Scary Creatures

[Lord Tyger]

We've had a number of threads about what techniques are good to spook, scare, and shiver your players, but here's another way to look at it. What creatures have you found particularly effective for chilling your players' blood? Not just as a matter of being too powerful for them, but in some way disturbing, unsettling, or just plain creepy. Personally, I love the leucrottas for their voice mimicry ability. Lots of options there.

[awa]

well one time i was running as a dm and my players found a npc whos lower half was an insect quite creepy. so i realized he found insects particularly creepy needless to say various vermin found greater prominence. although not to much becuase that would make them lose their effect. My point is that different people find different things scary

[TheCountAlucard]

Depends on the game.

One of my players got a shudder from facing the Beast of the Chase, an undead behemoth in the Exalted setting, partly because when he started praying for salvation, it ate his prayers. It also took control of his skeleton... while it was still inside him.

[--Lime--]

Make the players feel responsible for their actions.

If you've given them a choice of tunnels while exploring caves, or hinted at treasure being down a certain hallway, and their "greed" has led them to face a level-appropriate "tough" battle (especially if you make escape difficult - not the same as impossible, but not as easy as simply turning around) then they will panic much much more trying to "undo" their actions than randomly opening a door and coming face to face with something.

Unless that something is a wizard. That was brilliant.

"You found a secret door"
"Go in! Go in!"
"You see an old man standing in front of a book case. He has turned at the sound of the stone door scraping across the flagstones of the hallway, and does not look happy to see you. He has a wand drawn. Roll initiative."

The wizard was actually there to help them, and was just a bit of a grump. But one of the PCs won initiative and attacked before the wizard could recognise the party and talk to them. Panic is good!

Also, if you have them on night watch, don't just roll random encounters. Roll listen and spot checks for strange noises or catching movement out of the corner of their eye. 95% of time the character on watch won't go to investigate (and find out that it was a rabbit), but instead wake the party screaming bloody murder. That really stuffed the casters up the next day.

[Acanous]

Oozes, primarilly. They're inhuman. Hungry. Gooey and sticky. Poisonous. Hard to kill. They EAT your STUFF.
Parties are afraid of them.

[Gnomish Wanderer]

Um...

I once had the players exploring a town that had seemingly popped into existence. In one building I have this room full of bodies hung on chains, like a butcher's room but with a bunch of humanoids instead and all jumbled together, not neat and orderly. A goblin-like crazy creature had also hung himself up on chains but was very much alive. He used the chains to swing around the room and the bodies to hide. And whenever the players saw him he was smiling.

They were... pretty freaked out.

[TARDIS]

Normally what scares my players are things that require some creativity to beat - once their standard tactic of 'wailing on the target until it dies' proves useless they tend to start getting all worried-like :smallwink:

Now, when most effective, this can get the players retreating from the enemy. So long as the players have a chance to gain revenge for that slight by the end of the session/during the next one it normally turns out alright. But don't force your players fleeing too often. It will just annoy them and make them feel far less heroic than PCs should be.

Now monsters that I have found effective in this regard have been both undead (ghosts and shades and stuff) and constructs (golumns and automated drones) who are resistant to player attacks. Having them run around and search the area for items that would help them stop/destroy the otherwise invulnerable creature can be quite nerve-wracking - if they mess up with pacing or positioning one of their characters could get clobbered and there is nothing they could do about it.

I also found a zombie horde was effective at first level, but that in a stealth-based mission infiltrating a depopulated village. At higher levels the players cut through zombies like a hot knife through butter.

In terms of things that I'd like to run? I've always found lycanthropes interesting as horror creatures - have one that is plaguing the town by night but is the player's ally or friend by day. When the PCs find out, they'll have to defeat a powerful werebeast without killing it and loosing an ally. That could prove a bit nerve-wracking.

Also I've wanted to try some madness-based monsters (eldrichian horrors, Lovecraftian beasts, whathaveyou) but I have never been confident enough in my prowess as a DM to successfully pull that off... yet.

[Jergmo]

Aberrations. I like aberrations.

Aberrations with cultists who have been brainwashed and psionically gifted women who have been mutated to be hosts for aberrations and praise the Great One whose flesh they will one day become one with, when their outer god master consumes the world. All in the universe will become one - and exist in harmony.

One of my buddies: "This is like Alien with four times the creepiness factor."

The last campaign was undead-focused, and that went rather well, too.

Necromantic bloodthirsty plague zombies and a madman lich bard (Herald of Doom) and his savage vampire cleric bodyguard. Everyone was afraid of that vampire. It took a defense-optimized knight in Godplate and an angel to hold him and their summoned undead angel off.

[Kol Korran]

Aberrations. I like aberrations.


I like aberrations too. with little simple twists.

my players are very very cautious around Gibbering mouthers now. i have them talk and gibber in multiple voices, and personalities, aand they can also split, ooze through cracks and holes, and mesh together. they act as a sort of a multitude, a chorus of disturbing, maddened fractured personalities.

it's not an original idea, but pulling it well can be... unsettling.

[Jergmo]

Oh, Kol Korran! I love your monster compendium. I look forward to its continuation, it's been a while since I've been on the forums and checked it out.

An aberration campaign also gives an excuse to use the eyeball beholderkin from Monsters of Faerun. They're such adorable, fierce little guys. D'aw.

[Kol Korran]

Oh, Kol Korran! I love your monster compendium. I look forward to its continuation, it's been a while since I've been on the forums and checked it out.


it's been awhile since i looked at that thread seriously. to tell the truth i got so entangled in the games i run and now play (you can check the campaign logs in the sig if you're interested) that i kind of forgot. i haven't got a decent worthy-of-a-full-entry inspiration in quite a long time.

but since we were talking about gibbering mouthers, i believe i do enough enough for these nasties. :smallsmile: i just need to find a time to arrange how it will be, and write an entry for the bugger.

thanks for reminding me! :smallbiggrin:
[/thread minor hijack]

[QuidEst]

Have an ordinary looking man- or possibly one dressed up in a nice suit. He looks at the players curiously, but doesn't say anything. When he eventually opens his mouth, it's full of rows of little spider legs scrabbling as if to pull something in.

Take any generic evil person or creature. Put a little girl with a blank expression next to him/her/it. When the players attack the evil thing, have whatever they do affect the little girl instead. Bonus points if she starts shedding tears without changing expression.
And that, my friends, is how you play an illusionist villain. Well, how I would, at any rate. XP

Darths and Droids did an excellent job with General Grievous. 1 (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0546.html) and 2 (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0547.html)

[Hyudra]

I got a good reception for my patchwork dwarves.

They're dwarves, but it seems they've crudely stitched cloth, scale, leather and skin to themselves, and bolted metal onto their bodies, forming a sort of patchwork appearance. Their eyes are milky white and they're semi-blind from a long term lack of exposure to light.

Among their number are mutated dwarf folk. Rather than hair and beards, they have tentacles, the faces of dwarves, and caterpillarlike bodies. They crawl on walls and attempt to ambush PCs.

In execution, I used the stats of mongrelfolk for the dwarves and carrion crawlers for the mutated ones. I added roughly +33% to the numbers of dwarves, but one in four 'dwarves' weren't actively fighting. Singsong, stabbing themselves in the face, carving things into floors or walls, etc.

PCs had no bleeding clue what was going on.

Later, finding diaries and journals of the dwarves, they discovered that the dwarves were miners who dug too deep, and the emptying of an underground lake woke an aboleth and dumped it into the caves at the very depths of the mine. It's trapped there, now, and contented itself with driving the dwarves mad, and mutating those few it could get its hands on, in an effort to draw together enough servants to free itself.

I topped off the dungeon by putting the PCs on a ledge outside the mine, only to see a rival adventuring group finish the work of the patchwork dwarves and shatter the nearby dam. The mine flooded, and things that were mundane before (netting to help prevent rockfalls, a short pit) became real hazards as the PCs tried to navigate their way back to the entrance of the mine, the aboleth (which was way too powerful for them, as indicated by the notes) freeing itself and swimming after them.

[--Lime--]

^^ Sounds a little like the dwarves from Hitmen for Destiny (http://www.webcomicsnation.com/thorsby/destiny/series.php) (unironically good webcomic, just get over the art and stick with it until you get hooked), but a good shade darker.

Also love the idea of the illusionist and the little girl. Good chance I'll be using that.

[QuidEst]

Also love the idea of the illusionist and the little girl. Good chance I'll be using that.

Please do! It's actually inspired by a dream I had (a pretty awesome one at that), although I'm sure it's been done. If you use it, send me a message about how it goes over. :smallamused:

Thinking about it, if nobody rolls to disbelieve (might take a bit of setup and perhaps a genuine summons), there could be a fake backstory (the little girl sold her soul to said evil guy, probably a devil, to save her parents) and a fake quest (to buy back the girl's soul and allow her to move on). The PCs know in advance they're not getting a material reward out of it, and are probably helping an evil guy out. But then revealing that there was no girl or devil at all… That is a very classy setup for a BBEG.

With regards to succeeding on the roll to disbelieve (and a character that attacks or talks to him will get it), have the devil or whatever claim that of course he isn't showing up in person- it's just his projection.

[Theo Hammond]

Rot Grubs, i think they were called, and i'm not sure i've seen them since 2nd ed D&D.

They worked well for the same reason that oozes often did in that, once they got on you, they transended AC, saves and all that jazz. Instead they were just a countdown to your death as they ate into you (headed for the heart, i think) unless the party came up with something clever and plausible to stop them.

Simple, deadly and made the PCs think. A great (and rare!) combo for a beasty encounter.

One of the best traps i think i ever saw was just a bucket of them perched on top of a door vs a party without a careful roguey type. Door opens. Bucket falls. Rot grubs splash over PCs. Hilarious panic ensues.

[Tamer Leon]

My favorite creation was at the end of a dungeon, a sort of two-part boss.

The first part was a small, very fragile creature that had the highly unique Supernatural ability to extinguish all light sources in a given radius, consuming said light to channel into a variety of healing and supportive abilities.

The second beast was a spider demon whose primary tactic was to drag PCs away from their allies and slowly pick them off.

This, against a party whose methods of seeing in total darkness were limited to 'light a torch'.

Total panic ensued.

[Pokonic]

My party once had to deal with a strange creature that was attacking every other night for unknown causes. It was seemingly unkillable, and because it attacked in utter darkness the party usualy fretted over little details about the upcoming encounter. It mostly targeted the locals, and by the end of the first night defending the town more thant twelve of them where lieing in chunks around the town. Now, the creature ( It was a Troll, actualy) proved to be quite the threat, and the party actualy had to make a bunker of sort in the tavern they where staying in to avoid the beast. Notably, they never actualy figured out what it was, and they fled the area before they could actualy stop it. They where so terrified by the thing that even now they avoid little towns with monster issues.

[Slipperychicken]

Thinking about it, if nobody rolls to disbelieve

This is why my characters *always* roll to disbelieve anything out of the ordinary, or anything in defiance of in-universe logic or natural laws. I've also learned to roll Sense Motive at least once per conversation.

[nedz]

Rust Monsters, Disenchanters, Gnomes.

[Skaven]

The thing I put against my players that scared them the most was the ghost of a little girl that was invisible except for footprints / shadow who wouldn't hurt them in any way, she just wanted to play..

[QuidEst]

Ooh… Heh. :smallamused:

A veteran PCs reaction to something impossibly horrific that doesn't seem to play by game mechanics is probably going to be "I roll to disbelieve." Let us imagine a scenario…

DM: "You come across a body hanging from the ceiling. It is facing away from you, but nevertheless seems familiar."

PC: "I move to see its face. I keep my distance."

DM: "Cautiously, you move around. As the face comes into view, you immediately recognize it. It is your own."

PC: "I ready my sword. Can I see anything else in the room?"

DM: *rolls* "You do not notice anything else. Your double's eyes spring open. He draws his sword and cuts the rope. He drops to the ground clumsily."

PC: "I attack!"

DM: *rolls* "Your sword passes through him without any effect. He looks up at you and smiles before standing up."

PC: "I roll to disbelieve!"

DM: *rolls* "You succeed. The illusory skin melts under your penetrating gaze. The double remains, but his face now appears bloated and rotten. He is still smiling."

I'm sure it's been done, but just stack two or three illusions. Throw in wand casts of Shadow Evocation to inflict injuries on the PC like what he's trying to do to the double, and you get a voodoo-doll effect like my previous suggestion. :smallwink:

Also, some players might be more creeped out by "You succeed. Your double remains unchanged, and advances towards you."

[Grod_The_Giant]

One of my players was always more than a little disturbed by one of my recurring NPCs, a mad wizard-necromancer-transmuter type who was fond of stitching together living creatures to create frankenstein-esque monstrosities. His (least) favorite was a giant flying insect thing-- I think my description was something along the lines of "imagine a Beedrill made out of hobgoblin corpses," which is horrible enough in its own right-- but the kicker, the thing that really stuck with him? A last minute detail I made up on the spot about how all of these things had the heads of children.

Honorable mention from that same campaign: the Vine Horror from the MMV, which is literally a tentacle rape demon.

[sol_kanar]

Ooh… Heh. :smallamused:

A veteran PCs reaction to something impossibly horrific that doesn't seem to play by game mechanics is probably going to be "I roll to disbelieve." Let us imagine a scenario…

DM: "You come across a body hanging from the ceiling. It is facing away from you, but nevertheless seems familiar."

PC: "I move to see its face. I keep my distance."

DM: "Cautiously, you move around. As the face comes into view, you immediately recognize it. It is your own."

PC: "I ready my sword. Can I see anything else in the room?"

DM: *rolls* "You do not notice anything else. Your double's eyes spring open. He draws his sword and cuts the rope. He drops to the ground clumsily."

PC: "I attack!"

DM: *rolls* "Your sword passes through him without any effect. He looks up at you and smiles before standing up."

PC: "I roll to disbelieve!"

DM: *rolls* "You succeed. The illusory skin melts under your penetrating gaze. The double remains, but his face now appears bloated and rotten. He is still smiling."

I'm sure it's been done, but just stack two or three illusions. Throw in wand casts of Shadow Evocation to inflict injuries on the PC like what he's trying to do to the double, and you get a voodoo-doll effect like my previous suggestion. :smallwink:

Also, some players might be more creeped out by "You succeed. Your double remains unchanged, and advances towards you."

Yo, dawg. I heard you like illusions (sorry, it had to be done :-))

Another interesting (and scary) tactic for an evil illusionist could be

have the PCs attacked by a group of ghasts/ghouls/wights/zombies (something that they can defeat rather easily). Then, the next day, attack them again with a group of the same creatures: only, mixed among the bunch, there are some innocent civilians, brainwashed/charmed and magically disguised as undead. Such civilians should have really low hit points, so that they are basically killed with a single strike.

After the end of the battle, villain shows up and dismiss the illusions, showing the PCs what they have done. Speech may follow, along the lines of: "You just killed innocent people. Then, what is the difference between you and me?"

In any case, from now on the PCs could become relatively paranoid of killing innocents during otherwise relatively plain encounters.

[Starscream]

My cousin is the one who taught me D&D. He is also sadistic. :smallamused:

My favorite scenario of his was when the king called in the party to investigate why a town in the wilderness had withdrawn a request for aid. They lived in a very dangerous area full of wild animals, and suffered many attacks. So they had repeatedly requested that weapons and armor be sent to them, to help arm militiamen to combat the dangers. The king complied, and every year it seemed they needed more.

This year however, the request was suddenly withdrawn. Furthermore, one of the king's scribes had looked into local shipping activity, and learned that they were ordering huge amounts of...cosmetics? Like makeup and such?

The PCs went, and we had our suspicions. The people of the town were probably dead and replaced by some horrific monsters, who needed the cosmetics to disguise themselves as normal. Seems typical enough, for D&D.

When we got there, everyone was perfectly friendly and nice, which only deepened our mistrust. My thief even made a pickpocket check to touch one of them without being noticed. Sure enough, I came away with a smear of makeup on my hand, revealing something that did not look like human skin on my target.

We stalked the people for a while, when dire wolves attacked the town. We fought them, but one woman was pounced on and mauled by a wolf. Then she got up, perfectly fine, revealing that she had metal skin under the makeup.

Their masquerade ruined, the people explained what was up. For years there had been attacks by beasts, and they had always relied on the king to arm them. Then one day someone found a magic spring in the woods. Drinking from it harmlessly toughened your skin, and over time it became metallic. This provided both a large boost to AC and some damage reduction. The townspeople embraced this magic, and soon were impervious to the animal attacks. Only drawback was needing makeup to look normal for visitors.

They offered up the location of this spring in return for keeping quiet, and we accepted. Hey, free massive AC boost! Since you needed to drink it over a period of time to get the full effect, we set up camp near the spring and had other adventures in the woods for a while. After about a week we returned to the village.

It was basically in ruins. Turns out all the animal attacks were sent by an evil druid who didn't want people there, because they were destroying the forest. When they armed themselves to fight back, the druid decided on a different tactic. He enchanted the pool to turn the people into creatures of metal (symbolic - druids will not wear metal, and this one in particular saw it as a sign of the evils of civilization), so they would give up on killing the creatures, thinking themselves invincible. Then he sent in the Rust Monsters.

It was actually pretty horrific. People frozen like statues, too corroded to move, most missing limbs, being devoured while alive and still conscious, begging for help. The Rust Monsters soon turned their attention to us, and a pretty terrible fight ensued. You think protecting your weapons and armor from those things is tough, now they could mangle entire limbs with a touch.

We beat them though, and went after the druid. We were a mess - no one was fully intact after the fight, and none of us had magic to repair the damage. Healing magic restored our HP, but can't do much for your leg being a corroded tangle of rust. Had to limp into battle with makeshift crutches, and swords tied to rusty stumps. We won and eventually got restored to normal, but a hand full of rust monsters nearly caused a TPK and destroyed a whole town.

And that's why Rust Monsters are scary.

[Randomguy]

Wow...

Technically a webcomic, and not a game, but it's a d&d webcomic and this (http://www.goblinscomic.com/03252011/) was one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. (Start reading here (http://www.goblinscomic.com/03222011/) for context).

[Kane0]

Goblins does have some very neat stuff.

Hmm. Instead of something really freaky, how about something that mentally engaged them.

For example, the 'cunning sophisticate'. A villain that is downright evil yet perfectly civil and reasonable. You cannot kill him or you become the 'villain' and he does things that only you know of, and thus he has power over you. Making him perfectly 'normal' apart form the evil nature that you cant pin will really engage the players. The more normal and lifelike you can make him the better. When he rears his head in your campaign and the players immediately go 'ah crap were boned' then you know your doing it right. He's terrifying not because hes untouchable or logical, but because he acts just as reasonably as the party. The similarity will be the scary part.

And if that fails simply make him assume his real form, a greater devil. Because what I have described is pretty damn close to how they operate lol.

[DigoDragon]

Two things that are nearly 100% scary to my players:

1. Wraiths/Wights - Two words that shake my players: Negative. Levels. I don't even use the rules about negative levels becoming perminant, the negs just hang around until you make that daily save or restore them, but just the concept of something sucking levels off my players makes them sweat. More so likely because I always advance the wraiths in power level to make them quite challenging and persistant.
Think the Ring Wraiths of LotR.

2. Older Dragons - Besides the fact that I own all the gargantuan dragon figures from the WotC Miniatures set (nothing like an imposing fugure eating the grid board space), my players know well to be frightened because I build my dragons up from scratch.
I always assign feats to the dragons rather than use what comes in the stat blocks, and after 20 HD they're technically epic so I can pic from the epic feat lists. My dragons are also master planners and I'll take a week to think up of some "Xanatos Gambit" plot where even if the dragon loses to the PCs, it still wins in some backup plan.
Even the metallic dragons aren't above using heroes as pawns for some "Greater Good" so my players are in the right to be scared. :smallbiggrin:

[hamishspence]

Rot Grubs, i think they were called, and i'm not sure i've seen them since 2nd ed D&D.

They worked well for the same reason that oozes often did in that, once they got on you, they transended AC, saves and all that jazz. Instead they were just a countdown to your death as they ate into you (headed for the heart, i think) unless the party came up with something clever and plausible to stop them.

Simple, deadly and made the PCs think. A great (and rare!) combo for a beasty encounter.

Dungeonscape brought them back.

[Macbubble]

Carpets

One of my players actually soiled himself a little after being locked outside a room in castle Ravenloft. (I would have to say though, that all his earlier characters have been killed by grappling carpets)

[Silus]

I've a special kinda love for just about anything from the Plane of Shadows. Shadows, Nightwalkers, Shadow Mastiffs, Shae, ect.. That and Genius Loci that like to play with their food =3

Try to invoke the feeling that the players are being watched at all times and watch'em panic =D

[Pokonic]

2. Older Dragons - Besides the fact that I own all the gargantuan dragon figures from the WotC Miniatures set (nothing like an imposing fugure eating the grid board space), my players know well to be frightened because I build my dragons up from scratch.
I always assign feats to the dragons rather than use what comes in the stat blocks, and after 20 HD they're technically epic so I can pic from the epic feat lists. My dragons are also master planners and I'll take a week to think up of some "Xanatos Gambit" plot where even if the dragon loses to the PCs, it still wins in some backup plan.
Even the metallic dragons aren't above using heroes as pawns for some "Greater Good" so my players are in the right to be scared. :smallbiggrin:

Oh, I have a tale, boys and girls, of the Green Dragon Ophinshala, and the horrors the party faced when facing her down. Of course, half of the fun of a dragon is the lair, and boy, did this one freak the players out.

This green dragon lived in a great cliff overseeing a forest, and while the entrance is in a obvius place it does not show that there is a entire system of tunnels carved inside it. Said tunnels are infested with a rather nasty type of weed that attackes if the player stayed in one place. Oh, and the whole system is rather wet, with puddles and such thruout it's nearly spongy interior.

The dragon in there fills the whole place with it's nasty gas, and there are some puddles in there that will give you Con drain if they can tell it's tinted green. Oh, and some places are simply filled with the green gas, and with the occasinal flooded tunnel or a gas-filled part of one made it nessisary for the party to run into pockets of the stuff anyway.

Oh, and besides the occasinal evil plant, the party had to find the dragon proper. Sadly, it was made for the place far more than the party was. It could crawl, fly, and swim its way to the party, litteraly able to ambush them at any direction if there is a hole for it. Notably, it once flew straight down from above, causing the party to panic and run into a hallway flooded with deadly water, and turned invisable. For the next few hours, they where wondering about just how many angles they are being wached from at all times. Of course, they eventualy wound her to the point where she fled the scene, but that did not stop the party from being forever horrified at the idea of " Tuckers Dragons".