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One of the ultimate classic D&D monsters, the Umber Hulk has been around since the very beginning, and has no mythological precedent whatsoever. A big beetle shaped kind of like an ape, Umber Hulks can burrow through the earth like it's water, and looking into their eyes will confuse almost anybody. They are smarter than they look, though still very much animals, and can show an impressive amount of tactics when hunting for a meal.
Oddly enough, a lot of subterranean races have managed to tame Umber Hulks, even some of the ones that grow to massively huge sizes.
The Black Dog, also known as the Barghest or The Grim, is an ancient, evil symbol - if you see it, your days are numbered and there is nothing you can do about it. Hey, ever notice how many mythical Irish Creatures are death omens?
Fearsome creations, Chain Golems are essentially similar to Iron Golems, only made of lots of little pieces of iron, and not big panels. Aside from increased flexibility and malleability, a chain golem can trap a living being inside its body, thus serving as the perfect mobile prison.
And they are HUGE.
One of several "Terrain" miniatures, this one is also a monster! See, the Deathgrasp Sarcophagus is possessed, and will sneak around (as much as a coffin can sneak), randomly opening up to devour people inside. Okay, okay, maybe it's better as a terrain piece.
Golden Protectors are special. They are what happens when a Gold Dragon falls in love with a Lammasu and they have babies. Half-dragon half-holy lion babies. And yet, despite the majesticness of it all, the mythological link to ancient Assyria, and everything else, I just wanna poke him in his widdle tomato nose.
It's funny and silly, but something about this dragon's shape makes it hard for my camera to focus on it. But anywayyyyyyy...
Good-natured metallic dragons, Adamantine Dragons are somewhat obscure, mostly gaining a boost in 4th Edition because the previous "basic" set of five metallic dragons had copper, brass, and bronze which all look and act alike. Adamantine dragons are forceful, direct, and prefer frontal assaults to subterfuge. They also have a "thundrous" breath weapon, which does not mean lightning - it means sound damage... so these guys basically just yell REALLY REALLY LOUDLY.
Not the brightest bulbs in the bunch, Hill Giants nevertheless are the most "normal" of all D&D giants. They're not elemental, not vampires, not astral, and they can't pull grenades out of their bodies (Geriviar are weird). Sure, recently there was an attempt to make them Earth Giants, and thus related to Earth Titans, but come on, look at thart! it's just a bunch of hygiene-impaired cavemen!
'Course, since they're like fifteen feet tall, I wouldn't wanna make any of them angry.
More than a mere ghoul, Doresain has served both Yeenoghu and Orcus, and lived to tell about it! He is the King of the White City (made of teeth and bones), wearer of the Cloak of Mouths, and wielder of the staff Toothlust. He is also very nearly a god himself, though generally content to merely serve them. Just as with Vecna, it's a REAL SHAME that one of the worst-painted D&D miniatures is for one of the most impressive villains.
They're smelly lizards that live in caves, but somehow Troglodytes are really famous, prominent monsters.
Sometimes people don't take bugbears seriously. They see how furry they are and how they're related to goblins, and they laugh, and laugh, and laugh...
...And then the Headreavers come.
Heroslayers are among the largest and fiercest of their multi-headed kin. These vicious monsters are just as bad as a dragon their size, and facing one is a task for a team, not just a lone warrior.
Behirs are gigantic multi-legged reptiles that resemble dragons, but are not exactly related. They can run quite well on their legs or slither and coil like serpents depending on need, and can defend themselves (from what? This thing could eat an elephant) with lightning breath. Behirs are solitary monsters, though they can occasioanlly be found in small family units.
And yes, this is another classic D&D monster.
Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2013/03/13/life-in-plastic-obscure-toy-lines...
More than a mere "normal" Barghest, Malfeshnekor is an ancient beast of terrible intelligence and evil power. Imprisoned long ago in the shadows of the depths of the earth, he awaits his freedom.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGH IT'S THE WORST MONSTER EVER!
Rust Monsters have existed since the beginning of D&D, and they have only one purpose: Punishing players and making them cry. See, Rust Monsters instantly rust any metal they touch, which they then eat. Thus, dropping one on the heroic party means that they will soon lose their hard-won equipment.
:-(
>:-(
Anyway, they are actually patterned after one of those generic "Chinasaurs," and the original first edition art looked identical to the cheap knockoff dino toy. Odd, eh?
Fighters " The Way of Champions " 3rd Edition
- Centre Sportif de Differdange - Differdange - 03.06.2017 © claude piscitelli
Not literal god-slayers, these titanic dragonspawn are quite good at taking out Bahamut's Aspects and high priests, though. Bred for war, Bluespawn Godslayers are essentially giant siege engines, veritable T-Rexes with swords. You will mostly only see them at war, but you never, ever want to be on the receiving end when they tear down castle walls to crush your armies beneath their feet.
Orc religion is uneven and strange, but some tribes have room for nature-loving druids. 'Course, they aren't tree-huggers, and will set you on fire if they can.
Why does this exist? Aside from the fact that D&D people are paid to MAKE MOAR MONSTERS all the time... why does it have a mini? Okay, I know that Crucians first appeared in the "Miniatures Handbook," but only like half of the new monsters in that handbook got minis, because they were just there so there was valuable stuff for non-mini people.
Crucians are a desert race of, uh... turtles? Beetles? Crabs? They carry hammers.
You know your pastor is really dedicated when he keeps up his job even after he's died! or maybe I can't think of anything witty to say about a cool WoW mini.
He's not just a Mind Flayer, he's a SCOURGE! Though they all are, what with their archvillainy, brain-eating, and whatnot.
What do you get when you take the worst aspects of two very bad things, and put them together? Why, you get demon ogres, of course! This disruptive abomination lays waste to everything in its path, and certainly doesn't play well with others.
This was always one of my favorite D&D minis, even if it's way too specific to see much use on the table.
Githyanki are an extraplanar race of near-humans who were imprisoned and enslaved by Mind Flayers for many millenia before finding their freedom. They live as aesthetic warrior monks in the Astral Plane.
Githzerai are an extraplanar race of near-humans who were imprisoned and enslaved by Mind Flayers for many millenia before finding their freedom. They live as aesthetic warrior monks in the Elemental Chaos of Limbo.
Clearly, they are different enough to be considered separate species.
Based on the Chilean and Argentinian ChonChon vampire, Vargouilles are strange creatures that can infect you with their blood-sucking bite. Once infected, your ears grow into wings and your head detatches, turning you into one of them!
The Evistro, or Carnage Demon, lives up to its name. Resembling nothing more than fanged gorillas, they may be individually somewhat weak, but they tend to run in packs, each feeding off the others' rage.
So hey, the berserk destruction-murder monkeys actually DO play well with others! Now, how bad does your toddler look in comparison?
So, the D&D folks took the weird, twisted child-eating vampire of Greek Myth, and turned her into a lion centaur. Mmmmmkay.
(No, that's not nudity, just an errant glob of paint. Get your mind out of the gutter!)
Paint it yellow, and you've got Goro!
Blood Fiends are leftover abominations, constructed monsters used as weapons in the war between gods and primordials (D&D's version of the Gods Vs. Giants thing you see in a lot of mythologies). There are many bigger, badder abominations, but these ones appear in packs, and few things are quite as terrifying as a horde of four-armed brutes ready to rip you to pieces.
Efreeti, Efreet, Ifrit, Ifriti... whatever, they're all based on the same thing.
The Ifrit (Afrit?) are spiritual creatures made of fire, related to the Djinn. They are generally evil, and kind of like demons kindasorta.
In D&D, they are not demons, but rather an elemental race that LOOKS devilish despite not being so. They are generally evil, although their City of Brass is a fairly fair place to be.
The leader caste of the Yugoloths, Ultroloths seem weak when compared to Balors or Pit Fiends, but they make up for it with cunning.
Yugoloths are kind of an oddity. Technically, they're really only there to fill in the Neutral Evil slot in the demon/devil/fiend alignment wheel. In-game, they have some decent lore, just without a real place for it.
Originally called "Daemons," Yugoloths were renamed in THE GREAT ANTI-DEMON RENAMING of 2nd Edition (Demons became Tanari'i, devils became Ba'atezu), only they never got their original name back, probably because daemon was too close to demon. And then in 4th edition, when the alignment system was changed somewhat (closer to the original alignment system from way back when), yugoloths cor absorbed into Demons as a specific type of mercenary demon. Same role as originally (neutral evil, willing to help both/all bad guy sides), but now they are officially demons. In fact, the "loth" in their name is now "demon." So, Ultrodemon.
Possessing a gaze that can end the lives of mortal man, the Greater Basilisk is bigger, stronger, and more fearsome than its smaller brethren. Keep your ears open, because wahtever you do... you can't look at it.
See all that dust on this figure's base? That's not dust. This particulat D&D minis set (night Below) had a chemical flaw in the plastic, and most of the figures develop a "haze" when left out in the air. It's easy to wash off, though, and usually does not return. But man, that is a sad flaw.
Remember Snowflake, the world's only albino gorilla? Well, it turns out he was just related to the Girallons - four-armed albino gorillas! WHo are twice the size of standard apes! And really vicious! And sometimes team up with other monsters!
And that's how D&D treats wildlife.
Also known as Ugothols, faceless stalkers are mutated aberrations from another realm. Boneless and featureless, they can change their shape to resemble any human, and were in fact created by Aboleths to infiltrate into human society.
Armed, armored, geared up, and ready to go! Rogue, cleric, sorceror, fighter! Seeing a Warforged cleric raises a lot fo questions about souls and gods, but it's not as weird as looking at a Warforged druid.
And dang, that guy has a big can opener.
Awww, look! it's Mommy Drow and Daddy Glabrezu and Baby Draegloth!
...I don't want to think about this one anymore than I have to.
Tiny Beholder! Well, no, the Eyeball monster is literally a Tiny Beholder (it's kind of the size of a kitten). Gauths are medium-sized, which means that they're kinda-sorta man-ish sized, like a large dog. They also have fewer eyes and eye rays, so they are Beholder Lite. In older editions, they fed on magic and had lots of tiny eyes surrounding the big one as well as mouth-tentacles, but this has been changed in newer editions.
I love Beholders.
Ancient, terrible, and evil, these titanic beings of shadow and negative energy seek to rule the dark realms of undeath. Their touch is lethal, their aura is cold, and they are truly deadly.
Blood Hulks are a specialized kind of zombie, pumped so full of blood that they are stretched nearly to bursting, bloated, horrible undead monsters that can achieve feats of impressive undead strength. There's also kind of a contest among necromancers as to who can make the biggest, most overfilled blood hulk possible! The current recordholder is roughly the size of a house.
Just because ONE minotaur on ONE island lived in ONE labyrinth, they've got to deal with a stereotype that will haunt them forever. When will the racism end?
The most poorly thought-out miniature ever!
So, the Galeshi are a desert sub-group in the Black Powder Rebels faction in Mage Knight. And, uh, this is one of their sun-worshipping holy men. Who just happens to look like a certain violent revolutionary from another desert religious faction in recent yeeaaaaaghaghbblblblblble.
The thing is, this figure came out in 2003. THEY HAD NO EXCUSE. This picture will exist as a finger of SHAAAAAME. And hey, it's Halloween.
Crazy, isn't it? Eberron Drow worship scorpions instead of spiders, and thus, rather than half-spider Driders, they become Scorrows. Beware their sting!
...When Pigs Fly!
Nalfeshnees kind of resemble gigantic pig-gorilla demons, and their teeny-tiny wings are perfectly suitable for flight. They serve as jailers, torturers, and slave drivers. They tend to categorize everything in three categories: Fit To Eat, Fit To Use, and Fit To Serve. If you are Fit To Serve, then the Nalfeshnees become hilarious little brown-nosers. But then, they also might be planning to Use or Eat y, so there's that.
The fruits of a horrible union between a Drow and a Glabrezu demon (remember those!), Draegloths are wild, feral mutants, useful mostly as attack dogs. But they're really GOOD attack dogs. Some Draegloth are smarter than others, and those ones can gain social status - more than a few have been villains in D&D novels, for example.
It turns out that you can underestimate anybody. Mites have tamed and mastered giant spiders to use as mounts, which makes them surprisingly more intimidating.
Massive beings of pure shadow, Nightwalkers carry the atmosphere of the very plane of Shadow wherever they go. Some are formed when particularly evil mortals die and refuse to pass on, while others are born from the dark energies of their home plane itself. A Nightwalker can kill with just a touch, and even standing near one is harmful.
Introduced in 1985, as of the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons Nightwalkers are officially "huge" size.