in any setting, what is your favorite monster?why?have you ever actually used them in a game?what was your first thought about them?how have your opinions of the monster changed?>The Bullette>I like tunneling beasts>a couple of times. I try not to overdo anything, had a variant escape from a wizard lab that shat concrete >"oh what a nifty critter">"its a good solid monster. not insane power. I wonder if I can get away with wizards domesticating them, or their role in siege-craft, what about swamp Bullettes or....
I've written a setting around them that I'll run some day. I love creepy old TSR era Yuan-Ti. No priestly magic so they have to keep human priests, because their god is completely fucking insane (and also instead of being a person is a place). And their lifecycle is body-horror stuff. Plus all the human sacrifice and they just make a great evil empire enemy whose empire actually has reasons that it has to run on evil.
>>93946987>The BulletteOne of these days I want to make a pun encounter using a bullete. Keep in mind that while I want the idea to be conceptually funny, it will be a serious encounter.>Fiendish bullete field where you have to dodge a bullete stampede in hell.>Extremely strong bullete(with or without tamer) named Helen. It would have one or more special abilities the tamers name would be homophonous with Touhou
>>93947537Bullettes are perfect underdark random encounters because "Oh shit there's sharks in these here rocks" can show up anywhere, any time, for absolutely no reason.
>>93947546Yeah but I want to make a bullete hell
>>93947549Oh I didn't get it. Now I do. Video games. That's funny.
Steel predator from 3.x e!
>>93946987I really like treanst and monster plants.
We need Slugcats in our lives. An intelligent companion npc that can collect things and spear chuck from the shadows.
>>93947892We need mothcats too. They're like Slutcats but they fucking stupid and adorable.
>>93946987From Grim Hollow. Unique enough to be interesting, can be strong enough to be a threat, and the setting is always cool to come upon an area with rubble and broken statue pieces areound the area.
>>93946987The Zaratan. I fell in love with the Tony DiTerlizzi illustration in the 2E MM. Probably not a coincidence that Link's Awakening is my favorite Zelda title.
>>93947951> slutcats
>>93947708>plant monstersthe missus is partial to this one.she also goes druid for animated vines and stuff.>>93947892I just barely know what those are and you make them sound awesome>>93948281>trainable>mount>exotic harvestable materials>multiple levels of strength in the entry.Bruh, that checks nearly all the boxes for shit I usually like in monsters.only change I'd add is a 1 or 2 D4 slashing claw attack as an alternate maybe multi-attack 2 so not everything it does is potentially lethal.do the other monsters in this Grim Hollow have the harvest/salvage info?>>93949012is this a joke I'm missing?>>93948315whats not to love about ISLAND TURTLES?
Lich. I really like everything about the concept with the phylactery.
>>93948281It's a basilisk with extra steps.
>>93946987I like Displacer Beasts.I like how they were so lazily come up with ("It's a magic puma! That, uh, has illusion magic so you can't hit it! And 6 legs! And tentacles like a squid!"), but that it became a huge staple.
>>93946987I like dragons. Dragons are cool.
>>93949877Anon, pls it's not an original monster>In Dungeons & Dragons (1974–1976) The Displacer Beast was created for Dungeons & Dragons, first introduced in the game's supplement, Greyhawk (1975), as "a puma-like creature with six legs and a pair of tentacles which grow from its shoulders." The concept of the creature was borrowed from A. E. van Vogt's 1939 science fiction story "Black Destroyer", which described a feline-like creature called a Coeurl. Van Vogt later incorporated the Coeurl into the novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950).The plot of The Black Destroyer was also the inspiration the film Planet of the Vampires (1965) which was then used as partial inspiration for the film Alien.
>>93949974Holy fuck. I learned something awesome today.Thank you! Do you know if the van Vogt story is any good?
>>93950100Space Beagle is an anthology of separate stories turned into an interconnected novel, the Black Destroyer portion is pretty cool. Bad kitty that the Coeurl is, the beast is far more deadly than the one more known about from D&D. The OG version annihilated its own race, is highly charismatic and can talk via radio signals, because it can vibrate its tentacles to control ALL forms of wave motion and walk bipedal if it wants to. When its back tentacles find a meal, the Black Destroyer sucks out the phosphorous minerals from its victim's bodies turning them into desiccated husks. Vogt was on some shit.
I also like ogres due to how horrific and terrifying the violent cannibalistic savages actually are.
Always down for an Eye Tyrant or two because of all their goofy variants. Bonus points because as far as I'm aware, Beholders are an original TSR invention, rather than borrowed. Love the undead versions.
What is it about the late nineteenth century and early twentieth where you have all these motherfuckers collectively coming up with the creepiest shit? Is it the legal drugs of the time, it's gotta be right?
>>93950505You're thinking of the 1980s. Opium isn't known for boosting a writer's creativity. Late 19th century has more to do with skyrocketing literacy and declining cost of printing, plus a reasonably healthy culture in the industrial West- not too soft nor too poor. Lots of excellent writers coming to the fore, and publishers that had not yet been hollowed out by monopolising parasites who only want to publish each other's garbage.
>>93946987Possibly the evil vagrants of the first Dark Souls game. The creatures are unique, in that each individual vagrant is only present in a single player's game world at a time. And provided the vagrant is not slain by the player whose world they're inhabiting, they will continue to hop and bounce from world to world. They're an unusual sight for sure, as in the process of learning the game, and traveling across the game world, one becomes very familiar with most of the enemy spawns. And to suddenly encounter such a weird little guy in an area you feel very familiar with, is indeed very a usual juxtaposition. Of the vagrants, one is considered the "good kind, which spawns as a result of a player dropping and losing items. The other kind, evil, the one I like most, shoots high damaging laser beams at you, and will only spawn in the event a player connected to the internet loses an above average amount of resource called "humanity", which serves some kind of poorly described literal substance that makes the player character "human" in some capacity. The evil vagrants only spawn from dense pools of coagulated humanity, after being allowed to wander for a time.And they like weird crab egg aliens... "Behold; the perfect image of MAN!" >See attached image
>>9395023Sweet, I'll check it out!
>>93950505We probably have the higest ever people hooked on drugs and the culture is the most dreary and incestuous it ever has been. Meanwhile in Japan where drugs are strictly forbiden is where all the cool, fun and interesting stuff is coming from, so try another thing.
>>93946987Slivers, I just love the design and the concept around them.Haven't used one yet in a game but it's on my mind
>>93952410Erotic
>>93946987My favorite monster is the most evil monster of them all Man
>>93947951>Slutcats
The Gray RenderI've never used one, but the idea that it could bond to anyone struck me as a fun idea for a couple of quests. like bonding to a toddler or an old granny
>>93952410I love hive monsters too, after plants my prefered.
the wightunbelievably flexible, always a threat, suitable for any level and damn near any situation. they can be as much of a character or not as necessary. you can write a whole adventure about one wight or you can put four of them in a tomb. the degree of their sentience can be whatever is required, but they're still intelligent undead that can be as crafty as they need to beplenty"wow level drain is bullshit"wow, level drain IS bullshit, and that's a good thing
>>93947892>Slutcats
>>93946987DnD-wise it's easily the umber hulk, it just looks cool, though the ettercap's an easy second place
>>93958476I do love umber hulks. They don't get anywhere near my top spot, but they're just such good fucking monsters. Beetle people slaves. That's a combination that's just asking to be handsome as fuck.
>>93958022no, we already have too many of those
>>93947951Got beasties called Scoots who fill a similar role on one SF colony world. Basically they're metal-shelled trilobite / horseshoe crab / pillbugs whose eletrosensory method of finding prey leads them to merrily chew on cables which inevitably jolt them.They're near impossible to get rid of and in any case serve an indirect function of rooting out ACTUAL barbed wire tumbleweed xenoflora that's an even bigger pain in the ass. They're unofficial mascots of the homesteader frontiersmen. Since their glossy shells are often dented and singed on account of eating power lines (again and again and again and...) any Scoot that lives on a property long enough has become a pet by default (chittering purrs really are quite sweet!) and in death has their idiosyncratically marred shield-shell adopted as hillbilly heraldry.>>93946987I've only run a few but in the same way that Dragons or Beholders are emblematic of DnD. I'd like serpents to be central symbols of a particular SF setting. The key thing is that it's a post-human AI-haunted world, snakes (as ouroboros, lemniscate, polyfoil knot, amphisbaena and hydra...) were never supernatural. The singularity's dreaming Hieronymous Bosch nightmares and incapable of separating reality from fiction is reflexively embodying what were once fictional symbolic beasts.First one I managed to use was an ouroboros wheel, kinda goofy at first until the players realised while looking at it that their sense of balance became tied to its (and it was always rolling). They tried to escape it by fleeing into a tall tunnel only for the head to swallow more of the tail and shrink the circle to pursue them. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the head was its weak point and represented a larger portion of the beast on a smaller body making it easier to wound.
>>93946987<-----------Love me a BPD demon.
>>93946987I actually really like the Carrion Crawlers, but that's because I wound up making my own headcannon that if they eat enough corpses or, were purposefully exposed to necromantic energy, they would transform
>>93949101>>93947708post plant
>>93961207Into what, anon? A big scary moth?
Like demons. Love obyriths. These activate my magical realm.Wish we god an obyrith type that was a more direct (advanced) succubus standin since they're more chaotic and we could get fey crossovers and stuff but with how form of madness is I guess there's no way of keeping it acceptable to american sensibilities.
>>93961549given the crawlers capabilities, cant you imagine 1.) the value of such a moth as an arcane reagent.2) the potential for the horrific capabilities of a carrion crawler that CAN FLY. >>93961456OK
>>93962159
>>93946987I'm a sucker for Zombies. My first ever campaign, zombies until level 2 and a few for good measure. As my experience grew, zombies were always how I introduced new players to my world. At first, they just were changed by a fungus in the tomb. As time went on, I started including an Evil Cleric and some Cultists to flesh out combat a little. Eventually, my favorite BBEG became a Vampire that was heavy into Zombie minions. All kinds of Zombies. Giant Zombies. Creature Zombies. And they all would continue to fight no matter how cut up they got. If an arm is severed, it rolls initiative and flails at the PCs. I love it and my new PCs can really get into the concept (more than Goblins and stuff). Eventually I might switch it up, but it just works so well and I will never get tired of narrating the awesome motions and sounds of Zombies.TL;DR Zombies are #1
>>93963552here, have some creative low-level variants...
>>93963585Neat.
>>93963552>>93963585>>93963597
>>93964153CR 2? I can see it's use in a group fight vs. a Boss, but that's a powerful bugger.
>>93949101>plant>stronger in sunlight >vine whip>rage powder>sun beam attack>roots itself to the ground
>>93962159>>93961549Yes. Remembering seeing the Pilgram butterflies for the first time and imagined I wanted the same. They would be harvested for their cocoons and used for necormantic stuff like mummy wraps or special armor.But, if they ever got loose then they could randomly raise dead just by flying around and randomly attacking and sucking out their souls and turning them into undead.
>>93964153>has the same HP and damage values of a veteran, and a lot of extra abilities>only thing worse is 11 AC rather than 17>cr 2 vs cr 3breh
>>93946987>what is your favorite monsterBalhannoth.>why?Good for teaching players humility.>have you ever actually used them in a game?Oh yes.>what was your first thought about them?Gif related.>how have your opinions of the monster changed?It just gets better every edition.Anyway, lets talk land sharks.>domesticating them, or their role in siege-craftI don't know that "domesticate" is the right word, but in my homebrew tribes of desert/canyon orcs have learned the value in pointing them at things they don't like.>>93948315>The ZaratanYou fucking patrician, BASED.>>93953611The gray render has been on my shortlist of shit I wanna use since 3.5, but I haven't thought of a compelling hook for it.
>>93950570I forgot about these guys, but you're right. They're cool as hell and I wish they had made it into the rest of the series and especially bloodborne. I remember my first encounter with one. I was near a blacksmith I had visited hundreds of times. I came out to find this little crabby weirdo and had just enough time to say "what the hell is that?" Before my character was obliterated by a blizzard of laser beams.
>>93949101He misspelled slugcats
>>93949974It's really something that WotC had the audacity to copyright the Displacer Beast after this. They barely have like a dozen monsters they've copyrighted, why do they even fucking bother?
>>93946987I like Cockatrice. Luv me Chimera, snakes are my favourite animals and I grew up with chickens, so I appreciate roosters. Cool weird lore which can easily be modified and applied to suit your needs. Also think petrification is a terrifying ability.Only used one once and it didn't play a big role, but my current villain is an alchemist/mad doctor type so I plan on having it use all kinds of chimera as minions. Planning to have a massive Cockatrice as a kind of artificial Dragon being one of it's main threats. The idea is to have it hunt the party during an upcoming quest while they're (probably) not ready to face it yet.Used to think they were just a silly meme monster honestly, but it really grew on me and I can't really explain why. It's not like anything in particular changed my opinion, one day I just looked at one and realised it was actually pretty neat.
>>93947288Yuan-ti are such a perfect mix of all the wierd setting's details. They work as main antagonist, or players or some kind of side threat that can slip into a story through being behind a plot or just as easily some big cataclysm.
>>93949877Why is this creature sitting on my printer?
>>93958022>>93953369Please don't slut the cat. >>93949101They're great. The game they're from is challenging, but they'll be amazing addictions.
>>93987069>Please don't slut the catyou've seen how nimble and stretchy those fuckers are
>>93946987I consumed a ton of dinosaur media and Godzilla movies when I was younger, so I'm very partial to big lizard monsters.Dragons, the Tarrasque, Not!Godzillas, or anything you'd expect to see in Monster Hunter. I love these guys like you wouldn't believe. I always include something like them in my campaigns.
Nothing beats the hecatoncheiresI was in a bookstore in a small town for a festival when I was 13 and D&D was still new to me.I didn't even know most of the rules just had the 3e starter set I had only read the rulebooks once, and "read" them the way a 13 year old does.But I had run games successfully for my dad.I remember opening the Epic Level Handbook, thinking, wow, this is what my dad and his friends fight (they were still playing AD&D at the time)Seeing the hecatoncheires seemed like a thing from nightmares.The only RPG book to fill me with more wonder was the Elder Evils supplement. Father Llymic was delightfully nightmarish. It seemed like such an incredibly adult hobby, that dense stat block with in-depth description of the battle scene.But the hecatoncheires are just really cool. Stupid and impractical, but cool.
Dryads are a cool non-combat encounter
>>93986846because cats will be cats?>>93987135pic related? https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-L0j3FWNhBx15I-lR7qChave a monster manual>>93987345I accidentally did a Princess Mononke with one once (I only just saw that movie like, an actual week ago.
WHO LIKES CRAZY STUPID THINGS?
>>93987124No! Stop!
AT WHAT POINT DOES IT START BEING A MONSTER?
>>93952410Someone made the Slivers for 5e. It's pretty good, called it the Shrill Hive. Probably you can just google it.
Rust monsters, for the terror that players feel towards them being completely out of proportion with the actual threat they represent, which is essentially none. They're harmless little goobers just as happy to munch on random bits of scrap iron as they are to eat anything of actual value. There is almost never a circumstance in which you actually need to hurt one.
>>94001021https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1GASKRJyqGXY16RIA79qhoS9B7M1xqEjaD9AQfJARmtjs
>>93949101And yes, all monsters in Grim hollow monster manual have salvage, some are good, some are kinda meh, but something is better than nothing.
