Weird Uses of Monsters

In a fantasy world, monsters don’t have to be just foes.  A city or town can make agreements with a nearby tribe of goblins, send adventurers out to make a mutually beneficial contract with a Medusa, or summon an elemental to perform a duty. If a creature isn’t particularly evil it may do a task simply for coin or shiny objects.

Of course, these agreements and charms are tricky–many adventures can start with the creature deciding it is no longer getting the better end of the deal!

1. Ankheg: Caged and forced to spit acid on a town’s non-organic garbage.
2. Carrion Crawler, Gelatinous Cube, or Xorn: Locked into the local town’s garbage pit.
3. Dragon, Brass, Gold or Red: Has a contract with a city to breath fire into pipes used to provide steam heat throughout the city.
4. Eagle, Giant or Pegasus: A group of these run an air mail or expensive transportation service.
5. Fire Elemental: Summoned into the heart of a city’s steam tunnels to provide heat.
6. Fire Beetles: Captured in small glass cage’s along a city’s main streets to give off light at night. Town guards feed each through a small hole as they make their rounds.
7. Flumph: Uses its telepathy to discern the truth of someone accused of a crime.
8. Galeb Duhr: Positioned on the approach to a castle or tower as lookouts. (When motionless they are indistinguishable from a normal boulder.)
9. Goblins or Lizardfolk: Have a truce with a city to keep its sewers clean of other creatures in exchange for food & all the shiny stuff they find.
10. Hag, Night: Felons found guilty of particularly heinous crimes are sent to a night hag’s lair. She agreed to observe certain bounds (for now) in exchange for periodic prey left at night in cages. She torments the criminals through horrible dreams.
11. Invisible Stalker: Used by the town guard to watch the populace and alert other guards to make arrests.
12. Kraken: Guards the town’s harbor in exchange for a great deed performed by the town years ago. It is counting down the days to the end of its agreement.
13. Lycanthrope, Werebear or Weretiger: Guards a small village in exchange for not being reported/hunted.
14. Medusa: Has a contract with a nearby town to paralyze felons for the length of their sentence.
15. Merfolk: If treated will by a coastal town, will tell the townsfolk where the fishing is best, if pirates are on their way, etc.
16. Minotaur: Serve as guides in a frontier area.  Just make sure you pay them well.
17. Myconids: Will make various substances for the local herbalist or alchemist, due to the herbalist or alchemist helping a myconid out of a jam years ago.
18. Purple Worm (made intelligent & charmed): Digs tunnels below cities or castles for sewers, dungeons, etc.
19. Treant: As with Galeb Duhr, posted as lookouts outside a town or castle.
20. Troll: Captured in the basement of an inn, the innkeeper (a retired adventurer) cuts pieces of it for some of the inn’s meat dishes.