RPGs With The Most Gruesome Monster Lore

Summary

• RPGs blend horror elements in monster design, lore, and plot, creating disturbing yet tragic creatures.
• Game narratives explore grotesque creations like amalgamates, flesh monsters, mind flayers, and eldritch abominations.
• Players traverse eerie landscapes facing horrific beasts; lore-driven myths make encounters even more spine-tingling.

RPGs take their players into worlds of wonder and mystery like they have never seen before. Magic, heroes and monsters all await them on their next thrilling journey, which could potentially verge down some darker paths, especially with regard to the monsters lurking in the darker corners of the world.

Their murderous natures are already dark enough, but these creatures can be made even more frightening by the lore behind them. Transformed humanoids, curses, or even taboo appetites, these monsters introduce some truly horrifying elements into these worlds of fantasy, making them terrifying to encounter.

7 Undertale

The Unforeseen Result of Experiments

Undertale has a rather unique approach with its monster design, as most that the player meets after falling down into the Underground are actually rather friendly. Even those that decide to engage the human in combat don’t need to be harmed, and can be spared once the player has found the right action to take. Even those who seem frightening in appearance can be befriended.

After completing the neutral route, should the player decide to continue their game file, they can explore Alphys’ secret lab. There, they will encounter the Amalgamates, who are the results of experiments done with the goal of breaking through the barrier. These creatures are composed of several monsters morphed together into single beings. Their existence is disturbing, their appearance even more so, and the fact they aren’t outright hostile makes them a little tragic to behold. Who knows what these monsters may think of themselves, or if they are even capable of such sentience?

6 Baldur’s Gate 3

The Horrific Creation of the Mind Flayer

Based on the epic tabletop RPG Dungeons and Dragons, Baldur’s Gate 3 already has a huge advantage in regard to the lore. The game weaves in the rich lore of Dungeons and Dragons, spanning across three acts and hundreds of hours of gameplay.

Playing as either a custom-made character or one of the origin companions on offer, the player is captured by Mind Flayers and infected with a parasite. If left untreated, it will eventually transform them into a Mind Flayer themselves. The scene of the parasite infiltrating the players’ brain is visceral and disgusting, as players are treated to a first-person view of the whole thing. It’s a body horror nightmare, and one the players will want to get rid of as soon as possible.

5 The Witcher 3

Slews of Terrifying and Gruesome Monsters

The Witcher 3 revolves around one of the titular monster hunters named Geralt, as he roams around the world lending one of his blades or the other in exchange for coin. The lives of witchers are hardly glamorous, and most are eyed with suspicion by townsfolk at the very least, if not outright hostility.

Traversing the continent in search of his adopted daughter Ciri, who flees from the mythical Wild Hunt, Geralt crosses the path of many grotesque monsters. The drowners are falsely rumored to be the risen corpses of those who died in bodies of water, while the leshen seems to be straight from the pages of an old folk horror tale. And no player can forget the crones, powerful magic wielders that can bless or curse others on a whim. The pages of Geralt’s bestiary are fit to burst with all the monsters and the lore, but in The Witcher, sometimes it is people who are the true monsters.

4 Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines

The Tzimisce Creations are the Most Grotesque

The World of Darkness is filled with vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, and more existing outside the fringes of society. For the vampires in LA during the mid 2000s had a lot more to worry about when a Tzimisce known as Andrei infiltrated the city and began creating his horrifying abominations, and flooding them through the sewers and even some into the streets of the city.

The fledgling will find themselves face-to-face with all these flesh creations, which unfortunately require the flesh of people as their key ingredient. Each of these monsters is a mutated corpse, or several stitched together to create an obedient and terrifying monster. Even beyond Andrei’s flesh creation, the fledgling faces all kinds of monsters, such as the shapeshifting demon in China Town, and the transformed Minf Xiao should they decide not to stand with her at the end of the game.

3 Bloodborne

A World Plagued by Horrific Monsters

The City of Yharnam was once given a substance called Old Blood from the hands of the Great Ones. Containing the consciousnesses of the Old Gods, it could cure any malady, but there were fears as to the side effects of imbibing this liquid. As feared, the citizens of Yharnam started transforming into beasts, their minds also degenerating with their appearances until they were nothing more than vicious savages eager to sink their new fangs into the flesh.

Even beyond the beasts, there are other horrific monsters such as the vicious man-eating boar, various undead, and an entire pantheon of eldritch gods straight from the pages of a Lovecraftian novel. Part action RPG, part cosmic horror game, Bloodborne is perfect for those looking to test their mettle against gruesome and abominable monsters.

2 Mass Effect Series

In the Mass Effect series, it is not just one planet that is in jeopardy, but the entire galaxy. Not many people other than Shepard are ready to step up to the challenge. From the first mission in the first game, the Reapers are present as an ominous threat. They have already started their nasty work at transforming other races into their soldiers, starting with the terrifying husks that were once human.

As the Mass Effect series continues, more Reaper races are revealed, each more terrifying than the rest. This ruthless but brilliant tactic allows the Reapers to point people at their own planets, at their neighbors, friends and family, shrinking their opponents’ army as they grow their own. No player could ever forget the human Reaper in Mass Effect 2, which used the liquified remains of human colonists to fund its abhorrent creation.

1 Dragon Age: Origins

The Origins of the Broodmother Are Tragic and Disturbing

As another Blight ravages the world of Thedas, the two remaining members of the legendary order known as the Grey Wardens set about to call on the allies of yore for help with thwarting the archdemon and its army of darkspawn. Pursuing these treaties takes the party all across Ferelden, even to the mystical Fade and to the dangerous Deep Roads. This latter area is where players learn uncomfortable truths about darkspawn.

The darkspawn don’t merely spawn into existence. They are, in fact, born from Broodmothers, horrifying creatures that were not born as such. They were once humanoids, taken by the darkspawn and transformed into these monsters through a series of gruesome scenarios, such as being force-fed tainted meat. This condemns them to the cursed lives of broodmothers, forced to birth litters of darkspawn, adding to the army that will swarm over the lands they once called home. There are few worse fates in the world of Dragon Age than becoming a broodmother.