Non-dragon Monsters?

[Crothian]

Cthulhu

 

[Bjorn Doneerson]

Giants could be very cool if you made them smarter.

Mind Flayers are cool especially when in groups. They freak me out plus I always think of them as alien Nazis. Very scary.

 

[Zack2216]

Well, if you were to have an opposing force to the dragons, think of an opposite of a dragon. Right now, I'm thinking it has to be big, with losts of spell like abilities and stuff. Don't forget to make it an evil genius. Maybe a legendary Half-fiend Tiger (as in gargantuan or larger in size) or something. It could have character class levels and stuff.

 

[Happiest_Sadist]

Nightshades. They are tough smart ewil buggers. Possibly some maddened sprits of violence. Consider an iron golem with 10 or so levels of sorcerer that just destroys eveverything without thought.

 

[Caliber]

I always thought a campaign based around an evil plot hatched by Dopplegangers would be a paticularly nasty campaign. Who knows who you can trust eh?

 

[Breakstone]

Use Giants.

They're big, they live in caves, and they hoard lots of treasure.

What better?

 

[Nellisir]

Beholders. Toss out the society and ecology stuff that has built up around them, and start from the stripped down base monster. You can have spellcasting beholders (-with- anti-magic eyes, what the heck!), dumb brute beholders with club-like tentacles & electrical touch attacks, really, really dumb slam attack beholders, beholders with different eyestalk powers, beholders with servants...or beholders that -are- servants*....

Add grell and mindflayers into the mix for real fun (psionic brain sucking beholders...).

Nell.
* My party ventured through a dungeon controlled by an ogre mage, his bugbear minions, and several enslaved beholders. Their most damaging eyestalks had been severed and capped with iron, and rings of steel, tethered to chains, had been hooked into their bodies. The ogre mage had managed to subdue one, and then used it to subdue a number of others. The party went crazy looking over their shoulders for the "real" power behind all the enslaved beholders...

 

[jollyninja]

use insects, real insects as an inspiration change the size, add magical ability and intelligence, imagine the attack of a collosal mosquito, big damage + con loss from blood drain. woooo add perfect manuverability flight and you have a terrible foe. also dragons would hate them because the mosquitos would feed off of them, and lay their eggs in black dragon turf. they wouldn't have claws but could get slam attacks for their legs and wing buffets ect... bees, beatles, fleas, and many others could also do the job. i've allways thought that previous attempts to use insect monsters have humanised them to much. make them powerful psions instead of sorcerors (to play up a difference between the two that might cause some animosity) give them a hive mind make them a terrible force in your world. if you want to give some of them breath weapons, go ahead. even the most jaded "I've seen everything!" player will pause a little when the huge mosquito sprays the characters with an unknown goo (burns at first, itches for days and causes swelling) and then mind blasts them a few times before it's limbs sprout claws and begin the melee fun.

 

[milo]

There was a template in one of the dragon issues, Kaiju I think. It made any creature Collosal and gives them an array of special abilities like a breath weapon. You could also make different stages of it if you wanted to put alot of time into it. That way you could use it throughout the campaign.

 

[Epametheus]

I'll second the Nightshades suggestion. Those buggers are nasty. They're the tanks of the undead -- but they're also cunning and quite adequately supplied in the form of magical firepower (haste at will is always good).

If ya have access to CoC d20, a sudden upsurgence of Cthonians can get ya results..