A yearly tradition of mine is to draw a baker's dozen monsters for each day leading up to Halloween. It started off with just the classic spooks, but has since gone on to cover everything from mythological beasts to literary nightmares to unsung creepy things I think deserve more attention.
Halloween '21
Gibbet
Many pirates died inside the Gibbet blurting out the locations of alleged secret treasure in failed bids to gain their freedom. The Gibbet memorized where each and every one of these stashes supposedly lies (not like it had better things to do), and now sails the seas in hopes of finding the trove for itself.
Does that make it a pirate, too? What happens if Gibbet gets caught? Hmm...
Charon demands two obols to ferry souls across the river Styx... but he's long since lost track of the exchange rates for obols (outliving several civilizations will do that) and accepts most any amount as payment. Charon vaguely remembers it wasn't supposed to be all that much, pocket change basically, but if the dead want to panic and empty their life savings he's not gonna stop them. Makes up for all the jerks who pass off monopoly money as legal tender.
The lord of the underworld has yet to complain. Granted, Charon has outlived several lords, and they all now just assume the ferryman knows what he's doing since he's been here so long. But Charon chose a career in boating, not finance...
Embedded within the titanic toxic toad's forehead is a bufonite gemstone, which can be used to cure any and all poisons. Those seeking out the amphibian's antidote have to get past its oozing skin, venomous spines, noxious belches, sticky tongue, weird googly eye blobs, poisonous polliwogs, the sheer noise the froggy family makes...
Most would-be hunters would rather not risk an ironic death and instead just get the toad to envenomate their favorite weapon.
True to its name, the Hidebehind is usually hiding behind something. However it doesn't always hide its favorite meal — the intestines of sober lumberjacks. Perhaps the Hidebehind wants to be found? Well, no. Anyone following the organ trail finds it continues past yet another tree or rock. And another. And another. And another... gee how'd this thing fit inside somebody? Hang on, is this even the same woods? Where —
Born without a mouth of any kind, the Dungavenhooter pulverizes victims into dust with its tail-club and inhales the remains. Whereas the Hidebehind preys exclusively on the sober, the Dungavenhooter hunts only the drunks. Together they decimate the lumberjack population. Dungy wishes their partnership could evolve into something more, but HB never seems to want to hang out...
Dr. Moreau's mad experiments produced a lot of "leftover" parts, which he decided to recycle into a new man-beast just to see if he could. It took a while, but he finally made one that didn't... unravel. This successful creation evidently inherited some of its progenitor's ambitions, as it tears apart and recombines various insects it finds. None of these bugs have survived long, but the good doctor encourages his progeny to keep trying.
The vile roc hunts massive prey like elephants and whales, carrying them off into the sky and impaling them on rock spires, mountain peaks, and the occasional sufficiently-pointy man-made structure. Not only does this bust open the unfortunate victim, it keeps the roc's meal away from most scavengers. It also looks dope AF.
Unfortunately megafauna have been dying out (the roc hasn't been eating THAT much... has it?), so the behemoth bird has moved onto more metallic game, which are inedible themselves but chock full of delicious little hairless apes!
After reducing their own world to a lifeless desert, the Martians set off to rob humanity of its planet and precious bodily fluids. As an unexpected bonus of having been designed for the Red Planet's low gravity, the Martians' fighting machines tower over most anything the insignificant humans can throw at them. And with heat rays and chemical weapons, nothing can stand in the Invaders' path! HAHAHAHAHAhack
... Well, due to their height the tripods are struck by lighting quite a bit. And these *cough* telephone wires the humans insist on stringing up everywhere are a tripping hazard. Not to ment-*achoo*-mention Earth's gravity is kinda *sniff* overwhelming. Ech, hopefuwy the congueds of Europa, Tidan, an Ganymwheeze ar goig bedder.
One day Bone-Shaker Velocipede's faithful rider went and exploded his head after indulging in some white powdery substance. RADICAL!!! Bonesy totally wants in on that, but since the rider used up the entire stash it has zero clue what that stuff even was. Was is sugar? Salt? Powdered milk? Baking soda? Flour? Snow? Teddybear stuffing? Dandruff? The skull-cycle's willing to try everything until it finds the right one, or die trying.
Some think it's charming that the bike wants to rejoin its rider, but Bonesy is utterly oblivious to the fact that the rider died as a result (although to be fair his body is still twitching), it just thinks exploding heads looks cool.
Eris' longtime partner in crime, the Apple of Discord occasionally steals away to cause havoc on its own. Nothing on the level of Troy or the Dwarf Planet incidents (yet), but ruined lives are ruined lives. Quite a few of these mischievous schemes involve convincing someone to eat the Apple under the pretense that consuming a several-thousand-year-old putrid produce would do anything but poison you. The Apple always regenerates, but still a strange, strange habit for the freaky fruit.
A cheeky yokai with a predilection for flashing its derriere at unsuspecting passersby — a rather literal flash, as the Shirime's butt-eye glows. Because it didn't draw enough attention there already. Granted far worse than light could be coming out of there...
The offspring of a dragon and a human, Zmelvin Zmeyevich kidnaps young maidens and tries to convince them to be his bride. The damsels eventually learned that the surest method to drive the fiend off is to ask how a dragon/human hybrid even happens, like physically. Blech, those are his parents, nobody likes thinking about their mom and dad that way.
Zmelvin has the ability to reattach his head should it get lopped off, which he learned the hard way after one of the gals managed to escape. Zmelvin has since gotten rid of his saw collection.
The Doomsday Device was created long, long ago to keep out a certain concept out of humanity, capable of eliminating just one specific individual or wiping out the entire planet if needed. The Device's Inventor knew this meant them as well, and met their end with zero regrets. The Device regrets killing the Inventor right when they started describing their villainous plan through song.
The forbidden concept has remained rather elusive to mankind, much to the Device's frustration. The murderous machine will sometimes allow the idea spread so it has more humans to slaughter, or even lead people down verboten thought processes until they come upon the right wrong theory just so it can finally kill again.
