Epic Monster Pictures

[A Gray Phantom]

I'm planning on having my players encounter an epic level monster. I clicked around the SRD and found a couple that I liked:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/ruinSwarm.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/prismasaurus.htm

I've been looking for a creature that is big, scary, and stupid. At first I considered using the tarrasque, but I've already hinted at using it and a couple of my players are already expecting it. So now I'm going to throw them a curveball :smallbiggrin:.

The problem I'm now encountering is a visual one. What do these blinking monsters look like? How can I strike fear in the psyche of my players if I can't describe these things' physical appearance? I understand that these are prime examples of "things man was not meant to know," but c'mon!

The few beasts I found that had pictures looked down right scary:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/EPIC_Gallery/Gallery5a/44173_C5_Chichimec.jpg

I know I could easily invent an image myself, but I enjoy handing my friends an actual photo and simply saying, "This is what it looks like." Can anybody help me?


Also, on a unrelated query, I found this thing to be amusing:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/geniusLoci.htm

But what I want to know is just how big is that^ thing? It says "colossal" but I'd kinda like to know how LARGE it is...

One more thing! How do I reduce the size of my links?

[oriong]

Actually the prismasaurus is very unfrightening. it looks like a somewhat generic herbivorous dinosaur with a rainbow colored ridge down it's back.

The genus Loci's size is anywhere from a mountain to a small moon.

[A Gray Phantom]

Actually the prismasaurus is very unfrightening. it looks like a somewhat generic herbivorous dinosaur with a rainbow colored ridge down it's back.

The genus Loci's size is anywhere from a mountain to a small moon.
Perhaps you could site a source?

[Behold_the_Void]

Epic Level Handbook. It's 3.0 and I don't see it around much anymore.

Personally, I like the Atropal. Twitchy crack-baby wins.

[oriong]

Taking the description straight from the epic level handbook:

"one can appear as a mountain, a small lake, a deep cavern, a single field, a tiny moon, or an entire (smallish) plane"

As for pictures, http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/epicMonsters.html

has a lot of them, but not all.

[Wehrkind]

Ok, the Atropal definitely needs some explanation of what the hell it is. You can't just make a huge undead fetus and then not tell us why. Dear god, WHY?!

[A Gray Phantom]

Epic Level Handbook. It's 3.0 and I don't see it around much anymore.




Personally, I like the Atropal. Twitchy crack-baby wins.

Thanks for the tip about the book. The atropal, on the other hand, is way too smart for what I'm planning.


Ok, the Atropal definitely needs some explanation of what the hell it is. You can't just make a huge undead fetus and then not tell us why. Dear god, WHY?!
There are some things man is just not meant to know :mitd:.

[oriong]

It's basically an aborted, undead god.

EDIT:

Phantom, it sounds like the best bets for you might be a Phaeton, Collossus, Devestation Vermin, Primal Elemental, adamantine or mithral golem, or dropping the pseodunatural template onto some sub-epic monster. Depends on the level of your party really.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Ok, the Atropal definitely needs some explanation of what the hell it is. You can't just make a huge undead fetus and then not tell us why. Dear god, WHY?!

It's a still-born demigod. Pretty simple really. Liber Mortis has a non-epic version made when you kill the epic version. Yes, it's so evil even if you destroy it parts of it's flesh will turn into another monster.

[Behold_the_Void]

It's basically an aborted, undead god.

Stillborn, actually, that spontaneously rose as undead.

[Wehrkind]

Ahhh ok. I wish they had included that in the link's description of combat etc. The myriad of possible creation scenarios for that thing kept boiling down to "It's the amalgamation of all the souls of every aborted baby ever!"

Kept reminding me of a girl I used to date in college.

[AtomicKitKat]

Stillborn usually means it was a natural abortion(of course, a chemically/physiologically induced miscarriage can also result in a stillborn, if immediate medical aid is unavailable) of what would have been an almost full-term baby.

Prismasaurus=Denver the Rainbow Dimetrodon.

Genius Loci=Ego, the Living Planet. Just more Oozy(Eat, grow, repeat), less Elemental Earth.

[Mewtarthio]

Taking the description straight from the epic level handbook:

"one can appear as a mountain, a small lake, a deep cavern, a single field, a tiny moon, or an entire (smallish) plane"

As for pictures, http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/epicMonsters.html

has a lot of them, but not all.

http://dndrealm.co.kr/monster/special/monster/image/prismasaurus.jpg

He's already got d20.org; the only picture in Sovelior Sage that's not in d20srd is the Mercane (click on the eye next to the monster names).

Also, I could swear I've seen a picture of the Gibbering Orb somewhere online...

[Fizban]

As for formatting:
<url=http://www.giantitp.com/index.html>GiantITP</url>
Replacing the <>'s with []'s gives you:
GiantITP (http://www.giantitp.com/index.html)

[A Gray Phantom]

It's basically an aborted, undead god.

EDIT:

Phantom, it sounds like the best bets for you might be a Phaeton, Collossus, Devestation Vermin, Primal Elemental, adamantine or mithral golem, or dropping the pseodunatural template onto some sub-epic monster. Depends on the level of your party really.
Those are good suggestions, Mr. Oriong, and I did consider those, but a couple details picked them off my list:

In the story, a group of adventurers (nearly one hundred years before the current campaign) sealed away a powerful atrocity by sacrificing one hundred human lives to it. Though they meant to destroy it, all they could end up doing was putting to sleep and sealing it away in the mountains.

The sacrifice itself was no easy task, as the toxomancer of the group had to first poison all the victims, which were then fed to the beast.

I also had this great idea that would require the monster to feasibly fit inside of a tarrasque. Since a couple of my players are expecting me to someday use it, I'm going to have them explore a cavern with a life-sized statue of a tarrasque :smallbiggrin:. Since most players know what a tarrasque is, they'd probably run and hide, thinking it is real and still sleeping. And any NPC would probably do the same (regardless whether or not they recognized it).

Should anyone be foolish enough to stick around, through the mouth of the statue would be the entrance to the sleeping chamber of my big nasty.

I cannot conceive of a phaethon ingesting a village (it buring powers aside), nor could it really be sleeping dormant inside of a tarrasque. Same with the colossus.

Devastation vermin better fit this criteria, and I will look into it. Problem is, they don't seem exotic enough :smallfrown:. And still, I've got no pictures.

Prime elementals seem too smart and I don't think they eat people...

The golems seem like good choices, but they don't eat people either. Also, they seem too bent towards neutrality. Unless ordered to by their creator, they wouldn't reall need to destroy the world.

[Ramza00]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20020726a

Will give you the art gallery of the ELH. Google most books names and you can find there art gallery free on the wizard website.

[Mewtarthio]

So, none of the other Abominations have pictures anywhere? Or is that gallery not really complete?

[oriong]

No, it's just incomplete.

[A Gray Phantom]

Oh poo. Then, in that case...

Let's get creative! I can easily imagine what a prismasaurus looks like by googling for dimetrodon, but what about the ruin swarm? It has to have wings to fly, and each individual insect should share insect-like features. But what do YOU think it should be :wink:?

Best description wins a special prize!

READY!

SET!

GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

my first question to you is what level is your party at? Second, do you have any experience with epic level stuff. For one, the CR's for monsters a lot of times are way off base (personally I don't think WoTC play tests many of their monsters, especially the later ones.) I have been in a completely epic game, and things can get very ugly very quickly.

[Black Mage]

The ruin swarm looks like a huge swarm of locusts.

[A Gray Phantom]

my first question to you is what level is your party at? Second, do you have any experience with epic level stuff. For one, the CR's for monsters a lot of times are way off base (personally I don't think WoTC play tests many of their monsters, especially the later ones.) I have been in a completely epic game, and things can get very ugly very quickly.
Well, right now, they are nowhere near capable of putting a dent in any of these monsters (with the exception of the party's dervish... grr, I hate dervish). I mostly want them to just see it and go...

"Hey, oh my god(s)! This is really really scary! We better leave!"

That would be the smart thing to do. I also want them to realize that the prison that the creature is in is unstable. This is an especially bad problem, since the island they are on is harrassed by earthquakes. The earthquakes basically guarantee that the big nasty will someday be released.

And I've never actually used epic monsters. My island campaign, however, should have at least one apocalypse monster lying around.

[oriong]

I would suggest pick something suitably dangerous a size category or two smaller than the tarrasque then apply the Pseudonatural template to it.

That should make it epic, powerful, and more than freaky enough to be described however you want.

[Mewtarthio]

Ooh, a Pseudonatural Aboleth...

There are also lots of dragons that fit.

[Brigham]

brain in a jar. hehe. that's not really that helpful, i know, but it could be fun if the brain controlled one of the prior mentioned creatures.

[Frosty Flake]

how about a Colossal Flesh Golem? I remember it has an ability to nauseate anyone within some ridiculous range do to the stench of the hundreds of rotting bodies used to construct it... It's undead, though, not a construct I think, so it gets all those goodies that undead get and if it's not scary enough you could have it so that when they destroy it, it just become hundreds of zombies using the mob template... or it head-like area could be hollowed out to serve as the laboratory of a vile lich who casts spells from a balcony in one of the eye sockets! Maybe even give ol' Big Corpsy some suitably vile and intimidating colossal weapon... a colossal spiked chain made from the drawbridge chains of castles plundered by the evil Lich! If you don't have the book with the Colossal Flesh Golem in it you could just make up it's stats... a lot of undead hitpoints, big, some disgusting abilities of some sort (the smell, miles radius, so they KNOW he's getting closer)... I think your supposed to bind the soul of someone to the Flesh Golem at creation, how about a tormented LG Monk bound within a gem on a pendant somewhere inside the hundreds of rotting corpses? Now that's a rescue mission.

[A Gray Phantom]

Okay, I got some great ideas, and I think I'm going to go with... **DRUMROLL** the ruin swarm!

I can just imagine it :smallbiggrin:. If any of the players are foolish enough to enter the "tarrasque statue," all they'll find is a single locust, barely alive despite being surrounded by a choking miasma capable of killing an elephant twice over in a single second.

And now a reward for everyone **WARNING! MAN IS STILL NOT MEANT TO KNOW**:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udDShj4naWk

And yes, that is me in all my sexiness! Ah yeah, this one is especially for the ladies :smallcool:. Be sure to stick around for the sexy bullet time scene.


Did I mention that I'm the one who invented bullet time?