Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror: Catching Up

[Mangrum]

Okay, I'm back on dry land. Time to start up the monster blurbs again!

Here's the remaining blurbs needed:

B
Done! Bogeyman, Alligator Lenny [Dark Tales & Disturbing Legends]

D
Done! Darkenbeast [Monsters of Faerûn]
Done! Death dog [Fiend Folio]
Done! Death engine [Vecna Reborn]
Done! Deathbringer [Monster Manual II]
Done! Deathlock [Libris Mortis]
Done! Deep hound [Races of Stone]
Done! Demodand, shator [Fiend Folio]
Done! Demon, mane [Book of Vile Darkness]
Done! Demon, quasit [Monster Manual]
Done! Devil, bearded (barbazu) [Monster Manual]
Done! Devil, Styx (amnizu) [Monster Manual II]
Dharculus [Planar Handbook]
Done! Dire hippopotamus [Sandstorm]
Done! Dire puma [Sandstorm]
Done! Dire rhinoceros [Fiend Folio]
Done! Dire snake [Monster Manual II]
Done! Dire tiger [Monster Manual]
Done! Dire toad [Monster Manual II]
Done! Dire tortoise [Sandstorm]
Done! Dire wolverine [Monster Manual]
Done! Dire animal, smilodon (saber-toothed tiger) [Frostburn]
Done! Dokufu (mountain spider) [Oriental Adventures]
Done! Doom guard [Monster Manual II]
Done! Doppelganger plant, podling [Denizens of Dread]
Dread warrior [Monsters of Faerûn]
Done! Dream spawn, gray morph [Denizens of Dread]
Done! Dream spawn, pale morph [new]
Done! Dream spawn, shadow morph [Denizens of Dread]
Done! Dream vestige [Libris Mortis]
Done! Drownling [Denizens of Dread]
Dustblight [Sandstorm]
Done! Dustform creature [Sandstorm]

E
Effigy [Monster Manual II]
Done! Elder brain [Lords of Madness]
Done! Elemental, air [Monster Manual]
Done! Elemental, earth [Monster Manual]
Done! Elemental, fire [Monster Manual]
Done! Elemental, water [Monster Manual]
Elemental, corrupted [new]
Done! Elemental, dread, blood [Denizens of Dread]
Done! Elemental, dread, mist [Denizens of Dread]
Elemental grue, air [Complete Arcane]
Elemental grue, earth [Complete Arcane]
Elemental grue, fire [Complete Arcane]
Elemental grue, water [Complete Arcane]
Elemental, undead, cinderspawn [Libris Mortis]
Elemental, undead, desiccator [Libris Mortis]
Elemental, undead, voidwraith [Libris Mortis]
Elemental monolith [Complete Arcane]
Elementite swarm, air [Planar Handbook]
Elementite swarm, earth [Planar Handbook]
Elementite swarm, fire [Planar Handbook]
Elementite swarm, water [Planar Handbook]
Done! Entomber [Libris Mortis]
Done! Entropic reaper [Libris Mortis]
Ephemera, dusk beast [Manual of the Planes]
Ephemera, ecalypse [Manual of the Planes]
Ephemera, umbral banyan [Manual of the Planes]
Done! Ermordenung [Denizens of Dread]
Ethereal marauder [Monster Manual]
Ethereal slayer [Monster Manual II]
Done! Ettercap [Monster Manual]
Done! Evolved undead [Libris Mortis]
Done! Eye of fear and flame [Book of Vile Darkness]

F
Done! Fearweed [Denizens of Dread]
Done! Fenhound [Denizens of Dread]
Done! Fetch, dread [Carnival]
Done! Fiendish creature [Monster Manual]
Fiendish symbiont: fiendish familiar [Fiend Folio]
Fiendish symbiont: gutworm [Fiend Folio]
Fiendish symbiont: soul tick [Fiend Folio]
Done! Figurine [Denizens of Dread]
Done! Forlorn husk [Libris Mortis]
Done! Fumewood termite [Book of Sacrifices/Spectre of the Black Rose]
Done! Furies [Denizens of Dread]

[Isabella]

Fenhound [Denizens of Dread]

Lord Candor: To what to I owe this late visit, my friend? Are you not content with stealing my wealth and my son, that you now wish something else from me?
Lord Craven: Toy not with me. Call off your hounds, lest I take your head! They have plagued me every night I have set foot outside for a fortnight past.
Lord Candor: By your own actions, I have no hounds to send.
Lord Craven: None indeed! Then from whence comes this dreadful baying?

-From “The Hound upon the Fen,” a poor selling Mordentish play.

Ermordenung [Denizens of Dread]

“The man who grabbed her suddenly choked, pawing at his throat as he fell backwards. He writhed on the ground in agony ‘till he finally stopped moving. But even as he lay dying, I did nothing to help; I was too busy staring at her. Had I not seen a man of twice my girth fall from just a touch, I would have swept her into my arms and kissed her without hesitation, regardless of consequences. Some nights, when she plagues my dreams, I wish I had.”

-Ferrius Casteele



(My memory of the monsters is a little fuzzy, so I hope I got them right.)

[Joël of the FoS]

Death engine [Die Vecna Die] (Vecna reborn?)

“Yes, I still have nightmares about these war horrors. I wake up screaming and looking at my guts to see if it’s rotting.

I was a mercenary in a battle in Tovag when I saw these atrocious things in action. There is no word strong enough to say how disgusted we were in front of this, and how terrifying this machine made out of dead flesh was. Let me try to explain …

Imagine endless rows of corpse’s heads on the thing, each screaming its own evil mantras, or howling in pain. We could hear this terrifying noise a long time before actually seeing the thing. The sound of the damned, this really was.

Imagine many arms fused all over it, from humans, animals and other things, trying to grab and tear to pieces whatever passes near it, and also making it move forward.

Imagine a detestable aura of bleak corruption around its base, visibly warping the very land under it and altering it to miasma and bubbling rot. I know many people caught deadly diseases in its path, and these people rotted within minutes, screaming in pain.

Now imagine this “machine”, wandering loose on a battlefield, without control, spreading death, diseases and corruption in an insane random pattern, even within its own side.

Many warriors in my unit ran from terror when they saw it. And yes, this thing can only come from an amazingly evil mind.”

- a mercenary tale

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Demodand, Shator:

"My kind are held in a honeyed trap here in these Mists. We are tempted to gain a power by tying ourselves to the land, a power that would elevate us in stature compared to the other Infernal creatures. Demons and Devils would have to pay us the respect we are due.

But the irony is that our abilities would tie us to the land. I feel that staying untethered is my safest route. Though the ability to hide my magnificent form, the rolls of supple flesh, the large, eloquent mouth and the delicate wings of my being, would help me avoid being a target for all would-be do-gooders in this accursed land."

-Extract from the Mandragorian.

EDIT: So the last line makes sense...

[Joël of the FoS]

Entomber [Libris Mortis]

“We were exploring the last of these old elaborate cemeteries of Sri Raji when we saw a shape moving toward us in the twilight. The man was hideous, and very dirty. Flies were swirling around it. Martin tries to speak to it, but the man slammed him hard! We were shocked, but the worst is Martin was eaten by the cemetery ground. This thing entombed our friend! We heard Martin’s screams, but I have shame to say we fled the place because we couldn’t do otherwise. When we came back three days after, we unearthed Martin’s body and we carried it back to our camp. His face expressed a terrible fear, like if he knew all along what happened to him... Thank Ezra, we didn’t see this horrible forsaken creature again”

- a scholar tale

[Nathan of the FoS]

Elemental, air [Monster Manual]

This is the beginning of wisdom, to know the names of those from which the world is built, and their epitomes, whose service the master of the arcane may demand. Here is wisdom: the epitome of Air may be summoned, and it is by the following names you must greet her: Sprite, Tornado, Tempest, Vortex, the Airy Abyss.

Elemental, earth [Monster Manual]

Here is wisdom: the epitome of Earth may be summoned, and it is by the following names you must greet him: Gnome, Earthquake, Tremor, Stoneheart, the Living Obelisk.

Elemental, fire [Monster Manual]

Here is wisdom: the epitome of Fire may be summoned, and it is by the following names you must greet him: Salamander, Inferno, Blaze, Brand, Wildfire.

Elemental, water [Monster Manual]

Here is wisdom: the epitome of Water may be summoned, and it is by the following names you must greet her: Undine, Tsunami, Wave, Seawrack, Maelstrom.

Primas causas, or The Book of First Things, standard textbook for arcane studies

Ettercap [Monster Manual]

Next there came a chittering, and a rasping, and a clicking, and a tapping, and the great spiders moved aside, and a little man with the face of a spider came into the clearing. He lifted his hands and began to gesture to the spiders, and the spiders began to dance, filling up the clearing with their silk as they went and forming it into great nets and snares to catch the unwary. At last the dance was done, and the spider-man lowered his hands and went away among the webs; and Little Tip, in his hat of invisibility, followed him.

Little Tip and the Spider People, traditional Tepestani



Furies [Denizens of Dread]

"Call them the Kindly Ones," the crone muttered. "At that there can be no offense. They have names, aye, but naming calls, and they must not be called. They seek you already; all those who walk in darkness and then turn to the light are their lawful prey. Beware the Iron Three, the Implacable, the Avenger, the Disputatious, and if they find you...only then...must you hail them."

She scrawled three words in Darkonese script on the paper. Alecto, Tisiphone, Megarea. "Do not name them unless they find you," she repeated, putting it in my hands.

Eumenides, from "Twelve Tales of the Macabre", Jean Lafolie

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Fiendish Creature

"... I done told him. I done told him that dog t'weren't right. But my boy did have a soft spot for critters, and he jes' laughed at his ol' pa, and took him in. I done told him again that night I saw the mutt sittin' in the burning woodshed, not dead, not scared, just sittin' and lookin' at me. Them eyes weren't no hound eyes I ever seen. And the thing just walked outta them flames, fancy as you please, without a scratch or a singe on 'im. I knew then he was from hell alright; I'm sure 'a that, ain't nothin you say'll change my mind. So I wasn't surprised at'all when he done that... to my boy.... my little boy.... Sad, yup, sadder then I'll ever be, and sorry and angry too, but not surprised a bit, no sir." -- Testimony of Farmer Holt of Viaki, in the "Demon Dog" incident.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Dire toad* [Monster Manual II]

But that Granddaddy Toad, he don’t say a word. So Anansi, he begin to get angry. “Don’t you sass me, ol’ Toad, as I be your elder and your better both! Where has that stone got to? You’d better show me your tongue and say a few words or you’ll be sorry for it.”

Just then go flying by that old hoopoe-bird, (who is a sight bigger than Anansi, I remind you) and Grandaddy Toad he let flip out with his tongue—tsass!—and where the old hoopoe-bird was flying there ain’t nothing, and Granddaddy Toad cleaning a few feathers from his mouth with his thumbs.

That quiets Anansi down a bit, and he says, “Well, I seen enough of your tongue, I guess, Grandaddy Toad. But if you be seeing that stone I hope you’ll say so.”

Granddaddy Toad, he blink and nod, and that’s all the answer Anansi gets; so he goes on his way.

Anansi and the Stone of Wisdom, traditional Souragnien


Dire tortoise* [Sandstorm]

Today we found a specimen of the great land-turtle tortuga maximus maximus in the most amusing fashion; Professor Quant was informed by Kopa, the native guide, that he had spotted one of the great land-behemoths, and pointed to it. The professor thought it was at some distance and actually clambered up onto the shell of the beast to get a better look, causing no end of hilarity as we endeavored to explain that his goal was actually and literally under foot! His mistake was very natural; the beast had evidently been at rest for some time, and a great deal of dirt and even a few weeds had accumulated on its shell, which we measured as twelve feet across and almost five in height.

Adventures of a Wanderer, Larraby Quift

Dire wolverine* [Monster Manual]

Misha insisted that we secure the supplies by suspending them in mid-air at least twenty feet from the ground—an arduous task, and one that had me asking angrily what on earth could possibly necessitate this precaution. When we came back to the camp I had my answer. We found that something had been in our camp—neither man nor wolf, the two greatest dangers, but some other fell creature that Misha called “the glutton”. It left a track something like a weasel’s, if one can imagine a weasel eight feet long and half that broad, and it had scraped the bark from the tree where we had stashed the supplies to a height of almost ten feet. “The glutton, he do anything for food,” Misha remarked. “We are lucky this one too big to climb.”

Adventures of a Wanderer, Larraby Quift

[Nathan of the FoS]

Dire hippopotamus* [Sandstorm]

This beast, whom they call “River-horse”, is a great menace to all who go upon the waters, as he is enraged by any incursion into his demesne and will come up beneath the boat to capsize it; because of his great bulk only the largest boats are immune from his attentions. Those unfortunates thereby forced to swim he savages with his great tusks. For all his ferocity he eats no more meat than the cattle, yet he causes more death than any other creature of those parts.

From Harrald’s Bestiary

Dire puma* [Sandstorm]

Behind me I heard the scream again—like the yowl of a house-cat magnified a thousand times. I thought of the bull-elk I had found that morning with a broken neck, and the paw-print my hand could not begin to cover beside it; and I knew I must find shelter before dark; a fire and a place to put my back would be little enough against such a creature, if it chose to attack, and yet it was all I could hope to find.

Adventures of a Wanderer, Larraby Quift

Dire rhinoceros* [Fiend Folio]

Apparently this creature is the basis of the Mordentish legends of the “unicorn”, and in some sense the descriptions are not unlike; it is rather more horse-like than anything else, with the fly-whisk tail of folklore (though it has no cloven hoof), and, of course, the famous horn—though here at the end of the nose, rather than centered in the forehead. But how hideous the beast in comparison with its fantastic progeny! Where the unicorn is grace and beauty, this nose-horned beast was the epitome of blunt, brute savagery, stupid, ill-tempered and ungainly.

In the Wildlands, Captain John Smith

[Nathan of the FoS]

Dire snake* [Monster Manual II]

Exhibition on Bond Street to Be Held 7 Feb 757

Captain John Smith…will hold an exhibition in Bond Street No. 422 this coming Friday to display curios and taxidermical specimens brought back from his recent expedition to the Wildlands via Sri Raji…[A]mong the many marvels he saw there, your correspondent saw prodigies of Nature the like of which can hardly be imagine. The skin of a great pithon, that devilish snake of Sri Raji, was shown me; stretched out across the floor it measured fifty-two feet four inches, without the head…it was captured and killed after eating a baggage mule…

Paridon Newsbill, 2 Feb 757

Dire tiger* [Monster Manual]

Exhibition on Bond Street to Be Held 7 Feb 757

…also the skin of a tiger, greater than any yet seen, whose canines were as long as your correspondent’s palm, shot and killed while attacking an elephant on which Captain John Smith was riding; those who have seen or heard of the elephant can form some idea of the size of the beast which might attempt such a feat…

Paridon Newsbill, 2 Feb 757

Dire animal, smilodon (saber-toothed tiger)* [Frostburn]

Last and greatest is the cat called “smilodon,” or sometimes, especially in their folk-stories, “Knife-Fighter,” because of the bravos who fight with a knife in each hand. A knife made of the great canine teeth of such a beast is considered a powerful symbol of wealth, and of physical prowess if one obtains one for himself by killing the beast.

Adventures of a Wanderer, Larraby Quift

Doppelganger plant, podling [Denizens of Dread]

Well, but when he come back he wasn’t hardly the same at all, at all. He used to sit on the porch and just bask there in the sun and vegetate, or go out in the garden with his feet bare. “Horace, that’s dirty,” said I, but he never paid me no never-mind anymore. And he never ate, but just picked liked a bird; and always trying to get me to go down to the wood where he’d found that old stone, that he said used to have been a star, which I never would do, as who would tend the house if we was both to go? And at last he just withered away, withered away, and I found his body in the garden one morning, and it was just a shell, that’s all; a man-shaped shell, as if it had been a pumpkin, where my Horace used to have been.

Deposition of Caitlin MacCallem regarding the death of her husband, recorded by Inquisitor MacTeague of the Most Holy Belenite Inquisition, 23 June 758

[Nathan of the FoS]

Figurine, ceramic [Denizens of Dread]
Figurine, crystal [Denizens of Dread]
Figurine, ivory [Denizens of Dread]
Figurine, obsidian [Denizens of Dread]
Figurine, porcelain [Denizens of Dread]

"But, Griselda, these are exquisite!" I told her, and indeed they were--tiny statuettes, the largest no bigger than a man's palm, but carved or sculpted with the most minute detail in the forms of various animals. The old man had worked with several media; there were a rank of reptiles, cast in potter's clay and decorated with paints; insects and spiders carved from single crystals; a whole tribe of brutish apes made from black volcanic glass; and, at the rear, a scrimshaw elephant and a porcelain tiger lorded it over their smaller fellows, though this last needed cleaning; its gold and black stripes were spattered with rust-brown paint.

"They are horrible, horrible," she muttered, biting at her lip. "At night I hear them talk among themselves, like so many mice. I am glad he is dead! Now he can make no more."

The Menagerie, from Twelve More Tales of the Macabre, Jean Lafolie

[Nathan of the FoS]

Elemental, dread, blood [Denizens of Dread]

(EDITED after reading more about the blood elemental )

"Very well, then, let us combine your medical evidence with the condition of the room. What was the cause of death?"

"Internal damage from the beating he suffered, combined with exsanguination," I replied. "The skin is broken nowhere, but there is a general lividity and signs of stress to the skin...he was beaten and the blood taken from his veins directly through the skin, Alanik!"

My friend nodded once. "And the designs of blood on the floor, however artistic, can hardly have been produced intentionally; it would have taken far too much time."

I shuddered as the outlines of a truly ghastly scenario began to make themselves apparent to me.

The Bloody Room, from The Casebook of Alanik Ray, Arthur Sedgwick

Elemental, dread, mist [Denizens of Dread]

Any man of the Land of Mists knows that they are terrible, inscrutable, the very symbol of that Fate some say is inimical to man, and is at best indifferent; but never before had I see the Mists angry; and not merely angry, but enraged. We were assaulted by a gale of hurricane force, and a vortex that threatened to split us in two. That was my first inkling of the power of the creature we confronted, a power I was to see confirmed many times again over the course of hunting those masters of the arcane.

From the working notes to Van Richten's Guide to the Lich

[Nathan of the FoS]

Devil, bearded (barbazu) [Monster Manual]

There is no house among the Dukes of Hell who have not their own guards and sentinels, of whom the great majority are great bearded devils, anthropomorphous, though with a long tail, clawed on both hands and feet; their beards are a great source of pride to such, and a devil of this sort bathes its beard in the ichor of those they have slain in combat to work them into fantastical shapes and great matted tangles; a long beard soaked with the blood of many enemies is a mark of status among them, and to be shaved is their great fear, far more than of death.

From Five Visions of Hell, attributed to Yakov Dilisnya


Dream spawn, gray morph [Denizens of Dread]

…[A]t last I came to a window of that high tower and was able to look out; I cannot say what I expected, but it was not what I saw. It was a city; the streets (which I could see as if they were at hand, though the tower was so tall) were lined with tiny grey mannikins, without eyes or ears or features of any kind, walking up and down. There was a low continual murmur like the memory of a mother's lullaby as they whispered to each other in the weird hushed language of the Dream-men.

It was the City of Nod, not as we see it in our waking life, but as it is; the capital of the Land of Nightmare, the home of the Nightmare Host.

From a purported journal of Dr. Gregory Illhousen written in the Nightmare Lands, purchased by the Great Library of Port-a-Lucine, 21 February 759

Dream spawn, shadow morph [Denizens of Dread]

The shadowy figure which had been my father moved closer, and I could see now that it had no face--its head was a smooth, featureless oval atop an almost-human body. At this last revelation of terror I was struck motionless. "Now you see," it crooned. "Now you see the truth. It is a vision reserved for those about to die."

I bit my cheek until the blood came, but I did not wake, could not wake, and I knew that I had wandered into the land where Dream and Waking mingle and are fused.

From a purported journal of Dr. Gregory Illhousen written in the Nightmare Lands, purchased by the Great Library of Port-a-Lucine, 21 February 759

Dream spawn, pale morph [new]

I threw open the door and saw a bizarre and eerie scene; the "room" was a vast gray plain, on which stood a number of pale and flimsy creatures like starving children. They squeaked and fluttered, leaping here and there and quickly merging (to my startled eyes) into walls, books, a table, a chair, forming at last (it took perhaps two heartbeats) my father's library. It was as if I had turned the light on a stage between acts and caught the stage-hands rearranging the scenery--if there existed any place in the waking world in which the stage-hands were the scenery.

From a purported journal of Dr. Gregory Illhousen written in the Nightmare Lands, purchased by the Great Library of Port-a-Lucine, 21 February 759

Drownling [Denizens of Dread]

“If you should see a little girl there by Dollwith’s Pool, young master, never you give her your hand!” the old man said. “She and her sisters are fey, the drownlings they call them; they look like wee lasses drenched to the bone, and one pretends to drown while the other calls for help. But the third, you see, she has a little net; and she wraps it around a man in the water, and all three together drag him to the bottom. So they took young Martin Fiske, and so they’ll do to you if you let them.”

Sixty Nights in Tepest, Bertram Mac Laren

[Mangrum]

These are great as always, Nathan, but purely in terms of format -- since cure's already written a nice blurb for the ennui dream spawn -- I need separate entries for the gray morph, pake morph, and shadow morph. I like what you have -- could you rework it into three related blurbs, each focusing on an individual type of spawn?

As a refresher, here's the roles each type of lesser dream spawn plays:

Gray Morph
Along with pale morphs and shadow morphs, gray morphs are among the most prevalent varieties of lesser dream spawn. Gray morphs are pathetic creatures that play the “supporting cast” in dreamscapes, impersonating animals and minor characters. They are obedient and unimaginative, dutifully assisting shadow morphs as they terrorize dreamers. When not actively involved in dreamscapes, they huddle together in groups and passively wait for new dream seeds to come along to give them identiy and purpose.

Pale Morph
Pale morphs are the lowliest of the dream spawn. In dreamscapes, they play the roles of distant figures and minor objects. They are poor at mimicking fine details, however. If a pale morph assumes the shape of an ancient tome, it might look fine at first glance, but a reader who flipped through its pages would discover them filled with unintelligible gibberish, not words.

Shadow Morph
Shadow morphs are among the most powerful of the lesser dream spawn. They direct the events in a dreamscape, either aiding an ennui or acting as overseers themselves, and tailor their actions to inspire the most fright in dreamers. They play major roles in dreams, impersonating vanquished foes, departed loved ones, or whatever terrors a dreamer secretly dreads.

Like other lesser dream spawn, shadow morphs have no true society. They seek dreams to give them form and substance, waiting listlessly when not so engaged.

Also, as a minor editorial note, rather than communicating in the "voices of bats," remember that dream spawn's native language is Oneiros, described as sounding like half-whispered lullabies, capable of lulling unwary mortals to sleep.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Okay, a second effort is in place. I hope that this one's more usuable--since I don't own The Nightmare Lands I'm not at all sure I'm getting the mechanics of dream spawn - dreamer interaction down in a "realistic" way.

BTW, I can't find "demon, mane" in the Monster Manual (volume I, anyway); is it not with the other demons, or is it in a different book?