Giant-Kin

Giant

The giants of Toril are a venerable people with a tragic history, but a strong sense of optimism. To most civilized peoples of the Realms (all save for those who live in the few areas frequented by the Jotunbrud), they are frightening enigmas, known mostly through legends and tavern tall tales.

The giants themselves regard the creatures who can trace their lineage back to the union of Annam and Othea as "true" giants. This group primarily includes: ettins, hill giants, stone giants, frost giants, fire giants, cloud giants, storm giants, and titans. Mountain giants descended from hill giants and fog giants are an off-shoot of the cloud giants (both breeds broke off from their ancestors in the aftermath of civil wars that occurred thousands of years ago). Because they can still trace their lineage back to Annam and Othea, both of these rogue breeds are
considered true giants.

Breeds that trace their heritage back to the union of Othea and Ulutiu are known as giant-kin. This group includes firbolgs, verbeegs, fomorians, and voadkyn. (Originally, voadkyn were thought to be the product of Annam and Othea and thus accepted as true giants, though the Jötunnbrud now know otherwise.) Because they are still ashamed of their mother's betrayal, the true giants look down upon the giant-kin and would be extremely offended by a well-meaning human who mistakes a kin for a true giant.

Ogres trace their lineage back to an illicit affair between Othea and Vaprak, the minor deity who later became their patron. In the eyes of other giants, they are no better than kin.

Not even the giants know what to make of the cyclopes and cyclopskin. Though these unfortunates have tried to claim the legacy of Annam for thousands of years, most giants believe the one-eyed brutes stem from another of Othea's dalliances.

Ogre

Ogres are a lesser race of giant-kin. They were formed when Othea, wife of giant deity Annam All-Father, had an affair with Vaprak, which later became their pathron deity. Because of this ogres are in the eyes of "true" giants no better than kin. They stand between 9 and 10-feet tall and can weigh up to 650 lbs. They tend to be lazy and brutish, preferring to rely on ambush and overwhelming numbers in battle. They join other monsters to pray on the weak and associate freely with ogre mages, gaints, and trolls. Dwelling in small tribal groups, ogres occupy any convient location and eat nearly anything they can catch, steal, or slay. Ogres sometimes accept mercenary service with other evil humanoids (including humans). Their clothing consists of poorly cured furs and hides, which add to their natural repellend odor.


Racial Traits:

- Ability Adjustments: +10 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +4 Constitution, -4 Intelligence, -4 Charisma.

- Darkvision: Ogres can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

- Long Gait: Ogres base land speed is 40 feet. Their gait is long and loping and they can cover great distances quickly.

- Natural Armor: +3 Natural Armor Bonus.

- Armor, Weapon & Shield Affinity: Ogres are naturally proficient with all light armors, medium armors, simple weapons, martial weapons and shields, except tower shields.

- Favored Class: Barbarian. A multiclass ogre's barbarian class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.

- Level Adjustment +2: Ogres are more powerful and gain levels more slowly than other races. It will take more experience for a ogre to reach level 2 than it would for normal races, for example.

Verbeeg

Known as "human behemoths, these human giants inhabit areas infested with hill giants and ogres.
Verbeegs vary in height from 8½ to 10 feet tall, and weigh between 300 and 400 pounds. They are unusually thin for their height, although this does not inhibit their fighting ability. Some have minor deformities, such as club foot, uneven eyes, hair lips, etc. In all other respects they appear human, including skin, hair, and eye color. They wear as much protective clothing and armor as they can obtain, which isn't much. Usually they wear furs and hides with pieces of metal armor stitched into strategic places. They almost always carry shields and have the best weapons they can steal. Typically this means clubs and spears.

Verbeegs are notorious mercenaries and rogues. Though they have their own settlements and societies, they are frequently encountered alongside hill giants and ogres. In fact, outside of the Ice Spires, some verbeegs have been known to actually claw their way to dominion over small hill or frost giant tribes - an obvious byproduct of their unrivaled cunning. Although the firbolgs speak loudest of kin unity, the verbeegs tend to make their half-brothers, the giants, the most uncomfortable. Their omnipresence in giant society, obvious intelligence, and penchant for underhandedness add up to make some of the more skittish members of the Jötunnbrud a bit neurotic. A few particularly addled giants have convinced themselves that the verbeegs have already united all the kin and are carrying out a plan of infiltration aimed at conquering and enslaving all the giant races. Usually, such paranoiacs also spread rumors of a vast, unseen population of verbeegs and a huge underground verbeeg kingdom that is connected to a network of tunnels that criss-crosses the Ice Spires. Of course, it's extremely doubtful that any of these rumors contain more than the smallest kernel of truth, though the Jötunnbrud still have plenty to worry about.

Many of the verbeeg servants and laborers have been planted in the various giant steadings as spies at the behest of a mysterious figure who is actually no less than an avatar of the giant god Karantor himself. Years ago, Karantor actively recruited followers in all the largest verbeeg tribes and directed his priests to force the verbeegs to follow the dictums of the mysterious stranger who occasionally came to visit bearing treasure in exchange for promises of fealty. Only the priests are aware that the stranger — who takes a slightly different form in each settlement he visits — is actually Karantor’s avatar. For hundreds of years now, spies dispatched by the avatar have been keeping Karantor informed of the comings and goings in many of Faerun’s most prominent Jötunnbrud settlements. Recently, the avatar has also started dispatching some of his verbeeg servants to collect specific artifacts scattered all across Toril’s surface. Exactly what Karantor has in mind for the verbeegs and how they are assisting him remains a mystery.

Besides treachery, verbeegs are well known for their skill as thieves. Verbeegs are particularly well suited to this role since they have no concept of private property. To them, all things are owned by all people. Anything they can steal they feel they deserve to own. Visitors foolish enough to sleep in verbeeg settlements often awake to find their supplies, equipment, and sometimes even their clothing missing.


Racial Traits:

- Ability Adjustments: +8 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +6 Constitution, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma.

- Low-Light Vision: A verbeeg can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination.

- Long Gait: Verbeegs base land speed is 40 feet. Their gait is long and loping and they can cover great distances quickly.

- Armor, Weapon & Shield Affinity: Verbeegs are naturally proficient with all light armors, medium armors, simple weapons, martial weapons and shields, except tower shields.

- Natural Armor: Natural armor +2.

- Skills: +2 racial bonus to Move Silently, Bluff, and Hide checks.

- Favored Class: Rogue. A multiclass verbeeg's rogue class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.

- Level Adjustment +2: Verbeegs are slightly more powerful and gain levels more slowly than other races. It will take more experience for a verbeeg to reach level 2 than it would for normal races, for example.

Voadkyn

Wood giants (also known as voadkyn) are one of the smallest of the minor races of giants, looking somewhat like giant-sized wood elves. They are flighty, frivolous, and good friends with wood elves. Standing 9 1/2 feet tall, wood giants weigh around 700 pounds. They have the physical proportions of humans, which makes them thin and light for giants. They are completely devoid of facial and body hair, including eyebrows. Their heads seem overly large for their bodies, especially the jaws, chin, and mouth. Their ears are placed higher than on a human, almost completely above the line of the eyes. Wood giants can be almost any shade of brown, mixed
with yellow or green.

Voadkyn all but abandoned most contact with their half brothers long ago. According to their own legends, the voadkyn noticed that Annam had not allocated Ostoria's forests to any of his sons and seized them as their own more than six thousand years ago. Today, few voadkyn live near the giant steadings and the Ice Spires. Rumor has it that an unusually large number of wood giants (as the voadkyn sometimes refer to themselves) can be found living with treants and wood elves deep in the Cold Wood. For many years, the Jötunnbrud accepted the voadkyn as equals. Ultimately though, one of the earliest giant stormazîns discovered that Dunmore, the progenitor of the voadkyn, was actually sired by Ulutiu and not Annam. Apparently, Othea tricked Annam into accepting Dunmore as his own so she’d always have a sort of "spy" among the elders of the Jötunnbrud.

Despite the evidence uncovered by the stormazîn, however, the voadkyn continue to claim Annam’s parentage. This fervent belief makes the wood giants an aloof and haughty race, who see themselves as far removed from the verbeegs and firbolgs. As for the giants, voadkyn believe themselves superior to most of the Jötunnbrud, whom they still regard as the betrayers of Othea. Believing themselves to be unjustly placed near the bottom of the ordning, the voadkyn are an unhappy, brooding bunch. While they live comfortably and in peace with the elves and fairies of the forests, there is no frolic in a voadkyn settlement. Jocularity, in fact, is distinctly frowned upon and can make for long, long silences in a conversation with these kin.

While the voadkyn are deeply unhappy with their station in life, they are just as deeply pleased with their life in the forests. Seeing the wooded area as their property to tend, the voadkyn are not content to simply let things grow as they may. They wish to increase the natural beauty around them with advanced gardening techniques designed to both appear natural and transcendent at the same time. To this end, scores of giant-kin under the direction of a voadkyn "architect" construct elaborate walking gardens and sculpted labyrinths. While the latter are monuments to nature's beauty, it should be noted that more than a few of the voadkyn's enemies have entered these labyrinths, never to be heard from again. Many legends exist in the Ice Spires describing vast mazes of enchanted shrub sculptures in the Forgotten Forest and the wondrous treasures located at their center. What these treasures might be changes with each storyteller and skald, though most agree that one such trove could buy a kingdom.


Racial Traits:

- Ability Adjustments: +6 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +4 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, +4 Wisdom, -2 Charisma.

- Low-Light Vision: A voadkyn can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination.

- Long Gait: Voadkyn base land speed is 40 feet. Their gait is long and loping and they can cover great distances quickly.

- Armor, Weapon & Shield Affinity: Voadkyn are naturally proficient with all light armors, medium armors, simple weapons, martial weapons and shields, except tower shields.

- Natural Armor: Natural armor +1.

- Keen Senses: Voadkyn senses are sharp indeed.

- Favored Class: Druid. A multiclass voadkyn's druid class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.

- Level Adjustment +2: Voadkyn are slightly more powerful and gain levels more slowly than other races. It will take more experience for a voadkyn to reach level 2 than it would for normal races, for example.

Fomorian

Fomorians are the most hideous, deformed, and wicked of all giant-kin.
The fomorian giants are all grossly deformed behemoths. Each has a different set of deformities, which must be determined. A partial list of deformations includes misplaced limb, misshapen limb, misplaced facial feature, hunchbacked, bulging body part, drooping flesh, body part too big or too small, flapping ears, huge snout, large feet on short legs. They have thick, hairy hides, combined with the pelts and odd metal bits they wear for protection and as clothings. They have scattered patches of hair as tough as wire on their pale white skin. Large warts and other growths are scattered across their bodies. There is no single odor associated with fomorians; some smell strongly due to overactive sweat glands, others have no smell. Their voices are also each different due to their unique deformities.

Fomorians live in mountain caves, abandoned mines, or other subterranean realms. They rarely modify their homes, but adapt to what is already there. These deformed giants wander throughout the underground complex, for almost any distance, stopped only by hazards they do not want to challenge. A fomorian clan picks a small, (to them) defensible alcove for a lair. Their territories are sometimes marked by the bodies of their enemies. Their treasure consists only of stolen items from enemies. Pieces of armor are added to their own patchwork protection. Since they do not care for it, this armor quickly deteriorates and becomes worthless.

Their society is ruled by depravity and wickedness. The strongest and cruelest giant rules over all the others within reach, which is usually a small number. The women and children are treated as slaves. Acts of violence are common among fomorians, sometimes resulting in permanent injury or death. Fomorian giants have been known to work with other creatures for evil causes. Usually the other creatures must completely dominate the fomorians, or be capable of it, to form the alliance. Such an agreement lasts only as long as the fomorians fear their cohorts. Once their interests no longer coincide or the fomorians no longer feel threatened, they double-cross their partners, as quickly as possible.

These twisted giants can live for weeks on little or no food. This is good, because their underground dwellings do not provide an abundance of it. They can eat almost any organic material, including fungi, lichens, plants of all sorts, bats, mice and fish. They particularly savor the taste of large mammals, especially those that beg not to be eaten. Preparing a meal usually involves torture rather than any efforts to improve its taste.


Racial Traits:

- Ability Adjustments: +12 Strength, +8 Constitution, -4 Intelligence, -4, Wisdom, -4 Charisma.

- Darkvision: Fomorians can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

- Long Gait: Fomorians base land speed is 40 feet. Their gait is long and loping and they can cover great distances quickly.

- Natural Armor: +3 Natural Armor Bonus.

- Armor, Weapon & Shield Affinity: Fomorians are naturally proficient with all light armors, medium armors, simple weapons, martial weapons and shields, except tower shields.

- Favored Class: Barbarian. A multiclass fomorian's barbarian class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.

- Level Adjustment +2: Fomorians are more powerful and gain levels more slowly than other races. It will take more experience for a fomorian to reach level 2 than it would for normal races, for example.

Ice Spire Ogre

Ice Spire ogres are bigger, smarter, and more dangerous than their more numerous cousins. They keep herds of krotter, raid and pillage, and even hire themselves out as mercenaries. Ice Spire ogres are low on the totem pole of giants and giant-kin in the Ice Spires region. Most of the Ice Spire ogres live in a vast network of caves and caverns located high in the Ice Spire mountains. This range lies south of the Great Glacier, north of Citadel Adbar, east of the Coldwood, and west of Anauroch. A thick, choking mist from vents deep within these caves permeates the entirety of the network. The ogres that inhabit this network worship Vaprak the Destroyer, the great ogre god. They've also followed the instructions of Lanaxis, the Twilight Spirit, in the past. Another tribe of Ice Spire ogres inhabits an icy chasm known as the Dour Fissure and revere the demon lord Baphomet.

Ice Spire ogres stand a full 10-feet high, and weigh 500 to 600 pounds. Their skin color ranges from yellow to brown-black, their hair is a dirty gray, and their eyes gleam a startling shade of purple. Ice Spire ogres even smell worse than the ogres found across Faerun, a scent comparable to rotting flesh.


Racial Traits:

- Ability Adjustments: +10 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +4 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -4 Charisma.

- Long Gait: Ice Spire ogres base land speed is 40 feet. Their gait is long and loping and they can cover great distances quickly.

- Poison Resistance: Ice Spire ogres are more resistant to gases and poisons than typical ogres. They receive a +2 racial bonus to Fortitude saves against poison.

- Skills: Ice Spire ogres have adapted to their environment and are canny hunters. They receive a +4 racial bonus to Move Silently checks and +2 racial bonus to Hide checks.

- Natural Armor: +3 Natural Armor Bonus.

- Armor, Weapon & Shield Affinity: Ice Spire ogres are naturally proficient with all light armors, medium armors, simple weapons, martial weapons and shields, except tower shields.

- Favored Class: Barbarian. A multiclass ice spire ogre's barbarian class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.

- Level Adjustment +2: Ice Spire ogres are more powerful and gain levels more slowly than other races. It will take more experience for a ice spire ogre to reach level 2 than it would for normal races, for example.

Half-Ogre

The same wild frontiers that produce half-orcs from unions between tribes of human and orc barbarians are where one most often finds half-ogres. Ogres and humans fight in times of war and trade in times of peace. Ogres value humans’intelligence and adaptability, while humans value ogres’strength and toughness. The resulting half-ogres usually inherit a good blend of the physical characteristics of their parents. They may be found in either parent’s community (where their status varies according to local sentiment). Half-ogres are generally slow in intelligence but quick to anger. Where a half-orc understands alternatives to action, half-ogres generally do not. Those who are successful, however, are those with enough self-control to live in a civilized land.

Half-ogres love simple pleasures such as feasting, drinking, boasting, wrestling, drumming, and wild dancing. While some claim to be able to sing, few other races would agree. A half-ogre is likely to assume that refined enjoyments such as poetry, courtly dancing, and philosophy are just tools for making fun of him. Half-ogres are taller than humans or half-orcs, but not as tall as pureblood ogres. Their skin color ranges from dull yellow to dull brown. Their thick hides sport patches of dark, warty bumps, and they generally have dark hair.


Racial Traits:

- Ability Adjustments: +6 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma.

- Darkvision: Half-ogres can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

- Armor, Shield & Weapon Affinity: Half-ogres are natural proficient with all simple weapons, light armors, medium armors, as well as shields, excpect tower shields.

- Monkey Grip: Due to their powerful build, half-ogres can use two-handed melee weapons one-handed.

- Natural Armor: The tough hide of half-ogres gives them a natural armor bonus of +3.

- Favored Class: Barbarian. A multiclass half-ogre's barbarian class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty. Half-ogres are pure adrenalin junkies and even outmatch mountain orcs in their rage.

- Level Adjustment +1: Half-ogres are slightly more powerful and gain levels more slowly than most of the other common races of Faerun.

Taer

Primitive hunters of the icebound north, taers are cruel and savage creatures who haunt the remote mountains and passes of the East. They launch war parties into warmer lands, carrying off livestock, food stores, or even people for the clan's larder. Even more so than other evil folk such as orcs or gnolls, taers are regarded by other races as crude, bloodthirty beasts without a single redeeming quality.

Although taers regard other creatures as potential enemies or meals, they possess a surpringly complex store of oral histories, rules for conduct without he clan, and tribal wisdom. Long ago, the race developed a comprehensive code to govern its tendency toward violence, at least between its own members. Anyone not of the taer's clan is beyond the protection of this code and can be robbed, murdered, or eaten at will. Those few taers who wander into civilized lands either extend their concept of "clan" to some other set of intelligent creatures, such as a group of bandits, a village, or an adventuring band, or quickly die at the hands of an angry mob.

Taers are powefully build creatures about 5 to 6 feet in height, with thickly muscled arms and ape-like faces. They are covered in thick white fur that blends in with snowy backgrounds, although their hands and faces are bare of fur. Beneath their fur, their skin is dark grey and leathery in texture. A male taer weighs about 220 pounds, while a female is more lightly built, weighting about 18- pounds. Taers carry
themselves in a crouch, their knuckles almost dragging on the ground; a taer that straightens up stands almost 7 feet in height.


Racial Traits:

- Ability Adjustments: +4 Strength, +2 Constitution, -4 Intelligence, -2 Charisma.

- Darkvision: Taers can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

- Natural Armor +2: The thick fur and hide of taers makes them more resistant to attacks.

- Cold Resistance: Taers have cold resistance 55 and only take half damage from cold based spells or attacks.

- Armor, Weapon & Shield Affinity: Taers are naturally proficient with all light armors, medium armors, simple weapons, martial weapons and shields, except tower shields.

- Favored Class: Barbarian. A multiclass taer's barbarian class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.

- Level Adjustment +1: Taers are powerful and gain levels more slowly than other races. It will take much experience for a taer to reach level 2 than it would for normal races, for example.