What monsters scare you the most (on a personal level)

[Yqatuba]

Spellcasters in general are pretty scary when you really think about all the scary things spells can potentially be used to do (For example: some crazy stalker spying on all the time you with scrying)

[Yqatuba]

Daw wrote:

The Horla would mess you up in a world that no one really believes in magic. Its effectiveness is somewhat less when it's abilities are not unique.

Well keep in mind your average person who's not an adventurer likely doesn't have access to see invisible or the like. Also unless they or their friends happened to put ranks in Knowledge: Dungeoneering (and I don't see why they would if they aren't an adventurer) they probably would have no idea what a horla is.

[Yqatuba]

Oh, I keep forgetting to add this. I find the Sakhils scary as well but to me the scariest is the Ximtal, due to 1. It's disease, which makes you lose one of your senses until you eventually lose all 5 and are basically trapped in your mind and completely cut off from the outside world, and 2. It's Isolate ability, which makes you invisible, incorporeal, and silenced to everyone else. Meaning you might be affected by it, your party is looking everywhere for you, and you are standing right next to them screaming at the top of your lungs but you can't do anything to get them to notice you.

[Daw]

Yqatuba wrote:

Daw wrote:

The Horla would mess you up in a world that no one really believes in magic. Its effectiveness is somewhat less when it's abilities are not unique.

Well keep in mind your average person who's not an adventurer likely doesn't have access to see invisible or the like. Also unless they or their friends happened to put ranks in Knowledge: Dungeoneering (and I don't see why they would if they aren't an adventurer) they probably would have no idea what a horla is.

It is not so much that it can be countered, it's that it isn't as stretch of logic that victims and bystanders believe it exists and needs to be countered, and are able to get real help. You know, Mage-SWAT. Even if help is not available, you at least have the solace that everyone doesn't automatically assume you are lying or that it is all in your head.

In my real world experience, the thing that has been scariest has been a crazy man with a shotgun pointed at me. This wouldn't be so scary in game.

[Korafireheart]

Yqatuba wrote:

By this I mean not scary because they are dangerous in game but more they creep you out in real life. For me I would say any undead that can turn you undead as that seems like a fate worse than death to me (particularly considering you usually are their slave until they are destroyed). Also, any creatures that can mind control or possess you, in particular high level enchanters and psychics since they could basically reprogram your mind so you hate your best friend or something. Frankly I find the school of enchantment more disturbing than necromancy.

Both the creeping hand and the the deathweb

The concept of a dismembered hand crawling after me freaks me out in so many ways. And the deathweb because of my severe arachnaphobia. That is the stuff of my nightmares.

[Yqatuba]

An unusual example: The taniniver from bestiary 4. Not because I'm afraid of what it can do but rather because the I find the idea of a creature that's sick and in agony 24/7 horrifying. I feel the same way about broken souls and fleshwarps.

[avr]

Empathy can be a painful thing to have.

[CorvusMask]

Not really scared by any of the monsters in particular(I'm a paranoid about falling down in stairs or being run over by car though :P), but if I had to say what is creepiest its

Surreal monsters. As in the ones when you see them, you realize they don't make sense how they can exist. Like, if there was some sort of floating humanoid in t pose that makes you turn inside out by touching you, that'd be creepy :P

[Yqatuba]

One I keep forgetting about: the apostate devil, due to: it's melee attacks potentially having unlimited reach, meaning unless you're on another plane there's no safe distance you can get from it and B. the "Ohrwurm" ability, where he whispers some unbearable truth that drives you insane unless it's erased from your memory. I wonder what unspeakable thing it tells you? Maybe "you are just a fictional character in a game"...

[UnArcaneElection]

Against Apostate Devils, seems like I ought to get credit for already being apostate(*) and for knowing fundamental and terrifying multiversal truths . . . after all, I do work in Modern Necromancy Life Science research . . . .

(*)Edit: Although since I never was more than a very rudimentary believer, at a very young age, I'm not sure if I should count as apostate or just an unbeliever, since I didn't have much to be apostate from in the first place -- maybe 5% apostate and 95% just plain unbeliever? But then again, not having anything to become apostate from should give one even more defense against an Apostate Devil.

[Foeclan]

Oli Ironbar wrote:

The monsters which you imagine around a quiet corner or lurking somewhere outside the abandoned building you have sheltered yourself in. What's that? Did it just rattle something downstairs? It's getting closer. Closer. Closer and then! It's Janira Gavix, the phantom of good spirits and bane of 1st level characters. <screams from inside>

You're walking in the woods

There's no one around and your phone is dead
Out of the corner of your eye you spot him...
Shia Lebeouf

[Arachnofiend]

Anything that can organize into a Swarm, basically. Worm That Walks is like, double plus bad.

[Theconiel]

I have always been afraid of vampires. I am glad that (to the best of my knowledge, at least) they don't really exist.

[The Drunken Dragon]

Lurkers in Light. The idea that the thing that's supposed to make you feel safe makes them more dangerous.

Oh, and Shining Children, because they make no sense and look really creepy af

[Slim Jim]

Quote:

By this I mean not scary because they are dangerous in game but more they creep you out in real life.

Generic thugs. --They're BAB1 and have martial weapon proficiency, and I'm BAB0 and don't.

Terrible.

[I am Nemesis]

DM's, Every. Single. Time. Creepy, i know.

[Yqatuba]

One I keep forgetting to add is the alchemical golem. I hate needles, and the thought of having ACID injected into your veins just makes me cringe.

[I am Nemesis]

Yqatuba wrote:

Something I keep forgetting to add: monsters that can send you to the lower planes when they kill you even if you're not evil (e.g Apollyon and great wyrm hellfire dragons). Fortunately I think those are the only monster that do that.

Yqatuba wrote:

Can't believe I keep forgetting to post this: The whisperer from Bestiary 6. Not only are they pretty scary to begin with, they can turn an entire area into a surreal hellscape (which can curse you so you don't want to leave and stay there till you go insane and die.) as well as having a suggestion spell that can (unlike normal suggestion) make you kill yourself. Really, pretty much everything about them is scary.

Yqatuba wrote:

One I keep forgetting to add: The patchwork insect swarm from the first Strange Aeons book. For those who don't know it's basically a swarm of insects which have tiny humanoid body parts in some places (usually just arms and legs, but sometimes whole faces), and each time you damage them it makes a crunching noise that makes you sickened if you fail a save. While perhaps not the scariest as they are only CR 1 I'd say they are the monster that makes me shudder the most.

Yqatuba wrote:

Oh, I keep forgetting to add this. I find the Sakhils scary as well but to me the scariest is the Ximtal, due to 1. It's disease, which makes you lose one of your senses until you eventually lose all 5 and are basically trapped in your mind and completely cut off from the outside world, and 2. It's Isolate ability, which makes you invisible, incorporeal, and silenced to everyone else. Meaning you might be affected by it, your party is looking everywhere for you, and you are standing right next to them screaming at the top of your lungs but you can't do anything to get them to notice you.

Yqatuba wrote:

One I keep forgetting about: the apostate devil, due to: it's melee attacks potentially having unlimited reach, meaning unless you're on another plane there's no safe distance you can get from it and B. the "Ohrwurm" ability, where he whispers some unbearable truth that drives you insane unless it's erased from your memory. I wonder what unspeakable thing it tells you? Maybe "you are just a fictional character in a game"...

Yqatuba wrote:

One I keep forgetting to add is the alchemical golem. I hate needles, and the thought of having ACID injected into your veins just makes me cringe.

Yqatuba, i would have thought you fear MEMORY MOSS ;-)

[I am Nemesis]

I am Nemesis wrote:

Yqatuba, i would have thought you fear MEMORY MOSS ;-)

this is not to say your forgetful, your just a victim of said moss.

Memory Moss is a special bane to casters, as it eats memorized spells and can use these spells during the first 24 hours of consuming them.

[The Dandy Lion]

The Zygomind comes to mind as one that makes me quiver.

What this thread is telling me is that I need to read up more on Sakhils.

[Yqatuba]

Why would memory moss scare me so much? I'm not a spell caster in real life. Also I would like to add another monster: the trench mist. It's basically a sentient cloud of mustard gas. Consider how terrifying mustard gas is to start and then imagine an intelligent cloud that attacks people. As if that weren't bad enough, if you die from it you become a a juju zombie.

[UnArcaneElection]

^If I remember correctly about Memory Moss, it also eats memories other than spells, so it's BAD.

[I am Nemesis]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

^If I remember correctly about Memory Moss, it also eats memories other than spells, so it's BAD.

UnArcaneElection is absolutely correct. it also puts you to sleep, making you forget to 'wake up', so you eventually starve to death and die. and you Yqatuba do seem to be having memory problems; you wouldn't happen to be hungry too? ;-)

Yqatuba wrote:

Why would memory moss scare me so much? I'm not a spell caster in real life. Also I would like to add another monster: the trench mist. It's basically a sentient cloud of mustard gas. Consider how terrifying mustard gas is to start and then imagine an intelligent cloud that attacks people. As if that weren't bad enough, if you die from it you become a a juju zombie.

and trench mist? definately a fearsome creation! my group and i faced it in the Reign of Winter AP.