You have been eaten by a grue

The mysterious light-fearing grue is a monster that hails from the days of the green-screen monitor, and appeared in Zork and other interactive fiction games made by the now defunct Infocom.

The creature was created by Dave Lebling (as the equivalent of a bottomless pit) to limit the ability of a player to progress in the game without first solving puzzles related to getting a light source with which to see.

The name was taken from The Eyes of the Overworld, in which Jack Vance provides little information outside of one cryptic line of text.

Well...hmmm. Here is a statement, somewhat less explicit than others, in which he analyzes the half-men, little more than a brief set of notes:
'Gid: hybrid of man, gargoyle, whorl, leaping insect.
Deodand: wolverine, basilisk, man.
Erb: bear, man, lank-lizard, demon.
Grue: man, ocular bat, the unusual hoon
Leucomorph: unknown
Bazil: felindore, man, (wasp?).'

- The Eyes of the Overworld

The descriptions found in Zork are not clear either, and often conflicting since grues are never actually seen. In one game a grue is said to have a scaly gray arm, but in another, a grue is described as being covered in fur. Various pictures of the grue (found in The Zork Library) have shown the creature as scaly and reptilian.

As far as miniatures go, you can probably use any type of monster to represent grues. My own choice was to use 6th ed. GW Chaos Furies minus their wings.

Kneadatite was used to fill in the slots for their wings, and sculpted to match the fur on the miniature.

The Furies are somewhat bat-like, have variable numbers of eyes, and suitably fanged and clawed.

A couple of the Furies are holding skulls, which I'm going to say are grue-lanterns. These lanterns project the equivalent of a Sphere of Darkness that give the grue some degree of protection and vision in the presence of light.

Startled adventurers may see the eyes in the lanterns and mistake them as being part of the grue's hand, but this is just their minds playing tricks on them due to the stress of seeing a grue.

Another monster which reminds me of the grue is the ghast. I don't know if the Infocom grues were influenced by ghasts, but both creatures live in the darkness and are harmed by light.

Ghasts are described in some detail in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and are said to tear at victims with their teeth and maul them with their sharp hooves in a manner similar to descriptions of grues with their fangs and claws. They are also described as having eyes that are colored similarly to those of the grue.

"...there glowed in the gloom of that great cavern's mouth first one pair of yellowish-red eyes and then another ... After a moment something about the size of a small horse hopped out into the grey twilight, and Carter turned sick at the aspect of that scabrous and unwholesome beast, whose face is so curiously human despite the absence of a nose, a forehead, and other important particulars."

- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Many artists draw ghasts with a tail, while others depict ghasts as being more human-like. I lean toward the more human-like interpretation since it aligns with the AD&D assertion that ghasts are practically indistinguishable from ghouls, but I think tailed ghasts can look quite horrifying as well.

Dreamquest Ghast Hunt
by Deviant artist Ito-Saith-Webb

Ghast by Deviant artist Dragon-Storm

Ghast by Deviant artist TickleMeCthulhu

The only ghast miniatures that I have are made by RAFM (Call of Cthulhu 2942).

They are massive compared to the Grenadier ghouls (being closer to the size of a large 1/72 horse), and their legs don't really have the kangaroo-like appearance described by Lovecraft, but I think Bob Murch did a great job with the face.

I also plan on making a tailed ghast using the RAFM war newt (Reptiliads RAF03010).

I cut the head off of the war newt and was going to attach a random kroot head that I had lying around, but now that I need it I can't seem to find it anymore.

Ummm... Now what?

Rock paper scissors