Post/Author/DateTime	Post
GoriceXII 06-25-07, 02:36 AM	Out of curiousity what have players or gms found the scariest monster in a game? Like that actually freaked players out, gave them nightmares, etc, and how did it happen? I'm wondering because I'm expecting the next several adventures to be a little shocking to my pcs--I want to make their first encounter with an aboleth accompanied by skum really disturbing.
Warforged Goblin 06-25-07, 09:32 AM	Aberrations, when described correctly, can freak the living crap outta PCs. I ran a one-shot this past Saturday and watching my PCs' faces twist with shock, horror, and revulsion as I described the pseudonatural shifter I cobbled together was worth the price of admission alone.
Ogg 06-25-07, 09:49 AM	I've never had someone talk about getting nightmares but there's one that unnerved a few of my players from Libris Mortis. It's an undead with nails in it's eyes & black stuff oozes out of the wounds into it's mouth so it makes a girgling choking sound. Not to mention the mouths on it's hands. Yeah that one got a few "Ewwww"'s
Amastheyrys 06-25-07, 09:54 AM	Aboleths. used correctly they are among the creepiest things the party can encounter
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 06-25-07, 12:13 PM	What creeped my party out the most out of anything I've ever used is an ordinary thornbush. I got really sarcastic.
Ace_of_time 06-25-07, 08:13 PM	Brownies!
GoriceXII 06-26-07, 03:39 AM	Oddly enough--I have creeped out a pc with a brownie. I'd love to hear more about the use of aboleths in that way. Tonight I freaked out both players with a meenlock encounter. Weird chittering sounds in the dark (that were just telepathic illusions) the one glimpse of strange little humanoid shapes dragging someone into a narrow hole in the floor, whispers that no one but the person touched by the Meenlock's mind hears...
Kesuk2k5 06-26-07, 06:19 AM	A hedonistic, attractive hexblade PC of mine got pretty creeped out when the female ghoul that was part of the group the party encountered told him, and I quote, "I hope you taste half as good as you look."
Orchomenos 06-26-07, 10:52 AM	Centipedes Swarm. We were a 1st level party, and we began exploring a dungeon. Before one door, the DM gave us clues about centipedes (namely, my gnome's dire badger mount smelt a centipede odor). So the barbarian got in first row with his greataxe in hand, ready to hack the big beasty, he kicked the door open... and was drowned under waves of tiny centipedes! Fortunately, my gnome sorcerer had a few alchemist fires and acid bottles...
Senka 06-26-07, 11:18 AM	I once DMed a scene where a dire badger was burrowing up under a wagon and made I it really creepy. Later, me and one of the players in the encounter walked about the garden at night and he confessed to being "quite on edge"...
Necroramo 06-26-07, 01:25 PM	Angel of Decay Aspect of Pale Night (the CR 21 one works better) Atropal Atropal Scion Bane Wraith Blaspheme Blood Amniote Bloodmote Cloud Bloodrot Cadaver Golem Corpse Rat Swarm Corrupted Creature Crypt Chanter Death Giant Deathshrieker Dragonflesh Golem Dread Blossom Swarm Drowned Ephemeral Swarm Eye of Fear and Flame Excruciarch Flesh Jelly Forsaken Shell Genius Loci Illithid Meenlock Mummy Night Twist Palrethee Phantasmal Slayer Plague Blight Pseudonatural Creature (The Complete Arcane version) Rogue Eilodon Shadow Shrieking Terror Skin Kite Slaughter Wight Sorrowsworn Demon Spawn of Kyuss Spectre Spellcaster, if you have the right spells Vargouille Vasuthuant Vilewight Wheep Wight Wraith
RobbyPants 06-26-07, 02:39 PM	I think, largely due to the portrayal, Rakshasas have routeinely been the "creepiest" in my games. I can think of three seperate campaigns where I used them and unnerved at least one player. A lot of what makes them so cool is that they can both read peoples minds and assume humanoid forms. This opens the door to lots of creepieness. Plus they have some pretty tough defenses compared to their damage output, so they can stand in a fight longer than you'd expect.
MagicMouth 06-26-07, 03:14 PM	How about the Gray Jester from Heroes of Horror? Personally, quite some time ago I came up with the idea of a Gray Jester Dread Necromancer as a major BBEG, but I have yet to incorporate him in any campaign. I plan for him to turn his adult victims Undead, while their children would become Bleak Ones - that ought to create some rather disturbing scenarios... use your imagination. :devil: He would be covered head to toe in a typical jester outfit, albeit unusually dark, and his face would be concealed beneath a mask. When he really is in a sadistic mode he would remove the mask and reveal a decaying, sickly face and an unmoving, wide open jaw filled with shining but broken teeth. Without even a hint of movement in the face, an insane laughter echoes out from the rotting throat. How does that sound? When I finally bring out this monster, I want him to make an impact on the players.
Babzidu 06-26-07, 05:22 PM	I would have to say the scariest monster I used against my PC's was the humble earth glider from Underdark. I had it stalk them for a while, and they'd catch momentary glimpses of a pale white thing gliding between the walls of the tunnel they were in. It scared them so much, they ran all the way Menzoberrenzan. The glider only got about two bites in. It scared them so much, whenever I want them to move along, I just read the glider description, and they haul ass.
Return of the Flumph 06-26-07, 06:02 PM	I used the aboleth and skum once. Have the skum tumble and slosh around in the background, shoot by below the surface of the water out of the corner of someone's eye, etc. Don't let them even know that they are humanoid; just that they are...there. Finally, have the PC's see the outline of a somewhat misshapen humanoid sitting in the middle of the room. They enter, it looks at them but doesn't attack...until they get close enough to see its face. At this point, describe the skum as having no head at all; just a bumpgrowing between its shoulders covered by a shark mouth, no eyes or ears, just a gigantic mouth full of tusks (2d6 bite damage needs explaining; this does the trick as well as looking scary). The creature has exposed, pink flesh with no skin, and is covered in a layer of what looks and feels like raw eggyolk. It has fins growing at random places. The skum screams in a horribly high pitched voice, and all the doors burst open and an ocean of gnashing, oversized maws mounted on naked pink bodies pour in. The mouths are all that matter. Describe the PC's getting covered in slime. Have the (already very dim) light source go out in the middle of the fight. Do the skum right, and they will already be terrified by the time they get to the aboleth.
Ace_of_time 06-26-07, 08:48 PM	Horrid rats. That one gives my wife chills. I'll never forgot there first encounter with. DM: hit you 5 points plus 4 points of acid. Player: What do you mean they have acid damage?!?!
Varl 06-26-07, 09:01 PM	Sons of Kyuss. Everyone gets a little shiver down the spine when the little green worms start jumping towards you. :devil:
GoriceXII 06-27-07, 09:48 AM	Orchomenos: You reminded me rather nastily of 'that' scene in King Kong. Forget the T-Rexes and the giant ape--the scene that disturbed me the most was the wave of bugs. Senka: How did you make the dire badger encounter so creepy? Magic Mouth: Dude...something about faceless people is utterly freaky. RobbyPants: I kind of get the concept but do you have an example? I may use a rakshasa in an upcoming adventure but I don't like using monsters unless I can do them justice. Babzidu: Oddly enough it's what you imagine you see, can't quite see that can be really scary at times. It sounds like a fun intense adventure though. Return of the Flumph: I like that, that will be a lot better than the general idea given in the adventure I want to use. I like the fact that they're there but I want the skum plus aboleth to be terrifying. I want it to be Lovecraftian. Ace_of_time: I think rats period can be bad enough if you do them right. Adding vapours or acid just makes it worse. Varl: they're a monster I've thought of but have never used. I guess because again I'd want to do them justice. The cool thing is that my pcs have never read the Fiend Folio and have no idea what they are.
Lobsopdoy 06-27-07, 10:06 AM	Atropals make me want to curl up in a corner and weep
Slayergnome 06-27-07, 10:09 AM	A few things that come to mind when I think Creepy: Mongrelmen: I was running a game in Deadsnows in Forgotten Realms. The players (all DM classes and therefore average people) were at a party when they watched a small girl get grabbed from the shadows. They gave chase leading them to a boarded up home where a small group of Mongrelmen had set up base. They had come to steal food to try and support their people living higher up in the mountains. The girl was stolen by a Mongrelman who had recently lost his child to starvation and in his grief tried to replace her with the human child. They didn't know this until after they had crawled through the darkness of the tunnels coming fact to face with several of the Mongrelmen and slaying them. Not only did they get creeped out but they also felt horrid when the reason for the kidnapping was explained to them. They then felt obligated to go help the Mongrelmen. Two birds with one stone! :) Green Dragon and Bat Guano: The same group of characters after leveling and going out into the mountains (bad idea) got caught by some cultists. Throughout their extended stay in captivity they continued to watch prisoners be hauled off to another area where dragon roaring and human screams soon followed. They were fairly terrified and when they finally made their escape several of them when towards that room (reasons unknown) without any gear or lights. One was moving along on his hands and knees in the pitch darkness when I described his hand squishing into some bat guano. He let out a loud "EEWWWWWW." I took it as in game (rightfully so) and he was assaulted by the Dragon. It was good times and the bat guano really got a reaction as did the unseen dragon swooping around playing with them in its home till they finally got thrown into a underground river and split up. Werewolf: Another good scene I recall involved a group of adventurers riding along a round with a patrol of soldiers on a trip to a distant village (Deadsnows once more). On the way they came upon a man dressed in rags and looking sickly. They slowed very cautiously hailing the man. He seemed as if he had been lost in the wilds and barely surviving. The whole party was tense but saw no real reason not to assist the man. Finally one of the patrols soldiers closed in on the man to inquire of his condition when he suddenly shifted into a werewolf killed the man and his horse in one swipe of his claws. The whole party / patrol just booked it as the werewolf didn't even give chase just crouched down and began devouring the horse and soldier. They didn't sleep that night and traveled till they reached the village...
Babzidu 06-27-07, 12:51 PM	It is an intense adventure. And it's still going on. My entire campeign takes place in the Underdark. But a good way to creep players out using the Sons of Kyuss is to have a few living victims near where the monster lives. And by victims, I mean people having to deal with their brains slowly being eaten. For a good example, pick up Dragon Monster Ecologys and flip to the Ecology of the Spawn of Kyuss. Just read the History section. It is thrillingly creepy.
Necroramo 06-27-07, 02:08 PM	MagicMouth: Oh I forgot him, I'm about to ram one of those bad boys into my players.
Seldriss 06-27-07, 02:18 PM	Does my mother-in-law counts as a monster ? ;)
Varl 06-28-07, 12:40 AM	Varl: they're a monster I've thought of but have never used. I guess because again I'd want to do them justice. The cool thing is that my pcs have never read the Fiend Folio and have no idea what they are. Then you're in for a treat. :D
Kearif 06-28-07, 01:02 AM	I had a small group of kids playing in a playground. They were elves, orcs, dwarves, goblins, hobgoblins, halflings, gnomes, half-orcs, half-elves, kobolds, humans, and one ogre, all children all just playing together. The players went up to them to them that it's not safe outside, "There's an evil wizard out here some where." Then the party found out the hard way that there is an undead child in Libris Mortis. The party survived, but one of my players stole my Libris Mortis, and still won't give it back.
Necroramo 06-28-07, 10:00 AM	Slaymates ftw
Prime32 06-28-07, 12:11 PM	I used the aboleth and skum once. Have the skum tumble and slosh around in the background, shoot by below the surface of the water out of the corner of someone's eye, etc. Don't let them even know that they are humanoid; just that they are...there. Finally, have the PC's see the outline of a somewhat misshapen humanoid sitting in the middle of the room. They enter, it looks at them but doesn't attack...until they get close enough to see its face. At this point, describe the skum as having no head at all; just a bumpgrowing between its shoulders covered by a shark mouth, no eyes or ears, just a gigantic mouth full of tusks (2d6 bite damage needs explaining; this does the trick as well as looking scary). The creature has exposed, pink flesh with no skin, and is covered in a layer of what looks and feels like raw eggyolk. It has fins growing at random places. The skum screams in a horribly high pitched voice, and all the doors burst open and an ocean of gnashing, oversized maws mounted on naked pink bodies pour in. The mouths are all that matter. Describe the PC's getting covered in slime. Have the (already very dim) light source go out in the middle of the fight. Do the skum right, and they will already be terrified by the time they get to the aboleth. :eek:
Orchomenos 06-28-07, 02:07 PM	Does my mother-in-law counts as a monster ? ;) Remember, brother, the mother-in-law is a good guess of what your lovely girlfriend will look like in 20 or so years... :mymy: :gah:
Gold Katana 06-28-07, 02:33 PM	Rot grubs (1 ed.)
Sildatorak 06-28-07, 03:20 PM	I, too, have to vote for the slaymate as the creepiest monster. I had a slaymate paired with a mummified sorcerer (her mother whose necromantic research had consumed her so much that the child eventually died of neglect and poor medical care).
Lazigothi 06-28-07, 03:34 PM	Spider Swarm: A writhing, foaming mass of spiders with webbing, sacs of eggs, and countless legs crawling onto your skin. They easily slip where they please underneath all of your armor, clothes, and gear, and you can feel your hair wildly moving with hundreds of spiders. Thousands of tiny legs and fangs are reaching areas around your ears, eyes, hands, feet, on your back and armpits. You try to brush at them, but their fuzzy brown and black bodies hop away in anticipation as more of their friends fill in the gap. Shaking your arms and legs only makes them cling more eagerly. :help:
MagicMouth 06-28-07, 06:37 PM	The Cadaver Golem from Heroes of Horror is another creepy monster. I mean, they take the body parts of their victims and thus gain some of their abilities. Not to mention the fact that they are smarter than the average human. That thing could kill one of your adventuring comrades and force the rest of you to retreat, and when you meet the abomination again it is wearing the head of your friend, the face twisted into a monstrous mockery of his original appearance. A swarm of Crawling Claws from Lost Empires of Faerûn could also invoke dread feelings. You walk in the dark and hear the sound of something skittering in the shadows. The poor illumination only grants very brief glimpses of small things with many legs? Insects? No, as they draw closer you see that they are severed human hands, crawling and twitching towards your heaving warm flesh. This could be combined with the abovementioned Cadaver Golem. The hulking figure is covered in a massive dark cloak, and there seems to be somethings moving beneath it constantly, eagerly, maliciously... suddenly it attacks, pulling the cloak aside to reveal a horrible monstrosity stitched together from human corpses, while countless crawling claws start to swarm out from holes in the decomposing flesh.
Sildatorak 06-28-07, 08:56 PM	There are no stats for it, but I always thought it would be pretty creepy if there was an undead spider-like thing that was made from a pair of hands stiched together at the base. You'd have 8 fingers for legs and the thumbs could be fangs. Give it some sort of attach/choke ability and you could definitely take it in an unsettling direction.
CryoSilver 06-28-07, 09:03 PM	A squirrel. It just fllowed them around, and tended to eat the animate eyeballs that the BBEG was using as spying tools.
Ace_of_time 06-28-07, 09:26 PM	Tomb spider.
Arniha 06-29-07, 03:12 AM	I've got a few: Coming in Third: The Dracolich This is from a story that my brother-in-law played in. They were in a standard go kill the dragon campaign, however through sidequests etc. it took them a total of about a year of play time to get to the dragons cave. When they arrive: no dragon. HIGHLY dissapointed, they then notice the hoard at the end of the cave, run, and start digging throw it. As they are, they feel the gold shifting: bones begin to rise up, and from, the dracolich. Only one character (my brother, a 2e fighter mage) survived. Coming in Second: Wolves/White Wolves/Dire Wolves/Worgs With one exception, nothing has ever scared me in a game like wolves. I was at the time in a solo game as a fifth level fighter/mage (2e) who had recently been transported to ravenloft after a fight with what will come in as first wen wrong. He was in an area with two towns, trying to find a way back to faerun, and after finding himself unable to find help in the first town, left at sundown for the second. about a mile out of town, the howling started. i kept going, and readied my bow with magical arrows, my plus two longsword, and a plus one war hammer (I had recently killed a low level white dragon out of sheer luck) eventually, I could hear the howling all around me. as they drew in I was able to pick off a few of them with a well placed fireball, but after that, they waited just out of reach, waiting for me to fall asleep. I decided to try to run for it (I was on a two horse coach), but they attacked three at a time, and it wasn't long before they had me. I survived (barely) and made it back to town with only a hitpoint left, and no gear. I crossed through town and noticed a gibbet with three bodies, one for theft, one for murder, another for vagrancy. No one would let me into any buildings, so as sundown approached, and the howling started, I climbed a tree and waited for death. Coming in First: Man Nothing is as scary as being hunted by something that is just as cunning and capable of evil as you are. The same character that was killed by the wolves had been hunted by a group of ninjas for years, and caused the most unnerving experiences of my dnd career. My first encounter with them left my travelling npc partner and lifelong friend seemingly dead. We were on a ship at the time, and the ninjas had already left. However the ship was taking on water at an alarming rate, so i sealed off the chamber with his body in it and prayed the ship didn't sink. When finally I made port years later, we opened the trapdoor to the lower levels to find his body directly underneath it, his nails ripped off and scratchmarks on the bottom of the door. I couldn't sleep for days. (in actual life). I lived in fear and was attacked many more times by this group, never knowing when they would show up, until finally, when they had attacked the inn i was staying in, i blindly fireballed a room i thought they were in. turns out they had tied up all the women and children there... I killed them all (seriously creeped me out for days) sending me to ravenloft, where i was eaten by wolves.
cog_n_taz 06-29-07, 06:21 AM	I once did a bodak/allip. The upper body is a bodak (and a demon-possessed one, to boot), which remembered a lot of his last life, but would scream, panic, and go into a frenzy if you mentioned specific parts of it. Said bodak was also covered in burns and accompanied by three burned, bloated zombies. The lower part of his body twisted into black, wispy smoke, like an allip. his name was Jim. Just Jim, and for some reason, that made him creepier for the entire group, myself included). he was a BBEG at one point (wandering around doing nothing most of the time, doing some seriously messed up baddy stuff when the demon took control). Later, I used the guy as a PC.
VeitSteadfast 06-29-07, 06:47 AM	We never fought against him, but my DM threw an undead bard into the game and he played a lute strung with his own innards.. It was a little unerving, but the bard turned out to be a cool guy.. The oracle is pretty creepy.. A crazy, morbidly obese woman. Centipedes and other vermin crawling freely over her body. Her eyes rolled in the back of her head, her tongue lolling to the side..
Orchomenos 06-29-07, 09:22 AM	I once did a bodak/allip. The upper body is a bodak (and a demon-possessed one, to boot), which remembered a lot of his last life, but would scream, panic, and go into a frenzy if you mentioned specific parts of it. Said bodak was also covered in burns and accompanied by three burned, bloated zombies. The lower part of his body twisted into black, wispy smoke, like an allip. his name was Jim. Just Jim, and for some reason, that made him creepier for the entire group, myself included). he was a BBEG at one point (wandering around doing nothing most of the time, doing some seriously messed up baddy stuff when the demon took control). Later, I used the guy as a PC. IMHO, it the last sentence that makes me shivers the most...
bobothechimp 06-29-07, 09:33 AM	Mind Flayers. There's something unsettling about a creature that paralyzes you with it's mind and eats your brain.
cog_n_taz 06-29-07, 09:51 AM	I know. Twisted, aren't I?:D Also, Jim may be disturbing, terrifying, and barking mad, yes. On the other hand, if the demon is not in control, he's not actually evil, just neutral. Neutral good, perhaps, and friendly. (his introduction to the party was "hi, my name's jim, you can call me jimmy. What's your name?" With a big, innocent smile...or rather, the bodak equivelant.)
cog_n_taz 07-01-07, 07:54 PM	:bump:
Boarfury 07-01-07, 09:24 PM	In my experience, the most heart-stoppingly frightful monster in the game is the humble grick. Four writhing, hooked tentacles surrounding an eyeless, screaming beak that comes at you in the dark and you can't kill it no matter what you do your weapons won't break through it's skin and you try to run away but as you turn a single hooked tentacle catches your cheek and scrapes across your face rending you of skin and pulling away what used to be your ear but is now just a small trophy in the beak of the beast that leaves you a grotesque monster and a lesson to those who would dare upset a grick.
GoriceXII 07-02-07, 04:33 AM	Gricks are nasty. Geeze. Tonight I ran a session of my game where my pcs met an aboleth + skum for the first time ever. They had no idea what either were and so it was entirely Lovecraftian for them--from the weirdly featureless semi-liquidy skum moving with unnerving swiftness and stealth in the watery flooded dungeon below the sacked and ruined city they were exploring to the aboleth itself. The psion in the group is shattered, drained. One favourite NPC was narrowly saved from the slime of the aboleth. Added to that I had a small group of meenlocks catch up to them while they were recovering--the meenlocks have been following a pc they targeted from a few adventures ago, and now and then try a mental attack.
Ace_of_time 07-02-07, 10:27 AM	I had a bought advan for 7th level. They ran into a cockatrice. They got really scared after the chicken turned there horse into stone.
phoen777 07-02-07, 10:53 AM	Wendigos. Freaky, freaky, freaky. They follow you around, whispering in your ear. You think you see it, out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn to look, nothing's there. Wait! Now it's over there! Turn and look, nothing. Repeat until you start thinking you're going insane. (which you are, because the Wendigo's abilities mess with your Wisdom score) Then it bites you, and the Wendigo's Hunger disease makes you hunt, kill, and eat members of your own species--but you have no memory of it, you just wake up in the morning covered in blood. The hunger eats away at your mind, plunging you further and further into madness until one day your mind breaks, and with a horrible scream you fly off into the night, becoming a wendigo yourself! That's a creepy monster! :eek:
Violet Typhoon 07-02-07, 12:03 PM	Three monsters have made particularly horrifying encounters. Crawling Claws: Early in the campaign, the party found an underground wizard's lab with, among other things, a large cylindrical glass tank filled with greenish water and what appeared to be preserved hands. They ignored it and looked at the other stuff until I had them make Listen checks to hear a metallic scraping noise behind them, but when they turned, nothing. The noise came again, until someone noticed that the hands in the tank had come to life and were unscrewing the lid from inside. They leapt out and attacked, not doing much damage or anything, but freaking the players out considerably. Atropal Scion: The party entered a crypt where they knew a special undead creature was hiding, but didn't know anything about it. A sarcophagus lay open in front of them, but far enough away that they couldn't see into it. A voice called out to them from the sarcophagus, which I described as a hissing, gurgling mix of all ages and genders, saying "Do not intrude, for to look on me is death." The party fought some undead henchmen for a round or two until I described the glassy-eyed, 3' long aborted fetus that rose out of the crypt and floated toward them. The characters caught one glimpse and fought the rest of the battle with their eyes closed. The "Flying Fetus" is still talked about today. Night Twist: By far the most horrifying battle was against a semi-sentient tree that represented a cancer-like corruption in the spirit of a forest. The tree stood in the middle of a clearing where every other plant had died, looking dark, leafless, and twisted, while emitting an eerie, sorrowful singing noise that compelled one of the characters to come toward it. A bunch of smaller plant creatures erupted from the ground and ambushed the characters, while the evil tree slowly dragged itself toward them by its roots. For this fight, it was really all about the description, as the battle wasn't even that dangerous. After shooting at the inexorably approching tree, someone asked as a joke "Does it bleed, like in Sleepy Hollow?" and I said yes, it did. Later, it used an SLA (cause fear, I think) against one party member, and I described how the woodgrain on the trunk shifted to look like eyeless faces, all screaming silently from within. As it moved closer each round, they saw more horrific details, like the veins pumping along the surface, how the bark was made up of scab-like scales covered in tar-like fluid, etc. When they finally killed it, they knew they had to remove the "heartwood" of the tree to break the curse on the forest. They used an axe to chop into the dead trunk and found the core, which was not only covered in blood and black goo, but actually beat every once in a while, causing the tree to slowly regenerate. Since they knew whoever finished off the tree would take the curse into themselves, they argued about who should do it for a few minutes, while I made heartbeat sound effects to keep them on edge. Finally, the girl who'd fallen to the compulsive song ran up and ripped the heartwood out of the trunk, which let out a horrible scream before shuddering and melting. As a last shot, I told her she got "a feeling almost like the tree wanted you to kill it..." Two players reported nightmares that very night! Shows what you can do with a little extra flavor text...
Senka 08-11-07, 11:48 AM	Sorry for the late reply; I entirely forgot about this thread… I once DMed a scene where a dire badger was burrowing up under a wagon and made I it really creepy. Later, me and one of the players in the encounter walked about the garden at night and he confessed to being "quite on edge"... How did you make the dire badger encounter so creepy? I just kept describing the digging noises and the occasional movement of planks in the bottom of the wagon when it was closer to the surface. When the badger reached the surface, I read the description from the Monster Manual: it sounds nothing lliek a badger, so I added that it “was black and white” and “badger-like”. -Senka
McMoocow 08-11-07, 10:03 PM	the creepiest monster I ever had was one of my PCs who was playing a Gnome illusionist. The party thought he was a straight rogue. He would cast minor illusions to make players think spiders and stuff had dropped down their tunics and such. I knew what he was up to and would help by doing the description so the other players wouldn't suspect him. After an hour or so, the players started to be affected. Together we had one player swatting spiders from his legs and one girl wouldn't go to the bathroom without her sister coming to check the toilet for mice. At one point, my cat jumped up on the table and two people fell over on their chairs. The stormy weather helped alot.
BlackHalfDragon 08-11-07, 10:53 PM	Slaymate.. unnerving in a shining kinda way.. Re: Creepiest Monster A hedonistic, attractive hexblade PC of mine got pretty creeped out when the female ghoul that was part of the group the party encountered told him, and I quote, "I hope you taste half as good as you look." can she help me diet ? :D
Morentez 08-12-07, 02:54 AM	slaymates are creepy... not disgusting looking, just creepy :S OH and wheeps are nasty too (the nails in eyes, crying poison undead)
UnrelentingHoror 08-12-07, 09:12 AM	Mind Flayers. There's something unsettling about a creature that paralyzes you with it's mind and eats your brain. Oh yeah, especially since they like to experiment on things. I have this dream encounter I want to run someday involving a mind flayer inquisition, two casters in the mix, one a cleric the other could just be the sorceror straight out of the MM. So they enter a room where their lead has brought them, everything is rather eery. The shadows seem to play tricks on your mind. Then you notice that everything is silent, not just queit but that there is no noise at all. (silence spell on an object carried by invisible mindflayer in the room.) The door opens, and silently a group of mindflayers levitate in verry still in motion as if they shouldn't be moving forward, everything says this is a bad situation but even though your conscious mind is screaming to run or fight your overwhelmed by a sense of peace(calm emotions) you feel unable to move suddenly (mind blast) and your hear a voice in your head telling you that everything is going to be okay and you believe it, you think its comeing from the strange creature before you. you are levitated into the air as if on an invisible bed and taken somewhere...... Yep alien abduction scenario in a fantasy setting. I mean even if it gets foiled by the PCs the spooky parts of it will show through. I also really like Worgs, its the whole man fearing nature thing and they actually have the malighn intelligence people attribute to wolves. I also agree with the scum statement, mostly because of H.P. Lovecraft and his story the shadow over innsmouth. I borrow alot from him when using skum and aboleths. My friend also ran a simple ghost story adventure well enough that we all were on edge walking to our cars after lol. Basicly if you want a creepy encounter that will make the players shift in their seats a little do this, find inspiration in themes or ideas you have seen that give you a little tingle, find a monster that can help you fit the theme(wierd wrong traits you can emphasize like the backward hands of a rakhshassa are a plus) and go. If you need to add a little bit to the flavour of a monster. Example, I was studying addiction in college briefly in one of my classes, then I saw that scene in the sixth sense where he thinks the guy that broke in his house is a druggie and imagined how terrifying that scenario could be. So now whenever I run ghouls they are beings of perpetual hunger, they will it dogs, cats, rats, corpses, whatever BUT the flesh of sentient humanoids actually gives them abit of narcotic euphoria and that is the main reason they seek them out, for their fix. I emphasize those themes, the ghouls they sneak up on revelling in their euphoric state after a kill, some of the destructive and seemingly inhuman traits and behaviours that they know are associated with the most desperate of junkies. This can easily work for vampires too, read the white wolf book on the subject. Anything can be an inspiration for horror almost.
Athaal 08-12-07, 09:39 AM	Gotta be the digestor! ^^ Actually does it have to be from one of the MMs? My DM had a really creepy one that scared our rogue/assassin in the party. there were two identical side by side locks to pick; he picked the wrong one. As he was picking it a black centipede crawled out and laid eggs on his arm. He killed the centipede, but took no notice to the eggs. Bad move. The eggs hatched and burrowed into his skin, turning all blod it touched black. The eggs were worming up his vein and only the help of the nearby team cleric helped him. He cut hit arm higher up the vein, then forced out the creature-parasite slowly and used many heal spells to destroy the creature. We later learned that if the black blood had reached his brain then he would have instantly died and about 30 black centipedes would have crawlyed out of his mouth. The assassin decided it would be a good poison to harvest lol.
bane_of_cuthbert 08-12-07, 11:37 AM	I'd have to say the most unnerving monster I've thrown at my PCs that I can remember would be a necronaut from MM3 When you see a massive pile of decayed corpses dragging itself along the ground toward you on four sharp emaciated claws, there's a good bet you'd be scared too.
Wauthan 08-12-07, 01:48 PM	As far as I've experienced it's never the monsters that creeps out the players. It's all in how I deliver the scenario, as well as getting the group to feel truly immersed in the story. They must -want- to be scared after all or you'll have no buttons to push. That said there's been a few encounters that freaked my players out in the last session. I used an alternate Kraken from this forum (by Silversheen197) to get the group to stop goofing around with selfinvented sub-plots and get back on track. They never actually saw "the beast", just the devastation it had left behind on a local harbour. After nervously sneaking around for about an hour, in a futile search for clues and survivors, they came across a corpse lodged under an overturned sailing boat. They became a bit worried when they found that the dead man had his broken arms wrapped around the mast and the bloody stumps of his fingers embedded into the wood. What made them freak out, however, was when one of them managed to crawl around the corpse and found that it's face had been torn off the skull. It's funny that clichés like that still work. --- The second creepy encounter was a common dog. For some bizarre reason one of the players came up with the idea that it wasn't a dog and that it was stalking her. True, it was a pretty ugly dog and it was gnawing on the head of a dead elf when they came across it but still... I had the dog follow them around for a time, keeping it's distance but otherwise behaving as a normal dog. That the players couldn't find anything abnormal about "the damn dog" just made them worry about it even more. Eventually it ran away and the players focused on more pressing issues. Next day one player is awakened "by the sound of ragged breathing" and finds himself staring into the eyes of that same dog. He shouts for the others and the dog grabs something from under his bed before it bolts out of the cottage. And everyone panics. How did it get past the warding spells? How did it open the door? What did it grab? How did it follow them unseen? And what in the gods names is it? --- And the last one was an unusually small mindflayer. The players were shadowing it with the hope that it would lead them to the main lair. Instead they rounded a corner to find the thing sitting down and cradling a childs doll in its arms. After a while it started singing a lullaby in a soft gurgling voice.
1 ton ghost 08-13-07, 03:04 AM	undead generally are psychologically most frightening. particularly the decomposed variety. since they defy convention/science, never tire, can't be reasoned w/ usually, are so alien, and can breed like wildfire if not delt w/... "Dracula" is the most redone/revisioned movie ever made proof positive. how many zombie films are out there? ghosts, etc? truly, your 1/2 rotten war buddy you've known since 1st lvl rising up to eat you is alot scarier than a bugbear despite the higher CR on the goblinoid. the mental shock isn't well, if at all represented. this is why i liked the Fear, Horror, and Madness checks of Ravenloft. running around killing monsters would give you serious schizoidtypal tendencies, PTSD, OCD, chronic depression, phobias, etc....
Ariath Ska'Vhor 08-13-07, 04:41 AM	Well, mostly because it's a personal specialty: Demons. The living epitome's of Chaotic Evil played by me as a DM have left stains on my PC's brains that won't ever come clean. Sure they laugh when they talk about it... but I see the pain and fear in their eyes...
cog_n_taz 08-13-07, 08:57 AM	Two new ones for the list...the first is a homebrew creature, bound to have a greater effect than any kraken, if not aboleth/skum, for a horrific water encounter: the horrid dire lamprey. Five of them, actually, I'll post the stats if you like. The second one? Strangely enough, the Tarrasque. I know, I know, it looks silly and possibly a bit cute, but I happen to use my own version... Towering before you is a massive creature of mangled flesh and bone. No skin covers this monstrosity, and muscle and tendons are exposed to the world. Cruel spikes of bone jut from the abomination's flesh, creating large, bleeding wounds. A carapace of jagged obsidian covers its back, its edges and spikes as harsh and unforgiving as mountains. The thing's hands are claws of bloodied, crushed and mangled bone, pieces jutting out from the whole at horrifying angles. The entirety of its body is covered in oozing sores and wounds, ichor and blood creating a trail behind and around it as it moves. Its tail is a single piece of bloody muscle, whipping back and forth silently. As you watch, wings rip out of its flesh and into the air, dripping blood and nameless black liquids. They are wings of bone, flapping membranes only barely stretching between the bones, yet they seem to allow the monster to fly. Plates of solidifying shadows lock together over the entirety of the thing's body, never quite there, yet in some terrible, unnamable way, more real than anything around them, for this is the darkness from before the dawn of the world, of humanity, and they seem to suck the light in from around them. Yet the face...the face is the worst of all, a mask of twisted bone, no flesh at all, only bone and spikes of obsidian. Empty, blasted, grey eyes frame a terrible mouth, a circular, lamprey-like maw, from which a constant, insectile chittering emanates, accompanied by a slow, thick trickle of what you find yourself almost wishing is blood. Suddenly, the chittering stops...for the beast has scented new prey. Slowly, soundlessly, it turns to face you, hunger evident in its eyes. As the chittering begins once more, a feeling of utter despair sinks into you, as a single thought fills your mind: There is no hope, no escape, no dawn for you...for you are the beast's prey. In other news, it breathes blackfire (complete arcane).
RobbyPants 08-13-07, 04:23 PM	RobbyPants: I kind of get the concept but do you have an example? I may use a rakshasa in an upcoming adventure but I don't like using monsters unless I can do them justice. Well, one thing about them in general is that they're extremely tough if you can't penetrate their defenses. While they only have 7 hit dice, they have an insanely high Spell Resistance of 27, and Damage Reduction 15/Piercing and Good. About your only bet at the lower levels is Align Weapon combined with piercing weapons and/or spells that don't factor SR (such as conjurations). If you can't punch through the defenses, then you can't really kill them. Unkillable monsters make for great horror adventures (so long as it doen't cross the line into just plain frustrating ;)). As for an example of me using one: I don't remember the reason why the player broke into his house to spy on him, but one player (a gnome sorcerer) snunk into the Rakshasa's house (believing him to be a human noble, thanks to the Shapechange ability). When the Rakshasa heard him in the house, the PC quickly turned into a mouse to hide. Even though he was out of sight, it didn't take the Rakshasa long to find him with his innate Detect Thoughts ability (and a bad Will save on the PC's part). At this point, the Rakshasa started talking out loud, saying "I know you're in here, and I'm going to kill you" (or something to that effect). So, the PC quickly (telepathically) sent his familiar (an owl) to the taven where the party was to summon help. Reading his thoughts, the Rakshasa said "By the time they get here, you'll already be dead". In the end, he made it out okay, but it was fun watching him freak out, with the Rakshasa knowing his every move. They're likd dopplegangers, but better! Also, I've used them to approximate Pennywise (http://www.best-horror-movies.com/images/it-pennywise-howling.jpg). They're both about as malevolent as they come!
Prime32 08-13-07, 04:24 PM	:eek: *faints* How to make things scarier... I used the aboleth and skum once. Have the skum tumble and slosh around in the background, shoot by below the surface of the water out of the corner of someone's eye, etc. Don't let them even know that they are humanoid; just that they are...there. Finally, have the PC's see the outline of a somewhat misshapen humanoid sitting in the middle of the room. They enter, it looks at them but doesn't attack...until they get close enough to see its face. At this point, describe the skum as having no head at all; just a bumpgrowing between its shoulders covered by a shark mouth, no eyes or ears, just a gigantic mouth full of tusks (2d6 bite damage needs explaining; this does the trick as well as looking scary). The creature has exposed, pink flesh with no skin, and is covered in a layer of what looks and feels like raw eggyolk. It has fins growing at random places. The skum screams in a horribly high pitched voice, and all the doors burst open and an ocean of gnashing, oversized maws mounted on naked pink bodies pour in. The mouths are all that matter. Describe the PC's getting covered in slime. Have the (already very dim) light source go out in the middle of the fight. Do the skum right, and they will already be terrified by the time they get to the aboleth. ...Have the lone skum gurgle like a baby before it starts to attack. It makes them seem more unnatural.
ArgulFraster 08-13-07, 10:11 PM	I have to say that anything that lurches, oozing blood, is going to be creepy. I'm not really I guy for horror though. (Why do I remember that boss battle where I pitted a burrowing BloodStriker [MMIII] against a testing homebrewed char though?)
Silversheen197 08-14-07, 01:26 AM	An arbathene. It's a creature I came up with for my new campaign setting. It's basically a big (Large sized) black wolf with a lion's mane, paws, and tail, and feathered wings. At least, that's what it looks like. It's actually the shattered remnants of a thousand souls that are trying to get back into a vessel, even if just for a monent. An arbathene can consume everthing except for the bones of a victim, and then become that victim until the next sunset, gaining its physical ability scores and basic memories/abilities of the creature's life. Which means that if there's an arbathene on the rampage, the person who's just disappeared was the person killed last night. This was the first time I'd used this monster, so none of my (eight!) players knew anything about it. There has been a series of murders in town, and they were trying to figure out who was responsible. They were at the inn after a bad day of sleuthing, and the fighter's eye is caught by a...ehem, business lady...and he decides he's going to go release some pressure (and lighten his coin purse). It was getting to be about break time, so at this point I said, "Okay, well while you're doing that, why don't the rest of us take five?" Then, when everyone else was out of the room, I ran the encounter (the prostitute was the arbathene). It didn't take long. Three rounds later, I was explaining to him what was masqueraiding as him and made these requests: 1) Don't tell anyone; 2) Make some small mistakes: forget a name, a recent event here and there, etc. When everyone came back, the fighter comes rushing back into the bar, saying that the lady he was with had just been murdered by the mysterious monster. The party when looking for it, but didn't find it (surprise, surprise). By the next day, they've figured out (with some help from the fighter) that all the murders have taken place almost exactly at sundown. So, they're going to split into four groups of two, connected by stones of sending, so they can cover a lot of the city. Long story short, the fighter is murdered. Then the sorcerer (his partner that first time), then the ninja, then the warlock, then the cleric...Each night, a new party member is killed. They can't find the killer, they can't detect the method he's using and their numbers are dwindling...down...to...one. Edit: Woot! Wauthan used my monster!
Silversheen197 08-15-07, 12:25 AM	:bump: I like this thread; what else do you have?
UnrelentingHoror 08-15-07, 02:41 AM	Well, one thing about them in general is that they're extremely tough if you can't penetrate their defenses. While they only have 7 hit dice, they have an insanely high Spell Resistance of 27, and Damage Reduction 15/Piercing and Good. About your only bet at the lower levels is Align Weapon combined with piercing weapons and/or spells that don't factor SR (such as conjurations). If you can't punch through the defenses, then you can't really kill them. Unkillable monsters make for great horror adventures (so long as it doen't cross the line into just plain frustrating ;)). As for an example of me using one: I don't remember the reason why the player broke into his house to spy on him, but one player (a gnome sorcerer) snunk into the Rakshasa's house (believing him to be a human noble, thanks to the Shapechange ability). When the Rakshasa heard him in the house, the PC quickly turned into a mouse to hide. Even though he was out of sight, it didn't take the Rakshasa long to find him with his innate Detect Thoughts ability (and a bad Will save on the PC's part). At this point, the Rakshasa started talking out loud, saying "I know you're in here, and I'm going to kill you" (or something to that effect). So, the PC quickly (telepathically) sent his familiar (an owl) to the taven where the party was to summon help. Reading his thoughts, the Rakshasa said "By the time they get here, you'll already be dead". In the end, he made it out okay, but it was fun watching him freak out, with the Rakshasa knowing his every move. They're likd dopplegangers, but better! Also, I've used them to approximate Pennywise (http://www.best-horror-movies.com/images/it-pennywise-howling.jpg). They're both about as malevolent as they come! Ooooh i like that Rbbypants. :) They all float down here georgieboy... hehe Anyways, yeah Rakshassas and Dopplegangers are awesome.
Prime32 08-15-07, 07:04 AM	As I was reading that I kept thinking about what would happen if the PC (turned into a mouse) stumbled across the rakshasa in its natural form. :D The only danger is that the PC might think it's an illusion to scare him - make sure to describe the backwards hands and otherworldly aura (maybe even powerful physique) so this doesn't happen.