Surreal/Creepy Demons

[Blake Hannon]

I'm running a demon-centric campaign, and am trying to create/modify monsters to fit the theme I want.

In this setting, the physical world was created by a blind idiot god (the Demiurge) who constantly and senselessly created and destroyed things with no rhyme or reason. His most powerful children (now known as the New Gods) who were saner than him despaired of the universe ever meaning anything, and feared that eventually they too would be randomly destroyed according to their father's whims. So they banded together, and in a great battle, slew the Demiurge.

The Demiurge's corpse sank to the bottom of the cosmos, but a tiny spark of life remained in it. Not understanding how or why it had been slain, the Demiurge continued to create wildly out of the cosmic detritus that it settled among, but now its creations were products of pain, fear, hatred, and despair at what it had lost. These creatures are the demons, and the randomness of the Demiurge's earlier works are now adulterated with a massive helping of NOPE. Some demons act out their random grudges and psychoses against the world at random, but some of the stronger and more coherent ones are sane enough to understand their situation, and seek to restore their creator's dominion over the world and restore him to full life. Many of them are twisted parodies of preexisting creatures of the New Gods' world, while others are just pure children's scribble bat****.

So, I'm trying to come up with monsters that fit the bill as the incarnate madness of a dying god. I'm not limiting myself to the monster manual's lists of "demons" and "devils," I'm willing to refluff absolutely any monster as a demon, and exclude RAW demons that aren't Silent Hill-y enough.

I want you guys to give me ideas. Both suggestions of surreal and frightening monsters that I can use, and original ideas of your own for appropriate powers, appearances, and traits for various demons to have.

The list so far:


BEHOLDERKIN: they're a little cheesy as written, but with the right descriptions and changing out some of their eyeray effects for more creepy or surreal ones, they fit the bill.

GIBBERING MOUTHER: fine as is.

TIRAPHEG: old trilateral monster from first edition that seems to have stumbled right out of Silent Hill 3.

CHAOS BEAST: fine as is, if a bit generic. Needs more flavor.

GRELL: will give them some different abilities to match their otherworldly appearance. Maybe they're related to beholders?

PENTAS: five-sided fractal creatures, probably related to tiraphegs.

MARROTES: string-demons from Exalted with a fetish for babies.

BOTTLE-BUGS: also from Exalted, demonic symbionts that live inside of bigger creatures and can be helpful or harmful depending on various factors.

MUMMERS: mutant, stealthy things that can animate objects and move things telekinetically, and think that everything (including death) is hilarious.


So, ideas? Monsters? Ideas for monsters? Ideas for refluffling or modifying existing monsters? Random abilities or descriptions?

[TheCountAlucard]

I'm going to recommend the Exalted book from First Edition, Games of Divinity.

Spoiler: Fun, Pertinent Details

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Its part on the Demon City is particularly relevant: the champions of the gods cast down the great titans who shaped the world; the defeated Primordials, crippled and trapped in a prison of their own bodies, grew mad in their imprisonment, and became demonized as the Yozis. They are beings so vast that aspects of their minds and personalities have demonic souls and living bodies of their own, who in turn possess aspects of their minds and personalities who have demonic souls and bodies of their own. These in turn create hosts of demons to suit their arcane (or perhaps unknowable!) ends.

Spoiler: Example

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Malfeas, the Demon City, King of the Primordials, the Brass Dancer, the Demon Emperor
Malfeas is the hateful King of the Primordials, embodied as a world-city of tarnished brass towers and bones of black bone, arranged in layers about the merciless green star at his heart.

This heart is Ligier, the defining soul of Malfeas. He exists as both a burning emerald star and as an unsurpassed craftsman-demon, whose forges in the Demon City are fired by the flames of his own sun-body.

One of Ligier's souls, his "warding soul," is Sondok, a pitiless she-demon with poisonous fingernails.

Sondok has produced at least two races of demons, the Erythmanoi and the Neomah.

Erythmanoi take the form of great horned apes, their shoulders lined with spikes, and fur the color of blood; possessed of a violent cunning, these otherwise-simple brutes love nothing more than to consume the blood of those creatures slain by their foul claws.

They are terrifying opponents in battle, superhuman in strength and resilience, able to brachiate through trees with surprising speed, and possessed of lungs powerful enough to shatter stone with a scream. It is by these screams that a blood-ape reproduces: an erythmanus finds a metal spike on which it may impale itself, and puts itself in such a state of agony that a new erythmanus is born from its pained howling.

Neomah demons are hairless figures with violet skin and liquid black eyes; their shape varies based on the sexual preferences of those they would seduce. A neomah typically employs itself as a courtesan, and possesses a unique means to turn the leavings of these couplings into a living being; from skin or flesh or fluids of at least two donors, a neomah can craft a child that is biologically that of the donors' (possibly resulting in some fantastical creations if she gets "material" from demons or gods or animals). A neomah's home is in the tin tower they can extrude from their mouths; at the top of this tin tower burns a fire, and a neomah takes the infant she's made and casts it into the fire to give it life.

Unless sorcerously ordered to do otherwise, a typical neomah abandons these children after making them.

[the_david]

I'm gonna suggest that you should read some of Lovecraft's excellent works and then come back.

Chokers are pretty cool, as are Grell. (Although Grell get a lot of paralysing attacks. Beware.) the 3.5 Fiendish Codex 1 might have what you're looking for. There's a couple of weird monsters in there.

[Blake Hannon]

I'm going to recommend the Exalted book from First Edition, Games of Divinity.

Spoiler: Fun, Pertinent Details

Show

Its part on the Demon City is particularly relevant: the champions of the gods cast down the great titans who shaped the world; the defeated Primordials, crippled and trapped in a prison of their own bodies, grew mad in their imprisonment, and became demonized as the Yozis. They are beings so vast that aspects of their minds and personalities have demonic souls and living bodies of their own, who in turn possess aspects of their minds and personalities who have demonic souls and bodies of their own. These in turn create hosts of demons to suit their arcane (or perhaps unknowable!) ends.

Spoiler: Example

Show

Malfeas, the Demon City, King of the Primordials, the Brass Dancer, the Demon Emperor
Malfeas is the hateful King of the Primordials, embodied as a world-city of tarnished brass towers and bones of black bone, arranged in layers about the merciless green star at his heart.

This heart is Ligier, the defining soul of Malfeas. He exists as both a burning emerald star and as an unsurpassed craftsman-demon, whose forges in the Demon City are fired by the flames of his own sun-body.

Will look into that!

Malfeas sounds more like a location than a monster, functionally speaking, but its a location that I can draw elements from. Creatures made of brass, blackened bone, and blinding green fire that hail from Malfeas could make an interesting "genus" of demons.

I'm gonna suggest that you should read some of Lovecraft's excellent works and then come back.

I read most of them. The Colour out of Space and the Whatley twins could be inspiration for stuff, but other than them Lovecraft's creatures always struck me as more scifi than fantasy, and more alien than chaotic. Also, my players have all read Lovecraft too, and I want something a bit more surprising.

Chokers are pretty cool, as are Grell. (Although Grell get a lot of paralysing attacks. Beware.) the 3.5 Fiendish Codex 1 might have what you're looking for. There's a couple of weird monsters in there.

Grell could work, possibly related to beholders.

Chokers...don't really seem that otherworldly or horrifying to me. Maybe with a face lift and some added powers?

[TheCountAlucard]

You'll notice I edited my post. And yes, Malfeas is a bit above "monster." Most "interaction" with him would be through his lesser souls, or via trying to survive one of the "earthquakes" that occur when his layers grind together to vent his self-destructive rage; it's possible that you could meet his other jouten (bodies, basically) and interact with them, but that doesn't particularly make him much of a monster either.

Actually, even just getting the attention of the Demon City would be an impressive task, let alone defeating him in battle. Malfeas is more akin to your Demiurge than to any one demon, save that his demons are metaphysically a part of him.

[TheCountAlucard]

For another example from the same book…

Spoiler: Cool stuff here!

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Adorjan, the Silent Wind

Adorjan is perhaps one of the strangest of the imprisoned Primordials. She is a lethal wind that blows through the Demon City, traveling wherever there is silence and leaving silence in her wake. For this reason the demons of the Demon City crowd the basalt roads of Malfeas with singers and drummers and pipers, for if silence were to fall, Adorjan would come, and scour away their pitiful lives in her passing.

From Adorjan descends Jacint, the Prince Upon the Tower, an angelic figure who holds dominion over a tower in every layer of the Demon City, simultaneously. When he speaks, bridges and streets form, stretching like filaments between layers to cement them together and allow traversing from disparate sections of Malfeas.

From Jacint descends Gumela, the Jeweled Auditor. Gumela is a man-shaped figure made of tangled threads, a living snarl made in mockery of the Loom of Fate. His intoxicating breath drives mortal passions mad, driving out secrets into the open, forcing the abandonment of taboos, and bringing about other depraved behavior. He takes no pleasure in this, for Gumela loves merely to learn.

From Gumela come the marrotes, tangled knots of phlegmy strings. Their central body is perhaps the size of a large coin or a small child's fist, but the hairs can extend for tens of yards and possess amazing resilience, allowing them to easily lift heavy burdens via elaborate block-and-tackle arrangements. The "hopping puppeteers," as mortals sometimes call them, are of little more than animal intelligence outside of architecture, but are invaluable as a work-force, for with their strings they can do the work of dozens or hundreds. Still, they require near-constant supervision, for given to their own devices, marrotes tend to assemble works of architecture in a whimsical fashion; one might take the stone blocks intended as the base of your pleasure-palace and build a tower from them.

Additional care must be taken to keep infants away from marrotes; the hopping puppeteers are fascinated by babies, and will "collect" them in the same fashion a child might decorate her hair with flowers, with no intent on caring for them or keeping them alive.

[Blake Hannon]

Definitely getting that book now.

I think I'll be lifting the Marrotes wholecloth.

[JNAProductions]

Spoiler: Pentas

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Five limbs, radially spreading from a five pointed star at the center. The limbs whirl interchangably as legs and arms, and each one branches off with five elbows, ending in five hands with five groping fingers each. Each elbow has five piercing eyes, and five gaping maws adorn the central star.

A brief description of an old demon I had laying around. I tended to just pick a theme (in this case, five) and build the entire monster around that.

This could probably be basic infantry, so to speak-few special abilities, if any, but tough, fast, and a good threat in numbers especially.

[Buckethead]

I enjoy demons (and devils) based on specific traits, like a sloth (the sin, not the animal, maybe it looks like the animal?) demon that infects the players with a disease (curse, whatever) which slows them down somehow. How about a gluttony demon that tries to eat players? (I always imagine a demon like Azmodan for this with the stomach having its own giant toothy mouth) How about a clown demon that makes you die laughing with a big horrific smile like Joker's gas? One thing that always freaks players out is after a battle if they discover maggots in their wounds feasting, and have to spend a few rounds/skill checks getting them out, just to up the horror factor.

I also just wanted to say those Marrotes are ridiculously freaky, they have dead babies as decorations for ****'s sake.

[TheCountAlucard]

Buckethead: The marrote's motivation is less "decorating itself" and more "that small thing there is pretty and interesting and I'm-a just pick it up and hold onto it," not realizing why it's stopped moving a few days later (and not particularly inclined to realize why that's a bad thing). I compared it to a kid, but honestly hopping puppeteers are not even that smart.

Though yes, a marrote that's found a nursery is going to make for a macabre sight. That's why you take precautions.

[TheCountAlucard]

Definitely getting that book now.

There's also a plethora of cool gods and elementals in there, but yeah, you should like the demon-y bits.

Spoiler: Demony Goodness!

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The Ebon Dragon, Shadow of All Things, the Ultimate Darkness
Night does not fall in the Demon City, not properly. The emerald star that is Ligier shines on all the layers at all times, and permits no shadows to be cast.

Save one.

Where the Ebon Dragon passes, the streets are bathed in a temporary, terrifying night. His miles-long shadow is usually occupied by the lovely Erembour, That Which Calls to the Shadows and those twisted by her music. She is the seventh soul of the Ebon Dragon, and cannot abide the touch of sunlight, yellow or green; she plays her doleful tune on her silver horn as she strides the streets of the Demon City, and those who hear it are filled with melancholy and an appreciation for the night. Some are drawn to her, and die, while others are forever warped into shadows or monsters and can no longer bear the light of the sun.

The Expressive Soul of That Which Calls to the Shadows is Alveua, Keeper of the Forge of Night. A demonic smith, Alveua can offer her services - she leads mortals to her secret Forge of Night and reshapes them with hammer and anvil, into artifacts of strange black metal. These tools are invariably possessed of the same loves, hates, and motivations of the transformed mortal.

Alveua has a special love of insects and similar crawling and buzzing creatures, and created the sesseljae, called "stomach-bottle bugs." Fist-sized beetle-bodied arthropods of human intelligence, sesseljae are possessed of five pairs of grasshopper-like legs, child-like voices, and a dangerous appetite for poison and putrid substances (though they possess no immunity to such!) - in the Demon City they scurry about in search of veins of corruption and poison, which they consume in droves, even if it should kill them by the thousands. Their poisoned corpses are in turn eaten by other sesseljae, until the Demon City is safe once more.

(Incidentally, demons who operate bars tend to view them as something of a major pest.)

Sesseljae are also notable for their ability to move through flesh as easily as air, swimming through it like water without disrupting it, be it human or animal or demon; they make for excellent surgeons, and will happily play music by rubbing their four hindmost legs together as they rejoin wounded flesh from the inside. A sorcerer will often summon one and have it take residence in her stomach, where it can serve its master both as a preventer of poisonings, and as an emergency medic.

However, a sesseljae is violently allergic to pure substances, be it seawater, silver, gold, or virgins' blood; such exposures can cause them grievous harm.

If you want a visceral demon, it's hard to find one better than one that can live amidst your viscera.

Plus imagine the creep factor when the PCs see a guy whose flesh keeps rippling in odd places, and occasionally has insectoid limbs "slip" out of his body, just fast enough to make them wonder if they're hallucinating.

[Maglubiyet]

What you're describing sounds like it could be modeled by putting the Anarchic Creature and Fiendish templates on random creatures. Also consider Pseudonatural, Spellwarped, Half-Illithid, Arachnoid, Reptilian, and Half-Fiend.

An Anarchic Half-Illithid Giant Toad would be a pretty terrifying creature. Or a Half-Fiend Anarchic goose, with scaly skin and four wings.

Other odd creatures to include:
Digester -- seriously, what the hell is that thing?
randomly generated Hordlings

[MrStabby]

I had a faction of "jesters" in a 5th edition campaign that had come from Pandemonium. They were based on the Valor Bard Archetype but with a different spell selection. I swapped a few abilities round as well - gave them the mask of many faces warlock class feature for example.

Illusions, animate objects, Jump, a couple of enchantment spells and a chaotic evil alignment/attitude made them quite fun. Combat style was about evasion, speed, misdirection and traps. I used them sparingly as combats took a while (but a couple laying a trap with more conventional low level outsiders was a pretty good encounter).

[BWR]

If you don't mind digging in older RPG supplements a bit, I can recommend:
- Creatures of the Dreamseed, a supplement from Engel. Engel creatures are real aliens. No one knows where they came from, what they want, why they try to kill humanity (at least, not that has been revealed in the English books for the game). They have a general theme of creepy pseudo-arthropodes and some brilliant artwork
- the Zbri from Tribe 8. Beings of spirit who descended to the material world and have (probably) gone mad with sensation, becoming obsessed with it. Some very nice flavor and descriptions. "Horrors of the Zbri" is the one you should look for.
- "Bearers of Jade: The second book of the Shadowlands". A much loved supplement for L5R, there is a lot of non-monster stuff here but it really knows how to set flavor and tone and there should be something for you to use no matter what. Other L5R monster books like "The Book of the Shadowlands: The writings of Kuni Mokuna" , "Creatures of Rokugan", "Enemies of the Empire" have some good demons which should fit your purposes just fine. CoR is actually d20 so it is easier to adapt for your purposes (I assume you are running a d20 variant, considering the ones you've already mentioned).

[Kalmageddon]

First of all, really cool idea for a setting!

Second, I think you could use the pseudonatural archetype, or at least elements of it, to create new demons according to your lore. Actually I would recommend coming up with an archetype on your own, if you feel like doing the work, that might be the best option.

[Blake Hannon]

Pentas are good. They're probably a close relative of the tirapheg.

The Neomah might be weird enough to fill the role of "succubus-type-thing" in this setting, but I'd need to add more to them. As it is, they're only slightly weirder than most mythical creatures, and only mildly disturbing. Demons should all have an air of madness, despair, and delirium.

Gut-Bottle-Bugs are perfect.

Sloth demon...I think basing them off of deadly sins is too close to Judeo-Christian demonology rather than the dreamlike chaos feel I'm going for, but "fat monster with a stomach in its mouth" is an image I can use. That trait shall be used for some demon or another!

Hordelings...I like the random traits thing, but the role of "brute cannon fodder" generally goes to mundane creatures that have been empowered or mutated by demons, in this campaign. Maybe they could be a type of mutant rather than a pure demon strain.

Pandemonium Jesters have potential. A bunch of cackling idiots who scurry around and use telekinesis and Animate Objects to cause random chaos while laughing about it like DOWNS-afflicted hyenas definitely fits the theme. Maybe I'll describe them as crawling on all fours like a canine, but their torsoes look like a reclining human body facing upward with these big toothy mouths constantly howling and jabbering with laughter as they leap around in the shadows and animate/move things.

[JAL_1138]

I would go through the D&D monsters articles on Bogleech, in which misfit, ridiculed, and forgotten monsters are made interesting again.

Some of them in very disturbing ways.

[TheCountAlucard]

The Neomah might be weird enough to fill the role of "succubus-type-thing" in this setting, but I'd need to add more to them.

There is more to them. Like I said, they're in Games of Divinity.

And if you don't feel madness in a race of demons with an instinctive drive to employ itself such to collect bodily fluids to make monster babies with, you might wanna reconsider.

As for despair and delirium, there's plenty of that in the Demon City, in which the demons are imprisoned. Imagine knowing that at least one person has to stay behind at your apartment complex and sing at all times, lest a capricious, murderous tornado come through and destroy your homes and shred anyone inside to red confetti. Imagine great glass libraries free for anyone to access, but if you happen to look through a tome that contains knowledge reserved "for the Yozis," the librarian turns you into a star. Imagine a realm where possession of a timepiece or water is against the law, and looking at the color azure is a crime punishable by death (incidentally, the demonic priesthood of the Endless Desert have azure fires for faces).

Imagine a world where there is no power without ambition, no love without pain, and no silence without death.

[Lord Raziere]

no the real madness of that "don't look at azure" crime is that all of Malfeas legal texts are written in azure. meaning if you want to be defended in court, you have to get an outsider to read them, because those laws don't apply to outsiders.

[TheCountAlucard]

Or a priest of Cecelyne. Or one of the Unquestionable. They're nominally bound to the laws of hell, but only insofar as anyone can enforce them… which isn't very much, in their case.

Which brings me to the Unquestionable. The souls of the Yozis are of a caste so elevated in the Demon City's social strata that lesser demons not only can't disobey their orders, they are not permitted to ask them questions.

But really, Jenna Moran says it better than Raziere or I can; there are plenty of cool, disturbing demons in there for you to peruse. Angyalka, Teodozjia, Firmin, the Clamorous Cloud Arsenals, and more await you.

[goto124]

"fat monster with a stomach in its mouth" is an image I can use.

RL starfish eat by turning their stomachs inside out.

There, a reference!

[Lord Raziere]

Which brings me to the Unquestionable. The souls of the Yozis are of a caste so elevated in the Demon City's social strata that lesser demons not only can't disobey their orders, they are not permitted to ask them questions.

Which includes, unfortunately anything like "hey can I ask you a question?" or "who are you?" or "Huh?"
it may be a noise but its a legitimate question...

also, be sure to have fun painting yourself azure then go walking around Malfeas, trolling everyone with your mere presence, for extra hilarity, paint a random blood ape azure then throw him into a plaza or whatever full of demons and watch everyone try to not look at him. and then when he gets up to see what happens he sees his own hand.....azure. and realizes that he is going to die for looking at himself.

[goto124]

Come to think of it, such a weaksauce weakness will make the players come up with dozens of ways to kill the demons.

By then, it'll be the players who are the creepy demons.

[TheCountAlucard]

Raziere assumes that you can just acquire or make azure (not just blue) paint in the Demon City without getting noticed and rolled for it, and that you're badass enough to be a non-demon in the Demon City in the first place (or invoking some manner of supernatural diplomatic immunity), and are badass enough to personally wrestle a blood-ape into submission (which would revoke that diplomatic immunity if that was your way in, so you'd better have an exit strategy or you'll probably end up wishing they'd just put you to death), slather him in paint, and turn him loose in a crowded square.

Raziere assumes a lot, and you shouldn't take these things for granted; just because Gold Kryptonite exists in the DC Universe doesn't mean Superman is going to be permanently depowered.

Also, the laws of Cecelyne may be cruel and capricious, as is her way, but to outsiders she offers no protection at all. Even the Exalted either live at the sufferance of a powerful demon, invoke supernatural diplomatic immunity for the purpose of conducting legitimate business, or are badass enough to curb-stomp those who challenge their presence. (An exception exists for the Green Sun Princes, but that's neither here nor there.) Did you expect the insane hell-dimension full of poison-eating flesh-swimming roaches, demon courtesans, and fifty-yard-long tangles of hair to have reasonable, fair rules?

[Blake Hannon]

Okay, so.

Neomah are in. I'm giving them the venomous fingernails of their creator in Exalted, and a hag-like appetite for the children of humans and other mortal races. To bear children of her own, she doesn't just need to collect genetic material, she also needs to kill other people's children. She can fashion Marrotes out of her own hair, and the Marrote brings any babies it picks up to her so she can eat them.

Demons made of blinding green star-fire are also in. Djinni are an important race in this setting and they happen to be made of fire themselves (as per Islamic folklore), so maybe the green fire demons can be corrupted djinni.

I'm giving the grell some modifications, as there are too many paralyzing monsters in the campaign already. Instead of paralysis, grell can make themselves incorporeal at will, and they can make you incorporeal as well if they grab you, making it hard for your friends to rescue you. Their tendrils are made of razor wire, and the entire creature has a semi-metallic look to it. They've got a toothy mouth instead of a beak.

Jesters are acrobatic, wall-walking, ceiling-leaping mutants who can animate objects and are strongly telekinetic, with an affinity for setting up traps and hazards. They also have an extra, giant mouth on their bloated stomachs.

[Segev]

While we're mining Exalted, there is an elemental known as a "water child" that is given birth when a human child drowns in a particularly emotional state. The water child takes on the human's appearance, and forms its opinion of the world from what it saw as the dying child that gave it life was fading. Often, this is a panicked parent trying desperately to reach the drowning kid...and sadly, being inhuman, these creatures often misinterpret the cause of the death as being the responsibility of the ones looking on.

In a particularly strange twist, a kind of crocodile-headed (minor) god-race also EATS human children...and then becomes pregnant with them, giving birth to them once more but now as god-blooded. Water children can also be formed from the death involved in that consumption.



In a game I ran where I didn't want to use Illithids, but wanted something to fill their role, I took Intellect Devourers and made them the larval stage of a kind of monster I termed a Silhouette. Silhouettes mature after devouring their first brain, replacing the host for a time. Their eyes are golden, which is the one real tell-tale. As they feed off the body, the body eventually dissolves into a black mist with which they shroud themselves. The only solid part is the brain and two eyes (attached by optic nerves), which floats about seeking new prey. Each prey they consume becomes a new form into which they can shape their true mist-bodies. They are also gifted psychically, with a penchant for mind-control and sensory manipulation.



How about some sort of monstrous creature with a wickedly fanged maw more akin to a shark or lamprey than anything else, with hook-like teeth and a spined tongue that point in all the wrong directions? Worse, it doesn't eat with that mouth.

Spoiler: warning: gross

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It feeds in a most disgusting fashion on the excrement of other creatures, siphoning it in through an anterior orifice.

Its biological processes in its organs "digest" its "food" , and vomits it into its mouth and throat, where those teeth-and-spines knit it into flesh and bone and sinew.

Sometimes, a creature is lucky enough to be rebuilt entirely this way. More often, hideous amalgams of several things it has...absorbed...are reformed together. Horrifyingly, there is usually an identifiable dominant element, making the twisted mockery that is disgorged from this creature's mouth reminiscent of something that went into its makeup, enough that friends or family might almost recognize them.

[Segev]

You might also watch the anime Parasyte for inspiration for one kind of "demon" you could use. All sorts of "nope!" in that one.

[Blake Hannon]

I had a faction of "jesters" in a 5th edition campaign that had come from Pandemonium. They were based on the Valor Bard Archetype but with a different spell selection. I swapped a few abilities round as well - gave them the mask of many faces warlock class feature for example.

Illusions, animate objects, Jump, a couple of enchantment spells and a chaotic evil alignment/attitude made them quite fun. Combat style was about evasion, speed, misdirection and traps. I used them sparingly as combats took a while (but a couple laying a trap with more conventional low level outsiders was a pretty good encounter).

Here's my attempt at statting a version of your jester concept. Its in my heavily houseruled 4E, but you should still be able to understand it. Tell me if you think this captures the concept well:


Fool Demon
Level 4 Controller (175 XP)
Medium elemental magical beast
__________
Initiative 21; Senses Perception 16
Speed 6; spider climb 6; leap 4
HP 37; Bloodied 18
AC 17 Fort 15 Ref 17 Will 17
__________
Standard Actions
-
Ranged Telekinesis (at will):
Target one enemy within range 10; 17 vs. Fort; target slides 4 squares; if it hits a wall or another creature, it takes 2d10 damage and is knocked prone; if it hits another creature, attack it as well; 17 vs. Reflex; 2d10 damage and target is knocked prone.
Miss: target slides one square.
-
Ranged Animate Object (at will):
Target one Medium or smaller object within 10; target can move up to 4 squares and attack; target one creature within 1; 20 vs. AC; 1d8+5 damage. The object can also make opportunity attacks until the start of the jester's next turn.
-
Melee Bite (at will):
Target one creature within 1; 17 vs. AC; 1d8+4 damage.
__________
Minor Actions
-
Close Idiot Cackle (at will):
Close burst 10; target one enemy within the burst who has been damaged by one of the jester's attacks since the start of the jester's turn; 17 vs. Will; target is dazed (save ends).
__________
Skills Stealth 21, Athletics 21, Acrobatics 23, Thievery 23
Str 2 (+4) Con 2 (+4) Dex 4 (+6) Int -2 (+0) Wis -1 (+1) Cha 4 (+6)


Note that its bite isn't a melee basic attack, which means it can't make attacks of opportunity. Its going to try and keep itself away from the PC's, using melee attacks only if cornered.

[Segev]

Borrowing from Silent Hill and making a bad pun, I think this would still up the creep factor of a standard D&D monster:

Wights generate a sort of static-like sound that starts soft when they're distant and gets steadily, almost imperceptibly louder. It makes other sounds just a bit harder to hear at first, before you notice it. By the time you've recognized the wight noise, you're probably having to speak in a notably louder voice just to be heard clearly, and you can't tell where it's coming from.

[Blake Hannon]

Borrowing from Silent Hill and making a bad pun, I think this would still up the creep factor of a standard D&D monster:

Wights generate a sort of static-like sound that starts soft when they're distant and gets steadily, almost imperceptibly louder. It makes other sounds just a bit harder to hear at first, before you notice it. By the time you've recognized the wight noise, you're probably having to speak in a notably louder voice just to be heard clearly, and you can't tell where it's coming from.

Lol, white noise.

I'm already considering playing the radio static sound from Silent Hill 2/3 whenever the PC's are fighting a demon.