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 we are putting together an unlikely combination: Ettins and Elk!

As is often the case, this is an odd combination. Ettins are great, two-headed giants that are usually handled as big bags of hit points, and Elks are Forest Nobility. What could they possibly have in common?

Imagine an Ettin, freed of whatever guard work or drudgery it is usually subjected to, has wandered into the woods. Alone, purposeless, he talks to himself about what he should do until he finds a herd of Elk. Somehow, the peace and majesty of this creature sparks something in the Ettin, and he stays. Eventually he fashions a crown of fallen antlers and a cloak of hides, with a necklace of old bones around his neck.

The people who live near the forest say that strange things happen there now.

Footsteps that make the ground shake. Great herds, bellowing into the night. They used to hunt for pelts in that forest, but hunters stopped coming back, and now no one goes in for fear of their life because the Great Two-Headed One is the guardian of this sacred place.

At the same time, the Elk of this forest, once hunted for meat and hide, have become untouchable. Their numbers are increasing, they’re starting to wander from their territory and become a problem. They eat crops, tear up fences, and cause great damage to local farms and ranches and the people fear starvation, turning to their local leaders for solutions they don’t have. It doesn’t sound like a classic D&D problem, true, but it’s a very real one, and one for which your Players might be hired to find a solution.

Your Players have a choice now: will they engage with the Great Two-Headed One with the respect he believes he deserves? He is the master of this forest now, but what does it mean to show respect to a creature of two minds? Perhaps he wants tribute, or maybe he wants to expand the territory of his herd. Maybe he just wants revenge on every hunter who thought they could come into this forest and kill with impunity. Are any of those things within your Players’ power to grant, or will they hunt him and his Elks down like the monsters they are?

You see, what this combo offers us is a chance to play with contrasts. On the one hand (head?) you have the Elks, who are all beauty and wildness and instinct, just trying to make their way in the world. And on the other, the Ettin, a creature of brutality and violence and cunning, used to acting as an instrument of violence in service of another.

How would this Ettin’s time with the Elks change them? Would they become calmer, more attuned to the world around them? Less of a monster and more of a protector of the creatures that helped calm its troubled minds? Or would the Ettin change the Elks, turning this herd into more than just roving herbivores, but a small battalion of hoof-soldiers, ready to ram through anything that gets in its way?

Imagine this: your Players go into the forest to find this Wild Man that everyone is afraid of. They crest a hill into a clearing, and there’s the Elks. Just… standing there. Unafraid. When the Ettin appears, the Elk gather around them, acting almost as a shield. If your Players attack, they’re going to have to fight through a herd of Elk first, all of them doing their damndest to put your people on the ground where they are extra vulnerable. Meanwhile, the Ettin is – as usual – of two minds. One head wants to punish your Players for their aggression towards the Elk, urging the creatures forward to ram and crush.

The other head, however, is terrified that their herd is being harmed, and begs the Elk to retreat, flee into the woods and let the Ettin handle the intruders. Every Elk that dies is a knife in their heart. The two heads berate each other for their thoughtlessness or their softness.

As for the Elk, they don’t just run forward, antlers-down. They have learned strategy from the Ettin, using the environment around them to herd your Players into the space where they could most easily be destroyed. The Ettin has set up a killing field here, with fallen trees and carefully-dug divots in the ground. They move in a coordinated way that should confuse and terrify anyone who has ever had to deal with the fast-twitch minds of Elks and other beasts like them.

If you do it right, your Players will soon realize that they’ve stepped into a complicated situation here, and perhaps a truce can be called until it can be resolved. If they do manage to resolve it peacefully, they may have a very powerful ally to call upon later in the Campaign.

If you really wanted to push it, you could homebrew a combo of these creatures: a towering cervine giant with great, branching antlers that patrols the forest like an angry god. It gets the best of both creatures’ stat blocks: the frustrating immunities that the Ettin gets for having two heads, and the increased speed and dexterity of the Elk. Its attacks focus on knocking an opponent to the ground and then beating them senseless with its morningstar (which is probably a cluster of old Elk antlers lashed together).

During the battle, it argues with itself over whether it should trample these pesky Adventurers or ask for their help in eliminating the new Artificers Guild that set up a workshop deeper into the forest which is slowly poisoning everything around it. In combat, perhaps one head wants to follow its instincts and flee, while the other wishes to follow its rage and charge. This Elkkin may be powerful, but it is just as divided and confused as ever.

As is the case with Ettins, these creatures will always play best when the two heads disagree on the best course of action, and that conflict will only grow stronger when you mix in the formidable fight-or-flight instincts of the Elk.

Ultimately, the land around this relationship should change with the weight of what it has become. Children might leave offerings for “Big Elk Man.” Hunters who enter the forest may whisper prayers and promises to hunt carefully. Rival villages argue about whether this creature is a threat or a guardian. The Ettin and their Elks become part of the emergent folklore of this region, tales that are passed down for generations.

This Ettin found something it never had – purpose that wasn’t imposed on it. Peace, in a forest full of creatures it loves. Taking that away costs something real. Your players will have to decide if they want to become part of the legend, or the reason it ends.