Most horrifying enemies

[atemu1234]

What, in the history of your campaigns, has been the enemy or enemies that scared you, or creeped you out, or made you sick to your stomach?

Bonus points for originality.

[jaydubs]

I had a DM who homebrewed Mr. Fingers.

[atemu1234]

I had a DM who homebrewed Mr. Fingers.

Dear God, all three. Already. Constitution drain?

[jaydubs]

Dear God, all three. Already. Constitution drain?

Constitution drain on touch, plus grappling, plus reach. To demonstrate what we were dealing with without instantly killing someone, it interrupted a fight we were in, dragging three hostile NPCs screaming to their doom.

[Sith_Happens]

My party found a Deck of Many Things a few sessions ago.

[Aegis013]

A party I was in once fought something like 8 HD Advanced Drowned.

They didn't really creep me out or anything, but they did cause some anxiety when everybody started drowning in round 1.

My uber-mount style character's mount grabbed everybody and fled from the fight, narrowly avoiding TPK.

[Phelix-Mu]

A friend/DM in a multi-DM setting once homebrewed up creatures known as Primordials (major Exalted echoes, I now realize, but I don't think he was cognizant of such), basically Elder Gods that predated the gods and whom the gods had fought against and imprisoned (classic Greek mythology is classic). One of them was a being of fear and assimilation, a giant ooze-like thing (at least its outer-manifestations were like black puddings). It radiated a contagious, psychic scream/corruption that basically twisted the weak-minded (read almost everything) into its mindless, incredibly hard to damage minions, whose veins were filled with black ooze. Called Terrors, these minions could spread the condition by touch or by their screams (it wasn't a disease, either, but a mental condition or corruption of sorts...affected everything that is subject to Taint, which is nigh everything).

All of the Terrors were extensions of the thing's singular consciousness, as it's impulse, out of fear, was to draw everything into itself, making everything as it was. In significant numbers, Terrors could morph into Horrors, homebrewed monsters with custom mechanics designed to make them challenging for high-level characters to kill (shared hp-pools, spell reflection that wasn't SR-based, assimilation abilities to heal each other, scalable abilities based on HD, AoE attacks, sonic attacks, reach attacks, spell-eating, etc).

In really big numbers (post-epidemic cities, the Underdark, etc), the Terrors would morph into sentient black ooze beings that had thousands of HD and had Gundam-scale attacks capable of dealing close to 100d6 in damage if they landed a hit. Eventually the entirety of the Lower Underdark of our custom setting was flooded with the stuff, and it could penetrate up to the Upperdark with its attacks.

All of these creatures dealt some degree of Taint, usually depravity (though I later added akuma from the Rokugan stuff to spread some corruption as well). We used a pretty harsh homebrew of taint, and ran into taint well-before any of us had Purity of Soul (though late in the game pretty much everyone we knew and ourselves had retrained it or died).

Anyone slain by the Captive (that was the only name it was known by) was irrevocably absorbed into its being. The sole exception was one of the pcs, who turned out to be a kind of reject/antigen to the contagious effect of the Captive, and was spit back up after an attempted absorption (turned out to be one of the cooler characters in a campaign full of cool characters). Moreover, the only way to actually neutralize it was to sacrifice a deity to imprison it once again, as had been done back in the original war with the Primordials, sealing it back in its chamber in Carceri.

On the good side, this Captive and its absorption of most of the souls on the Prime led to the evolution of the Incarnation, another Primordial based on self-propagation, and the basis for me introducing Incarnum into my setting (as I totally dislike the default fluff for Incarnum). The Incarnation sprang into being in the vacuum formed by the disappearance of all of those beings, seeking to fill a gap in the probabilistic nature of reality on the planes, and was all that remained in the cell where the Captive had dwelt since before time was even a thing when the party finally got around to visiting Carceri, seeking a method to halt the spread of the Captive.

Great campaign. Possibly the best I was ever involved in. The Captive crept inside your mind and turned you into it. Psychological, but horrifying nonetheless.

[Monarch Dodora]

The Rukarazyll, from MM-II.



Jesus Christ, what is that thing.

[Vogonjeltz]

The Rukarazyll, from MM-II.



Jesus Christ, what is that thing.

At first I thought it was a plant because of the green color and the tendrils...undead?

[Val666]

I never fought against this crap but my epic level friend did. I was watching that fight...epic ****..Hecatoncheires.
That thing have like..100 attacks...neraly a 1000 hp and CR 57 -_-

[Threadnaught]

As a Lawful Neutral Drow Commoner trying to support a family as a farmhand on a farm owned by Gnome clergy of Garl Glittergold. I am utterly terrified that some day a CG Cleric of Correlon Larethian will descend on my home to make my wife and children suffer before killing them and inevitably coming for me.
There was enough wholesale brutality toward Drow back home, it's the whole reason I abandoned Lolth and threw myself at the first non-Drow I encountered.

My players encountered the remnants of a civilisation built around using the Tarrasque for resources. Everything about this ancient empire terryfied them, but it was the Super Soldiers that pushed them over the edge.
The empire created many abominations from the Tarrasque, which was an Eldritch Abomination itself. It's amazing what can happen when you refluff something. Also current Campaign, thank you Keith Baker, Warforged who can procreate. Just ask MetaMyconid, no he's not t*D.

[hymer]

Beholders are probably the most gut-wrenching. All those SoDs and a nifty anti-magic effect on an intelligent, flying creature.

[CrazyYanmega]

I never fought against this crap but my epic level friend did. I was watching that fight...epic ****..Hecatoncheires.
That thing have like..100 attacks...neraly a 1000 hp and CR 57 -_-

No offense, but at level 57 you should be wielding about a dozen epic spells each. Your party's druid can LITERALLY wildshape into a Tarrasque. I fail to see how such a creature could pose a challenge.

[Val666]

No offense, but at level 57 you should be wielding about a dozen epic spells each. Your party's druid can LITERALLY wildshape into a Tarrasque. I fail to see how such a creature could pose a challenge.

The fun part is..the only spellcaster in that game was a -100 level optimizer. Also, they where level...26? It was fun..

[paperarmor]

The worst things I've thrown at my players have been a dragon built to swoop down grab the players fly off and drop them again. And a Drowned with either 5 or ten swordsage levels focused on setting sun throws and shadow Hand teleports as well as a concerted attack of Mind Flayers and thier pet Balhannoths. Oh and a Dal Quor Planar Sheperd and his family of a TOB More Dakka Archer, and a summoning sorcerer.

[afroakuma]

Well, it's not me personally, but I once sent these things after my players in multiple parties. Reactions were quite satisfactory.

Standing in the space beyond the breach is a roughly humanoid figure. Skinless, you can see its musculature flexing under a thin coating of what looks to be angry red scabbing. Black bone spurs jut from its back, legs and arms at regular intervals. Where the head would be is a perfectly smooth, glassy black caul without any feature, not even eyes or a mouth. And yet, the most disconcerting feature of the thing is its hands, which appear completely limp at the wrist but otherwise entirely stiff, like some horrid mantis. These appendages have long, thin claws.

The thing stands on its talons, moving its "head" as though surveying a new world, not twitching even an inch otherwise. It reminds you of a living scab, and it distresses you.

Fro what the HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

I called it "Mr. Happy"

[Somensjev]

Well, it's not me personally, but I once sent these things after my players in multiple parties. Reactions were quite satisfactory.





I called it "Mr. Happy"

do you mind if i borrow "Mr. Happy" next time i DM?

[afroakuma]

Feel free.

[Story]

Beholders are probably the most gut-wrenching. All those SoDs and a nifty anti-magic effect on an intelligent, flying creature.

The only thing worse than a Beholder with an anti-magic cone is a Beholder without the anti-magic cone.

[atomicwaffle]

A homebrew enemy my character dubbed reapers. Our dm said these things come from another plane and as they decay and age, they replace their bodies with technology, becoming undead construct magic using fighters will all the strengths and none of the weaknesses (IE, spells that affect undead don't effect them) in order to become perfection.

One of them was a monster called Duon, that looked basically like duriel from diablo 2, except mechanical. He was 2 bodies, one a caster, one a fighter, so fighting him was like fighting a level 14 caster and a level 14 fighter. He switched forms with a move action. That was the most horrifying monster i ever faced.

The most horrifying encounter i ever had (same campaign) was a Vampire Blackguard on a Beholder Mount (i'm not even freaking kidding about this). We won that fight, but died right after it (it was only the warmup, and we were already low on spells. We then proceeded to fight a group of vampires, 2 equivalents of Soul Edge (one of which could wield itself as a blue glowing figure). I was the highest level, a cleric3/wizard3/mystic theurge 9. And 3/4 of my spells were exhausted. Campaign ended after that.

What i PERSONALLY think is the most horrifying enemy is either a Chaos Beast or a Blue Slaad.

[CrazyYanmega]

Fihrs freak me out. Never have encountered one though.

[jaydubs]

Here's a second one that's not original at all. It's weird, because it feels like half the players I talk to just find them ridiculous or silly. But I've been creeped out by the various oozes ever since I saw The Blob at far too young an age.

Compare:

[Coidzor]

Meenlocks can be pretty creepy when played up in the right way. And at the levels one encounters them as appropriate enemies, well... unless you luck out or know exactly where to look, the DM may accidentally TPK before you even run into them if they don't hold back.

[Thurbane]

My group always has a bad reaction to aberrations, particularly Grick for some reason.

Spoiler

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For myself, the Plaguewalker probably wins the "ewwww" award...

Spoiler

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[atemu1234]

I'll upload one of my own. I took the Tauric template, stuck it onto a lizardfolk and a max-advanced legendary snake. The result was supposed to be CR 14. I ran it through vorpal tribble's calculator, I got CR 23. I wanted a bad guy, I got something yuan-ti abominations pray to.

[Telonius]

That Mephit. That bloody, stupid Mephit.

It was about the second time our group had played D&D at all, so none of us had acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules, and we all blew our Knowledge checks. Nobody knew that the Mephit had fast healing. We kept knocking the thing into negatives. It would wait awhile - even played dead a couple of times - then came back to stab us in the back at opportune moments. Such as trying to climb the shear cliff face ...

DM: "You see a familiar face at the top of the cliff. He looks wickedly at the grappling hook."
Us: "Oh gods, no, NOT HIM AGAIN!"

[Segev]

Nobody knew that the Mephit had fast healing. We kept knocking the thing into negatives. It would wait awhile - even played dead a couple of times - then came back to stab us in the back at opportune moments.

This is why adventureres coup-de-grace their fallen foes.

[Telonius]

Yeah, we finally graduated to real adventurers when we killed it for good. "If at first it doesn't die, add more fire."

[Dr. Cliché]

Yeah, we finally graduated to real adventurers when we killed it for good. "If at first it doesn't die, add more fire."

And remember: if fire isn't working, you're obviously not using enough fire.

[illyahr]

Spoiler

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A friend/DM in a multi-DM setting once homebrewed up creatures known as Primordials (major Exalted echoes, I now realize, but I don't think he was cognizant of such), basically Elder Gods that predated the gods and whom the gods had fought against and imprisoned (classic Greek mythology is classic). One of them was a being of fear and assimilation, a giant ooze-like thing (at least its outer-manifestations were like black puddings). It radiated a contagious, psychic scream/corruption that basically twisted the weak-minded (read almost everything) into its mindless, incredibly hard to damage minions, whose veins were filled with black ooze. Called Terrors, these minions could spread the condition by touch or by their screams (it wasn't a disease, either, but a mental condition or corruption of sorts...affected everything that is subject to Taint, which is nigh everything).

All of the Terrors were extensions of the thing's singular consciousness, as it's impulse, out of fear, was to draw everything into itself, making everything as it was. In significant numbers, Terrors could morph into Horrors, homebrewed monsters with custom mechanics designed to make them challenging for high-level characters to kill (shared hp-pools, spell reflection that wasn't SR-based, assimilation abilities to heal each other, scalable abilities based on HD, AoE attacks, sonic attacks, reach attacks, spell-eating, etc).

In really big numbers (post-epidemic cities, the Underdark, etc), the Terrors would morph into sentient black ooze beings that had thousands of HD and had Gundam-scale attacks capable of dealing close to 100d6 in damage if they landed a hit. Eventually the entirety of the Lower Underdark of our custom setting was flooded with the stuff, and it could penetrate up to the Upperdark with its attacks.

All of these creatures dealt some degree of Taint, usually depravity (though I later added akuma from the Rokugan stuff to spread some corruption as well). We used a pretty harsh homebrew of taint, and ran into taint well-before any of us had Purity of Soul (though late in the game pretty much everyone we knew and ourselves had retrained it or died).

Anyone slain by the Captive (that was the only name it was known by) was irrevocably absorbed into its being. The sole exception was one of the pcs, who turned out to be a kind of reject/antigen to the contagious effect of the Captive, and was spit back up after an attempted absorption (turned out to be one of the cooler characters in a campaign full of cool characters). Moreover, the only way to actually neutralize it was to sacrifice a deity to imprison it once again, as had been done back in the original war with the Primordials, sealing it back in its chamber in Carceri.

On the good side, this Captive and its absorption of most of the souls on the Prime led to the evolution of the Incarnation, another Primordial based on self-propagation, and the basis for me introducing Incarnum into my setting (as I totally dislike the default fluff for Incarnum). The Incarnation sprang into being in the vacuum formed by the disappearance of all of those beings, seeking to fill a gap in the probabilistic nature of reality on the planes, and was all that remained in the cell where the Captive had dwelt since before time was even a thing when the party finally got around to visiting Carceri, seeking a method to halt the spread of the Captive.

Great campaign. Possibly the best I was ever involved in. The Captive crept inside your mind and turned you into it. Psychological, but horrifying nonetheless.

You mean slivers that turn other people into slivers?