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Old Dragon Joined: 30 Aug 2007 Posts: 577

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The 10 Most Evil (to Players) D&D Monsters
Posted at 5:03 AM Dec 03, 2008
By Teague Bohlen

Dungeons & Dragons is all about killing things, really. Oh, sure, you amass wealth, but ultimately that's just to buy better stuff to kill things with. And yeah, you go up in levels, but that's ultimately so you can just kill cooler stuff. So the beasties are key.

But sometimes the DM is just plain out to get you. Maybe he's bored, maybe he just wants to exert some power, or maybe he's pissed that you took that last slice of the meat-lovers pizza. So instead of going up against something heroic with your fighter, cleric, magic-user, or thief? You get something that has more to do with humiliation than adventuring. Sort of the difference between the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of the Network Stars. Ah yes...here be monsters...of the screw-you sort.

10) Mimic

Ah, the classics never get old. That is, until your party suspects every inanimate object that gets a little too much flavor text as being a mimic, and proceeds to not only stay away from it, but destroy it from distance. All this to prevent getting punched in the face by what amounts to a D&D Shmoo.

9) Bag of Devouring

It looks like a bag of holding. Score! But alas, it's not--it's a bag of devouring, which means that all your stuff you just put in there? Burp. This was once thought to be just a simple--if destructive--magic-item, but was revealed in Dragon Magazine to be a feeding orifice of an extra-planar being. I guess the consolation prize is the realization that it could have been the exit-only sort of orifice instead.

Cool

Xorn

The purpose of this silly-looking thing is to eat your gold. It's a fire hydrant with man-arms and its head is a mouth and it eats your treasure. There's something poetic, I guess, about something this direct; it doesn't cost you money to raise your friends from the dead; it doesn't cost you money by wasting your healing potions or forcing you to repair your armor or hire men-at-arms to help defend you and your party. No, it just comes up to you and demands your precious metals, shoves them into the gaping maw on its split-open head, and then bids you a hearty farewell as it melds back into the stone wall. Too much gold in your party's coffers? Not anymore. No more coffers, either.

7) Rot Grubs

Does anyone not fall for this the first time they play D&D? I mean sure, there's a thing that looks like shiny treasure in the big pile of :consored:, but it's not really you there, right? Might as well make your character root through the feces, and find--a goddamn rot grub. This is the beauty of gaming; you don't have to actually hike ten miles to the ruined castle; you roll a few random encounters, and pow, you're there, still sitting on your couch with Doritos and Mountain Dew no matter how much you may need the exercise. And that's how every adventurer has a rot grub story. Something's glinting in that pile of garbage and fecal matter, all right: the gleaming opportunity to torch your arm to burn off a few heart-burrowing worms.

6) Gas Spore

Or, more specifically, ":consored: You, This Isn't a Beholder You Morons; Even Though Attacking a Beholder On Sight Would Be the Right Thing to Do, Seeing as How It's One of the Most Dangerous Monsters in the Game What With His Death Ray Eyestalk and All, It's the Exact Wrong Thing To Do for This Monster That's Not a Beholder But Basically a Macy's-Parade Beholder Balloon That When Punctured Releases a Deadly Toxin That Kills You Anyway." But that was too long a name for the Monster Manual typesetters, so they just went with "Gas Spore" and relied on the illustration to carry the real message.

5) Gelatinous Cube

Okay, so why is this a cube? Why wouldn't it just be an amorphous blob of goo? I know it's the dungeon-hallway cleaner and all, but wouldn't it be just as effective not looking like a Jell-o snack? Anyway, this is the monster of choice if you're in a dead-end hallway with no means of escape; and it is sort of horrifying, if you think about it, just slumping against a wall, hopeless, watching such a ridiculous death come squelching inexorably toward you.

4) Black Pudding

One should never have to do battle with what one can eat for breakfast in England. One should also not lose their new Elven Boots because of a fantasy role-playing oil spill.

3) Trapper/Lurker Above

You enter the room, and it falls on you/closes in on you. You're dead. This is fun! Want to roll up another character and play again? As a side note, what's the difference between these two creatures, aside from one being on the floor, and the other on the ceiling? When the only difference between two things is their location in a room, they are the same thing. And does a Lurker Above become a Trapper once it falls? Does an owlbear :consored: in the woods? If a treant falls in the woods, and no one's there to hear it, who gets the XP? These are the questions the Monster Manual just doesn't cover.

2) Piercer

Piercers are one of those monsters that just plain make no sense: they have no realistic life cycle, and exist only to look like stalactites until someone walks right under them and they can fall and impale them. And it's got to be someone low-level, at that, because those are the only characters they have a shot at killing outright. And originally, they could only do this once. For no apparent reason. Sure, later on someone would write up a bit about how they then crawl--slowly--back up onto the cave ceiling, but initially, these were ridiculous.

1) Rust Monster

So your 4th level fighter finally scored that plate mail he's been wanting since level one? Easy come, easy go, hero. One rust monster and you're back to studded leather. This dungeon-dwelling standard has very little real reason to haunt the dungeon setting (unless it's on the hunt for armored adventurers, but that's pretty forward-thinking for what amounts to a big metal-eating armadillo with an inexplicable propeller-tail), but it's there anyway, just waiting for you and your favorite sword, once named "Orcslicer" and soon to be called "Appetizer," to round the corner.

Wow, this sure brings back fond memories...from the DM's point-of-view that is. Twisted Evil

Rust Monster + Illusion + Big Stupid Fighter = Happy DM Afternoon Twisted Evil

Zombie + Will'o'Wisp + Dark Environment + Lost adventurers = Happy DM Evening! Twisted Evil

sphere of annihilation trap = new characters

But that's an artifact, Xtian, not a creature....

Then again, if it's intelligent, then maybe it is... Twisted Evil

I miss the Will-o'-wisp...

Another monster I liked from way back was the Water Weird. "Stay away from the fountain. STAY AWAY FROM THE FOUNTAIN, FOOL!" Laughing

One of my fondest DMing memories:

DM: Malcanthet does not want anything to do with you, so she sent her best lilitu to your bedchamber instead.
Player: It's not the succubi-queen, but a lilitu will do...
DM: The most handsome demon you've ever seen enters the room...
Player: Wait, what? The lilitu's a guy?!?
DM: *nods* It prepares its tentacle attacks.
Player: NOOOOOOOOOooooooooo........!

So guys, if you ever think Shendilavri's a good place to visit in the Abyss, think again. Laughing

Old Dragon Joined: 30 Aug 2007 Posts: 577

I'm surprised nobody mentioned a gazebo here. Twisted Evil

eric and the gazebo!!!

How about a doppelganger?

While we're taking a trip down memory lane. You guys hear of the dire badger meme? Laughing