The Fine Line: How the Hunting Horror Doesn’t Fit
Introduction
I realize that the line between something I made up and something someone else made up is a pretty fine one, but I trust that someone will figure it out eventually.
- Rich Burlew, War and XPs c.368
The Monster in the Dark does not perfectly match the Hunting Horror. Rich made changes to its stats, sometimes to make it fit better, other times because it enabled the story. The fine line he refers to is the one he had to walk: keeping the Monster in the Dark recognizable as a Hunting Horror while ensuring it served the story in ways that sometimes diverged from its original form. This balancing act made it possible to figure out eventually, but only with careful observation.
Name
“Hunting Horror” is the name of the monster as it appears in the rulebook; however, Rich introduces it as the Haunter of the Dark. This name originally referred to a Mask of Nyarlathotep, as noted in the Hunting Horror’s rules, but Rich adopted it for the Monster in the Dark due to its structural parallel and because its portrayal in Order of the Stick leans away from horror.
Appearance
The base Hunting Horror is described as having a three-lobed burning eye, a detail that doesn’t match the Monster in the Dark. But the text also notes that Hunting Horrors are mutable, with some specimens sporting two eyes instead. Rich took advantage of this flexibility. Rather than inventing a new exception, he selected a documented variation, preserving both the mechanical connection and the visual reveal without compromising his original vision.
Theme
Hunting Horrors are Greater Servitors. The species was made to serve the Cosmic Horror named Nyarlathotep. While the Servitor title is flexible enough that Rich was not compelled to make the Monster in the Dark a servant of Nyarlathotep, just the existence of Nyarlathotep would have been an uncomfortable addition to a setting that mostly belonged to Rich building off of generic 3.5 tropes.
So Rich made the Snarl, shifting the Hunting Horror’s connection from Nyarlathotep to a force of his own creation. This push toward the fine line allowed him to maintain the narrative independence of his setting while honoring the spirit of the Hunting Horror’s description.
Size Discrepancy
The Hunting Horror is Huge, and can grow all the way to Colossal, while the Monster in the Dark is Large. Rich resolved this by making the Hunting Horror a child, allowing it to fit within the established size constraints. While the Hunting Horror itself lacks age categories, it does have the Dragon type. Rich may have drawn inspiration from dragon progressions while consciously disregarding the lack of explicit age categories in the Hunting Horror’s stat block.
Alignment
Call of Cthulhu monsters do not have a printed alignment, which may have given Rich greater flexibility in shaping the Monster in the Dark’s role in the story. Without a predefined moral framework, he could explore a more fluid characterization without contradicting established lore. This allowed him to tell a story about an evil monster becoming good, or perhaps it was good all along. This theme wouldn’t have worked as well if the creature had a fixed alignment.
The Call of Cthulhu rulebook does contain an appendix with alignment conversions, but it is obscure enough that Rich may have already solidified his approach before ever encountering it.
Personality
Rich is not writing a Cosmic Horror Story. None of the themes appropriate to a creature of horror are appropriate for The Order of the Stick. We’re about to explore how some of those themes were included in the story anyways, but one core idea Rich preserved was the asymmetry of understanding. Hunting Horrors, like other Call of Cthulhu monsters, act beyond human comprehension and understand humans just as little. Rich alluded to this by giving the Monster in the Dark a goofy, fish-out-of-water personality that transformed the alienation of Cosmic Horror into the absurdity of Comical Error.
Rich didn’t discard the Monster in the Dark’s more horrific traits, he entrusted them to Xykon. Xykon treats the Monster in the Dark more like a textbook Hunting Horror, following the rulebook’s assumptions even when they clash with what’s in front of him. This gave Rich room to emphasize the Monster’s comic personality while still leaving the original creature’s shape visible beneath it.
Here the Monster in the Dark tells O-Chul that Xykon tries to feed it live children, but the Monster in the Dark doesn’t want to eat them.
Xykon is following the rulebook’s instructions on how to appease a Hunting Horror:
A sacrifice of a sentient creature must be offered to the hunting horror, who devours it when it arrives (in 1 round).
Even though the Monster in the Dark’s early personality revolves around wanting to be revealed, Xykon keeps it in the dark. If the Monster in the Dark were a more typical Hunting Horror, this would be appreciated. Such creatures loathe the light and seek to extinguish it. While keeping the Monster in the Dark hidden serves the premise, choosing a creature that deserves to be in the dark makes the decision feel more organic to the world of the story.
Likewise, it helps onboard the audience when the Monster in the Dark’s role as a secret weapon has to be explained to it several times. After we learn it’s a Hunting Horror, a creature that should understand this implicitly, it casts those scenes in a new light. Xykon is trying to force it to have the personality he expects from a textbook Hunting Horror: one that stays in the shadows until ordered to kill.
The Monster in the Dark tries to be intimidating, but fails. Xykon expects it to be good at this and has to adjust his expectations downward several times. Xykon’s initial expectations track with the near-epic Intimidation skill a standard Hunting Horror possesses, but not with the Monster in the Dark.
This makes the scene difficult to reconcile with its later appearance in Book 3, where it seems to intimidate Haley and Belkar effortlessly.
Does it fail because it doesn’t understand what the situation calls for?
Or is it simply incapable, and the later scene must be explained without relying on Intimidation as a factor?
The Shock Wave Feat
The Hunting Horror is printed with the Shot on the Run feat, but it doesn’t qualify for it: it has the Dexterity, but lacks the prerequisite feats. Even if it had those, its only ranged attack is a vomit ability, making the feat an odd choice.
However, the Hunting Horror does qualify for Shock Wave (Draconomicon, p. 73). Swapping out Shot on the Run for Shock Wave serves two purposes.
First, it enables the earthquake scene. The Monster in the Dark strikes the ground so hard with its tail that it knocks other creatures down and damages structures and unattended objects.
Second, people who accepted the Shock Wave interpretation would conclude that the Monster in the Dark is a Dragon, as Shock Wave requires the Dragon type. Likewise, those who started from the assumption that the Monster in the Dark was a Dragon would naturally be drawn to the Shock Wave feat as supporting evidence. Choosing a feat with such specific prerequisites not only reinforces the connection but also provides a two-way path for reasoning toward the same conclusion.
It also creates a secondary justification for the Monster in the Dark’s line, “Wow! I didn’t know I could do that!”
This line lands differently depending on when you learn it’s a Hunting Horror. If the reveal had come first, the moment would feel like an acknowledgment that what just happened was outside the base creature’s stat block, encouraging the audience to pursue other explanations.
The thread identified Shock Wave early on as a strong possibility for the earthquake scene. However, later discussions moved away from this conclusion due to concerns that the way Rich depicted the scene was more exaggerated than the feat’s description implied.
The Escape Spell
In the Escape Scene, the Monster in the Dark casts a Call of Cthulhu spell named Escape.
How Call of Cthulhu Spells Work
These spells follow a template system:
- They cannot share a name with their template spell.
- They must differ in one or two ways from their template spell.
- They always retain an aura of mystery and strangeness, never being easy, mechanical, mundane, or safe.
Word of Recall → Escape
The spell in question is a variant of Word of Recall, renamed to Escape:
- Instead of requiring a chosen sanctuary at casting, it picks one automatically.
- It excludes the caster, either specifically or optionally.
- Aside from these changes, it functions the same way.
Meeting the Requirements
Several details underscore the connection between Escape and Call of Cthulhu magic:
- Its climactic use in Don’t Split the Party underscores the narrative weight that Call of Cthulhu magic always demands.
- The Monster in the Dark gambles everything, casting Escape with Xykon watching could have meant death. Call of Cthulhu magic is never safe and always a last resort.
- Teleportation effects in D&D do not typically function this way, making the spell feel strange and mysterious when it is finally used.
Foreshadowing and Reinforcement
Rich provides a few clues to guide us toward the connection to Call of Cthulhu magic.
- Redcloak using Word of Recall earlier in the scene introduces the original spell before its variant appears.
- Just after using the spell, the Monster in the Dark falls asleep, seemingly exhausted. This appears to be how Rich indicates ability damage, consistent with its fatigue after using Deflect Harm.
- In a later scene, the Monster in the Dark fails to activate Escape, reinforcing the idea that Call of Cthulhu spells are unpredictable and not purely mechanical.
- When the Monster in the Dark attempts to recast Escape, it cycles through synonyms, subtly reinforcing the renaming conventions of Call of Cthulhu magic.
The Fine Line and Escape
In hindsight, the Escape spell may have tested the fine line more than intended. It became a daunting shibboleth, an expectation that no candidate could meet without exceeding the boundaries of its own stat block.
In the case of the Hunting Horror, Escape was a spell Rich had to construct within the template system’s constraints. For the Monster in the Dark, learning it would require a standard method: either being taught by another or having it impressed upon its mind by a greater power. This additional complexity blurred the boundary between an organic part of the character and an external addition, making it harder to distinguish what was intrinsic to the Hunting Horror and what was imposed on the Monster in the Dark by the story’s needs.