Monsters I Have Loved
Posted by Joshua on Feb 20, 2009
Following the lead of Monsters and Manuals: Top 10 Monsters, here are my Top Ten D&D Monsters, in no particular order:
- Gelatinous Cube: I love these guys. They’re creepy as all get-out, particularly when they’ve got a partially digested skeleton or something suspended in them, they’re not so dangerous as to be unfair and they’re the perfect accoutrement for that oubliette….
- Purple Worm: It’s a worm big enough to swallow you whole. It can come at you through the dungeon wall. And it’s purple. What’s not to love?
- Umber Hulk: I just like the look of them, back in AD&D 1e. Mandibles are scary. The 3rd edition version just looks like a bug missing some legs. I can take or leave the Confusing gaze.
- Cockatrice: Stoning is an awesome ability, but I’m not a huge fan of gaze weapons, so I like this guy better than the basilisk. Did I ever tell you about the time I used Telekinesis to hurl a black pudding at a cockatrice?
- Troll: One troll on the wall, on the wall, one troll on the wall,
if one of those trolls should happen to fall, Two trolls on the wall on the wall…. - Green Slime: it’s a horrible way to go, and a really useful weapon against other monsters.
- Golem: they come in a wide variety, and they can stand there century after century waiting to bash in the head of the next adventurer to come through the door.
- Liche: I never actually used these that often, but the fear of them was so strong that I once had an orc with a couple of faintly glowing gems held in front of its eyes bluff a party into retreating by advancing on them from the down the dark corridor. For the rest of the campaign, players would tease each other by making a holding gems in front of their eyes gesture and saying “Run away! Run away! I’m a liche!”
- Balrog: for some reason Balrogs, and not dragons, were the ultimate bad-ass monster in D&D to me.
- Dinosaurs: Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
“I’m fighting a dinosaur! With a Sword! Coooooool!”