D&D 5E Scariest Monster Ever
Flameboy99
First Post
Not specifically one stemming from D&D, but it's carried over a lot.
I'm a big fan of roguelikes; Nethack in particular. For those of you who don't know, roguelikes are video games that are A) usually (But not always!) RPGs, B) feature heavy randomization, and C) usually have all the mercy of playing the Tomb of Horrors and Temple of Elemental Evil back to back with level 1 characters. Nethack is also a bit odd in that having good equipment is much more important than having a high level (In fact, leveling up is often a bad thing, because monster difficulty scales with your level, and scales much faster than the benefits for gaining a level do. Equipment, meanwhile, scales with how far down you are in the dungeon. However, there are guaranteed boss monsters on some floors, so you'd want to be high enough level to beat them, so you wanted to try and control your level gains to be just powerful enough to beat the major bosses, while still not having to contend with the more powerful regular dungeon enemies; but I digress).
Due to the importance of equipment in the game, item destroying(/corroding/burning/rusting) monsters are really dangerous and difficult to deal with. This includes many D&D classics such as Rust Monsters (In some forks, anyways; SLASH'EM and UnNetHack in particular have them, I think), various jellies, and a number of other things. So, I've always had an irrational fear of item destroying monsters in D&D, because I'm used to that being a potential death sentence for a character.
I'm a big fan of roguelikes; Nethack in particular. For those of you who don't know, roguelikes are video games that are A) usually (But not always!) RPGs, B) feature heavy randomization, and C) usually have all the mercy of playing the Tomb of Horrors and Temple of Elemental Evil back to back with level 1 characters. Nethack is also a bit odd in that having good equipment is much more important than having a high level (In fact, leveling up is often a bad thing, because monster difficulty scales with your level, and scales much faster than the benefits for gaining a level do. Equipment, meanwhile, scales with how far down you are in the dungeon. However, there are guaranteed boss monsters on some floors, so you'd want to be high enough level to beat them, so you wanted to try and control your level gains to be just powerful enough to beat the major bosses, while still not having to contend with the more powerful regular dungeon enemies; but I digress).
Due to the importance of equipment in the game, item destroying(/corroding/burning/rusting) monsters are really dangerous and difficult to deal with. This includes many D&D classics such as Rust Monsters (In some forks, anyways; SLASH'EM and UnNetHack in particular have them, I think), various jellies, and a number of other things. So, I've always had an irrational fear of item destroying monsters in D&D, because I'm used to that being a potential death sentence for a character.
I remember in one campaign we a group of Wraiths following us by staying underground and popping up whenever we would rest, or one of us would go off to scout and picked us off one at a time. We were all freaking out.
As a player: a DM had an NPC ally that was leading us to our objective, but Indiana Jones style, she betrayed us. The moment of her betrayal was the scariest part, because it was in the middle of a pivotal battle with demons, and her betrayal divided the (already small) party of three into me (the cleric) and them (the monk and fighter). I only survived because I was a cleric of Tyr and played more like a Paladin than a traditional cleric. Loads of fun!
As a DM: Can't remember the adventure now, but there's a 3e module where the party has to traverse a lot of underground caverns between dungeon levels. In on particularly tricky traverse, with a cold, fast-moving stream, in the pitch black, a roper waited. That roper was a balanced encounter for the party (actually a little easier than balance, by CR level) but in those close confines, with the water, the darkness, and the PCs expecting that the encounter was surviving the trip rather than a monster, it was little-girl-shriek kind of scary for them. The roper had killed and eaten 3 of the 8 party members before they finally got it.
What made it so fantastic was that they (perhaps foolishly) only had one torchbearer, so the moment they realized they were in trouble was when they heard a scream, then were plunged into darkness (as the party's ranger was grabbed by the roper and pulled through the water--killing the torch).
After that, Darkvision or everburning torches became staples of the party--they'd look for everburning torches over +1 gear!
As a DM: Can't remember the adventure now, but there's a 3e module where the party has to traverse a lot of underground caverns between dungeon levels. In on particularly tricky traverse, with a cold, fast-moving stream, in the pitch black, a roper waited. That roper was a balanced encounter for the party (actually a little easier than balance, by CR level) but in those close confines, with the water, the darkness, and the PCs expecting that the encounter was surviving the trip rather than a monster, it was little-girl-shriek kind of scary for them. The roper had killed and eaten 3 of the 8 party members before they finally got it.
What made it so fantastic was that they (perhaps foolishly) only had one torchbearer, so the moment they realized they were in trouble was when they heard a scream, then were plunged into darkness (as the party's ranger was grabbed by the roper and pulled through the water--killing the torch).
After that, Darkvision or everburning torches became staples of the party--they'd look for everburning torches over +1 gear!
Rhenny
Adventurer
During the 5e playtest I ran the Blingdenstone adventure as a mini-campaign that I extended. At one point, the party explored the underdark, found a trading enclave and had to meet with the "cloaked one." This was a negotiation/interaction with a mind flayed. The pcs were only 4th level. The way I described a presence, probing and tickling their minds, creeped everyone out. They just wanted to finish their transaction and get out. After the encounter, the mind flayer notified the Drow that these adventurers had killed Drow, so the Drow hunted the party all the way back to Blingdenstone. The mind flayer are very creepy in a Lovecraftian way.
Before that episode, Doctor Who introduced the scariest monsters I've ever seen in any media: the Weeping Angels. They're stone statues of angels... While you look at them. If you look away, or blink, they animate and are lightning fast. And they don't just kill you, they zap you back in time and feed on the energy that generates (if each year consumed gives them a certain amount of energy, imagine how much more powerful they'd get by preying on long-lived creatures like elves...). Combining sudden disappearances and unseen somethings makes for one of the most terrifying creatures that have ever been devised.
Rhenny
Adventurer
Definitely. Blink and those weeping angels are terrifying.
Greenstone.Walker
Adventurer
Rust Monster.
"It did WHAT to my sword????"
"It did WHAT to my sword????"
