Giant

Death giants are a race of terribly evil giants that, in order to preserve their empire from destruction, traded the immortal souls of every one of their kind in exchange for unholy power. It was a poor bargain, and the death giants now live with the mistake of their ancestors.

The souls of death giants are bound for destruction on the Negative Energy Plane, and their link to that profane realm grants them spell-like abilities and great power over the souls of others.

Death giants have dark gray to black skin and yellow eyes. Like stone giants, they lack hair; unlike most giants, their ears come to a point. Their unkempt nails form hard claws, and their teeth are sharp. A death giant stands about 15 feet tall and weighs 2,000 pounds.

Death giants speak Giant and Common.

Death giants are fearsome melee opponents and powerful spellcasters. They prefer to cast spells in combat situations but reserve some for opportune tactics and healing.

Frightful Keening (Su): As a standard action, a death giant can trigger the guardian souls that waft around its body to wail in frightful anguish. Living creatures within 100 feet that hear this keening must make a DC 30 Will save. Success indicates that the creature is shaken until it can no longer hear the keening or moves out of range. Failure causes the creature to be panicked for as long as it can hear the keening and remains within range, and shaken for 24 hours afterward.

Ending the frightful keening is a standard action. This is a sonic, mind-affecting fear ability. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Rock Throwing (Ex): Death giants are accomplished rock throwers and gain a +1 racial bonus on attack rolls when throwing rocks. A death giant can hurl rocks of 60 to 80 pounds (Medium objects) up to five range increments. The range increment is 120 feet for a death giant’s rocks.

Spell-Like Abilities: 3/day⁠—​greater dispel magic, inflict critical wounds (+27 melee touch, DC 21), unholy blight (DC 21); 1/day⁠—​flame strike (DC 22). Caster level 16th.

Steal Soul (Su): Any living creature with 10 or fewer hit points within 15 feet of a death giant must succeed on a DC 30 Fortitude save each round or die instantly. This is a death effect. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Any creature that dies within 15 feet of a death giant has its spirit sucked up into the swirling guardian souls that protect the death giant. Such creatures cannot be raised, resurrected, or reincarnated so long as the death giant lives. Killing the death giant releases the souls.

If a living death giant is within 15 feet of a death giant that dies, the souls are not released and are instead transferred to the nearby death giant due to its steal soul ability.

Under extraordinary circumstances, a living death giant may release a soul it has captured.

Guardian Souls (Su): A death giant’s victims become its guardians in death. Each death giant is surrounded by a constantly swirling cloud of intangible spirits.

These spirits provide the death giant with warnings and protection, granting the creature a bonus on initiative rolls, saves, Listen checks, and Spot checks equal to its Charisma modifier.

A death giant’s will binds its guardian souls to it. They are not ghosts or undead in the usual sense and cannot be damaged, dispelled, or separated from the death giant. Only a successful turning attempt can quell these spirits for a time. If the turning attempt would turn or rebuke an undead with Hit Dice equal to the death giant’s, the guardian souls vanish for 1d10 rounds, and the death giant loses the benefits of its guardian souls, frightful keening, soul healing, and steal soul abilities until the souls return.

Rock Catching (Ex): Once per round, a death giant that would normally be hit by a rock (or projectile of similar shape) can make a Reflex save to catch it as a free action. The DC is 15 for a Small rock, 20 for a Medium one, and 25 for a Large one. (If the projectile provides a magical bonus on attack rolls, the DC increases by that amount.) The giant must be ready for and aware of the attack in order to make a rock-catching attempt.

Sold Soul (Ex): A death giant cannot be raised, resurrected, or reincarnated. If a death giant’s soul is not taken as a guardian soul by another death giant or kept from departing by some other means (such as soul bind), it is utterly destroyed 1 round after the giant’s death.

Soul Healing (Su): When a death giant is protected by its guardian souls, hit point damage due to negative energy (such as from an inflict spell) heals rather than harms a death giant. Death giants are healed by positive energy (such as from cure spells) normally.

Death giants live in the ruins of their once-great civilization, scattered across the desert following the wars that brought their empires to ruin. Capable of using magic to provide for themselves, death giants have allowed their culture and skills to atrophy. They create weapons and armor for the often intense “soul-trading” battles between various groups, but otherwise spend their time seeking a way to rid themselves of their race’s curse while maintaining their powers.

A death giant’s favored class is fighter. Death giant clerics are very rare and worship dark and alien deities that don’t care if the souls of their followers reach them. The giant deities abandoned the death giants when they decided to sell the souls of their race, although some death giants still pay homage to them.

A death giant seeks to soften up its opponents with its frightful keening and spells before entering melee.

Round 1: Frightful keening.

Round 2: Use unholy blight on shaken foes. If no foes appear shaken, charge into melee.

Round 3: Use flame strike on foes that are both shaken by the frightful keening and sickened by the unholy blight. If only one or two foes are shaken and sickened, enter melee, focusing on foes that resisted the effects.

Round 4: Charge the foe most damaged by the flame strike, or make a full attack on the weakest foe if it is already in melee.

Round 5: If still in a position of strength, continue the attack, only using inflict critical wounds on a shaken foe if it is having trouble hitting with its full attack. If in a position of weakness, use inflict critical wounds to heal and attempt to intimidate foes into accepting a truce, perhaps bargaining the release of the soul of a fallen foe.

Death giants haunt cyclopean ruins deep in the wilds of Xen’drik, surrounded by the shattered remains of a once-proud civilization of giants brought to ruin by dragons and their own hubris. A few death giants have found their way to other continents, such as Argonnessen and Khorvaire, although their hatred of other creatures demands that they live in isolation. At least two death giants⁠—​a pair of sisters named Arakajda and Behkorr⁠—​prowl the Mournland searching for souls to steal. In an Eberron campaign, the souls of death giants are bound to the plane of Mabar, the Endless Night. Some death giants aim to release their souls from the dark grasp of Mabar, allowing them passage to Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead, when the end comes.

Ash giants (as death giants were once known) lived among the humans of Netheril. When the Netherese empire crumbled in the wake of the phaerimm onslaught, the ash giants surrendered their immortal souls to some great power to ensure their own survival, forsaking their human allies. What used to be Netheril survives in the present day as the great desert of Anauroch, and death giants inhabit various ancient Netherese ruins.

The statistics block below contains details for more than one shape, size, or type of this creature. Use the horizontal scrollbar below it to display the desired one or select from the links below that.

Eldritch Giant (Basic) • Eldritch Giant Confessor

Eldritch giants are powerful scions of arcane lore. Ancient creatures fallen from what was once great power, eldritch giants spend countless years seeking out fragments of arcane knowledge. Although they are selfish and cruel, eldritch giants are smart enough to bargain fairly when they must and perceptive enough to know that open conflict distracts them from their studies.

Eldritch giants hate storm giants, although they are typically too involved in their pursuit of magical power to bother with fighting other creatures.

An adult eldritch giant is 25 feet tall and weighs about 13,000 pounds. Eldritch giants have incredible life spans and can live to be more than 3,000 years old.

Eldritch giants speak Abyssal, Common, Giant, and Terran.

An eldritch giant uses its spelllike abilities to strip opponents of their magical enhancements before entering melee combat. Although its size forces it to fight in relatively open environments, an eldritch giant’s ability to use dimension door makes it capable of devastating hit-and-run tactics.

Spell-Like Abilities: At will⁠—​detect magic, greater dispel magic, magic missile; 3/day⁠—​dimension door, globe of invulnerability. Caster level 20th.

Eldritch Mastery (Su): An eldritch giant has an extensive familiarity with and an intuitive grasp of arcane magic. It can use spell completion items (such as scrolls) as if it had the wizard’s class spell list and were of the appropriate level to cast the spell. It can use spell trigger items (such as wands and staffs) as if it had the wizard’s class spell list.

Natural Willpower (Ex): Unlike most giants, eldritch giants have a strong innate resistance to mental compulsion, illusion magic, and the like. Eldritch giants have a +6 racial bonus on Will saves.

An eldritch giant is most effective as a melee combatant, but it benefits greatly from spending a few rounds using its spell-like abilities to strip away the magic effects of its foes.

Prior to Combat: Scout foes with detect magic and activate globe of invulnerability.

Round 1: Use a quickened greater dispel magic on the foe with the most magical auras and charge the nearest foe. If unable to close, instead use an empowered magic missile followed by a quickened dimension door to get close to a spellcasting opponent.

Round 2: Continue melee combat, using quickened greater dispel magic to strip foes of their magical enhancements.

Round 3: If no foes are within melee reach, use empowered magic missile or dimension door to attack elusive opponents.

Round 4: If the foes are still mounting a credible threat, retreat using dimension door. Otherwise, alternate intelligent use of spells with full attacks.

Schemers and manipulators even among their own people, eldritch giant confessors have chosen the path of divine magic rather than a direct study of arcane power. These giants pull together others of their kind through deceit, manipulation, and bullying. Eldritch giant confessors believe in the divinity of magic itself, justifying their cruel actions with a philosophy that proclaims that whatever you can accomplish through magic is morally correct.

The eldritch giant confessor presented here had the following ability scores before racial adjustments and Hit Dice ability score increases: Str 12, Dex 8, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 13.

Eldritch giant confessors herd lesser giants before them into battle. Although these cruel creatures have great confidence in their physical and magical abilities, they place little value in the lives of lesser creatures, even other eldritch giants. Eldritch giant confessors carefully enhance their own abilities with spells before and during a fight, especially favoring the use of quickened spells such as divine favor that enhance their physical combat abilities. They gain a +2 bonus on all turn/rebuke undead attempts due to their Knowledge (religion) skill.

Typical Cleric Spells Prepared (6/8/7/6/5/4/3): 0⁠—​detect magic (2), light (2), read magic (2); 1st⁠—​bless, cure light wounds (3), divine favor, inflict light wounds* (+32 melee touch; DC 18), shield of faith (2); 2nd⁠—​bear’s endurance, bull’s strength, cure moderate wounds (2), hold person (2), shatter* (DC 19); 3rd⁠—​cure serious wounds (DC 20) (2), daylight, dispel magic*, invisibility purge, protection from energy; 4th⁠—​cure critical wounds (2), discern lies (DC 21), divine power, inflict critical wounds* (+32 melee touch; DC 21); 5th⁠—​Quickened divine favor, flame strike (DC 22) (2), mass inflict light wounds* (+32 melee touch; DC 22); 6th⁠—​heal (2), harm* (DC 23).

• Domain spell. Domains: Destruction (smite 1/day, +4 melee attack, +11 damage), Magic (use spell completion and spell trigger items as 5th-level wizard).

Eldritch Giant Society

Source: Monster Manual III, page 56.

Sand Giant

This dark-skinned giant looks like an oversized, muscular human with tan hair and eyes.

Sand Giant (basic version)⬆️

Combat

Sand Giant Champion ⬆️

A sand giant champion’s additional fighting skill gives it a significant edge and makes it a formidable opponent. Such trained warriors often serve the monarch as his or her personal guard.

The sand giant champion presented here had the following ability scores before racial adjustments and Hit Dice ability score increases: Str 15, Dex 8, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 12.

A sand giant champion attacks with great skill and optimizes its tactics. It uses its Spring Attack to selectively attack opponents, maneuvering to its advantage. It uses Power Attack judiciously against opponents with a lower Armor Class.

Sand giants live in stable communities in the desert. Their lives revolve around ordered discipline. Their desert dwellings exhibit careful organization and a layout that emphasizes defensibility. They often build into the side of a mesa or in some other geographically sheltered area.

Sand giant leadership originates from a hereditary monarchy. The next king or queen is the first-born child of the present monarch. A complicated line of succession based on blood relations and birth order dictates the order of the heirs beyond the first.

Most sand giant communities are isolated in the desert, but the giants are by no means isolationists. They usually conduct profitable trades with caravans and travelers. Occasionally, a sand giant will act as a guide for travelers in the harsh desert.

Sand giants inhabit the vast desert on the continent of Xen’drik. Although sand giant clans generally lead nomadic lives, a few clans maintain permanent dwellings carved into towering spires of sand-sculpted rock that thrust up from the desert wasteland.

Sand giants once roamed all of southern Faerûn, as far west as the Calim Desert and as far east as Raurin and the Plains of Purple Dust. The largest settlements of sand giants can be found in Raurin, near the Giant’s Belt. The sand giants must periodically defend themselves against incursions by eldritch giants and their enslaved goblinoid minions.