View Full Version : [Monster] Fear is Power

2005-09-05, 06:49 AM
Fear is Power (unfinished)
Monsters to strike terror into the hearts of your party!

Fear is a powerful motivator. In some it inspires great acts of heroism or of desperation. In others the sheer dread is too much--it paralyzes the hearts of the weak-willed and weakens their grip on reality. Some monsters can feed off this instinctual energy--tearing the emotions from their victims' minds and leaving a quivering, twitching corpse behind, the look of panic forever burned onto the visage...

Note that these monsters are not like some of the undead (ghosts, wraiths, and the like), who seek out fear and revel in the mayhem that causes it. Instead, they actually consume the fear for sustenance. Ironically, the undead are so common in some games that they should hardly scare players or PCs. Maybe these will add a twist. ;)

Ideas so far:

Dread Swarmer
These tiny monsters look like a purple, slimy tube (about 6 inches in length) with two oversized insect-like wings (wingspan about 6 inches). They are often summoned by monsters or spellcasters who can instill magical fear. Once a character is struck with fear, a Dread Swarmer will attempt to attach itself to the character (usually preferring the chest) by means of a touch attack.
-Once attached, the Dread Swarmer will damage its victim each round until either it or the victim dies, or until the Fear effect dissipates. The victim gets a will save against this damage.
-Characters attached to a Dread Swarmer are considered to be grappling them, though they cannot free themselves from the grapple.
-Any number of Dread swarmers can attach themselves to a particular victim.
-A character attached to a Dread Swarmer has a significant penalty to will saves vs. fear (its harder to avoid other fear effects--they should be in a state of abject terror). The character's allies will suffer a small penalty due to their dismay at seeing their companions being eaten in such a horrifying fashion. The penalties do not stack.
-Dread Swarmers are immune to fear, but not other mind-effects.

Dread Swarm
As the name suggests, Dread Swarmers like to congregate in large swarms in their natural habitat--dark, damp caves. Any grouping of 6 or more swarmers has an aura of fear ability.

Typical signs of Dread Swarms include dead bodies with no obvious wounds, but with a terrified expression on their face, possibly looking at their own chest (if circumstances permit).

DMs should note that Dread Swarmers are fairly useless against characters who are immune to fear, but extremely effective against their allies, especially fighters. They can cause a chain reaction among the party, with each character being struck by one, and that scaring allies, who are then struck. Typical encounters would include a spellcasting Dragon, a Lich, or a Wizard with their own magically controlled Dread Swarm. Encounters with Dread swarms are fairly destructive to party morale, whether or not they are successfully overcome, and any villain intent on separating the party members from each other or demoralizing them would make good use of a Dread Swarm or two. :)

Feel free to comment or critique.