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Had the thought during the video for my next session to take the setting and bad guys that wouldn't normally be scary, and make them scary. And I don't mean like making bunnies scary (I did that in our last session with Jackelopes and their queen). I was thinking mortal men in an otherwise peaceful and serene forest for an uncomfortably quiet and tense gunfight. Its a fantasy western setting and they are going to a very peaceful and beautiful forest and I really want to shatter the beauty of the place with something mundane but TENSE. Really gonna have to work the tone and atmosphere for it to work out!
Scariest creature: humans, hands downs. They're everywhere, can be found in virtually all fiction, and are often responsible for most, if not all, suffering. Fun fact: they're particularly scary because they actually exist. Some are ok, though, but you can't necessarily know which are which until it's too late!
I seriously considered choosing some kind of human for my answer, but wanted to be more in the spirit of the question. Absolutely true, though. Indeed, a character like Hannibal Lecter is sort of a fantasy monster, in a way.
Oh definitely. The scariest ones are the complete strangers who aren't even aware of your existence but want you imprisoned and even executed for having opinions they don't like.
My top terrifying monster is the creature from Stephen King's IT. Not Pennywise, not Bob Grey, and not even the final form IT takes in the climax of the novel. I find the concept of IT to be one of the best monsters ever dreamed up. IT is a cosmic, ancient alien creature in a Lovecraftian way that can read your thoughts, influence others around IT, and actively takes the form of whatever you are most afraid of. Then, after IT has consumed you, you don't really die, but instead wind up inside IT's Deadlights, where your soul is forever trapped and your consciousness melds with IT's mind. Truly, absolutely horrifying in my opinion. Out of all the other creatures King ever invented, IT even beats out Tak from the Regulators and Desperation books. If King hadn't been binge writing the novel while buried in a pile of cocaine like Tony Montana, the book could have turned out more focused and less all over the place. But, IT remains my favorite King title to this day purely for the unknowable horror that the creature presents.
The Botchling from The Witcher 3 is the most nightmare fuel I've ever seen in a video game. There's nothing worse than witnessing a stillborn, let alone a stillborn that has come back to life with a hunger for the flesh of its creator.
The brain worm thingies in Star Trek II Wrath of Kahn. I think that's what gels with me for scary creatures most - External threats are external. The thing that really terrifies me is things that alter who you are. The Borg and The Cybermen also do this, but the body horror aspect of them actually dilutes the horror of the situation for me compared to the Wrath of Khan mind-control worms which is purely that. (Well. That and the Pied Piper. I've always found the character - and creatures and monsters based off of him - scary and upsetting, and that's only gotten worse as I've gotten older, and it's stopped being something that might kidnap me and become something that might kidnap children. But it's _rare_ that you see the Pied Piper played for horror. Despite... _Gestures_.)
The Silence from Doctor Who, or something like the False Hydra. Anything that actively keeps you from knowing about it while you're in it's presence. For a brief on each: The Silence is a group of aliens that you can only remember while you can see them. Otherwise it's as though they don't exist. The False Hydra is a aberration that can make you forget you saw it AND everyone it's ever eaten. Even if you were married to and had kids with someone it has eaten.
@@pitshants132 Cause that is a monster that is all too common in fantasy already. Also, just to keep the discussion light hearted and emphasize that it wasnt my serious answer vs spirits. A good spirit can have so much fun with, especially if playing online. I did a pathfinder adventure module with a ghost in a haunted school. Dynamic lighting let me keep turning off lights the PCs turned on and moving stuff. On PC, I could do if without them seeing me do it. Near end, I could just move the ghost through where their dynamic vision was. Is not something that can be done tabletop to anywhere near same effect, even in theatre of mind because you have to emphasise it vs it just suddenly peeking around corner on a screen. I actually rather enjoyed my time doing PC GMing because as a tool, a PC game could do things impossible in person.
@@russelljacob7955 I think I forgot what video these comments are under haha. I got tunnel vision on “career politicians” and “kidding kidding” and thought maybe the clintons had it out for you.
Xenomorph is scary, especially when the party is visiting a "ghost town" location with a Xenomorph lurking around them. I'm still working on a fantasy setting version.
The Thing. Simply terrifying as a creauture. A single cell can infect and convert your entire body into itself. It can use any dna its obtained. And has access to your full range of knowledge and skills. Along with itself growing smarter the more biomass it gathers.
I'm arachnophobic, so I'd say spiders in general, there's also some kind of alien thing to their behaviours that I personally find very fascinating. Also any kind of giant insect would fall in that category for me: has anyone had a look to all of them closely? Has anyone thought how terrifying it would be to have them face to face (in an universe in which their head has the same dimension as yours)? I don't know, sure I could find many more things that are deeply terrifying, upsetting and many others if I think of unthinkable things, cosmic horrors, and such... but why go that far? I'm quite sure that taking an insectoid species and giving them some kind of awareness would be as terrifying as some dreadful nightmarish creature from our deepest fears...
about the adult tone, i've always noticed while i make the setting that by coherence, psychology and human nature, non-family-friendly stuff always play a role, and some of the most dangerous enemies might be the one that seduce the characters because this kind of thing is among the most vulnerable weaknesses of humans but then, even thinking that adult stuff is part of the functionning of a world, i come to think that obviously, me not pulling away from adult stuff might make me look like the famous "horny GM" GM type to other players... what do you people think?
I don't remember the name, but Glass cannon podcast fought a bull construct that could swallow people and then do fire damage. Absolutely terrifying when you know it's based on an actual torture method. Also false hydras.
You know what I find scary? The RU-vid algorithm, that forces creators to play to its deeply incestuous tune, forces them to ask us inane questions. But, if we must be realistic, and stick to DnD creatures. the False Hydra.
The monster not seen but heard or you find evidence of as you go along. The movie Alien is a master class in suspense and fright since you don't see the whole monster until the very end. Your imagination is so much better at causing fright than visuals.
Mimics, or any type of deadly enemy that could ambush you out of the blue at any moment, can be pretty scary... They mean that you'd have to be constantly on edge, the slightest lapse in attention could mean death!
I think tone is also something that's important to consider before deciding on an RPG system. For example, if you're going for a feeling of horror and existential dread, you'll have a hard time doing that in D&D because the system is designed for characters who are more powerful than most people. On the other hand, it works very well for the type of tone you cite from Marvel movies. To an extent you can bend most systems to a tone they weren't designed for, but you'll get a smoother experience out of choosing one that matches your intended tone.
My 4 players entered a prison to capture an invisible wizard who escaped his cell. The wizard casts knock and opens the cells so the PC have the inmates to deal with. A serious gritty tone. The bard PC, with a charisma of 18 goes into the nearby kitchen, finds cookies, and offers them to the prisoners. She rolls a 20. One prisoner, a barbarian, is unfazed. The bard goes behind him and for some reason, throws a bar of soap up his shirt...rolling another 20. What I hoped would be a gritty, messy, bloody prison brawl became this comical situation of prisoners actually helping the PCs. Sometime tone is set by your PCs despite your best efforts. I wanted a harsh tone but the group was feeling rather jolly so I changed the tone on the fly to accommodate their actions.
If you want gritty or dark, you have to have buy in before hand. And if someone comes up with something silly, you need to pause the game and reiterate that it's a different tone. If the players decide they don't want that type of a game, they need to say so. Often, silly behavior is a habit that you have to intentionally stop yourself, not a way of saying you're not interested in a non silly type of game.
@@O4C209 I totally agree with you but my players are all new to RPGs, so I've been giving a lot of latitude letting them get comfortable with the rules, their characters, role-playing, and all options they have. I do have an over-all mood, and sporadic humor is certainly welcome from the shy PC that they have been.
True that, if the players are steering the boat sometimes they can steer clear of the shit you intended. I've had things go the opposite way of your encounter before. Non violent scenarios that didn't mean anything turn into absolute blood baths
Xenomorphs scare me too, and in the realm of fantasy, I find undead and aberrations frightening because they subvert the "rules of nature" that we take for granted.
Basilisks are scarry to me - i honestly have little to no experience with them, yet when we once encountered one in D&D we did not TPK, but it was simply scarry to know we Could TPK by such a creature that have Disgustingly effective antiPlayer abilities. Unprepared party really roll for their life and that is what TTRPG is all about - being unprepared for GM next move and get excited when your party manage to overcome something never seen before.
Keepers: be careful not to encourage too much humor at your table. Everyone might laugh at a fart joke but it kills the mood. Humor works well at a D&D table, but not a Call of Cthulhu table, because once the suspense is gone, it's very hard to get it back.
The Thing. It plays into the notion of what others bring up as well. The loss of trust in other people and the surroundings - one slip up and ya dead. The grotesque nature of morphing anything living into a creature resembling what only hell could birth is the green rotten cherry on top.
This is the number one answer on the thread! I saw this when I was 12 and have never been a horror film fan since because the Thing scared the living 💩 out me!
Here I am at work having a mild crisis trying to think up some monster that I find scary. I got nothing! Feeling fear is s survival instinct which I do have, so anything can be scary given the right atmoshpeeeeeee... wait a minute... Aaaah yes I see the point xD
I actually didn't. Thank you for helping me make the connection! I had a hard time too, because I tend to compartmentalize despite my ability to fully immerse myself, so things that don't exist IRL are rarely scary to me. Even the first American Ring movie, Samara wasn't as scary as the constant evidence and reminders that the main character was probably going to die in a few days. The EFFECT was the real horror for me.
A well armed, and trained shapeshifter. Think Changeling from D&D or even worse a Skinwalker or amorphous mimic expy that is actually intelligent. Any creature capable of shielding itself from senses while maintaining its own and able to operate anything reasonable in its setting is the definition of horror.
Not scared of any creatures but I agree that tone is crucial. So is breaking it up. My campaign is largely a social one in an urban environment, so dropping in a bit of horror now and then has paid off nicely. My favorite bit was when I had them watched by rats. Just everywhere they went for days, I would mention a rat or a group of rats. Mostly just doing rat stuff but sometimes watching the players. They mostly didn't notice but it slowly dawned on them that this was too many rats. Then they started looking for the rats, running from the rats, hiding from the rats, attacking the rats, trying to catch the rats, asking to roll to see the rats everywhere they went. I was worried they figured out that they'd be fighting wererats but it surprised them and they still bring it up a year later. "Any rats here?" "None that you see..."
The scariest thing is always the unknown. Whatever it is that's stalking your party, or dragging off the townspeople will always be more frightening when you don't know who or what is doing it.
I used skin kites on my players and they were really spooked. I even played it with kid gloves as my players arent that experienced so I had the skin kites go after the mounts and the dmpc first. Creeped myself out when I had to determine whether the dmpc bard wanted to attack his own flayed skin that had been peeled off him, turned undead, and was now hovering midair and trying to attach to another party member.
Here are creatures I find horrifying. Fantasy: Vampires, Illithiliches, Beholders, Cthulhu, Nurgle and Tzeentch. Sci-Fi: Ceti eels, Facehuggers and Xenomorphs, Brain Bugs, The Thing.
Like walking down the street, independent of yourself, a person or thing that looks just like you? Abso*******lutely. I think such a thing even exists as a specific monster in D&D.
I feel like this is a very important video but wasn't executed well. I don't agree with the description that 'adult' is a tone. "gritty" "dark" those are tones. Tones are like moods. A world of oppression, Slavery? Peace? Distrust? evil, survival? All of those are tones. And then also this video didn't give the characteristics of the tones. Overall this seems like a video about a topic that wasn't researched or thought about enough before making the video.
It's tough to narrow it down to just one, but a LOT of the contenders for my top spot can be found in Rusty Quill's _The Magnus Archive_ series... Some top-notch creepiness, there. EDIT: I have to admit though, The Vast *_does_* sync up with my personal psyche a little _too_ well...
False Hydra... are you loosing your mind, what is real and what's not? Is it just you or have you "lost the plot"... Maybe it's "time travel"? Ahahahaha!!!
On the back on my DM screen I have drawings that my PC have created so they have something to look at. Additionally I also have about 20 of my favorite meme's collaged on the back as well. One of them is that. LOL
There's a Construct in the OG Monster Manual for D&D 5e called a Retriever and it always seemed really horrific. It towers over humans, the art makes it look 16-20 ft tall and it's spider like, but it's 4 front legs are depicted coming out like the arms of a Mantis, and the body is more spindly. It serves the demon lords and is Chaotic evil and single minded in its purpose. A gigantic spider but not spider that would abduct and torture you from the shadows? Nope nope nope nope
Corrupt, body horror monsters. Anything pieced together from disparate parts. Interesting presentation. I've been thinking a lot about the tone of the world I'm building, without thinking about it in these terms. I've been struggling how to tell my players about the tone of my world without spoiling things. I find this important in making sure the players are in the game they want to play. I now think the best way to describe the tone of my world as similar to Lord of the Rings. The players will start in a relatively peaceful world with no great conflict or pain. But something is happening on the edges of their world that will eventually cause horrors and warfare that has been hidden for a long time from their world, to spill over, and change everything. There will be a lot of exploration of the world in order to piece together what's really going on. Thank you for helping me to find a way of thinking and talking about this that will be useful for creation of my world.
The first thing that came to my mind was Tharizdun's depiction by Matthew Mercer, even though it's not a creature, a formless mass of creeping shadows bringing absolute chaos sounds so fucking terrifying to me. Tharizdun or I'd say Dementors
It's more of a creature that I think *should be* scarier. Dragons. Yes, we all know them from their current trope, of giant flying fire breathing lizard, and that's definitely cool and all. But originally (at least in Western Christian storytelling) dragons are so much more than that, they are servants of Satan and the epitome of rebellion against God. The classic stories of knights fighting dragons isn't just a story of a martial warrior beating a monster, they are tales of good vs evil. Dragons should not only be immensely powerful physically, they should also be wickedly intelligent, cunning and manipulative. Think of Smaug from the Hobbit, not only is he a big scary lizard, but he's also a cruel monster who is at least as frightening because of his wits as his fiery breath.
A little girl (7-12 years old) in a white gown, singing a childs' rhyme while an old musikbox plays the tune slowly. At the same time she is giving you a steady stare from her cold, icy eyes, while smiling!
I played in a game about Courtesans, and it was a real sexual tone. I ran a vampire game for 9 years and the tone changed from scene to session to session. Action, intrigue, politics, comedy. I remember their was one game when the session was the PC's prank phone calling someone. Another session the PC's are in a bank robbery with vampires trying to break masquerade on tv, which ended with a PC wrestling with someone with a bomb vest on (win or die). I ran another vampire game in vegas which was tonally about things happening fast and constant sensory overload. Every 10 minutes someone would call them on the phone with an out of the box cohen bros problem, like I need you guys to help me pretend this old lady is still alive so I can get her social security, or tonight at 10oclock the shipment is coming in. Every single game the PC's always had a guest that came from out of town that they had to watch on top of whatever weird shit they had to do all night, so they had to make sure this guest was "cool" with what was happening. I find most of the people I play with don't do well with horror, because bad shit is gonna happen to them and usually they consider it me trolling them... which I am to a degree because it's horror so you can only 'win' so much. Tone is usually the first thing I consider before I even make a game.
Maby not a creature. But a setting. An empty town were everything is "normal" but it seems like everyone just dissapeared, plates of food left half eaten. Cars parked at the side of the road. Stores left unatended. Etc Maby mixed with something erie such as a heavy fog.
Humans. Nothing is more cruel and vicious than humans. Usually they come with good intentions. Save nature, cure diseases, honor the gods, or make their kingdom great. (In fantasy those might as well be elfs, dwarfs, merfolk, or the likes) I like to build up with smaller creatures that are typically evil and seem to act on mere instinct, but later the players discover that they are used by some.
Ohhh, I watched a greaaat video about a restless monster (it's literally called like that) who steals sleep aka energy from NPCs D: it wants to steal from the players too and hunts 'em. Such an amazing idea :D it causes the players to fear sleeping
TLDR. “Scary” creatures: The ones I don’t know or suspect are there until I feel them on my skin. Scary creature: This is a tricky one for me. Horror, gore and the undead are kinda my things. So, I’m not really scared of fantastical creatures. I’ve also worked with some rather dangerous terrestrial creatures. So, I’m not really scared of the more mundane creatures. My fascination with the horror genre started very early for me. At the age of 3/4 I watched the European release of the Exorcist on the big screen. (Don’t go hating on my parents. It was a series of unfortunate/fortunate events and situations.) Of the gaming groups I’ve played with over the decades, I’m only one of three people I know who will GM Cthulhu. As one person who refused to run it told me, “it’s just nightmares waiting to happen.” As my normal dreams are what most people would classify as nightmares, I didn’t see this as an issue for me. Of the three of us who have run Cthulhu, I’m the only one who truly embraces the horrific/gory/scary sides of the game. I find cosmic horrors fascinating and they only rarely play an active part in the game. I find my players enjoyment of being scared, horrified or disgusted very satisfying. When it comes to more terrestrial creatures, I’ve had opportunities to work with a number of predators. Human raised or abused big cats of several species. Snakes. Wild foxes and mountain lions - in a rescue center. (These last two I was told they were not human friendly and would bite or scratch anyone who got near them. After much discussion and signing the waivers, I was allowed to interact with them. I eventually took the “required” gloves off to handle them bare handed without issue.) However. I am a tactile person. My skin is sensitive to touch and texture. Touch is also my primary love language. I do not like being touched unexpectedly, by anyone I don’t know or anyone I don’t trust. I cannot/will not wear certain fabrics. So, I’m not a fan of crawlies on me without knowing what they are or that they are there. Randomly/unknowingly having something crawl over my skin will freak me right the F out. I had spider crawl over my face once just as I was falling asleep while camping. I jumped near out of my skin gettin out of my sleeping bag to find it. I found it and identified it. Wolf spider. (Harmless and also useful.) Then I pushed it out of my tent with my hand. That being said, I’ve allowed spiders to crawl on me. Ants too. Several insects as well. I even managed to get a scorpion in the wild to crawl over my hand once. I don’t recommend trying this last one.
Scariest creature for me: hard to decide if it is a creature or not. It is a cosmic/eldritch horror. Not your typical bladed tentacle amalgamation, but more importantly, the thing that you will never comprehend. I've seen people put in some terrifying suggestions, even humans, to which I have to agree. But for me, nothing beats that which is impossible to understand, not to be confused that which you "do not" understand. The latter you can make an attempt to understand at the least. When you come to face something that is impossible for your mind to comprehend, it strikes a fear in your heart that you absolutely cannot shake. It is what drives you to insanity, the human mind always seeks to rationalize what it sees, hears, ect. But that eldritch or cosmic horror, it just cannot, and so the dread sets in, because you very quickly learn that whatever this thing is, it is simply beyond you, and you will never be able to get the upper hand, or more importantly, if you do, you know your efforts had nothing to do with it, it had everything to do with that horror letting you think you won. Now there, is the scariest thing to me, the thing you cannot comprehend, pretending to have lost, just to rip your victory out from under your feet later.
Something that you know is present, whether slightly distant or incredibly immediate, but you don't know exactly where yet do know that they know exactly that about you. Any step you take could be towards a trap or ambush, and is closely watched, yet you cannot yourself get the drop on the foe in contrast. And you don't know when or how you will come face to face with this dreadful foe, yet are keenly aware that such a meeting is inevitable.
Really anything large with sharp teeth is pretty scary. T-rexs from Jurassic Park, for example. Zombie giants can also be terrifying. Especially if either of these creatures are in the process of tearing someone apart.
Rats have our natural self-defense instincts to help keep them scary--if you don't have access to modern medical care, you really DO need to be scared of rats.
Snakes. I hate snakes so basically anything that is snake like in a game I'm usually not a fan of. I can get past people playing snake races, but I'm usually terrified by the snake creatures/monsters we fight.
A point on the break from serious LotR to sing silly songs would be the entire first half of the Fellowship of the Ring in which the hobbits sing about pretty much everything from hey diddle diddle to how much they like having a bath.
scary creature? honestly I'm not scared of many creatures but I guess my nightmare would be something small and fast that you can't catch it. flying ones especially.
the more sneaky and maniupalitive the scarier for me, like archfey hags. The kind who will give gifts but never sure where the catch is and how much it will bite you in the ass
But is this really true? Dont we need some comedic releve to make the horror (for example) more horrific? And there are genres like Star Gate (the series, not the movies) that have another tone every other episode. There is even a 5e based Star Gate Game that takes that into the equation. I think its fantastic and worth a look.
Yuan-ti purebloods - for their capacity to infiltrate a city virtually undetected and persuasively funnel innocents out into the clutches of the ascended monstrosities and warlock Malisons for ritual sacrifice.
A creature that scares me? Giant spiders. I hate spiders in the real world, so imagining a spider the size of a dog/car/building is even more of a terrifying concept
Goblins. On every adventures, movie or books, they are always violent, armed and numerous near peaceful populations. A single one of them is never frightening but their sheer numbers and overwhelming presence near peaceful habitation is honestly frightening. As a DM I have given task to my players to get rid of the goblin menace on a region. At lv.5. It was a very grueling task. They seeked out goblins and killed them everywhere, only to have to so it again a week later. Its only when they mounted a permanent armed force, trained and equiped that they finally could contain the threat. Never were my players really ib danger but the people they were in charge of protecting always were. Every night goblins raid killed, wounded and destroyed a farm of some houses in the village.
Wronged spirits/ghosts from Asian horror movies that seem to have a recourse to stop them but are then revealed to be unstoppable. That sense of dead when you know the protagonists are doomed no matter what.
