Editing Giant (section)

===Giants in D&D===
In [[Dungeons and Dragons]] "giant" can designate a subtype of monsters going from [[troll]]s, [[ogre]]s, [[cyclops| cyclopes]] and various [[Oni]] all the way up to the "true" giants. They draw from all of the mythologies above, by designating various types of (Whatever) Giant to split them based on habitat. Certain types of giants live in certain areas or have special abilties. For example, the Forest, Frost, Hill, Jungle, Mountain and Ocean Giants all live from where you expect them to. In some cases this is less clear (Fog, Stone and Sun Giants) or almost impossible to tell (Death and Eldritch Giants). Between the books there are often dozens of different giants available, with 3.5e having a staggering 22 different types of "true" giants and a host of others with the creature type.

The six "classic" flavors of giant (the most common ones, the way there're five "classic" colors of chromatic and metallic dragon each) are, arranged according to size:

* [[Hill Giant]]s; savage, stupid monsters who attack other races to sate their immense appetites. They look like [[Luke|big, fat, filthy humanoids, and wear half-rotten animal skins like cavepeople]]. Basically bigger [[ogre]]s.
* [[Fire Giants]]; militaristic, heavily-armored soldiers who act kind of like big, evil [[dwarves]], with their mastery of smithwork and penchant for slavery. They tend to have dark skin on a coffee-to-ashen-purple spectrum and (naturally) bright red hair. Completing the dwarf comparison, expect lots of beards, braids, and long, wild haircuts.  They tend to wear heavy armor as both military dress and formal wear, again, like dwarves, and fight in well-armed, well-organized armies.
* [[Stone Giant]]s; master artisans who live underground quietly keeping to themselves, and are much faster than they look. They look like they're made out of living stone, and their tough skin gives them natural armor on top of their speed, and many can also catch projectiles out of the air.  Despite being somewhat peaceable, they are also rather isolationist, and resent intrusions onto their territory.
* [[Frost Giant]]s; blue-skinned and white-haired Norse-inspired raiders who live in the frozen north, taming huge monsters to accompany them on their quest for plunder. They look like blue-skinned vikings and dress like it too. The most famous frost giant in the ''Forgotten Realms'' is the adventurer known as [[Harshnag the Grim]], who recently enjoyed an extended appearance in ''Storm King's Thunder''.
* [[Cloud Giant]]s; who live in sky-castles, have magical powers, and tend to be witty sophisticates fond of games and art. Notable for their ideological split between those who're neutral good-aligned and those who're neutral evil-aligned. The least visually well-defined of the giants here, while they tend to have pale skin and blue hair, their skin might be blue, might be lavender, might just be white, and they might or might not have fangs.  They also generally dress and live well, though, again, there's less cultural unity here than elsewhere.
* [[Storm Giant]]s; benevolent but distant sages who are experts at seeing into the future, and have not only even moar magical powers but the ability to chuck ''bolts of fucking lightning'' at things that annoy them. They can also breathe underwater. Dark blue, purple, or brown-skinned with white hair, might or might not wear armor.

Giants tend to be in the mid to high range of monsters, starting as early as CR 7 for the Hill Giant all the way up to 26 for the Mountain Giant, and that's pre-[[class]] levels. As a general rule, the larger a giant is, the more powerful it is. The exceptions are the fire giants, who are barely smaller than stone giants but right below cloud giants on the heirarchy. Giants are very much a mixed bag, being anywhere on the range from bullies to militant assholes to dicks sitting in the clouds and doing nothing. This can make them decent enemies, aloof sages, or a nice way to make players feel like they're hot shit before delivering the smackdown. Like [[dragon]]s, each of their subraces tends to have a "racial alignment" to them.

They are often of the Large or Huge size categories and are all experts at the art of throwing boulders, which do a shitload of damage thanks to their immense size. Hilariously, this is true even for the otherwise well-armed giants who're masters of fabricating quality weapons, like fire giants. Most settings have them as remnants of an ancient giant empire that has since slipped into sad decline, and they tend to be bitter rivals of dragons. Notably, even when they have ideological/alignment-based disagreements, giants tend to get along ''among themselves'', with bigger giants looking after smaller ones and smaller ones in turn mostly doing what bigger ones say - the [[Forgotten Realms]] codified this into an in-universe code of culture established by said fallen giant empire (here called Ostoria), which was handed down by their divine creator, [[Annam]]. It's called the [[Ordning]], and 5e made it canon to all giants in all settings.

A 5e module, ''Storm King's Thunder'', is heavily giant-centric, and has put them into the spotlight after years in the margins. And, yes, there are examples of [[monstergirls|sexy lady giants]] in all the flavors above. Except maybe Hill. Unless you're into that whole fat-stupid-and-unwashed thing. We're not here to judge.

Whilst the six above get all the press, D&D's origins as a war-game that relied heavily on monster races existing to be different levels of challenge, plus its amalgamation of various real-world mythological lore, has led to "Giant" traditionally being considered its own creature type - akin to [[Undead]], [[Fey]] or [[Goblinoid]]. As such, a ridiculously huge array of giants exist in D&D. Indeed, there was even a short-lived term, "[[Giant-kin]]", which was used for the "closer to human-sized" giants, like [[ogre]]s and [[troll]]s.
* [[Athach]]: Obscure giants originating from the [[Mystara]] setting; resemble deformed hill-giants with tusks, mismatched ears (one huge, one tiny) and a third arm sprouting from the center of their chest.
* [[Beasthead Giant]]: One of four giant species indigenous to the [[Dark Sun]] setting, these are the smallest of the Athasian giants, but make up for it with powerful [[psionics]] - the only Athasian giant that can use such powers. Evil in nature, they look like giant humans with the head of one of several animals, some of which bestow unique powers; eagle, goat, wolf, id fiend, [[kirre]], or [[braxat]].
* [[Bog Giant]], a smaller variety of giant with a frog-like appearance found in wetlands.
* [[B’rohg]]: Four-armed, primitive but neutrally aligned giant-kin indigenous to the [[Dark Sun]] setting.
* [[Craa'ghoran Giant]]: Evil stone giants that have been twisted by elemental earth energy.  Their body are covered in asymmetrical stone spikes and they have several earth related powers.
* [[Crag Giant]]: One of four giant species indigenous to the [[Dark Sun]] setting, these benevolent giants are only found on the Lonely Butte, near the Last Sea. Presumably descended from [[Storm Giant]]s, they are good by nature, but yearn for revenge upon the Mind Lords who have driven them to a slow, prolonged extinction.
* [[Cyclops]]: One-eyed giant which comes in two varieties; the small, [[ogre]]-like Cyclopskin (7 1/2ft tall) and the enormous (20ft tall) "true" Cyclops.
* [[Death Giant]]: Descendants of a giant race that traded their souls for power.  They have black skin, yellow eyes, yellow clawed fingers, pointed ears, and sharp teeth, and stand 15 feet tall.  They are constantly surrounded by the enslaved souls of those they have killed.
* [[Desert Giant]]: Can refer to either of two species. The Athasian Desert Giant is one of four giant species indigenous to the [[Dark Sun]] setting; these are the evil giants indigenous to the Sea of Silt. The "Common" Desert Giant is native to the lands of [[Al-Qadim]], and is the surviving descendants of a fallen giant empire; cursed to ultimately transform into stone, they now exist as oversized tribes of nomadic herdsmen in the deserts of Zakhara.
* [[Dusk Giant]]: Bestial giants whose size and magical abilities change depending on how much flesh they have recently eaten.  They get more benefit from eating the flesh of sentient beings.  Well fed dusk giants can grow to a maximum of 20 feet tall and starving ones shrink down to minimum of just over 6 feet.  They are always surrounded by an aura that darkens bright lights and causes feelings of despair in enemies.
* [[Eldritch Giant]]: 25 foot tall purple-skinned giants who are very interested in arcane magic.  They hate storm giants.
* [[Ettin]]: A two-headed variant of the hill giant, renowned for being ugly, vicious and stupid even by hill giant standards.
* Fhoimorien: A weird, malevolent, mystical giant breed native to the world of Cerilia, the home of the [[Birthright]] setting. They have an affinity for [[elemental]] magics of earth and air, and can even turn into banks of living mist. Supposedly a Cerillian equivalent to the [[Fomorian]].
* [[Firbolg]]: Giant-kin who resemble oversized [[viking]]s.
* [[Fog Giant]]: A more primal (but not stupid) relative of the Cloud Giant, which favors temperate swamps, marshes, boggy forests, and coastal regions. Distinguishable by its pale, milky-white skin and hair, and their cultural love of wrestling and sports based on throwing stuff.  In 5e they have been changed to just being cloud giants that lost their status in cloud giant society due to losing their wealth and so are desperate to claim as much wealth as they can to get it back.
* [[Fomorian]]: Cave-dwelling, grotesquely ugly giants with a pronounced vicious streak and a love of torture.
* [[Forest Giant]]: Depending on the setting
** One of the breeds of giant native to the world of Cerilia, the home of the [[Birthright]] setting. Their elemental affinities for wood give these giants wood-like skin, leaflike hair, and root-like digits, making them easily confused for oversized [[treant]]s at a casual glance. Naturally, they seek to protect primeval forests from depredations.
** In other settings, forest giants are basically giant [[Wood Elves]].
* [[Geriviar]]: Huge xenophobic reptilian giants with four arms and spiky grey skin.  Their bodies grow nodules they can pull off and use like grenades.  It is theorized that they may have been engineered to be living siege engines, as they love destroying buildings so much that they sometimes overcome their xenophobia and willingly join armies of other creatures just so they can destroy buildings.
* [[Hephaeston Giant]]: A [[Mystara]]n giant species characterized by its skin of living iron and its natural affinity for blacksmithing. Regarding weaponsmithing as a holy art, they constantly seek out deposits of iron and coal, especially because they must literally smith infants of their race from the purest iron.
* Ice Giant: One of the breeds of giant native to the world of Cerilia, the home of the [[Birthright]] setting. Essentially a bigger and nastier version of the standard [[Frost Giant]], one distinguished by a thick body sheath of rime and jagged ice shards. More magically adept than frost giants, ice giants have the power to hurl iceballs (a cold-damage counterpart to the famous [[Fireball]]), and possess several potent spell-like abilities.
* [[Jungle Giant]]: A species of carnivorous, voraciously predatory green-skinned [[amazon]] giants native to the tropical jungles of [[Al-Qadim]].
* [[Mountain Giant]]: An even bigger, but somewhat less stupid, variant of the hill giant. Roughly 3/4s of all mountain giants are male, which contributes to their small population.
* [[Ocean Giant]]: Basically giant [[Merfolk]].  They normally have a fish body but can change it into legs if they need to.
* [[Plains Giant]]: One of four giant species indigenous to the [[Dark Sun]] setting, these are the benevolent giants indigenous to the Sea of Silt. Smarter and less malevolent, they are more likely to integrate themselves into mainstream Athasian society.  Their hair is prized as the best rope that exists.
* [[Reef Giant]]: Sea-dwelling, isolationist giants native to the [[Al-Qadim]] setting.
* [[Sand Giant]]: Lawful neutral desert dwelling giants that are 12 feet tall and have dark skin.  They wield scimitars and exotic weapons called sand blasters.
* [[Shadow Giant]]: There are two completely different monsters called Shadow Giants.
** Undead giants trapped in the Black, one of the [[plane]]s of [[Dark Sun]]. Can drain life with a touch, but are incredibly vulnerable to pure magical energy, to the point that a wizard can literally hurt them with a touch.
** In other settings, Shadow Giants are a race feared and hated by other giants due to their reputation for being murderers and assassins.  They are the only type of giant that likes to be sneaky.  They are sensitive to sunlight and have several darkness related abilities.
* [[Sea Giant]]:  Giants underwater, [[Derp|without any fish features at all]].  What were they thinking?
* [[Spacesea Giant]]: Also known as Rover Giants, these are a variant strain of [[Stone Giant]] descended from giants taken prisoner by the [[Neogi]], but who escaped. More intelligent and adept at arcane magic, they are nomadic merchants and explorers who use vessels of magically shaped stone to travel through the crystal spheres.
* [[Sun Giant]]: Nomadic giants found in deserts.  They are immune to fire and vulnerable to cold
* [[Verbeeg]]: A giant-kin race who often use their superior brains to enslave and command the bigger but dumber ogres and hill giants.
* [[Voadkyn]]: Also known as Wood Giants, a forest-dwelling giant-kin race who resemble oversized elves.