you, your family, your reputation, and finally your soul. You. Are. Screwed.

Calaca (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3410928&postcount=7): Good-aligned skeletal creature that when dances makes everyone jump out of their skins and rattle their bones.

Cancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88371): You have a crab inside you, tearing you apart...

Genie, Fikri (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43141): You will live out the rest of life with your fondest wishes... and it won't be long.

Insomnus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11309): You will beg for sleep, even nightmares, but your dreaming nights are over until you become one of us...

Momeh (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10744): Who dances in the minds of the mad? It is she, and she is me!

Scarred Warrior (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11112): Why won't you kill us? Please, we want to die!

Tohnn (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4554144&postcount=3): ...

Templates

Broken (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10905): They broke our bodies, they broke our minds, and in the end, so to did our souls break...

In the Walls (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106332): Why are they there... and how did they get there?!?

Neverwhere (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4041612&postcount=2): We fell between the cracks...

That God Never Saw (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118887): What can the gods themselves not look upon?

afroakuma
2010-06-05, 07:38 PM
Look to the SCP Foundation (http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/) for some weird and horrific things.

Prodan
2010-06-05, 07:41 PM
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs21/f/2007/288/0/4/pyramid_head_by_nefar007.jpg

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-05, 07:47 PM
Sometimes atmosphere is the terrifying thing. Once player had to enter in a desecrated church filled with few, defeatable zombies.

But I cared to make the zombie start prone and immobilized, with low light, starting to make them move rarely, or emit a low moan.

In the meantime, I left the PCs look up, seeing hanged up monks. They were swaying slowly, but time to time someone kicked the air, where the players were not seeing. Then I made them emit chocked sounds, ans slowly start to kick the air all together - describing the squeak of the ropes.

Then zombies raised all together.

EDIT: or the thing prodan posted. That one is damn scary (him, and the trope he carries, the switching dimensions thing - light to dark, tranquillity to horror, dream to nightmare).

Brennan
2010-06-05, 07:48 PM
I absolutely love those monsters, VT. I'm looking, however, for something that plays on the horror that dwells within all of us. Turns upstanding men into beasts. Uses their raw fear and paranoia to turn parents into a maddened rage against their infant. The monster that doesn't kill, but rather uses fear to make humanoid creatures kill each other. I'm not talking, "Roll 1d20 will save or go insane and hostile," here, I'm looking for more of a play on the herd mentality that human beings exhibit when scared for their lives. Their complete and unfaltering drive to put someone else on the chopping block before themselves when faced with a creature beyond their comprehension.

I'm absolutely stumped as to how I will go about creating such a beast, and so I come to you all. I want something that is more akin to a force of nature. Unable to be slain, but avoidable. Perhaps a plane of existence in itself?

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-05, 07:50 PM
I'm absolutely stumped as to how I will go about creating such a beast, and so I come to you all. I want something that is more akin to a force of nature. Unable to be slain, but avoidable. Perhaps a plane of existence in itself?

Genius Loci? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/geniusLoci.htm)

Maybe killable with some plot device?

PersonMan
2010-06-05, 08:14 PM
Look to the SCP Foundation (http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/) for some weird and horrific things.

GAH. It's like TvTropes! So...many...links.

But at least most of the links don't lead to other links.

Lycan 01
2010-06-05, 08:27 PM
Why do I suddenly want somebody to stat Pyramid Head up for my Dark Heresy games? :smallconfused:

I actually used him in Call of Cthulhu once for a short-lived Silent Hill campaign. He didn't even attack at first - he was just standing in a room full of creepy statues. When the players walked back through the area later and noticed he was gone, they promptly began to flip out. :smallamused:


Also... WTF @ Tongue Parasite. :eek:

Eloi
2010-06-05, 08:29 PM
I absolutely love those monsters, VT. I'm looking, however, for something that plays on the horror that dwells within all of us. Turns upstanding men into beasts. Uses their raw fear and paranoia to turn parents into a maddened rage against their infant. The monster that doesn't kill, but rather uses fear to make humanoid creatures kill each other. I'm not talking, "Roll 1d20 will save or go insane and hostile," here, I'm looking for more of a play on the herd mentality that human beings exhibit when scared for their lives. Their complete and unfaltering drive to put someone else on the chopping block before themselves when faced with a creature beyond their comprehension.

I'm absolutely stumped as to how I will go about creating such a beast, and so I come to you all. I want something that is more akin to a force of nature. Unable to be slain, but avoidable. Perhaps a plane of existence in itself?
Aurora of Madness:
Maybe intelligent interplanar dust that messes with our brains (via electrons, which some space dust can order intelligently) to create horrible hell-world ruled by our inner fears, and each person has a different delusion-version of places, people, and things around them, that only that person can experience. Unless you stop breathing around the intelligent interplanar dust, there is no way to avoid it unless you avoid areas with it. Often create dazzling light displays like the Northern Lights to draw in prey.

Ravens_cry
2010-06-05, 08:32 PM
GAH. It's like TvTropes! So...many...links.

But at least most of the links don't lead to other links.
I wish the lists didn't tell you what they were, I like trying to figure out who or what it is, if based on some pre-existing cultural phenomena.
For example,
Cain and Able.
edit: Ideas, yes. Shift the flavour of things and describe, don't tell.
"A snarling ape like creature with jutting tusks and and a heavilly muscled frame, with long, richly scarred arms, holds a crude, but bloody, axe. Odorous hides cloth the bestial form, covered in grime and gore. A foul stench wafts from the man-thing. A low growl escapes its throat." is much more evocative, if a little melodramatic, then 'Its an orc in hide armour holding a battleaxe. It smells."

Flavel
2010-06-05, 08:49 PM
Well if its an online game where none of the players know each other or will ever see each other you can play all sorts of mindgames to terrify them.

Say you have 3 players. Create 4 or 5 NPCs as part of the party and play them out as if they were PCs with separate player accounts. Kill them off as the game progresses. Trust me, you will terrify the real players.

Whichever terrifying monsters you choose to work with you can make more terrifying by killing off a few fake PCs.

afroakuma
2010-06-06, 12:19 AM
GAH. It's like TvTropes! So...many...links.

But at least most of the links don't lead to other links.

True, but a good many of them lead to disturbing things. Some even have pictures.

And sometimes the minor names in the main list don't really do enough to warn of what's in store. :smalleek:

Chaelos
2010-06-06, 12:27 AM
Rosie O'Donnell.

Go on, try to think of something more terrifying. I'll wait.

dr.cello
2010-06-06, 12:42 AM
I was thinking of this the other day, actually. It felt like the perfect Doctor Who episode.

You have a rich nobleman who's started collecting these incredibly beautiful statues of people from the lower walks of life--very life-like, all of them made of gold. He has a party to show off his new, valued collection, when someone there--ideally the party--notices (using a sonic screwdriver magic) that these aren't just lifelike statues--they used to be real people.

An interrogation reveals that the noble had no idea, and leads on a chase to some form of monster (or group of monsters) that feeds on people by turning them to gold, and has been using the gold from selling the statues to expand their influence and ability to eat people (or some other, more sinister scheme).

This reminds me of Thief 2, also, in which
"vagabonds, street scum, prostitutes--people who will not be missed by anyone of consequence" are being converted into mindless masked slaves by a religious organization which is using them as weapons to destroy the city. They aren't completely dead, though, and they are quietly whimpering about how cold it is and they say "thank you" when you kill them. Fun!

EDIT: Good scary monsters are also prone to the whole "possess people/steal skin/impersonate humans" thing. They add a nice air of paranoia to the campaign.

IonDragon
2010-06-06, 12:44 AM
Gibbering Mouther if you have any psions in the party.

The_Pyre
2010-06-06, 01:15 AM
Well if its an online game where none of the players know each other or will ever see each other you can play all sorts of mindgames to terrify them.

Say you have 3 players. Create 4 or 5 NPCs as part of the party and play them out as if they were PCs with separate player accounts. Kill them off as the game progresses. Trust me, you will terrify the real players.

Whichever terrifying monsters you choose to work with you can make more terrifying by killing off a few fake PCs.

This. You can also read the manga Doubt for ideas on a monster that hides in the midst of the players.

Otogi
2010-06-06, 01:19 AM
Murderous cannibal-cherubs. Also, they're Lawful Good.


Rosie O'Donnell.

Go on, try to think of something more terrifying. I'll wait.

Nice try, but Willem Dafoe.

Lycan 01
2010-06-06, 02:02 AM
You all lose.

Christopher Walken.

The Tygre
2010-06-06, 02:35 AM
Robin Williams. Non-comedic. Doing his Gendo Ikari voice.

But back on topic; rogue dopplestalt. A dopplestalt is essentially a mimic/doppleganger that's grown large enough to imitate full buildings. They have their own sentiences and minds, connecting with others miles away. Consider a rogue; the knowledge of an entire structure, gone insane. It's crawled beneath the earth and set itself up as a 'dungeon'. It produces monsters; oozes, slimes, molds, those sort of things. But those are distractions. The whole structure is what's feeding on the PCs. It changes the walls and the corridors. Doors appear and disappear. Furniture and mundane items just starting growing like weeds to (and possibly through) the ceiling. Anyone with even the slightest psychic vibe'll be going haywire within the hour.

Brennan
2010-06-06, 02:41 AM
I think I know what I'll do. I'll make an entire city of dopplestalts. People, animals, carriages, everything. All created by the dopplestalts. They feed on people who travel through the city for trading and such, and create duplicates of those people and have them play their own part in the charade that is the city. Under the chapel in the "city" is a croft that houses the heart of the dopplestalts' main consciousness; the thing linking them together. Kill the heart, and you save hundreds of people.

I will make it scary by having the PC's get split up at one point before promptly meeting back up together. I will then, after the dopplestalts have been found out, state that any one of them could be playing a doppleganger of their former character and that any one of them could really be a monster, free for me to control at any given moment to use against the party. Now, that'll all be rubbish, of course, but it will keep them on their toes.

EDIT: Even better... I will take them all personally into a back room (out of character; in real life) and tell them that they are not the doppleganger, but pretend that one of the people is. (Basically, I'll say, "I've instructed the real doppleganger not to tell you about his or her identity, in or out of character." That way, they'll all constantly deny that they are the doppleganger, and paranoia will start to mount up.