Scaryest monster? (3.5)

[Balor01]

Which of 3.5 ed monster scares you the most?

I have thrown a driad at my party the other night and since part of them is now blind and the other part is "It haz druid spells. IT HAZ DRUID SPELLZ! AAAAAA!" (yes they are a noob party, but it was a fun encounter) it turned out to be ... scary. Which monsters (level appropriate) are "Oh shi ..." monsters for you?

That crab could be a contestant ...

Or an atropal ... :smalltongue:

[Psyx]

Rust monsters.

[AslanCross]

The atropal is definitely scary, though the art they used for the Atropal Scion is more horrific than the Epic Level Handbook's Atropal. Either way, scary aborted god-fetus is scary.

Speaking of the Epic Level Handbook, the Uvuudaum is like a living acid trip that can destroy your mind with its physical attack. I mean, WTH:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MotP/Far_Realm_Entity.jpg

Bonedrinkers. Tentacled undead vampires that dissolve your bones and suck them out of you?

[Eldan]

It's man!

Mwahahahahaaa!

Honestly, though, I'll have to think about it.

[hamishspence]

Speaking of the Epic Level Handbook, the Uvuudaum is like a living acid trip that can destroy your mind with its physical attack. I mean, WTH:

The actual uvuudaum pic- while also looking mostly like that- isn't quite as creepy. That pic's from MoTP which predates Epic- it might be an uvuudam- or a pseudonatural human in the "tentacled horror form".

Epic Handbook uvuudaum:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/EPIC_Gallery/Gallery5a/44184_C5_Uvuudaum.jpg

[grimbold]

personally i find the gibbering mouther terrifying

[Yora]

That's because it's a Shoggoth.

[hamishspence]

Which gibbering mouther looks creepier: MM:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG126.jpg
or Lords of Madness?
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/lom_gallery/88140.jpg

[Callos_DeTerran]

Definitely the MM version, if for no other reason then I could say the flesh-colored blob version could be the result of a mage's experiments on people or what happened to said mage when their own experiments went horribly wrong.

[hamishspence]

The more human-looking teeth on at least one of the mouths- might play a part in that.

[Yora]

I raise you this one:
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk280/czech37/mouther.jpg

And this image made aboleths about a 9.0 on my weird-{flowers}-o-meter.
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb320/prodigyduck/Aboleth20Prison.jpg
They don't look THAT big in the MM.
(And I'm also moderately ichthyophobic.)

[GoatBoy]

Probably depends far more on the context of the encounter and the creature's motives, but I've always found the primeval dread and forbidden lore of the aboleths to be the most chilling.

A few others are the tsochari (LoM), moonbeasts (MM2), avolakia (MM2), crawling head (FF), kythons (BoVD), kaorti (FF), and hullathoin (FF).

Why so many from Fiend Folio and MM2? Perhaps because I knew less about the game when I first read those and was less able to think of ways to beat them.

I think the writers did a good job with just about every monster in Elder Evils, too, because not only do the monsters possess incredible power, but you can see the incredible destruction and ruin their very existence causes.

[Yora]

And the FF is really a freaky book.

[Shenanigans]

Now I know Mind Flayers is a cliche answer, but they're scary to me for more than just normal reasons.

When the Lords of Madness fluff indicated that the illithids were from the far future, and that they knew they were destined to eventually be successful, for some reason that scared the bejeezus out of me,

[Yora]

It also implies that they are a future evolved form of a creature that is around today. The question is "Which one will rule the universe at the end of time?"

[Balor01]

It also implies that they are a future evolved form of a creature that is around today. The question is "Which one will rule the universe at the end of time?"
Kuo-toas :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, I saved your aboleth pic. It is sooooo cool.

[Baveboi]

I think the scariest of all monsters are those you really don't want to fight. Ever. In all times. Whenever I can't hope to defeat something the mere prospects of having to face it (or having it hunting my hide) is something that makes me want to crawl under my bedsheets and stay there.

Creatures of the far realm (Lovecraftian in general) are other sort of unsorted madness. Some of them (Beholders, Abolethes...) make me wish I couldn't dream at all, only to turn away from the nightmare.


Anything that makes you want to lose your Int and Wis score so you can't recognize it's existence are top notch for me.

[Gorilla2038]

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb320/prodigyduck/Aboleth20Prison.jpg



Where is that image from? Its so cool! -little girl squeak-

[Elvenoutrider]

The scariest encounter ive ever run was my pc walked into a dark room with a number of alcoves equal ot the number of party members. A portcullis shuts behind them trapping them in. Out from each of the alcoes shuffles a pale and dead looking exact duplicate of each party member.

their touch attack does a d6 of negative energy damage and any damage done to them does the exact damage back to the party member they are duplicating.

They have as much health as the party.

They only ways to beat them were using positive energy or at th end of the dungeon, dumping them in a vat of holy water.

They were stalked by their dopplegangers through the whole dungeon

[Yora]

Where is that image from? Its so cool! -little girl squeak-
I think it's from one of the later issues of Dungeon.

[Callos_DeTerran]

I think it's from one of the later issues of Dungeon.

It is, from the Savage Tide Adventure path. Imagine that picture....Now imagine being one of those characters. :smallamused:

The ruins of an ancient civilization lay around you in ruin, the tips of columns and obelisks protruding from the water like the fangs of some immense aquatic beast. They hum rhythmically with the pulse of something even further below ground then you are now, sending out rings of ripples that collide with one another in mad harmony. Drops of water can be heard splashing down in the distance, distorting the sound in the water-logged cavern as you carefully maneuver across the stone bridge that crosses the chamber. A musky smell fills your senses, like dried mucus, and permeates the entire chamber though it's source is unseen. No lights have been to this cavern in ages, no crude lifeforms having disturbed the ruins in search of gold or treasure. Only the oppressive weight of the ages lurks along the be-shadowed ceiling...

Below the water is an inky black, the light from your torches unable to penetrate the dark depths below. Away from the stone plinths that surround your path, the water is utterly placid and still. How far down the pool goes is unknown, but thankfully it seems lifeless. As you cross, primitive hieroglyphics leer and glare at you, as if blaming you for their current state of disrepair even...wait...The water shifts uneasily for the briefest of moments, the barest flicker of a massive fluted tail seen before it disappears once more. Perhaps not so lifeless...

[Dusk Eclipse]

It is, form the Savage Tide Adventure path. Imagine that picture....Now imagine being one of those characters. :smallamused:

:smalleek:...... and now I am worried.

[Yora]

It's not so much aboleths are, but what you can make of them if you get a bit creative. They don't eat your brain like a mind flayer. If you get to close to them and get some of their slime down your throat, it transforms your lungs, so you can only breath water. And if they hit you with their equally slimy tentacles, your skin becomes translucent and forces your body to permanently be placed in water or you dry out and die. But that's only the short term side effects of coming to close to them. When they want to keep you around, they destroy your mind and turn you into fish people.
Also, they can create about every illusion in existance at will and dominate the hell out of people with their minds. So they can mess with you even if you try to stay safely away from all water. That's because Mirrage Arcana has a range of over 1000 feet and they can place as many Programmed Immages as they want.

And all this in the shape of a catfish the size of an elephant.

[kme]

I always found bodaks (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG28b.jpg) particularly scary, especially if I try to imagine a scenario of seeing one. Monsters with roughly humanoid shape are generally scarier for me then those with more abstract form.

[AslanCross]

The actual uvuudaum pic- while also looking mostly like that- isn't quite as creepy. That pic's from MoTP which predates Epic- it might be an uvuudam- or a pseudonatural human in the "tentacled horror form".

Epic Handbook uvuudaum:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/EPIC_Gallery/Gallery5a/44184_C5_Uvuudaum.jpg

Interesting. Maybe they liked the design in the MotP pic and said "that must become an epic-level creature." I did choose this pic because I found it much freakier than the ELH art, though I didn't know it predated ELH.

[MammonAzrael]

I fear the mighty gazebo.

I've also got a bit a of a fear of Ankheg from a DM in 2nd edition. Those buggers ambushed us after tearing through several villages, Tremors-style.

[mucat]

Basement orcs (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2009/12/boyfriend-would-be-headless-dignity.html).

[Ilmryn]

My players ran into a couple of shadow elementals a while back. They were in a cramped labyrinth in the BBEGs tower. Because they were incorporeal, hard to see, and consistently did damage, they scared(and hurt) the PCs worse than the dungeon boss(a shadow dragon, and those are pretty nasty). Then they met the big one...:belkar:

[CockroachTeaParty]

I've always thought meenlocks were scary. 18 inch high deformed sanity-rending torture victims, hell-bent on turning you into more of them. Yet another MM II offering. There's some deranged stuff in that book.

For some reason, undead don't really do it for me. The atropal is perhaps the creepiest undead. I find aberrations and some of the weirder outsiders more frightening. What's the name of that one obyrith that's basically a giant hot-air balloon of evil madness?

[Elfin]

I'll have to second (or third, as the case may be) the aboleth.
Fish to start with I find creepy; many-eyed, tentacled fish who lurk in the inky depths of the Underdark, are geniuses, and want to kill and/or enslave us all aren't much of an improvement.

[Derjuin]

If we're talking as characters in a CR-appropriate encounter...Tendriculos.

Personally? Chaos beasts scare me like none other. They hit you, and then, if you're not fortitudinous enough, you essentially melt...

[Arcane_Secrets]

I've always thought meenlocks were scary. 18 inch high deformed sanity-rending torture victims, hell-bent on turning you into more of them. Yet another MM II offering. There's some deranged stuff in that book.

For some reason, undead don't really do it for me. The atropal is perhaps the creepiest undead. I find aberrations and some of the weirder outsiders more frightening. What's the name of that one obyrith that's basically a giant hot-air balloon of evil madness?

Sibriex. They're from Hordes of The Abyss.

[woodenbandman]

Great wyrm force dragon

Frightful presence save DC: 73

[super dark33]

Great wyrm force dragon

Frightful presence save DC: 73

i think it may be 37, somtimes they mess with the nubmers

[Calmar]

The illithids, I suppose. They're as inhuman as sentient monsters can be...

[Amiel]

A rust dragon would be pretty scary, especially in an antimagic field.

As for the most horrific, can't really say. Atropals, the stillborn godlings, perhaps.

[darbythegambler]

MIMICS!!!!!!!!!! :smallfurious:

[Amiel]

An angel of decay;
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/libris_gallery/84733.jpg

Or the desiccator;
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/libris_gallery/84747.jpg

The ripper;
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Cityscape_Gallery/101108.jpg

Finally, the wheep;
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/libris_gallery/84779.jpg

[Admiral Squish]

In my experience, nothing scares PCs quite so much as a monster they've never heard of. Whether you make it, find it in an obscure sourcebook, or re-flavor an existing monster in a completely new way, they will mess themselves when they realize that the have no idea what that is. It's very satisfying to watch their faces go from confidence to confusion, then to concern, then all the way into panic mode as they realize they don't recognize it. Then, when NOBODY recognizes it, that's when the hilarity begins as people dig out laptops and sourcebooks, hunting down the beast that cannot be found and overall getting REALLY nervous. I'm not sure what causes this, but it's so much fun sometimes.

[Eldan]

You allow people to search through sourcebooks at the table to find the monster you are currently using? Why would you do that? :smallconfused:

[Admiral Squish]

You allow people to search through sourcebooks at the table to find the monster you are currently using? Why would you do that? :smallconfused:

Not when they have the slightest chance of finding it, no. :smallamused:
But generally, it doesn't matter if I let them look. Between the four of them, they could probably recite the important points to remember on just about every monster in every manual. Which is where the fear comes in. They KNOW their D&D monsters. But when I throw them something I've dreamed up recently, it doesn't matter if it's CR 1 or CR 10 or CR 20, it puts them off-balance and gets me the leverage I need to work my way into their heads.

[Eldan]

That's not what I mean, really. I mean, sure, it's metagaming, but how can you create an atmosphere if half the people are reading instead of listening?

[dsmiles]

Need I bring up the Century Worm again? :smalleek:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ff_gallery/50103.jpg

[Admiral Squish]

That's not what I mean, really. I mean, sure, it's metagaming, but how can you create an atmosphere if half the people are reading instead of listening?
Oh, that. Well, I usually only let them read long enough to drive home the fact it doesn't exist in the books. No longer than five minutes or so, then the books go away and they get to face the latest monstrosity in earnest. As for atmosphere, they can be a little... odd, at times, and it's hard to make them take the game seriously when one of the players is a sumo wrestling dwarf.

[Ernir]

it's hard to make them take the game seriously when one of the players is a sumo wrestling dwarf.
Really? I would have thought that sumo wrestling dwarfs generally take their roleplaying very seriously.

[Myth]

The Unholy Scion from Heroes of Horror.

[Longcat]

Need I bring up the Century Worm again? :smalleek:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ff_gallery/50103.jpg

Ach! Hans, run! It's the Lhurguyf Century Worm!


As for scary monster, a room full of unlit candles and 3 Lvl 1 Kobold Warriors somehow scared the crap out of them :smallbiggrin:

[AslanCross]

For some reason, undead don't really do it for me. The atropal is perhaps the creepiest undead. I find aberrations and some of the weirder outsiders more frightening. What's the name of that one obyrith that's basically a giant hot-air balloon of evil madness?

Amen. With all the zombie and vampire stuff around nowadays, I feel kind of underwhelmed by undead now. The Obyrith you're referring to is the Sibriex:
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101222084918/sfery/images/d/d5/Sibriex.jpg

Someone apparently did his own version:
http://sweb.cz/JKelly/Sibriex_gfx.jpg

[klyk]

Hippopotamus.

Ever since I threw one in a campaign and the players where starving.
They thought they just could walk up and kill one and eat one.
None had any knowledge nature.
And some meta gaming didn't even enter anyone's mind as they four lvl 3
heroes could take a little hippo easily.
So wrong they where ever since then I have been ever so wary of every animals I encounter.
Yes I got scarred as a GM I had no clue how hard a hippo was and just flung one into the game for the players to have something to hunt as they where starving.

[RTGoodman]

There's not really a monster I'M scared of, but I've had several parties freaked out by this guy.

http://daveallsop.info/content/Paintings/Boneclaw.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ex_boneclaw.jpg

I loved Boneclaws in 3.5, and was super-excited when they made minis and finally made it into the core 4E MM1.

[Skaven]

Judging by the players reaction and subsequent comments on the play session, the scariest thing I ever threw against my players was..

The mostly invisible and only visible by its shadow and occasionally glimpsed shade of a little girl that giggled.

http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww237/mhsourcing/shadowlittlegirl.jpg

She only wanted to play.

[Amiria]

Aboleths, yes. They are scary, they are the boss monsters in the old Ad&D Night Below campaign which I currently DM under 3.5.

The picture from the dungeon issue in this thread gave me a much better idea of how big they really are.

Although there is an Aboleth more or less on the on the cover of the adventure box ... seems very big ... but more in the background, only vaguely perceptible as a hidden threat.

Looky here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Below:_An_Underdark_Campaign

[randomhero00]

A succubus. Because the character I'm roleplaying, no matter who, will fall for her every time.

[Daftendirekt]

The ripper;
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Cityscape_Gallery/101108.jpg


what book is that in?

[lightningcat]

The only encounter that I've ever had characters run from was a large book. Maybe 4 foot by 3 foot. Its was chained at all four corners to the sides of the cave, with 6 inch thick chains.

I still have no idea what was so special about that book myself.:smallbiggrin:

[Draculmaulkee]

The scariest encounter I've DMed was just two ghouls who ambushed the PCs in a foggy location. Atmosphere can do wonders :smalltongue:

[Barbin]

This isn't exacly a CR based fear, but more of a personaly fear.

I had this dream, most of it can't remember, were I was lying on the ground when suddenly a Morhg pops out of nowhere, uses it's mouth claw/tentacle to slowly twist my tongue out of my mouth followed by my jaw. It then starts ripping out parts of my chest and stomach with it's arm claw/tentacles, and it finishes by popping my eyes out.


Now for a CR fear, rust monster.

[Cartigan]

MIMICS!!!!!!!!!! :smallfurious:

No Mimic is as scary as the Mimic in Ragnarok Online. Not all of them, just the one that hunts down Novices trying to be Thieves.

Scary D&D monster, and not because it is an eldritch horror..
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/excerpts_20101105b.jpg

[RelentlessImp]

Judging by the players reaction and subsequent comments on the play session, the scariest thing I ever threw against my players was..

The mostly invisible and only visible by its shadow and occasionally glimpsed shade of a little girl that giggled.

http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww237/mhsourcing/shadowlittlegirl.jpg

She only wanted to play.

Honestly? This. Because creepy little girls are actually scary as hell. I blame Japan for my fear of things like this, because they use it over and over and over, and it never gets any less frightening.

For the CR, I have to say I'm terrified of hellwasp swarms and will-o-wisps.

[sambo.]

a bored DM with an evil grin scares me more than anything the Monster Manual can come up with.

[Thurbane]

As a borderline arachnophobe, the Chwidencha give me the heeby geebies.

Also, clowns are pretty freaky, so the Joy Stealer and the clown-like Haunt are a bit disturbing.

Lastly, the obese, lipstick weaing Paeliryon Devil just looks...wrong.

[begooler]

The creatures that are before the dawn of, before the dawn of, before the dawn of time are the best creepy monsters to me. Aboleths, for one. Also, I wish they had more obyriths statted up.

[Lhurgyof]

Bone Ooze...

It sucks your god damned skeleton out of you.

Edit:

Ach! Hans, run! It's the Lhurguyf Century Worm!


As for scary monster, a room full of unlit candles and 3 Lvl 1 Kobold Warriors somehow scared the crap out of them :smallbiggrin:

You called?

[Daftendirekt]

Seems like aboleths are lots of peoples' first choice. Didn't really know anything about them till this thread, but after reading up on them I can see why they get so many votes. I wish I could DM well, so I could put a party up against one or more of these.

I also kind of want to figure out a way to make them playable, say, for a PC in an aquatic campaign? :smallwink:

[LordBlades]

In my experience, nothing scares PCs quite so much as a monster they've never heard of. Whether you make it, find it in an obscure sourcebook, or re-flavor an existing monster in a completely new way, they will mess themselves when they realize that the have no idea what that is. It's very satisfying to watch their faces go from confidence to confusion, then to concern, then all the way into panic mode as they realize they don't recognize it. Then, when NOBODY recognizes it, that's when the hilarity begins as people dig out laptops and sourcebooks, hunting down the beast that cannot be found and overall getting REALLY nervous. I'm not sure what causes this, but it's so much fun sometimes.

This.

Between encountering them and skimming the books for good alter self/polymorph/summon creatures, I know the key points of most monsters. It's not that I metagame much (I try not to) but knowing what an enemy can do gives me some sort of certainty. Something I know nothing about is just...scary:smallbiggrin:

[Amiel]

Lastly, the obese, lipstick weaing Paeliryon Devil just looks...wrong.

The paeliryon also floats upon a slug-like body, the entire length dripping with a presumably malodorous and/or digestive slime.
Unfortunately the make-up evokes the image of a cheap harlot; which makes it all the more terrifying.

[Dr.Epic]

First time I saw a bodak in the MMI I was kind of freaked out at the disturbing figure.

[Rappy]

First time I saw a bodak in the MMI I was kind of freaked out at the disturbing figure.
I'm not that frightened by the MMI image of the bodak. The d20 Modern image, though...

http://www.wizards.com/d20modern/images/mm_gallery/51656_CN.jpg
It's a combination of the look of sheer pain and inhuman suffering, and the fact that old Dark*Matter lore had the Grays being haunted by an obscenely ancient demon-wraith from beyond the stars... The two concepts melded together for me when I first saw them.

As for 3.5, I'd have to say the soul eater from Tome of Horrors frightens me, simply because just what eating a soul does (beyond the mechanical effects) is left to your imagination. And your imagination, as they say, is often more frightening than something you are explicitly told is frightening.

[hamishspence]

what book is that in?

Cityscape, as I recall.

[nyjastul69]

There isn't a single monster ever created that's scary. GM's on the other hand...

[Yora]

The creatures that are before the dawn of, before the dawn of, before the dawn of time are the best creepy monsters to me. Aboleths, for one. Also, I wish they had more obyriths statted up.

Obyriths are cool. It always disappoints me that ekolids are only CR 4. If those are the critters, I really want to know what their big bruisers are.

[Dr.Epic]

Need I bring up the Century Worm again? :smalleek:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ff_gallery/50103.jpg

What book is that in again?

[Yora]

Fiend Folio or Monster Manual 2. But I think FF.

Those books were both wacky. :smalleek:

[Dr.Epic]

http://www.wizards.com/d20modern/images/mm_gallery/51656_CN.jpg

It's like Ed Wood commissioned Edvard Munch to do promotional artwork for Plan 9.

[Yora]

I think that sounds a lot like what the artist might have intended. :smallbiggrin:

[Dr.Epic]

I think that sounds a lot like what the artist might have intended. :smallbiggrin:

What next? A balor done in the style of Andy Warhol posing like it's on a poster for an action movie?

[golem1972]

The Unholy Scion from Heroes of Horror.

Hey now!!!

My wife's character Rosemary has an Unholy Scion (Hellfire Warlock) cohort. It's very entertaining.

[Yukitsu]

Adventurers. Seriously, nothing makes NPCs more nervous than adventurers. You know those giants, dragons and eldritch terrors? All of them bow before the might of a band of adventurers. And who knows what sort this group is? When they'll fly off the handle and explode your entire city, just by locating it? What if that little kobold adventurer is actually pun pun? AAAAAAGH, RUN AWAY!

[Combat Reflexes]

It's a combination of the look of sheer pain and inhuman suffering, and the fact that old Dark*Matter lore had the Grays being haunted by an obscenely ancient demon-wraith from beyond the stars... The two concepts melded together for me when I first saw them.

Naah, my players would say he was taking a crap.

[Yora]

Hey now!!!

My wife's character Rosemary has an Unholy Scion (Hellfire Warlock) cohort. It's very entertaining.

Let me guess, her own brat? :smallbiggrin:

[McSmack]

I once ran a party up against a bodak hydra. They didn't last long.

But I agree that the scariest monsters are the ones DM's make up themselves -because the unknown is mankind's greatest fear. A while back I reworked the Slaughterstone Eviscerator to be basically a warforged displacer beast. Instead of displacement I gave it Predator-style invisibility, with little ripples where the light flowed around it. Mechanically it was the same as displacement but it Freaked.Them.Out. Especially when I gave it spiderclimb and had it slink down from the walls behind them.

[Yora]

"Bodak Hydra"

What did you expect? :smallbiggrin:

But very true. I always only describe creatures to the players and use names if the characters are very familiar with its type, can get a good look at it, and already used that name themselves. I also use a lot of creatures that I make up myself, so they never know if something is just a goblin or possibly a new creature that looks like a goblin at the start of the campaign.

[Thurbane]

Bodak Hydra is in Dragon Magazine Compendium from memory.

[Cartigan]

I once ran a party up against a bodak hydra. They didn't last long.

"Eet's got sharp, poi-nty teeth and seven deeath ahttahcks."

[RndmNumGen]

Not so much an individual monster but... recently my group managed to get an entire city of grimlocks thirsting for our blood. We spent some of the session fighting, but most of it running. After all, one grimlock? Easy. Ten grimlocks? Buckle down and find a good chokepoint. One hundred grimlocks? One thousand?

[Dr.Epic]

Doopelganger only because they look so much like those creepy grays greys big headed aliens.

[mint]

The elemental plane of water, as a water elemental who wants to kill you.

[Jeristo]

Personally, I'd say the wendigo from the Fiend Folio. It's not really crazy powerful or anything, but does just fine being really creepy. I think it helps that they gave a pretty gruesome description for it's attacks. That, and the wendigo story from the stupid scary stories to tell in the dark books... a lot of the illustrations in those books still creep me out to this day. :smalleek:

[hoff]

We once needed some dust from a lich corpse for a ritual. We gartered some clues as to where to find a lich. Once we got into his cave we found out it was a draco-lich, the moment the DM said to roll initiative we were petrified.

Nothing like a level-inapropiate encounter to make crap your pants

[Uhtred]

Ragewalkers. We were playing a melee-heavy party, and not only did we get damaged by their walls of blades, but if we DID hit and failed our will save, then we were immediately enraged and started trouncing our friends. At that point, I wasn't so proud of being a Dwarven Fighter dual-wielding +5 Dwarven Waraxes with 2-Weapon Rend. We just baaaarely survived, and ended up -9'ing a very important NPC.

[wayfare]

The AD&D Peryton always has my vote. They are crazy chimera eagle/stags that can only be damaged by magic weapons and reproduce by eating hearts to grow a shadow.

[Dr.Epic]

Talk to anyone from my current campaign and they'll say goat. You had to have been there.

[Jay R]

"Man is in the forest."

[Silus]

Evolved Shadows. Especially when they're stalking you.

Right now in my game, the only thing that's keeping them at bay is the Aasimar Paladin's Daylight Spell. And even then, it's only JUST working. If anyone's played Fable 3 and has gotten to the other continent, it's kinda like that initial temple/prison in the Karazahn Library (WoW).

[Zaydos]

From my experience as a DM

Crows.

Not even hostile crows, just crows sitting in trees. I had a party freaking out to the extent that I could get one to shoot himself with a magic missile (he felt something beneath his skin) but what started them freaking was that the trees were full of crows. Apparently birds = bad mojo, but lemure swarms do not as they demonstrated when a few weeks later they saw a swarm of lemures and immediately toasted them without thinking twice about why there was a swarm of devils in the home where one of the PCs grew up.

[Yora]

Always watching...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3256308509_e037cdc60e.jpg

[Dr.Epic]

If the Twilight Zone has taught me anything, Man is truly the most horrific creature.

[F.H. Zebedee]

What's the name of that one obyrith that's basically a giant hot-air balloon of evil madness?
I believe THIS (http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs28/f/2008/144/e/0/drifloon_by_SailorClef.png) is what you're looking for.

[Lord.Sorasen]

If the Twilight Zone has taught me anything, Man is truly the most horrific creature.

Man's not even in the monster manual, though.

[Rappy]

It's like Ed Wood commissioned Edvard Munch to do promotional artwork for Plan 9.


I think that sounds a lot like what the artist might have intended. :smallbiggrin:
Indeed. Most official d20 Modern artwork can be placed into one of three categories. Classic illustration:
http://www.wizards.com/d20modern/images/d20m_gallery/610_088190_92.jpg
Gotta love the little extra reference.

Comic book:
http://www.wizards.com/d20modern/images/d20m_gallery/610_088190_65.jpg

Or acid trip:
http://www.wizards.com/d20modern/images/mm_gallery/51728_CN.jpg

The d20 Modern bodak was obviously designed with the acid trip style.

[Dr.Epic]

Man's not even in the monster manual, though.

Exactly. We're so terrifying the writers couldn't even put us in one of the source books.

[Eldan]

Hey, I already called "Man" on page one. :smalltongue:

[Cyrion]

Man's not even in the monster manual, though.

He used to be though, and had multiple entries: Man, bandit; Man, berserker; Man, merchant...

Nowadays, all the classic literature's being rewritten and censored to be more vanilla, PC and less scary for the modern generation.

[Cartigan]

Always watching...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3256308509_e037cdc60e.jpg

Crows: It's a murder!

[Combat Reflexes]

Crows.

This.

When I was DMing my first horror story, I had this newly dead crow popping up every now and then. On the road, in a PC's backpack, at the end of his bed and more random places like that. The dead crow really freaked them out.
They thought it was some sort of black curse, and they kept a tally of who had seen the crow, and how many times. They predicted certain death and eternal damnation for the one who had found the crow most recently, and would go to great lengths (Death Ward, Resilient Sphere, staying in the tavern all day without eating) to avoid the 'curse' when they were the last one to see the dead beast.

After two sessions of paranoia, I just broke down and told my players it were just dead crows, no more and no less. They didn't believe it :smallamused:


Apparently, crows are so popular in horror campaigns that someone made rules for a swarm of them... an eye-pecking, nauseating murder of crows :smalleek:

[Dsurion]

Always watching...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3256308509_e037cdc60e.jpg

I see that looking out of my window every morning and it's still just as creepy.

[Vknight]

They watch upon wings of grace and darkness flying low as a shadow upon the land and as soon as they were there nothing more exists upon that land.

Crows and Man. So Kenku

[Cartigan]

They watch upon wings of grace and darkness flying low as a shadow upon the land and as soon as they were there nothing more exists upon that land.

Crows and Man. So Kenku
I think he has grasped the zeitgeist.

[Vknight]

What? Who? Where? Why? I is confused?

[Callista]

It's man!

Mwahahahahaaa!

Honestly, though, I'll have to think about it.Actually, you're right. There's no abomination as scary as what a sane human being is willing to do to his fellow sentients. At least in the case of aberrations and demons and such, you know they are by nature destructive and can have no other course. A human, on the other hand, chose to do what he does. And that is scarier than any rotting, slithering, or brain-breaking thing you might ever encounter.

[Thurbane]

There's no abomination as scary as what a sane human being is willing to do to his fellow sentients.
Sam & Dean Winchester would agree with you - or at least, they echoed that sentiment in a couple of eps of Supernatural.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Actually, you're right. There's no abomination as scary as what a sane human being is willing to do to his fellow sentients. At least in the case of aberrations and demons and such, you know they are by nature destructive and can have no other course. A human, on the other hand, chose to do what he does. And that is scarier than any rotting, slithering, or brain-breaking thing you might ever encounter.

Perhaps the scariest thought here is not that someone else may choose to do what one does, but rather that you are capable of just as much.

Which of course is terrifying in its own right.

Question for all of you who picked Man as the scariest monster: Has this applied to your D&D games? Has the scariest monsters you've faced been not aberrations and outsiders but sane peoples? I'm curious how D&D would translate this.

[Vknight]

The scariest monster the party fought was someone who's entire intentions were for good.
His back story they eventually found out was similar to the quest they were on to stop him. In the end they didn't know if killing him was the right thing because could they except that reality? Would they themselves be just the next him after all they had acted like him fought like him. That terrified them that the bad guy this ultimate evil was simply the thinest difference between themselves and him.

And that is why I think man works.

[Lord.Sorasen]

The scariest monster the party fought was someone who's entire intentions were for good.
His back story they eventually found out was similar to the quest they were on to stop him. In the end they didn't know if killing him was the right thing because could they except that reality? Would they themselves be just the next him after all they had acted like him fought like him. That terrified them that the bad guy this ultimate evil was simply the thinest difference between themselves and him.

And that is why I think man works.

The current BBEG in my campaign is borderline pacifist (will fight, will kill, but will avoid it if he can), with emotional reasons for his actions and no personal gain. I haven't been sure how the party will handle it yet.. Fear had never even passed my mind. This is quite a thing.




Still, I want to overall argue against man as the scariest monster. a man might be the scariest monster: maybe even a group of men. But if you are in a dungeon seeing a person just isn't that scary. It has the potential to be scary: as has been mentioned, an evil person can be much worse than the baddest of beasts... But I feel that humans aren't really all that scary by default.

In that vein I'd love to see a thread of the scariest individual evils people have faced in a campaign.

[Vknight]

Yeah that would be good.
If we go by psychological scary I'd say Aboleths
Physical something beyond compare
But long standing the questioning of boundaries between morality is humans.

[Makiru]

The paeliryon also floats upon a slug-like body, the entire length dripping with a presumably malodorous and/or digestive slime.
Unfortunately the make-up evokes the image of a cheap harlot; which makes it all the more terrifying.

The Paeliryon is just a fat creature covered in cheap makeup. The thing with a slug body is its FF partner in crime, the Xerfylstyx (I have no idea if I spelled that right, and I don't care).

As a player, nothing really frightens me, since I always remember that it's just dice and pieces of paper. Boring, I know.

In my experience as a DM, though, I find that using familiar monsters that are drastically out of the norm can be suitably traumatizing. In "Bastion of Broken Souls", there is a half-dragon kobold fighter that is used as a late-game enemy. Not terribly scary on its own, just from the description.

This kobold has a 36 Strength score. This made at least one of my players run for the hills because of how bizarre it was.

Also, telling your players about an encounter ahead of time and telling them you're going to modify it (but not how) also instills a vast amount of fear. Same game, I told my players that I was going to restat Ashardalon to be more in line with 3.5 and left it at that. None of my players knew about the Xorvinitaal dragon substitutions, which is what I used to make him more combat-focused. The fact that I said I was changing him made my players speculate and terrify themselves with their own ideas of what I was going to do. It didn't help when they finally ran into him, one player got up in his face to punk him out, and immediately took 60 fire damage from his energy aura before eating a full-attack on a surprise round. I'd like to think that my players' tactics changed drastically after their main melee character got dropped before combat officially began.

Other than that, I really do love me some Trillochs (MMV, I think). Their only attack is to make you rage and are completely invisible.