How do you build scary RPG monsters for Pathfinder? How do you give your players the heebies and the jeebies with fresh monster designs?

Fear comes from building tension. It’s the anticipation of something terrible, like a jump scare, that evokes feelings of dread.

I love birds, and some of my best memories are of bird watching with my family. But put me near a pigeon and I’ll sweat boulders. And it’s not that I’m scared of birds. What scares me is the expectation that they’ll start flapping and swoosh past my head. My ornithophobia only turns on when I expect a bird to launch itself toward me.

We can use the same principle to scare the pants off our players. Metaphorically speaking. Strip D&D isn’t sanctioned by WotC. Yet.

Making Monsters for Science and Fear

To illustrate, let’s build a scary unicorn for Pathfinder Second Edition. The fear of balloons popping (globophobia) will give us a surprising twist, so let’s start there.

I like the idea of a cute unicorn floating aimlessly around, and cute can be scary. When it takes damage, our uni sucks air in with an angry pout. And, as it inflates larger and takes more damage, this air mine becomes more volatile. Fear the boom!

Filling a forest glade with floating unipoofs and then having adjacent unipoofs make horn attacks against each other to set off a chain reaction is a low blow, but I’ll endorse you. Great idea!

For exploration encounters, tweak the Ready to Pop ability so that checks happen every half hour instead of every round. Escorting a unipoof through a trap-filled dungeon now becomes a tense adventure with higher stakes.

It’s Your Turn to Make Scary RPG Monsters

What phobia can you turn into scary RPG monsters? What mechanics will you design to build tension over time?

You can use our D&D monster builder or the great Pathfinder Second Edition monster builder at monster.pf2.tools to make your creatures. Both apps will help you keep the maths solid. Post your monster link and a description in the comments!