Giant

Giant is the name given to a large number of over-sized humanoids living on Golarion.

Appearance

All giants share one common trait: massive humanoid forms. They often range from 12 to 40 feet tall and measure their weight in tons.

Culture

There are many forms of giant on Golarion broadly classifiable into two categories: true giants and giantkin. True giants are sometimes referred to as giantkind.

Language

Though potentially able to speak many languages, giants also have a common language known simply as Giant or Jotun. The language of the giants that exists today is a mixture of Cyclops and Thassilonian. First used by the giant slaves of the runelords in the time before Earthfall, it spread to the rest of Golarion after the destruction of that realm.

Religion

Giants worship many deities depending on their outlook on life: some giants are thoroughly evil, others much more benign. Their worship can vary considerably by giant race and culture, but all exemplify strength and many incorporate the elements as well.

Creation Myth

According to the myths of a number of giantkind, true giants are the mortal descendants of titans, who themselves were the children of the gods. Like other species, the progenitors of today's giants migrated to different parts of Golarion where they adapted to their local environments, eventually transforming into the many varieties who exist now.

Giantkind

Marsh Giant

Marsh giants trace their lineage back to their progenitors who committed some unforgivable sin and were banished from their ancestral home to the dank misery of the marshland, where they eke out a meager existence to this day.

Appearance

Marsh giants are small by giant standards, standing only 11 feet tall on average. These swamp-dwelling giants appear squat yet bulky, with particularly repulsive faces which all seem too flat apart from their grotesquely bulging eyes. A marsh giant's skin is the color of fetid swamp water, a sickly gray-green hue. Marsh giants normally adorn themselves in primitive leather or animal skins and often carry crude fetishes made of wood or bone.

Habitat and Ecology

Despite their name, marsh giants actually prefer to dwell in swamps and bayous, living in some of the most fetid remote wetlands in Avistan particularly in southern Varisia and Cheliax. They prefer saltwater swamps over freshwater ones as these provide the easiest access to the sea where marsh giants perform their darkest rituals. Marsh giants are reluctant vegetarians—the swamps they live in do not support much life that is large enough to sustain giants—so their diet consists of roots, mushrooms and bitter swamp fruits. The only meat they can eat is that of huge swamp inhabitants like crocodiles and dire animals. This is believed to be the foundation of reports of people who claim to have seen marsh giant wrestling with huge swamp creatures.

Abilities

Like all giants, marsh giants are adept at hurling rocks to crush their opponents. They also can create an obscuring mist and can curse their opponents.

Society

Marsh giants live in small primitive tribes of around 20 giants, and dwell in dismal hovels either unevenly propped above the murky water or huddled on some small muddy hillock. A marsh giant's role in the tribe is determined by their gender. Males spend their days scavenging for food, hoping for large game to hunt. Any animals they do catch are normally devoured on the spot. The females stay at home poorly performing domestic chores and imbibing toxic mushrooms. Marsh giants believe the visions granted by these poisonous fungi allow them to communicate with the spirits. In fact all the mushrooms do is leave the marsh giants dazed and poisons their milk ensuring the next generation is even stupider than the last.
They prefer to eat the flesh of those they slay in battle, but many are also cannibals. It is perhaps this vicious behavior that keeps the creatures in check, for if a fellow marsh giant becomes too dangerous and powerful, it runs the risk of being ambushed and consumed by its clan.
Marsh giants are insular and mysterious, dedicating much of their lives to zealous worship of sea-dwelling deities or stranger entities. While there is no central religion followed by all marsh giants, many are known to venerate the demon lord Dagon, while others worship even more powerful monstrosities from the Old Cults, such as distant, dreaming Cthulhu.
Only rarely do more than a dozen marsh giants settle together in a location, but when they do it is often for a religious purpose. Whatever call from the deep draws them together also tugs at nearby creatures such as boggards or Skum, who look upon marsh giants in fear and reverence. The grim, terrifying chants and screams coming from such an encampment are a sure sign of terror to come for any other residents of the area.

Yib

The Fellowship encountered a marsh giantess that called herself Yib while in Illmarsh. She was in the service of Father Volatario, leader of the Recondite Order of the Indomitable Sea, which was actually cult of Dagon.

Taiga Giant

Taiga giants, known as Urganta ("people" in Giant) among themselves, are enormous nomadic hunters who roam the harshest northern reaches of Avistan and Casmaron following the herds of aurochs, mammoth, and elk found there.

Appearance

Taiga giants range between 17 and 20 feet tall and weigh up to 10,000 pounds. Women tend to be about a foot shorter than men. Their skin is colored brown, and usually extensively decorated with tattoos. Taiga giants often dab their skin with dried mud and foliage to create a kind of camouflage.

Habitat & Ecology

Taiga giants are wanderlustful nomads who constantly seek large prey and avoid civilization. They prefer hilly or forested habitats, but occasionally their wanderings will take them into colder northern domains.
They will occasionally raid villages of smaller humanoids for supplies, and believe that there is nothing immoral about this. Such raids can ruin a settlement, however, and their inhabitants try to provide an annual offering of tribute when a clan of taiga giants draw near.
They are extremely patient while hunting their large prey, and fight alongside their animal companion (dire wolves, dire bears, and smilodons) for good effect.
Taiga giants are contemptuous of any humanoid much smaller than themselves, are friendly with hill giants and stone giants, and will tolerate ogres.

History

Taiga giants believe that they are the original giant tribe, and that the various giant tribes descend from them. This is a belief that modern Avistani scholars largely believe to be true.

Culture

Taiga giants possess the remarkable ability to summon their ancestral spirits to consult with and do battle alongside them. More than any of the other giant races, they regard these spirits with great fear and reverence, and feel that the ghosts of their ancestors bestow great wisdom and power. Insulting their ancestors, or raising false rumors of ancient taiga giants creating the first rune giants, reliably incites swift retribution.
Clans venerate their most prominent ancestors and names itself accordingly, such as "Cliffsmiter" or "Mountainripper", though they rarely share the stories behind such grand names with strangers.
Hunters and warriors of taiga tribes wear enjoy wearing jewelry and fetishes, crafted to represent ancestor spirits are animal totems. In battle they beseech the many spirits to aid them, and do not see it as offensive to any single spirit if they seek the aid of dozens of spirits represented by their carved pieces of jewelry.
Taiga giants are great lovers of song, and spent their evenings in camp filling the air with their unique music.
Finally, taiga giants cover themselves head to toe with scars and clan tattoos. These tattoos are narratives of epic battles and tales from taiga history, and serve as a name for the inked individual. Receiving the scars and tattoos is a coming of age ritual for young giants, painfully inscribed upon them by the tribe's eldest shaman or bard.

Torrian

The Fellowship previously encountered a taiga giant named Torrian the Cursed in the wilds of Versex. He had proclaimed, "I WILL CRUSH AND MAKE BREAD OF YOUR BONES AND YOU WILL FEED MY ANCESTORS!" During the course of the battle, Torrian fought with a giant tree club and summoned two giant wolverines as well, but was eventually felled with an electric arc from Neferu.

Average Height

12 to 40 feet tall

Average Weight

Tons

Geographic Distribution

• Versex

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