My players are going through the Madness at Gardmore Abbey module...well loosely anyway...I'm adapting it to my campaign. Anyway, they are **spoilers kinda** going through the temple at Dragon's Roost and getting ready to descend into the catacombs. Whether you know or not, the catacombs is a pretty combat heavy environment and doesn't have too much roleplay opportunity in it (not a lot at least). One of my players said last week that he's ready for some heavier roleplay, and seeing that there isn't really any coming up, I wanted to throw in some.

I have a sweet two headed ettin miniature that I bought, and I was going to bring him in as part of the Madness module, but I don't think the players will get that far. I'll probably end up taking the players out of Gardmore and onto other things before they have a chance. Anyway, I want to turn this ettin into an NPC non-combat encounter. Here is what I'm thinking:

- players descend stairs from the temple and see the open doorway into the first room of hte catacombs. They also see before that door, another door/path/hall/something leading off to the left. They overhear voices.

- I kinda want to do a puzzle or trapped room kinda deal with the NPC here, but I'm unsure of what to do.

- I want to play the two headed ettin as two voices of course one voice I'm thinking of like Sloth from the Goonies, so I have to think of a good dumb sounding name. The other head on the ettin I'm thinking of maybe a pirate "yarrrr!!" and always talking about setting sail or swabbing the poop deck and such. So what I need from you guys is a reason for the ettin to be down there, and why he is actually still down there. If the NPC is good enough, he could become a reoccurring type of companion for the players. so maybe some kind of scenario that the ettin has gotten himself into and is trapped down there? Maybe the players try to help him out...some kind of puzzle?

I dunno...I'm drawing a blank. Help!

i like the possession thing...but I still need a good room puzzle/trap to solve. I kinda want it to be an NPC interaction with a puzzle to solve.

Yosef's idea of the hot/cold reactions for the two heads is an excellent one. Whatever you do, keep the puzzle really clear with no red herrings - the players will make enough of a mess with straight forward clues without needing any red herrings to really mess them up.
It would also be a good idea to think up something to do if the players side with the wrong head so that you can steer them back into the right side of things.

You could have two parts of the puzzle tattooed to the backs of the ettins heads written in runes that only make sense to the ettins. This could be a great pictionary type role playing opportunity. Art skills, perception skills, intelligence rolls, general ettin disagreement, preoccupation with ducks.