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View Full Version : Villain/Monster Ideas. Help Me Add to Them?



Old_Nemrod
2011-07-14, 12:38 AM
Building scary things for my players for an upcoming Pathfinder game. I had some ideas but was looking to see what fellow playgrounders would do with them. I'm looking more for fluff than numbers though.

1. Invisible Stirges- Not really stirges though. I'm thinking something on the level of the little fliers from Pitch Black. They are invisible and only come out at night in a small valley. To the naked eye, it would just look like wind passing through the trees until it/they picked up your friend and tore him to pieces in flight. I picture them highly flammable in daylight. Maybe they can be seen only in full moon light? Not sure of a good way the PCs could deal with them in their lair. Maybe they shouldn't?

2. Cold Knights - These guys look similar to the chaos in fantasy warhammer, only minus the skulls and all. Just big hulking armor suits with a big sword or hammer. The idea is that they are practically immune to physical damage and touching their chilled armor can cause frostbite in seconds. I have them appearing in the story hunting giants. They herd one or two away and use large iron harpoon weapons to impale them and drag them into the dark. The harpoon guns are large cannons that use a large mithril coil to fire.

3. Shadow - Not really new idea, but would still like to see what you guys have in mind. This is a simple assassin who can ride inside shadows. He can't hop in one and out another. He hops into shadows like a simplified rope trick and can see out so he knows when to leave. If there is too much light and he is inside the shadow, he must wait for it to reappear. Was also thinking that if he hid in your shadow and you entered somewhere completely dark, he could hide you in his shadow. or kill you/eat you. IDK. Something challenging.

I might have others come to mind but these are the ones that have been jumping all around my brain these past couple days. Thanks ahead to all who contribute.

Mastikator
2011-07-14, 02:21 AM
Maybe the Stirges only make a single attack, then leave, then the next day the target takes con damage (fort negate) and vomits out blood and Stirge eggs, then this happens every day until the target negates some number of times in a row or is cured of disease.

The cold knights freeze people and then open up their armor and envelop the frozen victim and keep it alive and return it to their maker who use them for some nefarious purpose.

The shadow thing can be pretty scary if it makes hints of its existence but hides for a long time, letting the player come to his own conclusion about what's going on with his shadow.

KineticDiplomat
2011-07-14, 02:45 AM
Booby-trapped civilians. Take a wounded little girl (natural plot hook anyhow), and have her crying piteously and failing her attempts to crawl towards the party with her jagged, half shattered leg, naturally pulling the party in, or at least the altruistic ones. Ideally you force them down an alley/cave/wadi/room where they will all be canalized.

Seed said kill zone with daisy chained traps/pre-embed spells, with the trigger being far enough along into the kill zone that all of them will hit. The PCs, rushing to help, will most likely not be checking for these things.

Then the traps or pre-embedded spells all go off at once when the lead PC triggers them. The party is battered, and here's the best part - the original little girl is obviously now little more than hamburger.

Besides being nasty mechanically, it will make your players loathe the villian. Esepcially when they let another one bleed out as they spend too long checking for traps.

As a side bonus, if an isolated player is ever KO'd away from party, you can have the villians rigging the character as a booby trap. When the rest of the party shows up, its a race against time to disarm the traps or find a clever way around them(presumably the PC warns his party mates) before letting the PC die.

Notreallyhere77
2011-07-14, 12:37 PM
The cold knights could be contagious. Perhaps the frostbite they inflict spreads to envelop a victim's body if they don't treat it in time. When the whole body is frozen, the ice thickens into armor, and the victim becomes a cold knight themselves, compelled to seek out his new bretheren and hunt alongside them. Give them a template that changes them to fey, or something.

One thing that scares me is plagues of things. A magically modified locust swarm that must be exterminated, but can reproduce in large quantities if you don't kill every last one.
A disease would work along the same vein, just make it so that the incubation period is long enough that people aren't suspicious of a carrier until he's been around them for months.

Alternatively, strange objects might scare them, if used properly. How about a mirror, that, when viewed, shows a user aging rapidly, dying, and decaying into dust in the span of ten seconds, not showing reflecting them again until the next day.
Okay, I sorta stole that from an article in Dragon (or was it Dungeon?) from years ago, but it's no less creepy.
For a wealth of scary objects, try here (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-series).

HappyBlanket
2011-07-14, 02:14 PM
Booby-trapped civilians. Take a wounded little girl (natural plot hook anyhow), and have her crying piteously and failing her attempts to crawl towards the party with her jagged, half shattered leg, naturally pulling the party in, or at least the altruistic ones. Ideally you force them down an alley/cave/wadi/room where they will all be canalized.

Seed said kill zone with daisy chained traps/pre-embed spells, with the trigger being far enough along into the kill zone that all of them will hit. The PCs, rushing to help, will most likely not be checking for these things.

Then the traps or pre-embedded spells all go off at once when the lead PC triggers them. The party is battered, and here's the best part - the original little girl is obviously now little more than hamburger.

Besides being nasty mechanically, it will make your players loathe the villian. Esepcially when they let another one bleed out as they spend too long checking for traps.

As a side bonus, if an isolated player is ever KO'd away from party, you can have the villians rigging the character as a booby trap. When the rest of the party shows up, its a race against time to disarm the traps or find a clever way around them(presumably the PC warns his party mates) before letting the PC die.

Booby trapped civilians taken literally; pick up the little girl and fifty knives pop out of her stomach, killing her in the process. What's your flat footed AC?

Oh god let's make it worse. You introduce her as a scared and wounded little girl, crumpled on the ground in a pool of blood. She keeps repeating soft cries for help, and when she notices you approach, she looks at you with a scared face and tries to crawl away as best she can, leaving a trail of blood from her mangled legs. While she does so, she yells in fear for you to stop following, screaming in a terrified voice not to touch her... And if you do touch her, a bulge appears in her chest, followed by another, and another, and another. Then the knives start coming out.

OOC, tell the players they receive 4d6 non-masterwork Daggers.

It's not even a monster or an encounter at this point. It's just terrifying. And dark.

Kuma Da
2011-07-14, 02:51 PM
This thread is already wonderful. I love your ideas. They help put some of the reverent scary back in dnd monsters, which too often are cardboard charicatures of fear.



Things already suggested

The stirge: Pitch Black was an excellent movie. Mix in some Alan Wake and Silence in the Library, and that's what I'm seeing for this. As an added thought, where do they roost? I'm thinking caves, wet and organic, dripping with the residue of victims. Perhaps, deep enough under the earth, there are the spawning pools that the threat originates from. Lightless, bottomless holes in the world, their surfaces seething with immature larvae. If you can get the PCs into the lair of these things, you have your scary made.

Cold Knights: Clever idea. But make them hollow. I'm seeing silent, semi-sentient automata. Nothing to reason with. Only implacable, perfect huntsmen. I also like the idea about them entombing people in ice. In my mind, they're almost like hunting spiders.

Shadow: Strikes me as more Naruto than horror-fantasy, but it has potential. I'd lose the humanity of having it be an assassin. Make it a plant. Its seeds put down their roots in a person's shadow, growing only in the dark. They'e ethereal, and trying to hack them away does no good. Every night, when the afflicted lies down to sleep, he can see those tangled white tendrils growing inch by inch out of the air, until at last they enfold him and sink taproots in his flesh. In the light, the plant is invisible. Dormant. But catch a victim in a dark room, and there's a bristling wall of white fibers reaching for him from behind. At end-stage infection, ethereal sprouts emerge from the deceased's body and begin to release seeds of their own.

Babies with spikes: Solid idea, but you're going to need a joker-style villain to back it up. Great drama.




New suggestion

The Lonesome Men: Faceless. Plodding. Travel in groups, wheeling squeaking old wooden carts from town to town. They come in the night, carry a random selection of the villagers from their beds, load their bodies onto the carts and leave. The carts are unnaturally huge and deep, and appear to be holding more bodies than could reasonably be allowed, while still never being full. For an added touch, when they arrive, a supernatural silence descends on the town, stifling all noise save for the shuffling of their bodies and the struggling of their victims.

TheCountAlucard
2011-07-14, 03:00 PM
Booby-trapped civilians.I would be careful about pulling this one. That seems the sort of thing that could easily upset the players IRL, especially if they're not expecting something along these venues. There's a difference between scary and dark, and this is definitely the latter.

Old_Nemrod
2011-07-14, 03:31 PM
Mixing the shadow and contagion gave me an idea. The shadow is something very old and it has managed this by joining with an unsuspecting victim's shadow. It follows them around very patiently until they are in some inescapable dark:pitch black woods, cave, or basement. Then it envelopes them in complete shadow and steals their visage. It leaves the person feeling cold and disoriented. They soon realize that the have become the darkness. They are a perfect 3D silhouette of themselves and are extremely vulnerable to light. Each contact with a beam of light severs the part it touched permanently. Many die while others stick to the dark places, immortal and unable to affect anything. The Shadow monster gets to enjoy life in the sun for one day, then it sheds its form and hides in the darkness till another victim draws it in.

Bored Nightmares - Powerful Nightmare spirit-thingies are plucking people from wakefulness. A random person will be walking down the road and suddenly go wide eyed and start screaming, "Oh dear God/Pelor, NO!". Then they slump to the ground and go into a permanent seizure until their body gives out. These creatures will take an interest in PCs that get curious enough to try and fix it.

PS: Thanks guys. These are awesome. Booby trapped civilians would get my characters in the perfect mindset to have a good villain encounter.

Reltzik
2011-07-14, 05:02 PM
Ghosts are always a favorite.

One idea I keep coming back to is the power of ghosts to possess. Yes, yes, the target gets a will save. That's why my ghosts prefer to possess ordinary commoners. They now have a meat-puppet.

What can the meat puppet do? Well, almost anything, and half of what it does is done with the ghost's stats, rather than the commoner's. (Rogue ghosts, for example, retain sneak attack bonuses.) Yes, eventually (rather quickly, actually) the PCs will restrain and-or kill the meat puppet. Fortunately, there are others to be had! THOUSANDS! MILLIONS! The ghost can leave behind a meat puppet at any time, too, not just when killed. Imagine, the PCs are trying to ferret out the heart of a conspiracy... except they can't. Every time they think they've found the paymaster it's just an ordinary Joe who went to ONE meeting with Nefarious Persons, went home, went to sleep, woke up, and resumed his ordinary life.

To further confuse them, sow seeds towards the ghost's true identity that keep leading back to a dead villain and an unseen successor. Further red herrings you can lay out: The ghost is worshipped by a cult as a trickster-deity, the ghost is playing multiple factions against each other using different faces for each, the ghost has several voluntary meat puppets which it can possess regularly for a "known" face that the PCs will think are actual villains.

Don't pass up the opportunity to possess, say, the quest hook, small children, or animals. (Bonus points for a ghost wizard with the right metamagic feats posessing, say, a crow, and then blasting away.) Done right, the PCs will go a long time before they even realize that it's the SAME villain over and over... they'll start seeing world-spanning conspiracies, or a villainous shapeshifter that can't be killed, or wizards creating Things Not Meant To Be (CROWS CAN'T CAST FIREBALLS ARGH!). Further bonus points for having the ghost's true identity being a previously-vanquished villain... so long as this is only revealed well into the adventure, the villain is memorable, and you pull this stunt only once.

And once the PCs DO realize it's a ghost, further complications open up. What are the moral implications of killing innocent meat puppets simply to temporarily deny the ghost a tool? Good-alligned PCs will suddenly find these encounters a lot more difficult. Put them in a crowd and make them realize that EVERYONE is a potential vessel. Paranoia is fun! Have them possess the person they were sent to rescue, who promptly holds him/her/itself hostage with a dagger to his/her/its own throat.

And this is just ONE power at a ghost's disposal.

EDIT: Also, the ghost possesses the little girl, booby traps its own meat-puppet, and then depart.

NikitaDarkstar
2011-07-14, 06:03 PM
I like the booby trapped civilian idea, but if that's a little to dark for your players you can turn it into an illusion instead (with crazy high will save...) that they only realize is a civilian after it's dead. (But if you booby trap the area around it that's certainly not an illusion! :p) If they failed their will save they get to take some temporary damage to their mental stats. (But even if they made the save they still won't know it was an illusion until the illusion is gone.)

You could also have nightmares that trap and attack them in their dreams. The thing is that they can't fight their way out since they're not fighting a monster in their dreams, they're literary fighting their dreams. They have to figure out some other way to wake up and deal with this monster. Also make it obvious that dying in their dreams will be fatal.

Choco
2011-07-15, 10:43 AM
I've always been a fan of things like Intellect Devourers that destroy and control their victims from the inside (and thus cannot be detected by true seeing or the like, which is a HUGE weakness of Doppelgangers).

Even better, you can homebrew something like the Goa'uld from Stargate: Worms/snakes that enter and take over the body while leaving the mind of the host intact, so they can watch as they are forced to commit all sorts of despicable deeds. And of course the parasites would greatly boost their host's physical stats, but not in a way that is visibly noticeable.

Perhaps you can have one of these infect one of the PC's closest allies, and then plant false information that the ally was captured and replaced with an impostor. Then some time after the PC's kill the "impostor", they should learn that it really WAS their friend they killed.

Alternatively, just have a villain that specializes in turning people into monsters. You could go most of the campaign before the PC's figure it out (but be sure to drop clues along the way). Of course the campaign would have a lot of people disappearing, being kidnapped, etc. (including those close to the PC's as they start meddling more). By the time the PC's learn of this ability, they should have killed scores of friends, family members, helpless little orphans, etc. in monster form. Bonus points if the villain reads off a list of all the "monsters" the PC's have killed, and who they were before, just to rub it in. Even more bonus points if while in monster form, the victims are basically held hostage in their own bodies, once again being forced to watch as they destroy and/or are destroyed by their loved ones.

You could also go the cliche plague route, but make it something to actually be feared. Make sure the PC's know there is no known cure for this plague, and what spreads it is unknown. I did an undead plague that was not contagious, but was instead spread by contact with creatures similar to Doppelgangers. The PC's never knew if they would catch the uncurable plague from fighting said undead, from the refugees escaping the plaguelands, etc. The fact that they did not know how this plague is spread actually made them scared, and FOR ONCE careful when dealing with the problem. Then it got even better when outbreaks started occurring in cities that were well removed from the known plaguelands, with no signs of foul play, etc.

Knaight
2011-07-15, 10:51 AM
I'd recommend a few very minor creatures, heavily used, that work in conjunction with more impressive beings. I've had great success with this in the past, with a few particular stand outs. Of these, the following should fit a fantasy setting with low technology:

Eye Network: A bunch of subtly patterned, flat creatures with limited camouflage that attach themselves to trees, walls, and occasionally living beings. Certain entities can see through these as well as their own eyes.

Silus
2011-07-15, 10:54 AM
Mmmm....Shadows.

Something that's kinda fun to do with Shadows is weaken them up (Like minimum HD, less AC, whatever) but just have massive swarms of them. With a hivemind of sorts.

Or the same, but throw the "Evolved Undead" template (Libris Mortis) on them.

KineticDiplomat
2011-07-15, 01:08 PM
Yes, there is that line between dark and scary...but at the end of the day, personal opinion, to scare players requires a fundamental undermining of their faith in humanity to the point where the grow suspicious and loathing. To the point where they hate, truly hate, the unknown. Which includes dark. Not a gore fest, but enough malicious disregard and manipulation of commonly held mores to truly be just on the verge of humanity, yet still potentially human.

Because while in real life a 20 ton lizard that flies, breathes fire, and obliterates a village beneath its claws while cackling with malign intelligence would be positively terrifying.

But to players, its a dragon. It obliterates the village because, hey- evil dragon. Evil dragon. Right. Lets get to killing it or running away. Perhaps a little IC fear, but round and round...just a dragon. Worst case, we roll up some new characters.

Even if a CoC beast is fully described, it more or less translates to - ungodly not good.

To truly inspire horror in the player, they have to be revolted at the inherent morality of the situation in addittion to the actual critter or enviornment du jur. Thats, in my humble opinion, is the difference between Hannibal Lecter and Lex Luthor. One is a villian who can kill millions chasing wealth but people will say "well..hes a villian..duuuh" whereas the other may only kill a handful, but is genuinely disturbing.

Old_Nemrod
2011-07-15, 06:35 PM
I ran a plague game already.

The Sath were basically lizardmen. Less dinosaur-more african croc. Anyways, the contagion spread from a single vial of blood set inside a mechanical golden scarab that would sense out intruders that broke into its vault. It would then fly out and inject them. The memories of the species carried in the blood and people woke from their transformation and new intelligent species bent on conquest. Thanks to a band of thieves failing, my players ended up in the middle of it all.

Was fun but my buddy runs zombie games all the time so I'm kind of burnt out with using something like that.

Conversions and contagions that don't get out of hand but still pose a very big threat are still appealing though. Like Amy Pond almost becoming a Weeping Angel.

Kuma Da
2011-07-17, 05:52 PM
Something something something Weeping Angels.

Yes. A millions times yes.

Maximus:Ranger
2011-07-17, 09:47 PM
I go two take 'em or leave 'em.

Deep Zombie
A undead sailor or pirate perhaps in a sunken ship or rising from a deep, dark pool. Grabs you and vomits putrid water on you until you drown.

The Corrupted
Diseased creature that on a natural roll of 20 acts as a conduit to a demon which bursts out of it Alien style.

Otacon17
2011-07-17, 10:31 PM
Maybe the Stirges only make a single attack, then leave, then the next day the target takes con damage (fort negate) and vomits out blood and Stirge eggs, then this happens every day until the target negates some number of times in a row or is cured of disease.

You could take something like this and connect it with the 'booby-trapped civilian' line of thought. Here's the setup:

The party is making their way through the woods. It's dark, but they dare not stop for the night - the locals speak of terrible creatures that flit through the trees at night, and every once in a while, the party hears a faint [whatever noise a stirge-like monster would make; buzzing/humming, maybe?] and the whisper of wings, but they can't see where the noise is coming from. After making their way deep into the woods, they hear sobbing. Upon investigating, they discover a man (or child, or what have you, depending on how much you want to disturb your players) laying on the ground, curled up in the fetal position. There is dried blood around a small wound on his neck, and fresh blood appears to be seeping from his mouth He is deathly pale. As the players draw closer, the man grabs one of their legs, looks up at them, and mutters in a pained voice, "They bit me... they bit me.... I couldn't even see them! But I could hear hear the buzzing... they're everywhere! You just... can't... see them..." At this point, the man coughs up an enormous amount of blood and begins screaming in agony, his body contorting with pain, and the party can just barely make out that odd bumps are beginning to pop up on his stomach. More and more appear until, finally, his stomach rips open, and dozens of small, almost-invisible (think translucent white, like a grub) stirges clumsily fly out and escape into the woods.

Now, even if someone only gets hit once by one of the stirges, they still won't feel safe. They won't feel safe stopping to eat or sleep, either, because they can hear the monsters flying all around them. They won't feel safe until they get out of that forest.

I mean, y'know. Hopefully.