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Message: <blockquote data-quote="weem" data-source="post: 4993766" data-attributes="member: 9470">As mentioned, you can describe them as you wish - as scary etc, and you could use fear-like aura's etc.But, if this is all you do, it can feel too much like telling the players how they should react, or what they are feeling. I think it's one of those things (sometimes) where less is more. There is a fear of the unknown for example - so if you go into these kinds of details like explaining it is "scary" or "horrifying" etc, you are shining a big light on it, when it was more scary in the dark.One way to approach it would be to use the environment to help. I made a post a while back about a monster I was making - the purpose of which was to build tension/suspense. Rather than type it out again, I found it and will quote it here to give you an idea of what I am talking about...Building tension is one way of putting players in that mindset.To go even more with the fear of the unknown aspect and building tension, imagine you have a monster with long tentacles and you want to put fear into the hearts of the players. You could...1) Have him burst into the room, and describe his every detail - large creature with very long tentacles from the face, sharp teeth, etc "He's really scary" you could say.or2) Put the players into a chamber with many holes, exits, etc. Fill the room with monsters, or even minions attacking the PC's... while they are occupied, have a (very long) tentacle lunge from a whole, grab one such creature and pull it in, followed by screams coming from the hole.Then another, and another.Maybe the creatures are "small" in size, and when it tries pulling PC's they get pulled to the wall and held as they don't fit in the whole - when held there, the next round tentacles with teeth chomp at their backside. So the players are being attacked, but can not see what it is. Maybe eventually it withdraws its tentacles and makes its way to them, finally confronting them face to face - only now you will have built up this tension.Anyway, this is just one idea for approaching the fear thing. Using the environment around your monster to build tension.</blockquote>

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