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

[Bitbrain]

we really need a big type of aberration line just for boss battles,

would fire be solar titans?
what would stone and hill even be?
what would storm titans be other than truly terrifying?

Storm giants are the ones who become Sun Titans. They’re basically beefed-up D&D Storm Giant Quintessents with evocation magic and the ability to erupt into blinding light.

Fire giants mature into Brass Titans. If you injure them, their blood splashes onto you and burns you. They have innate transmutation magic and a metal-based telekinetic effect: it’s a recharging Strength save restraining feature they use right before they attack you. The titans gain an aura that deals thunder damage.

There are no stone giants in my games.

Hill giants mature into War Titans. They start out as ettins basically (2 heads, 2 arms), then have four heads and four arms as an adult, six heads and arms as an ancient, before topping out with ten heads and arms as a titan. Hill giants are nothing fancy: aside from the mere sight of them dealing psychic damage to any creature with a certain distance, they exist mostly to beat you to a bloody pulp.

 

[Ancalagon]

Some elements/ideas about this:

1: giants can be made a lot more powerful/interesting by giving them rune magic that rune knights have.

2: Giants are a threat to dragons a way many other powerful monsters aren't because they can throw boulders. The "stay at range and blast them with fire" tactic dragons like will not work if they get barraged with boulders.

 

[Scribe]

Primordials (Elemental Gods) created the Titans who in turn created the Giants. Giants belong to Team Primordials, much like how Dragons belong to Team Gods.

Coming back to this. Did these Titans have Stat blocks?

 

[Voadam]

dragon versus giant.

 

[Bitbrain]

Coming back to this. Did these Titans have Stat blocks?

In fourth edition, yes.

 

[Voadam]

Coming back to this. Did these Titans have Stat blocks?

Yes, in the 4e Monster Manuals from the beginning.

Fire giants were large, Fire Titans were Huge.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Some elements/ideas about this:

1: giants can be made a lot more powerful/interesting by giving them rune magic that rune knights have.

2: Giants are a threat to dragons a way many other powerful monsters aren't because they can throw boulders. The "stay at range and blast them with fire" tactic dragons like will not work if they get barraged with boulders.

or a bigger worse option imagine one with a cannon for example?

 

[Ancalagon]

or a bigger worse option imagine one with a cannon for example?

this is a good point but also a red herring. Anyone with cannons is a treat to dragons, not just giants. Heck, cannons are a threat to giants too, I would say that if anything, they favor mortals.

 

[Voadam]

I am a big fan of the 4e Dawn War cosmology and giants story.

The Elemental Primordials used matter from the Elemental Chaos and created worlds and creatures. Titans were huge elemental creations of specific elemental flavors to serve the Primordials and they made masses of the smaller (large) Giants. I believe Dwarves were an elemental slave race for giants.

Gods were beings of concepts from the Astral plane and they interacted with the created world of the Primordials and the thinking beings on it, Moradin worked on shaping the world and patroned a lot of dwarves for example.

The Dawn War was basically sparked by the Primordials wanting to destroy their creation of the world and use the materials to create a new different one in a creation destruction cycle again and again while the Gods wanted a stable persistent world. War broke out and the Titans and Giants were soldiers for the Primordials while the dwarves rebelled and joined the gods under Moradin.

Io was the Dragon God and Dragons were on the gods side in the war with Dragons being on the power level of Giants and Titans. There is a basis for dragon versus giants historical enmity out of that Dawn War back story.

 

[Mind of tempest]

this is a good point but also a red herring. Anyone with cannons is a treat to dragons, not just giants. Heck, cannons are a threat to giants too, I would say that if anything, they favor mortals.

You're partly right but dragons are fast and cannons are slow a giant can just pick it up and use it like a gun instead of needing to get a lucky hit in.