What is your favorite monster? Just generally speaking. What do you like using as a DM? What do you like seeing as a player?
i.e. I like Trolls and rarely see them used. Perhaps they aren't exactly "unknown" but some parties don't realize what they are fighting until mid-way into the fight. A good troll fight is simple and challenging.
Wendigo.
Just have it come screaming at them from the woods faster than they can react and watch everything fall apart.
fpbp
Came here to mention Wendigo's.
DM like you're narrating The Thing.
Become mister spooks.
Trolls are between my favourites too, but if there's something i really like, it's ghosts.
Especially if no one has magical weapons.
Watching players find creative ways of hurting something they can't touch can be pretty interesting.
Leviathan. Not like, giant whale kind, but the more mythical Galactus-tier "swallowing the world because that's just its nature" kind.
>just have it come screaming at them
Like, y'know, most things the players fight on a daily basis? It might scare some guards or lv 1 players, but actual adventurers couldn't care less if your idea of "scary" is something running against their weapons.
I love Krenshar. They are just fun low level enemies. Most groups think they are just some fluffed up wolves or hyenas and then the terror screams start.
That's where stuff like what said becomes important: It's how you DM it.
Just having it show up and you describing it's appearance isn't enough. You have to *earn* the moment. Pre-empt them with earlier deaths or scenes of murder, smells, sounds, everyone else's fears, false starts/scares, etc.
Kobolds, hobgoblins and gnolls. They're challenging and fun for low level players and can gang up on a party if need be. Plus they're pretty obnoxious and despicable so the players don't feel bad about slaughtering them en masse.
Higher level? Definitely angels. Nothing says "fuck yeah" like a player rolling a crit on one of God's own servants. Bonus if the angels are acting in the absence of a God or gods, lots of theological debate sparks among the players.
Agreed.
Ogres/trolls/minotaurs are all great monster enemies. They're large and powerful enough that it requires the whole party to take them down and it can feel like a real achievement slaying one.
Other humans.
Especially when equipped and dressed with a theme.
Worms. Any kind. Purple Worms, Worm That Walks, Gricks, Rot Grubs. Maybe it's my deep seated fear of worms and leeches, but I throw them into just about every game.
Mothmen
>the party sees a mothman in the distance
>later that day the party starts crossing a bridge
>the bridge collapses
The Manticore.
Cute touhous!
love me dat orcwort. Their modus operandi is just so creepy
There are some mildly interesting troll-varients too.
I'm quite partial to all those snake monsters you see in the old beasteries, things like the jaculus (javelin snake), sictalis (hypnotic snake), seps (acid snake), amphisbaena (double snake), basilisk (cockatrice snake), tatzelwurm (cat snake) and dozens of others.
Also 'snake' had a very broad definition back then so most of them have various numbers of legs, wings, fins, horns and ears, so you get things like wyrms (giant snakes), lindwyrms (wyrms with wings), wyverns (lindwyrms with legs) and dragons (wyverns with more legs).
Any time you want to use a dragon but the party is too low a level you can throw in one of those guys in there instead.
I've always wanted to use a bonnacon as a joke enemy but my gaming group is too srs bsns for shit like that.
Ghosts are probably my favorite as well, but more because of flavor. They are a real person's yearning driven to the extreme, to the extent where its sheer intensity keeps it alive. You have a lot of creative leeway in design, because of their individual themes. Each of them can also carry deep and compelling stories if parties want to do the "I want to put it to peace" method.
They're also super spooky, and the inability to interact with them in conventional ways just exaggerates that.
Dire Motherfucking Badgers