How do I make horror-type monsters that are scary to my players who can't die...

How do I make horror-type monsters that are scary to my players who can't die, can't have anything important to them die, and can't be driven insane?*

*For narrative reasons

The reason things are scary is because they trigger a survival instinct.

If it's impossible for anything negative to happen I can't imagine your game would be very scary

if there's nothing at stake, why would they be scared?

It eats items/×p

This. If the monster cannot take anything away from the character, then it just isn't a threat. One thing that the monster could do is to take possession of the character, but that's kinda dick move since then the player has nothing to do while sitting and waiting around the table.

Why would you ever create characters like that?

IDK are your players pussies? Like could you fuck with them just on the description of the monster or the reveal?

I've met players who are fundamentally opposed to anything bad ever happening to their characters.

This one guy I knew apparently spent a game building up a crime empire solely so he could afford a giant bunker a hundred feet underground with full amenities and a comprehensive escape system to an identical bunker should the first get compromised

>monster possess special magic staff
>a successful hit from said staff prompts a Con Savings Throw
>failure means the PC transforms into one of the following (d6)
>1.Toad
>2.Rabbit
>3.Rat
>4.Small Lizard
>5.Chicken
>6.Snake

They retain their intelligence though.
Wabbajacks are fun.

Firstly, it can threaten those things even if it can't actually do them - the threat of torture or death for their characters may be sufficient, even if you can't actually carry out said threat for narrative reasons.

Secondly, they can be scary and dangerous to unspecified other people, and you can rely on the empathy of the players to translate that into personal scariness. That's how writers make characters scary or creepy - they do scary or creepy things in the book, and the reader has an emotional reaction even though there's no way a book character can threaten them.

Of course, that requires players with empathy. Good luck.

They kill the people they care about instead

>can't have anything important to them die

I think the empathy answer is probably best. Threats might also work, but only in a narrow frame given the players are OOC aware of their relative immortality.

Okay I'll bite.

Since the players can't die and can't be driven insane, why not have the monsters steal their memories?

Like the memories of loved ones or generally happy memories.

Heck, if they forget the ones that are important to them, then that means they aren't important to them anymore and they are open to be killed right?

This only works if the people involved are willing to be scared. As long as OP's players are actively willing to play a horror scenario this should be fine.

If that doesn't work you could try adding some sort of body horror aspect to the creature. Body horror is a bit tricky to pull of in a non-visual medium though.

Killing a PC is the least interesting and scary thing you can do to them. Threaten 'em, hurt 'em, take things away from them until there's nothing left, then give them back things that are broken. Cripple them, separate them, make them afraid how much worse it can get.
"LOL I'm dead" isn't all that scary, it just ends your part of the story, then you go and get a sandwich.

Uhhhhhhhhh it could just maim them? You're not dead, but you are pretty mangled.

>How do I make horror-type monsters that are scary to my players who can't die, can't have anything important to them die, and can't be driven insane?*
First of all OP, I like your way of thinking.
Secondly if those are the restrictions then simply create a monster that can kill the characters/kill anything important to them or drive the characters insane.

this

I'd like to correct the op. Your players can die, have important people to them die, and can be driven insane.

Their characters can't (for narrative reasons).

So play on what your players find scary. Horror can still have plot armored characters, and there are plenty of examples of this.

What narrative reasons? This sounds dumb.

so you suddenly saying OP is a lying faggot and he isn't in fact playing with a bunch of immortals?
Do you have proof of this?

Read The Raven. You don't need an actual threat for horror, just the perception of one. What matters is the unknown.

There is no absolute measure, everything scales to the players. You have to evoke an atmosphere. This is not done with combat stats.

>immortals that can't be driven insane
>immortals with no mortal loved ones
Reality is the shittiest setting.

Dread can inspire horror. Place them in an unfeasible situation and force them to dig deeper and deeper into it. Make them watch as the setting forces them to dig their own grave, one impossible choice after another. Do the thing a new gm would avoid; I suggest you put them in a position of total power, then turn their mistakes into something they can never, ever walk away from.

Have monsters who want to put big things up their butts

To expand on this:
> They rule a kingdom, and are responsible for all their people. One man fed is another starving, one grievance pleased is another ignored.

> They maintain an important resource, and each step they take to improve it only seems to weaken the body of their work

> They chase down a villan, only to slowly become suspect of the crimes they mean to end.

>"LOL I'm dead" isn't all that scary

If that is your reaction to a character death then you were seemingly not into the game or the character from the beginning.

You seem to misunderstand everything user said. Death is a rollplay prospect that means butthurt, a new character, and a break of immersion. In a roleplay it is oft far more effective to string the player along with one pain after another. Tight money, an injury that debilitates, a missing friend, anything that keeps them thinking, wondering, and hurting.

Theres a fable about a guy who traveled the world seeking for real fear because he was invincible.

He found fear when his family was in danger while he was traveling.

you could personify emotional issues.

> depression lurks in the corner, letting off toxic fumes that seek to suffocate its target slowly

> doubt is a small, weak ugly thing that likes to attack in large droves

> apathy mimics a blanket and never actively hurts its target, instead taking the guise of a friend inviting sleep

> wrath seems fast enough to teleport and strong enough to tear down anything in its way, but anyone focusing on it can quell it

don't name any of them, just have them around in related situations. give them detailed descriptions that seem off, just enough to weird out the players.

The fear of death can also string you along certain pathways and "force" you to make decisions you normally wouldn't.

In the very end, the fear of death is the worst thing that is going to happen to a player because even if the DM's criteria is a monster that can't apparently kill them the players do not know this. Their fear is the fear that, at the end of all the whittling down and exhaustion with this creature, that they will be killed. The fear of a wipe/death is right next to promise of loot in the "reason I do not want to die" basket.

>He found fear when his family was in danger while he was traveling.
>can't have anything important to them die,

The words "roll up a new character" make this strictly untrue, especially in horror games that commonly maintain one shot or very short series of sessions to maintain mood. The moment you take the player out of the character's shoes with a threat they don't relate to, you ruin the mood.

OP specifically said no one they care about can die.

>PCs can't die, go insane, or have loved ones die

Whats the point then? It sounds as if there's absolutly zero risk in this game. Sounds boring as all hell

Make a monster that steals wagons.

please no, anything but the wagon

Gonna take your wagon

Gonna take it fine

Make them embodiments of your magical realm so they make your players really uncomfortable. Heavy breathing not optional.

Exactly. It's masturbatory and pointless.

>a comprehensive escape system to an identical bunker should the first get compromised

Wait, his plan in case his bunker is compromised is to escape to another bunker that is identical to the bunker that JUST GOT COMPROMISED!?

a monster that can stop your player's ability to comprehend time

This. I'm running a CoC game and although the players can die or go insane they were most terrified when they realized the house they had been inside of was some kind of trap dead set on keeping them inside.

It was scary to them because they had become familiar with the layout as they solved the mystery and begin to feel a sense of safety there only to have that feeling betrayed. It was also scary as they didn't understand why. They had no clue why they were being kept there, just that the house was rearranging it's layout in order to keep them from clues and useful items.

Threaten to fuck up their souls, torture, losing humanity, stuff like that.

Seamus Young has a good essay on the difference between "I'm scared the monster is going to get me" and "I'm scared I'm going to have to start the level over."

If they're immortal, and can't be driven insane, just make those attributes a liability. Have your players get trapped in a small confined space.
Floating through space without a suit, in a forgotten mine shaft's vent, buried alive under a collapsed building, in Chernobyl's reactor chamber pinned under a steel I beam the possibilities are endless really. Your antagonist could just find them and bury the PC's alive in oil drums anywhere in the Nevada desert.
Death would be a release, and even insanity would be a kindness, after a century of staring at the same blackness.

Rape monster. Hey, it worked in Alien!

Wait a moment.
It feels like I have read this before...
Did we just travel back in time?

Horror is about the dawning realization that things are wrong.
Ongoing supply of monsters that heal, resurrection and cure insanity. The results can be perfect to a little off. Threaten everyone getting partially mind controlled (and injured) with the cure expected to show up to cover up what the monsters have been doing.

Rape monsters.

the monsters are erasing the world

if the heroes are defeated in an encounter a piece of the world is permanently destroyed

total defeat would be them and those horrors standing on a plane of nothing for all eternity

if they triumph they can continue on in whatever of the world remains

There are worse things than death.
That's what curses are for user.

This. Your players' characters might be indestructible and ininsaneable, but let's see them feel badass after getting a transdimensional cock up their ass.

You need to take the things from them they didn't know they cared about. That young begger on the street corner they've never talked to, a star out of the night sky that is only made significant by it's absence, the taste of warm bread on an autumn day. They can't have things that matter to them be taken, so take everything else.

Create a monster that can kill gods? I'm not the first user to say this, nor the last, but why make your players invincible? The point of horror is a sense of vulnerability and a lack of protecting yourself. What's scary is a something mysterious and doesn't make sense, ex.(first encounter with monster.)
>Your party arrives at "X" and the air tasted of smoke, gunpowder and blood. As your party searches "X", one of the members spots a figure in the distance. It runs off as the "rouge" attempts to identify the figure. The "rouge" said it might have been a (wo)man, (age). Etc.
Then in every encounter with the monster, discribe subtle changes in the creature. It's the idea of the unknown and feeling vulnerable is what's scary.

build on this, take away the memories, kill the loved one slowly and painfully, then RETURN the memories.

Try trapping them for eternity somewhere. A monster that wants to collect immortals to be his eternal undying playthings sounds pretty scary to me.

A friendly, dopey looking man with a beard and a suit.

He just stands around and watches, and is entirely invulnerable. If attacked, bullets and the like bounce off of him. If he has his vision obscured, he just instantly appears somewhere else for a better angle, smiling and dopey and happy.

he rarely talks, but if asks, says he's from "that other place." If pressed about the other place, he'll get sad. "Oh. You wouldn't like it there. They'd be mean."

Your players will eat themselves alive at a nice being that does no apparent harm.

given your circumstances, what you want is a npc/creature/character that seems unnatural to the players but in a physically
non threatening way. The best thing I can think of is that the party is followed around by a little girl, her appearance doesn't matter and it can change as desired, however what does matter is that the character have a trademark physical trait that identitfies them. Then slowly and in piecemeal fashion have this character/npc continue to interact with the party members individually and randomly.

Make this NPC seem to always be present at important events plot wise or character wise and have them simply mention vague and ominous things. The purpose of this is to put it into the players minds that they are being followed by something that seemingly knows a whole lot yet does nothing to warrant action. If done correctly it should start to eat at the players where the sign of this girl will cause them to reconsider their current course of actions.

A creature so wild that increasing damage against it actually boosts it's abilities in combat. And also, it heals very, very quickly.

To add to that, it is a lumbering creature. But when your players commit a wound upon it, it gains an instant and permanent resistance to the same weapon.

For example, a weapon used against the monster is made out of a steel alloy in which all the players use. The attack successfully wounds, the monster loses 240 health.

In next turn, the monster regains 200 health. In addition, attacks made with this weapon now require a natural 20 to cause harm. Magic spells are the same.

Any wounds over 400 damage result in the creatures Constitution and Strength to add 1+ to it's characteristic, which were randomly rolled in it's generation.

The monster does not attack outright, only when provoked, but increasingly stalks its prey into attacking it with their survival instinct. The monster is difficult, if not impossible, to kill.

...

Simple, make the monsters follow rather than kill, then when the right time comes, then you try and let the monsters attempt to kill them

Better yet, just take the memories FROM the loved ones... only people who have had relatives with diseases which do this know the pain.

>my players who can't die
Nasty things happen to the players. They could even get turned into the monsters.

>can't have anything important to them die
Unpleasant things happen to them instead, with a credible threat of them dying. Of course, they never actually do die.

>can't be driven insane?
No need. They can be kept perfectly lucid to fully appreciate the awful things that will happen to them and their loved ones.

As people have been saying, there are worse things than death. What about insects that burrow under the skin, describe the feeling of a tingling on the back of their neck. If they catch it they realise there are torturous insects everywhere and if they don't then you have an excuse to start slapping them with penalties until they find a way to get it out.

Fuuuuuuck, this is way too fucking evil user.

Let the people that they love be the ones that are the monsters then. Jealousy, vanity, hatred are all powerful motivators. If the players want to counter this by saying that they'll never make connections with anyone else, then help them along and enforce isolation on them, let them experience what it's like to live with tedium and boredom. If they try to counter that by saying they'll interact with the world, let them realize how mortal the world itself can be by destroying it slowly (or have their immortality consume the world itself).

Immortality can be every bit a curse as it can be a blessing. Let them experience all the possible horrors that living for eons can bring about. Give them benefits like perfect memory and perfect recollection with no capability of forgetting. Remind them of pain not every instance you get, but whenever you know it'll hurt most. Give them moments of reprieve so that you can make the next stab hurt even more.

Not being able to die is great, it just means they can remember the pain in greater detail. Maybe even reflect on it as they drift through the void for eternity.