Are you looking for some inspiration for your D&D Halloween one-shot? Or maybe you’re looking for some creepy undertones to your encounters. Well look no further. There is a slough of monsters you can use, but I’m going to share three of my favourites, examples of how to use, and some pointers on roleplaying them.
Wight
Once mortal, but now neither living nor dead, a wight is creepy AF. They follow their own agenda, but will answer the wishes of their creator when called on. Wights resemble the mortals they used to be, but with the life sucked out of them. Typically depicted as pale and gaunt, similar to zombies but more human in their movement and posture. In popular culture, these monsters got some time in the spotlight with Game of Thrones, but they were around long before then too. Wights are also mentioned in JRR Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring and many older folklore tales. As an aside, I personally don’t love the depiction of the wights in GoT, they’re much more like zombies than wights. In fact, I find the White Walkers are much more like 5th edition wights both in appearance and abilities.
What I like about confronting my players with wights
Wights are a low enough challenge rating, of 3, that you can throw one or two at your sub-level 5 party without defaulting to a total party kill (TPK). What I like about wights, is that they are undead, allowing you to lean into their creepiness, but they have versatility. Zombies, ghouls, and even ghosts to a certain degree, don’t have any ranged attacks. In an adventure where undead monsters are the theme, it can get pretty boring to constantly be throwing melee attacks out, both for the players and the DM. I like that wights have balanced longsword melee and longbow range attacks.
As a wight, you have pretty good perception, at +3. They have darkvision and +4 to stealth, so it’ll be harder for your players to get the jump on you. These monsters have decent dexterity, strength, and charisma, giving you some resistance to those saves. Plus they have multiattack, with 2 attacks either with their longbow or longsword. Wights also have the ability Life Drain which reduces the hit point maximum if it’s prey fails a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. Life Drain can kill a player outright if this effect reduces it’s hit points to zero. This ability can be especially deadly if the group is on a time crunch and can’t take a long rest, doesn’t possess resurrection magic, or some other supernatural force in your adventure makes hit point maximum reducing effects permanent.
Wights can also raise zombies, and speak in whichever languages it could while it lived. Giving the DM a chance to converse with the characters, provide lore, taunt, or try and throw them off. If they speak, I give my wights a raspy and whispery voice, as though some of their voice’s capabilities were permanently taken away when they died. Overall, pretty great nightmare fuel.
Some things to think about
Wights have Sunlight Sensitivity which grants disadvantage to attack rolls and perception checks (relying on sight) while in sunlight, means you might want to avoid springing them on your party in the middle of the day. But you can work around that if the area they’re in is heavily shaded, underground, or inside.
Girallon Zombie
Imagine a large angry creature, crashing through the jungle at you, 4 muscular arms and 2 tree trunk legs moving in sync as it bounds towards you at breakneck speed. Its mouth fanged and dripping with blood. What’s more terrifying than that? Well let’s make it undead of course! Flesh hanging loosesly off it’s bones, a bare rib or two poking out from under it’s rotting skin and fur. Eyes black like the night and soulless.
A girallon zombie works well as a mini boss at low levels (1-3), you don’t even need to use the Solo Boss template since it have five attacks per turn, but you could modify it to you wanted. This monstrosity isn’t very intelligent, or wise, or talkative. But it’s a strength-powered piece of meat to throw at your players and quickly engage them in combat. This zombie is fast, able to use a bonus action to double it’s speed towards a hostile creature in sight. It’s also resilient, with Undead Fortitude, allowing it to drop to 1 hit point instead of 0 by succeeding on a constitution save against the damage taken plus 5.
This monster has darkvision too, but there’s not sunlight sensitivity, so you could have an all out fight in the middle of broad daylight if you wanted to. It’s definitely a pure brawn and no brains challenge, but I find that can make encounters even scarier. Your players won’t be able to reason with it, talk their way out of combat, and are likely unable to intimidate it away. They have the option to face this terrifying monster head on, or make a run for it. Get your gorilla noises ready and practice your best monster roar for this one.
Beholder
Beholders are large aberrations, with a bulbous and semi spherical body, a large central eye, mouth, and ten eye stocks protruding out from it’s body. They are intelligent, charismatic, and often arrogant.
What I like about beholders in combat
Your player characters are unlikely to know what to expect with each attack. Each of the beholder’s ten eye stocks has a different magical rays that can shoot with any given attack. With each turn, it can either take a beefy 4d6 bite action or randomly shoot from three eye stocks. Just when your players think they know what to expect, it’s likely to change. In addition to it’s regular moves, it has 3 Legendary Actions to shoot an additional eye ray. This ability refreshes at the beginning of it’s turn.
A beholder also has an Antimagic Cone effect, which prevents magic to be performed within a 150 foot cone protruding from it’s large central eye. This ability also effects it’s own rays, so it’s not completely busted.
Some things to think about
Beholders make for great boss fights, but due to their decent mental stats and language proficiency you can also roleplay them out of combat. Your players could make a bargain with a beholder, or get a mission from one. I played a campaign where we ended up fighting along side a beholder for a session (though, I’m not actually sure what happened to the beholder later on, or what trouble we unleashed on the world once we ‘freed’ it).
Closing thoughts
There are many monsters you can throw at your players, and it can be overwhelming at times to prepare encounters. I’m hoping this snapshot of wights, girallon zombies, and beholders gives you more food for thought when determining how to trip up your players next.