Every Dungeons and Dragons player has a story to tell about monsters, whether about wading through hordes of goblins or tales of slaying mighty dragons. Naturally, the game has spawned plenty of creatures of its own. From master manipulators like the mind flayers to unusual threats like a rust monster that forces the party to improvise, D&D's folios of foes have had plenty to offer.
But not every monster is blessed with such an iconic status. They might still have some level of infamy, but many have been lost to the annals of time. While a duckbunny doesn't have much to offer in terms of TPK potential, it can be interesting to look back at the very weirdest monsters from D&D's long history.
10 Silk Wyrms Haunt The Skies Of Athas
Silk wyrms possess a rather unusual set of abilities. They fly despite their thick shells by using their psionic powers and they can turn into serpentine shadows to stalk their prey. When they do secure a victim, rather than just devour it, they cocoon it in layers of silk much like a spider, draining its body of water over the course of days.
In a more normal setting, silk wyrms would likely be a dreaded threat. But this flying snake pales in comparison to some of the other threats in the world of Dark Sun, from the sorcerer-kings who defile the landscape to the emaciated dragon that haunts the sands.
9 Grell Are More Than They Appear
A wise adventurer shouldn't let the grell's comical appearance fool them. Grells live to hunt, and between their vicious beak and venomous tentacles, they're adept at their job. Were their physical abilities not enough, grells also possess vast intellects, and the strongest can wield terrifying psychic powers against any foe who underestimates them.
Grell first saw the light of day, or rather the dark of a dungeon, in White Dwarf Magazine #12, premiering alongside the githyanki. While both have gone on to see every edition of the game, the eternally hunting, hive-dwelling grell have never quite caught on like their plane-traveling cousins.
8 Gelatinous Cubes Keep Dungeons Clean
The gelatinous cube lives up to its name, being quite literally a near-perfect cube of living jelly that slowly meanders through corridors collecting and slowly consuming anything that gets stuck within its body. Context is key to the cube, as ten-foot by ten-foot square corridors were ubiquitous in early D&D, explaining the creature's strange shape.
Appearing in every single version of D&D, and even Pathfinder and other fantasy media, the gelatinous cube has had a long history and is by far the most famous ooze in tabletop gaming. Not generally that much of a threat on its own, a gelatinous cube can still be an amusing encounter should a hero walk straight into one by accident.
7 Gas Spores Make Use Of Clever Mimicry
Terrifying tales of eye-tyrants slaying entire groups of heroes abound, as do stories of deep dark dungeons built to lure the foolish to their doom. The gas spore somehow makes use of these, mimicking the form of a beholder to defend itself from the weak and lure the unwary into striking it and releasing its spores into the air.
Such mimicry does abound in the real world, albeit primarily among animals, rather than plants or fungi. Some flowers are known to make use of it though. Hammer orchids resemble bees, while corpse flowers and rafflesia copy the stink of rotting meat to attract various creatures.
6 Giant Space Hamsters Roam The Stars
Originally bred as beasts of burden and livestock aboard a type of spelljammer known as a gnomish sidewheeler, giant space hamsters have since spread throughout the multiverse. It would be Boo, the loyal companion of the ranger Minsc, that would cement the species as a fan favorite, even if the diminutive creature is claimed to just be a "miniature" version.
While miniature giant space hamsters are the most well-known breed, a wide variety of others have been rumored to exist as well, ranging from the shaggy abominable giant space hamster to the cowardly tyrannohamsterus rex. Perhaps the most menacing is the long-named fire-breathing phase doppleganger giant space hamster, possessed of great intelligence and the ability to shift between planes at well.
5 Flail Snails Are A Mage's Worst Enemy
Flail snails certainly have a catchy name, but there's more to these beasts than just a memorable moniker. A snail, even a giant one, might not conjure much dread, but the eponymous flails atop its head can swiftly change that, and their antimagic shells add a layer of strong defenses as well.
More intelligent than might be expected from a gastropod, flail snails can communicate with one patient enough to learn how to, or with a mage able to overcome their reflective shell. While such insights are unlikely to reveal much, it does show them to be more than mere beasts roaming caves aimlessly.
4 Flumphs Are Unusually Heroic
Certainly one of the strangest monsters D&D has to offer, the flumph has also become somewhat emblematic of the sillier side of the game. As lawful-good aberrations, flumphs would be odd enough already, but they round that out with their bizarre forms, resembling a flying jellyfish with eye stalks on top and spikes hiding within their bell.
Flumph ecology just adds more mystery, with legends telling that they first arrived from beyond the planet, only to later inhabit the darkest of caves. Flumphs were also one of many classic monsters to receive a cameo in Magic: The Gathering's "Adventures In The Forgotten Realms" set, alongside creatures like trolls and dragons.
3 Modrons Believe In A Perfect Geometric Order
Modrons are beings of pure order, their society spread throughout the lawful-neutral plane of Mechanus, a home also shared with the intimidating inevitables and the enigmatic gear spirits that tend to the endless clockwork cogs that make up that world.
Modron physiology takes the form of geometric shapes, the most common being spheres, cubes, and pyramids, all featuring a specific number of limbs, eyes, and faces. Were this not odd enough, their psychology seems to depend on their form: The more complex their shape, the more complex their mind and the less robotic their personality.
2 Bowlers Are A Baffling Living Trap
Not a creature that bowls at heroes, but rather bowls over them using its own heavy and hard body, the bowler is a rather unique class of mimic. Stealthy despite their size, they take quite a while to actually reach full speed when pursuing their prey and can only be heard once they get surprisingly close.
Bowlers are part of a family of living traps that were popular back in the earlier years of D&D. While the mimic is a classic and creatures like cloakers and darkmantles take inspiration from this group, it was monsters like the trapper or lurker above, a living floor and ceiling respectively, that haunted players way back when.
1 The Wolf-In-Sheep's-Clothing Looks Innocuous At First
Few creatures from D&D have earned the title of "misfit monster" quite like the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. It seems innocuous enough at first, a bunny, squirrel, or other small animal standing atop a stump, but the true horror swiftly unfolds when an unlucky adventurer steps too close, as the stump's roots begin to lash about and a dreadful maw reveals itself.
The wolf-in-sheep's-clothing first appeared in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, an adventure which saw standard D&D heroes diving into a downed spaceship to stop attacks on the nearby Duchy of Geoff. Along the way, they encounter numerous robots, bizarre monsters, and strange alien technologies seen nowhere else in the world of Greyhawk.