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Whether you’re using them as NPCs or enemy creatures, giants can make a huge impact in yourDungeons & Dragonscampaign. With Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, fleshing out these larger-than-life creatures and learning how to incorporate them into your campaign has become more streamlined.
Related:Bigby Presents: Glory Of The Giants – The Gods Of The Ordning, Explained
With information on their background, social structures, gods, organizations, and homes, among other things, it’s a great resource to create fully fleshed characters or enemies for your party to face. While you may easily use tables to help create situations to add giants, there are a few essentials you’ll want to remember to make these characters stand above the crowd.
Determine What Type Of Giant To Include In Your Adventures
First, you’ll want to consider the adventures your specific party can handle when incorporating giants into your campaign. A typical party of 2-3 players can easily be completely obliterated if you throw the wrong enemy at them. You’ll know what level your party is and what they can handle.
Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants breaks them down into tiers based on level and experience.
These giants can be determined based on their hierarchy in the ordning, as it loosely relates to their overall strength and difficulty.
First Tier
1 - 4
Lesser giantsandogresare good to slot in this level campaign. you’re able to go up tohill giantsindifficulty for a level four party looking for a challenge. It’sbest to throw in lower level lesser giantsat this level, easily slotted as natural enemies int he area based on the location you choose.
Second Tier
5 - 10
Stone, cloud, fire, and frost giantsare good for these levels. However, onlyone at a timeis recommended. This tier also creates multiple opportunities for roleplaying. Each of these giants has adifferent strength according to the ordning, meaning many different options for interacting with players. Maybe a frost giant who has ascended the ordning hierarchy is looking to go further and has been stopped and is taking their wrath out on the closest village. If things go south, they’re perfect for a fight at this level.
Third Tier
11 - 16
Here, you’ll want to use the tier-one enemies, buttwo or three of them at a time. This includes ettins and trolls as well as hill giants and ogres. You’ll most likely be using the same type of enemy, soincorporate infighting or hill giants vs. lesser giantsand create some sense of turmoil within their ranks. Here, your party will be healthy enough to attempt to take sides, allowing for great roleplay opportunities. Consider what might happen if your party does take sides as well.
Fourth Tier
17 - 20
Everything from the second tier, but give your players more than one enemy at a time. This is for a more advanced group, butusing multiple giants in a single setting of this caliber can be world-altering. If you’re looking to literally shake up the world, pitting two giant types against one another and using the ordnign as the reason is an easy way to incorporate them into a higher-level campaign. What does it look like when a frost giant and fire giant fight? How will the world be altered by this battle?
Once you know the type of campaign and the level of your players, you can create unique opportunities for them by using the table to determine the appropriate type of giant to bring.
With this in mind, it’s easy to concoct a reason for a giant when you narrow down the type of giants that fit with your groups setting and level. At higher levels, withsuch vast interests from strength to wealth, the easiest way to incorporate giants is by having one of them want tosurpass their place in the ordning.
For example, the lowest in the ranks of the ordning may want to move up and has decided on the best way to do so, but that way interacts with mortals in a dangerous way, whether intended or not. It’s up to your party to stop them and save the people. Will stopping them upset the giant or their entire hierarchy?
There’s also the possibility of two giants, at higher levels, in-fighting due to their status in the ordning, causing mass destruction to the surrounding land. How will your players stop this from happening?
At lower levels, lesser giant beings are great for providing intimidating challenges that can be slotted into any dungeon crawl.
Incorporate Giant Enclaves
Giants need a place to live and store their valuables. When you’re looking at creatures that are just outright huge, they can’t just be roaming the world anywhere; they’ll need a properly designed place to stay if they’re hanging around on the Material Plane. This is where giant enclaves come in.
Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants includes plenty of giant enclaves ready to be used in any campaign; all you need to do is decide who lives there. With adventure hooks and encounters for each enclave, combining this with the properly leveled giant and the reason is a ready-made way to incorporate giants easily.
You can design them in any way you like, specifically to fit your campaign setting. It is important to notegiant enclaves are meant to be full ecosystems.
They’re areas intended to house a full giant community and can easily become intricate and detailed fully-fledged maps and huge towns where giants have taken up residence, whether created by them or intended for them.
Consider using an abandoned area from your current campaign, remade in the image of giants. This means replacing the small aspects of this abandoned area with large-scale counterparts.
Whether you’re placing an enclave in a jungle, frozen tundra, arid desert, or on the outskirts of an abandoned town, there are a few things you should consider.
Offer Giant Treasure
Giant treasure is great because itcan be used effectively as a reward or a great way to incorporate giantsinto your campaign.
Rune-carved special or legendary items can be the perfect incentiveto get a party going, and the giant character that owns it might be looking for revenge if their weapon is stolen or has gone missing.
Giant treasure can also be used at the end of a giant enclave, a reward for the party who has quelled the rival giant battle, destroying everything or defeating the hill giants, wreaking havoc due to a dispute in the ordning.
Your entirecampaign can revolve around a giant treasurepiece if you so choose.
A fire giant, stone giant, or cloud giant, considering their wealth, artistry, or crafting skills, based on the ordning would have every reason to either ask a party to retrieve their item or want to get it back from them.
