Giants are huge, terrifyingly strong humanoids, and most of them are exactly the threat that reputation promises: the brutish hill giants who guard their ground with thrown boulders, and the Gorgers who roam the land eating everything in their path. These two are the common kind, feared wherever they range, and they have earned the name the whole race carries. But they are not the whole of it. Some giant lineages put down roots: herding clans that hold their pastures by long memory, and city-builders who farm, trade, and war much like any smaller people.
Origin and kinship
Giants are Gaea's flesh, the same making as humans and beastmen and trolls, built larger than any other people she shaped. The chronicles that record the Birth of Man do not record the day she made the giants, but the kinship shows plainly in the blood: giant and human cross, and the children hold. The Qord'ik of the Free Isles carry giant stock in their heavy bones, and half-giants are born wherever the two peoples mix.
Size is the gift Gaea gave them, and for most giants size has decided everything since. A creature that can take what it wants by reaching for it rarely learns another way, which is why the hill giants hold their ground with thrown stone and the Gorgers simply eat their way across the land. The lineages that became something more did it against the grain of their own strength: the Güli holding their basins by memory and patience rather than force, the Greikh penning their rivals and farming the Xcraya valley. Those are the exceptions, and even they were shaped from the same raw material as the brutes.
Heritages
- Hill Giants — Sedentary community-dwellers who herd massive sheep and guard their territory; territorial but willing to parley with food and their simple language. See Hill Giants.
- Gorgers — Nomadic engines of consumption that roam the land eating everything in their path; universally feared and reviled. See Gorgers.
- Güli — Patient, clan-bound mountain giants of the high basins who hold their grazing grounds by reciting lineage further back than any rival can. See Güli.
- Greikh — City-building giants of the Xcraya valley, a dozen sovereign city-states that farm, trade, and feud, and pen captives in the Prisoner Hills. See Greikh.
Vitals
- Size: Huge
- Height: 12-16 feet
- Weight: 2000-4000 pounds
Aspects
- Fee-fi-fo-fum
- Might makes right
Game mechanics
Massive Strength
Passive ability. Your strength is legendary. You can wield heavy weapons in one hand without penalty. Your unarmed attacks deal 2d8 bludgeoning damage and can affect structures. You have A2 on all might checks involving lifting, throwing, or breaking objects. When you hit a creature smaller than you with a melee attack, you can push them 10 feet in any direction.
Tough Skin
Passive ability. Your skin is like leather armor. You have +2 to all defense rolls against physical attacks. The damage threshold for taking wounds increases by 2 for you (you take wounds from 12+ damage instead of 10+).