Need Help Finding Monsters for Ysgard / Greek Myth

[Dralnu]

Can you guys bail me out? I'm DM'ing right now (last minute thing) and the PCs can potentially go to either Ysgard or wherever the Greek version would be. They're two level 12's.

What are some good MM monsters for them to come across? Greek is Sphinx / Hydra / Cyclops / Minotaur / stuff... what about Ysgard? I think giants?

MM monsters only or things I can just reskin please and thank you!

[darkscizor]

Well, there are fensir, or "ysgardian trolls". You might be able to use those. For greek monsters, just read some Percy Jackson books, you'll find a ton in there.

[Mjolnirbear]

North myths work mostly along the planes of the world tree Yggdrasil.

The norns are the three fates
There are both fire giants, and ice giants (collectively the Jotunn).
There are magical dwarves, the best craftsmen in all nine realms. They are said to have magical powers (runes).
The alfar, the people of Frey commonly known as elves. (very little is known of them)
The svartalfar, the people commonly known as dark elves, but which are sometimes thought to be dwarves (a bit of confusion in the existing lore :) )
The disir; collectively they are female ancestor-spirits that watch over their descendants; you could skin a ghost or wraith and change the alignment.

Freya has magical flying cats that pull her chariots. Thor has magical goats that he can kill and eat and then resurrect with Mjolnir. Frey has the golden boar Gullinbursti, made of actual gold with light magic. Odin has Huginn and Munin, ravens that are literally Odin's Memory and Thought. He also has Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse which is a son of Loki in mare form and a stallion that helped build the wall around Asgard.

Monsters are often children of Loki. Jormungandr is the world-serpent that eats its own tail; it will devour the world at Ragnarok. Freki is the giant wolf that ate Tyr's hand and will kill him at Ragnarok. Hel, the goddess of death, is half-alive and half-dead and controls the realm of Nivlheim. An exception is the draugr, a norse undead that lives in Nivlheim and is reputed to be extremely powerful but which are no children of Loki.


There are three kinds of afterlife available to a dead norseman. If you fall in battle, you will go to either Asgard as Einherjaren who train endlessly for Ragnarok and who cannot be permanently killed until then; otherwise you will go to Freya's Hall, and what happens then is unknown. If you don't fall in battle you go to Nivlheim under Hel's control as a draugr. During a battle, Odin' Valkyries fly through the sky. They are the Choosers of the Slain, and they pick the half of the battle-fallen which become Einherjaren.


Very few of these would be in the MM I would think. I expect many of them could be reskinned, particularly the undead. Valkyries could be a type of death angel; Jorumgandr could be a reskinned dragon; Freki can be a giant dire wolf. The einherjar can be a vampire or a lich (vampire is more likely; einherjar rarely have magical powers attributed to a lich). Duergar are the MM version of Draugr, but are not at all similar to each other.

[Dralnu]

Thanks for the ideas. They picked Ysgard, I made them fight two giants that were attacking two natives. The natives were on a mission to aid a village that was cursed with a storm that was ravaging the land for a month straight. The quest givers died from their wounds now the PCs have to carry on the quest.

I'm going to make it an angry storm giant is making the storm on a nearby mountain. All spitballing. I did all that before I refreshed this thread.

Not sure what they'll fight on the way up the mountain though.

Still going!