D&D: The Five Monsters Most Likely to Steal Christmas
While there might not be an official Grinch, plenty of monsters in D&D’s manual would absolutely steal Christmas if they could.
It’s time to cue up Thurl Ravencroft’s incredible bass voice because we’re taking a look at the meanest, nastiest, would-pick-a-seasick-crocodilest monsters to figure out which ones would absolutely steal Christmas, given half the chance.
Because while there may not be an official Grinch, when you know which of D&D’s monsters are the Grinchiest, you have your holiday adventure villain ready to go.
Aboleth
Aboleths are ancient, primordial creatures who lived in the murky waters in the time before the coming of the gods. These are ancient, powerful creatures who once ruled.
They have not forgotten the true gods whose appearance cast down their empire. They are the enemies of the gods and consider themselves to be the destined rulers of all life forms of the mortal realm.
An Aboleth would use its psychic powers and ability to turn people into slime to do away with Christmas once and for all. If only it could withstand those detestable blinking lights.
Beholder
Beholders are aggressive, spiteful creatures convinced of their own perfection and hold all others with utter disdain. They believe their form to be the ideal, perfected form that all life should aspire to.
But more than any of that, they’re greedy. They carve out whole territories just to rule them, to seek power. A Beholder would hear all that infernal singing and demand that the song not only is directed in praise of it, but that the tree, the roast beast, and especially all the presents, be delivered to it as tribute.
Lich
Liches are among the classic D&D antagonists. They were once mortal wizards who eschewed ethics and even life itself in pursuit of power.
To them, the only thing that matters is power and the acquisition thereof. Acererak was known for building maddening tombs to lure adventurers to their doom. Vecna was known for keeping an eye out for betrayal.
Each lich has its own personality quirks, but they are all, to a corpse, arrogant and hateful. Life is abhorrent to them, and the celebration thereof doubly so. This is why any lich, especially Szass Tam of the Red Wizards, would steal Christmas.
Frost Giant Everlasting One
When a Frost Giant Jarl wishes to grow in strength, to prove themselves among the giant’s ordning, they will often seek power that cannot be stolen. The most cunning and vicious Frost Giants seek out Vaprak the Destroyer.
Vaprak is a ferocious god of strength and hunger and bloody cannibalism. Those frost giants that come to relish the twisted dreams of glory and nightmares of feasting on the blood of their fellows are inducted into Vaprak’s service. They have to devour a troll (unroasted even), which transforms them into an Everlasting One — a multi-headed frost giant that has the regenerative abilities of a troll. The only thing worse than their attitude is their appetites, which would absolutely lead them to steal Christmas.
Orcus
Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot; but Orcus, Demon Prince of Undeath, also known as the Blood Lord, who lived on the 113th layer of the Abyss, where he craved nothing more than the death of every living thing, all life in the multiverse would be snuffed out, transformed into a vast necropolis of undead creatures solely under his command — did not
