Giants in the Earth

[Glyfair]

As anyone who has read my Dragon Review thread knows, my favorite column from The Dragon was "Giants in the Earth."

For those who are unfamiliar with the original incarnation, it was a column that gave D&D statistics for fictional characters, mostly from novels. There was a much more recent run of the series that gave stats for characters from history and legend, but it wasn't the same. In those days either copyright laws were more lax about "fair use", TSR was flying under the radar or fantasy publishers just realized it was good PR. Still, today I doubt you could do the column without a huge amount of red tape.

The article series introduced me to many fantasy series I doubt I would have read without the introduction. Indeed the first article was my introduction to Karl Edward Wagner's Kane. Having reread it for my review thread, I've decided I have to track down some books about Tros of Samathrace, who was apparently important enough to make that first issue (along with the iconic D&D thief, Cugel the Clever).

Another one that comes to mind was one of the columns they fit in an April Fools' issue. It included stats for such classic "fantasy" characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian and Rocky & Bullwinkle (with his "hat of tricks).

Do you remember this series? Did it every influence your game or reading? Which characters were your favorites? Do you think this could ever be done today (I do think an unofficial version of this might fly - as a thread on a forum such as here).
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I decided to move the index of characters to the first post for easy reference.
I've done through issue #50.

Ayesha by H. Rider Haggard (#41): 27th level cleric/9th level fighter
Bodvar Bjarki from Norse tradition (#39): 16th level fighter
Camilla by P. Vergilius Maro (#47):10th level fighter
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini (#36): 17th level fighter/10th level thief/8th level cleric
Cugel the Clever by Jack Vance (#26): 14th level thief
Durathror by Alan Garner (#27): 13th level fighter/dwarvish paladin
Edward Bond by Henry Kuttnar (#35): 9th level fighter
Egil Skallagrimson from Norse tradition (#39): 14th level fighter
Ellide by T. J. Morgan (#49): 6th level fighter
Eric John Stark by Leigh Brackett (#28): 15th level fighter
Fafhrd by Fritz Leiber (#27): 20th level fighter/8th level thief
Ganelon by Henry Kuttnar (#35): 25th level fighter
Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber (#27): 18th level fighter-thief
Heidrek from Norse tradition (#42): 15th level fighter
Holger Carlsen by Poul Anderson (#49): 14th level paladin
Hugi by Poul Anderson (#49): 5th level gnome fighter
Iucounu, the Laughing Magician by Jack Vance: 20th level magic-user
James Eckerd/Gorbash by Gordon R. Dickson (#42): 0 level human/10 HD dragon
Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore (#41): 14th level fighter
John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (#27): 30th level fighter
Kane by Karl Edward Wagner (#26): 30th level fighter/20th level magic-user/14th level assassin
Maal Dweb by Clark Ashton Smith (#30): 20th level magic-user
Medea from Greek tradition (#47): 18th level magic-user with sage abilities
Muirtagh the Bowman by Cecelia Holland (#35): 16th level bard/7th level fighter/5th level thief
Orvar-Odd from Norse Tradition (#42): 21st level fighter
Professor Challenger by Arthur Conan Doyle* (#44): 16th level fighter with sage abilities
Reepicheep by C. S. Lewis (#44): 7th level fighter
Richard Upton Pickman by H. P. Lovecraft (#36): 9th level fighter with special magical ability
Shadowjack by Roger Zelazny (#29): 25th level thief/9th (18th) level fighter/9th (18th) level magic-user
Sigurd Fafnirsbane from Norse tradition (#41): 20th level fighter/12th level magic-user/8th level cleric
Sir Geros Lahvohettos by Robert Adams (#42): 9th level fighter
Silverbells by Thomas Burnett Swann (#36): Forest Minotaur; 15th level ranger/13th level paladin
Sol of All Weapons by Piers Anthony (#30): 20th level fighter/14th level monk
Sparrowhawk by Ursula Le Guin (#48): 21st level illusionist/20th level magic-user/14th level druid
Starkard from Norse tradition (#41): 23rd level fighter
Tauno Kraken's-Bane by Poul Anderson (#42): 8th level half-elf ranger
Tiana Highrider by Andrew Offutt & Richard Lyon (#48): 12th level fighter/12th level thief
Tros of Samothrace by Talbot Mundy (#26): 15th level paladin
Umslopogaas by H. Rider Haggard (#35): 16th level fighter
Valeria by Robert E. Howard (#41): 17th level fighter/7th level thief
Welleran by Lord Dunsany (#28): Monster stats
Zorayas by Tanith Leel: 23rd level magic-user

* Not credited to the author in the magazine.

 

[gizmo33]

Do you remember this series? Did it every influence your game or reading? Which characters were your favorites? Do you think this could ever be done today (I do think an unofficial version of this might fly - as a thread on a forum such as here).

I do remember this series well and it was one of my favorites too. One of the DnD folks (I think Roger Moore) wrote an overview article where he gives his ideas on how to use the GITE characters without having some typical problems (the DM letting "Chuckie have Stormbringer" is a quote I vaguely remember). That article was very influential to my DMing (the part where I steal ideas from novels and such).

I also think the character write-ups contributed to my enthusiasm for the 3E multiclassing system, since many of the GITE characters were wacky multi-classed combinations impossible in the normal rules.

 

[jrients]

Tom Moldvay, along with Lawrence Schick, did a lot of those articles.

My favorite was Orvar Odd, the partially troll viking from mythology who seemed sorta a literary relic from the days of when worship of the Green Man flourished.

 

[kenobi65]

I do remember GITE, and it was one of my favorites from that era of Dragon. I can't point to particular write-ups that I enjoyed, but I can say that it led me to read a lot of fantasy novels of which I hadn't previously heard.

I don't think it could be done officially today; I think there'd be too many concerns with copyright.

 

[Ron]

When I read most of the magazines through the Archives CD, I found Giants in the Earth to be the best series of articles except for the Voyage of the Princess Ark. I wonder if they were paying the original authors for the right of using their characters.

 

[grodog]

Much like the Appendix N of the DMG, I happened to read some of the stories/authors with characters featured in GitE. I was, however, driven moreso by Gods, Demigods, and Heroes and Deities and Demigods than by App N or GitE, so I read HPL, REH, Leiber, and Moorcock first, and eventually dug around into the others, on a sporadic basis (I read Gardner Fox for the first time in the past year, for example, not counting his Niall stories in TD).

So, while I distinctly recall reading GitE, and enjoying it, in many cases I wasn't able to connect the dots between the GitE characters and their original tales, since I wasn't exposed to many of the tales except through the GitE NPCs themselves.

GitE was another of Tom Moldvay's wonderful additions to the game (co-authored in this case).

 

[kenobi65]

I wonder if they were paying the original authors for the right of using their characters.

I suspect that they weren't, which is why I suspect the series ended, and why I noted that it'd be difficult to "officially" do such a series today.

 

[Delta]

I was, however, driven moreso by Gods, Demigods, and Heroes and Deities and Demigods than by App N or GitE, so I read HPL, REH, Leiber, and Moorcock first, and eventually dug around into the others, on a sporadic basis...

Exact same here.

(And hey, Allan, hope everything's going well at Pied Piper these days.)

 

[Teflon Billy]

I recall using some of them in my game (with the serial numbers filed off).

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Giants in the Earth was perhaps my favorite regular feature of Dragon back in the day. While the DMG's "recommended reading" list gave me a good start on the best fantasy fiction out there, GITE helped add to that list. Plus it was always fun to see stats for characters I'd enjoyed reading about in their own books - the Demons of "The Worm Ourobouros" and the main character from Poul Anderson's "The High Crusade" are two of the most vivid examples. I'm sure Dragon wasn't securing rights to use those characters. I don't know the ins and outs of copyrght law, so I don't know if those articles qualified as reviews as far as "fair use" laws are concerned.

I have to admit that sometimes a character write-up would put me off reading a particular book, which is too bad. The best example is Harold Shea from L. Sprague deCamp and Fletcher Pratt's "Compleat Enchanter" series of stories. The illustration and write-up both were unappealing to me, enough so that it took me until last year to read those stories. What I found was that the illo and write-up didn't even really come close to doing the character justice.

Some of the GITE articles were kinda headscratchers. Best example: Tarl Cabot of the "Gor" series fame. I'm no prude, and i personally don't have a problem with the character being in GITE, but it surprises me now that "Gor" made the cut in Dragon, given the general subject matter of the series.

I really dug the recent series of articles detailing historical and legendary figures (and the cities/areas they lived in), such as Xerxes and Leonidas from a few years ago, as well as the Beowulf/Grendel article from not too long ago. I'd like to see even more stuff like that. I'd even pay for a collection of such characters, divided up by era/mythology/legend cycle.

Deities and Demigods was also a big favorite of mine as a source of NPC heroes and villains. Not just the "Elric" and "Nehwon" sections, though both were, and are, my favorite sections of that book - the illustrations especially, in particular that of the Grey Mouser - but also the "Arthurian" section and the various heroes from each mythology covered. Again, I'd love to see a collection of these types of characters, as well as those from other cultures and mythologies.