Which monster, of your own creation or from some source, was the most gonzo or weird you've ever used in a fantasy RPG campaign?
Much as I may malign the game... 4e D&D Gamma World had the funny idea of a character composed of a group colony of kittens that formed a humanoid shape.
Other oddities...
Cyborg mushroom men that evolved from an early play through of How to Host a Dungeon.
Someones session of Mekton Zeta which was essentially based on the animated move Cars, and later Planes...
This time last year my players faced a giant Turducken of Terror...a three-headed gravy-breathing giant turkey which, when slain, released the slightly smaller two-headed duck. Upon killing the duck, the players took the (normal-sized) indigo hen inside as a potential familiar.
I think that probably counts as crazy.
Well, there was the nameless thing in the temple of the love god. It was a gesalt of dozens of people having sex, a roving orgy shoggoth kind of thing. Of course the PCs were wondering about the butcher tables and torture chambers in the lower levels. Nobody ever said the god of love was Good.
I ran a Call of Cthulhu: Delta Green game a while back...
Investigation into a bunch of mysterious deaths, bodies with a few holes in them and drained. A previous investigator had been killed in his bed, also holes, but not drained. Hrm.
Investigators holed up in an apartment, contemplating their next move. There's a noise in the bathroom... they carefully peer in, guns drawn. Something broke in through the window, a noise... but nothing visible.
One casts Voorish Sign, which reveals the unseen... and the small writhing shape, pink and dripping, appears near the ceiling. A lot of screaming and shooting.
They then determine that all the female victims had had an abortion from a particular clinic... a particular doctor. At least some of the male victims had been boyfriends of the female victims.
Yeah. The doctor was a cultist, infusing aborted fetuses with strange puissance. But for them to reach full size and power, they needed to find their parents, and caress them with long ropy entrails, with sharp teeth...
They were the aborritions.
With ease I can say one of the most hated things I ever threw at a party in a D&D 3.0 campaign was a pack of dire rats. Granted, I used the listed advancement rules to Huge Size which was a size they were never meant to be. Apparently, at something like 12 HD they became murder machines. This made my players very sad. :mad:
That likely wasn't the most gonzo of creations but it was an enlightening look at how monster rules worked.
For more gonzo, it requires a bit of set up. The party was in a blighted forest with veins of crossover slime killing all the plant life, mostly rotting it form the inside. After escaping a tumulus they had been lured into they found the world had changed. The rotting trees and dead grass had been replaced by a vivid and lush lollipop forest with singing gumdrop bushes. The dancing gumdrops sang, eat me! Eventually, someone gave into this compulsion and dined on a diminutive grey ooze. There may have also been a host of handsome princes on unicorns wooing party members but that's what happens when a Hag Coven gets together to have some fun.
In Fractured Kingdom one of the creatures I've had the most fun with is the Broken Dream, which is an incomplete dream ripped from someone's mind and given shape. Since their appearance is really determined by the dreamer I've had a lot of fun asking players about character dreams and later subverting them, this has included a small child with what was clearly a small apple stuck in their throat to a pair of legs with no upper body beyond the waist.
I once asked my d20 Star Wars Players to go crazy on creature creation and one of the little shits made a Force-Using Voorpak which had multiple attacks and Toughness and Improved Initiative and NPC levels. No problem, I thought, it is the size of a rat.
They look like this:
(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090725003756/aliens/images/thumb/2/24/Voorpak2.jpg/500px-Voorpak2.jpg)
(http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071208133604/starwars/images/0/01/Voorpak1-woswfg.jpg)
(http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071126050115/starwars/images/6/6a/Voorpak.JPG)
Now this particular Voorpak was kept as a pet by the Player and initially I thought nothing of it. Then during combat, the Player threw it at a bad guy and the damn thing won initiative, hit with every attack, critted with half of those, and basically left a mist of blood where the target had been standing.
King Diamond, complete with backing band. Palladium Fantasy.
He was a demon lord who every 100 years would appear and desolate the surrounding area with the power of his terrible rock. His only weaknesses were electric attacks and the sound of acoustic instruments.
To better simulate and just to make everyone as uncomfortable as possible, I blasted an album during the battle so loud that everyone had to yell their actions.
(http://www.metalinsider.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/king-diamond-4fe43b0c3d853.jpg)
A human head with spider-like bone legs and wings. I think I lifted it off from Doom 3.
Sadly.. I'd have to say "Yeti Lee". A yeti who's mesmerizing howl took the former of "fly by night" from Rush. Then he would pummel the victims with up rooted pine trees.
I wish I could say this was in the 70s but I'm not that old. It was a couple of years ago and evolved from a player that was having work issue with his telecommute kanucks.
An Eagle-crab. Body of a crab, head of an eagle, with the lobster claws and scorpions tail. My players christened it, the "cragorpion." Also had these flying bat things that scooped up blood in pelican-like mouth flaps. The players called those "balicanths" (not sure why).
In this one FASA Star Trek Klingon game, the GM had us on a planet where one of the mutated species was vampire sheep.
JG
In an old supers campaign, I had an evil robot who made clone minions who were cowboys, each shooting nitroglycerin shells. They were called "cowbombs", and said western tropes with no bearing on the situation at hand. They all dressed mostly like rodeo cowboys too.
To this day, I don't know where I came up with them, or why I kept using them. My players hated them!
In one of my Cthulhu campaigns the players, investigating a Cult that was sacrifing babies, ended up facing a creature that was basically a living pillar of liquid flesh that constantly bubbled; each of the bubbles formed into the face of a wailing baby. But it didnt get really weird until the players defeated it by shoving a medallion into it. The medallion had been used as a key to open a portal to the Dreamlands.
The first time they'd entered the Dreamlands they encountered a great river of blood. Subsequently to defeating this creature, it had infested the Dreamlands and now the river was a river of boiling flesh and bubbling out of it were wailing baby heads that ballooned to the size of pumpkins and flew out devouring anything living nearby. When struck, they exploded in a a mass of pus.
The King of this particular realm of the Dreamlands was Pumpkinhead, pretty much an evil version of Jack Pumpkinhead from Return to Oz. The infection of this creature spread to him and his head became a globe of liquid flesh with the same properties as the river, while his lower body became a centipedal mass of child arms whose fingers had been reduced to sinew and shards of bone.
The Horror Eater of Innocents I made for The Prelude to Evil for Gencon would be mine.
A classically mopped top baby's head on top of a fat baby body with a massive toothy maw that opened to an umbilical chord tongue with arms and legs replaced by pink tentacles. Making for a mixture of huge human baby and monster. The Horror's maw in the middle of the body would talk gratingly and then be immediately mimicked with baby babble or child speak by the baby's head. Like the maw, "I'll kill you!" and baby's head, "Goo goo ga ga."
Both tentacle arms entangled two player characters and another one was being strangled by the umbilical chord maw. The maw laughed and then the baby head on top, "So many playmates makes me happy!"
It was a player favorite the two times I ran the game.
This thread's takeaway: Evil Babies can be absolutely horrifying.
Indeed.
jg
All excellent selections.
I've had Gazebos, and Dread Gazebos. I also once had a Giant Flan Cake.
In my DCC game, there were the Nude Mutants of the Perverted Swamp, who were naked except for black bars that floated directly in front of their junk at all times.
I'm pretty sure I've had a few others at least as good as those, in the last few decades.
well i give all my bone devils bobby hats (in theory anyway my players have yet to encounter one)
you know because there the police of the 9 hells
Normally I don't do gonzo creatures. But maybe the weirdest I had was the PC himself. In a CoC game an ancient item was found which released a mental-energy based creature which took over the PC's body, but nobody knew. The team was sent to escort a group of archeologists investigating ancient ruins on an island in the Mediterranean. Soon, deaths start occurring, seemingly accidents at first. I just kept track of where the PC was at all times and the creature filled in the "blackouts" he was experiencing. The players never figured it out and it was a TPK, the PCs, the archeologists, the sailors, everyone.
When I was 12, I put a gang of giant sentient anthropomorphic butts in a dungeon.
Of course, nothing will ever be weirder than this bit from the film "Beyond Re-Animator":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-QQoxxIDIw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-QQoxxIDIw)
Quote from: Herne's Son;801602When I was 12, I put a gang of giant sentient anthropomorphic butts in a dungeon.
Never did that, but I had a race of weird mutants that had big hands in place of heads.
Quote from: RPGPundit;801901Never did that, but I had a race of weird mutants that had big hands in place of heads.
Glorantha did it:
http://kingofdragonpass.wikia.com/wiki/Grotaron?file=Grotaron.jpg
The Grotarons, aka "Maidstone Archers". They fight by holding a great big bow with their arm-hands, and pulling back the string with their head-hand. I seem to recall they have an eye on each side of their head-hand, so they can aim the thing.
hm that gives me an idea for beholders that use there telekenetive lifting eye to fire bows
although the whole excessive sure of there own superiority thing means they may find a bow beneath them
For some reason I first read that as a Beholder that uses his eyebrows to fire bows. Now that would be a weird monster!
a lot of people really underestimate beholders
i think a large part of that is people think they can only use 3 of there eye rays a turn but that is incorect they can use all 12 in 1 turn but they can only aim 3 in each direction if it can get in the middle of the party it can uterly destroy anything
of course while as a gm i make monsters that are meant to be able to do tactics do tactices so my kobolds are deadly eithen without tucker type hidey holes (i once had players trying to lure the kobolds out into there own trap kobolds arent stupid so they got ready for them when the door opened they pelted the fighter for significant damage i auctualy had to hold back so i did not kill the party in the first encounter of the campaign (even then the cleric only came out without massive damage because of some shitty attack rolls))
however with beholders i play one of there bigest weaknesses there pride. in the monster manual it describes which enemy the beholder will target each ray at and these often lead to its downfall it will only bring out the big guns on those that are obvisuly powerfull at first
of course its good to have the ocasional beholder thats just a tactical genius
Nothing really weird, but I have used the following:
The Hit Me monster - Reflects any damage done back onto the attacker, ignoring armour. Typically runs up without any armour and attacks the most heavily armoured PCs. Used as cannon fodder by powerful chaotics.
Sounds Extremely Dangerous - A variation on the "Appears extremely dangerous" chaos feature in Glorantha/RuneQuest, this is unintelligent, but appears to speak, but it babbles secrets about the PCs that nobody else knows about. "Brankist slept with Solarus' wife. Flargle summoned an undead army. Derak is Uurrgh!" - The "Uurrgh!" being when the panicking PCs killed it out of hand.
The Walktapus Scorpionman - Notable for two things - It has 20 hit locations and so fits perfectly with RQ's D20 for hit locations and it can attack with tentacles, hands and sting, so is perfect for taking down groups of PCs. Oh, and it has poison in its sting and gas - what's not to like?
Quote from: tuypo1;802164a lot of people really underestimate beholders
i think a large part of that is people think they can only use 3 of there eye rays a turn but that is incorect they can use all 12 in 1 turn but they can only aim 3 in each direction if it can get in the middle of the party it can uterly destroy anything
of course while as a gm i make monsters that are meant to be able to do tactics do tactices so my kobolds are deadly eithen without tucker type hidey holes (i once had players trying to lure the kobolds out into there own trap kobolds arent stupid so they got ready for them when the door opened they pelted the fighter for significant damage i auctualy had to hold back so i did not kill the party in the first encounter of the campaign (even then the cleric only came out without massive damage because of some shitty attack rolls))
however with beholders i play one of there bigest weaknesses there pride. in the monster manual it describes which enemy the beholder will target each ray at and these often lead to its downfall it will only bring out the big guns on those that are obvisuly powerfull at first
of course its good to have the ocasional beholder thats just a tactical genius
Hmm, yes. I've also often played beholders as underestimating their opposition. I don't know where that came from.
i dont know about weird its more like horrifying but i will post it here anyway.
i am about to try and stat up a truly horrifying beast.
Im going all out on this creature im even using puncuation.
At first it was just going to be a multiheaded (savage species page 124) flesh colossus (epic level handbook page 170) but with each head being a crawling head (fiend folio page 35) with its tentacles sunk into the neck of the colossus. This part i came up with ages ago but never got around to doing.
Today i decided to get around to it and also to make it winged (savage species page 137) and to complete the unholy trinity make it a symbiotic creature (savage species page 131) with the colossus as the host and an Atropal (epic level handbook page 159) as the guest.
I will want to remove the coleuses anti magic field as only supernatural ability’s are allowed to come from its source not the spell likes.
If the atropal is removed rather then the colossus reverting to mindlessness the human necromancer inside the colossus takes over its control.
While the atropal is still attached the necromancer has not actually used magic jar to put his soul in it he has previously been in physical body inside the beast using his power to bolster the colossus and casts magic jar when the atropal is removed.
Of course at this point the necromancer is no longer bolstering the collosus so it is now weakened.
Im thinking maybe a vampire (monster manual you lazy fool) and a demilich (epic level handbook page 174) as the creatures inside with the vampire being the first to take over while the demilich continues to scot around acting as a servoskull (warhammer 40k).
Of course the number of heads will be maximised and i suppose they will be able to crawl around the neck by moving there tentacles under the skin. if the players find a way up there they could kill a heap of them.
I may also make it tauric (savage species page 132) with both parts being flesh colossi 1 bipedal and 1 quadrupedal.
I played around with beholders that were based on other sensory organs than "eyes." I enjoyed my "Nasal Tyrant" that had a giant nose where its central eye should be, and elephantine trunks in place of its eyestalks. It spoke with a nasally whine, adding to the humor. (I kept all of it's magical abilities identical though, just to mess with the players.)
I'm not generally a fan of performance art posters, but I have to say this one is growing on me.
Quote from: tuypo1;804859i dont know about weird its more like horrifying but i will post it here anyway.
i am about to try and stat up a truly horrifying beast.
Im going all out on this creature im even using puncuation.
At first it was just going to be a multiheaded (savage species page 124) flesh colossus (epic level handbook page 170) but with each head being a crawling head (fiend folio page 35) with its tentacles sunk into the neck of the colossus. This part i came up with ages ago but never got around to doing.
Today i decided to get around to it and also to make it winged (savage species page 137) and to complete the unholy trinity make it a symbiotic creature (savage species page 131) with the colossus as the host and an Atropal (epic level handbook page 159) as the guest.
I will want to remove the coleuses anti magic field as only supernatural ability's are allowed to come from its source not the spell likes.
If the atropal is removed rather then the colossus reverting to mindlessness the human necromancer inside the colossus takes over its control.
While the atropal is still attached the necromancer has not actually used magic jar to put his soul in it he has previously been in physical body inside the beast using his power to bolster the colossus and casts magic jar when the atropal is removed.
Of course at this point the necromancer is no longer bolstering the collosus so it is now weakened.
Im thinking maybe a vampire (monster manual you lazy fool) and a demilich (epic level handbook page 174) as the creatures inside with the vampire being the first to take over while the demilich continues to scot around acting as a servoskull (warhammer 40k).
Of course the number of heads will be maximised and i suppose they will be able to crawl around the neck by moving there tentacles under the skin. if the players find a way up there they could kill a heap of them.
I may also make it tauric (savage species page 132) with both parts being flesh colossi 1 bipedal and 1 quadrupedal.
Im not entirely sure what you mean by performance art poster but i have nothing to do today i should be able to stat it up by the end of the day
I've been kicking around 'hand-headed' creatures for a while, rendered two...
Dexter (https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1920367_10204276685931250_4875101269841886233_n.jpg?oh=aea3065e30b032280b5a1ae63efb13f1&oe=550DD3B5&__gda__=1430046782_61b2cb5d17f10d65927d7be94fb0895c) and Sinister (https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/1395326_10204272814074456_5625450416904096882_n.jpg?oh=8c676168f0c11ff79eac0a5bbf2e6b22&oe=54F99B15&__gda__=1426915114_e168ff1af7ee1d0e249e54a457b449a1)
Hmm, well, that's not exactly how I envisioned my guys.
Not from a fantasy campaign, but from my last (ever) Traveller campaign...
The players were journeying down a river, and found the whole thing blocked by an immense mound of vegetable matter, a colony of filter feeders, sucking up all the river water for whatever nutrients could be had and dumping it all downstream. The water coming out absolutely reeked of waste products!
Yeah, it was a Sewage Plant.
Did I mention there were some seriously bad puns in that game?
Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;806067Not from a fantasy campaign, but from my last (ever) Traveller campaign...
The players were journeying down a river, and found the whole thing blocked by an immense mound of vegetable matter, a colony of filter feeders, sucking up all the river water for whatever nutrients could be had and dumping it all downstream. The water coming out absolutely reeked of waste products!
Yeah, it was a Sewage Plant.
Wocka Wocka WOCKA!!!
Oh man.
Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;806067Not from a fantasy campaign, but from my last (ever) Traveller campaign...
The players were journeying down a river, and found the whole thing blocked by an immense mound of vegetable matter, a colony of filter feeders, sucking up all the river water for whatever nutrients could be had and dumping it all downstream. The water coming out absolutely reeked of waste products!
Yeah, it was a Sewage Plant.
Did I mention there were some seriously bad puns in that game?
That reminds me of a CoC game I ran where there was nothing supernatural going on whatsoever, the players just ransacked some poor farmer's house while he was out for the day and ended up falling into a cesspit in the back yard. It only worked after I'd been running "typical" CoC adventures for about a year, but it served well to illustrate how the game had trained them to not act like normal people at all.
There's a funny snippet that illustrates CoC where an investigator, suffering various symptoms including bloody stools, weeps with relief when he finds out it's only colon cancer.
Quote from: Will;806738There's a funny snippet that illustrates CoC where an investigator, suffering various symptoms including bloody stools, weeps with relief when he finds out it's only colon cancer.
Watch out for Flying Polyps.
JG
I'm tearing up here, man, thanks, I needed that.
Quote from: James Gillen;806823Watch out for Flying Polyps.
JG
Oh, dude. Seriously? Dude.