Ettin
Ettins are a monstrous race of two-headed sentients distantly related to the true giants. Their most distinctive feature is their two-heads, each with its own thoughts, feelings, and personalities. Many remark that their heads often bear orcish features, with massive lower canines that resemble tusks, blunt noses, and arrow-shaped ears. While ettins do sometimes associate with orcs, they are in fact more closely related to giants and appear to have gained their two heads through a genetic deformity or magical curse that has somehow been selected for over multiple generations.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Ettins are most famous for being the only true sentient race that has two, independent heads. Each head has its own thoughts, feelings, and personalities. It is not uncommon for ettin heads to disagree with one another, with each head knowing exactly what the other likes and dislikes. Ettin heads often behave like irritated siblings, constantly caught arguing or insulting one another.
Many have long believed that ettins are in fact a subrace or offshoot of the orcs. Anatomically, ettins display many of the tell-tale traits of orcs and half-orcs including large lower canines or tusks, blunt noses, beady eyes, long or stringy hair, thick greyish-green skin and arrow-shaped ears. However, it appears as though these traits evolved parallel to orcs, as ettins are more closely related to the true giants, specifically hill giants.
Some claim that there is no such thing as a female ettin. However, female ettin specimens have been found and often demonstrate sexually dimorphic features unique to their sex. Females have rows of defensive spines along their shoulders and back, longer and more pronounced tusks, and a larger overall mass compared to male ettins.
Genetics and Reproduction
Female ettins are rarer than males but when a male and female ettin encounter one another, it is always the larger and more aggressive female that initiates mating. Female ettins begin by physically fighting and dominating the male. She will then lead him to her den, where they will mate and where she will then live out her pregnancy. During this time, male ettins must care and feed the female over the course of her three month pregnancy. After the child is born, male ettins are released from this arrangement.
Growth Rate & Stages
Female ettins care for their children for a period of about five years, while the ettinling grows and matures. Upon a young ettin being old enough to hunt, the female gives up her den to the child and leaves them to fend for themselves.
Ecology and Habitats
Ettins can survive in a variety of habitats, though they generally prefer mountainous or hilly terrain, where they can lair in caves or under rock outcroppings. Ettins usually prefer cooler climates, rarely entering subtropical or warm temperate zones. Many can also be found in forested areas, where ettins take advantage of the foliage to hide their massive size and use large tree branches to craft crude weapons.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Ettins are primarily carnivores, though they will eat nuts, berries, and fruits between hunts. They are able to craft weapons and unlike their duller ogre cousins, can adapt mortal weapons to their own use, often scavenging battlefields for metal battleaxes and morningstars. Ettins have a mixed style of food-gathering, combining ambush predation with scavenging. Ettins do not ambush their prey like big cats or vipers, because their twin heads often cannot keep quiet and they also have a unique and pervasive stench. Instead, ettins are intelligent enough to set simple traps which catch game while they are out scavenging. When scavenging, ettins use their large size to chase off other predators such as wolves from kills. Ettins rarely eat their food in the moment, preferring to take it back to their dens and eat it at leisure.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Ettins loath dealing with other ettins and another set of dual heads with dual interests. A meeting of ettins that does not result in mating almost always ends in a physical confrontation, or at the very least, a long and loud shouting match. They can and do form communities with non-ettins on occasion, particularly orcs and other semi-nomadic raider cultures.
Facial characteristics
Ettins are characterized by their twin heads, beady eyes, blunt noses, large lower canines, arrow-shaped ears, and long shaggy or stringy hair.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Ettins are found across Holos, popping up in the mountains and hill country every continent.
Average Intelligence
Compared to other subspecies of giants, ettins are quite intelligent. Their twin heads allow them to discuss and confer between themselves to solve problems—though this can get them into more trouble as often as it gets them out of it. Ettins know how to craft basic tools and shelters, can understand multiple languages, and can set traps to catch prey. The largest hurdle for ettins is their solitary nature—ettins loath dealing with other ettins and another set of dual heads with dual interest. They can and do form communities with non-ettins on occasion, particularly orcs and other semi-nomadic raider cultures.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
With two heads, ettins are uniquely gifted lookouts and guards, though they often lack the stealth to make truly effective scouts. Because both ettin brains process information independently, an ettin makes for a creature with built in sensory redundancies. This gives them an advantage against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned, and even knocked unconscious. Moreover, with two heads, an ettin is never fully asleep, with one head always standing watch and appreciating the silence of being alone in the world for a brief moment. Additionally, ettins are gifted nocturnal hunters, able to see in total darkness as if it were dim light for up to 60 ft.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
With two heads, ettins have a unique means of referring both to themselves as individuals and both persons as a unit. As a single creature, ettins refer to themselves by the combined names of each head. Ettins mothers tend to name each head in rhyme as well, so one ettin might be referred to as Thoggmogg, with one head being called Thogg and the other named Mogg.
Common Myths and Legends
Many have long believed that ettins are in fact a subrace or offshoot of the orcs. Legend tells of a tribe of orcs that stumbled upon a shrine to the Demogorgon, a two-headed, ape-like demon prince who dwells in the Burning Labyrinths along with his mistress, Zaguna. According to this tale, ettins are in fact cursed orcs, driven into madness by demonic influence. However, skeletal analysis concludes that ettins are in fact more closely related to giants and giantkin than they are to orcs.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Despite not actually being related to orcs, many orcs consider ettin to be distant cousins and welcome them into their tribes. Within an orc tribe, ettins act as lookouts, guards, and sometimes scouts. They also are useful as beasts of burden because of their large size and incredible strength. In exchange for their work, ettins are usually paid in food and loot taken by a raiding tribe. Ettins are rarely found in sedentary societies or mortal states, where they are seen as dangerous monsters and lumped in with barbaric creatures like grimlocks and ogres.

by Eric Belisle
Origin/Ancestry
Giant
Lifespan
40-50 years
Average Height
3.76-4 m (12.4-13 ft)
Average Weight
270-420 kg (600-930 lbs)
Average Physique
Ettins are considered Large creatures.
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Grey to greyish-green to greenish-brown
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