Monstrous Appearances - Symbolism and Story

Iconic creature design sticks in the imagination, and can create an undeniable mood among players. However, while it's easy to just throw in shock for shock's sake, monsters (and even characters) can be far more impactful if you take some time to ask what their appearance actually means, and why it is the way it is. Because while not every monster is a metaphor, those that are tend to linger in the imagination long after an encounter is over.

Ask what the monster represents, and how that manifests.

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Examples of Symbolic Design

Sometimes a monster is just a monster, like a shrieking goblin, an animated skeleton, or a hungry land shark. However, monsters whose appearances, or even their abilities, are part of their lore and story tend to be significantly more flavorful... and the same rules apply for your characters as for the things they might have to fight.

For one of the most iconic examples of symbolism in a terrifying creature, consider the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol. Marley is often played for laughs, but take a moment to consider him. He's twisted, broken, still dressed in the rags of his funeral finery, and bound with chains whose burden he can never escape. Chains that are not just a physical weight, but an ectoplasmic repository for the guilt, pain, and shame he must carry for his afterlife, giving him no respite from the harm he caused.

It's simple, it's straightforward, and with the right description, is terrifying. But if you add a few details (perhaps a belt of dangling, bloody coins around his waist, each one a slug for a person whose death he caused, or mentioning the fine watches, gems, and sacks of coin tangled in the chains that he coerced from people out of greed) the torture can become personalized. Not only that, but if it's turned into something concrete, then that knowledge leaves players taking in the big picture of just how heavy the ghost's burden is, realizing the sheer amount of harm he's done no matter how pathetic and wailing his cries are now.

This kind of symbolic thinking and description can add weight to your bestiary, your encounters, and even to characters (if they get to play people who have been altered, such as in Changeling: The Lost).

Rather than just listing more examples, though, I'd like to draw your attention to two properties that have done this rather well.

First on the list is Silent Hill. While the series on the whole at least tries to put symbolism into its monsters (since they're meant to be direct interactions with the psyche of those who witness them), the second game is really the one most people think of when it comes to the high bar. From the horrifying, unstoppable force of Pyramid Head (a stern, ultra-masculine figure here to punish the protagonist for his transgressions), to the nurses (the hideous face atop the sensual body speaks to guilt, confusion, and mixed needs of the protagonist), to the twisted bed monster (something representing intimate abuse as it twists together sex and violence into a horrifying whole), the creatures are universally unsettling. What really makes them sink into one's memory, though, is the fact that they're not just random design elements thrown together to be weird, but they are manifestations of particular traumas.

All the best monsters are just mirrors showing us the worst parts of ourselves in ways we don't expect to see them.

As with Silent Hill, Fear & Hunger is a horror game with disturbing visuals and horrifying monsters. In the second installment of the franchise (a terrifying take on this setting's first World War), the characters find themselves contestants in a terrible game of death. Even worse, the grinning moon is twisting those caught in its light into terrible, monstrous versions of themselves... horrible forms that represent their dark secrets, personal fears, or which twist them out-of-true.

The child soldier becomes a horror known as the Weeping Scope, a terrible creature with an organic weapon for a head. He is molded into what he tried to avoid; a living weapon with a gun for a face that destroys whatever it looks at, unable to have purpose beyond bringing death. The boxer who is afraid of what might happen if he loses control of himself turns into a terrible giant, his hands fused into pummeling pistons, unable to think or speak, lost to the pure brute fury that always bubbled inside of him. The wheelchair-bound academic is twisted into a biomechanical horror referred to as the Mechanical Dance, a stiff, machine-like horror resembling an iron maiden, representing the human trapped and bound within a thing that was supposed to be her aid, but which has become her prison.

Whereas the monsters in Silent Hill are pure representations of twisted psyche, the moonscorched of Fear & Hunger begin as humans with their own histories, flaws, and stories, and we see how they're warped and changed. This gives us a unique look at who they are as humans, before their inner selves (or at least their struggles and private horrors) are manifested by the moon god (or the other forces at work in the dark festival). The ability to follow the path of transformation can really drive home the horror, and how something so monstrous can represent turmoil and trauma in a way that's unsettling, but understandable when one thinks in terms of symbolism.

It Can Take Practice (And Won't Be For Everyone)

Symbolic monsters, threats, and even player characters are not going to be to everyone's tastes. There will always be players and Game Masters who want things to be more straightforward, and who aren't interested in adding extra layers of meaning to the game. This is a matter of matching the right table to the right game, and ensuring everyone is onboard, and looking for the same kind of experience.

Everything else just comes down to practice.

But what does it mean?

Whether you're designing creatures from the ground up, or merely deciding how to present them, take a moment and ask what their appearances and abilities might mean, and what unnatural reflection one might find in them. Perhaps it's a demon with eyes and claws like mirrors, representing its ties to pride or envy. It might be whipstitched flesh golems that were purposefully perverted into walking horrors, each representing a different facet of the maker's personality. It could even be a sorcerer with a scaly hand he conceals beneath a gauntlet; something representing his infernal bargain that grows and grows as the darkness within him tries to consume him physically, as well as spiritually.

However you choose to mold your monsters, ask what story these visuals are telling. Because even if players don't want to dig beneath the surface, symbolism can often stick with us even if we can't put into words exactly why it clings to our memories.

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