Boogey Monster of Nightmare

[ExemplarofAvg]

What to you is the most frightening (not most powerful) creature in DnD I'm working on a campaign where I want the visuals to unnerve the players, also any fluff that has the potential unnerve is encouraged as well. Current Ones set up: Nightmare Beast, Leucrotta, Mudmaw. Just to name a few.

[Diarmuid]

Catoblepas is scary as heck

[ExemplarofAvg]

Catoblepas is scary as heck

How Come? What makes them scary to you? It'll help on the campaign end.

[Zylle]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#dreamLarva

Does their Worst Nightmare ability qualify them? :smallbiggrin:

In all seriousness though, I think that any kind of spider enemy might work (for some players). For me, it would all really depend on how a monster was described though. For example "you are attacked by a large spider" might not bother me, but "the spider lunges for your face, coming so close that you can see its hairy mandibles dripping with venom" would definitely get a reaction... :smalleek:

Out of the regulars in the group that I play with, one of the most feared monsters is the Gibbering Mouther, and I think it definitely looks the part:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG126.jpg

[ExemplarofAvg]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#dreamLarva

Does their Worst Nightmare ability qualify them? :smallbiggrin:

In all seriousness though, I think that any kind of spider enemy might work (for some players). For me, it would all really depend on how a monster was described though. For example "you are attacked by a large spider" might not bother me, but "the spider lunges for your face, coming so close that you can see its hairy mandibles dripping with venom" would definitely get a reaction... :smalleek:

Out of the regulars in the group that I play with, one of the most feared monsters is the Gibbering Mouther, and I think it definitely looks the part:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG126.jpg

Oh, yeah Description will play key, but a kitten is a kitten, even if you paint it as a tiger,

[Admiral Squish]

On thing I've always wanted to do is describe a giant spider to my players, but without actually using the word 'spider'. It's definitely a pretty terrifying image, and it really works it's best when you build the image from the ground up.

[ExemplarofAvg]

On thing I've always wanted to do is describe a giant spider to my players, but without actually using the word 'spider'. It's definitely a pretty terrifying image, and it really works it's best when you build the image from the ground up.

Oh, I'm guessing building off multitude of legs, hairy, hundreds of eyes, dripping fangs. The ability to digest some(one/thing) from the inside. Care to let us see what you could imagine.

[Okizruin]

Let the horror be unseen. If they do not know where it is, they cannot retaliate. Focus on the psychological rather than the physical.

[Lord.Sorasen]

For my group, no monster has ever scared the party nearly as much as the SRD allip. The ghost driven to madness concept has always been sort of I guess classic to me.

The "babble" power is absolutely terrifying when the save is failed (and better yet when only one PC makes it), and just the very idea of it, that it strikes without knowing it cannot touch, that it drains the very perception out of its target, that to even look into its mind brings pain? It's only CR 3, which is strange considering how difficult it would be for a CR3 party to do battle with an incorporeal enemy.

In "Sandstorm" there's an enemy called a Dustblight. It's a cursed aberration, forced to drain the blood of others to avoid drying in the heat, and as a result its skin is papery and cracking, revealing fleshy underskin and long rivulets of blood (also they train sandworms but I always thought that part was stupid).

Not a monster, but the dread necromancer class is worth mentioning. My favorite vision here is not a villain who wants to lead an army of dead, but a scarred individual, if you're able to act it out and twisted enough to make it happen, a child, who deludes himself into believing he is not animating his loved ones, and they are still alive.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

To me, the most frightening monster is and always will be the Rukarazyll of Monster Manual II. Why? Well, just LOOK at it!

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_153.jpg

[Rannath]

In my group its always been a toss up.

In wilderness the scariest monsters are the wendigo and the Bugbear (which is a basterization of Bogman, just like boogey-man). Why? because those monsters have one thing in common. If you're using the monster right they won't even know what it is until something dies.

How do you use them right? Use Hit and Run tactics. Describe them as vaguely as you can. Attack your PCs in their sleep. Attack them when they're low on spells. Attack them when they think they're safe. One suprise round in the dark and then the monster disappears. Have one player enact an encounter away from the other players. You and that player come back, his character is dead, and they don't know how. Even better if the PC just disappears. Run your game like a horror movie. Suspence, suspence, suspence.

In a city nothing is scarier than a creativly run Dopleganger, see above tactics.

Mind you PC classes are much better at all of that than monsters...

[Zaq]

Honestly? Illithids are freaky as hell. If they get their tentacles on you, it's a mercy if they eat your brains. Most seasoned players are OK with how they look, sure, but when you really think about what they do . . . ugh.

I also agree with gibbering mouthers and their ilk.

[Bluepaw]

I'm not sure what it's like in any of the monster manuals, but the legend of the Wendigo always gives me the willies. The monster could be improved through homebrewing, and would be all kinds of disturbing.

In some stories, the Wendigo calls out to travelers in the forest at night, separating them from their comrades, then swooping on them and forcing them to run faster and faster until their feet burn away. You could have PCs come across the creepy sight of footprints in the snow getting farther and farther apart, impossibly so, until they simply end with no explanation. You could have an old-timer who was attacked but somehow escaped before being carried away, so that he's alive but has burned stumps for feet.

Another version of the Wendigo mythos has it as less a supernatural monster but rather as a condition, a kind of cannibalistic possession that comes over otherwise normal humans. That could be horrifying in its own right in a game -- think a town where the PCs have to solve a series of murders in which people are being killed and partially eaten, or a particular part of them is removed, like a heart or other organ. But it gradually comes out that there is no monster in the night, only the townspeople themselves in the throes of a psychological epidemic that causes them to black out and kill & eat each other without realizing it.

Maybe a PC could be stricken with the Wendigo condition...

[Vandicus]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060721a

[Tvtyrant]

I always liked the Nightshades (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightshade.htm#nightwalker) because they personify the feeling of something purely alien. If you use Lovecraftian moments like having one look in the window of a second story building while everyone is in bed and then repeat by having it stroll at the edge of the horizon, all 20 ft. of darkness at twilight in the woods... The party starts to look for fortifications to hide in whenever they camp and at one point a party I was in set the forest on fire to try to keep it from getting close.

[Seffbasilisk]

I'd find Chaos Beasts terrifying, but from my experience DMing: The creatures my players feared the most were assassin vines. They would avoid forests whenever they could, and rest after just one encounter...

[Serpentine]

I agree with gibbering mouthers and mindflayers. There's also those head-bursting worm bug thingies, and if you wanna include homebrew, ripping the yeerks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7786801&postcount=3) straight from Animorphs would make for a pretty great paranoia-based campaign.

[Elboxo]

I think a great idea for an enemy NPC would be an Alienist ( Complete Arcane )
Just look at that picture. I can just imagine a town being attacked and corpses with strange tears appearing over them. The PC's get led out to the woods in the dead of night and see a woman walking without direction, talking to herself and cutting her hand as glowing animals that appear deformed appear around her. Also Alienist summoned animals sneaking up on the sleeping PCs or such.
My god, the scariest things in real life and in movies, they originate from the bottom of the ocean. Have a seaside village/mansion the PCs are investigating. things dragged to the ocean, have a local wizard protect them from depth damage and give them waterbreathing or something. only to confront huge things like kraken, in complete darkness. Then have one go mad/get dominated.......

[hamishspence]

I'm not sure what it's like in any of the monster manuals, but the legend of the Wendigo always gives me the willies. The monster could be improved through homebrewing, and would be all kinds of disturbing.

It's in Fiend Folio:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ff_gallery/50136.jpg

4E Demonomicon has its own version- where cannibalism creates a link to the Abyss, a wendigo's spirit slips through, and it starts turning the cannibal into a wendigo demon.

[Midnight_v]

What to you is the most frightening (not most powerful) creature in DnD I'm working on a campaign where I want the visuals to unnerve the players, also any fluff that has the potential unnerve is encouraged as well. Current Ones set up: Nightmare Beast, Leucrotta, Mudmaw. Just to name a few.

Sorry if this is the wrong way, but I am a long time member of many Co board and when you ask for the boogey man... I think of Caelic's boogey man...
I used this once in a campaign and my pc's were unerved by the set up.


Caelic:
The Boogeyman
In all times, in all places, children have their stories of the dark figure who lurks in the shadows, ready to pounce on the unwary and drag them off. He goes by many names in many cultures, but is known to some simply as the Boogeyman. Parents, of course, always dismiss such stories with the same strengthless reassurances--there's no such thing as a Boogeyman, he's not hiding in the closet, and he's not going to eat you. The children know differently, though.

And in the city of Sharn, the children are right. There IS a Boogeyman, and he IS coming to eat your soul.

Nobody knows for sure who this creature is, or how he came to be...but he is undeniably more than childrens' stories. The dregs of the city speak of him in hushed whispers, and there are certain areas of the sewers and the low city which they avoid like the plague. These are the haunts of the Boogeyman, and those who go in do not come out again. He has worn a thousand faces, and will wear a thousand more--usually the faces of those most trusted by his victim. He lives not for the kill, but for the terror in the eyes of his chosen prey. The fear is what adds savor to his meat...and his meat is nothing less than the souls of living beings. The innocent and the wicked alike are his prey, and all who know of him fear him.

The Boogeyman is real. Pray that he's not hiding under your bed when you go to bed tonight.



Feral Changeling Rogue2/Hexblade3/Warshaper3/Soul Eater 9/Blackguard 2

1. Rogue 1: SA +1d6, Trapfinding, Alertness
2. Rogue 2: Evasion
3. Hexblade 1: Hexblade's Curse, 1/day, Power Attack
4. Hexblade 2: Arcane Resistance
5. Hexblade 3: Mettle
6. Warshaper 1: Morphic Weapons, Morphic Immunities, WF: Claw
7. Warshaper 2: Morphic Body
8. Soul Eater 1: Energy Drain 1
9. Warshaper 3: Morphic Reach, Cleave
10. Soul Eater 2: Soul Strength
11. Soul Eater 3: Soul Blast
12. Soul Eater 4: Soul Enhancement, Multiattack
13. Soul Eater 5: Soul Endurance
14. Soul Eater 6: Soul Radiance
15. Soul Eater 7: Energy Drain 2, Improved Sunder
16. Blackguard 1: Aura of Evil, Detect Good, Poison Use
17. Blackguard 2: Dark Blessing, Smite Good 1/day
18. Soul Eater 8: Soul Agility
19. Soul Eater 9: Soul Slave


STATS (28 pt buy)

STR: 10 +4 unnamed +4 enhancement=18
DEX: 10 +4 enhancement=14
CON: 16 +4 unnamed +4 enhancement=24
INT: 10
WIS: 10 +4 inherent +6 enhancement=20
CHA: 16 +5 level +5 inherent +6 enhancement=32


BAB: 18

SAVES:
FORT: 14+7+11=+32 (+43 vs. spells)
REF: 12+2+11=+25 (+36 vs. spells)
WILL: 11+5+11=+26 (+37 vs. spells)


KEY ITEMS: Tome of Charisma +5, Tome of Wisdom +4, Cloak of Charisma +6, Periapt of Wisdom +6

TACTICS: The Boogeyman has created an underground kingdom for himself in the sewers of Sharn, populated by his subjects...the husks of his former victims, now wights under his command. He sends these servants out at night to snatch the unwary, dragging them down to his underground domain to fill his menagerie. Always hungry, he is nonetheless a fussy eater, preferring to feed only upon souls in the uttermost states of terror. While the prisoners in his menagerie serve to slake his thirst for fear and misery on a day to day basis...and occasionally serve as his food in lean times...he prefers to hunt on the surface, selecting victim (preferrably an innocent) and then stalking them relentlessly. With his ability to shift forms, he is able to gather information on his prey with relative ease. When ready to strike, he comes to them in the forms of those they trust the most, terrorizing them before devouring their souls.

In combat, the Boogeyman sprouts claws, fangs, and horrific tentacles. While these weapons do little physical damage, they are nonetheless absolutely deadly, as each strike bestows two negative levels on the target.
Typically, the monster attacks with two claws, a bite, and two tentacles, possibly resulting in ten negative levels per round.

[ExemplarofAvg]

I agree with gibbering mouthers and mindflayers. There's also those head-bursting worm bug thingies, and if you wanna include homebrew, ripping the yeerks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7786801&postcount=3) straight from Animorphs would make for a pretty great paranoia-based campaign.

You just brought back so many nightmares from my childhood. Yeerks were the nightmares.


Sorry if this is the wrong way, but I am a long time member of many Co board and when you ask for the boogey man... I think of Caelic's boogey man...
I used this once in a campaign and my pc's were unerved by the set up.


You just had to show me the stats for the boogey man, now I wanna just run a TPK camapign where the PC's will be taken out one by one. Also figures that the Boogeyman is a Changeling, the guys creep me out. Just as much as their doppleganger forefathers. I prefer to know a hundred differet people as a PC than be a hundred different people.

[Groverfield]

Chaos beasts, esp. those made of their former allies (perhaps the PCs are camping with a war band, and all of a sudden they wake up and all or most of the NPCs in the war band are now them)

or

Only town within supply distance was hit by a Class 3 Wightocalypse, and all animals and edible plants were purposefully destroyed and are rotten, divine magic is "dampened" due to the strong unholy presence (conjure food/water and purify food/water will only sustain them for an hour or so, healing does 3 HP less healing than it normally will (minimum healing of the spell level used to heal)

[Mordrigar]

It's surely Atropal for me.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/EPIC_Gallery/Gallery5a/44165_C5_atropal.jpg

Brrr... Scary...