See also
Labyrinths
They should probably encounter a minotaur in the labyrinth. Tradition. Which, of course, raises the question of how one defeats a minotaur, since in the legends it wasn’t defeated, only outwitted. I think.
I think I like the notion of them always facing a minotaur, even if there are other creatures to defeat as well: they hear it, smell it, but never see it until the end. And somehow malachite plays into the defeat of the minotaur?
“It reminds us that we have a dual nature and it is up to each person to know and rule his own person.” The minotaur in mythology is evidence of unruled desire, the queen who was driven to love a bull, and then hidden; in a way the minotaur is an id-monster? Confronting the minotaur is confronting one’s own shadow?
Theseus defeating the minotuar
The Ramey sculpture is particularly evocative
The Minotaur by George Frederick Watts RA, my favorite painting on the subject
The Minotaur
There’s also always Picasso’s personal bull/minotaur iconography
*False visions of deceased loved ones (John/Mary/Jess/Madison/Anna, etc.)
*Actual ghosts (thought that might be too like the rising of the witnesses in 4.02)
*various mooks: Lilith’s demons and/or hell hounds, Lorcan’s hired thugs
**one demon should tell them they’re suckers for doing this and it will only end in tears
*elemental figures, like the green god in Hellboy
*a cosmic horror (though that’s the minotaur again?)
*skin walkers
*ghosts of dead warriors
Links:
our monsters are different
our demons are different
*of course, SPN’s demonic rules are pretty well established. Though Ruby has gotten around them somehow, and they’ve yet to explain how.
Our ghosts are different
Nightmare fuel
The wendigo. This editor recalls reading a story about the wendigo (perhaps in one of the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books), which included the detail that if a wendigo was to chase you, you couldn’t look behind you or it would catch you for certain, and found that to be particularly terrifying.
What’s worse about the wendigo thing, in fact, is how such beasts are made. A wendigo is the transformed, malevolent spirit of a human being who survived a harsh winter…. by eating human flesh.
Rule of scary