D&D General [LORE THREAD] Your Personal Favorite D&D Lore For a Monster

[Micah Sweet]

I actually enjoyed the contradiction of the Beholders being a Lawful Evil control-obsessed species whose goddess was Chaotic Evil and whose lives were actually determined by random chance.

The denialism and delusion required by their mindset (each of them even sees their goddess as looking exactly like them) adds to their characterization as alien beings. Their psychology is completely at odds with every part of the reality of their existence, but they are incapable of seeing it that way.

I agree there's definitely something to the dichotomy. It reminds me of how DS9's Changelings, who can become literally anything they want, are obsessed with order and control to the point of creating multiple species via genetic engineering so the only people they interact with are themselves and their direct creations.

 

[Smackpixi]

I like discovering, or leading players to the weird demented things going on in the dark corners od the adventuring realms. Basically DCC’s wheelhouse. So DnD stuff like the Yuan-ti I love. But they’re relatively fixed, once you know them, you basically know them, they can get up to all kinds of messed up stuff, but it does have a pretty singular goal.

So I’ll nominate Kua-Toa as the best of DnD’s dark corners of the realm creations. The idea that their collective subconscious can manifest minor gods is a brilliant idea. Plus they crazy and demented, so isolated bands of them can get up to who knows what depending upon unique past and environment. It allows each isolated band of them to have their own particular messed up culture and religion with an in-built boss fight with a god-creature of whatever powers you can imagine.