Silly Monsters

[Pants]

Meanwhile, I'd like to nominate the paelyrion. A fiend... with bad makeup. I would really, really, like to take this thing seriously, but the lipstick and rouge sort of ruin that for me. As far as I'm concerned, they're only useful as an insult.

"Hey, you! The arcanaloth with all the damn silver piercings! You dress so godawful that you make a paelyrion look fashionable!"

It's the Mimi Fiend!

 

[demiurge1138]

Well, the paelyrion does look really silly, but I personally think it makes up for it via wierd abilities and interesting flavor text.

Other hits from the 3e Fiend Folio-

The senmurv (rainbow winged bipedal wolf)
Abrians (I can't help but think of them as sentient, fiendish chocobos, for some reason)
The chronotryn (Four armed adamantine birds with two brains and control over time? O-kay...)
The hallucinogenic imp (really now)
Octopus trees (The name says it all)
The xerfilstyx demon (inpronouncable? check. silly-looking? check.)

I am tempted to add the mud slaad, with its "cringe" ability and goofy grin, but it's just too cute.

Demiurge out.

 

[Lucky Number]

Let us not forget the Executioner's Hood.

Hope you're carrying a lot of booze.

Edit: I just remembered the Mek. Meks were 25 foot tall robots, supposedly created by an ancient race of sorcerers; essentially a “Mech”.
I couldn't find it in the AD&D books so I'm assuming it's from D&D rather than AD&D.

Eh. To my recollection, they were only about ogre-sized at most. Also, they were independently functioning, unlike most "mechs".

Forget the rust monster and disenchanter. I nominate the folugub, a creature created for the express purpose of screwing over psions. Put all three in one room, and watch the players drop the f-bomb.

Also, i loved the concept behind Spelljammer, but the monsters were just ridiculous. Hippo men that like blowing things up! Several kinds of giant space hamsters! Twenty-foot long sentient pacifist space slugs! Scro!*

What does a rust monster do if your metal items are made of non-oxidizing metals? Titanium doesn't as far as i know, gold only reacts to a specific mixture of acids, and i wouldn't be surprised if dwarves had the metallurgy skills to produce oxidation-resistant alloys.

Oh, and Bullywugs. Mostly because of the name.

*Any monster whose name is that of another monster, but reversed, is automatically laughable.

 

[Testament]

Grells just seem...weird to me.
The Century Worm looks ridiculous.
The Rust Monster is mis-named. Its correct name is Grudge Monster.

Most of the Fiend Folio I liked, even the Xerfilstyx and Paelyrion (But I love devils). For me its the MMII that has the stupidity: Boggles, Blood Apes, Felldrakes (Yay, Elvish Terriers!) and above all, the Gravorg. When did Nibbler (Futurama people!) learn Reverse Gravity?

Spelljammer had to have stupid monsters, since it was a BAD idea done even worse.

And hats off on the Folugub comment. As with the Rust monster, its a grudge creature, and nothing else.

 

[Tewligan]

The century worm is a titanic ding-a-ling gone horribly, horribly wrong.

That should be the descriptive text in the book.

 

[Incenjucar]

Most creatures can be reconciled, though not always all in the same campaign. Making them intimidating is all in how you deal with them, and how you describe them. Usually, the more detail, the harder it is to giggle about it. If you describe a quadrone as a 'box with legs', yeah, they're gonna snicker. If you describe it as a logical, precise, cubical killing machine, and show it crushing the life out of a githzerai while calmly explaining the gith's wrongness in its behavior... maybe a tad less funny then, unless you're obscenely jaded.

 

[DonaldRumsfeldsTofu]

The funny thing is that the name (ixitchatitl? maybe?) and concept were taken from Central American mythology, as was the ahuitzol, which might have been one of the monsters that DR's T might have been talking about (it's an otter, but it gouges out your eyes with a hand on its tail!)

No, the Ahuitzol is cool. I always wanted to kill some PCs with one.

I can't find any information on the Umblepy, sadly.

 

[WillieW]

I ran an old adventure from Dungeon that featured a nilbog. That's the little goblin from the old Fiend Folio that makes everyone around it act in a manner contrary to their intentions, and can only be killed by healing magic.

The creature was hiding in a village, and the whole town was going nuts because of its aura of contrariness. That adventure was a blast. I still remember the PCs walking into a shop and having a session of reversed haggling with the storekeeper, or the party fighter (at the beginning of combat) failing his Will save, dropping his swords, and charging their opponents for a hug.

That was from "Pearlman's Curiosity" in Dungeon #32, by Yours Truely. Exact same hilarity ensued when I introduced the scenario to several very serious game players, who managed to be amused and NOT amused at the same time. Heh...!

I had to look the issue number up, but "Encounter in the Wildwood" in issue #19 had a Boggle, a Quickling, and some one-eyed ogrish creature whose name I've forgotten in it.

I loved finding uses for maddeningly useless monsters...

 

[VirgilCaine]

Half-dragons! Dragons are insatiable, and will mate with anything from gelatinous cubes to dolphins, So you are saying at one time Captain James T Kirk visited D&D land.

The balloon people from under the storm giant's castle. Old judges guild module.
The tween
The carbunle
The bee people from the new mm2

Okay, you piqued my interest. What were the balloon people like?

I agree about the carbuncle. HATE THAT ONE! The tweens I kinda like.

Although, now that I think about it, the banth (a multilegged lionlike creature) may have in part been the inspiration for such multilimbed D&D felines as the displacer beast and the cantobele, and the Gamma World centisteed - a multilegged horse - may trace its ancestry to Barsoom's thoat. I can't recall having seen any multilegged mastodons in D&D, though.

Back on topic: besides the others mentioned so far, I'd like to nominate the umpleby - you know, the 8-foot pile of walking hair that gave off electrical energy in the form of static electricity...and then promptly fell asleep.

Let me think...there was a six-legged psionic tigerlike creature with a nasty tail of some kind...can't remember the name.

The umpleby also can find treasure, somehow. And the Creature Catalog converted them.

 

[Arnwyn]

That was from "Pearlman's Curiosity" in Dungeon #32, by Yours Truely.

I love that adventure to this day. Made great use of the nilbog. (Oh, how I miss Willie Walsh adventures!)