Goliath

Tribal nomads of the mountains, strong as the rock and proud as the peak

Goliaths are mountain-dwelling nomads who see life as a grand competition. Their scattered bands have never been major players in the politics of the lowland world, but they have wandered the mountain ranges of the world since the primordials first shaped the peaks and valleys. Tall and massive, goliaths revere the primal power of nature and use it to enhance their own strength.

Physical Qualities

Goliaths tower over even dragonborn, standing between 7 and 8 feet tall. Their skin is gray or brown, mottled with darker patches that they believe hint at some aspect of each goliath’s fate or destiny. Their skin is speckled with lithoderms, coin-sized growths of bone that appear like pebbles studding their arms, shoulders, torso, and head. A bony ridge juts over their gleaming blue or green eyes. Male goliaths are bald, and females have dark hair they typically grow long and wear in braids.

Goliaths have life spans comparable to those of humans.

Playing a Goliath

Goliaths are driven by a fierce love of competition. Anything that can be conceived as a challenge invites goliaths to keep score, tracking their progress against both their comrades and themselves. A goliath fighter might remark on how many times he has drawn first blood in battle within a particular dungeon compared to the party’s rogue, and he’s certainly mentally tracking his own performance against his last adventure. This competitiveness takes the form of good-natured rivalry among goliaths. As a race they have no patience for cheaters, gloaters, or sore losers, but goliaths can be very hard on themselves when they fail to measure up to their own past accomplishments.

Daring that borders on foolhardiness is also a common trait among goliaths. They have no fear of heights, climbing sheer mountain cliffs and leaping great chasms with ease. Their nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering instills in them an inquisitive interest in whatever lies over the next ridge or at the head of a canyon. To a wandering hunter’s mind, that curiosity can lead to better hunting grounds or a good water source that would otherwise go undiscovered.

Goliaths respect and revere the natural world, and goliath adventurers commonly draw on the primal power source. Druids and shamans are more common among them than clerics, and goliath priests—called skywatchers—invoke the spirits of nature and their ancestors far more often than they call on the distant gods of the Astral Sea. Some goliath tribes also honor Kord, Melora, and Avandra, particularly those tribes that have frequent contact with other races. Tribes that regularly trade with dwarves sometimes offer sacrifices to Moradin as well.

Goliath Adventurers

Two sample goliath adventurers are described below.

Kavaki was injured in an avalanche as a young man and exiled from his tribe because he was unable to walk with them when they moved to a new hunting ground. His tribe lamented his loss, celebrated his accomplishments, and then left him for dead. However, a ram spirit sheltered him through blizzards and storms until his injury healed, and he now evokes the power of that ram spirit to fuel his barbarian rage. Still cut off from his tribe, Kavaki has found a new family—a group of adventurers—and is determined never again to be in a position where he cannot carry his own weight.

Nalla was a tent-mother for her tribe, caring for infants and toddlers while their parents performed their own tasks on the tribe’s behalf. When her own child died in an orc raid, however, Nalla felt that she could no longer bear to care for children, and she soon exiled herself. As a fighter, she has fallen in with a band of adventurers she now guards with her life, almost as if they were the children of her tribe.

Goliath Characteristics:

Competitive, daring, driven, inquisitive, powerful, reliable, restless, trusting

Male Names:

Aukan, Eglath, Gauthak, Ilikan, Kavaki, Keothi, Lo-Kag, Maveith, Meavoi, Thotham, Vimak

Female Names:

Gae-Al, Kuori, Manneo, Nalla, Orilo, Paavu, Pethani, Thalai, Uthal, Vaunea