How would you guys incorporate Giants into Ravenloft? I feel like there's untapped potential for Giants to have a presence in the Domains of Dread, whether as the doomed denizens of their own Domain (with a Giant Darklord) or as another worldbuilding detail. The Giants had their Ostorian Empire in the Forgotten Realms lore, and I feel like there's potential for a Gothic Horror or Dark Fantasy take on them. Dark Souls 2 and 3 gave an interesting Dark Fantasy interpretation of them (the Last Giant and Yhorm the Giant bosses) so I'd be interested in seeing the Giant, a creature that is so big it might be too big for its own good, face its own hurdles.
Perhaps the Giant Darklord wanted to recreate Ostoria, but sank to heinous depths that appalled both we smallfolk and its fellow Giants? Perhaps it gained an appreciation for the smallfolk around it, but then felt (wrongly) betrayed and snuffed them out for this (perceived) betrayal? Maybe it was just trying to help, but since it was too big in every sense of the word, it only brought misery with it as it went. What sort of curse would a Giant Darklord have? To be trapped in a body or space too small for it? To be preyed upon by Dragons or other, even larger creatures (and feel what's it like to be one of the smallfolk cowering in fear at the shadow of a gargantuan creature)? To see every attempt to save its glorious empire dismantled or rot away, partly due to the actions of its fellow Giants? To be part Giant and part Dragon (as dragons are their ancestral archenemies)?
And what of Giants in the canon domains, whether that be the Core or other Clusters and Islands? Maybe there's some Frost Giants hiding out in the Balinoks or the Sleeping Beast Mountains. Perhaps Falkovnia has killed off all of its Hill Giants that came from the Crumbling Hills and is trying to create a gigantification serum with Vjorn Horstmann's help like they did with the Primal Serum (turning your soldiers into living siege engines sounds appealing). Maybe there are still some Stone Giants hiding out in caverns beneath Kartakass or Hazlan, or even in Bluetspur (they're definitely crazy). Thoughts?
I asked that question on the Ravenloft discord server that Zilferofshadows made, but I wanted to ask it here. There's been some discussion of this topic in older threads way back in the past (like this thread here: https://www.fraternityofshadows.com/for ... php?t=6741) but I also wanted to see what the FoS members of today's thoughts on the matter would be. Here are a selection of some of the thoughts on Discord, at least:
- I am of those who believe all monsters can have their place in RL. A domain of giants a la attack on titan sound cool, if giving a giant a tragic/gothic backstory is to much trouble, you could always do a human darklord whose curse is having to fend off the giant attacks (you could even replace the zombies in nu-falkovnia with giants).
As for giants on the core, I would insist on the fact that they are ancient powerful primordial beings, their mind should be alien to human and demi-humans. Markovia have a spot with giant statues sinking in the earth. I also used the death frost doom (there is a giant sleeping under the dungeon) nega-dungeon in Dorvinia of all place. Credit goes to NormandLamour on Discord
- I'd say a basic Jack and the Beanstalk scenario would be an easy base. Jack the Giantkiller needed more giants to keep people interested in him, so he began hunting more innocent ones until he eventually finally killed off the entire race... and their last survivor cursed him to never again know rest, that all he had built would be smashed by the vengeful fists of the Ordning.
And, perhaps, he turned into a giant (or was giant blooded all along, a goliath maybe or a half ogre or whatever), or alternatively, became a "patron spirit of giabt killers" when he died, a ghost, whose body was possessed by the last giant and now reforms and reappears as a new killer giant on the regular, driving his legacy of "finishing off all the wicked giants" into the mud Credit goes to Chronische on Discord
- The problem with giants is making them a hidden horror. A beanstalk scenario does address that. Credit goes to Ryan/ArrBeeNayr on Discord
- Giants should be a lingering background horror. A massive Boogeyman.IMO, Giants should be something analogous to Eldritch Horrors within Ravenloft. That's how I'm treating them in my article. Perhaps like Eberron's Daelkyr, physically like us but sooooo alien. They're uncannily like us, but massive and psychologically divergent. Seeing one should make you empty your bowels in horror. Walking puzzles rather than monsters. Credit goes to Doc Necrotic on Discord
- they could also go as the climax to a folk horror adventure, with the bulk of the adventure dealing with questionable locals leading up to the giants at the climax. or like an azenwrath like setup could work where most of it's building tension and a "what are we going to do" sort of mood
kind of going with the cosmic/eldritch horror route, one of the things that you could play up is the impossibility of their sizes, like anatomically humanoids shouldn't be able to be that big, yet here they are. creaking/crunching bones as they walk, tight/tearing skin over their massive frames, bulging even telescopic eyes, impossible contortion to fit in small places (imagine one of them peaking a head into a place you thought you'd be safe from)
and of course size can be scary when put with things in relation like a giant just grabs a handfull of cows and tosses it in his mouth nonchalantly or tears off the roof of a barn like it was tissue paper Credit goes to The Lesser Evil on Discord
- The same can be said of dragons, but there's more to draw Gothic horror comparisions to a giant than a dragon I feel. Giants can represent the endless gluttony, cruelty, and malice of men. Imagine Paul Bunyan, but working for an evil cause: the westward expansion, at all costs! He drove others as hard as he drove himself, yet none could keep up with a literal giant!
Another example would be a 'giant of industry', something one became as a result of their belief and hard work at the cost of trampeling all who would even remotely slow them down; coal-boy to Vanderbilt style. Becoming a literal giant, to match their overweening pride and pairing political and monetary power with physical power seems reasonable, as well as having their evils laid bare by the change Credit goes to Chronische on Discord
Humanoid enemies (as opposed to humanoids just going about their business) are driven by the things you don't talk about at the dinner table: politics and religion. They're social creatures, and therefore their goals are typically social in nature, as are the units they form to bring these goals about. A humanoid boss enemy is a leader of like-minded humanoids who all want the same thing, and the sophistication and abstraction of the goal is proportional to the intelligence of the humanoid(s) pursuing it. Although they may still be fundamentally interested in territory, wealth, and domination (like a beast and a monstrosity would be interested in territory and food while a dragon would be interested in the former two plus the latter two) it's shared territory, wealth, and domination, and the superficial justifications for those pursuits take the form of ideologies built around tribal, clan, or national identity; moral or theological doctrine; sex or gender roles; caste roles; hierarchies of rulership and allegiance; or rules of trade. The psychologist Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations (fairness, kindness, loyalty, obedience, and sanctity) and their opposites (injustice, abuse, treachery, rebellion, and corruption) come into play: the "bad guys may be committing one or more of the latter group of sins, or they may be going overboard in their attempts to root those sins out.
If dragons are the uber-monstrosities, then giants are uber-humanoids. However, while dragons have broader interests than most monstrosities do, giants' interests tend to be narrower than those of most humanoids, and they're tightly dictated by their species and their place in the Ordning--the giants' status hierarchy. In terms of social ideology, giants are chiefly interested in their relationship with other giants, and this impinges upon humanoid society only to the extent that giants need to claim humanoids' territory, humanoids' wealth, humanoids' food supllies, or rulership over a humanoid group in order to establish their intragigantic status. In other words, giants' goals revolve around rivalries, and when this makes them the villains, it's usually because of the collateral damage they're causing around them.
Here are a few of those ideas I came up with for a "Children of the Night: Giants" below. Please don't hesitate to give me some sort of constructive feedback and discuss more about the topic with me!
- A Falkovnian experimental super soldier (Johann Bletz) created by a collaboration between the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of the Arcane. The soldier is meant to usher in a new wave of warfare, with each future iteration of the project improving upon Lord Drakov's desire of a 'living siege engine' to topple the walls of Nartok and bust down the doors of Castle Avernus.
- An intelligent Hill Giant Mouth of Grolantor that resented his place not only amongst his own people but of the Hill Giants' place in the Ordning. This Hill Giant deeply resented the Ordning and Hill Giant culture that led him to being bound and shackled as an object of worship for the god Grolantor, instead of being treated as one of their own. Eventually, after a successful raid on a nearby county, the Hill Giant chief decided to further show his appreciation to Grolantor by giving the Mouth of Grolantor a helm of intellect. This backfired greatly, as the once dull and dumb Hill Giant could now better articulate his thoughts and plan for deception. He used his newfound intelligence to convince his tribe to 'join him in showing their devotion to Grolantor' by starving like him. He took advantage of the fact that the gods of the Giants were distant enough to not immediately intervene. Eventually, the Mouth of Grolantor overtook the chief of the tribe, and planned his own ascent to the top of the Ordning. He plagued the countrysides of his homeworld with his tribe of starving Hill Giants, using them to pick off the remainder of his own subrace tribe by tribe, piece by piece, until eventually, the Mists took him. He found himself in G'Henna, and learned of the religion of Zhakata...and he loved it.
- A Dementlieuse (or maybe Lamordian) scholar who dabbled in psionics and learned through studious research of the existence of Bluetspur. In an attempt to better understand the impossible, he underwent a procedure to expand his brain. Now his head is disproportionately large but he has attained great psychic powers (think of MODOK from Marvel Comics or the new less racist design of Egg Fu from DC)
- A Stone Giant Dreamwalker. She was lacking in athletic grace or carving skill, two qualities greatly prized by Stone Giant communities. She resented the fact that she was meant to dwell at the fringes of their society, to serve as a guide or a far-wandering hunter, for the rest of their days. In her desire for vengeance against her place in the Ordning, she committed two great sins. First, she struck a bargain with a nearby Drow sorcerer to curse her clan so that they may never be great carvers and artisans (similar to Meredoth's creative sterility) and second she betrayed her clan in leading the Drow to their caverns so that they may be exterminated. She has since been drawn into the Mists, aimlessly roaming the land and incapable of knowing dreams from reality due to the Stone Giant worldview and outlook regarding the surface world. She is of great interest to the Nightmare Court of the Nightmare Lands
- A trickster Cloud Giant that put his clan into such great debt that they committed suicide to escape the humiliation (need to work on this backstory). Now he floats in a flying castle above the Core, acting as something of a patron and sponsor to brigands everywhere due to the fact that the mastermind is far more mobile than the authorities believe (similar to the Fog Giant in older editions). He is on good terms with Ivan Dilisnya and Hazlik, with an adventure involving this Cloud Giant perhaps being linked to one or the other (Hazlik using the Cloud Giant as an additional deterrent against the Church of the Lawgiver from messing up his operations with their dogma, or Ivan Dilisnya happy to have not just a friend with similar decadent interests but one who can protect him and his lands from Drakov's raiders or Ivana's intrigues)
- Fire Giant Dreadnought (ideas?)
- A tragic half-ogre?
- A Frost Giant male born of a forbidden union between Frost Giant and Cloud Giant. He was looked down upon by the rest of his tribe for his heritage, leading to a resentment of his fellows throughout his life. He continually shirked the honorable ways of gaining glory in combat, opting to use under-handed tactics to try and move up the ladder of the Ordning. Continually he violated the tenets of the Frost Giant code, until one day he was cast out of his tribe after defeating the jarl in dishonorable combat. Out on his own, he received the dark dreams and omens of Vaprak the Destroyer, and he was drawn to the promises of power that the Destroyer offered. Towns were slaughtered indiscriminately, not only to appease the Destroyer, but to starve the other Frost Giants of food and supplies; a tactic which worked. Even when the last Frost Giant in the frozen north died, he was not satisfied. His actions caught the eye of a group of Cloud Giants, who both pitied and were disgusted by the Frost Giant's exploits. Regardless, they gave the lower Giant shelter among them in their cloud castle, and treated him with much greater respect than his former clan ever did, despite his lower status in the Ordning. But the Frost Giant was not content with this, and willingly chose to give himself over to Vaprak so as to see even these Giants, and eventually all Giants laid low forever. He consumed the flesh of the troll sent to him by Vaprak and slaughtered everyone in the Castle, before sabotaging its magical flying capabilities and jumping off the edge out into the sky below, towards the water. He never reached the waves as the Mists swallowed him mid-fall, dropping him in the 300 mile wide barren wasteland of Vorostokov.
- A Storm Giant Quintessent (lots of potential here but need to figure something out, ideas?)
- A Stone Giant that got lost in the Underdark and was drawn into the Mists. Currently he resides in a cave not too far away from Pakat, and serves the community as a guide of wisdom (this can also be repurposed for Kalakeri). A possible adventure involving this NPC/monster might be to do a task of some kind for it, in exchange for some boon to the people of Pakat (whether that be religious or secular wisdom or something else, I'll have to figure out)
- Haunted Giant roaming the plains of Nova Vaasa?
- Something with Invidia; perhaps a powerful minion of Malocchio Aderre, a Verbeeg of some kind, that keeps Malocchio's rabble-rousing troops in line and has served as a second-in-command after the disastrous Sithican campaign (the whole 'Night of Screaming Shadows' ordeal)
- Darkon
- Tovag
- Sri Raji
- Kalakeri
- Vorostokov
- The Phantasmal Forest (British mythology featured Giants quite a bit, King Arthur fought a few so maybe the Shadowborns did?)
- Falkovnia (super soldier project or some infestation in the Crumbling Hills the military needs to get rid of
- Invidia (didn't Malocchio have like ogres and trolls under his command?)
- Sithicus
- Rokushima no Taiyou (great use for an Oni)
- Bluetspur