History NightmareFuel / DungeonsAndDragons

** This goes as well for the [[Film/PrinceOfDarkness Satanic Ichor]], whose source materail was coincidentally made by [[Creator/JohnCarpenter the same director]]

* [[https://www.polygon.com/23150739/dnd-doomed-forgotten-realms-darkest-timeline-fan-made-campaign Doomed Forgotten Realms]] is a VillainWorld where every adventure every adventure Wizards of the Coast ever released resulted in the villain winning, all of them, try to think about the implications of that.

* At the end of all of this, there's perhaps the most ultimate, creepy and unnerving element that many a DM will stumble into should a game go too long or something get very out of hand: [[HumanoidAbomination the excess capability of an overly powerful party]], especially as a result of a MontyHaul situation. Some players can control the temptations, but some may start unwittingly shifting their character's alignments as the power gets to their head, and they start doing reckless and potentially insane things with the capabilities they now wield. If they can somehow overcome something like the [[DefeatingTheUndefeatable Tarrasque]], you've got a proverbial PhysicalGod or ''several'' in the realm, or impossibly crafty bastards that make the villains look absolutely sane by comparison. And if any of them, much less all, start deciding they're going to start being TheUnfettered, it's a nigh-inevitable fast track towards JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope and all hell breaking loose. The only thing more terrifying than the monsters, immaterial entities, aliens and evil gods, [[HumansAreBastards are the people that can thwart them all.]]

** The Unholy Scion is a horrific little example of DemonicPossession. Usually created when a fiend possesses an unborn baby, the result is truly a FetusTerrible; it's aware and sentient even in the womb, and has a ''permanent'' CharmPerson effect on its mother. Naturally, being a demon, it likes to make its host-mother do all sorts of terrible things for its own amusement, something a sadistic DungeonMaster can really have some "fun" with. Imagine a beloved pregnant matriarch whose many loved children are disappearing... and then imagine it's because she's ''eating them'' at the behest of her unborn child, simply because it amused it. Worse, the mother is perfectly ''aware'' that what she's doing is wrong, but the unnatural love for her child [[MindRape forced upon her by its powers]] [[AndIMustScream leaves her helpless to obey]].

** Grells are more or less floating, tentacled, beaked brains that view all of creation as one big smorgasbord. The difference between "civilized" and "feral" Grells isn't whether they eat intelligent beings, its whether they live in colonies and pursue their alien version of wizardry. The most sophistication they've shown in their interactions with other races is herding captives into a "larder" and letting one lucky soul choose who gets to be eaten next, with the understanding that they'll be saved for last.

* ''TabletopGame/CurseOfStrahd'' was an attempt to make vampires scary again, with writer Tracy Hickman saying "The vampire we see today exemplifies the polar opposite of the original archetype: [[Literature/{{Twilight}} the lie that it's okay to enter a romance with an abusive monster]] because if you love it enough, it will change." By contrast, Strahd does not mess around. The sky is constantly dark, the woods are dying and blighted, the people are constantly miserable and mostly literally soulless, and Strahd's true threat is felt constantly. And if your characters die? Their souls can't even leave for the afterlife, because Strahd's dark power controls everything. ''Everything.'' Imagine being hunted by a creature where not even death can save you. It's even said in DM notes for the campaign that characters who come back after being killed suffer a level of madness because [[GoMadFromTheRevelation they realize the implications here]].

*** Of course Zargon and Serthos become pure Narm when the party's druid realizes that there's a [[GameBreaker prestige class]] that allows them to assume the form of those two elder evils with perfect access to all their abilities.

** The ''Menace Manual'' has a monster called the Star Doppelganger. An alien with VoluntaryShapeshifting? Okay. Its picture is scary for some, no doubt, but likely to be [[{{Narm}} goofy as hell]] for others. But then you read its description: an Antarctic outpost is found destroyed, the only survivor is a single dog, which gets on board the rescue ship an-''holy shit [[Film/TheThing1982 I recognize this monster!]]''

*** Hey, [[Manga/{{Remina}} wait a goddamn minute...]]

See ''NightmareFuel/{{Pathfinder}}'', ''NightmareFuel/{{Ravenloft}}'' and ''NightmareFuel/ScarredLands'' for those particular settings.

[[caption-width-right:350:One of the many [[FateWorseThanDeath fates worse than death]] that await you in the underdark]]

** One of the book's "ordinary" magic items is the ''iron maiden of preservation'', which deals 1d6 damage each round to anyone locked inside... [[AndIMustScream and also heals 1d6 damage each round, to prolong the experience.]] Then there's the major artifact, the ''Despoiler of Flesh'', a rod made up of dozens of stitched-together [[TongueTrauma tongues]], which are magically-animated and twitch and flex. It functions as a superior ''polymorph other'' spell, except not only can you change one creature into another, you can change aspects of that creature - swapping arms for tentacles, teeth into toes, adding useless insect legs, whatever your twisted imagination can come up with. Unlike with the ''[[ForcedTransformation baleful polymorph]]'' spell, the victim gets no save bonus to resist the effect if the new form isn't viable in their current environment, and if they fail their saving throw, they just collapse into a mass of twisted flesh and expire. Oh, and the ''Despoiler of Flesh'''s most famous wielder was a despot who lusted for his own daughters, [[EvenEvilHasStandards but instead of forcing himself upon them]], he transformed captives and slaves into likenesses of his daughters and raped ''them'' instead.

* A bit of meta horror: crack open any of the older bestiaries and flip to the "Giants" section. In the middle of describing encounters and such, it will suddenly mention the statistics of their newborns. No context, no reason to be there, but it is. When Gygax said AlwaysChaoticEvil, he knew exactly [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide what he was doing]].

* [[http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG240.jpg The Tarrasque]] 48d10+594 hit dice points. You're already dead.

** [[BodyHorror Ragnorra]]? She's a giant wormlike sack of flesh that transforms into an ([[UncannyValley arguably even scarier]]) [[OneWingedAngel True Mother form]], and she not only spawns an infinite stream of crimes against nature that make beholders and mind flayers look pleasant, but TheDragon is a maddened ''zenythri'' (for the uninitiated, these are the descendants of humans and beings of ''pure law'') who has cut his lips off and replaced them with wriggling flukelike critters.

** The Herald of Hadar is a corpse-like figure that falls into the UncannyValley, with red orbs for eyes and wicked-fast claws. Worse, all he does is eat, eat and eat. Represented by a fat monster? Nope. The herald of Hadar is clearly ''starving.''

** And of course let's not forget Zargon, the last member of the devil race before the baatezu. Not only is he a vile-looking creature, but he creates a pool of poisonous slime wherever he goes. Plus, he is pretty much unkillable, as in the gods asked Asmodeus to take him down. Which even he couldn't do in the end, as he couldn't find the pit that you have to pitch Zargon's horn into to actually destroy him for good; I suppose it wouldn't hurt to mention that you have to do this within a DAY of taking him down, or that his horn makes him practically indestructible in its own right. Especially the [[http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ElderEvils_Gallery/111203.jpg golothoma]], an eyeball-spider-serpent-thing that eats you with its shadow.

** One of the book's "ordinary" magic items is the ''iron maiden of preservation'', which deals 1d6 damage each round to anyone locked inside... [[AndIMustScream and also heals 1d6 damage each round, to prolong the experience.]] Then there's the major artifact, the ''Despoiler of Flesh'', a rod made up of dozens of stitched-together [[TongueTrauma tongues]], which are magically-animated and twitch and flex. It functions as a superior ''polymorph other'' spell, except not only can you change one creature into another, you can change aspects of that creature - swapping arms for tentacles, teeth into toes, adding useless insect legs, whatever your twisted imagination can come up with. Unlike with the ''{{baleful polymorph}}'' spell, the victim gets no save bonus to resist the effect if the new form isn't viable in their current environment, and if they fail their saving throw, they just collapse into a mass of twisted flesh and expire. Oh, and the ''Despoiler of Flesh'''s most famous wielder was a despot who lusted for his own daughters, [[EvenEvilHasStandards but instead of forcing himself upon them]], he transformed captives and slaves into likenesses of his daughters and raped ''them'' instead.

Troper Tales are no longer accepted on Wiki/TVTropes.

* The Derro were always a race of batshit insane lunatics, but 4th Edition has brought their insanity, and their scariness, UpToEleven. Pale, blank-eyed dwarf-like creatures that always cackle and drool no matter what they do, their link to the Far Realm allows them to "warp" their slaves into tentacled monstrosities who barely retain any of their past features or memories. So malicious and mad are they that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even the Drow]] will drop everything and work together to fight the Derro, because they know that if they even so much as let them get a foothold, it could mean the end for them.

* Skulks were creepy enough in 3.5th Edition, the descendants of an ancient empire's "untouchables" caste who underwent a ritual to make them truly beyond notice, able to hide from plain sight, move without leaving tracks, and highly resistant to divination magic, all so they could take murderous revenge on the rest of the human race. Then ''Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes'' made them humanoids who went soulless from spending too much time in the Shadowfell, leaving them trackless and permanently invisible unless seen in a mirror... [[AdultFear though children under the age of 10 can see a Skulk perfectly]]. As Mordenkainen himself puts it, "Some children have imaginary friends that their parents can't see. [[NotSoImaginaryFriend Sometimes these invisible friends aren't imaginary."]]

* Beside [[WasOnceAMan their morbid origins]], the [[SnakePeople Yuan-Ti]] doesn't stand up much from other evil slaver races such as the Drow... That is, until you find out about the Yuan-Ti Broodguards and [[FateWorseThanDeath how they are made:]] A captured humanoid is forced to drink a special elixir, after which they transform into barely sentient lizard-like creatures with a compulsion to follow orders, an instinctual hatred of all non-reptilian creatures and an unwavering loyalty for their "Masters", making them the perfect slaves and capable guardians for yuan-ti eggs. Not only is this transformation [[BodyHorror anything but pleasant]], but by the end of it whoever the person was prior to being force-fed the poison is ''[[DeathOfPersonality dead and gone]]'', replaced by the obedient reptilian monstrousity their body has become. Only a ''wish'' or ''miracle'' spell is able to return a broodguard to its original state after the transformation already took effect, and even then the individual's intelligence is permanently reduced.

* Beside [[WasOnceAMan their morbid origins]], the [[SnakePeople Yuan-Ti]] doesn't stand up much from other evil slaver races such as the Drow... That is, until you found out about about the Yuan-Ti Broodguards and [[FateWorseThanDeath how they are made:]] A captured humanoid is forced to drink a special elixir, after which they transform into barely sentient lizard-like creatures with a compulsion to follow orders, an instinctual hatred of all non-reptilian creatures and an unwavering loyalty for their "Masters", making them the perfect slaves and capable guardians for yuan-ti eggs. Not only is this transformation [[BodyHorror anything but pleasant]], but by the end of it whoever the person was prior to being force-fed the poison is ''[[DeathOfPersonality dead and gone]]'', replaced by the obedient reptilian monstrousity their body has become. Only a ''wish'' or ''miracle'' spell is able to return a broodguard to its original state after the transformation already took effect, and even then the individual's intelligence is permanently reduced.

* Beside [[WasOnceAMan their morbid origins]], the [[SnakePeople Yuan-Ti]] doesn't stand up much from other evil slaver races such as the Drow... That is, until you found out about about the Yuan-Ti Broodguards and [[FateWorseThanDeath how they are made:]] A captured humanoid is forced to drink a special elixir, after which they transform into barely sentient lizard-like creatures wit a compulsion to follow orders, an instinctual hatred of all non-reptilian creatures and an unwavering loyalty for their "Masters", making them the perfect slaves and capable guardians for yuan-ti eggs. Not only is this transformation [[BodyHorror anything but pleasant]], but by the end of it whoever the person was prior to being force-fed the poison is ''[[DeathOfPersonality dead and gone]]'', replaced by the obedient reptilian monstrousity their body has become. Only a ''wish'' or ''miracle'' spell is able to return a broodguard to its original state after the transformation already took effect, and even then the individual's intelligence is permanently reduced.

* Beside [[UsedToBeAMan their morbid origins]], the [[SnakePeople Yuan-Ti]] doesn't stand up much from other evil slaver races such as the Drow... That is, until you found out about about the Yuan-Ti Broodguards and [[FateWorseThanDeath how they are made:]] A captured humanoid is forced to drink a special elixir, after which they transform into barely sentient lizard-like creatures wit a compulsion to follow orders, an instinctual hatred of all non-reptilian creatures and an unwavering loyalty for their "Masters", making them the perfect slaves and capable guardians for yuan-ti eggs. Not only is this transformation [[BodyHorror anything but pleasant]], but by the end of it whoever the person was prior to being force-fed the poison is ''[[DeathOfPersonality dead and gone]]'', replaced by the obedient reptilian monstrousity their body has become. Only a ''wish'' or ''miracle'' spell is able to return a broodguard to its original state after the transformation already took effect, and even then the individual's intelligence is permanently reduced.

* On the topic of MindRape spells, there's also the infamous ''Feeblemind'', which takes the StupidityInducingAttack trope and takes it straight into AndIMustScream territory. If a target is hit with the spell and fails the saving throw, both their Intelligence and Charisma scores are reduced to 1. They can't talk, can't cast magic, and can't understand spoken language. On top of that, if they aren't healed by outside magic, they can only attempt to repeat this saving throw ''once a month'' (which is going to be hard to begging with, since they now have a -5 modifier in intelligence).