If you look back on your gaming experiences, what would you nominate as the most horrifying, most unsettling, and creepiest monsters? What was it that makes them so memorable (unforgettable?) to you?
* From any RPG or CRPG
Mindflayers, still freak me out, tentacles and eating brains. Plus they are use a human host to reach adulthood. Creepy.
Humans. Hands down, humans.
QFT
Humans. Hands down, humans.
I've heard dems good eatin' though.
Mantis puts the lotion on it's skin, or it gets the hose again.
Director of Game Development
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Humans. Hands down, humans.I've heard dems good eatin' though.
Mantis puts the lotion on it's skin, or it gets the hose again.
Anthropophagy aside, that's creepy. See what I mean, folks?
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Anthropophagy aside, that's creepy. See what I mean, folks?Humans. Hands down, humans.I've heard dems good eatin' though.
Mantis puts the lotion on it's skin, or it gets the hose again.
SPAM is people! It's PEOPLE!!!
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Director of Game Development
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SPAM is people! It's PEOPLE!!!Anthropophagy aside, that's creepy. See what I mean, folks?Humans. Hands down, humans.I've heard dems good eatin' though.
Mantis puts the lotion on it's skin, or it gets the hose again.
And why do you think Pacific Islanders with cannibalism in their ancestry enjoy SPAM so much?
[/end cannibalism threadjack]
mammy graul
Anything from the awesome Book of Unremitting Horror (in d20 and GUMSHOE variants). No punches pulled there.
Rot grubs
Grell have always creeped me out.
I remember one that had my players almost begging me to stop describing it. They ran into a swarm of roaches with a hive mind. It suffocated one guy by crawling down his throat. I think one of the players actually retched at the description.
I'm still thinking, but creepy combo I'm proud of.....
the mohrg paralyzes a guy, then the hastendeath spider crawls in his mouth and lays its eggs in his estomago.
Speaking of which, how is the therapy coming along Heathy?
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Any of the body horror type monsters are pretty nasty. Illithids, Rot Grubs, Green Slime and Intellect Devourers all make me shudder...
Away from D&D/Pathfinder I found some of the nasties from the Books of the Shadowlands for Legend of the Five Rings to be utterly horrible particularly the Shuten Doji. Also some of the descriptions of the Horrors from Earthdawn are high octane nightmare fuel and anything Nurgle related from Warhammer or 40k is almost always really disturbing...
*shudder*
Broo.
I'm with Corrosive Rabbit on grell, as well as their cousins the grick and mooncalf. Sons of Kyuss are pretty bad, too, with that propagation-by-worm technique -- outdoes the rot grub. But the monster whose illustration I least like to look at is the avolakia.
Ropers, especially after their treatment in Dungeon Denizens Revisited.
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Anything from the awesome Book of Unremitting Horror (in d20 and GUMSHOE variants). No punches pulled there.
This.
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Speaking of which, how is the therapy coming along Heathy?I'm still thinking, but creepy combo I'm proud of.....
the mohrg paralyzes a guy, then the hastendeath spider crawls in his mouth and lays its eggs in his estomago.
I had a dream that a rakshasa, posing as my pet dog from 20 years ago, was sneaking into my house....this is true. This is no joke.
The Vivified Labyrinth twists in my greymatter, churning.....churning....that's what I get for splicing The Weavers onto Escape From Old Korvosa in the middle of Sasserine.
"It's aliiiiiive........ALLLIIVVVVVE!!!
Rot grubs
This was going to be my entry, as well.
Rot grubs
+1, or at least the Hackmaster version (which I assume is the same as AD&D) nothing like a creature that is worth no xp that can kill a character in 2 rounds....that what you get for wading into refuse lol.
I think it all depends on how the monster is utilized. Ghouls in general... not that creepy. Ghouls disguised as scarecrows who also disguise their victims as scarecrows... Holy Mary, mother of God!
I can think of any number of monsters that are like this. Strahd from Ravenloft, the spawn of Kyuss from Age of Worms... I consider both of monsters pretty tame by themselves. However, the way they were utilized in the modules they came from made them absolutely terrifying.
Cover of Avatar's Handbook, by Green Ronin, "That isn't what it looks like."
Book of Fiends, "Yup, it is. Where is the brain bleach."
Speaking of which, how is the therapy coming along Heathy?I'm still thinking, but creepy combo I'm proud of.....
the mohrg paralyzes a guy, then the hastendeath spider crawls in his mouth and lays its eggs in his estomago.I had a dream that a rakshasa, posing as my pet dog from 20 years ago, was sneaking into my house....this is true. This is no joke.
The Vivified Labyrinth twists in my greymatter, churning.....churning....that's what I get for splicing The Weavers onto Escape From Old Korvosa in the middle of Sasserine.
"It's aliiiiiive........ALLLIIVVVVVE!!!
So some progress then...
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So some progress then...Speaking of which, how is the therapy coming along Heathy?I'm still thinking, but creepy combo I'm proud of.....
the mohrg paralyzes a guy, then the hastendeath spider crawls in his mouth and lays its eggs in his estomago.I had a dream that a rakshasa, posing as my pet dog from 20 years ago, was sneaking into my house....this is true. This is no joke.
The Vivified Labyrinth twists in my greymatter, churning.....churning....that's what I get for splicing The Weavers onto Escape From Old Korvosa in the middle of Sasserine.
"It's aliiiiiive........ALLLIIVVVVVE!!!
I'm the circle leader. Of the group sessions.
Skulking Cyst from Libris Mortis. Great little creepazoid to spring on your sneaky scout when they are sniffing ahead of the main party. Plus, the monster always reminded me of the Head spider from John Carpenter's The Thing
*brrr*
Sons of Kyuss are NASTY!
While playing a Star Trek game, the GM just mentioned the Ceti eel in passing, and the whole table of veteran players recoiled from the image of one coming out of Chekov's ear.
Broo.
I have always had Broo in the back of my head as an advesary, even though I only played RuneQuest for a brief period. What is not to like about walking goat men.
mammy graul
Oh yes! [shudders]
A vomit creature created by an entire village purging in the same pit for months as a type worship to their dark God. The player's reaction when it engulfed one of them was priceless.
Grue . . . although I've never seen one, of course.
Actually, for some reason, the first thing that came to mind here was Earl Otus(?) illustration of the Decapus from The Palace of the Silver Princess.
Rot Grubs are a good one. I can still picture that illustration from way back.
Skulking Cyst from Libris Mortis.
Good pick. Anytime I look at that picture of a lurching tumor dragging the remnants of an exploded body, I can smell the iron twang of blood.
I think it all depends on how the monster is utilized. Ghouls in general... not that creepy. Ghouls disguised as scarecrows who also disguise their victims as scarecrows... Holy Mary, mother of God!
I can think of any number of monsters that are like this. Strahd from Ravenloft, the spawn of Kyuss from Age of Worms... I consider both of monsters pretty tame by themselves. However, the way they were utilized in the modules they came from made them absolutely terrifying.
I'd say this is true for all monsters. Anything can be boring if you just run across it in a field and exchange blows. That's why monster ecology information is so great; it really helps bring the enemies to life (or not, for constructs and undead and such). For example, since it touches so close on your own comment, I've always seen ghouls as very creepy. I run them as depraved lurking cannibals. The party of one game was truly horrified when, fighting ghouls lurking in a tomb, their ranger was paralyzed and a ghoul proceeded to rip his throat out with its teeth (coup de grace). I also have given them the Climb skill in the past and had them lurk around the walls in caverns, running sideways at the party out of the darkness from unexpected directions.
Finally, in the Whispering Cairn in AoW, the ghoul in the water room was a big hit with the party. They ended up playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek with the thing through the pitch black, submerged columns; which later became a desperate round of tag mixed with keep-away after one was paralyzed and the dwarf had to drag him out of the water before the PC drowned and/or the dwarf was paralyzed as well. Even better, none of them had Swim! The dwarf was trusting in his huge Constitution to keep him going. The whole table was freaking out. It was amazing! :)
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My group fears Carrion Crawlers and Grell more than anything, after some bad experiences in Undermountain with the former and Night Below with the latter. 'Make eight saving throws, fail one and you die.'
For sheer wrongness, few things can beat that Erol Otus critter that is grabbing the princess on the last page of the Cthulhu Mythos section of the original Dieties & Demigods. Yikes. Long before hentai was fashionable, there he was, on the bleeding edge...
Cultist of Zuggtmoy.
Her sacrificial ritual is to bury victims alive in a shallow grave with a leather tube running through the dirt, into their mouth. Cultist then force feed the victim fungus and mushroom gruel for weeks until their inards fester. Worse off, after dying, the victim's soul goes screaming to Shedaklah instead of his or her deserved afterlife.
That is truly amazing.
I miss Demononicon and Dragon magazine in general.
Edit: The old Monster manuals had the best creepy illustrations. Kudos to Earl Otus (?). I remember being creeped out by the rot grubs and achererai as a child.
Broo.I have always had Broo in the back of my head as an advesary, even though I only played RuneQuest for a brief period. What is not to like about walking goat men.
Who impregnate you by way of species propagation and religious doctrine, and you then have a mini-broo eat its way out of you.
The century worm from the 3.x Fiend Folio. Not only is it creepy and dangerous (and a giant worm monster, which earns extra annoyance points in my book - Purple worms, Frost worms, Remorhazes, Fiendwurms, etc all annoy me) but look at the art for the century worm - it is reminiscent of certain ... anatomical features, let me put it that way.
If you look back on your gaming experiences, what would you nominate as the most horrifying, most unsettling, and creepiest monsters? What was it that makes them so memorable (unforgettable?) to you?
* From any RPG or CRPG
Ive been playing D&D since 1980. And without a doubt, the most despicable, horrifying, fear provoking monster is
The Mother In Law
Nothing compares to the sheer terror this creature instill with 3 words!
Im Coming Over
Make save versus petrification bro.....
I never would have thought of putting ogres in the running for this up until Hook Mountain. Hot damn.
I want a banjo playing half-ogre bard. :D
Goblins and Orcs. I had a bunch of villagers kidnapped by Orcs and Goblins in a game I ran... when they got to the cages where the folks were being kept the PCs discovered to their horror that they weren't the first people the beasties had taken. There were women who had been there for months and were very pregnant and most of the males had already been eaten. The pens were a combination breeding pit/kitchen. No one at my table ever questioned whether goblins and orcs were evil again.
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Nothing succeeded in creeping out my players more than describing several possessed children following them around town. Every time a character turned around, day or night, there was a child standing there, staring at them.
Even in their rooms at the inn, children would be peeking in the window, or will have somehow managed to be in the room hiding behind the door when it was closed. Most of the time, the children would just stare. Occasionally, one would crack a smile at them.