Summary

  • Stick to established giant animals in D&D for easier gameplay and avoid the complexities of homebrewing.
  • Giant animals like elk, eels, spiders, and more offer unique and terrifying challenges for players to face.
  • There are few things in the Forgotten Realms more intimidating than a giant ape.

Whether you’re looking to have the most impressive mount or the most intimidating zoo in the entirety of Dungeons & Dragons, it’s good to know what kind of huge beasts are feasible. Really, you could size up any animal or beast and make them a giant animal, to do with as you please, but there is one issue that comes with that: homebrewing and balancing.

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Homebrew sounds easy in theory, but in practice, it’s an entirely different matter. As such, it’s just a lot easier to work with what has already been established. Thankfully, there are a handful of great giant animals to pick from in Dungeons & Dragons.

10 Giant Elk

The True King Of The Forest

Forest by Piotr Dura

Possibly one of the weakest giant animals, the giant elk really doesn’t have much going for it. It doesn’t even really have official art in the Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks and expansions, which is kind of sad. There’s so much potential for this giant animal, especially given how majestic Cervidae can be sometimes.

Not only could a giant elk be majestic, but it could also be terrifying, lingering at the edges of forests and watching - its gaze more akin to a predator than a prey’s. There’s a lot of potential with giant elks to warp what is commonly seen as a prey creature into something far more deadly and unsettling.

9 Giant Lightning Eel

Don’t Go Swimming

Island by Titus Lunter

Sure, a Giant Lightning Eel probably isn’t the most dangerous giant animal that you can come across in Dungeons & Dragons, let alone the most dangerous monster, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be terrifying. Whether you're in or above the water, the Giant Lightning Eel can make your players' lives a living nightmare.

This is mostly because it can reach up to five feet outside of the water to dole out a nasty shock. If your players are in the water, though, there’s a much higher chance of them getting shocked, having their muscles seize with the electricity, and risking drowning. Its challenge rating may not be high, but the threat is still there.

8 Giant Spider

Arachnophobes Are Terrified

Drider by Jodie Muir

No, just no, not going to deal with this or any day of the week. Lolth’s most treasured pets, the Giant Spiders are here to stay, and your players are really going to wish that they weren’t.

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There’s something inherently creepy and unsettling about spiders, making them one of the most common fears. Add in the giant prefix and make giant arachnids, and you’ve made yourself the perfect terrifying concoction.

Keep it far away - far, far away. In fact, maybe it’s better not to use the Giant Spider at all…

7 Giant Ape

King Kong Has Arrived

Forest by Julian Kok Joon Wen

King Kong in your Dungeons & Dragons? It’s more likely than you’d think, assuming you have a Giant Ape somewhere in there. Sure, you’re more likely to find the Giant Ape patrolling jungles than you are swinging through cities and climbing the tallest buildings (probably a church or a palace or something of the sort), but they’re still unnerving.

The Giant Ape is, understandably, going to be an absurdly strong creature, which means your players should avoid upsetting it. It’s feasible they might even be able to befriend the Giant Ape, and then they’ve got a great companion and friend for life (or at least, one would hope).

6 Giant Rat

Because The Little Ones Aren’t Enough

Dungeon Descent by Kasia 'Kafis' Zielinska

Rats are already pests, getting into food storage and generally making an area even more unhygienic than it probably already was. Add in a Giant Rat to the equation and now you’re dealing with something even worse.

Would they carry giant fleas? Or normal sized fleas? Either way, they’re probably super spreaders for the Bubonic Plague.

Contracts for Giant Rats are probably in plethora as people herd them out and away from their goods. They may not be supremely dangerous, but that doesn’t mean a Giant Rat doesn’t carry any threat at all - it would just be more passive.

5 Giant Eagle

The Ultimate America Experience

Vrock by Dave Kendall

Eagles are, simply put, high-caliber predators. There’s very little in the air that could take them down normally, aside from people.

So, you make it giant. Suddenly you have a super predator that needs more than a single human with a rifle to take it down. Although, perhaps you can befriend the Giant Eagles, ride them around, and possibly get saved after traveling up a volcano and throwing a ring connected to a greater evil force into it.

So many opportunities for Giant Eagles, be they friend or foe.

Want something even bigger than a giant eagle? Look into the Roc, a Gargantuan Monstrosity that resembles an eagle or other predator bird.

4 Huge Giant Crab

So Big It Needs Two Prefixes

Warrior on a horse by Jeff Easley

In real life, the large claw on a crab is enough to break through skin and bone, snapping off fingers if you’re not careful. If you want to give your party a gruesome visual, they’re a great way to horrify and traumatize.

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You should probably give your party enough time to try and escape before they get bisected. Imagine sand dunes on the beaches, but the crabs crawl out from under them, massive legs digging into the sand, and claws waiting to catch unsuspecting beach-goers. The environment will be what sells the true unexpected terror of this giant animal.

3 Giant Scorpion

Less Poisoned, More Impaled

Treasures of Amun Sa, by Titus Lunter

The primary attack of a scorpion is to use its stinger to inject poison while buried underneath sand and dirt. Once its prey is paralyzed, it launches out and devours it. A Giant Scorpion, depending on how big you’re thinking, could paralyze people or even something the size of an elephant.

However, if its stinger is large enough, you might be able to skip right over the “paralyzing poison” step and vault right into the “Impaled and actively bleeding to death” step. You should probably keep a lot of potions on hand, just in case.

2 Giant Shark

Jaws Is Real And It’s Here

Morphic Pool by Chris Ostrowski

Scared of Sharks? You should have a lot of fear in the face of the Giant Shark, then. If you’re having a hard time imagining it, just picture the megalodon - a shark so large that it would eat other sharks.

If you’ve seen photos of boats and surfboards with bites taken out of them, imagine large pirate and merchant ships sunk beneath the waves with a massive chunk taken out of the wood. These predators are fast-moving and hard to escape. If your party sees it, it might be time to advise them to send their prayers to their deity of choice.

1 Giant Crocodile

The Death Roll Of Legend

Curse Of Strahd Illustration By Jedd Chevrier

Crocodiles are already pretty patient creatures, lying in wait for their prey to nudge closer and closer until they’re too late and the jaws of death have snapped around them. A Giant Crocodile would be no different.

Lying in wait for its prey to grow closer until the time has come for it to snap it up and perform the world’s most terrifying death roll. Of course, if your player’s character is little, they’ll probably be fine - at that size, picking and choosing your prey is important, and the small stuff likely isn’t worth the expended calories.

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