Yes, there are. They had the maximum allowed Str (equal to a Storm Giant), but were dumb. Some were animal-headed. Giant hair is used to make the best ropes in Athas.allo
there are half-giants in dark sun, of course, but i've seen no mention of giants. and if there are no giants, then where did the half-giants come from?
so, are there giants in dark sun?
messy
Indeed. And the hair from their back makes an excellent Sea Dragon Turtle harness.Giant hair is used to make the best ropes in Athas.
There were 2 types of giants, the humanoid-heads and beast-heads.
They tended to live on small islands in the Sea of Silt.
According to the Second Edition AD&D MC 12 Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium Appendix, there were three types of Athasian Giants; Desert, Plains, and Beast head.
Desert and Plains Athasian Giants were the most common and were 20-25 feet tall.
Beast head Athasian giants were the ones that lived on small islands in teh Sea of Silt. They also had innate psionic abilities. There were several types of heads on teh Beast head giants:
Eagle
Goat
Wolf
Id fiend
Kirre
Braxat
Yep. Also, half-giants were originally magical creations of the sorcerer-kings for labor and military purposes. They magically combined humans and non-beast head giants. Half-giants now are their own race and can have children and so on. 3e really nerfed them, I thought. In 2e, a half-giant had +4 strength and if you had the slave gladiator kit you could get one more +1. One player in my group played a half-giant slave gladiator with strength 25, the highest possible in 2e.
3e really wussified them, giving them only a +2 to strength. They should have had +4 to +8, IMO. Yes, that would have made them nasty, but they were nasty in classic Dark Sun. They are supposed to be nasty. Part of the coolness of the setting, IMO, is the over the top PC power, balanced with the lethality and brutality of combat and the monsters you faced in the setting.
Due to the lethality, I had every player roll up three different characters so they always had one prepared in case of death.