30 Days of D&D Day 23: Least Favorite Monster Overall

My least favorite monster? Let me tell you a story about my least favorite monster.

I've talked about Brigid in many of the posts her. She was my formative D&D character, the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil game really my formative D&D experience. It is what it is. This has been a fabulous nostalgia train, actually.



So Brigid, when I started, was a fighter in...I think studded leather armor, I don't think I was able to even afford a chain shirt, and I didn't have a shield. Maybe it was scale? I had a bastard sword which, without a feat, was a 2 handed sword back there in 3rd edition (and that persisted for awhile). I paid double for said bastard sword, because they weren't commonly used in the area I came from. Fine. I paid double, bought it from a peddler or whatever, I wanted a big scary sword that let people know I meant serious business.

So I hooked up first with the elf wizard and the gnome rogue (still with his original hands/arms); we hadn't met the druid yet. We come across Gorgoldand's Gauntlet and think "Boy howdy" and sign up for it, go down into it.

So partway through Gorgoldand's Gauntlet (it's area 10, I just skimmed through to look) . An early encounter what comes out but a pair of rust monsters. Now rust monsters are kind of caterpillar looking things, with feathery feelers on their heads that they lash out with and....destroy metal equipment. Of the three of us, I had the most metal in bulk, in the form of that prized bastard sword. Which immediately turned to a wooden handle in my hand, blade gone forever.

Now, nobody should expect to be awesome at first level. You should expect to feel foolish at least once. At least. You should expect to be ineffectual, perhaps a little bit bumbling. Sometimes you luck out and are deadly from the get-go (Larkin was deadly from the get-go). But to lose your super awesome bastard sword you paid double for at first level to critters who won't even hurt YOU, just take your stuff, stings particularly. Like, it's nearly fourteen years later and I'm still kind of outraged. Maybe not "kind of" Rust monsters only exist to take your shit and make you feel bad.

So yeah. I hate rust monsters.