Dungeons & Dragons: 9 Movie Monsters Perfect For Your Campaign

Summary

• Get inspiration for your D&D monsters from iconic movie creatures like Godzilla, Nazgul, and No Face for a unique gaming experience.
• Add a twist to your campaign with monsters like The Thing, Moder, and The Bear from movies like The Thing, The Ritual, and Annihilation.
• Embrace the horror with creepy mist creatures from The Mist or monstrous worms like the Graboids and the Sandworm from Tremors and Dune.

While running a game of Dungeons & Dragons, whether a short adventure or a whole campaign, there are a lot of things to balance. Player characters, plotlines, and monsters are just some of the plates you have to spin while being a GM.

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Where monsters are concerned, there are a lot of different monster books that are created by Wizards of the Coast, and even more that are homebrewed. But, it can be a fun experiment to look to your favorite media for inspiration. Gigantic kaiju, horror monsters aplenty, and futuristic aliens; there are plenty of movie monsters out there to consider.

9 Godzilla - Godzilla Series

King Of The Monsters

A great monster for a late-level encounter when a terrasque just needs a bit more flare. You don't have to name it Godzilla per se, but using Godzilla as the baseline for this creature is a great encounter that puts the safety of the realms in your player's hands.

They'll need some pretty powerful spells and attacks to fell this great beast. Using the terrasque stat block is a good start, but don't be afraid to add some more HP if you feel like it needs it. Also, any dragons breath weapon attack can be easily substituted for Godzilla's atomic breath. It just depends on what damage type you want it to dole out.

8 Nazgul - The Lord Of The Rings

Corrupt Kings

You can't talk about fantasy movie monsters without bringing up The Lord of the Rings somehow. While there's Sauron, Sarumon, and even the Uruk Hai, few of the baddies in LOTR give people chills as much as Nazgul do. Normal mortals turned into dark knights by the corrupting powers of the trinkets they carried — that won't be a hard one to transfer over into D&D lore.

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Any dark paladin or eldritch knight fighter is a good basis for the Nazgul. Add some +1 weapons and armor with some vampiric or cursed qualities to give each hit some extra weight and resistance to normal damage types, and you have a mid-level fight on your hands. For added drama, you can even have them mounted on dark steeds or wyrms as needed.

7 Graboids - Tremors

Better Plan Ahead

Tremors, while not always a serious movie, had a great monster in the form of the Graboids. This is mainly due to them being such a simple design: giant underground worms with a taste for human flesh. Sounds like a good monster for a game of D&D too.

Take the abilities of the Bulette as you go-to for burrowing speed and tremor sense, but add advantage for grappling creatures and even swallowing them, much like oozes and similar creatures have. These could be a great addition for any level and plenty of different terrain types.

6 Sandworm - Dune

The Shai Hulud

Think the Graboids from Tremors, but much, much larger. That is the basis for Dune's Sandworm, or Shai Hulud, if you're fluent in Fremen. The Sandworm is a great choice for any desert setting, but consider your party's level as fighting one probably wouldn't be easy.

They would make for an interesting set piece regardless of level, though. Much like the Graboids, tremor sense and a fast burrowing speed would be a necessity. But, their attacks would be much deadlier and probably need a much larger range. You could even make them drop important materials for crafting and potions based around Dune's spice mélange.

5 No Face - Spirited Away

Quiet But Kind

Not every monster idea from movies has to be a monster your party has to fight. They can also be monstrous helpers, either neutral or beneficial to your party's goals. These creatures may be mysterious and misunderstood, and few movie monsters fall into that category better than No Face.

One of Spirited Away and Studio Ghibli's most recognizable creations, No Face is a nearly silent spirit that is perfectly fine wandering about and eating when it can. While it may not be the best monster for combat, it could be a good one to add to your campaign for a little bit of extra spice.

Using any ghost or spirit stat block with incorporeal movement is a great start. From there, you can adjust how much of a help No Face will be with things like various ability scores and abilities like connections to the ethereal plane.

4 The Thing - The Thing

Who Is Real?

Sure, giant kaiju and nefarious cult-horror gremlins are one thing, but what about when you want to add a creature from a movie with a little bit of nuance, some intrigue, and maybe even some doubt? You look to John Carpenter's The Thing for inspiration.

The titular creature is an alien, but you definitely don't have to follow the source material on that one. Be it an ooze, a demon, or something else entirely, this shapeshifting creature can infiltrate your party or town and wreak havoc as it eats one person after another.

Deception checks countered by investigation will rule this encounter, so really any monster that has a shapeshifting or polymorph feature is a good baseline. Just make sure to crank up the body horror and difficulty.

3 Various Creatures (The Mist)

Don't Enter The Mist

The Mist is perhaps one of the best movie retellings of a Stephen King novel, and one of the better cosmic horror movies out there now. Knowing that, if you want some pretty creepy monsters to add to your D&D campaign, then look no further.

Really, these creatures can take any form. Some good ones from the movie are the tentacled monster and the giant mosquitoes. For those, look to the Deep Tentacle creature stat block with its potent grab attack or any small creature stat block with a bit attack and health regeneration abilities from Vampires for the mosquito.

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The mist itself will practically be a creature in its own right. Using the Darkness or Cloud Kill spell statuses to blind creatures and make things more confusing during the fight would be ideal for the creepy and confusing movement of the mist.

2 Moder - The Ritual

A Great Cult-y Choice

Technically speaking, Moder is Loki's daughter in Norse mythology, but the 2017 film The Ritual isn't all that concerned about that. It's more focused on showing off one of the better folk-horror monsters in recent years.

If you're looking for a good end boss for a cult sub-plot or adventure, then Moder is hands-down a solid choice. It's unique enough that finding a base for its stats is hard. It should definitely have something akin to Frightful Presence to allow for its demigod status and horrible visage to come through.

As shown in the movie, too, it is no weakling when it comes to taking damage, shrugging off rifle shots with nothing more than a terrible groan. For added creepiness, put the Moder encounter in the forest as the movie does.

1 The Bear - Annihilation

Area X Changes People

A modern sci-fi tale with a great monster reveal, Annihilation saw the first of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy adapted to the big screen. While most of the story is just plain eerie, there's a fun dash of cosmic horror thrown in.

Notably in the form of The Bear. Part human, part bear, and all monstrosity, there are few movie monsters that would be as terrifying to come across as this one. It can roughly mimic humans but still has all of the strengths of the animal that shares its form.

Starting with the bear stat block is recommended. But, you'll need some form of mimicry like the Kenku have to help draw characters in to investigate, and to creep them out. Resistance to usual forms of damage is a great way to impart its new form, be it created from mad science, magic, or something else entirely.

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