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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5015885" data-attributes="member: 4937">All monsters are fears.  You just take that fear and embody it in some fashion.So, lets take the example of a snake because it is a common fear.  Brain storm why snakes are feared.They are venomous.  They are stealthy and surprise you.  They strike with great quickness.  They are cold.  They are slithery.  They have yellow unblinking eyes.  Some people think that they are slimy.Ok, that's good to go on.  Now, the snake is such a common fear that alot of mythological creatures are already based on them, but there is still plenty of fear-space to mine for ideas.   After discarding some well explored ideas like venomous and the staring eyes, we might focus on the idea of 'speed'.  So, one of the first things that might come to mind is an idea like this:'Quick Viper': This is a stealthy permenently hasted snake with very fast acting venom, sort of a cross between a Quickling and a Viper.  It's nearly invisible and very skilled at hiding.  It's not very durable, but it gets an extra move action each turn, and it employs a 'hit-n-run' strategy where it attacks then rehides before the target can react.   It's venom is the literal 'three step' venom that can kill you before you take three steps.Now, that's pretty cool, we just have to set the right stage for it.  I'm envisioning a smallish 'Quick Viper' being used as the guardian of some sort of treasure chamber with lots of chests of drawers, desks, and small peices of furniture.  The quick viper stays hidden beneath furniture until a target comes near then attacks from cover (to prevent AoO in the event it doesn't achieve surprise) then uses its move action and the considerable hiding spots available to rehide while the party tries to deal with its venomous bite.  Repeat every few rounds until the party panics, gets lucky, or comes up with a cunning plan.Or maybe venomous speedster's aren't your thing, so you hit on the idea of making a 'slitheriest' snake monster.  The first thing that comes to my mind is a swarm of snakes and the second that comes to mind is a hydra, but since we are inventing new things here how about a single creature that is mass of writhing snake tentacles.   I don't know what to call it yet, so for now:'The Snake Ball':  This creature will be huge and have multiple heads and tentacles sort of like a hydra that's all head and tails.  It's scaly tentacles do a 'carress' attack on everything in range which nauseate and eventually incapacitate the target (or they could generate an unwholesome ectasy if we were into that sort of thing).  Meanwhile it's heads try to put down every thing that resists the carress attack.  It's got the ability to slip quickly through suprisingly small spaces (almost like an ooze).  Or maybe we want to create a snake creature that really highlights the slime fear that people pick up from the smoothness of the scales:'Slime Wyrm': This creature leaves a trail of greasy alkaline contaminating ooze that creeps up and over whatever it touches, eventually leaving a thin shimmering film over everything.  This leads to progressive and cumlative debilitation after first contact - first difficulty standing, then caustic burns, then difficulty holding on to objects, then blindness, then asphyiation as the esophagus constricts.  The creature is itself blind (but uses tremorsense) and is immune to its own alkaline slime, but not acids (which are actually very effective against it).  It builds slime patches as traps to keep the unwary from escaping and is generally covered in slime; other wise behaves as a large venemous snake.And so forth.</blockquote>

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