D&D General Dragons Versus Giants: A Speculative and Homebrew Explanation For Why They Hate Each Other

Voadam · Nov 10, 2021

The Diamond Throne setting of Arcana Evolved was pretty fantastic too.

A whole continent with a Giant dominated empire, humans being one of the subject races of the setting along with Dragon-type people.

Originally the continent was Dragon controlled until they had demon-dragon creations get out of control and drive off the Dragons. The heroic Giants had a treaty of non-interference with the Dragons so they had previously stayed off the continent, but with the dragons gone and the demons rampaging the Giants girded for war and migrated en masse to the continent to drive off the demons and rescue the peoples of the land and succor them under the Giant's rule.

That was the set up for the original Arcana Unearthed. Then there was a return of the Dragons who have a claim to the land and in Arcana Evolved the continent is split between the two big power factions.

I loved having Giants be a current dominant world power instead of just ancient history. The Dragon's return is a good setup for having a Dragon-Giant conflict if you want one.

Mind of tempest · Nov 10, 2021

Voadam said:
The Diamond Throne setting of Arcana Evolved was pretty fantastic too.

A whole continent with a Giant dominated empire, humans being one of the subject races of the setting along with Dragon-type people.

Originally the continent was Dragon controlled until they had demon-dragon creations get out of control and drive off the Dragons. The heroic Giants had a treaty of non-interference with the Dragons so they had previously stayed off the continent, but with the dragons gone and the demons rampaging the Giants girded for war and migrated en masse to the continent to drive off the demons and rescue the peoples of the land and succor them under the Giant's rule.

That was the set up for the original Arcana Unearthed. Then there was a return of the Dragons who have a claim to the land and in Arcana Evolved the continent is split between the two big power factions.

I loved having Giants be a current dominant world power instead of just ancient history. The Dragon's return is a good setup for having a Dragon-Giant conflict if you want one.

I think the giants just need a rethink they feel too mundane oddly just us but bigger they need something more mythic for the weaker types.

Voadam · Nov 10, 2021

Mind of tempest said:
I think the giants just need a rethink they feel too mundane oddly just us but bigger they need something more mythic for the weaker types.

The Giants in Arcana Unearthed were not D&D's traditional giants. They were their own thing and a PC race that started out a big Medium size and you could take a racial class that through rituals grew bigger, at 3 levels in you were large, and at 5 levels in you were huge. They had a big ritual tradition including a specific two set of rituals for turning themselves into a peace stance or a war stance.

D&D's giants are a lot norse flavored with the fire and frost giants, and a bit traditional Jack the Giantslayer/Beanstalk with brutish hill giants and intelligent Cloud giants. Stone giants seem fairly straight out of the hobbit with games of boulder throwing.

Hill giants are pretty much just bigger ogres following the D&D tradition of similar creatures with different Hit Dice for use at different levels of play. There is a traditional folk lore trope of dumb easily tricked giants who are bigger than what we would consider ogres, so it mostly works. I did like 4e identifying them as earth associated though with their titan type being earth titans.

Mind of tempest · Nov 10, 2021

Voadam said:
The Giants in Arcana Unearthed were not D&D's traditional giants. They were their own thing and a PC race that started out a big Medium size and you could take a racial class that through rituals grew bigger, at 3 levels in you were large, and at 5 levels in you were huge. They had a big ritual tradition including a specific two set of rituals for turning themselves into a peace stance or a war stance.

D&D's giants are a lot norse flavored with the fire and frost giants, and a bit traditional Jack the Giantslayer/Beanstalk with brutish hill giants and intelligent Cloud giants. Stone giants seem fairly straight out of the hobbit with games of boulder throwing.

Hill giants are pretty much just bigger ogres following the D&D tradition of similar creatures with different Hit Dice for use at different levels of play. There is a traditional folk lore trope of dumb easily tricked giants who are bigger than what we would consider ogres, so it mostly works. I did like 4e identifying them as earth associated though with their titan type being earth titans.

it is more fire and frost need more powers like just being able to coat themselves in their element as an action.

stone and hill would need further differentiating if hill is just a broken earth elemental force.

storm and air need better differences as well but elemental giants are what I like to at least some extent, they just seem so unimpressive for some reason like they lack a real gimmick beyond size and rock hurling.