Ill-tempered cousins of lions and other such large predatory cats, manticores possess innumerable spines, which serve as their primary means of attack. When angered – or even just hungry – they are able to launch a volley of spines at their prey.

This is a cockatrice.

Born of a yolkless egg, cockatrices are vile creatures of rude temperament. They are particularly well-known for their ability to turn their prey into stone – an unfortunate effect for those who venture into their lairs. While their bite is mostly harmless, there is always a chance that one nip will turn you into inert stone, along with all your gear.

Of course, should you manage to return to the site of your untimely transformation, perhaps you will find your petrified self and be able to free your items from your past incarnation.

Lizalfos are lizardmen who wield swords and dwell in the depths. They will always appear in a twinned pair, never singly, and each pair acts roughly in tandem.

Lizalfos carry a shield-like device, with which they are quite adept and able to block incoming projectiles. The lizalfos is not a creature that can be engaged at range. Lizalfos are also quite agile, able to leap high distances, and – much like cats – always land well and on their feet, never taking damage from a fall.

Due to their ability to work in pairs, a lizalfos that is badly wounded will flee combat rather than risk death, allowing its twin to take over the fighting while it licks its wounds and recovers. While fleeing, a lizalfos becomes exceptionally fast, and will flee even faster if wounded yet further. Once its wounds have healed, or if its twin sees fit to flee, it will rejoin the fray.

Upon defeat, a lizalfos will sometimes drop its sword, which is usually of significant quality.

This is a rakshasa.

Rakshasas are an unusual breed of creature, which deals deep within the darkness of the world. Though unrelated, they get along relatively well with illithids, and you may stumble across them plotting together.

Rakshasas are powerful spellcasters, capable of many tricks, including invisibility and the ability to make illusory copies of themselves. They are masters of using arcane energy to harm their foes, and prefer to fight at a distance.

Being spellcasters, rakshasas occasionally carry tomes of power with them. While not useful by themselves, they can be used to imbue powerful magics into weapons, armor, or tools.

This is a hell hound.

In essence, a hell hound is the demonic relative to the common wolf. Unlike natural wolves, however, hell hounds are malevolent, and are not interested in being your friend – only in spreading fire, an interest they pursue readily by breathing forth bursts of flame. Even their bite itself is enough to set creatures on fire.

Hell hounds can be found in the overworld, albeit rarely. They are significantly more common in the fiery pits of the Nether from whence they spawn, where their natural affinity for the inferno puts them right at home.

This is an illithid, also known as a mind flayer.

Their physical attacks are not very strong, but as they attack you, they latch their tentacles onto your head, and when all four are attached, they extract your brain, killing you instantly. In the meantime, their mental powers keep you constantly slowed, allowing them to catch up to you with no problem.

And if you think that bringing your little dogs and cats to the party will help you, you would be rather wrong. As illithids are only interested in eating human brains, they have another use for such simple-minded creatures: turning them on their masters. Illithids will take a few moments before dealing with you to dominate the minds of your animal companions, turning the tide against you. Of course, their control over them is based upon their mind, so if you kill the illithid, your not-so-faithful friends will return to your side.

Important: Due to the way tamed animals save their data, any animals that are dominated will stay that way if you close the game – or it crashes – while around an illithid. This is being worked on, but I can’t say how long it will take. Engage illithids with pets along at your own risk!

This is a destrachan.

Do not be fooled their somewhat unorthodox appearance or garish colors: the destrachan is a fearsome predator of the depths. Their mastery of their sonar capabilities is such that they can produce the frequencies required to shatter glass, crumble stone, and dissolve metal with little to no difficulty.

When hunting, they can modulate their vocal frequency so as to disrupt the very air itself, resulting in a shockwave of explosions as the water in the air is instantaneously boiled by way of resonant frequency. When pressed, destrachans resort to their claws rather than their sonic attacks, and while not as deadly as their harmonics, they can still rend flesh with relative ease.

As a side effect of having such destructive powers, destrachans themselves are highly resistant to kinetic force: explosions will do little to faze them.

A cross between a spider and a lobster, and aptly named…

This is a cave fisher.

The cave fisher dwells in the darkness, and unlike their cousins – spiders – they don’t tread onto the surface. While they share the ability to climb, cave fishers also sport a number of abilities beyond those of the common spider.

Cave fishers will hurl webs at their targets, ensnaring them and making them easier prey for the fisher to catch. They also have the ability to grab their targets from a distance and reel them in to within striking distance – hence the clever name, “cave fisher.”

Big, mean, and green. Also: hungry.

This is a troll.

Trolls are fairly normal when it comes to their combat tactics – they mostly just smack you until you stop moving. What distinguishes trolls is their extreme hatred of sunlight, rapid regenerative abilities, and hunger.

Trolls will spawn in caves even in the highest mountains, but only if they are incredibly dark – far darker than even normal monsters can spawn in. Trolls will flee sunlight to the best of their ability, and will be slowed while in sunlight… and also gradually turn to stone. While they are mostly harmless in daylight, they are incredibly dangerous in darkness, where their regeneration will make even the most dangerous of weapons nigh-useless against them. Only one thing is known to overcome their regeneration: fire.

This is a beholder.

Capable of flight, these beasts stalk the deep parts of the world. While most other creatures are dangerous only if you get within reach of their claws, the beholder is a ranged monster, shooting bolts of magical power.

If an eye ray should strike you, you will be subject to all manner of horrible effects. Each ray is different, applying different effects – some will simply damage you outright, some will poison you, others will slow you. Regardless of the primary qualities of the ray, it will always remove enchantments from some of your items.

Even if an eye ray should miss you, it can still prove dangerous – if an eye ray strikes ground, it will explode.

Those claws aren’t just for show.

Despite the ridiculousness of only having claws for hands, the hook horror is a dangerous foe. It is quite adept with its hooks, capable of quickly eviscerating flesh and rending armor, and – against creatures that wield items – capable of ripping things right out of your hands. Enchanted armor may be better able to hold itself together against this creature’s onslaught.

It will also occasionally – and without warning – whip itself into a frenzy, barraging its target with a flurry of claws.

“But GW,” you say, “that’s a picture of a model in Techne! That’s not a screenshot!”
“Well,” says I, “you’ll see why I did that, soon enough.”

Three words exemplify the umber hulk: big, nasty, and scary. Rarely spawning in the depths of the world, this is not a foe to be underestimated.

Fortunately they are rather slow. But that is their only weakness: they are incredibly tough and ridiculously resilient, immune to fire, and hit like a sledgehammer. Only the best-geared of adventurers should attempt to do battle with these beasts – to engage them otherwise is folly.

By itself, the shrieker is completely and utterly harmless. You can walk right up to one, and it won’t even attack you! They don’t move, and while they might shake a bit, they’re not intelligent in the least.

However, shriekers aren’t named ironically. When exposed to light, or when attacked or otherwise jostled by a creature, the shrieker emits an ear-piercingly loud trill, which attracts the attention of nearby creatures – making them appear suddenly by the shrieker, without warning.

One way to think about a shrieker is that it is basically a living mob spawner… that can spawn any hostile mob (native to the overworld), and can summon a fairly large group at a time.

In essence, the ghoul is another undead thing, similar in nature to zombies. Compared to zombies, however, ghouls are tougher, faster, and more dangerous: when you are struck by a ghoul, you are almost entirely paralyzed for a few moments. That might not be so bad if there is just the one ghoul, but if there are more… well, that will probably not end so well.

However, unlike zombies, you won’t find ghouls on the surface. While they burn up in sunlight just like all other undead, they are only found underground (no higher than 60 blocks above bedrock).

The ghoul texture is based on the Painterly Pack’s zombie skin.

He just wants to be your friend. Especially if you have iron…

Rust monsters are denizens of the underground that feed on metals, both ferrous and precious, though they prefer ferrous metals. You won’t see them outside (usually), and they will only appear near veins of their preferred meals, even if they’re not exposed. In this way, having these creatures around might actually be somewhat helpful, as they can lead you to iron and gold veins you might’ve otherwise missed. Also, like most other hostile mobs, rust monsters do not spawn in well-lit areas.

These creatures are not particularly interested in you, unless you happen to be wearing, wielding, or just carrying metal somewhere on your person, at which point they will attack you viciously (or if you attack them first). Not only do they attack you, but they will also do severe damage to iron or gold items on your person – and if you hit them with an iron or gold weapon or tool, it will damage that item incredibly more than it would normally.

If you get caught in a situation with a rust monster and would prefer to retreat than engage in combat, you can drop items it likes to eat to draw its attention away from your metallic hide. Dropping an iron ingot might not be fun, but if it saves you oodles of durability on your iron armor and weapons, it might be a worthwhile sacrifice. Of course, once you attack the rust monster yourself, it suddenly is more interested in making you dead than eating whatever you happen to drop… and, of course, once you’re dead, you drop everything in your inventory. So the rust monster will gleefully consume every last bit of metal you had on you before you manage to get back to where you died.