The Ettin Ceremorph, Or What Happens When a Giant Undergoes Ceremorphosis

Tags Running Monsters author-kyle-shire giants

If you’ve ever been planning a Dungeons & Dragons session and thought, “Wow, I wish I had a two-headed, psychic, squid-faced, brain-eating, giant to use here,” well friend, do I have good news for you! The ettin ceremorph from Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants is the latest addition to the illithid’s line of couture brain munchers, ready to supply your players with a fresh new flavor of nightmare fuel.

Let’s take a look at this beautiful aberration and see what makes it tick (spoiler alert: it’s brains).

Origins of the Ettin Ceremorph

Well, it all starts when a mind flayer and an ettin love each other very much and then—nope, just kidding! Things are actually way more horrifying than that. This slimy two-faced giant is the result of an ettin undergoing ceremorphosis.

A purple giant with two illithid heads throws up its armsCeremorphosis usually occurs when an illithid tadpole wiggles its way into the brain of a humanoid host, attaching to their brain stem and slowly eating the surrounding brain tissue until it becomes the creature’s new brain. Over a week, the host undergoes a horrific transformation, turning into a mauve-colored, slimy, psychic, tentacle-faced, brain hungry, mind flayer.

Mind flayers, and the elder brains that command them, are an interdimensional scourge that have conquered countless realities. They are constantly searching for new, viable, hosts and ways to create new forms of illithid to better serve the needs of their colony. So naturally, this led mind flayers to experiment on giants.

Unfortunately, this union never yielded any viable results because giants are way larger than the types of creatures illithid tadpoles normally invade. There’s simply too much brain and too much body for one little brain bug to handle. But what if there was a giant creature with two brains to infect?

This is, unfortunately, where ettins come into play. Mind flayers discovered that by infecting two brains attached to one body, a giant illithid could be possible. One of the heads controls the illithid’s higher brain function and psychic power, while the other fuses into the creature’s torso and controls bodily functions. It’s basically two illithid tadpoles piloting an ettin like a Jaeger from Pacific Rim.

Ettin Ceremorph: The Muscle of Mind Flayer Colonies

The source material (ew) for this creature is a massive, unkempt, solitary, brute controlled by two, bickering heads with an Intelligence score of 6. But after ceremorphosis, it becomes a highly intelligent being, with both heads working in perfect harmony. It is capable of stunning creatures, making nasty tentacle attacks, and it can also easily open your skull up like a can of clam chowder.

However, ettin ceremorphs lack the mind flayer’s array of skill proficiencies (such as their +6 to Deception, Insight, and Persuasion) and their innate spellcasting abilities. They also lack the mind flayer’s signature Mind Blast, which can affect every creature caught within its 60-foot cone, and that can recharge. Instead, the ettin ceremorph has the ranged spell attack Mind Bolt, which it can use three times per day but that only targets one creature at a time.

While the ettin ceremorph doesn’t have a wide array of mind powers and skills, it is significantly stronger and more durable than mind flayers, capable of doling out a devastating Slam at a range of 10 feet, in addition to its Mind Bolt or its Tentacles attack. The ettin ceremorph also has a higher passive Perception than a mind flayer (cause ya know, two heads) and it has a higher movement speed (cause ya know, long legs). It may not have detect thoughts, but it is more likely to spot a sneaky player character and more likely to catch up to them if they run.

Using the Ettin Ceremorph in Your Game

A damaged nautiloid ship floats through Wildspace surrounded by fish and asteroids

Ettin ceremorphs are interesting because they fill an essential, and mostly vacant, niche within the ecosystem of an illithid colony: muscle.

Intellect devourers can scout and keep watch, mindwitnesses amplify psionic power, gnome ceremorphs have cute little laser pistols, and mind flayers are terrifying, yes, but their physical attribute scores don’t go above 12, nor are they proficient in Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution saving throws. 

Sure, mind flayers and their elder brain overlords could dominate a slew of strong creatures into guarding their colony, but why outsource when you can hire from within? Ettin ceremorphs commonly serve as bodyguards for elder brains, but they are a lot more than just hulking, two-headed brutes blocking your way to a boss fight. Here are some homebrew ideas for bringing these giant aberrations to your table.

Bouncer at the Entrance of a Mind Flayer Colony

If your players are rooting out a nearby mind flayer colony that’s slowly expanding beneath a small town, an ettin ceremorph and its pet intellect devourer guarding a particularly fleshy corridor in an underground tunnel could be a decent clue that the colony entrance, or some treasure that’s precious to the colony, would be closeby.

A Predator With Good Timing

Perhaps your Astral Sea-fairing party has battled their way through level after level of an illithid nautiloid, narrowly escaping with their brains intact. They stop to take a short rest, but suddenly they hear heavy footsteps, until a hulking shadow suddenly looms overhead; for the entire time they’ve been fighting through the ship, the highly intelligent ettin ceremorph has been watching them through the illithid’s networked hive mind, waiting for them to take a rest. Knowing they are softened up from their previous encounters, the ettin ceremorph plans to make short work of the intruders, and offer them to the elder brain so it may absorb their knowledge.

Mind Flayer Bodyguards on a Mission

Maybe an elder brain has been recently transplanted to a new region and wants to know the lay of the land above, and its history. So it sends a mind flayer on a mission to extract the brain of an ancient elven druid that’s lived in the area for centuries. But the mind flayer will have to travel beyond the elder brain’s telepathic reach. To protect its charge, the elder brain commands two ettin ceremorphs to chaperone the mind flayer on its journey.

An Ettin Ceremorph Wanders to the Far North

Your ettin ceremorph could be an outcast. Its connection to the elder brain could’ve been severed, either intentionally or not, causing it to wander far from its colony. Perhaps it ended up in Icewind Dale, chanced upon a Reghed tribe, and usurped leadership. Now, the tribe kidnaps citizens of the Ten-Towns so the ettin ceremorph has a steady supply of brains to feast on.

An Aberration in Need

Do you know what happens to a mind flayer colony when an elder brain is killed and all of its illithid tadpoles aren’t? Well … it’s not good. An ettin ceremorph is smart and strong enough to make sure all remaining tadpoles die if the elder brain should come to an untimely demise. But if the unthinkable does occur, an ettin ceremorph may seek out adventurers for help in subduing the resulting neothelid.

8 Tentacles Are Better Than 4

While they don’t possess some of the finer telepathic and knowledge-based assets of mind flayers, the ettin ceremorph is just as cunning and dangerous and should not be underestimated. These hulking brutes possess the same genius-level intellect as mind flayers and should be played accordingly.

For more giant-sized friends and foes, and a whole lot more, check out Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants.

What Is Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants? A Compendium of Giant Lore!
by Mike Bernier
Take Your Game to New Heights With Giant Adventures
by Riley Silverman
Monster Mash: Combine These Monsters to Horrify Your Players!
by Riley Silverman

Kyle Shire (@kyleshire) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond and a producer for Critical Role. In the past, he worked as a producer, writer, and host for Machinima Studios and Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment. He's appeared on HyperRPG as the Mayor of Kollok and the Saving Throw Show. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

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