The Best Monsters For A Horror Style DnD Game

A Dungeons & Dragons campaign with a focus on horror elements can be a challenge to craft without falling into clichés and abstract concepts that don’t help to sell the terrifying descriptions and role-play you want to evoke. Although adventures like Curse of Strahd can do this for you, in homebrewed campaigns or one-shots, you might end up struggling.

Most of what makes horror fun is the tense atmosphere and suspense, and creatures can do most of the work simply by existing within the setting and providing an ambient threat. While there are more than a handful of scary monsters in D&D, a few are worthy of being the most terrifying to include in any horror campaign.

Updated February 12, 2025, by Tallis Spalding: Dungeons & Dragons has always lent itself well to all types of campaigns, including your standard horror and the “horrors beyond” or eldritch and cosmic horror — the latter of which relies a lot more on the theater of the mind, rather than established monsters. However, with the release of the 2025 Monster Manual, an opportunity has been provided to take a new look at the various monsters provided (both new and cold) and to consider how a horrifying campaign can be born anew. Unsurprisingly, more than a few entries in the new core rulebooks offer themselves incredibly well to eldritch and cosmic horror campaigns.

13

Shadow

Challenge Rating: 1/2

The Shadow may not seem overtly threatening at first, given its low CR, but in a pack that is determined to drag their victim into their clutches, it can prove to be quite menacing. The true horror of the Shadow, however, comes from how it stalks and creeps after you.

You may not even realize that anything is wrong until it’s too late, and you’re already being dragged down to become another shadowy spectator and horror, all instinct and no thought. Once you’ve seen a Shadow, you’re as good as dead, already marked as their next victim and with no escape — after all, the one thing you can’t hide from is the shadows.

12

Aboleth

Challenge Rating: 10

The Aboleth is likely the closest thing to an eldritch god that can dwell on the material plane. They dream of dead empires and live for such a long period of time that they maintain knowledge one could only dream of.

They live and breathe mystery and knowledge beyond containment, tempting wandering adventurers into their grasp — but the fact that it exists on the material plane is its one weakness. To exist on the material plane is to maintain a physical form — and if it can bleed, it can be killed.

11

Chuul

Challenge Rating: 4

Chuul’s make for an interesting eldritch or cosmic horror campaign because they, themselves, are not necessarily end bosses, despite their horrifying appearances. Instead, Chuuls are mere servants to Aboleth overlords and false gods.

Some can obey different aberrations as their masters, but by and large, where a Chuul is, an eldritch being can await. These servants do not age, waiting, set apart from time, and compelled by instincts beyond mortal rational. These are, undeniably, great monsters for a swap-like setting, where even the environment seems to be determined to hamper your progress, if not outright kill you.

10

Hadar

Challenge Rating: Death

Hadar is a genuine eldritch god known as The Dark Hunger, and he exists in the Far Realm and beyond mortal comprehension. If you choose to bring Hadar into your campaign, know that his presence will warp the very cosmos and the player’s perception of reality.

The goal of a confrontation with Hadar is less to destroy him and more to banish him and lock him from the material plane once more. He seeks only to avert his own demise, sending his agents and warlocks to feed his hunger. Should Hadar step in to satiate himself, it will be at the cost of reality.

9

Annis Hag

Challenge Rating: 6

The largest and ugliest of the hags, an Annis Hag exists only to cause as much fear and terror as possible. They will often lure children into the woods and corrupt them with an iron token fashioned from their teeth or nails. An Annis Hag can make a powerful villain in horror campaigns that sow fear over time.

The attacks and spellcasting of an Annis Hag add to the horror elements mechanically. These can help create a tense atmosphere, especially with Fog Cloud. The Bite attack and Crushing Hug also make the hag seem more animalistic compared to other hags, making them better suited for scaring players.

8

Cosmic Horror

Challenge Rating: 18

Home to the Far Realm, Cosmic Horrors are massive, unknowable entities that swallow whole worlds while feeding on the minds of its people. A Cosmic Horror is very much a Lovecraftian monster that should invoke dread in any creature that even looks at it.

Other than being extremely powerful with a very high CR, Comic Horrors have an ability called Psychic Whispers that is a good tool for adding elements of Eldritch Horror into the encounter. However, a Cosmic Horror works best in the astral sea, where its gargantuan size and psychic powers are strongest.

7

Ghost

Challenge Rating: 4

A tortured soul bound to the material plane by unfinished business or chained by dark magic, a ghost is a classic horror monster that can be used in almost any encounter to increase the tension and fear elements. Even just hinting at a ghost with footsteps overheard on another floor or appearing only in a mirror can add suspense.

What makes the Ghost especially suited for horror in D&D compared to other spirit-like monsters is their Horrifying Visage and Possession abilities. With Horrifying Visage, even glimpsing the face of the Ghost is enough to rapidly age their victims, and the use of possession can make for excellent reverse role-play opportunities.

6

Allip

Challenge Rating: 5

When a creature learns a terrifying secret protected by a powerful curse, their body is destroyed, and their soul becomes an Allip, forever maddened by the secrets it learned. Since an Allip is always attempting to impart its dark secrets onto other creatures, that’s an opportunity to craft what kind of knowledge your players could potentially learn in spite of the potential for madness.

When using the Allip in an encounter, especially with the Maddening Touch attack, you can use the optional Madness table in the Dungeon Master’s Guide to add a mechanical flare to the horror elements. Despite its CR, the Allips is a deceptively dangerous monster, and you’ll likely only need one.

5

Bodak

Challenge Rating: 6

Created through a dark ritual involving the demon lord, Orcus, a Bodak is nothing but a husk, with its only purpose being to spread death. The main horror element comes from the description of a Bodak and what happens when a creature gazes into its eyes, which are empty shells filled with dark magic and fear.

The Death Gaze ability is the Bodak’s most complicated ability, but it’s also what makes it especially challenging. By including clues to your players hinting that they should avoid direct eye contact, you can ramp up the suspense and horror of the encounter by focusing on other senses like sounds and smells.

4

Oblex

Challenge Rating: 5 To 10

A form of ooze able to take over the minds of its victims, Oblex can create simulacrums of humanoids meant to lure more potential victims. What separates Oblex from most other oozes is that they are extremely intelligent and have the memories of any creature it has eaten.

This makes role-playing an Oblex tricky, but making sure its sole focus is to trick and devour its prey can greatly increase the suspense and horror when the simulacrum is revealed and the giant, oozing mass of faces appears. You can also scale the Oblex depending on the party level, with three different stages: spawn, adult, and elder.

3

Nightwalker

Challenge Rating: 20

Home to the Negative plane, where no life exists, a Nightwalker can trap and replace visitors to the plane, only able to be released by luring it back. This can add an extra layer of powerlessness, as just defeating a Nightwalker is not enough to end the suffering it causes.

Almost all of a Nightwalker’s abilities are meant to drain the life force of its victims while instilling paralyzing fear. When describing a Nightwalker, all plant life and small creatures around it should wither and die, revealing the horrifying power it wields. At CR 20, however, a Nightwalker should only be used at the highest levels of play.

2

Sorrowsworn

Challenge Rating: 7 To 13

Home to the Shadowfell, Sorrowsworn are created by the ambient suffering surrounding the plane itself, and each Sorrowsworn embodies a different negative emotion. Because of the openness in the descriptions and creation of Sorrowsworn, it allows you to craft unique versions based on any available emotion needed for the encounter or horror vibe you’re going for.

Each version of Sorrowsworn also has abilities that represent its associated emotion, like Lonely Sorrowsworn, which gets an advantage on attacks if multiple creatures are nearby. Outside the Shadowfell, Sorrowsworn can add to the horror elements, involving collective negative emotions suffered by the party or even an entire village.

1

Spawn Of Kyuss

Challenge Rating: 5

Although animating corpses and resembling a shambling zombie, Spawn of Kyuss are tiny, wriggling worms that burrow into your skin and create new spawns. This creature heavily leans into body horror, which makes it perfect for campaigns or encounters focusing on those themes.

The Burrowing Worm action makes every combat encounter with the Spawn of Kyuss a nightmare-inducing experience, as an infected creature must immediately attempt to remove any invading worms or end up forced to wait while they slowly succumb to piercing damage. This is what makes the Spawn of Kyuss a terrifying creature.