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My BIG baddies


Mr. R

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Well I have an Empire.  I have a partially explored mountain range to the north and south.  Large forests east and west.  Past the northern mountains are a desert and after that a grassland.  Also a Jungle area to the north west and a LONG mountain chain running north south.  

 

Now I am running no elves or dwarves, just humans, but occasionally you want an opponent that the players can bash on.  Usually this is .... orcs.  But I want to get away from that.  So I thought what other enemies come from mythology that I can use, and I came up with one.  Used by Norse and Celtic stories.  Giants!

 

Even if I make the just 2x bigger than humans they'll have a lot of advantages over regular humans.

 

Now just the need to find places to put them so they can be a recurring threat to the humans of the Central Basin.

 

So how does this sound?

 

I like it better than the dumb orc stereotype, and I am thinking of taking the Firbolg from Tuala Morn and just plopping them in.  

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People do variations on orcs for a variety of reasons.

 

The main reason in my opinion is that the orcish motivations are simple: they can use the stuff the humans make.

 

They need clothes, humans have clothes. They need jewelry, humans have jewelry. They need a sword, humans have swords.

 

Their needs overlap with human needs very neatly so it provides easy motivation for conflict.

 

The main problem with giants, they don't need the clothes or weapons which humans use. They can't live in human housing. They can't use human vehicles. They couldn't wear most human jewelry. They can't use horses except maybe for food.

 

I guess if the giants supported themselves through farming, they could compete for land. Or if they just raided for food, but it's less exciting to rescue the king's wagon load of wheat than it is bringing back rarer treasures.

 

It'd be rare for the PC's to kill a giant and find usable equipment. The clothes, rings, weapons, belts, shields just aren't going to be interchangable between the species.

 

If you're introducing giants as the main opponents but denying the PC's the opportunity to get usable stuff when they win a fight, that's something which could make a party restless unless they knew in advance that the campaign treasure was going to be sucky. Sure, a smith can always melt down oversized metal goods but the bulk rate return on selling scrap iron to a smith has got to be pretty crappy.

 

2 cents

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Depending on the giants, they may eat or enslave humans.

 

They can be pedestrian dullards, they can fly around in cloud ships, or anything in between.

 

Not all giants are necessarily malevolent. The friendly ones can make useful allies. They can also be intermediaries with the gods - Thor as king of the Storm Giants, and nemesis of the Frost (and Fire) Giants.

 

Regardless of type, mountains are a good place to put giants.

 

You don't seem to have a sea, which would be another option.

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2 hours ago, assault said:

Depending on the giants, they may eat or enslave humans.

 

They can be pedestrian dullards, they can fly around in cloud ships, or anything in between.

 

Not all giants are necessarily malevolent. The friendly ones can make useful allies. They can also be intermediaries with the gods - Thor as king of the Storm Giants, and nemesis of the Frost (and Fire) Giants.

 

Regardless of type, mountains are a good place to put giants.

 

You don't seem to have a sea, which would be another option.

 

 

There is a VERY large inland sea (like all the Great Lakes Combined but larger) as well as Island Kingdoms to the west of the continent and another to the southeast!

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Giants were opponents of the Gods in both Norse and Greek (the Titanomachy) mythologies, so those are places to look for inspiration.

 

In one setting I used, giants were an "elder race," slowly vanishing from the world, leaving behind ruins and cryptic monuments, and represented in the present by isolated individuals wielding strange powers that might be magic or technology, holding onto ancient fears, grudges, ambitions, or just habits, with tired monomaniacal zeal.

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6 hours ago, Opal said:

Giants were opponents of the Gods in both Norse and Greek (the Titanomachy) mythologies, so those are places to look for inspiration.

 

In one setting I used, giants were an "elder race," slowly vanishing from the world, leaving behind ruins and cryptic monuments, and represented in the present by isolated individuals wielding strange powers that might be magic or technology, holding onto ancient fears, grudges, ambitions, or just habits, with tired monomaniacal zeal.

 

Ohhhh!  I like that!

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10 hours ago, Opal said:

Giants were opponents of the Gods in both Norse and Greek (the Titanomachy) mythologies, so those are places to look for inspiration.

 

In one setting I used, giants were an "elder race," slowly vanishing from the world, leaving behind ruins and cryptic monuments, and represented in the present by isolated individuals wielding strange powers that might be magic or technology, holding onto ancient fears, grudges, ambitions, or just habits, with tired monomaniacal zeal.

 

3 hours ago, Mr. R said:

 

Ohhhh!  I like that!

 

That might also explain the giants' motivations (since, as @archer mentioned, they don't need human stuff in general, like orcs do). If the humans occupy the lands that the giants once held, then that means the ancient and sacred places of power for the giants, which might hold the keys to a return to dominance, are in human possession. Perhaps the giants have a leader who seeks to return them to prominence by retaking those places and reclaiming their lost secrets...

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10 hours ago, Derek Hiemforth said:

 

 

 

That might also explain the giants' motivations (since, as @archer mentioned, they don't need human stuff in general, like orcs do). If the humans occupy the lands that the giants once held, then that means the ancient and sacred places of power for the giants, which might hold the keys to a return to dominance, are in human possession. Perhaps the giants have a leader who seeks to return them to prominence by retaking those places and reclaiming their lost secrets...

 

 

NICE!

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In the Norse myths, giants are portrayed as elemental beings of chaos and change. The Norse gods themselves are a representation of order, kind of forcing themselves onto the universe. There's not a lot of "rampaging giants" in Midgard, it is mostly gods seeking out trouble with the giants. Taking items of power, looking for a fight. In fact, on numerous occasions, the powers of the giants are a match for the gods.

Taking the previous idea of a race in decline, humans would represent that same ordering force as the gods in the sagas. And yeah, the giants might very well be hell bent on tearing down that order (in general) due to that slow advance. But, being chaotic beings by nature, they don't really play nice in groups. Which is a societal weakness that might be contributing to their decline.

You might find them in places that are strong in elemental energies. Places not so hospitable to (human) life. Tops of mountains, the desert, maybe even some parts of the inland sea you mentioned. It could be they lose some power when ranging too far from those places because humans have supplanted them in places of power elsewhere. The chaotic elemental energies were "tamed" by humans, as it were.

Just some rambly thoughts way too early in the morning when I can't get back to sleep.

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9 hours ago, theinfn8 said:

In the Norse myths, giants are portrayed as elemental beings of chaos and change. The Norse gods themselves are a representation of order, kind of forcing themselves onto the universe. There's not a lot of "rampaging giants" in Midgard, it is mostly gods seeking out trouble with the giants. Taking items of power, looking for a fight. In fact, on numerous occasions, the powers of the giants are a match for the gods.

Taking the previous idea of a race in decline, humans would represent that same ordering force as the gods in the sagas. And yeah, the giants might very well be hell bent on tearing down that order (in general) due to that slow advance. But, being chaotic beings by nature, they don't really play nice in groups. Which is a societal weakness that might be contributing to their decline.

You might find them in places that are strong in elemental energies. Places not so hospitable to (human) life. Tops of mountains, the desert, maybe even some parts of the inland sea you mentioned. It could be they lose some power when ranging too far from those places because humans have supplanted them in places of power elsewhere. The chaotic elemental energies were "tamed" by humans, as it were.

Just some rambly thoughts way too early in the morning when I can't get back to sleep.

Nice!

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  • 3 months later...

I was reading this blog and this guy has an interesting take on trolls

 

https://mythlands-erce.blogspot.com/

 

And here is the specific for trolls

 

g

https://mythlands-erce.blogspot.com/search?q=troll

 

 

I like this as makes for human sized opponent and the related magic items (Goblins), the scarier BIGGER goblins (Bugbears) But still with good sized magic items, the big boy, you need a whole group to take them goblins (Ogre and Trolls), the magical leader types (Ogre Magi and Hags), and maybe even a BIG BIG guy (can we say Giant). 

 

When they attack en mass it is a major event, and a large force of Goblins backed up by Ogres, Trolls and Magic would be a epic tale!

 

What do you think!

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Depending on how tall humans are in your world a Giant does not have to be 12 feet tall.  Most people in the middle ages were not that tall.  Little John of Robinhood was supposed to be about 6 feet tall, and he was considered to be nearly a giant.   Make your Giants be around 7’ -8’ tall and they will still could still tower over people without having a the equivalent of a level of growth.  

 

The guy in the second picture is JJ Watt who is a 6' 5" NFL player.

 

George Muresan.jpg

Yao Ming & JJ Watt.jpg

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Remember Gort, the giant from Hawk the Slayer (played by Bernard Bresslaw)? He was larger than normal, but not significantly larger than the others. He could even ride a normal horse.

 

1c65ab52cfc1885e03e2c2a01e4a4071_3x3.jpg

 

5th Edition Fantasy HERO had Size modifiers for characters that were larger or smaller than humans. The writeups used modifiers to CHAR, Running, and other abilities without using Growth or Shrinking.

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26 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

If you want goblins as the small, magical tricksters of troll-kind, don't forget the Goblin Market that sells treasures and wonders, where the price is always right... and so very, very wrong.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

"We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Etc 

 

On examples of giant humans: Andre 

 

"He is the brute squad!".

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Oh, right. For reference, assault is quoting from "The Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti.

 

Backwards up the mossy glen

Turned and trooped the goblin men,

With their shrill, repeated cry,

"Come buy, come buy."

 

In similar vein is William Butler Yeats' "The Stolen Child":

Come away, O human child!

To the water and the wild

With a fairy hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

 

I think it's often a good idea to go back to source material, or to see what great artists have done with it and steal shamelessly from them.

 

Dean Shomshak

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