Monsters of /X/ #3

2025-09-25

Oh boy, I haven’t posted one of these in awhile. (something I’m probably gonna say a lot) If you’re unaware of the premise of what Monsters of /X/ is, you can go back to my first article to get an idea for that, but the tl;dr of it is that I’m statting up monsters based on greentext stories from the infamous /X/ board of 4chan. Each article features unique 5 creatures; the creatures presented don’t necessarily have to have come from 4chan, but at least got popular there or have a good majority of their stories from there to base a creature on.

One of the difficulties when writing these articles is that a lot of the things encountered on /x/ are incorporeal or spiritual entities, and I’ve been avoiding doing any writeups for spirits until I’ve fleshed out mechanics for how to run spirits, which narrows my selection pool for these articles a bit.

As well, a lot of the better /x/ stories don’t feature a creature at all, but rather a phenomenon or weird occurrence, which doesn’t exactly fit the format of these articles. Thus, I’ve been tempted lately to start up a side series to this one called something like “Extras of /X/” or “Phenomenon of /X/” that covers more adventure plot hooks or just weird types of encounters or phenomena.

Lastly, when I finish up this series, maybe around Monsters of /X/ #10? and have 50 or so creatures, I might compile, clean up, and add to the entries and publish it as an actual standalone product, something cheap like $3.50 with some interior art. Not sure if that would be a remotely interesting idea? Probably also tie it into my general branding for my main project Be Not Afraid.

Monster Statistics

Any monsters written without specifying a system are assumed to be written in my own system I’m designing, Be Not Afraid. If you’re used to anything OSR related, then nothing about the way I present statblocks is going to be terribly surprising or unparsable. That said, my system is distinct in three specific ways.

1. AC is Ascending: I much prefer ascending AC, but if you run a system that uses descending AC you can derive a descending value by simply subtracting 20 from the ascending AC value. E.g., a creature with AC 15 ascending would have 5 descending.

2. Monsters in my system use a monosave, a single value rolled against to determine if they make a save or not. They can get bonuses against specific forms of saves, but they only have one value.

3. Creatures in my system often have a Damage Reduction stat, which is different from damage resistance. (In my earlier articles I called Damage Reduction “Damage Resistance,” but figured that would be confusing, so I changed it.)

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 Reduction (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).

Crawler

supposed real trail cam photo of a crawler.

Next to the stop sign stands this tall gray hairless creature standing as a man, two legs, two arms. Unusually long arms and legs compared to torso. Dark sunken in eyes, wide slit for a mouth. Proportionate head so this ain’t no alien. We measured later using me as reference to the stop sign the next day and we figured it was nine feet tall.

• Anon

While on first glance Crawlers might appear to be the same thing as Fleshgaits, it’s clear to me and others they are distinct from Fleshgaits, the confusion mainly coming from a visual similarity. However, in terms of ability or behavior they aren’t alike.

There are a couple concepts I should touch on before I get into Crawlers specifically, and these concepts apply to a number of other monsters, but they paint the bigger picture regarding Crawlers. Mainly the concept of the Uncanny Valley, the point at which something visually resembles a human enough to be creepy rather than cute, but not enough like a human to fool us. A lot of bad CGI falls under this and is why we notice it.

There has been a question among scientists as to where we developed this specific defense mechanism, due to the fact we don’t see it in other social critters. Canines and wolves are tricked by fake dogs despite being alert to gestures and cues. Humans generally can tell when something is off, suggesting in our primordial past we had to deal with other predatory hominids.

This also tracks with our fossil record, as it’s clear we didn’t exactly have peaceful relationships with other hominid species… it’s not improbable to imagine our specific branch of humanity was predated upon by another.

Why this is important is because, in the case of the Crawler, it didn’t seem to have the same adaptations as the Fleshgait. The Fleshgait largely overcomes the Uncanny Valley with its ability to shapeshift and the odd paranormal memetic effect it has on minds. The Crawler is clearly operating from an older strategy of camouflage, when humanity didn’t have the Uncanny Valley.

However, where they lack such adaptations they make up for in raw aggression and supernatural strength. Generally, while Fleshgaits are depicted as strong and fast, Crawlers are surreal in this respect and can move faster and stronger than their body mass would even remotely allow for.

The second concept that is important to discuss is that of Survivorship bias, a statistical fallacy or sampling error that occurs when you only factor the accounts of survivors or successes.

Now that seems obvious at face value, but in truth it’s a real blind spot in most people, and /X/ and other such monster encounters are full of these. We only have the accounts of those who have survived, and in almost no stories is the person injured.

On a surface-level analysis that would seem to suggest Crawlers are rather underpowered creatures, but I think paradoxically it proves quite the opposite: that most encounters where the person got away, they were dealing with a juvenile specimen.

Behaviour, Tactics & Ecology

Let’s get the obvious thing out of the way. These are cave monsters… no doubt about it. From the pale skin, gaunt spindly build, to the large reflective eyes, these things are adapted to subterranean living. Despite all these adaptations, all accounts or reports of these things tend to be out in the open. I have some theories as to why that is, but we’ll get to that point in a bit.

Another thing that is important to note is how this thing moves. All of its limbs are very long in proportion to its build. A lot of accounts have described this thing unfurling itself from trees or moving on all fours like an insect, where it’s unclear if its arms or its legs are in front at any given time. This gives the impression this thing has extreme joint hypermobility, able to contort itself any which way it desires, which certainly lines up with the cave monster hypothesis.

Speaking of how it moves, let’s touch on this thing’s speed, because they are very fast! A prominent account had a Crawler tailing a car that was flooring it at 60 MPH for approximately 2 miles, until they pulled into a well-lit Walmart parking lot, implying it only stopped the chase due to its aversion to bright light sources. (Another point towards the cave monster hypothesis.)

Even in the more tame accounts, it is quite capable of evading gunfire at a distance and giving trained marksmen a hard time keeping a bead on it…

As to how it kills its prey and eats, well, this creature appears to have no special adaptations in this respect. No claws, and every description of its face is quite eerily human, which is quite a problem because the human skull shape isn’t very good for biting, not enough attachment points for any real force behind it, unlike other primates.

Despite this, I think it fights a lot like a chimp actually, bludgeoning and beating the crap out of anything it gets its hands on, using those long forearms for extra leverage. Despite probably having a relatively weak bite, it probably still does bite the piss out of anything it gets close with.

I must also note, despite its gaunt figure and weak appearance, any creature that can move at 60 MPH for its weight and size, even in bursts, must have some insane ATP output (Adenosine triphosphate). But given the kind of diet and lifestyle it must have, there is no way it has the calorie intake for such activity, which certainly implies it’s deriving that ability supernaturally, not biologically.

Which begs the question, Why are we encountering these things in the open if they are cave monsters? My general theory is we aren’t, or rather, we are encountering juvenile or transitory examples of this species. Ones that have gotten big enough to go out on their own and find a home, or don’t have any potential mates nearby and are looking for some.

I think anyone encountering this kind of creature in their den or home turf would not survive, period. Too fast, too strong, very smart and aggressive. Hence we don’t have any spelunker stories of these things…

Another thing that comes up in discussion with Crawlers (in certain biblical conspiracy circles) is they might be a form or descendent of the Nephilim. The theory goes that in the antediluvian times these things were bred and created from Nephilim stock and programmed as sort of attack dogs to seek and destroy resistance in the mountains and caves. So an abomination of an abomination, so to speak.

A specialized biological weapon, which certainly explains these things’ aggression towards humanity as a whole. Though their population was likely nearly wiped out during the flood, which likely bottlenecked the gene pool pretty hard and led to severe inbreeding. It’s quite possible, given these facts, some of these creatures’ forays to the surface are less to do with finding a new habitat or food and more with procuring fresh genetics…

Unrelated, but something I wanted to note: I don’t personally believe the giants described in David’s time were the same thing as the Nephilim described in Genesis. I have a couple reasons to believe that based on the Hebrew etymology for both groups and other theological reasons that are probably better covered in a different article.

But as far as Be Not Afraid as a setting is concerned, Giants and Nephilim are different creatures.

Greentexts

Midnight broadcast has a some good read aloud greentext compilations pertaining to Crawlers.

Crawlers and Rakes

Crawler Encounters

The Crawler Cometh

The Black Carpet

Meme image of the black carpet

The great thing about the ocean from a writing standpoint is that it’s the least explored part of our planet. Thus, you get such hyperbolic statements as “we haven’t explored 95% of it!” or “anything could be down there, we haven’t explored it!” As a result, we get a lot of unfalsifiable claims about things that could be down there.

To the cryptozoologist’s credit, though, the fact we’ve got a photo of a black hole before we got a photo of a colossal squid is notable. Also, fun fact: we had a theoretical understanding of black holes by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916 before we had zoological evidence for colossal squid in 1925.

What I’m trying to get at is that the ocean, by its very nature, is opaque and mysterious, even compared to space. So there is a lot of room to speculate and theorize on things that could exist down there, the Black Carpet being a good example of this.

Back in 2020, quite a lot of buzz was started on /X/ regarding the Black Carpet. Apparently, it’s something of a myth among scuba divers in the field (though I couldn’t really verify mentions of this creature prior to the 4chan posts). Regardless, I’m going to let an Anon of /X/ describe this thing, as I think they do the creature a lot more justice than I.

don’t remember the details of the full story right now to be honest, but I’ll talk to my buddy sometime and see if he remembers and post em on here. But the basic jist that I can remember is that this thing is some sort of colony organism, like a giant moving coral. It’s a giant black carpet of macrobiotic calls that crawls over the ocean floor, sifting though nutrients with milions of tiny feelers. Nobody has ever gotten a good estimate of the size other than “Its big’ and apparently it makes a noise similar to this “bloop” thing. One guy apparently saw it swimming/riding the currents as well, so it does more than just crawl on the ocean floor. I suppose you could call it a one of a kind organism, but Im not sure if that applies to colony organisms like ths,

• Diver Anon

While I think this is the best description of any, it does lack two specific details. In a lot of variations on the Black Carpet story, it has long transparent or black tentacle strands coming off of it, described as being barbed and venomous, able to paralyze creatures, where they are dragged into the carpet’s mass and digested…

Another thing that needs to be addressed is the thing’s size. Calling it big is a bit of a downplay, and there is another quote that illustrates its size well.

Submarine is doing something, either wargames or patrolling for chinese/russianinorth korean/bad guy submarines. The story isn’t terribly consistent about this, I hear it different every single time.

For whatever reason, they are not using active sonar because they want to avoid detection, floating dead somewhere “a couple hundred meters off the sea floor” They’re just sitting there, chilling and listening with their sensors trying to detect enemy submarines or whatever, when they start hearing “the noise”. Their sensors can’t make any sense of it, and it’s getting louder at an alarming rate. Starts out as something only the sensors can hear, but before long the entire crew is hearing this strange, distorted humming/singing that people always associate with the carpet. Captain thinks the only explanation is that i’s some sort of new sonarijamming technology and order the sonar crew to send out a ping to locate the source of the noise. This is the part of the story that stays the most consistent, I assume because it’s the most memorable. The sonar operator shouts out “New Sonar contact, bearing… Sir? what’s our depth?”

The captain replies, “500m” or whatever depth the submarine is supposed to be at.

The sonar operator replies. “But sir, the sonar says the sea floor is 10m below us.”

The captain says that’s nonsense, then walks over to the sonar station. Checks the reading, then walks over to the helsman and checks the depth. Checks the nautical charts for where they are. Somehow apparently, the ocean has gotten about 200m shallower.

The captain orders another ping from the sonar to try and locate the source of the noise.

Sonar operator speaks up again, concerned. “Sir, the Ocean is getting deeper again.” Captain asks him to repeat himself.

Ocean floor is once again at expected depth, sir”

Captain takes a look for himself and sure enough. they are no longer 10m above the ocean floor. There is also a very, very large “dot” on the screen behind the submarine.

Captain asks what the large contact is.

Sonar operator: “Equipment malfunction, sir”

Captain pings again, just out of curiosity. The “equipment malfunction” has maintained it’s shape and is continuing to move away from the submarine, and apparently taking the strange noise with it.

• Diver Anon

Behaviour, Tactics & Ecology

I argued with myself over even giving this thing a statblock. It’s more akin to an environmental hazard or terrain condition than a full-blown monster to fight, both due to its insane size and sedentary nature, which doesn’t make for much of an encounter.

However, it’s not quite a filter feeder or totally inert either. It can pick itself up out of the silt and debris of the sea floor and float somewhere else, and some stories give it a more predatory edge (though I find those ones a bit more far-flung).

What’s actually threatening about these things is not their size, but the highly potent venom they have in transparent, clear tentacles produced from their mass. While a majority of their nutrients come from sifting through silt on the sea floor or from consuming carcasses that float down to the sea floor (including whale bodies), they also have the ability to be ambush predators and will consume fish that get caught by their appendages.

In one story, the venom was potent enough that several strands were able to inflict a collective dose capable of paralyzing an orca, though of all the stories, that one was probably the largest outlier, as it made the Black Carpet seem like a much more active predator.

Not much else to say regarding it. It’s not a very complicated creature, nor supernatural in any way. How I’d use it in an encounter is probably to have it as a rare scuba or sailing encounter if I was running a sea-based or underwater game, the type of creature that is on the far end of an encounter bell curve, and likewise give it a random HD/Size when encountered. It’s not the type of thing the players are probably going to need to fight (or really can), but it’d certainly be a rather startling or unsettling one as the sea floor looks to pick itself up and float off.

Likewise, I could see a plot involving one of these things where an important macguffin is somehow located inside one of these creatures undigested, or the goal is to try and prove the existence of these elusive creatures.

Greentexts

There is a great video by Chass that are compiled readings of some general Diver encounters on /X/, it heavily feature the Black Carpet heavily.

Deep sea threads & dive anon stories

4plebs archive of a thread

Ruby Valley Beasts

Drawing made by E Zed

It was the smell of decay and copper, but much stronger than the well. Right then all of my spidey senses started going off. I had to get out of there. I started turning left to book it out of there when I saw a dark shadow moving in the opening of the mineshaft. Whatever it was it appeared to be crouched down to fit in the mineshaft (most mineshafts I have been in have 8-10ft ceilings). At first I thought it was a mountain lion, then I remembered how big the fucking shafts were.

• E Zed

For those that read Monsters Of /X/ #1, this creature is going to look familiar. Back in that article, we covered the Gorp. Many have postulated that the Gorp was likely an example of a Megatherium. And while I cannot point to what specific genus the Ruby Valley Beasts fall under, I can confidently put them in the family of Megatheriinae.

Giant ground sloths were all over the Americas during the middle to late Pleistocene, which certainly contextualizes all their modern sightings (mainly in North America). While probably not as comically slow as their modern relatives, they weren’t super fast either. Having very slow metabolisms and a herbivore diet, combined with a naturally lower body temperature compared to most mammals, they likely relied on being tanky and imposing to not be messed with.

What’s weird about the Ruby Valley Beasts, however, is that despite visually resembling giant ground sloths, their behavior and demeanor don’t match up well with that taxonomy.

Behaviour, Tactics & Ecology

This is probably the first time I’ve written a statblock that had no special abilities beyond what abilities its species provides it, such as being able to see in low-light conditions or having a good sense of smell. I couldn’t really justify giving these things the Gorp’s abilities either. Despite how imposing they were, small arms fire could hurt these creatures, unlike the Gorp. And while described as big, they were not as big as the Gorp. Furthermore, while they did smell bad; with the stereotypical /X/ coppery blood odor, they didn’t have a stench as descriptive or bordering on chemical warfare like the Gorp.

However, despite lacking the defensive options its presumed cousin the Gorp possessed, it makes up for that in the sheer aggression department. As mentioned earlier, giant ground sloths filled an ecological niche similar to that of elephants, both being herbivorous megafauna. The Ruby Valley Beasts are closer to something like bears, territorial omnivores, but worse, because bears are generally solitary, while these things are pack predators.

In effect, what you get is a creature with the hardware of a herbivorous megafauna, while running the software and metabolics of a pack predator. Imagine having to fight a coordinated pack of polar bears and you probably get the picture.

How these creatures are capable of supporting their metabolic needs without creating a noticeable ecological shift is beyond me. If their wandering distance or territory is anything resembling bears or wolves, they should be quite noticeable. Likewise, I presume they’re some variety of omnivore, supplementing their need for meat with local flora, however that doesn’t help much in explaining their unnoticeability.

If I had to run a game that involved a plot around these things, I’d probably go for the deextinction gone wrong angle. Maybe DNA they used to fill in the gaps had emergent undesired properties to their behavior, or maybe we just critically misunderstood what these things were like before resurrecting them (as unlikely as that would be). Or possibly it’s deliberate, taking an extremely successful species from the Pleistocene and trying to weaponize it for some sort of military application, such as flushing out insurgents holding up in mountainous terrain. Maybe the Ruby Valley encounter E Zed had was some sort of biological weapons test trial he mistakenly stumbled across—unlikely, but a fun angle to play with.

Quick note for fantasy settings: most D&D or fantasy worlds are so replete with additional carnivorous megafauna compared to our own world that including these things in a local encounter table wouldn’t really change much, in my opinion, beyond them having a pretty deadly statline.

Greentexts

The Ruby Valley Beasts story by E Zed

As well as the audio version of the story

The Galena Interloper

Trail cam photo from Anon

I saw what looked like a small boy, but his face was almost featureless and his eyes seemed pitch black in the low light the figure slowly steps to the railing like he was going to answer us instead he let out an incredibly loud ear-ripping screech like what you imagine a T-Rex would sound it was so loud I covered my ears and stumbled to the floor in the dark it was so loud it disoriented me

• Anon

This creature is rather weird even by /x/ standards, mainly because despite the quote implying it looked like a small child, within the story we get two other descriptions of it: one describing it as a stretched-out corpse, the other from Dave, a side character of the story, recalling it looked like a “hairless bear with mange.” Pair that with the trail cam shot of “the creature,” and ultimately this thing’s appearance is a bit up in the air.

Secondly, it has an extremely unique ability of being able to emit a hypersonic screech capable of stunning and incapacitating a fully grown adult. In the Anon’s own words: “I imagined that the sonic crowd control weapons you hear about would feel like this.”

Based on the facts as presented, this creature is one of three things:

1. Some type of corporeal banshee or undead.
2. Alien visitor or little grey man.
3. Some type of fairy creature like a Puca.

I’m partial to a mix of the first and third answer, though the second could be interesting depending on how you wanted to handle it.

Likewise, the Interloper of Anon’s story matches that of the Ijiraq of Inuit folklore, plus where it takes place in Galena, pretty far north, so that certainly tracks. Though I’d be hesitant to definitely claim this is an Ijiraq, mainly due to the fact the Ijiraq is a creature between worlds (in BNA terms existing between the Liminal and Physical Reality). It isn’t totally corporeal, while the creature in this story clearly couldn’t just phase through things and was rather visible to human perception.

Behaviour, Tactics & Ecology

I’m going to go out on a limb and say this thing is probably a one-off manifestation of a corporeal undead. Some sort of lesser revenant or shambling dead which was local to the area, a type of creature spawned by some tragedy, murder, or other such injustice that time and memory have since forgotten. As such, there isn’t much of an ecology or tactics angle to write about here; however, its behaviour is interesting.

It’s notable the creature in the story wasn’t interested in direct confrontation with the Anon or his buddy Dave. Quite the opposite, it had a strong policy of avoidance, actively going out of its way to stay out of sight. When it was confronted, it used its sonic screech not as an attack but rather a distancing tool, and was quick to retreat when the shotgun was spitting lead in its direction.

It seemingly only ever approached them in search of food and possibly shelter, such as when it stole some leftover fish guts from one of their fishing trips, or when it tried to skulk upstairs. So despite being some type of undead abomination, it seems to be rather skittish and animalistic rather than malevolent and evil.

Now, as to its supersonic screech, I went for modeling a long range acoustic device (LRAD) on this one, mainly because that’s what the Anon of the story described it as being like, but also because comparing the symptomology of this attack to an LRAD weapon, it matches up. Mainly because the effects of being targeted by an LRAD are based on a combination of angle, distance, and the target’s own physiology or underlying health conditions, hence why I went for a random table effect for this attack. Genuinely, people are affected differently by this kind of weapon, and the difference in distance and angle also plays a large factor. This would explain why the Anon of the story was able to recover and operate under exposure while his friend Dave basically succumbed to it so easily. It was very likely Dave was simply more susceptible to sound or at a much more direct angle to the attack.

Greentexts

4plebs archieve of the greentext

The Norwegian Border Monster

Cave Painting in San Rafael Swell, Utah. closet visual match to this creature.

we turned our heads towards where the scream came from, and there it was, tall as the trees it stood amongst, a dark/pale creature with what looked like several long limbs to support its size. in utter shock we stood still staring towards what looked like a mythological demon it was maby 200 -300meters away from us, so it was hard to get a good look at it, but you definitely saw it was there also it was as i said tall, not particualrly big in width but, tall as the medium tall trees growing around this area, im certain is was around 8 - 9 meters tall.

• Border Guard Anon

Being massively sized and stealthy is a rare but dangerous combination, though something that comes at the cost of being highly specialized in a type of environment. This instance is no different, as the creature in this story is well specialized to blend in with the tall spruce trees of the Kirkenes region of Norway.

The creature is odd in many respects, as it doesn’t really match the description of anything in Norwegian folklore. Likewise, its appearance is utterly alien: a tall, stalky, multilimbed abomination with pale skin to match its winter environment.

Behaviour, Tactics & Ecology

On a surface level one might think this is just a treant encounter with the serial numbers filed off. It even has similar stats to a treant from B/X D&D, as well as a similar stealth ability. However, this thing is almost twice as tall as a D&D treant, standing at anywhere from 26 to 30 feet compared to a treant’s piddly 18 feet. It’s got more limbs, three of which can attack per round, it’s faster, and it has no vulnerability to fire based damage.

In the original greentext, the monster was undetectable from thermal imaging technology, as the Norwegian border officers were incapable of picking it up on thermal. That’s an extremely potent ability even in a fantasy context, as a great many creatures in older editions relied on infravision to see in the dark. That means at night or in the dark this creature is literally invisible to creatures like dwarves or elves. How it’s achieving this effect is kind of unclear. Maybe it’s capable of perfectly matching the ambient temperature around it, or it’s somehow masking itself via an illusion or glamour that manipulates infrared radiation around it.

Despite this thing’s bizarre appearance, and its choice of habitation in Norway, the closest mythological counterpart I can point to is the Algonquian Wendigo. In Algonquian folklore the Wendigo is an extremely gaunt, thin humanoid figure which grows taller the more humans it devours, becoming as tall as the trees while remaining thin enough to hide behind them.

While I don’t think the Norwegian Border Monster is an instance of Wendigo possession, I do think the creatures share a similar hunting strategy, in that it uses its height and slender build to hide amongst the tall spruce at night, plucking up any unsuspecting prey from the forest floor and devouring them.

From an encounter standpoint this thing is very dangerous, as this monster can pretty much decide when and how it wants to take a fight. In most instances the characters won’t even know it’s present until they are right under this thing. What was probably the saving grace for the Norwegian soldiers was that they managed to spot the monster in motion and had a good head start on it when they decided to flee.

Greentexts

4pleb archive of the account

Audio Reading of it by Pepe’s Choice