I’ve been looking forward to finally getting around to this idea. It aligns well with some of my current and future project concepts. The conceit of this series of articles, which I have dubbed Monsters of /X/, is to explore the monsters and creatures featured on the /X/ board of 4chan back in the day.

Internet folklore operates much like traditional folklore but on vastly accelerated time scales due to the speed of digital communication. Over the two and a half decades message boards have existed, there has been an explosion of fascinating stories. Whether you believe these stories to be literal accounts or see them as a creative medium for fiction, their impact on modern zeitgeist and how we perceive creatures and concepts cannot be ignored.

For instance, the 4chan iterations of creatures like the Wendigo and Skinwalker have far surpassed their Native American mythological counterparts in terms of popularity. This has even led to composite ideas like the Fleshgait, which combines attributes from various folkloric monsters.

From this standpoint, the purpose of the Monsters of /X/ articles is to provide concise write-ups and stats for the characters that became famous or originated on that board.

Points of Consideration⌗

  1. As noted earlier—and it’s important to reiterate—many of these creatures have folklore and mythology that predates /X/ and 4chan as a whole. These creatures may belong to broader traditions of internet or modern folklore or to the human cultural schema of mythology. The /X/ versions of these monsters are neither faithful nor deeply tied to their original backgrounds. The goal of these stat write-ups is to capture how /X/ conceptualized these beings and present them in a format playable in a modern OSR system. As such, many of these creatures are designed to simulate the kinds of greentexts they are featured in and to make for engaging encounters.

  2. Another thing to note is that navigating 4chan can be frustrating, and many of the archive sites meant for preserving older threads are even more difficult to delve into. Surprisingly, YouTube has become a better resource for locating specific older stories than most of the sites hosting the original greentexts and threads. Where possible, I will link to proper sources, but expect a lot of YouTube video links.

  3. Lastly, some of the creatures featured in these articles—such as the Mothman, Jersey Devil, and Kentucky Goblins—belong to the realm of modern folklore that predates 4chan and the internet itself. For these creatures, I will adopt an approach that blends their original “canon” stories or appearances with the more compelling greentexts, as long as they don’t contradict the original sources.

Monster Templates⌗

Moving forward, I’ll use this Monster Stat Template for all creatures in the Monsters of /X/ articles as well as any non-specific OSR system content. The template is derived from my own ruleset, Be Not Afraid, and includes a few features not commonly found in other OSR systems. Regardless, the stats are easy to convert to any OSR system.

Presumptions of the Statlines⌗

  1. Monsters use a single saving throw (a mono-save), which must be rolled over. While this differs from how player characters save in my system, some monsters have specified saves or bonuses against particular effects.

  2. XP values and loot tables are not included. My system handles progression in a non-linear fashion, though most OSR systems have straightforward HD-to-XP conversion tables.

  3. Damage resistance in my system is represented as a numerical value that reduces incoming damage. This can stack with effects like traditional OSR resistances or immunities to non-magical attacks. However, my system generally avoids (though does not entirely exclude) such blanket defenses.

Hit Dice (HD): Represents the creature’s health and overall power. Humans use d6; most monsters use d8. Smaller or weaker creatures may use d4, while formidable ones may use d10 or d12 (rare).

Armor Class (AC): Measures how hard the creature is to hit and how well its defenses prevent damage. Starts at 9 and increases with higher protection.

Damage Resistance (DR): Reduces or negates damage taken by the number listed. Found in creatures with tough hides, armor, or supernatural resilience.

# of Attacks: The number of attacks a creature can make and the limbs/weapons used.

Attack Bonus (AB): The bonus to hit in combat. Defaults to the creature’s HD (up to +9) unless specified otherwise.

Damage: The damage dealt by each attack, including type if relevant.

Movement: Speed in feet and type (e.g., walking, flying).

Save: A single saving throw for avoiding harmful effects, usually the default DC starting at 16. Special cases may include bonuses for specific effects (e.g., Magic, +2).

Resolve: Morale or willpower to stay in combat. Roll 2d6; if the result equals or exceeds this number, the creature flees or surrenders. Triggered when at half health or after an ally’s death.

# Appearing: How many of the creature are typically encountered, expressed as a die range (e.g., 1d4, 1d8).

Snow Angel⌗

snowangel

Image was AI generated via Flux.S

“on a scale of one to ten what’s the surest you’ve ever been at any one moment that something absolutely sinister was looking straight at you.”

“I’d rate my experience earlier tonight at about an eight”

-Anon(s)

Of all the things to encounter during the holidays, a pulled-over horse trailer with clear signs of struggle and a missing person wouldn’t rank highly on the list of desired events. Yet for the Anon in question, this was his experience.

Named for the eerie snow prints it leaves behind after hunting, the Snow Angel is a predatory, bird-like creature that strikes during snowy nights or blizzards. With its uncanny size, speed, and stealth, the Snow Angel is a master ambush predator, leaving behind only clawed footprints and wing-like imprints in the snow.

-The Snow Angel-

Hit Dice: 8

Armor Class: 15 (nimble, difficult to strike)

Damage Resistance: 2 (tough feathers and hide)

# of Attacks: 2 (Talon, Beak)

Attack Bonus: +6

Damage: Talon 1d8+2 slashing, Beak 1d6+1 piercing

Movement: 25 ft. (on ground), 80 ft. (flying, nearly silent in snowy conditions)

Save: 13 (+4 vs. perception or tracking-based effects)

Resolve: 10 (relentless hunter, rarely deterred)

# Appearing: 1 (lone ambusher)

- Special Abilities -

  1. Snowy Ambush: In snowstorms or blizzards, the Snow Angel forces an Ambush Check of 1-5 out of 6 in it’s favored climate.

  2. Silent Flight: In flight the creature is much like an owl, making no sounds whatsoever in travel, Characters must make a DC 20 Perception check Just to even spot the thing.

Behaviour & Tactics⌗

The Snow Angel’s hunting range and environment are highly specialized. It thrives in heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions and exhibits an extreme aversion to being seen. Encounters with the Snow Angel are likely rare and localized to the northern continental United States and Canada. As such, its victims are typically lone individuals or small groups.

Back roads and rural areas serve as the Snow Angel’s stomping grounds, where it preys on anything caught in the weather or outdoors. At the same time, this creature is bold enough to attack moving horse trailers, often targeting the horses to lure the driver outside. Once the driver is picked off, the Snow Angel has free rein over any remaining cattle or horses.

This predator appears to be aggressive and territorial. In the original greentext story, the Snow Angel even followed the Anon home. Despite its size and strength—strong enough to carry off a person, possibly even a horse—it doesn’t display much confidence in its ability to break into homes or vehicles. Instead, it prefers to wait and bait its victims into stepping outside, rather than resorting to brute force.

Original Greentext: The Snow Angel Greentext audido version by Chass like many of these greetexts, sourcing the original screencaps are hard, but Chass and his channel are a reliable and quality set of videos for many of the better tales.

Black-Eyed Kids (BEKs)⌗

Black-Eyed-Kids

Image is AI generated using Flux.S

Both boys stared at me with coal-black eyes. The sort of eyes one sees these days on aliens or bargain-basement vampires on late night television. Soulless orbs like two great swathes of starless night.

I did what I feel any rational person would do. I full-on freaked out inside while trying to appear completely sane and calm.

“We can’t come in unless you tell us it’s OK. Let us in!”

  • Brian Bethel

Supernatural entities cloaked in the guise of children. The typical modus operandi of these beings is that they are attempting to gain entry to someone’s home or vehicle in the disguise of children/young teenagers. Due to some limitation on their spiritual nature, they are unable to cross the thresholds of people’s homes or property without verbal consent.

A lot of theories as to what these beings are have cropped up over the two decades of stories these things have featured in, with four major camps:

  1. They are some form of demonic creature/spirit.
  2. They are a particularly malevolent example of fairy folk.
  3. They are an example of a proto-vampire.
  4. They are a type of alien visitation.

I’m going to rule out theory 4 as the weakest of the theories because the BEKs don’t really follow any of the standard tropes or behavior of men in black or alien visitations. The inability to cross thresholds paired with the direct hostility of these creatures implies them to be more spiritual than merely extraterrestrial.

In the same vein, I find the vampire theory to be the next weakest theory. While at first glance the weakness against thresholds and the proclivity to operate at night line up well with vampire tropes, those are the only similarities they share.

Besides, the demonic and fairy angles fit all the tropes as well, and vampires are often a specific subset of those larger creature groups. Fairies and Demons often have an aversion to thresholds, requiring verbal consent. Both Fairies and Demons often rely on guises and deceit to operate, and Demons, and to a lesser extent fairies, are quite malevolent. They aren’t here to feed or experiment on you; they want you dead, plain and simple.

Of course, these are gross generalizations of both broad mythical archetypes, but that’s the way I lean regarding how I might depict them. Though it’s not hard to make them inflect whatever opinion you have about them or to tweak them to fit a setting or concept.

-Black-Eyed Kids- Hit Dice: 3

Armor Class: 12

# of Attacks: 1 (touch)

Attack Bonus: +2

Damage: Touch (see special abilities)

Movement: 30 ft. (on foot)

Save: 9 (+4 to all non-magical effects)

Resolve: 10

# Appearing: 1d2 (spokesperson and secondary figure).

- Special Abilities -

  1. Damage Immunity: Immune to all non-magical or non-divine sources of damage.

  2. Dread Aura: Creatures must make a Will Save (VS. paralysis) while in the direct presence of the BEKs or suffer -2 all actions.

  3. Minor Glamour: The BEK’s unnerving appearance is not instantly noticeable, after 1 minute or so conversation a creature is permitted a perception check or Will Save (Vs. Wands) to notice the BEK’s eyes.

  4. Death Touch: Upon touching a target in a direct manner the creature must make a Fortitude Save (Vs. Death) or instantly die.

  5. Teleport: The BEK when unobserved can teleport to any other unobserved location within 12 miles of themselves.

Behavior & Encounter⌗

These BEKs basically want to kill you if you are their target, and their whole strategy is built around overcoming one weakness: they cannot enter anywhere without being invited in. As such, they do everything within their power to deceive you into letting them in. They take on the guises of children and create excuses or requests on the false pretense of being children. The issue is the glamour/illusion they project is not perfect, and the fear and unease they induce (due to likely their demonic nature) somewhat undermines the disguise they use.

They often open their requests with a demure and polite manner, with mannerisms and speech patterns not really common or present in children, which is often the first giveaway. As soon as they suspect their victim suspects something is off, they become quite forceful, pleading and pressuring, hoping the still-present guise and the fear might make the victim hastily give permission and let them in.

All victims who have ever survived have avoided this trap or denied them permission seem to implicitly understand these things are out to kill them.

This ties into another unspoken aspect of BEKs’ survivor bias. Most of the “real” accounts pertaining to these things are from the victim’s perspective, and from victims who have survived (duh). But there is no outside observer information on these things, no third-party witness. What happens when a BEK is let in is somewhat unknown, other than the victim dies.

Original Greentexts: While the legends of these creatures did not start on /X/, the board was responsible for germinating the meme and idea of these things into popular culture. The first encounter anyone reportedly had with these things was from Brian Bethel back in 1996, the Original account can be found here On the wayback machine to an older tabloid website.

For more grenntexts relating to this specific monster, Midnight Broadcast, a youtube channel with a high quality production for reading Greentexts has quite a fewvideos relating to this.

The Chicago Crab⌗

crab

Image sketch by original poster

White

No Eyes

Echolocation

OP that’s a fucking cave monster. Where on your map did you forget to draw the opening to the hell cave?

  • Anon

Also called by its much more colorful and less polite name, the Chicago N***** Crab, is something of a 4chan classic (no surprise there) and, unlike most of the generic spooky posts, has some halfway decent evidence. Primarily, the location and events leading up to the monster pouncing on the Anon of this story.

In short, it’s a giant blind albino crawdad monster, forced to the surface from whatever cave it had been dwelling in after it flooded from a storm. It had hunkered down in a nearby storage facility, using a dumpster as cover for itself, and unluckily for the Anon, he stumbled across this thing when it was likely skittish and agitated. Luckily for him, a cave creature evolved around echolocation is somewhat weak to loud noises, and some nearby loud noises saved him.

-The Chicago Crab-

Hit Dice: 4

Armor Class: 14 (chitinous plating)

Damage Resistance: 2 (flexible carapace)

# of Attacks: 3 (2 spike-tipped arms, 1 bite)

Damage: Spiked Arms: 1d8+1 piercing each Bite: 1d6 + grapple

Movement: 40’ walking, 20’ climbing,

Save: 12 (-4 vs loud noises)

Resolve: 9 (6 when exposed to loud sounds)

# Appearing: 1 (unique)

- Special Abilities -

  1. Compression: Can squeeze through spaces as small as 1 foot in diameter without penalty

  2. Echolocation: Cannot be surprised and can perfectly detect all movement within 80’ (reduced to 30’ in rain/loud conditions)

  3. Sound Sensitivity: Loud noises (horns, explosions, etc.) force a save or the creature is stunned for 1 round

Behavior & Encounter⌗

Being that this creature is heavily evolved and specialized to cave-like environments, with precise echolocation and the ability to squeeze into spaces only a couple inches tall/wide despite being 6 feet tall, it’s likely an apex predator in any cave-like environments it takes dwelling in. Sticking to enclosed and dark spaces or in cracks or crevices it can hide in, its hunting style is likely something between a crab and a praying mantis, striking fast and suddenly from ambush when it can but otherwise subsisting off smaller detritus.

Where this creature comes up short is when it’s out in the open or in broad daylight. Loud noises clearly disturb this beast, and it prefers enclosed and cramped areas and thus will only take to places like this if literally forced out. As such, this is a rare (though not impossible to find) surface encounter, the type of thing likely only to happen after a large storm passes through. It’s also plausible a creature could take up residency in abandoned structures, though this is less likely than natural caves.

From a combat standpoint, this thing is no joke on its home turf and could likely give a party a run for their money if it can slink in and out of spaces where the players cannot pursue. In contrast, it’s probably not interested in a prolonged battle at all, as it’s not a creature built for attrition. It wants to get the kill and get it fast and slink off to eat.

Original Greentexts: Thankfully this story was actually properly archived, meaning you can read the whole thing for yourself.

That said I’ll also link to the audio version of the story by CaneChan, pretty good.

The Stilt-Walker⌗

stilt-walker

Image is a sketch from the Original Thread

“I couldn’t make out the shape too well but my impression was that it was covered in long hair and its body and head were kind of like a dog looking down but stretched longer… most of its height was in its legs which were really thin”

  • Anon

Also called the Texas Stilt-Walker due to a majority of the sightings being near Hill County, Texas, and apparently it’s a fairly common sighting to the region ever since 2008. All sightings of the Walker have a fairly common theme, mainly that it’s extremely tall, shaggy, black with huge headlamp-like eyes with high reflectivity. The other common trait is that its movements are desynced somehow, as though it is taking strides that don’t match up with its speed of progress. Paired with the fact it doesn’t disturb foliage, doesn’t make noise at all, and seemingly can scale any vertical distance, makes it quite eerie to see in motion.

-Stilt Walker-

Hit Dice: 6

Armor Class: 16 (supernatural agility)

# of Attacks: 2 (bite, trample)

Attack Bonus: +3

Damage: Bite: 2d6 Trample: 1d12 (only against creatures it moves over)

Movement: 80’ walking, 60’ climbing

Save: 14 (+6 vs attempts to trip or restrain)

Resolve: 7

# Appearing: 1

- Special Abilities -

  1. Silent Stride: Makes no sound when moving, even through vegetation or while climbing. Always surprises unless directly observed.

  2. Otherworldly Movement: Can move through difficult terrain, such as foliage or dense woodland without disturbing anything, automatically passes any checks or saves against terrain.

  3. Supernatural Scale: Due to its height and stride length, can step over obstacles up to 10’ tall and cross gaps up to 20’ wide without slowing.

  4. Phase Shift: Once per turn when struck, can instantly become incorporeal for one round, letting attacks pass through it.

Behavior & Encounter⌗

Despite the thing’s remarkable size and speed, its primary behavior is avoidance and stealth. It seems never interested in a direct engagement with anything and is a fairly skittish creature, though in the case of one specific Anon and his hunting dogs, it stood its ground and sent the pair of dogs yipping and running from sheer intimidation. Due to limited encounter details and the fact it quickly departs when spotted leaves us to infer a couple of details about it.

I think first and foremost, it’s easy to assume due to its height and sometimes being described as horse-like that it’s probably some tall foliage eater, likely also nocturnal due to its owlish eyes and the fact most encounters with this thing happened after dark hours.

From an encounter design perspective, I’d employ this thing as an omen or local urban legend, not something the players would throw down with (though that would make for an interesting hunt). Seeing this thing is more a sign of worse to come or that the weird will be encroaching upon the normal and mundane.

Original Greentexts: Finding the source greentext was hard and none of the primary archive sites had anything, thankfully Midnight Broadcast had a video reading of the OG post here

The Gorp⌗

Gorp

Image is from wikicommon of a Megatherium

“worse a dark undercurrent of rot deep notes of animal musk a bassy score of raw garbage punctuated by garlicky timpani and a thick black score of something between skunk and rotting onion sludge, a symphony of stench and the conductor decided to skip the adagio and drive theopening movement straight into the Scherzo because that shit was getting stronger–”

“A hybrid monstrosity with the strength of a bear, the endurance of a sloth, and the hygiene of a dumpster fire.”

  • Anon, 2014

Named for the goofy sound it supposedly makes, vastly less mythical than its contemporaries on X, but also vastly stinkier than most others, the Gorp is a standout for being one of the more scientifically plausible creatures. Its description matches closely with the Megatherium (an extinct species of ground sloth), and as such, the supernatural overtones for this creature are nonexistent. More likely, it’s an example of a surviving megafauna from a prior age that nobody had stumbled across until recently. Despite this, it didn’t make this thing any less dangerous or formidable.

-The Gorp- Hit Dice: 8

Armor Class: 16 (natural; matted, flea-ridden hair)

Damage Resistance: 7 (physical, non-magical)

# of Attacks: 2

Attack Bonus: +3

Damage: Gore Slash: 1d6+4 (clawed paw swipe)

Movement: 30 ft., climb 20 ft.

Save: 14

Resolve: 10 (rarely flees)

# Appearing: 1 (solitary predator)

- Special Abilities-

  1. Matted Armor: Its filthy, matted fur reduces incoming damage by 7 points per attack from non-magical sources.

  2. Stench Aura: The Gorp smells horrific. All creatures within 20 ft. must make a Fort save (VS. paralysis) or suffer -2 on attack rolls and skill checks due to nausea. This effect ends 1 round after exiting the aura.

Behavior & Encounter⌗

The two foremost traits this creature has are that it is nearly invincible to small arms fire; given it was affected by 7.62 long Russian the same way a middle-schooler takes flicked rubber bands, in short. Pair this with its rather substantial and aggressive odor which can cause grown-ass men to gag, basically this creature has almost nothing to fear from our current natural world or conventional small arms.

As such, these creatures are more territorial than outright aggressive, nor are they extremely fast given it’s a sloth. However, don’t let that give the impression it’s not dangerous. A Gorp could probably wreck a Grizzly Bear in a straight-up fight, given 7.62 long Russian is a rifle cartridge suitable for killing bears, and the Gorp ate a round from it like it was breakfast.

In short, the Gorp probably is only aggressive defending its den or hunting spots and probably isn’t interested in persistent hunting. If it manages to get cornered or is forced to defend its turf, however, it would probably fight to the death, and unless you can kite this thing around, it’s going to win pretty handily.

Original Greentexts: Another Chass classic as I could not find the greentext for this story on any of the primary archive sites, go figure.