From Greek myth to the pages of the Monster Manual, Manticores have come a long way. These winged lion scorpion hybrids have terrorized the table since Dungeon & Dragons’ inception and will continue to terrorize for years.

Hags have crept through different cultures’ stories globally; they’re dark crones who eat babies, steal youth from beautiful women, and trick gullible people into selling their souls and their children. D&D takes inspiration from these iconic fairy-tale villains and presents them as masterfully evil, plotting fey driven by hatred and jealousy. 

For my money, these are the best villains in Dungeons & Dragons. 

Outside its historical contexts, I think Rakshasa can make superb mid-tier villains for your D&D campaign. They’re built to plot behind the scenes, using their deep well of magical spells to snoop around the underworld and acquire knowledge.

Running and facing giants can be daunting; here, my goal is to give you everything you could need to get giants into your games or provide you with some helpful combat tips for differentiating them and making lasting encounters your players will both fear and adore.

Here, we’re going to dive into what makes Mind Flayers work, how to support them in combat, what tactics they employ, and if you’re a player, things to do to combat these aberration overlords seeking total domination of time and space.

When you want to mercilessly bash something's skull in, but don’t want the moral implications of murder, seek zombies. They are unapologetically evil husks of humanoid remains hellbent on ending life via cannibalism.

Ankhegs are surprisingly versatile baddies to play with. They’ve got a 60 ft. tremorsense and 60 ft. darkvision, often giving them the feeling of having blindsight. They can’t rapidly tunnel in combat, but their burrow speed lets them set up ambushes easily and aids in their retreat methods.

Below the waves can have as rich biomes and diversity flourish as above; where humans and their kin call land cities home, the aquatic merfolk hold domain over the sea. They are the undersea version of commoners and usually are the default first neutral encounter players may have when venturing below.

Have you been recently inspired by Godzilla or King Kong, and want to run some massive, city-threatening monsters who are more forces of nature than tactical villains? It's time to ROC.

These things are basically a mundane hunting hawk that’s scaled up to be the size of a plane.

Alongside the dragons and beholders that define Dungeons & Dragons are Owlbears; a modern chimera taking the size and strength of a bear with the perception and hunter’s instinct owls are known for.

Mechanically, they aren’t anything special; for the most part, they take regular beast traits and pair them with a lethal low-tier multi-attack alongside dropping the beast tag for monstrosity.

Beholders are weird, floating eyes that are slow and despicable. They’re vile. Truly awful megalomaniacal monsters hellbent on being the only thing alive around them that spawn from bizarre dreams and come with a suite of unique elements that make them a blast to run and fight. 

Though kobolds have a low intellect, they are infinitely resourceful, clever little beasts. It seems there is no end to the mischief and hijinks to be had, both running kobolds as a dungeon master or building one as a player character.

Fundamentally dryad’s aren’t combatants; they excel at subtlety, manipulation, mobility, and oddly enough, leadership. They can be fey presences that warp the world around their existence, and can be annoyances to burgeoning industry and expanding civilization. Just one dryad can exert influence over a massive wooded area.