What are your most successful monsters?

[Antifascist]

I ran aone-shot that turned ito a campaign once which featured a small Barovian village that for some reason was constantly infilitrated by the Illithid. No matter how far the characters got away from this village, they would keep coming back, and they would always find at least one illithid there.

Eventually, the players started noticing little odd things that the burgomaster did, and they spied on her for awhile. They eventually followed her to a cavern on the outskirts of town. Inside the cavern, after a dungeon crawl that had a huge amount of undead, even for RL, they discovered her secret. And the secret of most of the people in town.

Most of the town, burgomaster included, were actually Avolakia. When they first arrived in the mists, they had wound up in Bluetspur. The illithid were none to happy about this, and promptly enslaved them. of course, they did not take this lying (sliming?) down, and they planned an escape. In the midst of their escape from Bluetspur, they massacred many illithid, stole an artifact called The Genesis Stalk, and took off for the mists.

The illithid kept showing up to try and take back The Genesis Stalk (although I never revealed to the players anything about the stalk at all-what it did, why the avolakia took it, or why the illithid wanted it back), and so the mayor used this to attract adventurerers, which the avolakia then ate or turned into undead or turned into undead and then ate.

This was supposed to have been a one-shot, with a real The Prisoner type of vibe, but the PC's liked it so much that we did a campaign with their characters where the avolakia were always in the background, and sometimes, driving the action.

[Antifascist]

double post

[High Priest Mikhal]

hah Heath Ledgers' Joker reminds me of Ivan Dilisnya.

::head explodes:: Ouch! The DL I hate the most and the version of the Joker I like best are one in the same in character!? That can't be right. Ivan wants power, glory, to be adored, only to have to take it and taste the bitter fruits of his own repugnance. The Joker...is a (bleep)ing loon that makes no sense to rational minds. And please no one go into the whole "if rational is irrational, then irrational must be rational" philosophy schtick. I did that to death on Gleemax.

[HuManBing]

There is a really cool bad guy in GURPS Monsters that I intend to use to frighten my characters. His name is Leatherjacket and he wears a full body-hugging leather suit with straps and laces all over.

He's basically a person who regenerates like a troll. His arms and legs were hacked off his body a long time ago, and he was buried. But he remained alive and slowly but surely dug his way to the surface. He now wears the suit as a means of holding his body together. The PCs can't kill him through inflicting damage, but they can cut the leathers that hold him together... and then scream as his body parts continue scrabbling after them!

[Archedius]

I win regardless since it's an opinion : ) But in mannerisms and presentation I feel a similarity between Ivan and Heath's Joker. I never said they had the same M.O. so step off

[High Priest Mikhal]

I win regardless since it's an opinion : ) But in mannerisms and presentation I feel a similarity between Ivan and Heath's Joker. I never said they had the same M.O. so step off

Fine, fine. But I'd still sooner hook up with the Joker. With Ivan you could insult him just by wearing the wrong color shirt. But with the Joker you just have to keep smiling. "Why so serious?"

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Hey, don't let the Joker catch you saying that, Mihkal! If anything can be relied on to offend him, I suspect it'd be a claim that his behavior is in any way predictable.

FWIW, I see what Archedius is getting at, comparing the two. They share a certain vindictive contrariness, and they both get a huge kick out of how their reputations scare the hell out of people.

[Archedius]

yeah, still don't know which one is scarier but I'm edging towards Ivan...

[impworks]

Captain Rapacian from the adventure "Blood in Moondale" (Book of Crypts) is by far my most successful monster. I've used him in two campaigns and two one shots. In the campaigns I used him as a commander for the local militia, town guard etc building up to the revelation of his true nature once the PCs reach a suitable level to be challenged rather than slaughtered.

[NeoTiamat]

There is a really cool bad guy in GURPS Monsters that I intend to use to frighten my characters. His name is Leatherjacket and he wears a full body-hugging leather suit with straps and laces all over.

He's basically a person who regenerates like a troll. His arms and legs were hacked off his body a long time ago, and he was buried. But he remained alive and slowly but surely dug his way to the surface. He now wears the suit as a means of holding his body together. The PCs can't kill him through inflicting damage, but they can cut the leathers that hold him together... and then scream as his body parts continue scrabbling after them!

That is just malevolent. It's like that slasher movie villain who just won't die.

Oddly, my most successful villain so far has also been a Joker-type (granted, I've only got one full campaign under my belt). A not-quite-human Necromancer by the name of John Lancaster Cavendish, who combines impressive arcane might with a demented sense of humor. Current actions have included:

• -Threatening to play a game with some kids if the PCs didn't give themselves up. The game? He'd have his ghouls race each other in "Competitive Disembowelment!"
  -Animated an entire museum exhibit full of skulls to taunt the PCs with.
  -While the PCs were fighting one of his minions, (a soul-stealing undead Defacer), he reanimated a troup of skeletal musicians and proceeded to sing while they fought.

[High Priest Mikhal]

• -Threatening to play a game with some kids if the PCs didn't give themselves up. The game? He'd have his ghouls race each other in "Competitive Disembowelment!"
  -Animated an entire museum exhibit full of skulls to taunt the PCs with.
  -While the PCs were fighting one of his minions, (a soul-stealing undead Defacer), he reanimated a troup of skeletal musicians and proceeded to sing while they fought.

That's sick, twisted, and just plain evil. I bow to your vile creativity.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

I managed to make one group pretty much terrified of everything. But possibly the one that scared them the most was a lich that had been in the part for over two years before the truth came out! Yeah, that really scared them, even more so when they worked out that they'd been coersed into doing his bidding the entire time when their patron turned out to be a lesser undead creature (I forget what exactly) under the control of the lich.

That game was alot of fun for me, but it turned the heroes' world upside down to think that they might be the bad guys.

[Guzrath]

I love this thread

I've had a few campaigns, but in my early days of Ravenloft I had created a group of 4 shapshifters.....I do not remember which "were-" they were. I was quite hyped about the whole pistols thing in the more advanced domains and had created a whole Pistoleer Prestige class and a whole set of "etiquette rules" for pistoleers. These were different per domain and even had a list of famous and infamous pistoleers.

That group of 4 shapshifters was on the infamous list. Actually, they were expert musket shooters (my version of snipers). Each of them had a young apprentice with them that simply held equipment for the Pistoleer. When it rained, they would hold camouflaged umbrellas to keep the muskets as dry as possible.
Even though these were the less "Ravenloft" creatures the campaign had, they did leave a mark. Actually, 1 of them. One of my players faced them all 4 and got 3 of them, captured an apprecntice (whom he trained himself later on) and got a sworn enemey in out of the 4th Musketeer, Rianne. She would hunt him down and show up at awkward or inoppurtun moments. In the end the player got her, but she wouldn't die. She persevered and even regained her life. The campaign ended abruptly by them, but In the new campaign I gave her a small spot in the news, where she died in the largest gunfight (and actually the first) on the Core.

Had some other memorable NPC's, but for some reason, she was always one to get on the players nerves.

[Guzrath]

double post, srry

[Tykus]

There is a really cool bad guy in GURPS Monsters that I intend to use to frighten my characters. His name is Leatherjacket and he wears a full body-hugging leather suit with straps and laces all over.

He's basically a person who regenerates like a troll. His arms and legs were hacked off his body a long time ago, and he was buried. But he remained alive and slowly but surely dug his way to the surface. He now wears the suit as a means of holding his body together. The PCs can't kill him through inflicting damage, but they can cut the leathers that hold him together... and then scream as his body parts continue scrabbling after them!

That is just malevolent. It's like that slasher movie villain who just won't die.

Oddly, my most successful villain so far has also been a Joker-type (granted, I've only got one full campaign under my belt). A not-quite-human Necromancer by the name of John Lancaster Cavendish, who combines impressive arcane might with a demented sense of humor. Current actions have included:

• -Threatening to play a game with some kids if the PCs didn't give themselves up. The game? He'd have his ghouls race each other in "Competitive Disembowelment!"
  -Animated an entire museum exhibit full of skulls to taunt the PCs with.
  -While the PCs were fighting one of his minions, (a soul-stealing undead Defacer), he reanimated a troup of skeletal musicians and proceeded to sing while they fought.

When I read you're list, all I could think of was Xykon of OOTS fame.