What's Your Favorite Monster?

[Steerpike]

So, Q, basically?

[sparkletwist]

I love high-powered games such that players have the opportunity and the temptation to be a little bit Demiurge-like, themselves. You know, just flirt with that a li'l bit.

Me too. :D

[Polycarp]

I too will confess to a love of dragons.

More generally I also tend to like "purposive" monsters, creatures that exist to serve some kind of cosmic purpose (great or small) rather than filling an ecological niche.  Demons and angels and other sorts of supernatural functionaries are the most common examples of this, though you can potentially put everything from mythological psychopomps to the intelligent doors from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into this category.  A creature that structures its existence around a certain activity, function, ideal, or ultimate goal is alien to the modern ecological concept of life, in which creatures exist simply to exist (and reproduce), and can make for a very different kind of encounter or antagonist in which standards of action like "survival" and "morality" become irrelevant or take on very different meanings.

[Lmns Crn]

So, Q, basically?

Haven't watched enough Star Trek to be able to answer that, really.

The Gnostics had a cool concept of the Demiurge, which might help clarify. In their worldview, the universe's creator was distant, passive, and good (Sophia), while the active divine force in the universe was the Demiurge. The Demiurge was not the only god (though he believed that he was), did not create the world (though he believed that he did), etc. The divine equivalent of an all-powerful, spoiled, ignorant child. (There's a great Twilight Zone episode about this. Sort of.)

The Gnostics reconciled problems with the Bible by interpreting the God-character as the Demiurge-- not the true supreme being, but an amoral pretender to the throne-- which neatly sidesteps questions about why a loving god would send all those plagues, murder most of humanity in a flood, invent hell, etc.

[Steerpike]

Haven't watched enough Star Trek to be able to answer that, really.

This sorta sums Q up.

He's really more of an ambivalent Trickster ala Coyote or Loki than a Gnostic-style sub-creator/bogeyman/theodical linchpin, though.

[Lmns Crn]

This sorta sums Q up.

I'd like to be able to comment, but frankly, I'm struck speechless.

[Steerpike]

He does come off rather like a Demiurge in this one, but Picard is clearly a capable mytsic since he sees through the charade pretty quickly...

[beejazz]

What the title asks: What is your favorite monster? As a GM, as a player, as a worldbuilder.  Name them, discuss them!

I love otyughs and ettins, myself.

It might be a little cliche, but you can't go wrong with humans.

I've also been sitting on the question of whether I could do a proper kaiju-style city-wrecker justice in play. It's been a while since I've run a game though.