Horror is a wonderful component to psychology. Every monster in some way, highlights a part of the human condition that we're not comfortable with, otherwise, they wouldn't be monsters or antagonists to a journey, if I am understanding mythology correctly. Some monsters are frightening because they are greater hunters, or because they're faster, some have too many tendrils, and some represent parts of animals filled with connotations. A labyrinth without a minotaur is just an unhealthy trust of the self. An island without a hideous gorgon is just a house without a bad affair. Of course, no image of a monster is the same image to the same person, they're simply more threatening and more horrific in how we ourselves perceive them individually. Some of the monsters in DnD are just complete 'lets stick more legs on this already perfectly horrifying spider and give it a higher armor class for the hell of it.' but for the most part, a lot of the creatures, no actually, most of the creatures in the monster books play off archtypes and fears from past stories and fables. Every monster is a warning, but to what end does that play off your own fears? A dark horse? A ship-swallowing kraken? The sphynx with its impossible riddle?
This thread is a game, if you will.
List the two monsters in DnD that creep you out the most, then list your personal favorite monster, not one that necessarily has an aspect that disturbs you, but one you just have had a personal like of, or have used constantly in your gameplay. If you are all mighty and brave, and find no monster repulsive, scary, or otherwise grotesque, then list your favorite kind of golem or elemental. Talk about what these monsters are and why you think they're scary. The last monster, just tell us why you like personal monster.
The next poster will then analyze the last monster posted, as to 'why' they believe this monster was made a monster, how it affects the psyche, what sort of fears it may be playing off of, etc.
To recap it would look something like this, say that the person before me chose Minotaur as their favorite monster:
monster wrote:
Scary Monster 1: Human: "Humans are fucking horrifying! They cut down trees, and dig through mountains like insects to collect materials to build their towns. And then they believe in these things called monsters. As a way to purge the earth of all races that displease their everlasting hunger for singularity. They have so many dizzying concepts and beliefs and driven to needlessly kill without eating their prey, and even to kill themselves based on concepts ideologies and beliefs. I find this monster most horrifying because of their undying sense of satisfaction and hunger, a beast that constantly 'wants'. If I see a human in game while gathering food, I am usually running away."
Scary Monster 2: Giant Spider: "Maybe something less thoughtful: I don't understand why I hate spiders, but what do I need to say? They have too many legs, they walk so weird and on all sides of the wall. Constantly and patiently waiting!"
Favorite Monster: Minotaur: Minotaur! Minotaurs are awesome, I like the greek myth and I like that it is basically a buff cow bent on killing. I think that this monster is both a classic element to all fantasy realms and as well, is just plain silly, because sometimes I think how screwed we would be if all the dairy cows suddenly were intelligent enough to use axes and kill us for -our- meat.
I would post in response:
example self wrote:
"Minotaur: In the myth, the minotaur is trapped inside a labyrinth placed there by his father, and the hero has to go into its labyrinth and kill it. When a hero enters a labyrinth, he or she is also entering a metaphor for human thought and reason, in exploration for a truth. There in the center may be indeed an answer for the hero to walk away with, but in the process the minotaur stands in his or her way, which if you look at the beast, it is merely a full man, with the head of a crazy animal, the bull. The antithesis of thought, a reckless paradigm to simply make carnage happen, to un-know oneself while traversing the avenues of one's mindscape. The linger haunt to simply be more animal than human, and destroy. The minotaur represents a figment of the unknown part of the human mind."
It doesn't necessarily matter if you're right or wrong in making claims or whatever, because the nice part about myth is that there are no wrong or right answers. It's all based on how you perceive it, and ultimately, that is what I am interested to see from you, how you internalize a monster. Therefore, don't worry if you need to repeat a monster that is already highlighted, because there are way more than one perspective why we should be afraid of these things!
So now for real, here are my two worst nightmarish monsters from the game, and my all time favorite monster:
#1 Atropal Scion: For those of you who do not know the Atropal yet, imagine an undead fetus, leaning more towards the supernatural and occult side of terror. Human belief can be extremely frightening, and those empowered with the unquestionable belief in gods, frighten me. Churches scare me. The designated area where one speaks with a higher power, and the potential truth that such a being may exist, is my ultimate thing of nightmares. The atropal scion for me, is like the well guarded secret that a cult knows their god is dead, but continue to care for it. Imagine such a cult if you will, worshiping the dead fetus of a god. In my mind's eye, this is how evangelists do. That below every major church, the failed experiment, or sample of god flesh is alive and living, crying to its believers for milk or blood. Whatever Atropal Scions would or may demand. I think it is sort of a satire of modern church today, a most horrible one, where one does not attend for 'faith' so to speak, but to nurture something that did not survive. But also should I imagine myself ever seeing such a piece of godflesh, or some experiment that intends to replicate such, I can imagine I would be scarred for life and probably go insane.
#2 Skin Kite: I don't like to imagine parts of my body coming back to destroy me. But that's what cancer does. I am a recovering hypochondriac, and I worry a lot about things slithering or growing beneath me. This can connect to the Astropal as well, in retrospect, but the skin kite is how I imagine cancer eats. Imagine just what it is, a sheet of skin that whistles blindly in the wind, and rips any other living skin it touches, or else it may die by its own withering. I just get feelings of dread when flesh is the subject I am paced against. The skin kite is basically a fast skin disease, and sometimes when your skin crawls, you can feel it trying to take flight into the air and feed off other skin. Maybe I just believe the human body is extremely violent in nature, and this goes against my consciousness to be deliberately violent, but even if one considers eating the act of eating and how we burn away flesh inside us with our acids, I can make myself sick in thinking about it. Sickness is the belly of the beast for me when regarding the skin kite. Engh.
Favorite Monster!: So for the next poster, I will pick one of my favorites the Night Hag. I like the nighthag because I associate it with great superstitious behavior, like 'don't break your mamma's dish that or the night hag will come." Also witch lore in general is just awesome. Basically Night Hags are the tradeswomen of nightmares. They embroider nightmares on your dreams. And while you sleep, they slowly turn your soul into a slug to sell in their hellish markets. It's good folk lore and fun for me. And all my characters are conscientious of possible night hag influence on any given household they may enter.
I don't really get this... Like how I'm meant to respond to this.
Also wouldn't this fit better in OT?
Right.. so take the Night Hag as you have interpreted the monster as a player or character, etc, and then post two monsters you thought were most nasty, and then your favorite monster.
The atropal scion for me, is like the well guarded secret that a cult knows their god is dead, but continue to care for it. Imagine such a cult if you will, worshiping the dead fetus of a god. In my mind's eye, this is how evangelists do. That below every major church, the failed experiment, or sample of god flesh is alive and living, crying to its believers for milk or blood. Whatever Atropal Scions would or may demand. I think it is sort of a satire of modern church today, a most horrible one, where one does not attend for 'faith' so to speak, but to nurture something that did not survive. But also should I imagine myself ever seeing such a piece of godflesh, or some experiment that intends to replicate such, I can imagine I would be scarred for life and probably go insane.
There is literally no way, as a Christian myself, I can understand what you're saying without thinking you're trying to be offensive. You speak as if you are literally, in the most horrible way, offended that I simply believe there's a God, and are horrified at my beliefs - you don't even know them. You literally only know I believe in God and Christ as the creators of the universe and Son of God. It's not like I believe in stoning people. I don't believe in sacrificing human fetuses. I don't believe in many things that, since my beliefs and my view of proper Christianity are that it is a religion of love and hope, I have to assume you think I (as a religious Christian) believe, since you're so horrified by the very notion of religion. It's not just "I don't like religious people because I don't get it", you are actually -terrified- and find your worst fears, and make analogies of worshipping and caring for horrifying undead fetus monstrosities, in my religion specifically. You mention Church and Evangelists specifically.
I have no idea what your hope was in creating this thread, and I'm not mad at you. I honestly just don't understand you and feel sorry that you feel such a way... But I don't get it. Why would you post something like that in public, when you don't know who you're talking to? It's as if I pointed at someone, spoke about their most treasured beliefs and thoughts and parts of their personality, and then tried to make it sound as untruthfully horrifying as I could, and I didn't back off for a second. I'd just lay into them, publicly, and graphically (or rather, with graphic speech). I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish.
Also, I'm not really afraid of any D&D monsters, but my favorite is probably the lich, as you can guess by my name.
Me, the most terrifying monster I can think of is not in D&D, and I think I'm glad. It's the Wendigo, due to my occasional forays into the religion of the Native Americans. That shit is -scary-.
Look it up.
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Bobo_Underhill wrote:
Ley lines, y'all. Just let me go wrangle up my cowboy boots and lasso us up some magic.
Yee-haw!
Aly'dra Zau'ana: Priestessish Of Eilistraee Danika Nefzen: Druid of the Earthmother Delia Am'Anodel: Paladin of Torm
MIsterlich..I certainly didn't interpret it as that. I think that it might have been best, if you didn't understand, to ask for clarification instead of assuming that he's tearing at your religion, pointing fingers, and making large assumptions about you as a person. What happened was a misunderstanding, and your own post was much more an attack against Aiseth than his post was to you.
This thread's pretty simple: What are your two most frightening D&D monsters!
I think Aiseth had a good point about the Skin Kite, which is also played up in movies such as The Fly (especially Cronenberg's version), Rabid (also by Cronenberg), The Manitou, It's Alive and others, where the body either rebels against itself or something disgusting/evil grows inside it. This extends to movies about infections and from there to zombie and vampire films, in which the body is defiled and becomes evil.
The Atropal Scion is interesting - I'd never heard of it before - but monsters that were actual ghosts of fetuses or something would be scarier. Yeah, like the Manor kids (those f***ing creep me out!).
The Penanggalan is another example of the dismembered body, or evil body parts, trope.
_________________ ~Sharess on AmiaWiki~ Priestess, politician, prostitute "[They] were moving in on me like Sharessans on a new broad in the bath house" - Tracer Bolt AmiaWiki mod (mostly inactive)
I love how she just stands there, looking slightly concerned XD
_________________ Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play: Salema Nefahri::A penny for your thots Zrae'a'stra'fryn::That which nightmares are made of Khasir::From the East a storm is coming
Oh. Ew. Nasty. God. I get this strangely constipated grimace on my face when they get under my skin.
Anyhow. I love mimics.
Found this strip of text from a blog upon googling the subject. I pretty much agree with it. And they are just plain cool, as well. A chest that eats the greedy adventure? That is like the true antagonist of any old-fashioned looter/adventurer!
http://stevesgamerblog.blogspot.fi wrote:
Steve's storytelling rambles: The mimic's alignment is a matter of perception that asks the DM to imagine an alien mindset and play an exceptionally intelligent creature that acts on basic core motivations different from what one might normally play (when using a highly intelligent creature, that is). When I looked over the stat block, I was at first surprised to see the mimics listed as unaligned, and tried to recall why I'd chosen that--they are pretty malicious, after all. But in the end it came down to intent and point of view. The way I conceived of the 4e mimic, their perspective is so alien that good and evil mean nothing to them. They live only to feed, and will adapt by any means necessary to do so. To a mimic, a sentient being is just another kind of animal. It's a chicken sandwich, a steak dinner, a nice juicy burger. A mimic cannot place value upon the intelligent thought of humanoid (or other) creatures. It has one group mind and can't fathom creatures with a single consciousness any better than we can comprehend the mental state of a pig or a spider. Mimics may be maligned for actions perceived as evil, but again--there is no good or evil for a mimic, there's only food. Despite their intelligence, mimics are no more "evil" than carnivorous reptiles. Impersonator mimics might play a charade with humanoid servants and minions, acting as a leader type villain, but no matter what it convinces these creatures to believe, the mimic's true intent is always to feed.
Let us not forget the masters of the far realm (Uvuudaum - because they laugh at other races need for a head or logical body structure):
Ungh, the far realm.... I love the idea of monsters that compose their body parts based off your own suppressed fears and memories: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwH9FfdSa78
Joined: 26 May 2006 Location: Down Under, calculating your demise with blunt expressions.
My favourite monster is most definitely the illithids as a race. Elder Brains, Ulitharids, the lot. Although I prefer the 3.5 ed fluff, the central theme of the illithids are the same no matter what source book you read: they have come from a very far place with the sole intention to conquer the universe and everything in it with psionics, superior technology and manipulation. whether this is in a hundred years, a thousand or ten thousand years, they will eventually win and the galaxy will be theirs. Not even the stars themselves are safe... And thats what makes this race of mind eating parasites truly scary. They are a cancer just biding their time, waiting for the right moment.
My second-most favourite monster is the Orog. They are the underdogs of the underdark races, but they are not to be underestimated: they are stronger, more industrialised and better organised then their surface orc equivalents: were they to exist on the surface in great numbers the humans would be in dire trouble.
Ungh, the far realm.... I love the idea of monsters that compose their body parts based off your own suppressed fears and memories: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwH9FfdSa78
Best kind of horror imo - distorted memories and fears manifesting into horrors too grotesque for the faint of heart. I wasn't even posting the scariest images i found of the far realm either.. (though such a concept shouldn't in a exist in realm who's physical properties are ever-shifting from primal emotions).
My favourite monster is most definitely the illithids as a race. Elder Brains, Ulitharids, the lot. Although I prefer the 3.5 ed fluff, the central theme of the illithids are the same no matter what source book you read: they have come from a very far place with the sole intention to conquer the universe and everything in it with psionics, superior technology and manipulation. whether this is in a hundred years, a thousand or ten thousand years, they will eventually win and the galaxy will be theirs. Not even the stars themselves are safe... And thats what makes this race of mind eating parasites truly scary. They are a cancer just biding their time, waiting for the right moment.
I love the 3.5 origin of the Illithids. That and their hilarious faces. Of course that's what's really terrifying about the illithids - they can just suck out your brain, if they get a hold on you. Your HPs, they do nothing. They've an intellect rivalling dragons, but the numbers, the society, and the plans to make them a far greater threat. They are the alien race. The ETI. And they really don't like anything other than themselves (well, even then, but it's all relative).
My favourite monster is most definitely the illithids as a race. Elder Brains, Ulitharids, the lot. Although I prefer the 3.5 ed fluff, the central theme of the illithids are the same no matter what source book you read: they have come from a very far place with the sole intention to conquer the universe and everything in it with psionics, superior technology and manipulation. whether this is in a hundred years, a thousand or ten thousand years, they will eventually win and the galaxy will be theirs. Not even the stars themselves are safe... And thats what makes this race of mind eating parasites truly scary. They are a cancer just biding their time, waiting for the right moment.
I love the 3.5 origin of the Illithids. That and their hilarious faces. Of course that's what's really terrifying about the illithids - they can just suck out your brain, if they get a hold on you. Your HPs, they do nothing. They've an intellect rivalling dragons, but the numbers, the society, and the plans to make them a far greater threat. They are the alien race. The ETI. And they really don't like anything other than themselves (well, even then, but it's all relative).
Not to mention they can hijack almost every creature at infancy to create a hybrid that's superior.
I'm currently DMing a tabletop where the party have stumbled in to the Elemental Plane of Earth.
XORN!
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
Without recycling previous monsters, Vaaths give me the heebies. They have the ability to telepathically share their senses/sensations. Their favorite thing to do is eat people alive, and share the taste/pleasure with the victim/party. Ugh.
Favorite monster is the vampire lord. I grew up on Stoker, Rice, Vampire Hunter D, World of Darkness (Masquerade/Requiem). It's an entire genre I just love, but I'm extremely picky. They have been pop culture icons lately and I can't express my displeasure enough. Buffy/Twilight/Diaries/ect can't be forgotten fast enough, so I don't have to be a closet vamp lover.
My favorites are everything from the far realm, simply because I've been reading and loving HPL since I was about 7 or so. I initially liked the atropal til I read the characterization of the one in the FR books and instead of terrifying it just came off as whiny and annoying. Illithid, while Cthulhu-esque are sadly, not really very alien, but are too terribly understandable to be scary to me.
My most favorite is probably the medusa, because I love her and pity her at once. Her story is tragic, and proof that the gods and heroes are utter dicks and jerks. (Seriously, look it up.)
Scariest monster? The senmurv. I didn't think it was possible for an editor to get that drunk and let it get published!
_________________ Rashad the Azure, Zakharan Merchant-lord Most Fair and Master of the Desert Wind Loremaster Tukson Devers, Oghmanyte Wrestler of Knowledge and Child of the Passive Voice
(No tells for Rashad while I'm playing other characters please.)
"No, You're worse the a simple slobbering beast. A simple slobbering beast seldom shows cunning, attempty at manipulation and use of diplomacy. No, You're a far more dangerous beast than that." ~Tuomas
Illithid, while Cthulhu-esque are sadly, not really very alien, but are too terribly understandable to be scary to me.
True that. There's not a whole lot of mystique to them. It's cool that they came from the end of time and enslaved primitive cultures, but they're not really scary. They don't even manipulate deranged human cults to save the future or to create some sempiternal realm out of time and space.
Beholders are really cool and creepy Lovecraftian things, though. A Great Mother (Ia! Eyeball with a Thousand Young!) floating in some abyssal realm, replicating endlessly to fill the multiverse with herself.
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On Joon, Kjetta wrote:
The guy that probably has sexual fantasies about masturbation. I mean, Iron, you're a bookworm nerd that even in your wildest escapism fantasies flee to the internet to play the role of another bookworm nerd? Come on!
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