Once a month we’ll do a Random Monster Mashup! This could take many forms – maybe see what happens when the monsters fight or team up, think about what kinds of circumstances might result in this situation, and even, if we’re feeling really creative, think about what happens if we stick these two monsters in a teleporter together and hit “SEND.”

This month? It’s Fur versus Scales! Teeth versus More Teeth! Pack Tactics versus Spider Climb!

Dire Wolves versus Giant Lizards!

This is a great combo because, unlike some of our mashups, the two creatures have a lot of points of comparison. In terms of stats, Dire Wolves outperform Giant Lizards by a bit, but that’s not a really interesting way to put these two Beasts head to head.

For our purposes today, let’s think about them as mounts. Both creatures can make excellent mounts for Humanoids who need to get somewhere fast. The choice of mounts will tell us a lot about the people who are riding them.

For example, Giant Lizards are favorites of the Drow. Not just because they fit well into the overall Drow Creepycore aesthetic, but their ability to climb walls and ceilings makes a lot of sense for people who could live their entire lives underground. This allows them to attack from nearly any angle and spread out far more than they would if they were stuck to the ground. A team of Drow riders think three-dimensionally, which turns their cavalry tactics incredibly deadly for foes who are stuck on the ground.

On the other hand, the Dire Wolves are far more vicious. They work wonderfully in groups, knocking their prey to the ground and ganging up on them before they can fight back. They’re also very fast, moving at 50 ft. per round, so any group of Wolfriders is easily going to outpace most foes, pull them to the ground, and make short work of them.

Regardless of the mount, you can build an entire culture just from the beasts they ride. As we talked about in the Giant Lizard entry, their saddle designs, tack materials, decorations – all of these can signal to your Players where these particular Riders have come from, and may point them in the direction they want to go.

We can push this combo further, however. What if some brilliant (or mad) Drow Commander figured out how to train these creatures together? Imagine this person, desperate to prove himself to the Matron Mothers, obtains Wolf cubs from the surface and sets them with newly-hatched Lizards to grow up together?

Through incredible trial-and-error, with the full weight of traditionalist Drow naysayers bearing down on him and all of the highborn of Menzoberranzan talking about him at parties, he manages to create a new Drow Cavalry that is far deadlier than any ever seen before. Now, any force that tries to approach the city is met not only with Drow archers and arcanists out of easy reach on the walls and ceiling, but also with fast, vicious wolfriders on the ground which have developed an unusual glee in tearing down anything they’re pointed at.

This could be a turning point in Drow warfare, and would almost certainly change your campaign world. Whichever Drow House commands the loyalty of this Commander and his hybrid cavalry will have tactics that their rivals cannot counter, which will inevitably skew the balance of power. If you’re running a campaign with Drow at its heart, consider this as a fun way to really shake things up.

We can push this even further, though!

Somewhere, in an arcane laboratory rightfully hidden from society, a mad Wizard decides to hybridize these two terrible creatures. Your Players come across this lab, ruined, spattered with blood, and find the hideous early trials – bodies of scale and fur, twisting at impossible angles, with teeth where no teeth should be. But each one is getting closer to being a finished creature. The Wizard’s notes speak of selling the hybrids to the highest bidder so they can further their experiments to create stranger, more powerful creatures.

It’s not until your Party finds the shredded remains of that wizard that they hear the scuffing of claws, and deep canine growls coming from all around – and above – them that they realize exactly how much trouble they are in. As they desperately try to escape the lab, these terrifying, hissing and howling creatures chase behind them, moving from floor to wall to ceiling in an attempt to tear your Party apart.

And gods help us if they are released into the wild.

Your mount says everything about who you are. Drow choose lizards because they think in three dimensions. Surface raiders choose wolves because speed and pack tactics win battles. When those choices collide – or worse, combine – you get warfare that redefines what ‘cavalry’ means. Pay attention to what people ride. It tells you how they think, how they fight, and how screwed your players are about to be.