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This is just a thread I thought to start where we discuss on what we think are the scariest things in the Pathfinder games-whether they're NPCs, an encounter in an Adventure Path, or just a monster from a Bestiary.
Personally? Ogres really creep me out...I think it has more to do with the fact that these are sadistic, gluttonous, psychopathic giants that embrace taboos that almost every culture would gag at (mainly cannibalism and incest); not to mention that in Rise of the Runelords, individual ogres have some creepy hobbies-from Jaargath making taxidermy by stitching the remains of humans and animals together to an ogre who loves to skin humans and cook them like we skin and cook chickens. And DO NOT get me started on the Grauls...*shivers*
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One of the things I like about this game is that, given the right context, almost anything in it can be scary, from a goblin in the closet to an elder wyrm winging over the city. Thing is, those same elements can also be uplifting, sad, or even funny.
But to answer the question in the spirit it was asked, ghouls creep me right out.
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Dotting for a Carrion Crown campaign I'm planning to GM
As a player though there's nothing scarier than a (pack? band? swarm?) of rust monsters. Adventurers regularly put their lives on the line, but seldom their equipment.
If I were to classify anything as scary, it would be the undead. Pure and simply if it's dead it should stay dead, not come back as some abominable life hating entity that can weaken you with a touch. Or eat you. Or both.
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froghemoth spawning pool
and just what kind of stats would a froghemoth tadpole have?
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Tammy.
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The Dominion of the Black and the implications they have an interest on Golarion.
The hinted invasion in 4718 (according to an Osirian calendar).
And the fleshfarm.
A heh thalguu : for example, an horror who want to extract your brain to improve its spellcasting and processing power.
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Zon-Kuthon and whatever changed him, kytons.
This is just a thread I thought to start where we discuss on what we think are the scariest things in the Pathfinder games-whether they're NPCs, an encounter in an Adventure Path, or just a monster from a Bestiary.
Personally? Ogres really creep me out...I think it has more to do with the fact that these are sadistic, gluttonous, psychopathic giants that embrace taboos that almost every culture would gag at (mainly cannibalism and incest); not to mention that in Rise of the Runelords, individual ogres have some creepy hobbies-from Jaargath making taxidermy by stitching the remains of humans and animals together to an ogre who loves to skin humans and cook them like we skin and cook chickens. And DO NOT get me started on the Grauls...*shivers*
Don't forget this gem from the Monster Codex.
Baby Jam
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Properly done, I found goblins terrifically, terifingly terrible.
The write up James did in the very first book of Rise of the Runelords was both awe inspiring and frightening for me.
Little Pyro maniac freaks singing and laughing as the come to burn everything then EAT YOU.
They're like the Warner Brothers (and their sister Dot) on meth, dialed up to 11 on evil, but worse.
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I would mention some individuals :
Abrogail Thrune II :
Why ? Because when a pit fiend has to rein a person and to reminds her than even evil has standard, you can be sure this person is serious business.
Folca :
Why ? Enough said.
Mengkare :
Why ? Because good is not nice and his project is a tykebomb.
Razmir :
Why ? He is a dangerous conman, has conquered a nice patch of land and created a very effective scam religion. ANd being a 19th level wizard mean he is serious business if angry.
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Mythic Modify Memory (and enough tiers to use it at maximum effectiveness).
Frightening what kind of abuses you can do with it.
Seconding the ogres and ogrekin. They're basically bigger, stronger versions of the Reavers from Firefly/Serenity: "If they board us, they'll rape us to death, feast on our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing -- and if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order."
Other high-octane nightmare fuel in Pathfinder? Worms that walk. Granted, they first appeared in 3.5, in Exemplars of Evil (though that book only briefly mentioned "The Worm that Walks"), Elder Evils (where The Worm that Walks was identified as Kyuss, the deity behind the Spawn of Kyuss undead creature, and the lesser worm that walks template was created for Kyuss's necromantic acolyte Edwin Tolstoff), and the "Age of Worms" adventure path in Dungeon (which essentially expanded and adapted the Kyuss chapter from Elder Evils into a full campaign). However, they've played a much bigger role in Pathfinder, and the Paizo creative team were involved almost from the start -- James Jacobs and Jason Bulmahn were among the designers for Elder Evils, and of course Dungeon was being published by Paizo during the Adventure Path era.
Any competently played high level caster.
And whoever turned Zon Kuthon, that was a good one.
Putting aside creepy stuff that gets its creepiness from its non-Paizo base (Yithians are creepy as hell, but they were like that long before they had stats, for example), probably gonna third (or fourth,or whatever) the unknown whatever that turned Zon-Kuthon from Shelyn's beloved brother into the Cenobite King.
My players still run from the table at the mention of Mammy Graul.
Oh jeez, first time I saw Mammy Graul, I gagged badly.
Whatever is hiding inside Silver Mount in Numeria.
Psst! I know what it is!
An enemy that nobody gets the knowledge check for.
An enemy that nobody gets the knowledge check for.
Ever so true! It's one thing to see a dragon that's blue and surrounded by crackling lightning (three guesses what it is) and it's a whole another thing to have unidentified vermin fly into your face and start stinging you.
Also, anything similarly unpredictable. Like haunts. There's no excuse for you not to Nope out of there when you get the first hint they are there, so when you do set it off, there's no telling what it will put you through, or if your party's prepared to handle it.
And of course, the limit on creepiness is how creepy your GM can get.
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Competently played Diviner Wizard.
I faced one of these. At times, he felt more like a co-GM rather than a player at the table. Nothing was secret, nothing was hidden, and when I started placing the usual defenses against his spells, instead of getting upset, he got smart.
The other players eventually abandoned him in his moment of triumph since they had come to the conclusion that he was actually the puppetmaster, and the Villain was just his red herring.
The Deck of Many Things.
Mindscapes
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The Wyrmwraith is high on my list of terrifying monsters. A single one of those things should be able to wipe out all life on a planet. All it needs to do is pop up unannounced in a heavily populated city, turn everyone into dread wraiths under its control, and then send them out to all the surrounding towns. Then those send the Dread Wraiths they created to the next towns. Repeat as necessary.
Seriously. How do you stop something that simply has to use its breath weapon to turn a dozen commoners into CR 13 Dreadwraiths. If a Wyrmwraith attacked a city there would be dozens if not hundreds of Dreadwraiths in *minutes*. Plus, even if you kill the Wyrmwraith, that just frees the Dreadwraiths. It would take a well prepared and organized freakishly high level party to deal with that.
The City of Golden Death.
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I agree, the various types of kytons are scary, and along those same lines--broken souls. But these things are more scary for characters rather than players. Sure they might torture your character and kill them, but what's really scary from a player's perspective is losing a character's equipment. So, with that in mind, I might suggest the rust monster or the disenchanter to really strike fear in the hearts of players.
In this game life is cheap, equipment is expensive.
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Daemons. Something about the desire to slowly devour every soul in the multiverse for the sheer satisfaction of it terrifies me to no end. And the fact that they allow Zon Kuthon a place in their realm just makes it worse.
Edit: Glad to know I'm not the only one, Lord Gadigan!
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One of the scariest moments in Pathfinder might be that time between book 5 and 6 in the Adventure Path - You've found out the scope of the villain's plot, and it's going to reach fruition soon! If you spend a month crafting stuff, it may be too late, so you have to rush off for the final battle, knowing what's at stake if you wipe.
One of the scariest places in Pathfinder would be the Darklands - Derro abduct your friends, only to return them after having been drugged and mutilated; Drow, which any elf will tell you don't actually exist, enslaving surface dwellers for fun and demonic sacrifice; neothelids, who can smell where you teleport; aboleth and shoggoths at the bottom of the ocean; and if you don't have darkvision, you'll never even see the worst of what they'll do to you.
One of the scariest things in Pathfinder is the fact that it can always get worse. Your trusted informant could be setting you up, having cast Glibness before every meeting; you could get charmed, dominated, possessed, or rise as undead, sired by another. An imp, of Tiny size and CR 2, is making subtle threats toward your butler? As a 3rd-level Expert or Commoner, he is helpless against it. If you think you're safe, in a reinforced place, where nobody can scry or teleport in, try not to remember that Golarion itself is the key to the prison of Rovagug, an entity so determined to chew up the entire Material Plane that nearly the entire rest of the pantheon had to team up against it. It is said that some gods died in the battle, whose names went unknown because there were no living mortals around at the time.
...and if that isn't dread-inducing enough, the Pathfinder setting also includes Azathoth, which isn't even aware of the chaos its presence causes, and Nyarlathotep, which is, and likes it.
Boredom.
YO.
A door.
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Every single Spawn of Rovagug waking up at once and having to take a wicked dump...and they all somehow managed to catch dysentery...
...and they all get the bright idea to find a nice "clear" space on the surface to relieve themselves...
In no particular order...
The City of Ilvarandin.
Hollow Garden.
The Veiled Masters.
Socothbenoth.
Aucturn.
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The single thing I find creepiest in horror fiction is the sense of someone puppeteering your body to do horrible thing and having no control over it, and being fully aware it was happening (Carrion Comfort and Neuropath still rank as the scariest books I have ever read for that reason)
Given the number of monsters and spellcasters who pretty much can do that at a drop of the dime, I am pretty happy I don't live in Golarion
Setting specific, if played straight Golarion is an existential nightmare. The afterlife exists, but you become lose all your knowledge upon becoming a petitioner. If you are evil, you get to be tortured/hunted/made to wallow in filth for eternity without really being aware of why. if good or neutral...well I suppose your fate is more kind but still losing your memories and what make you...well you...doesn't sound appealing. And lets not forget that even if you are a good person, there are creatures and spells which can damn you to hell or the abyss, and your afterlife can end at any time if some other outsider or even jerkass mortal kills you again.
Creature wise, Kytons: Most fiends do horrible things to you for there own self-interest or the lolz. Kytons do horrible things to you because they are trying to "help" you realize new sensations and mold you to there own twisted and horrible aesthetic idea of perfection
Dominion of the black is also pretty horrible...you are just spare parts to them...
Oh I also forgot-balor demons. The fact that it's stated that multiple sinful souls have to create just one balor, not to mention that Demons Revisited itself said that the standard balor is at the edge of the core game power, means that those things truly are nightmares.
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As a player though there's nothing scarier than a (pack? band? swarm?) of rust monsters. Adventurers regularly put their lives on the line, but seldom their equipment.
Only time I've ever seen a Paladin abandon his party and flee...
Most visceral reaction I've had from a player was when his PC looked into a hole and saw a Ratling. I held the picture up in front of his face so only he could see it.
As a player though there's nothing scarier than a (pack? band? swarm?) of rust monsters. Adventurers regularly put their lives on the line, but seldom their equipment.Only time I've ever seen a Paladin abandon his party and flee...
Yep. Saw the same thing once.
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Having grown up with 1st edition, where a failed save (and not only a 1) meant *all* your stuff had to make saves. Getting hit with several fireballs in a row usually meant you failed at least one save. That then meant you lost some equipment.
PF is wimpy in equipment lossage compared to that. So if that rust monster comes near me, I get out my wooden weapon to attack, and hope it does not get me before I kill it.
/cevah
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Two times I can remember my players getting freaked out at my table:
1. They're in a dungeon, and I tell them there are four statues in the room and put a mini where each one is. (They were just statues, but my players were moving 5 feet at a time through that room.)
2. The pocket of Shadow Plane in PFS scenario 5-23, Cairn of Shadows. Just everything about it.
As for me, I know the worst stuff is going to go down when there's a crying child.
An awakened T-Rex with ninja levels and a ring of invisibility...