The most interesting kind of Monster

Plain humans

Wait, so are mind flayers time colonists?

Yes, they're possibly humans.

A classic, but a good one.

Popular systems tend to leave them in the dust, stat wise is a big issue. A bigger issue is that so few GMs put forth the effort to make them terrifying. They don't build tension properly. There's no rustling in the woods in the pitch of night, with maybe a brief glimpse of hungry yellow eyes watching from the night. They don't remember to play upon the primal fear of predators, especially perhaps our greatest predator and competitor as a species. The perfect coordination of a pack of lethal hunters, ready to attack when the campers are at their most vulnerable.

A child wearing a bedsheet.

Fucking Devourers.

Sure every other monster in D&D will rip you to shreds, blast you to pieces, or maybe mind control your body or pluck out your eyes and fill them with explosive gas. But at least your soul isn't trapped in agony while it is slowly burned until there's nothing left.

I always liked ethergaunts a lot for this sort of thing.

They fill the fantasy role of a higher tier civilization that is going to Fuck you up.

They are incredibly powerful on a personal level, have a plane spanning empire on the Ethereal plane, next door to everyone. They don't care about the other conflicts, good evil or so on. They're the greater scope type villain, something to base a generational war against just to avoid utter destruction and slavery or worse.

Well, it's either Humans who got blasted with Space radiation, retreated to the earth, and got mutated by additional native Underdark Radiation, or a third servitor slave species made by the fucking now Defunct 'great builders' (Elder Things) Who rebelled, awakening the Shoggoths and ending the Elder thing rule, then, named their species after the hero who pull this off, later Discovered Cerebromorphis and became what they currently were.

After this, they ended up getting shitloads of planets and planes and making a massive area on the Great Wheel called Penumbra for their empire, Traded with fucking GREYS, made deals and pacts with Elder Evils and Great Old ones, then either:
Tharizdun woke up
They accidentally summoned Cthugha Wrong
All their Turned off Suns Turned On
Magic Broke
Azathoth Woke to the dream
And then they blasted themselves back in time, Tried again, got slapped on the hand for it, and THEIR native slave species came along and kicked their asses so bad, they weren't allowed to have awesome Star Trek Tech anymore, and their Elder brains went full retard, their Deity got killed by Fat Fuck Orcus, then a new one that is basically trying to Mantle Yog-Sothoth Showed up and they regressed a great deal, and lost the context of them being a proper Ayy lmao species.

There's also a thing with their appearance occurring when the Ancient baatorians Fucked off, but not much else.

The 3.5 book Lords of Madness had the most interesting bit of lore for Mind Flayers for me. See, it turns out that Mind Flayers actually don't need to eat brains to survive; they derive sustenance just fine from normal food, and in fact still eat normal food. What they need to eat brains for is to remain SANE. A Mind Flayer that goes without brains gradually loses its mind and becomes a gibbering, mad creature with all its former power but none of its former intellect.

Now think about the neothelids that were introduced in the same book: Mind Flayer tadpoles that never underwent cereomorphosis and weren't eaten by an Elder Brain (usually because the brain has been killed). The tadpole grows larger and larger, eating other tadpoles, then escape the brine pool and into the Underdark where it eats other things (usually animals with little intellect) before finally becoming a neothelid. The neothelid has a completely alien mindset and so can't be communicated with, but in 3.5 was just as intelligent as a standard Mind Flayer. The neothelid can be said to represent the "natural" life course of a Mind Flayer.

Thus it seems to me that a Mind Flayer who goes without brains isn't actually going insane. Rather, it's reverting to a neothelid mindset, except that it's trying to reconcile a basically humanoid body with humanoid memories with the fact that it SHOULD be a thirty-foot long worm that spits acid.

These motherfuckers have been my favorite monsters in D&D bestiaries because they trigger all of my phobias, they are like Umibozu but they emerge all the way out and can walk OVER the water.

I love this sort of weird horror deep lore.

I think you misread that- Trauma from the Host body being parasited and homogenized and transformed via cerebromorphsis has a new Illithid Left in a state of perpetual agony that can only be soothed via Enchanted Psionic Stones and the administrations of the Elder brain until the Illithid in Question reaches age 21 and can use the base abilities it is imbued with.

Illithid need for Nutrient pastes which I might add, are made incredibly crudely, have been there since the illithiad, you even encounter such things in Baldurs Gate infact.

The reason why Illithid are so 'evil' is because they literally only ever feel bad emotions ALL the time, it's something extremely similar to patients of lobtomy/recovery from certain forms of actual brain damage/physical trauma, they're actually in agony all the time and the only thing that stops this is the fact that they have Psionics which allows this to be controlled in a state of perpetual psychic discipline.

Additionally- there is also the fact that this is a part of the conditioning process to form ties with the Illithid community or rather 'Slave mentality' Level bonds to the elder brain and the administrations of the Illithid Creed, which moves onto the placement of an Illithid's talents, something detailed back in the 2e Illithiad.

Also, there still remains the issue of Psychic backlash and Partial Personality disorder from Cerebromorphis- one of which, causes their heads to fucking explode. Additionally, Cerebromorphis's bodily alterations effectively turn the entire body into a massive suction organ, which is why Illithid can dispatch foes with a brain suck with ease opposed to other instances of them doing it over time- And this is also the reason they make a balloon like 'deflation noise' when killed (See NWNHOTU campagin and the Illithiad for more information on this/the actual sound.) Eating brains relives an illithid of that whole agony thing, letting them 'experience hoys and whatnot' but only then

>aboleth in a Super Hero campaign
elaborate

well, considering their magic sneakiness is pretty much stopped by a low end set of magic armor (as long as the player rolls well) and are fairly easy to kill...

When consuming Grey Matter, do they experience this. On the note of consuming Grey Matter, there are multiple examples of a lesser form of Feeding they perform which allows them to 'taste' Thoughts, Also, they do have skeletal and bodily structures, but a good deal of how they work is dependant on Psionics, though due to lore fuckups people now have Thoon and it's sort of out there as to whether Illithid have bones and Muscle, of if they're like Psionic Cerebromorphed Air Balloons of Brain Suction, it's kind of out there man.

guyz, the reason aboleths Div/0 in regards to mind flayers is that they are the same thing, just from different time periods. Evolution has taken its toll, as has the rise and fall of their empire. space magic and time travel be damned, in my headcannon, they are the same thing and they go to war over it. The aboleths cause they don't know and the flayers because they do know.

Upstarts!

Those of the Homo sapian variety

I prefer my version where illithids go insane because their minds are trying to reconcile their humanoid body with their giant acid-spitting worm natural state.

I personally like to think this as well, although how mind flayers avoid a paradox when they kill aboleths is a question that could drive you mad.

That or to accept the Terminator version of time travel (my personal favorite) where traveling back in time "maroons" you. Go back in time to 1950 and kill your grandfather, and you'll have never been born but the version of you that's currently in 1950 will be fine, even if you travel forward back to what would be your original time period (although it will now be a time period where you never existed, It's A Wonderful Life style).

Humans are great, you are usually surrounded by them when you sleep without someone taking watch.
Hard to know if that cute waitress likes to use poison.

My favorites are ones you can talk to and get to know before you fight them. Bond villains are the perfect example.

The ones already mentioned are very good ones, and very creepy, but 'Breakfast at Strahd's' is a rare and special treat.

love this

>right proper
>bothered by souls bullshit

Did your parents take you in for an exorcism when they first found you playing DnD? Seems like the priest really pounded some lessons home, so to speak.
For real mate, stop believing in fables.

I'm a total atheist m8. Don't believe in that stuff IRL. I just think that in a setting where souls exist, messing with them is kinda disturbing. Like I get there's no afterlife in real life, but when I think about how it must be to live in a world where that's not the case and have that last part of you slowly dissolve as you fade into oblivion, it gives me shivers.

As far as vidya goes, wolves were fucking SCARY in Arcanum.

So, fluff wise, Illithids are the descendants of aboleths that had preformed experiments over the course of millenia on humans they had used their mucus to change, usually sailors lost at sea. these aboleths created a servitor race of half-men and eventually realized that they could lay their eggs in them and have aboleths grow exponentially quickly from these creatures by harvesting their brain energy, and eventually their brains. these aboleths started changing after just a couple generations however, and quickly started killing off their ancestors. they first lost the ability to secrete their mucus (and the necessity to have it to survive). then they started gaining vestigal limbs that continued changing and growing. their bodies became smaller and more human like until, after hundreds of generations, they became something more. They could traverse land effectivly at this point and lived in underground caverns driven deep into the earth by the aboleths that survived the initial purges. these caverns connected to the underdark, and the first meeting of species occurred between drow and proto-illitthids.

Part 2 in a bit.

Chris Avellone plz go

>ctrl-F Flailsnail
>0 Results
Sickening.

>You can make real animals scary!

That sounds real tryhard and pointless, you already have better tools to work with, what do you get from it other than the smug self-satisfaction of achieving it?

I think his point's more that if you take the time to execute something well, give it the buildup and description it deserves, you can make something very mundane seem far more terrifying than its treatment in fantasy might suggest.

Animals are fucking boring, they just walk up to you and make basic attacks. No tactics, no special abilities, nothing. Fluff them however you want, the fight will still be a chore.

I just don't see the point of going through the monumental task of trying to spook your players with animals, it's already hard enough to spook them with actual monsters. Unless someone has a severe phobia I don't believe it's going to happen.

Gotta love the flail

I've managed to use wolves to a really good effect in my Curse of Strahd campaign I'm using.
Whenever they're traveling they're terrified of having to camp out the night, and I make sure to let them know they hear howling and beady eyes reflecting their firelight circling their camp.

Imagine a creature in a major city that has all the infomation on the population and everyone is terrified of it because they know that it has all their dirty secrets they don't want anyone else to know of. Secrets that might land them in more than just trouble, deserters, cheats, illegal deals. Human trafficking. The mayor knows that there is such a creature in his city but even he has some deeds that is better left to rot in the back of his mind, so he ignores it and becomes hostile if anyone brings it up.
That is what a Nothic can do, given enough time. They used to be Wizards hellbend on getting as much knowledge and eldritch secrets as humanly possible. To such an extent that they, ironically, cast away their humanity and became deranged monsters. I would love to make a oneshot or a couple of sessions of the players finding the Nothic and then deciding if is allowed to live. All throughout the people around them becomes more and more hostile. The creature is simply living the way it thinks best, gathering secrets. But a whole population lives in fear because of it. Could be interesting given the right players.

Goblins, trolls, orcs and dragons because I don't want to come off as a hipster.

Whoa... that sounds really boring

Like a Guild navigator from Dune. From what Book is this sketch?

>I can't brain
Please leave Veeky Forums forever.

Created lifeforms for specific purposes.
ULTIMATE BIO-WEAPON

Even if you don't believe in them you can find the concept of something that eats them distressing.

*tips fedora*

At one point, two of my players in a Spelljammer campaign decided to end the illithid race. they both just really hated them. So the illithids attempted assassination on them. This failed, and it lead to the players starting a series of efforts towards universal illithid destruction. They started this process by hiring many apprentice casters and full casters to make illithid slaying weaponry of all sorts. Getting together with a rich and bored noble of the easily amused type, they funded the creation of dungeons specifically to stock them with these anti-illithid magic items in various places, and occasionally funding parties of adventurers as well.

The illithids fought back by teacfhing humans psionics and psychic abilities. Eventually these abilities would not be enough as they started off weaker and less predictable in use than magic (being Ad&D 2nd edition), but they were assisted in their endeavors to become as powerful and skilled as wizards and the like via the use of strange disciplines and certain drugs. Eventually this lead to certain kinds of mutation and unfortunate side effects, which caused them to hunger for substances most easily found in cranial fluids and tissues.

When 3.5 came along, psychics were as capable as average casters, but there were certain....powers that could be gained by the consumption of human brains.

Watch young elves getting it on under
#flailed

>implying I have secrets

By the time the heroes were in their 30+ levels, they met an ulitharid for the first time. Being smart enough by this level to realize a fight ~at~ this level meant people dying on both sides no matter what, they were able to discuss a mutual problem concerning the Thoon following illithids. The ulitharid mentioned in passing that it was quite amused by their efforts to kill their race, and their answer had in fact forced the illithids to develop their own progenitors out of humans, and that eventually the illithds would win this war of attrition, inevitably. It did thank them for creating the race - the Elder Brains had been quite besides themselves trying to figure out a solution to that apparent paradox! Turns out, they never needed to - the PC's had solved it for them.

The looks on my players faces was priceless.

what's this from?

Giant bugs.

Allow me to explain. In every iteration you have giant ants. Praying mantises. Ankeghs. Giant termites. These work very well as low level enemies for the players to start with. Add in a few carnivoruious plants that are easily dealt with. sundews. Pitcher plants. Things that are more prone to eat giant bugs. Maybe some oversized frogs.

Then the players meat much bigger bugs. giant spiders and scorpions. Giant moths. giant walking sticks. Then they meet things like bulettes and tendriculous and froghemoths. things that are voracious and fairly large as well. when the players kill those, bad things happen. They meet shit like megalopedes, huge spiders, gargantuan solugifuds, and other massive creatures that they have to climb onto to fight effectively and that see firewalls and castles as minor terrain obstacles.

Then they learn those bulettes and froghemoths and tendrioculous massive, deadly, voracious enemies - are what were keeping the bug population manageable. They upset an entire ecosystem.

Now the bugs are coming, and the players have to try and stop them.

Redline.

I was about to post the fake mandragora, but can't find the screencap

The rule for the Nothic states it learns a fact or secret, so it could be something mundane. I guess it depends on the DM

>shoggoths
>cthuga
Da fuq? This sounds cool, but also, it sounds like you tried to read Delta Green and D&D sourcebooks at the same time while dozing off and mixed them up.

Goddammit, what's that spoiler say?

>their tadpoles if left alone will become entities that are just as smart but utterly alien in mindset, and it freaks out even Mind Flayers themselves.
Do you have a source for that, because I'd love to read more.

Don't know much about it, but the resulting creature is called "Neothelid". That should give you enough to google on.

Warped people, like you but with something just vaguely off. Make them up as campaign advances, and see how long it takes for your palyers to get it

5'e Volo's Guide to Monsters.

Neothelids originate in the 3.5 book Lords of Madness. They were updated into 5e in Volo's Guide, but their Intelligence was dialed back to animal levels. I don't like this, I prefer the vague implications of the original version, that neothelids are the natural form of Mind Flayers.

Closed loops suck.

Actually near as I can tell probably the best way to severely damage illithid society would be to reveal to them that the Elder Brains are lying to them. Their minds DON'T live on within the Elder Brain. When they die and their minds are consumed, they're just dead and gone. Their whole societal endpoint, the closest thing they have to a religion, is based on a lie that the Elder Brains use to control them.

Even simple scoundrels who use trickery and deceit are usually better than your average BBEG

unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz-unz

>They upset an entire ecosystem.
That sounds really fun. If you really want to take it to the next level, you should incorporate minor enemies like goblins and kobolds into it!

Them just walking up and doing basic attacks is on you.
Wolfs hunt in packs, they even split up in roles.
One interesting thing would have some wolves grapple a target, have some other wolves bite the grappled target and have a third group intercepting characters trying to come to help.

I kinda love Beholders. Not only are they great in fights but they are amazingly fun to design. Checked out the stuff on Beholders in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and was not disappointed. I stole an idea (sorta) from Dawnforgecast. Their idea was to have two beholders competing using gang warfare so these gang wars are happening but it isn’t common knowledge that their leaders are actually beholders. I took the idea but had it that one beholder made the other while it slept and had a nightmare (Volo’s has it that beholders reproduce with dreams). The first one wants to hire the party to kill the second which it sees as an abomination (the first is too scared/disgusted by its nightmare). The second is truly horrible and has put together an crime organisation to keep itself safe and for shits and giggles. There’s just a lot you can do with them personality-wise because they’re generally supposed to be quite manic if not insane.

I like friendly monsters, especially when something that looks like a horrifying abomination is actually a total bro.

I fucking love monstro town.
It is my favorite place to go or put into settings.