D&D 5E Scary/Creepy encounters

[TaranTheWanderer]

Being grappled and pulled underwater by zombies can be pretty terrifying.

 

[Jv_Stuchi]

I've found that "less is more" when running horror. Don't describe too much - or if you do, rely on senses other than overt physical descriptions (such as sounds, smells, textures). If you can keep from it, don't use minis or battle grids (or if you do, really enforce fog of war/line of sight). Bring the jungle to life with mundane hazards (disease, insects, heat, etc.) Jungle foliage can easily break line of sight, causing the party to get lost from each other. Losing equipment/supplies in a flash flood or crossing a river. Bring the jungle to life with animals just out of sight - you can hear them prowling in the distance. Take away their sleep and use exhaustion mechanics.

I like the idea with messing with their sleep, maybe il make a area where they try to long rest but wake up the next morning without any of the long rest benefits

 

[Jv_Stuchi]

Five doppelgängers take the shape of your ex-girlfriend and resume old arguments!

In more seriousness, visions of the past and semi-hallucinatory reenactments of the player's defeats, or twisting victories into defeats can quite creepy.

As oofta said, the suggestion of a threat can be scarier than the threat itself. A monster that appears much stronger than it really is scarry (or that turns out to be be stronger than it should have been). Presentation is key.

I had the idea of having a inteligent spider monster that was really just a bit stronger than a giant spider but acted as if it was this super powerfull entity and tried to manipulate the party to do its biding so they do not become its next meal

 

[Bedrockgames]

Im running a dark fantasy campaing and i need scary/creepy encounters for a haunted jungle, i have a couple ideas but not enough, the party is level 4 and im more interested in non combat encounters although i would like combat encounters that have something special about it different from you fight this thing and thats it.

One method I like is taking an existing monster and making a variation with surprising stats. For example, you could take something seemingly harmless like goblins, and give them better attacks, and poisoned teeth that paralyze pray in 1d4 rounds. Something they might misread as an easy encounter, which turns serious very quickly.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Just for reference, here's a long-lived ENWorld thread from 2005-2010 that's got a lot of interesting creepy suggestions in general:

Creepy...

What creepy things have you either thrown at your players or had thrown at you? One of my favorites was Annika. Annika was a young girl, about twelve years old, who had been kidnapped amid a rash of deadly nightmares through her town. The PCs determined that she had been kidnapped by a night...

www.enworld.org

 

[Jv_Stuchi]

I was playing an adventure last night and our characters were tromping through the mud and, randomly, small leech-like creatures would attach to us and bite. It was annoying and gross and made the cave feel more claustrophobic.

-A feeling of isolation
-Shadows reaching out and touching the characters. No damage. Just feeling like something brushed your arm.
-Seeing things move but thinking it might be your imagination.
-The feeling of being watched
-Getting chills that run up your back
-Strange sounds in the distance
-Dead bodies with strange wounds you cannot identify or with looks of horror on their faces as if they died seeing something truly horrible.
-Having an NPC start the adventure with a mysterious and creepy story to set the scene.

For actual enemies: shadows make for good undead enemies. They are creepy, suck strength, can escape easily and attack from small spaces and holes. They are tricky to see and can wage a war of attrition on the characters by running in and sapping strength and then running away. When they attack, I sometimes describe it as the character's shadow reaching out to suck out their life force.

I like the little touches to make the situation creepier, i will really enjoy coming up with different ways to set the tone.

The shadows are really great monsters but unfortunately i already used them twice in this campaign and i do not want to overuse them

 

[Mistwell]

Im running a dark fantasy campaing and i need scary/creepy encounters for a haunted jungle, i have a couple ideas but not enough, the party is level 4 and im more interested in non combat encounters although i would like combat encounters that have something special about it different from you fight this thing and thats it.

This adventure from Wizards of the Coast, called Death House, is a free low level creepy adventure introduction to Curse of Strahd.

It's very creepy, including plenty of non-combat creepy aspects to it.

 

[Jv_Stuchi]

Even things as simple as twig blights can fit the horror theme. They're indistinguishable from regular plants if not moving after all. Although I might make a swarm or them just for simplicity.

Speaking of swarms, have someone come running out of the jungle screaming, covered in ants. As they approach they stumble and are being devoured. Part of the swarm breaks off and is coming your way.

Not sure what books you have access to (I use DndBeyond and just buy the monsters) but Tomb of Annihilation has some fun plant monsters like vine assassin and mantrap.

I also sometimes tweak existing monsters. As an example howler monkeys that have thorns growing out of them become spined devils. Just replace the fly speed with a climb/swing from vines speed. You hear them screeching long before you see them, then they do hit and run tactics. Part of the horror comes from the description - they're howling in agony with blood dripping from the thorns, part of it comes from hearing them in the jungle somewhere sight unseen.

Of course there's also undead of all stripes. One of my favorites that might fit this is a muddy field/swamp that slows the PCs and then have zombies reach up from the muck trying to pull them down into the mud with them. Again, its' more about presentation and usage than the actual monster.

Yeah i really love creating and tweaking monsters, it's pretty fun coming up with ideas.

 

[Jv_Stuchi]

Just for reference, here's a long-lived ENWorld thread from 2005-2010 that's got a lot of interesting creepy suggestions in general:

Creepy...

What creepy things have you either thrown at your players or had thrown at you? One of my favorites was Annika. Annika was a young girl, about twelve years old, who had been kidnapped amid a rash of deadly nightmares through her town. The PCs determined that she had been kidnapped by a night...

www.enworld.org

Thanks, i will take a look

 

[Jv_Stuchi]

This adventure from Wizards of the Coast, called Death House, is a free low level creepy adventure introduction to Curse of Strahd.

It's very creepy, including plenty of non-combat creepy aspects to it.

I seen it before, its pretty good