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He calls forth the living flame.
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To stand against the darkness...
To face overwhelming odds...
To sacrifice oneself in the name of righteousness...
This is what it means to be a Holy Paladin.
A Paladin in Hell is the name of one of the most classic pieces of Dungeons & Dragons art, one which has been reproduced in every edition and occasionally in other gaming systems, too. A paladin, the holiest of holy warriors, fights alone against all the hordes of Hell itself.
For a good overview, look here: hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2012/01/on-classic-imagery-p...
A good test of the average RPGer is how they look at this picture - is the paladin going to make it out of there? Will he be overwhelmed? Do you see it as hopeful or sad? Exciting or terrifying? Will he be victorious in holding back evil, or is he sacrificing himself? Regardless, this image of one man standing against the darkness has inspired more stories and characters than anybody can count.
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Some undead monsters make you question your sanity.
Boneclaws are more than mere undead - these gigantic dessicated corpses are intelligent, and have claws that can extend for up to twenty feet. Moreso, when you reconcile their various pieces of lore in D&D canon... they are natural. A natural mutation, or perhaps evolution of undead creatures. Necromancers have managed to replicate the effect and create their own, but... Boneclaws are a natural occurance. Be terrified.
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My Little Ponies, Apocalypse Ponies... well, sorta.
The Nightmare is an awesome D&D thing. It's a big flaming shadowy evil horse of evil doom from a bad place, usually tamed only by bad people. But I say, why? Sure, it's actually an evil horse, but you could trian it to be good! most horses aren't exactly nice little creatures, anyway.
HOLY CRAP THAT THING'S AS BIG AS A MINIVAN.
Beholders come in all shapes and sizes. Ultimate Tyrants are the biggest and toughest of them, easily on par with the strongest monsters in D&D, period. Your average Ultimate Tyrant's eye rays can burn, wither, freeze, toss, madden, petrify, disintegrate, or even unravel people, and that's just the beginning! In fact, in 4th Edition, there's a variant of these guys (The Eternal Tyrant) who is arguably as tough in a fight as some of the gods.
Also, since it's bigger than a GI Joe, it's an awesome desk ornament.
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Celestial (boobies) serpent-women who (boobies) promote justice, goodness, (boobies) and mercy, Lillends can shapeshift (boobies) and have a great variety of holy magical (boobies) powers. They are also highly protective of art, music, (boobies) culture, and all things beautiful.
AKA Everybody On The Internet. For realz.
D&D Trolls are infamous for their ability to regenerate from anything, even being chopped up into trollbits. The only way to kill one is to burn it with fire or acid, which puts it down for the count (and wa salso the solution in the novel, Three Hearts And Three Lions, from which Dungeons & Dragons swiped its troll design). Don't let his big goofy nose fool you - the average troll is about ten feet tall, and can easily crush your skull like a melon.
"Cursed the ground where dead thought live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumor that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores out to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."-- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Festival"
One of H. P. Lovecraft's earliest "Mythos" stories was The Festival. Christmastime, an unnamed narrator went to visit the town of Kingsport, Massachusetts, to see their yuletide festivals. However, it turne dout that once every century, they celebrated something different. Something older. Their town leader, a strange man with a rubbery face, led the town in a dark, pagan ritual, where they danced to music played by a half-unseen, squirming, horrible thing. And then dark creatures (later identified as the Byakhee) flew in, and the villagers rode off on their leathery wings. Finally, the narrator realized that the town elder's face was a mask, and pulled it off to reveal the above quote - a horrible mass of worms masquerading as a man!
The Crawling One as represented in Arkham Horror is kind of a mixture of two of the monsters - the worm colony, and also the squirming thing in the shadows. "Something amorphously squatted far away from the light, piping noisomely on a flute". And there it is... the Crawling One, the Worm That Walks.
When you think of a Lovecraft monster as an amorphous blob of tentacles and eyes, you're probably thinking of a Shoggoth.
"It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter."
-At the Mountains of Madness
These things were created to be servitors of the Elder Things, and have a lot of brief mentions in Lovecraft's stories, most prominently appearing in At The Mountains Of Madness.
Grells are weird, even for aberrations. These tentacled, flying, breaked brains seem like animals, but actually have their own society and language - they just look so far down on other sentient life that they never deign to attempt contact. The merest brush of a Grell's barbed tendrils can paralyze a man, and their brainlike bodies are far tougher than they look.
The original Headless Horseman is named Dullahan, and he isn't a ghost!
An ancient dark fairy, Dullahan rides by night on his dark steed, searching for those doomed to die. When he finds them, Dullahan will splash blood on them. No gate or door can bar his way, though throwing gold in his path occasionally works - but be warned, if you interfere too much, he will mark you, too, or fight more directly with his whip made from a human's spinal cord.
Blood-splashing, human spine-whip... is it just me, or are the original myths way darker than anything Tim Burton may have thought up for that movie?
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The most numerous of Draconians, these guys petrify when they die, trapping weapons in their stone bodies.
DC Santarchy - '06 - Two very nice looking waitresses at the 3rd Edition in the back station mugging for the camera.
Double the treasure, double the trouble! This dragon has two fire-breathing heads, and only the bravest (or most foolish) of warriors would even attempt to face one.
It's always bad news when something nonhuman becomes a lich. Dracoliches manage to combine the worst parts of dragons and undead, and although they are very rare, they can do a whole lot of damage.
The most famous Dracolich on record is Dragotha, a being of near-deity strength (well, he DID have a relationship with Tiamat)!
The second D&D movie, Wrath of the Dragon God (which wasn't very good, but was way better than the first), involves Faluzure, a dracolich god.
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Yikes!
Fomorians before 4th Edition D&D were just giant, pale, deformed giants. But in the newest edition, they were given an expanded role in the mythos, serving as evil-eyed fey tyrants!
These strange creatures live in cities deep within the moon, and hold great influence throughout the cosmos. Do not let their froglike appearance fool you.
Unique among illithids, the Pale Flayer is a gifted leader of his kind, a prophet and seer, guiding his people into ever more diabolical schemes.
Technically not a warforged, warforged titans are... well, technically warforged, too. They lack the intelligence and sentience of their smaller kin, instead behaving much closer to traditional robots. Older prototypes of what would eventually become the warforged race, these juggernauts still see fairly regular production and use in armies all across Eberron.
Yes, Dragonborn have undead, too. And what could be worse for a loyal servant of Bahamut than to be turned into an undead abomination?
Also known as Scrags, Sea Trolls barely resemble their landbound kin due to their fishy scales and proportions, but they are certainly part of the ame species. They can only regenerate when in water, but it's nearly impossible to destroy a Scrag when it's wet.
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Blue Dragons are native to the desert, where they can burrow under the sand and hide if necessary. But why hide when you're bigger than an elephant and can spit lightning?
What's better than a dinosaur? A SUPER dinosaur! This is a Tyrannosaurus Rex with an added D&D template, which is just kind of like overkill. It's Fiendish. It is a T-Rex from Hell.
Far from the sunken city of R'yleh, there are some who would perform rites to awaken the Great Old One and bring endless madness to the world.
These prickly impish devils serve as scouts and messengers for the massive armies of the Ba'atezu devils.
One of the more humanoid types of devils, Chain Devils don't just wear chains, they are a part of the devil's body. Their chains can extend incredible distances, and they have more than one or two - you try fighting an enemy that can pretty much tie up your whole adventuring party at once!
The dreaded spawn of Cthulhu, Ghatanothoa is so terrible that mearly the sight of it will shrivel mortal man into a mummified husk. Ghatanothoa is now imprisoned beneath a mountain, but his Lloigor servants still permeate the world, spreading the horrific influence of their master.
Yet another kind of snaky aberration, Guiltspur Nagas are slender, purple, and hide out well in the deep, dank caves of the world.
Oh, yeah... and guilt. Spurred. Or something.
Wyverns are an old heraldic type of creature similar to dragons, and likely inspired in some way by Pterosaurs. They stand on two feet, with their "arms" as wings. In some legends, they have venomous stingers in their tails.
Even when undead, Cyclopes are terribly powerful guardians. And their skulls look nothing like an elephant!
The poster child for 4th Edition's elemental titans, Fire Titans take everything that Fire Giants are, and square it. Fire Giants are big, proportioned like dwarves, orange-haired, black-skinned (like coal, not racism), and don't mind heat very much. Fire Titans are the same, except twice as big, their hair appears to be on fire, and you can even see the seething magma beneath their coaly skin. Just standing near one might set you on fire, which is exactly what they would want - these guys mean business.
Now that I think of it, he's kind of a Reverse Santa. Or maybe a really buff Heat Miser.
Somewhat small and equipped with only four heads, Fen Hydras are nevertheless quite dangerous opponents.
Unique among mind flayers, the Pale Illithid is a gifted leader of his kind, a prophet and seer, guiding his people into ever more diabolical schemes.
(Also, he replaced a few light bulbs in his house)
Legal proceedings mean that you can't call this guy an "Ent," though he's certainly similar! Treants are guardians of the forest.
“D’ye ken the tale o’ Whalebone Pilk? They say he took the whaler Belle Dame to sea from Magnimar. Sich was his success tha’ they called ‘im Whalebone fer leavin’ naught else behind, an’ they called ‘is ship th’ Bell, fer the way he rang it with such furor ever’ time ‘e seen a whale’s spout. Pilk chased a pod o’ bowheads off th’ shoulder o’Hermea, headin’ south. Beat ‘is knuckles bloody ringin’ that bell, chased ‘em out t’ sea an’ away from th’ world, ‘til th’ crew mutinied. Ol’ Pilk had th’ ringleader tied t’ th’ mast an’ ordered th’ mate t’ lash ‘im s’long’s the Cap’n kept ringin’ th’ bell. The mate’s arm gave out afore Pilk’s did. Once the mutineer was dead, Pilk had ‘im skinned an’ rendered inna try-pot, an’ nailed ‘is skull t’ th’ mainmast as a warnin’. Weren’t long after when a huge bull bowhead rammed th’ ship an breached ‘er hull. Pilk cursed th’ whales and cursed ‘is men and kept right on ringin’ that bell all the way down ter the sea bottom, two thousand miles from land. They say ‘e kin ne’er rest ‘til e’s taken th’ skulls o’ a thousand victims.”
Malevolent spirits of ash smoke and fire, volcano ghosts quietly build up pressure in anticipation of the next violent eruption.
the Dragonlance setting (world of Krynn) did a lot of thigns differently from standard D&D. Clerical magic was a rarity, dragons no longer had certain defining physical characteristics, there were no orcs... and draconians were everywhere! Evil dragon-man hybrids (predating those Dragonborn), each kind of Draconian has its own specialty and silly way of dying (like turning to stone or exploding). Sivaks are BIG, and can change their shape - when they die, they either turn into their killer, or burst into flames depending on whether they are male or female.
Hilariously (and maybe coincidentally, maybe not), this figure looks exactly like one of the stage bosses in the Capcom arcade beat 'em up, The King of Dragons (The "Ancient Dragonian"). Even got the same sword.
The indisputed king of evil chromatic dragons, Red Dragons are classic money-hoarding fire-breathers, and the most "normal" of D&D dragons. And they are vicious. really vicious.
The Fungi from Yuggoth, the Whisperers In Darkness, Mi-Gos are some of the strangest non-elder god aliens in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Hailing from interstellar space, they are usually identified with Yuggoth (pluto), the furthest planet (and it IS a planet) in our system. Although they are technically fungi, they resemble insects, and are actually composed of a type of matter that does not exist on earth. Their wings help them fly through space, though they have some trouble in our atmosphere. These strange, faceless things like to extract human brains - they put the brains into jars, maintain their victims' consciousness, and then teach them the mysteries of the universe. Mi-Gos believe that this is charity.
(Unfortunately, the Mi-Go SHOULD be pinkish, but Arkham Horror wants them to be green, so a green light is what I used.)
The Dark Young of Shub Nig... Shub-Nigg.... Shub-ni... Shub.... GAAAAAH! Okay, 'll just say it.
Shub-Niggurath.
See? It's not spelled like the bad word! Don't LOOK at me like that! Yes, I know H. P. Lovecraft had some ethnicity issues, but really, he had issues with everybody (including his own white folks), and I don't think this one was a direct slur. It's just an unfortunate name.
Anyway, this is the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath. There are thousands of them. I'm going to quote Robert Bloch on this one:
"Something black in the road, something that wasn't a tree. Something big and black and ropy, just squatting there, waiting, with ropy arms squirming and reaching... It came crawling up the hillside... and it was the black thing of my dreams -- that black, ropy, slimy jelly tree-thing out of the woods. It crawled up and it flowed up on its hoofs and mouths and snaky arms."
-Robert Bloch, "Notebook Found in a Deserted House"