Yora
Legend
The thread about monsters that used to be in the default main lineup of earlier editions but don't appear at all in 5th edition had me think about monsters that are really obscure and never really made any further appearance after their introduction. Some while back I had raised the question if Monster Manual 2s and higher numbers actually see much use (apparently not), but there's actually been a lot of monsters that appeared in books that weren't even actual monster books.
My question now is, which monsters from any sources and any editions, that had no meaningful appearances after their original introduction, do you really like, have used, or still plan to use one day. It's not super important if all of them really appeared only once, or if they all appeared outside of full monster books. The matter of interest here is about obscurity. Creatures that you think are really cool, but which regrettably nobody else seems to have cared for.
Big one for me is the mohrg. Which is actually from the 3rd edition Monster Manual, possibly the most well known source for monsters after the 5th edition one these days. But as far as I am aware, that's about its whole career as a monster. It's a skeleton whose insides have turned into long slimy tentacles that extend from its arms and out its mouth. They are created sponraneously from the corpses of evil criminals and people the kill rise as zombies, but only several days later, which can make it really hard to pin down what exactly is causing a new sudden zombie outbreak.
I also quite like the maur from the 3rd edition Underdark. Basically it's a fomorian again, an evil degenerated giant in the Underdark. But these ones are descended from stone giants and live in tunnels too small for them to stand in, so they have adapted to crawling while crouched. They also can meld into stone to hide themselves. And as a special ability, in caves that are high enough, they can raise themselves to their full height and gain the ability to cast lightning spell. The description doesn't say why, but crawling subterranean stone giants with strange magic power are really cool.
And I can't forget moon rats. Don't even recall the book they are from, but they are rats whose intelligence depends on the phases of the moon. During the full moon they become as smart as very intelligent humans, which is when they come together to discuss their plans and plots to gain power and control. And then over the following weeks they lose their intelligence again, becoming just like ordinary rats, until the cycle repeats next months. Since they only have a few nights each month for their grand plans, their plots take a long time to get anywhere, and being otberwise just like rats makes them perfectly hidden from anyone investigating.
My question now is, which monsters from any sources and any editions, that had no meaningful appearances after their original introduction, do you really like, have used, or still plan to use one day. It's not super important if all of them really appeared only once, or if they all appeared outside of full monster books. The matter of interest here is about obscurity. Creatures that you think are really cool, but which regrettably nobody else seems to have cared for.
Big one for me is the mohrg. Which is actually from the 3rd edition Monster Manual, possibly the most well known source for monsters after the 5th edition one these days. But as far as I am aware, that's about its whole career as a monster. It's a skeleton whose insides have turned into long slimy tentacles that extend from its arms and out its mouth. They are created sponraneously from the corpses of evil criminals and people the kill rise as zombies, but only several days later, which can make it really hard to pin down what exactly is causing a new sudden zombie outbreak.
I also quite like the maur from the 3rd edition Underdark. Basically it's a fomorian again, an evil degenerated giant in the Underdark. But these ones are descended from stone giants and live in tunnels too small for them to stand in, so they have adapted to crawling while crouched. They also can meld into stone to hide themselves. And as a special ability, in caves that are high enough, they can raise themselves to their full height and gain the ability to cast lightning spell. The description doesn't say why, but crawling subterranean stone giants with strange magic power are really cool.
And I can't forget moon rats. Don't even recall the book they are from, but they are rats whose intelligence depends on the phases of the moon. During the full moon they become as smart as very intelligent humans, which is when they come together to discuss their plans and plots to gain power and control. And then over the following weeks they lose their intelligence again, becoming just like ordinary rats, until the cycle repeats next months. Since they only have a few nights each month for their grand plans, their plots take a long time to get anywhere, and being otberwise just like rats makes them perfectly hidden from anyone investigating.
