D&D General did giants ever get the spotlight?

[Zardnaar]

2E had the Giantcraft book. 3E covered their ancient history in list Empires or Serpent Kingdoms iirc.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Giants never have and never will get as much of a focus on them as Dragons will in D&D. The reason for this should be fairly obvious; the game is literally named "Dungeons and Dragons", not "Dungeons and Giants", "Graveyards/Jails and Giants', or "Dragons and Giants". Yes, D&D has come quite a long was since it was given its iconic name, but Dragons are still a major part of the game and tend to get focused on more than Giants (although, Giants do get quite a lot of focus in both lore and stat blocks when compared to other iconic monster groups, like Celestials, Beholders/Beholderkin, Archfey, and Krakens).

Of the True Dragons in 5e, there are 40 official stat blocks for the main types, and Giants only have 12 stat blocks for the True Giants, and half of those are very rare alternatives to the base 6 true giant types. They do get some cool lore for them in lots of settings, often with them having war(s) Dragons (Eberron, FR, etc), which is likely due to the fact that both Giants and Dragons are classic, powerful monsters that are also very big (and also the fact that imagining a battle between a dragon and a giant is just plain awesome).

My world has both Dragons and Giants matter in about equal amounts. Both of them have their own kingdoms, the Draconic Empire and the Kingdom of Klörvak, which were both founded during the centuries-long war between the Giants and Dragons that was caused by the Aboleths (in order to distract them long enough for Aboleths to take control of the oceans' krakens and become the rulers of the oceans). Their war was eventually forced to a stalemate by a huge army of Angels, Archons, and other celestials because of the destruction it was causing to the world, and they eventually formed an alliance to fight against the Krakens and Aboleths of the ocean. More descriptions of them are in the spoilers below.

Spoiler: The Draconic Empire

The Draconic Empire that is run by a council of 10 Dragons or Draconic-Related Creatures, one for each type of Chromatic and Metallic Dragon, with the Council choosing a Dragon Emperor/Empress. The Empire actually acts as a sort of Democratic-Republic-Empire Hybrid, with the Council of Elder Dragons being elected by the inhabitants of the Draconic Empire (granting a single vote to Half-Dragons, Draconic-Sorcerers, Dragons, Lizardfolk, Dragonborn, and Kobolds that are citizens of the Draconic Empire, but Dragonborn, Draconic-Sorcerers, and Half-Dragons can only vote/run for the Councilor Seat of the type of dragon their draconic ancestry is, Kobolds can only vote/run for the Black-Dragon Councilor seat, and Lizardfolk can only vote/run for the Councilor Seat dependent to their subrace, either Bronze or Green).

The Draconic Empire allows for non-True Dragons to hold and vote for office in the Draconic Councils because the Draconic Empire depended greatly on the draconic-humanoid races in their war against the giants, but the True Dragons chose to implement the restrictions on the humanoid races that could vote/run for office in order to make sure that they would maintain most of the power in the empire, and also enacted a law that made sure that the Draconic Emperor/Empress had to be an Ancient Chromatic or Metallic Dragon to ensure that they kept supreme authority over the empire.

Spoiler: The Kingdom of Klörvak

The Kingdom of Klörvak was founded shortly after the start of the Great Dragon-Giant War, founded as a hierarchal-militocracy, granting political power and economic wealth based on how many true dragons any member of the Kingdom had killed. Anyone could become a chieftain, warlord, or even the High-King of Klörvak, so long as they had killed enough dragons and had proven their physical might over whomever previously held the position that they were vying for in a duel (not to the death, as the nation was smart enough to know that killing off your most powerful warriors was not a great plan if you want to win a war). There were dozens of Ogre, Goliath, and Verbeeg Chieftains and Warlords, and the Last King of Klörvak before the Great Dragon-Giant War ended was a Fire Giant Warlord, as the Ordning had been done away with the founding of Klörvak.

Killing dragons was so essential to the nation's culture that they used dragon scales as currency (wyrmling scales being the equivalent of copper pieces, young dragon scales being the equivalent of silver pieces, adult dragons being the equivalent of gold pieces, and ancient dragon pieces being the equivalent of platinum pieces), the chieftains, warlords and High-Kings of Klörvak being adorned in Dragon-Scale Mail armor, most often made of a motley of dragon scales taken as trophies from the dragons that they had killed, making their best weapons out of the bones of deceased dragons (very commonly being Dragon-Slayers), and even going as far to ripping the wings off of captive dragons, muzzling them to prevent them from using their breath weapons, blinding them, chaining them up 24/7, and torturing them until they submitted to their Giant-captors and served as beasts of burden and occasionally even as mounts in combat.

This understandably upset the Dragons, and is a major reason for why the Great Dragon-Giant War lasted as long as it did. Nothing seems to heighten tensions with your enemies more than them using your remains as currency, trophies, and tools of war against you, and mutilating and enslaving your comrades and family if they can manage to capture them.

The Kingdom of Klörvak was brutal and barbaric. Their patron god and the rest of their pantheon had died, so they desperately wanted to find someone to blame for the catastrophic events that unfolded in the world before the Great Dragon-Giant War, and the Aboleths provided a perfect opportunity for that when the Dragons attacked them, believing that the giants had stolen dragon eggs from them. When the war finally ended and a peace treaty was signed while being overseen by the Celestial Council, both sides were extremely bitter and had to make compromises, but Klörvak had to make the most. They no longer could base their society off of how many dragons their warriors had killed, couldn't use dragon-scales as currency, and had to return all of their dragon-scale armor and weaponry to the Draconic Empire to be properly laid to rest. Klörvak is still a hierarchal-militocracy, and quite a few of the leaders of the kingdom are the same as before the Dragon-Giant War ended, but they now focus on intelligent warfare and how proven any commander in the Klörvakian Military was at using proven battle-tactics in their fight against the Krakens and Aboleths.

 

[Older Beholder]

I couldn't see it mentioned here already but Volos guide to monsters has a chapter on Giants.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I can't answer for their homebrew, but I can give you the standard D&D lore.

Primordials as a "type" came about in 4e (there term was used loosely before to refer to various entities). In 4e the primordials were elemental entities of massive size and incredible power. They created the prime, shadow fell, and fey wild planes (the shadow fell and fey wild were bits cast off when they made the prime). The also created the titans, which in turned created the giants (which are lesser versions of the titans, so you have a type of titan for each type of giant), which in turn created dwarves. Primordials ruled the elemental chaos and after the gods started messing with the prime, went to war with the gods. The primordials were generally more powerful (it took Moradin, Pelor, and Bahamut together to imprison Mual-Tar the Thunder Serpent), but less organized than the gods. The gods and their servants eventually defeated the primordials and their servants. There is a lot more lore, and nuance, than that, but it is a general overview.

In 5e, Primordials are still a thing, but it is not clear if they hold the same significance they did in 4e. I think it is intentionally vague.

what were hill titans? as that would explain the against mad cast system.

I couldn't see it mentioned here already but Volos guide to monsters has a chapter on Giants.

I read it and found it lacking.

 

[Older Beholder]

I read it and found it lacking.

Yeah, I figured that might have been the case but thought I’d mention it on the off chance you’d missed it.

I had an idea for a low level adventure where the characters have to sneak through a hall of sleeping frost giants (It seems like a fun way to use all the frost giant miniatures I have) and reading the Volos entry wasn’t overly useful.

In my setting, during ancient times Giants once fought against an army of invading Demons and saved the Island Nation after it had been dragged into the Abyss.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Yeah, I figured that might have been the case but thought I’d mention it on the off chance you’d missed it.

I had an idea for a low level adventure where the characters have to sneak through a hall of sleeping frost giants (It seems like a fun way to use all the frost giant miniatures I have) and reading the Volos entry wasn’t overly useful.

In my setting, during ancient times Giants once fought against an army of invading Demons and saved the Island Nation after it had been dragged into the Abyss.

I have considered having the base giant stat refer to the equivalent of those 4hp commoners thus making giants with class levels utterly scary.

 

[Yora]

I feel D&D giants are too big for a somewhat grounded setting, where only magical things ignore plausible realism.
In my campaign, I use ogre stat blocks with human intelligence and call them giants. That's plenty enough gigantic for me.

 

[dave2008]

what were hill titans? as that would explain the against mad cast system.

They where earth titans:

FYI, here is some lore from the 4e MM:

 

[Weiley31]

what are primordials?

In 4E they were pretty much the Elemental Beings that resided on the planet BEFORE the various gods came from the Astral Sea. Once the gods touched down on the world and started creating their own races, the Primordials took that personally and both gods and Primordials engaged in a bitter war against each other called The Dawn War. The gods won in the end, but nobody was pretty much happy after it was all said and done. One of the greatest Primordial champions even slew the OG Dragon god, which then shortly after lead to the creation of Bahamut and Tiamat.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Frost giants and several frost giant-centric locations figure pretty prominently in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.

There aren't actually many live ones.