How do you use Giants in your settings/campaigns? Non-D&D/Pathfinder examples welcome as well.
>>98376036Here I am falling asleep and this post brainblasted me with remembering the Land Giant exists. CR 90 Giant that's, IIRC, over a mile tall. I forget which 3e/3.5 OGL supplement book I read it in, but I remember reading it. IIRC, 10 Dexterity. Lol.
>>98376036When I ran Bodil's Gap, a norse-fantasy game, I had some giant content I was really pleased with. One of the PCs, Mundr, was an Ottimaðr, essentially a kind of warlock who has learned to perform the same kind of primordial magic that giants do naturally. He had gained his powers by direct exposure to the Realm of Fire, so he didn't have any real contact with actual giants, and wasn't really wise to their ways.Toward the end of the game, he ended up feasting at the court of a neighbouring Jarl and met the Jarl's illegitimate daughter, Gudrun, who was secretly an Ottimaðr like him. She, however, had been taught her sorcery by a frost giant tutor whom she called her Auntie. She would contact her Auntie by turning spilled water into an icy mirror through which they could see and talk to each other across the border between worlds, which normal keeps giants out of the mortal realm. In Bodil's Gap, frost giants, unlike other giants who are mostly raiders and despoilers, are cold and calculating plotters. They want to take over the mortal world, but their MO is to act through mortal agents whom they bribe, coerce, or deceive into doing their bidding, until such a time as they can seize everything all at once without anyone being able to act against them. So Gudrun, though she doesn't realize it, is essentially this giantess' catspaw. To her, though, she's a neglected, illegitimate child who's found someone who really understands and cares for her and who has given her an incredible and empowering gift.
>>98376219To make a long story short, Mundr ends up betrothed to Gudrun, and she introduces him to her Auntie after swearing him to secrecy. Auntie is very pleased by this betrothal and encourages her, and the girl goes hard on seducing the PC to keep him on board with marrying her despite it being mostly an arranged political thing. Although she's illegitimate and her brother will inherit the Jarl's throne, she's still his blood relation, and the union is a strong political tie for the PCs' own clan.Under Auntie's instructions, the girl brings Mundr to a secluded glade outside the city, where he--a more powerful Ottimaðr than Gudrun--can be walked through the steps of breaching the barrier and letting Auntie into the mortal world. According to Auntie, this is so she can attend her darling student's wedding in person, though she promises to conceal herself so as not to frighten the other guests. Auntie, of course, is a liar.The PC doesn't manage to detect any ulterior motives in this, so he does as instructed. The earth cracks open with icy crevasses that release a freezing wind, and Auntie emerges. The crack doesn't close after her, though. Before Mundr can think about objecting to this, Auntie has drawn him aside to give him her wedding gift; a beautiful silver torc with two magical effects. One, wearing it lets him use ice magic in addition to the fire magic he can naturally do, and two, if he speaks Auntie's name while wearing it, she'll hear and he'll be able to call on her for help. Like a good groom, he graciously accepts and puts it on, then Auntie bustles him and his bride out of the clearing so that they can go home and get their rest for the big day.
>>98376221The next day the wedding starts with feasting and celebration. Everything seems to be going well, until the door to the Jarl's hall is smashed open by some goons being led by an old enemy the PCs had previously driven out of town. The last time he was too pathetic to even be worth killing, but this time he seems a lot stronger--gigantically strong, even. Chaos erupts as PCs and wedding guests alike start battling these intruders, while the interloper shouts about having his vengeance on the PCs. During the chaotic whirl of the fighting, Mundr recognizes that their old enemy is showing some of the gifts of giantish sorcery that he's come to recognize--a giant has empowered him to come in here and seek his vengeance. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the Jarl's son, his bride's older brother, hoisted six inches off his feet and half-crushed, as though in a giant invisible hand. Concentrating his powers of perception, he manages to pierce the illusion that hides from sight the pale and icy arm of a giant, reaching into the Jarl's hall through the smoke hole like a child reaching into a doll's house, with the sole purpose of murdering the Jarl's son while everyone is distracted by the fighting. He opens his mouth to shout out and warn everyone, and then the torc around his through tightens like a silver serpent and starts strangling him at the first sign that he was about to speak about the frost giants. He tries to tear it off, but it's too strong, and he can only look on in mute horror as the giant hand finishes squeezing the Jarl's son to death and then drops him.
>>98376223The other PCs and the wedding guests manage to finish of the interlopers, but the damage is done. With his son apparently dead in battle, the Jarl is forced to name his illegitimate daughter his heir, and take her groom Mundr into his own household, rather than marrying her out to his clan. Putting the pieces together, Mundr realizes that he's been played and that all of Auntie's scheming was designed to put someone she controls on the throne. She has to be stopped, but he's afraid to confront his new wife about it, being mostly sure that she doesn't know what her Auntie's been up to and not wanting to break her heart. He finally manages to take the torc off, tells his fellow PCs what's happened, and leads them back to the clearing where he summoned Auntie the first time.When the get there, they find that two more frost giants have come through the breach in the meantime, and that they have a major fight on their hands. They manage to kill the two additional giants, but one of the PCs ends up dying in the battle. Another PC, a witch with a very different kind of magic from Mundr's, manages to curse Auntie, giving up her own fylgja to inflict the giantess with a mortal's breath. Because much of a giant's magical power comes from their breath, which is the stuff of the primordial realms, giving her a human's breath instead is a major blow, and Auntie flees. Mourning his friend and wondering how he'll explain all of this to his wife, Mundr turns for home.The PCs also plundered a giant's barrow earlier in the campaign, and I can storytime that tomorrow if anyone likes.
>>98376228Please do. It's not often we get something decent on here instead of people just bitching endlessly.
>>98376036How do you, OP?
>>98376219>>98376221>>98376223>>98376228Cool story, anon. Additional question for thread: have you ever ran a Giant as a PC?
>>98377064>have you ever ran a Giant as a PC?no, but I'd love to, tho I have played half giants. I think they're the coolest fantasy creature ever along dragons, and stone giants are kinoI want to the run the Giantsalyer AP for PF2, but it's so long and would take at least a couple of years of weekly, fast, sustained gaming, and I don't think I have the skill to do it
