Ettin

D&D 2024 monster: Ettin. Source: Monster Manual (2014). challenge rating 4, creature type Giant, Large size, speed 40 ft. An ettin is a foul, two-headed giant with the crude characteristics of an orc. It never bathes if it can help it, and its thick skin is usually encrusted with a thick layer of dirt and grime beneath the stinking hides it wears. Its long stringy hair hangs in an unkempt mess about its faces, and its breath reeks from mouths filled with crooked teeth and tusks. Dual Personality The twin heads of an ettin are two individuals trapped in the same brutish body. Each head has its own mind, personality, and name, and possesses unique preferences and quirks. Bound from birth, both minds only rarely experience privacy or solitude. This familiarity breeds contempt, and an ettin bullies and argues with itself constantly, its two heads each taking constant offense at the other's slights. When other creatures refer to an ettin, they combine its double names to form a single compound name that applies to the creature as a whole. If an ettin has one head named Hargle and another named Vargle, other creatures call the ettin Harglevargle. Solitary Lives As much as an ettin argues with itself, it is even less tolerant of other ettins, since a conversation between two ettins almost always amounts to a shouting match between a crowd of four belligerent heads. Most ettins are solitary creatures as a result, tolerating one another only to reproduce. An ettin's twin heads are always the same gender, with a body to match. Females are the dominant gender among ettins, and they initiate the ettins' mating rituals. After finding a suitable den, a female ettin hunts and conquers a male, which cares for and feeds her during her six-month pregnancy. Once the child is born, the male ettin is released from servitude. When the child is old enough to hunt for itself, the mother sends it away and abandons the den. Two Heads are Better than One When focused on a mutually benefici...