I Love Underused Monsters

What can be said about the depths of D&D's extensive bestiary that hasn't been covered in detail so many times before? It's only natural that a game that's been around for so long, and with enough need to create new and interesting challenges for players over the years, would develop as many different monsters and creatures as it has over the various editions. And of course, with such a wide selection, it's inevitable that some would have more staying power than others. There are some (illithids) that are remembered fondly. There are some (wolfs-in-sheeps'-clothing) that are only brought up as the butt of a joke. There are some (flumphs) that were for years only celebrated ironically, only to develop a genuine fanbase of their own. And there are many more that people just forget about.

One might assume that these monsters fall into the unfortunate middle of the bell curve - too good to become a subject of mockery, but not good enough to become icons. But I've said it before, and I've said it again. The majority of monsters that go unused do so because people don't know how to use them. But when they do, these monsters can really shine.

The true beauty in those also-ran monsters lies in how their obscurity makes them ripe to be exploited. Players who have been in enough campaigns to familiarize themselves with the Monster Manual's greatest hits have a habit of metagaming, already knowing everything about a monster's behavior and weaknesses and how to kill them. There have been a number of strategies proposed to combat this over the years, from using homebrew material to reskinning monsters so that players can't identify their stats by sight. But there's plenty of gold to be mined if one is willing to plumb the depths of the various D&D bestiaries - and if the players aren't as familiar with these creatures, they'll hopefully still hold onto the wonder and mystery that makes a good encounter so memorable.

Today, I'd like to devote this post to celebrating the underused entries in the Monster Manual and its ilk, elaborating on why I like them, and why they deserve to be used more. Perhaps you'll come away with a newfound appreciation for the monsters you never knew how to use - until now.

Perytons

Oh, come on. Don't tell me you didn't know I love perytons. I've already devoted two entire blog posts to the things. Go there if you want to see what I have to say.

Duergar

I can't help but feel sorry for these guys. When it comes to the archetype of evil subterranean variants on the traditionally playable races, the duergar can't help but come at a distant second place in popularity next to drow. Which is a shame, because I've always preferred them.

I've always found drow overplayed and uninteresting. There is basically nothing you can do with drow that hasn't already been done - in Forgotten Realms alone. And it doesn't help that most settings just copy and paste drow straight from Forgotten Realms. That's why I have such respect for settings like Eberron (or, going outside of D&D, The Elder Scrolls - give me dunmer over drow any day) that - gasp! - decided to do something different with the concept of dark elves. But as time went on, I realized I didn't really need dark elves, underground or otherwise. And that led me to look into alternative options.

Maybe it's because dwarves already have a strong association with the underground, but they've always seemed more at home in the Underdark (and its various offshoots in different settings) than elves to me. Not to mention the concept of evil dwarves is ripe for playing on the negative extremes of traditional dwarven traits. The love of gold and jewels turns into greed and covetousness. The isolationism turns into paranoia and xenophobia. The pride in craftsmanship turns into obsession and compulsion, and the respect for tradition turns into a cargo cult mentality that things must be done as they've always been done or else. We see the potential of this in plenty of stories - think of Thorin struck by the dragon sickness, or the more gruesome events to come out of Dwarf Fortress playthroughs - and, as pointed out by Hobgoblinry, it gets closer to the heart of how dwarves were often portrayed in Norse myth. That, to me, is so much richer than the exact same spider-obsessed, inexplicably dark-skinned, cave-dwelling, second-rate Melniboneans showing up everywhere, and it deserves just as much love.

Ankhegs

Maybe I'm a little biased here. I did, after all, write an encounter centering around ankhegs. But that encounter was an effort to show how ankhegs could be utilized effectively, because I just think they're fun. To me, the concept of giant armored bugs that eat through rock and track prey through vibrations on the surface hits a good middle ground in terms of weirdness - that is, they're strange and exotic enough to feel distinctly D&D, but not so out there (in a contemporary sense, before you come to me with bicorns and bonnacons) that they wouldn't feel at home in the pages of a medieval bestiary. After all, the concept of giant insects is one that goes back years, and some of the things ankhegs do are actually seen in the animal kingdom, which grounds them in a sense of verisimilitude.

It's not like it's even all that hard to imagine how ankhegs could play into an encounter, either. There's all sorts of fictional beasts that wait below the surface and follow vibrations to track their targets, from the sandworms of Dune to the graboids of Tremors, and we can easily turn to these works to see what an ankheg encounter might look like. Furthermore, when they're essentially termites on a grand scale, we can get a sense for what dealing with ankhegs might be like if we've ever had to call an exterminator - just think of the last time you had termites in your house, and now imagine what those termites could do if they were eight feet long and spit acid. Plus, you can create an entire dungeon out of the concept of a termite mound writ large!

Another cool thing about ankhegs is that, since they tunnel under the ground, they can quite literally add a new dimension to combat and maneuvering if the party has to think about what's going on underneath them. Or even above them - in a dungeon, they could literally attack from all angles!

Art by lordsenneian

Huecuvas

Using intelligent undead creatures as villains is a mainstay of D&D, from liches to vampires to death knights. But you rarely see these guys get the same treatment, which is unfortunate when you consider how much potential they have. In some ways, a huecuva can be compared to a clerical version of a lich, but in other ways, it's the exact opposite. A lich sought out immortality through dark magic, deliberately severing the soul from their body to stop the process of age and decay. A huecuva, on the other hand, was cursed by their patron god to walk the earth eternally, turning the state of undeath from a position of power to a punishment inflicted upon them.

As someone whose gateway drug to fantasy was ancient mythology, I can safely say that there need to be way more instances of gods cursing people in fantasy, especially ones that at least pay lip service to ancient pagan polytheism, and including huecuvas in your campaign goes a long way toward capturing that feel. Even beyond that, though, huecuvas have some great mechanics that can easily set up some memorable encounters.

The fact that they assume the form of their living selves in sunlight isn't just an interesting subversion on vampires, it also means they're ripe to be used as NPCs, not just one-off enemies. Unlike many undead, it's relatively easy for huecuvas to interact with the living. You could easily use a huecuva as a recurring antagonist by having them run a cult to promote heresies against their former patron, subverting whatever designs their gods had for the world, and the party might well be led to believe they were just another human cultist until they see a walking skeleton peering back at them from the shadows. Even better, the PCs themselves might be led astray by the cult, believing the huecuva to be a trusted ally!

Cloakers

"Whoah, now, buddy," I hear you say. "Cloakers? Are you trying to sell me on cloakers? Is this some kind of joke?"

Yes, I am. And no, it's not. Look, I love noisms as much as anybody - he's one of the first RPG bloggers I ran across, I love Yoon-Suin, and I'm looking forward to The Great North - but when I saw him list cloakers in his top five worst monsters, I knew I had to say something. I'm sorry, but noisms is wrong. Cloakers do not deserve their place on that list.

Cloakers get a bad rap because of their reputation as a "gotcha monster." That is, a monster that looks like something innocuous, only to attack when the party least expects it. It's often been noted that you could create an entire dungeon room entirely out of gotcha monsters. That's not a chest, it's a mimic! That's not a suit of armor, it's animated! That's not a ceiling, it's a lurker above! That's not a floor, it's a trapper! That's not a cloak, it's a cloaker!

People think that cloakers exist only to pretend to be harmless garments hanging on coat racks, waiting for an unsuspecting adventurer to try and put them on. They bring up that that's a stupid concept for a monster; that there's no way something like that could exist without magic, and that there can't possibly be enough adventurers for that to be a sustainable dietary habit.

These people are absolutely correct. But the correct response is not to throw up your hands and shun the cloaker. The correct response is to look at how they could be so much more.

When I had the 3e Monster Manual as a kid, I never thought of cloakers as killer cloak-mimics. I thought they were supposed to be flying manta rays, gliding undetected across walls and ceilings thanks to their paper-thin bodies and dropping on their unsuspecting prey like the silent killers they are, wrapping up their bodies and restraining their limbs so they can only flail hopelessly and breathlessly as the air is smothered out of their lungs, leaving them to await their slow and agonizing demise as the creature's sharp fangs pierce their throat and drink their blood.

That's a cloaker. Any questions?

Well, I have a question for you. Let me know in the comments what your favorite underutilized or obscure D&D monsters are, and how you like to use them! I'm sure that everyone out there has a couple they hold close to their heart - and I'd love to see people share how they bring out their full potential.