Only 10 types of monsters

[Yora]

Saw the question somewhere else, and I think it's an interesting one. If you had a fantasy world with only 10 fantastic creatures, which one would you pick? Humanoid races like elves and dwarves not counted and maybe also giving a pass to orcs and goblins and the like, but ogres would already count to the limit.

1. Troll (ogre-like)
2. Worg
3. Giant Spider
4. Wyvern
5. Fish-people (Kuo-toa, Deep Ones, Murlocs, ...)
6. Ghoul
7. Nature Spirits in Animal Form
8. Dryad/Spriggan
9. Treant
10. Elementals (I count these as one)

[Eldan]

To be honest, I'd start by discarding most humanoid things and go for alien. Also, no purely dumb brutes or things that are basically bigger, stronger animals. I can kind plenty of weird, fantastical animals right here on earth.

Shapeshifters. Not a specific kind, though I'd probably call them Rakshasa. Nothing works better to induce paranoia in players.

Dragons. Cliché, I know, but want them. Played not as monsters, but as incredibly ancient, wise, cunning and brutal creatures of the elements.

Fey. In the Sidhe/fair folk sense. They can take any number of roles from pact magic patrons to tempters to muses to otherworldly predators.

Some kind of intelligent undead. I don't care much if they are ghouls, wights, wraiths, vampires. Preferably corporeal, though, and still looking like the person it used to be. Something that died, and then changed into something that looks human, but isn't. Played for creepiness. There can be tragedy, but it's tragic for everyone else, not the vampire.

Nature spirits/elementals. I love the animistic/shamanistic idea of having spirits for every rock, tree, household item, river, pond and gust of wind and that you can weave magic by befriending or angering those spirits.

Golems are an exception to the no dumb brutes rule. They don't have to be walking clay statues, but just something that is fashioned and then given a limited Anima by mages.


That's six, and already I'm not quite that sure what else to include. I'll add a general "terror from the depths of the sea" and "terror from the depths of the earth" to the list.

[awa]

personally I agree if I’m limiting the number of supernatural creatures I don’t need to waste time with a half dozen knock off humans.

Now what creatures i would pick would depend a great deal on the kind of setting I was trying to create but for a hypothetical low level fantasy setting.

1) Some kind of degenerate cannibal humans (grimlock, reflufed orc) can be used as raiders by the evil overlord
2) ogres or troll used as heavy infantry of evil overlord and wandering monsters in mountains
3) giant spiders for lurking in abandon ruins, lost jungles, swamps ect, as some kind of neutral dangerous hazard.
4) doppelgangers as elite assassins for evil overlord
5) wyverns for evil officers to ride
6) giant owls as interesting non human sentient make them neutral play up their inhuman nature
7) animated objects used as weaker golems in all shapes and sizes
8) shadows for lurking in areas tainted by evil magic make them vulnurable to fire so mundane charecters can hold them off with torches
9) assassin vines to go along with the giant spiders and cannibals in making deadly jungles and swamps
10) naga for swamps and jungles play up their alien nature

[RufusCorvus]

1. Dragons, though more along the lines of fire-breathing wyverns.
2. Golems. I prefer them to be more like Warforged, though.
3. Undead, specifically zombies/skeletons, wraiths, liches, and vampires, despite how played out they've become.
4. Sahuagin, for that Deep One flavor.
5. Illithids, because they're Illithids.
6. Insectoid race, along the lines of Formians or Thri-Kreens.
7. Faeries, in the Fair Folk sense, for basically the same reasons as Eldan.
8. Elementals, for the extraplanar-ness.

I'm having a hard time rounding out the last two. The eight above is enough for me to make a setting with... which I am, in fact, doing. If I really wanted to round it out for the setting, I'd go with

9. Goblins
10. Bugbears

but I'm guessing at least Goblins are getting a free pass. I'll have to think about the last two.

[Xefas]

1) Devils
2) Demons
3) Yugoloths
4) Demodands
5) Assorted Other Fiends

It's 'Blood War: The Game'!

[ShadowFireLance]

1) Dragons [Played as The Super Beings]
2) Half-Dragons.
3) Wyrvens
4)Dragonborn
5)Dragonspawn
6, 8,9,10) Any other Dragon thing Im forgetting
7)Lizardfolk things.

[Blightedmarsh]

1) Dragons
2) Gobliniods
3) Animal men
4) Faries
5) Alfar (Insane elf god equivalents)
6) Giants (Norse god variety)
7) Undead
8) Trolls
9) Dijn
10) Celestials

[hierophant]

Ooooh, I've never given this too much thought, so this is a rough draft:

1) Spirits (Pretty much limited to mind control, no actual physical presence)
2) Elementals (Polar opposite - purely physical, no minds or emotions)
3) Shapeshifters (stolen from above)
4) Energy beings (angels/demons/aliens... you decide! have a physical presence, but very difficult to interact with or understand)
5) Ooze/slime/fungus creatures
6) Parasitic creature of some sort (brain worms, bodysnatchers, whatever). Maybe it can mutate the host, maybe it can't.
7) Pre-human "elder" race (for bonus points, they're less developed than humanity. And ugly.)
8) Megafauna - dinosaurs, carnivorous kangaroos, mammoths, or all of the above and more
9) Something small, adorable, and viciously bloodthirsty. Gremlins, perhaps.
10) Virtues/ideas/dreams given form by mass belief. Clap your hands if you believe!

[willpell]

Dragons for sure. Also definitely doppelgangers, mind flayers, nymphs/dryads/satyrs, treants, and undead of all sorts (particularly ghosts, which are undead unless you're using Ghostwalk, which I like to do). I could probably live without the titular Elementals, but I would definitely want some of the more interesting quasi-elementals, such as Tojanida and Thoqqua. Also some of the more classic magical beasts. I would definitely keep the Hydra, almost certainly drop the Chimera, and not hesitate one second to leave out Blink Dogs and Displacer Beasts. I like yuan-ti and vampires, but could lump their narrative roles into doppelgangers and mind flayers while staying much closer to those on the mechanical side.

Would angels (archons) / devils / demons / fey (eladrins) count as one type or four? I don't hesitate to lump the various nature-fey together because they're just one creature each, but this is four entire slews of beasties with different stats but a common theme each, so I could go either way. I could leave out the Guardinals, Yugoloths, Slaad, and whichever of the various Lawful ones I'd prefer (it's probably a toss-up between Inevitables and Modrons, even if Formians are a better mirror for Slaadi, but both of the two are actually Constructs rather than Outsiders which has always bugged me). If I can get them on one pick I would, otherwise they're too much wasted space.

[Eldan]

For outsiders, I'm really not sure which set I'd like most. I mean, I'd probably say Baatezu, Yugoloth, Eladrin, Modron and Slaad, but that just leaves out an entire corner of the alignment system.

[FallenEco]

This is a very interesting topic. Very tricky...

Anyway, my contribution:

1. Rakasha
2. Ghosts
3. Elementals
4. Beholder
5. Tanar'ri
6. Fomarion
7. Ent
8. Landwyrm (Wingless dragons)
9. Trolls
10. Deep Ones

[Owrtho]

Well, at first I was going to make a list of things like dragons, sea monsters, etc., but then I realized I was going about it all wrong. As such I present my list below. Like others, I'm grouping things into general groups.

• Mimics (all types)
• Things that pretend to be plants/people/animals (Doppelgangers, Avolakia, Shriekers, Topiary Guardians, Orcworts, Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothings, Vampire Roses, Tumbling mounds, Skiurids, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be natural things (Gelatinous Cube, Bowlers, Trosips, Bubbles, Elementals)
• Things that pretend to be furniture (Sheet phantoms, Death linens, Cushion Fungus, Sheet Fungus, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be places you enter (Trappers, Lurker Aboves, Piercers, Bi-nou, Ropers, Cloakers, Stun Jellies, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be things you wear (Raggamoffyns, Raiments, Executioner's Hoods,)
• Things that pretend to be things you use (Xavers, Animated items, Lock Lurkers, Spanners, Feeders, Gohei P'oh, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be things you keep things in (Bags of Devouring, Peltasts, Palimpsests, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be things you cast (living spells, which all spells would have a 1 in 6 chance of becoming a hostile one instead of properly being cast)
• Things that pretend to be things you would exchange for other things, that quite honestly given the list above are most likely things just pretending to be the thing you actually want (hoard scarabs, etc.)

Really, there are far more, but I don't have time to track down all the creatures at the moment. Anyway, in addition to the above, and fire started would have a chance of being a hostile fire elemental, and at least one of the players would actually be a monster in disguise hiding its nature from the party with plans to eventually betray and kill them.

Owrtho

[Dust Bunny]

Interesting. I categorize my monsters a little differently, so I may end up with less than 10, or more.

1. Mooks/Cannon fodder. This is where I would place any creature that can attack en mass, and be defeated en mass. Skeletons, kobolds, run-of-the-mill zombies, and the like.
2. Solo Aggravations: think Gollum from Hobbit/LotR. For monsters that are trouble, but might be more useful alive than dead. (I try to make these unique to the campaign if I use them at all.)
3. Mook Champions. Mooks with character advancement/experience points. Hobgoblins, Goblins with spell abilities, what have you.
4. "Danger Team/OpFor": A bad-guy team, roughly on par with the PCs. Could be anything from the Linear Guild to Tarkin and his vast armies.
5. Boss Villains. The Big Bad. Usually a singular monster, frequenly (but not always) in charge of a Mook Army. I try to make sure my Boss Villains are quite familiar with the Evil Overlord list, so they don't do anything terribly foolish. Powerful giants, Elemental Lords, powerful Fae ... or whatever floats the boat and fits the setting.
6. Nameless Horrors. Cannot be reasoned with, cannot be defeated in straight combat. Usually must be dealt with by a MacGuffin. Boss Villains sometimes summon these, but Nameless Horrors are not usually the Boss Villain.
7. Large and in Charge. This is where I keep dragons, greater demons, irate Deities, and corporate lawyers. No, I don't care how good your party is, you will probably end up as hors d'oevers. (I know that's probably mis-spelled, but when the Large and in Charge Monster is picking the last remnants of your seared and crunchy corpse out of its teeth, you won't be too concerned with proper spelling.)

[Seharvepernfan]

Interesting. If I get dwarves, elves, gnomes, hobgoblins, and orcs, then the following list is what I would choose. It would be nice to have gnolls, kobolds, and maybe lizardfolk as well, but I wouldn't make them one of my ten.

1. Dragons

Several reasons - many different types still count as "dragons" - so we have variety. The classic D&D monster, powerful, intelligent, likes to live in dungeons. Everybody knows and loves them. I get half-dragons with them.

2. Giants

Bigger, stronger people than orcs and hobgoblins (and therefore some combat variety), and similar to dragons; there are many different types that still count as "giants" - if we get ogres and trolls added to that, then great.

3. Sahuagin

I want aquatic people that live on the continental shelves and in the seas. They don't all need to be evil, and they don't all need to look the same, but there needs to be something in the blue parts of the map besides certain giants, dragons, and animals, and I'd prefer if it was intelligent humanoids - something that can raid out of the sea en masse.

4. Beholders

A classic, scary, dangerous, and interesting monster that inhabits the underworld. It flies, uses spells, is unpredictable and alien. Cool looking too.

5. Fiends

If that's too specific, I'd choose demons. If that's too specific, then just a race of red skinned, winged, clawed, fanged, intelligent, evil, magical & magic-using, powerful, regenerating, immortal people-shaped creatures that inhabit "hell" - a different plane. I'd go with large sized over medium. I get half-fiends with it. It's good to have beings that are completely dedicated to evil, but can't just be wiped out like orcs can.

6. Living Spells

Some sort of unintelligent/barely-intelligent shapeless moving elemental/magic energy. It can fill a lot of roles, and it's interesting and thematic.

7. Golems

It's somewhat redundant with giants, IMO, but I find them fun to imagine. The hardest to actually physically hurt. Can't be reasoned/bargained with, can't be fooled, implacable, immortal (so to speak).

8. Ghosts

Can be applied to nearly everything, has powers of its own, can exist nearly anywhere, has the unique ability to move through and be unharmed by matter. Gives a reason to have a third plane of existence - the ethereal. Can possess living creatures. Can cast spells. Can fight with ghost-touch weapons or energy draining touch.

9. Aranea

Intelligent, shapeshifting humanoid spiders. They can make and shoot webs, have poison, can climb especially well. These can cover monstrous spiders and drow, and possibly dopplegangers. Might as well cover the vampire roll as well. Young ones could be smaller spiders, and babies could form swarms. You could even advance them into large size if you needed bigger ones.

10. Purple Worm

Not the best last-choice, but I honestly can't think of anything better. Anyway, a gigantic, burrowing, swallow-you-whole, poisonous worm with a really scary bite attack. I think I would put them in deserts. There is no reason for there not to be young versions that are smaller. The point here is the size (gargantuan) and the fact that they burrow and attack from the earth.



With animals, you can have normals, ice-age dires, dinosaurs could even count, swarms, and half-dragons/fiends. With druids, you can have "intelligent" animals and plants. With elves (particularly elves with classes like beguiler/bard/druid) you basically have fey. Living spells can imitate elementals pretty well.

[willpell]

Originally Posted by Owrtho

• Mimics (all types)
• Things that pretend to be plants/people/animals (Doppelgangers, Avolakia, Shriekers, Topiary Guardians, Orcworts, Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothings, Vampire Roses, Tumbling mounds, Skiurids, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be natural things (Gelatinous Cube, Bowlers, Trosips, Bubbles, Elementals)
• Things that pretend to be furniture (Sheet phantoms, Death linens, Cushion Fungus, Sheet Fungus, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be places you enter (Trappers, Lurker Aboves, Piercers, Bi-nou, Ropers, Cloakers, Stun Jellies, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be things you wear (Raggamoffyns, Raiments, Executioner's Hoods,)
• Things that pretend to be things you use (Xavers, Animated items, Lock Lurkers, Spanners, Feeders, Gohei P'oh, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be things you keep things in (Bags of Devouring, Peltasts, Palimpsests, etc.)
• Things that pretend to be things you cast (living spells, which all spells would have a 1 in 6 chance of becoming a hostile one instead of properly being cast)
• Things that pretend to be things you would exchange for other things, that quite honestly given the list above are most likely things just pretending to be the thing you actually want (hoard scarabs, etc.)

Yow. All of these are precisely what I am strongly inclined to leave out. "Gotcha"-ing the players is fun the first few times, but when the game slows to a crawl because they refuse to touch anything until after it's been Detected for twelve solid (IG and OOG) minutes to make sure it won't eat their face, the appeal is quickly gone. I'd rather not give the players a reason to adopt that mentality in the first place.

Originally Posted by Dust Bunny

2. Solo Aggravations: think Gollum from Hobbit/LotR. For monsters that are trouble, but might be more useful alive than dead. (I try to make these unique to the campaign if I use them at all.)

I would love to hear some examples of these.

I try to make sure my Boss Villains are quite familiar with the Evil Overlord list, so they don't do anything terribly foolish.

Same here. Genre-savvy villains are terrifying; ones that wear the black hat and play it straight are so cliche as to barely even be entertaining anymore.

powerful Fae

YES.

[Seharvepernfan]

Yora, if you created a world with only 10 types of monsters, would you count templates? How about different types of the same creature (like fire and frost giants)?

[Amaril]

My top 4 list (I couldn't make it to 10):

1--Dragons, a la ancient, godlike super-creatures. I like the Dark Souls or Elder Scrolls styles in particular.

2--Lycanthropes.

3--Giants, as in bestial creatures that in no way resemble humans, like something out of A Song of Ice and Fire.

4--Sapient, non-evil undead, in the style of Sethra Lavode from the works of Steven Brust.

[Rajion]

I have to make this note: I find Elves to be just as monstrous as any other race. In all campaigns I have run, these are the mythical creatures tend to be. After that is the role they tend to play.

1) Orcs, humans who have not repented for original sin
2) Elves, humans without original sin
3) Ghosts, souls which refuse to pass on
4) Zombies/Skeletons/Mummies, bodies which refuse to pass on
5) Wyverns, dragons who had their magic stripped by elves. Yeah, I dislike the classic dragon (and most dungeons, for that matter)
6) Treants, the sentient force of nature
7) Vampires, humans which have striven for immortality and almost succeeded
8) Lycanthropes, creatures of lust
9) Warforged, the heirs to the next world
10) Angels/Demons, those who have forsaken the world yet look back longingly

[Wyntonian]

Hm. Interesting question.

Humans and a few close relatives. So, Goliaths, halflings, maybe gnomes, but not elves, dwarves or orcs.

Giants. Ranging from "herp derp boldur clerb hit" to "Giant badass men and women of the northern mountains that taught the Vallheimers the secrets of Runic magic"

Fey. From little flower sprites to ancient kings of the wood, I love them.

Elementals of various sorts. More of the land-spirit type than the traditional "Giant ball of fire with legs" type. The river spirit, mountain spirit, plains wind spirit, whatever, made manifest.

Self-directed undead. Haunting ghosts, necropolitans, people who can't seem to catch the hang of the whole dying business, etc.

Externally-directed undead. People who died all the way and came back. Whether this is a great hero called back to his body to defend his homeland or a poor confused soul patched into a rotting corpse not their own, dead people who came back for someone else.

Greater/Ascended natural creatures. Like, Ents (Treants are dead to me), Giant Owls, Dire Wolves, etc. Also includes magical beasts, but not ones utterly alien to their "base" creature. So, Giant Owls, Dire Bears, not owlbears.

Lycanthropes. They're a little overdone, but fun.

People Gone Wrong. This covers people driven violently insane by ripples in the magic of the world, people who looked a little too long into the abyss, people magically dominated so brutally that they can't recover, etc.

Golems. Whether Warforged or barely-animated blobs of clay, I like them.

[akma]

I actully have a setting with less then 10 monsters in it. Also no other races other then humans. I did it becuse I wanted to emphasize the aridness of the world, and to make it that humans would be the villains.

Here are the monsters in the setting:

Spoiler

1. Indestructable shapeshifters - they exiled the humans to the underground, and now they live on the ground. They cannot be killed, but they are not gods.

2. Light elementenels - they are summoned/created by magic and are binded to objects, to serve as artificial and permenent light. They change their colour every few hours, which is used to measure time.

3. Earth elementenels - very similiar to regular earth elementenels mechanically. Live underground, not in a diffrent plane. Their existence in the setting isn`t much justified, I should probably fix that as I don`t want to remove them.

4. Sanity eaters - Not resembling Cthulu in any way. They eat sanity so they won`t become insane, but they cause specific type of insanity - I find the idea of "roll 1d6 to determine what mental illness you got" a bit silly. Ghosts of them cannot eat directly, so they make deals with people - the ghosts get sanity, the people get magical powers. Mechanically, the people who do those deals are clerics (There are no gods in the setting). It`s likely that I`ll decide that no sanity eater can eat directly, and that they must make deals.

5. Tube people (I think I found a better name for them, but I forgot it) - they resemble humans, but they have tubes on their skin - most of them are their veins and arteries. They can produce diffrent kinds of liquids (acid, sleeping drug, flammable liquids...) and often use it to augument their claws. They are servents of the fountain, which is the only naturel source of water left on the world. The water in the fountain is not magical. Most humans get water by stealing it magically from the fountain - opening a portal to somewhere inside the fountain. The tube people want to find those responsible and avenge in the name of the fountain.

6. Some kind of assasins serving the fountain, making sure no one gets near. The whole fountain as an abstract villain breaks a bit the "humans are the villains" rule, I might give up on them and the tube people.

7. Some kind of monster roaming the ground besides the shapeshifters, attacking humans trying to travel the ground. My original vision was undead, but it seems cliched.

8. Undead, as there is a secret necromancer organisation, and they fit very well with the theme of a certain city. In this setting, Clerics don`t have special powers against undead (that idea in general bugs me a bit).

There are a few monsters I consider adding and some which I might remove from the list, so I might end up with more then 10 monsters in the setting, and I might end up with less then 5.

I think the correct way to do this is emphasize the roles those creatures would have to fill, instead of how cool you think they are (although I admit, that usually when I think of an idea I like I find an excuse to include it in some setting). It depends a lot on the feel you want to have in the world - if you want the players to fill paranoid, it would make sense to have a shapeshifting creature, an illusionist, a brain washer, etc. If you want the players to feel endangered, you could use only giant monsters with a high CR. If you want sentience to be unique, you can have all/almost all monsters be unintelegent beasts.

[Thinker]

My list would be:

1. Fair folk
2. Animal spirits
3. Animals
4. Jinn
5. Giants
6. Wraiths (including vampires, ghouls, etc.)
7. Nymphs (dryads, naiads, etc.)
8. Witches
9. Monstrous bugs
10. Dragons

[Ranting DM]

This is a really interesting thread. I haven't numbered these, and it's only nine, but here goes.

Dragons: dragons with variety. Give me wurms, wyverns, couatls, and lung! Reject the European four-legged-bat-winged-energy-breathing dragon paradigm!

Homunculi: in my opinion, small constructs are far more useful/cooler/creepier than big ones. Would you prefer to face a lumbering clay brute or a horde of tiny, mindless, relentless little gingerbread men with poison daggers who don't give a d-- if one of them falls, they just keep coming? (See the Gingerbread Golem under Looking for the Gaming Articles? on the sidebar.)

Fey: fey who don't fit into the alignment system. They are neither lawful, chaotic, good, nor evil. They are bacon or necktie (see tvtropes.org; search for Blue and Orange Morality). They include elves, goblins, even a few giants. Check out Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett.

Rakshasa: Benefit One: they are shapechangers. Benefit Two: they are cats. Benefit Three: they cast spells. Benefit Four: they are pure evil.

Lizardy people: preferably, these would be saurials (when you search for these, you're looking for the "Lords of the Lost Vale" article on Wizards.com), but really just any scaly, sharptoothed, clawed, tailed species who have a ectothermic oviviparous view on life.

Ghosts/spectres/wraiths: corporeal undead aren't very scary unless they transmit their undeadness, and vampires are overused. I much prefer undead that are hard to hurt, but have a purpose for being about after they're dead. And they can also be tragic characters.

Living spells: can take over the elemental role, but really, think about it. PCs could take out the spellcaster, but if there's an animate spell spell or something, the fireball would keep recasting. Living spells are really useful. Even a living illusion would be good; it could produce all the "hollow child/fake mother/whatever" storylines. And yes, I would make sure that animate spell is targeted so you can't make a living animate spell.

Something that could take over the outsider role: ordinary people whose devotion to a concept or force of nature or whatever turns them into entirely new beings. That would add some really interesting dimensions: if you kill a devil, you're killing something that was once a person. And angels, while good and all that, are still creepy because they've grown to be above people. (Can you tell I like creatures that are a bit unnerving? Oh, and I hate the Great Wheel. Personally, I only need five planes: Material, Ethereal, Faerie, Dream (can take over aspects of Shadow), and the Far Realm.)

Spirits: not ghosts, but land spirits, etc. Animism is a pretty intriguing belief, and making that belief reality could have some really interesting implications.

[Eldan]

Well, Pratchett's Lords and Ladies are pretty clearly Chaotic Evil.

[Ranting DM]

Actually, Eldan, the Lords and Ladies don't have time for Chaotic Evil. As I stand, they're just uncaring. Chaotic Evil, at least in my mind, requires that you take some perverse delight in crushing civilization/the Muggles/etc. I always got the sense that the Lords and Ladies didn't notice that they were doing this, or, if they did, they didn't notice that it had a detrimental effect.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Originally Posted by Ranting DM

Actually, Eldan, the Lords and Ladies don't have time for Chaotic Evil. As I stand, they're just uncaring. Chaotic Evil, at least in my mind, requires that you take some perverse delight in crushing civilization/the Muggles/etc. I always got the sense that the Lords and Ladies didn't notice that they were doing this, or, if they did, they didn't notice that it had a detrimental effect.

That's only when they're described by people under the effects of glamour. "Oh, she didn't mean to do that, she's just so perfect compared to us that she didn't understand that it would kill him. It's really our fault for being such fragile, flawed mortals."

And when you listen to someone talk about them like that, look at their eyes. Anyone who describes the beauty of the fey still has deep, consuming fear in their eyes. The glamour is only effective because it presents a pleasant, tragic alternative to the horror that we behold. We cling desperately to the lie because we are so terrified of the alternative, it's hardly magic at all.

Hold an iron nail tight and you'll see them as the true sadists they are. They love watching other people suffering. They are pleased by the fear they provoke. They always leave the majority of their victims alive because we're more entertaining that way.

[Ranting DM]

Originally Posted by Thomar_of_Uointer

That's only when they're described by people under the effects of glamour. "Oh, she didn't mean to do that, she's just so perfect compared to us that she didn't understand that it would kill him. It's really our fault for being such fragile, flawed mortals."

And when you listen to someone talk about them like that, look at their eyes. Anyone who describes the beauty of the fey still has deep, consuming fear in their eyes. The glamour is only effective because it presents a pleasant, tragic alternative to the horror that we behold. We cling desperately to the lie because we are so terrified of the alternative, it's hardly magic at all.

Hold an iron nail tight and you'll see them as the true sadists they are. They love watching other people suffering. They are pleased by the fear they provoke. They always leave the majority of their victims alive because we're more entertaining that way.

Well, darn you, Thomar! You just wrecked my perception of the fey ... no, wait, you didn't. I admit that I was wrong about the Lords and Ladies. They are Chaotic Evil, and I need to go surround myself with iron objects for a while rereading Lords and Ladies. But, there are some fey who are truly uncaring. They're the nice ones.

[MichaelGoldclaw]

1.Dragons (and the types that are descendants)
2. Celestials (and the types that are descendants)
3. Demonic (and the types that are descendants)
4. Kolbobs
5. Dragonborn
6. Dragonnels (hybrid between a horse and dragon)
7. Elementals (mainly elemental drakes)
8. Wyvers
9. Landwyrms
10. Things created by magic (i.e. undead)

[Razanir]

Races/Monsters I used in a campaign I'm writing

Humanoid races that don't count toward the limit

1. Humans and similar (includes halflings)
2. Dwarves and similar (includes duergar)
3. Dark elves (oddly enough, I didn't use normal elves)
4. Genasi

Ones that actually count toward my 10

1. Merfolk
2. Undead, mindless
3. Undead, sentient (specifically a lich)
4. Unbodied
5. Dragons and similar (includes kobolds)
6. Golems
7. Giants (specifically of a brutish sort)
8. Overgrown animals (Namely a giant spider based off Shelob)
9. Elementals

[Tvtyrant]

Originally Posted by Yora

Saw the question somewhere else, and I think it's an interesting one. If you had a fantasy world with only 10 fantastic creatures, which one would you pick? Humanoid races like elves and dwarves not counted and maybe also giving a pass to orcs and goblins and the like, but ogres would already count to the limit.

1. Troll (ogre-like)
2. Worg
3. Giant Spider
4. Wyvern
5. Fish-people (Kuo-toa, Deep Ones, Murlocs, ...)
6. Ghoul
7. Nature Spirits in Animal Form
8. Dryad/Spriggan
9. Treant
10. Elementals (I count these as one)

Why giant spiders if I may ask?

Mine:

10 monsters:

1. Aboleth
2. Malebranch
3. Malephant
4. Hollyphant
5. Ethergaunts
6. Archons
7. Selkie
8. Grell
9. Century Worms
10. Yuan-ti

Humanoids:

1. Dwarves
2. Merfolk
3. Humans

[artofregicide]

Ironically, I was just working on a campaign setting along these lines:

(These are pretty much homebrew, so forgive me.)

1) Talking, sentient and magical horses/ponies: This includes Unicorns, Pegasuses, Alicorns, and such related mythic equines, as well as a large variety of "normal" talking, sentinet, magical horses/ponies. The vast majority of civilization is made up of these creatures.

This is the only PC race.

2) Fae: Take the role of elves, nature spirits, and obviously they fae themselves. Ageless and arcane creatures, many fae are bound to a certain location and a certain element. Others are mischievous wanderers. None of them are less than terrifying.

3) Emotion Elementals: Instead of a physical element, these personify and attempt to spread a certain emotion. Regardless of if the emotion is positive or negative, their overwhelming power tends to be bad news (negative is worse news, usually). They take a physical form which reflects their nature.

4) Trolls: Ancient creatures, seemingly hew from the rock itself, these lumbering and usually good natured (albeit dim-witted) giants take the appearance of their home, from which they rarely stray. Beach trolls tend to be covered in seashells, seaweed, and seaglass. Forest trolls could be mistaken for Ents or Treemen.

5) Psuedodragons: Tiny, intelligent, and colorful creatures, whose shape mimics that of a mythical Dragon. These creatures are size tiny to small, and mesh well with society at large. Whilst not naturally magical, they do have an unique understanding of magic though they rarely are able to use it.

6) Undead: Both intelligent and unintelligent, corporeal and incorporeal. Not certain how a horse-vampire would work, but it'd either be terrifying, hilarious, or both.

7) Intelligent beasts: all mundane animals (outside of ponies) have an intelligence between 5-8, allowing some the ability to understand speech, though not speak it. Some creatures, such as bears, wolves, and badgers have created primitive tribes (SEE YETI).

8) Changelings: shapeshifters of some sort, not entirely certain about their nature, just that I want something with that ability.

9) Yeti: Less primitive than they appear, these reclusive creatures tend to avoid civilization, but are not anti-social. They often move in packs, with a large dominion of lesser beasts in tow. Yeti children are larger than full grown man, and Yetis never stop growing until they die. Yetis live a very, very long time.

10) Something along the lines of a clockwork/warforged civilization, entirely autonomous, and probably at odds with the Equine Empire. Much like stereotypical dwarves, they hoard precious minerals and gems, but not out of greed. Instead, they need these materials to maintain their race, which reproduces by replication, and slowly wears down until it needs replacements.

(If it isn't obvious, this is heavily inspired by/drawn from MLP. While not a big fan myself, my group is 4 women + a brony. So I'm making a pony campaign for them. But also trying not to just rip off the show...)