Your Favorite Monsters, And Why

[DMH]

Looking through my books, I found a couple more worth mentioning from Atlas' Fantasy Bestiary.

Seedkin reproduce like bacteria. Even high level characters are going to suffer from hundreds of millions of 1/2 hit die monsters.

Child of Darkness/Child of Light are two templates to represent a single species. The CoL looks like an alien from The Abyss and reproduces by infecting animal life (all the creature types that are animal based). It could be a form of ascention that people would aspire for or a curse that no one really understands.

 

[Piratecat]

I've always wanted to run/write an adventure where the PCs come across a small town or village where nearly everyone there is a doppelganger.

Like the old Martian Chronicles story by Bradbury where the whole town conforms to the PCs' dreams and expectations. Very cool, and possibly very spooky.

Remember the old Dungeon adventure where the town was empty but all the buildings were immense mimics? The adventure recommended that for weeks after the PCs escape, you should have an outhouse stalking them. I can't decide if that's hilarious and awesome or just appalling.

 

[Aeolius]

Hags , of course. With inspirations such as Baba Yaga, Aughra (Dark Crystal), and numerous Disney movies, one could easily get immersed in the lore of the Cailleach .

I started using hags back in the mid-90s, when a player’s desire to create an alu-demon character made me reexamine the origins of the succubus, and thus the night hag became the “mother of all monsters”. Nigel Findley’s “Ecology of the Greenhag” (Dragon #125) served as my reference point from that point onward, coupled with the Witch NPC class (Dragon #114) and the Dreamer (Dragon #132).

I’ve included the same night hag in all of my online games, since that point.

Why should dragons get all the fun? What if hags and hag-magics were the source of sorcerers’ powers? What if the Region of Dreams and subsequent nightmares played an integral part in a campaign’s milieu? Amalgamating hag coveys and witches’ covens would provide a source of knowledge, power, and horror. Taking a cue from dragons, one could fill a campaign with half-hags, hag-touched beings, hag-blooded individuals, hag bloodlines, and more.

 

[Hand of Evil]

MANKIND! Man, is also on my list, just because he is soooo versitile, good, evil noble or savage, he can be a great monster just by his nature.

 

[Aeolius]

MANKIND! Man, is also on my list, just because he is soooo versitile, good, evil noble or savage, he can be a great monster just by his nature.

 

[Set]

Tons of the ones already mentioned, I like, but I'll stick to stuff that hasn't been mentioned yet;

Hydras - twelve heads are better than one!
Gnolls - complete with hyenas and hyaenadon / dire hyena flunkies
Minotaurs - when Gnolls aren't scary enough
Aranea - all the fun of Dopplegangers, but way, way creepier

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Votan]

I have found Liches make rather cool adversaries. The ability to come back from a defeat is actually pretty useful for a recurring adversary.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall, I like humanoids and giants, plus some trolls and such as adversaries because they are a bit lower-magic than many others.

In addition, undead. Not much else can live in long-forgotten ruins, and _I am not a fan of constructs.

Finally, extra-planer beings for the unique viewpoints they can bring to an adventure. They are nowhere near mortlal, or even human, and should be roleplayed as such. Also, they can be in long-forgotten ruins also.

Yes, my games tend to explore history and ruins a lot, with less political stuff, though players can use their wits to use diplomacy with most of the above classes of creatures.

 

[David Howery]

Giant space hamsters! They're so cute and fuzzy!

But seriously, I suppose it would be the various forms of big cats (I was always fond of wilderness adventures in my DM days)....