Chapter 4: Who’s Who of the Damned

Monsters are often the real stars of horror fiction. We’re happy to root for the protagonists, but when the story’s over it’s the monsters we remember.

But monsters are the top of a horrific iceberg, and effective adversaries come in many guises. From the manifestation of a personal fear—like dread of one’s own capacity for evil—to body-ravaging disease, involuntary transformation, or existential threat, adversaries reflect and magnify the fears common to the human condition to scare and thrill audiences.

In this chapter we give you tools and techniques for making scary, memorable adversaries in your games.