D&D General What do I do with these giants and dwarves?

Bohandas · Sep 23, 2021

When I hear "giants and dwarves" I immediately think of Master Blaster from Mad Max 3

Bird Of Play · Sep 23, 2021

LordEntrails said:
A couple of thoughts. If you want the players to go back, or consider going back, to the druegar after/if they escape. If they go to the dwarves. Then then dwarves (via a quest or a sage or xxx) could inform them that the they know where they can get corals. One place is a cave now inhabited by a bunch of druegar... (ha! forces them to go back) or their is a hidden grove up in the mountains, but the grove is considered a meditation place for the giants (hence why the giants are stationary). Maybe they can get in and out without disturbing the giants, who would get upset at being disturbed, and maybe they can't...

You can keep these ideas simple and fast, or you can put twists and turns and prerequisites along the way to make it more detailed and lengthy. I suggest you research "three clue rule" and/or "node based scenario design". Several folks, including Justin Alexander, cover the topics and they can be very useful for designing a sandbox or non-linear adventures.

Niiiiice!!

Technically the dwarves don't know that there's a duergar clan hidden in an old mine in the next mountain...... but if the players met them, then it became a fact. And so mountain dwarves might tell the players that duergars use those crystals (or "mountain corals") a lot, so they might be mining there since other dwarves and humans didn't need them and let them untouched in the old mine!

I like the idea of the old meditation place. Although I have a similar idea for an elf city (the center will be a forbidden sacred forest area). So I'd like to keep the idea of the dwarves telling the players "if you don't want to search the hidden duergar camp we now know exists, you might head to this place". Now to decide what that place is, if it's not a meditation place.......

It'd be also good if the players don't know about the giants when they go there. That way the can literally walk by the towering sculture, with no suspect that it could be a giant.

The players might have believed they've avoided the duergar risk only to fall into a bigger threat!

And thanks a lot for the suggestions as I'm reading about three clue role and node based scenario right now!

LordEntrails · Sep 24, 2021

Bird Of Play said:
Now to decide what that place is, if it's not a meditation place.......

Why am I now remembering TrollBall? An old game within a game from Runequest; you run a sports team made up of trolls, and they use goblins/kobolds as their ball. You lose points if you kill the ball...

Maybe the giants are taking a rest during half-time? Before they pick up the game of boulders (marbles?) again? And they really don't care if some measly 'tinys' are running about their playing field...

Or perhaps the giants hibernate and are just at the end of a long slumber?

Do you see the giants are intelligent or belligerent? Are they involved in some intellectual thing and being interrupted by the party is offensive to them? Or is it just that they are angry and selfish and will attack or try to eat anything that comes there way? Are they Evil? Chaotic?

Bird Of Play · Sep 24, 2021

LordEntrails said:
Do you see the giants are intelligent or belligerent? Are they involved in some intellectual thing and being interrupted by the party is offensive to them? Or is it just that they are angry and selfish and will attack or try to eat anything that comes there way? Are they Evil? Chaotic?

Ah you see there, the problem is that classic D&D is full of humanoid races that are all.... variations of human. Very anthropocentric. So the giants are only "human, but very big and a bit hillybilly". I don't like when everything the players meet is "like a human, but with this added flavour".

I try to avoid the trope as much as possible, while keeping the traditional races that exist in D&D. So my orcs are more beast-like, and my giants...... I was thinking they look as if they are literally made of rocks or lava or ice (and a cloud giant might be very interesting, probably literally covered in mist, or maybe even ghostlike). They're much more akin to magical fire/rock/ice/wind elementals than big humans.

Look at this makeup from the SyFy series "Face Off":

Now this might be a female rock giant, to me. Except she's probably naked, but since she's made of literal rocks there are no naughty bits.

......And what about their personality? I don't want them dumb like orcs.... but I don't want them to form complex societies either. So they're probably spending a lot of time standing there like rocks/lava/ice/clouds, like in hibernation, but when they do move, they are probably not stupid at all. Just.... I assume.... slow, very calm, emotionless?

LordEntrails · Sep 24, 2021

Kind of like the treant from Lord of the Rings? Time may not be something they particularly worry about, since they might (?) live for centuries. Or at least time for them is on a different scale than for short lived humans and the races that they influence (elfs, dwarves, etc).

A comparison might be like I am when sitting on my back porch with a drink; the gnats and other bugs scurrying about my feet I don't notice, until I do. Then I might just squish them flat because they dared climb on my foot. Or land on the table I'm about to put my drink on.

Bird Of Play · Sep 25, 2021

LordEntrails said:
Kind of like the treant from Lord of the Rings? Time may not be something they particularly worry about, since they might (?) live for centuries. Or at least time for them is on a different scale than for short lived humans and the races that they influence (elfs, dwarves, etc).

A comparison might be like I am when sitting on my back porch with a drink; the gnats and other bugs scurrying about my feet I don't notice, until I do. Then I might just squish them flat because they dared climb on my foot. Or land on the table I'm about to put my drink on.

This is very fitting!
Only one question remains: what prompts the giant to wish to squish those pesky humans flat?