D&D General Favorite Creepy Monster To Run?

[GM Lent]

Tough one! My initial throught was mind flayers, but honestly I don't use them much because if used to the maximum of their capabilities I don't know how a party could beat them.

So I vote the Living Wall. They're disgusting, tragic, and evocative - equally as useful for intense personal and emotional struggles as they are for puzzles/barriers.

 

[Distracted DM]

I quite like trolls, as long as you describe them horrifically and don't refer to them by name,

I once had a random encounter for a mid-level party be two trolls creeping up and ambushing their camp at night, and the players were all horrified of the nine foot tall, long-limbed, loping, rubbery-skinned, dead-black eyed THINGs which first crept and then leapt upon their camp.

Sadly the effect was diminished when we broke out the battle mat to nail down positioning and I deployed the miniatures.

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Naming something makes it known- on the other hand if you'd printed out that OD&D art for the troll and put it on a binder clip as a "miniature," I think your players mightve been MORE horrified.
But yes, I often get lazy and name a creature which makes it less scary. But if you just stick to descriptions, and don't state their names, or give them different names.. you can really make some monsters scary. On the other hand if the PCs have dealt with trolls, or if they would know what a troll was, I feel like I'm cheating them of some knowledge by not naming them :'D

 

[Distracted DM]

My creepiest was probably when I (trigger warning for child harm) stole the idea of Neb from Baldur's Gate 1/2 and combined it with the Skinner Murderer from BG2. I was personally horrified and uncomfortable as I described his lair. Not only that, I made his goal to sacrifice this stuff he'd made to some dark entity, so there was an awful dark shadow-ghost haunted basement with an evil portal and the tormented trapped souls of his victims down there tied to their Skinner-Murderer remains all over the walls.
It was definitely "successful" in what it set out to do, but I don't know if I'd do something that dark again; it wasn't even planned, it was just some improv side quest. The players took satisfaction from putting an end to the whole thing, but like I said it was tough for me to actually describe some of the gruesome scenes as I was coming up with it.