Favorite "New" Monsters

[demiurge1138]

Since everyone loves monsters...

What're your favorite creatures original to 3rd Edition and 3.5? There's a lot of new good stuff out there, like...

Chuuls: I admit, I was a latecomer to the chuul-loving crowd. I think my conversion came while playing in Tammeraut's Fate, where a chuul snapped one of my fellow players in half and had us scrambling to safety. Man, those things are brutal. Grab-paralysis and a great grapple mod makes them pretty much coup-de-grace machines.

Zeugalants: Otherwise known as the X-TREME aberration, these guys have their own thread currently. If you haven't read it, they live on mountain tops, where they enjoy being struck by lightning, teleporting to its source, then featherfalling down to do it again. Awesome.

Half-farspawn: Yes, 3rd edition has waay too many half-templates. But half-farspawn, from Lords of Madness, really satisfies. For one thing, it's not clear what exactly the other half is. For another, it lets you play The Dunwich Horror: The Home Game, with tentacles, spells and gruesome cosmetic effects.

Dolgrims: Yet another aberration, I love this Eberron-specific monster for one reason. It's a double goblin. Just two goblins, smashed together in one body. Cute and disgusting at the same time.

Demiurge out.

 

[the Jester]

Avolakia rock.

Crawling heads are fantastic.

I really like tojanidas.

Just kidding about that last. Hate 'em. Make 'em all into soup, I say.

 

[Sammael]

Dolgrims and dolgaunts, even though I don't play in Eberron. They make great minions for evil transmuters specializing in creature engineering.

Kir-lanans. A race of flying, negative energy-powered gargoyles with a hatred for all things divine - aren't they just lovable?

 

[Voadam]

Right now I would say Mad Winds from Slayer's Guide to Demons. Poor stats unconverted from 3.0 even though it says 3.5, no picture, but a really cool monster. Evil air elementals corrupted to demonic service by a now mostly slaughtered family of insane psionic non-Tanari demons who possess victims and drive them mad. Eight eyes, a non functional ring of circular saw teeth and incorporeal with the outlines going in and out because they have no physical substance. I got some really cool use out of them against my high level group as they were demon hunting. One of the PCs compared them to the bug spirits in Shadowrun when I ran the encounter with them, which was a high complement.

 

[Shemeska]

1) Cerebriliths. Psionic Tanar'ri are just awesome.

2) Ethergaunts. They were cool in the FF and Mechalich's subsequent elaboration on them made them better.

3) Kir-Lanan. Very cool origin story for them and I like their ethos, makes them interesting villains to use.

 

[Shade]

There are far too many! But here's just a few.

Chronotyryn: Bad-ass, masters of time from Acheron...and they're magical beasts.

Klurichir: "If balors do have nightmares, they can probably be attributed to the klurichirs" How cool is that?

Xerfilstyx: It can kill half the party and make the survivors forget that it ever happened.

Planar Dragons: Taking dragons to another level.

Hellfire Wyrm: Although the CR is off, these guys make the perfect servants for Tiamat.

Fiendwurm: Once again, the CR is off, but what a cool idea.

Ethergaunts: Creepy-cool, with an awesome backstory.

Abominations, particularly the Xixecal: Each one is an entire campaign in one entry.

Blackstone Gigant: Now that's what I call a construct.

Tsochari: Although they are obviously heavily inspired by Stargate, the execution is quite well done.

I'm sure I forgot about 100 of 'em.

 

[Shemeska]

Klurichir: "If balors do have nightmares, they can probably be attributed to the klurichirs" How cool is that?

Not as cool as the Molydeii which they're thinly veiled copies of?

 

[Shade]

Not as cool as the Molydeii which they're thinly veiled copies of?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the connection.

Massive, mule/orc-headed being with vorpalizing pincers and a maw in its belly vs. 12-foot-tall vorpal axe-wielding being with a dog head and a snake head.

The way I see it, the klurichirs are the enforcers sent by the demon princes to ensure that their interests are met, while the molydeii are used by the balors as a sort of "military police" to keep demons in the Blood War.

 

[Gez]

The Zeugalak, the first fun-loving monsters I've seen for D&D.
The Ethergaunts, scary scary scary.
The Kaorti (the Fiend Folio was a good source of cool monsters all around).
And the Silian (a.k.a. encephalon gorger) from the ToH 2. I've started to flesh them a bit more IMC...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Brains-in-a-jar, hellfire wyrms and (laugh if you must) moon rats are among my favorite new monsters in the 3x era.