Half-Giants

Half-giants are a cross between humans and giants, bred into existence in a desert land by cruel sorcerer-kings intending to use them as warriors and laborers. Every half-giant who was born and survived early childhood could look forward to nothing but a life of suffering, as with any people kept in bondage. Some half-giants found that their forced breeding had engendered within them a spark of psionic power. With the aid of this secret power, many half-giants escaped their circumstances to seek a new home deep in the desert, where they are free to discover their own destiny.

Personality: Half-giants, for the most part, retain human sensibilities. They are curious, interested in cooperation and communication, and have a general tendency toward kindness. (Of course, there are exceptions.) They are quick to pick up the morals, customs, and habits of the areas in which they settle down.

Physical Description: Half-giants typically stand from 7 feet to nearly 8 feet tall, and weigh from 250 to 400 pounds, with men noticeably taller and heavier than women. Most half-giants have tightly braided black hair and deep coppery complexions. Half-giants often prefer grandiose dress when they can afford it, sporting fanciful or intimidating clothing.

Relations: Most other humanoids are put off by half-giants due to their abnormally large size. In fact, many are first taken for young (if strangely well-groomed) hill giants. Upon getting past their initial trepidation, however, most other humanoids find half-giants of good alignment to be outgoing, kind creatures.

Alignment: Most half-giants are good-aligned, but all alignments can be found within their ranks.

Half-Giant Lands: Half-giants recently settled in the deepest part of the hot deserts to the south. Of the land they came from, half-giants speak little, other than to say that where they live is similar to where they once toiled.

Religion: Half-giants, as a rule, have a particular disdain for religion, sometimes going out of their way to speak badly of a deity. It’s not that they don’t believe in deities, but that they don’t believe that a deity always has the best interests of its worshipers at heart. Individual half-giants have enough courtesy and sensibility to keep their observations to themselves when in the company of a good companion with pious inclinations. A few half-giants even take up the cloth themselves.

Language: Half-giants speak Common. Those with higher than average intelligence often learn Giant.

Names: Half-giants have a childhood name and a given name, the latter usually bestowed by friends or by the community in which the half-giant originally grew up. Most half-giant names reflect some aspect of the desert land that the half-giants inhabit, though a few strange place names are also thrown in (apparently remembered from their former homes of long ago).

Male Given Names: Sandking, Dunewalker, Sunharrower, Drywell, Stormrider, Desertstrider, Saltwalker, Raam.

Female Given Names: Oasis, Sandrose, Breath, Goldflower, Sweetwater, Raincaller, Nibenay.

Adventurers: Half-giants have already traveled far to found their desert settlements. For some, wanderlust is a way of life, and seeking after glory, fortune, or even a life of high adventure is something any half-giant can understand and accept—though most of them are content to stay in their settlements and listen to the tales of faraway lands from those who have adventured there.