D&D 5E Everything You Need to Know about Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants

[Parmandur]

Another new video, interview about the upcoming book.

• James Wyatt says his mission statement when designing the book was "Re-mystifying Giants" and making them bigger than life and truly mythic
• 18 full page maps with full page key descriptions, such as the root of the World Tree or a Star Forge
• a demi-plane of "Lost World" stuff like Kaiju
• tons of magic items
• tons of Monsters
• Giant Blue Oxen are in, Paul Bunyan style

 

[darjr]

There are details about Bigby's death and why he's a Gnome.

​

James Wyatt and Todd Kenreck discuss "Glory of the Giants". Bigby's history and relationship with other characters are mentioned and his encounters with Giants. Player option Path of the Giant Barbarian and Giant-themed backgrounds are covered. They delve into Giant lore, giant society, organizations, and gods associated with Giants. Their are adventure hooks, locations, and monsters related to Giants, including Giants affected by elemental planes and other planes. The bestiary chapter contains around 75 monsters, along with giant-themed magic items and artifacts. James aimed to re-mystify Giants and highlight their power, magic, and ancient glory. The book serves as a toolbox for Dungeon Masters and players, providing resources for character options, encounters, adventures, and campaigns centered around Giants.

Transcript is in the spoiler tag.

Spoiler

so let's just jump in I'm very excited
about this particular book because
Giants what is the name of the book and
what do we find in it Bigby presents
glory of the Giants is the name of the
book and in it we find
both glory and Giants with a healthy
dose of Big B
perfect for those that don't know who is
Bigby Bigby is a famous wizard from the
world of greyhawk who's best known for
his big B's hand spell
he was a friend of Morden Kanan and
Morton kainan depending on how you want
to see it yeah they actually have sort
of a weird troubled history where where
Bigby was a henchman to Morgan Kanan and
the relationship was not always amicable
but they grew to be friends and and
peers equals in The Wizarding World We
Have A Narrative of Bigby stretching
through the it's really primarily told
in the chapter start illustrations for
the six chapters of this book and the
first one we see Big B
killed biofrost Giants Boulder smushed
under the bowl that's right yeah the
artwork for that is fantastic well
Morgan Cannon looks unhorified
and the the sort of narrative that
accompanies that explains that after
that fateful incident uh Morton Kane
claims that no cleric was available to
cast Rey's dead only a druid with
reincarnation which is why Big B is a
gnome perfect in the rest of the art
throughout this book and I expect babies
like a little salty about that he is a
little salty about that yeah yeah I like
the through lines in all the books that
you always have that commentary I always
find that to be really fun this book in
particular Bigby's journey I mean it
starts with that very unfortunate
beginning and in the next one we see him
encounter Diane castra this giant
demigod the daughter of Anam
um who who is known for wandering the
material playing and interacting with
Mortals sometimes and he strikes up a
friendship with this giant demigod and
sort of grows beyond his Prejudice about
Giants he his eyes are opened to the
glory of giants he realizes the Majesty
of their civilization and the glory that
they have lost what in particular are
you excited about in this book because
with there's a lot in the book we have
like player options We've Got Deep lore
drives we have story hooks we have
locations we have monsters so uh player
options in the book include the path of
the giant Barbarian
so I played a known pirate in a One-Shot
a couple months ago who
was this mild Banner Little Gnome but
when the ship got attacked he ran into
this Barrel by the Mast with a big do
not touch sign on it that had a great
accident he pulls out this great ax
that's like twice his size and then he
grows to four times his size and swings
this ax around because he becomes large
when he rages I I am a fan of always
taking a very uh tiny creature and
making it huge like a goblin a gnome a
half-life yeah yeah the art for that
shows a halfling ground a giant size
Beyond just that that one subclass
there's background options two of them
that give you Feats that let you tie
into the flavor of giants in cool and
exciting ways those are like kind of
themed as if you've been living amongst
Giants your entire life the first one is
the giant foundling background that that
gives you the strike of the Giants feet
that that is like yes I grew up among
giants I grew up around giant stuff I
might have a salad fork as my Trident
um so the second one is the Rune Carver
which means that you've studied ancient
giant magic the runes that they carve
into things to wield magic which is a
theme that gets picked up primarily in
the bestiary chapter in the book with
lots of giants that use that magic as
well yeah I did notice that like a lot
of the monsters like have different
types of room craft magic or are
associated with also different types of
energies in the planes yeah which is
really fun but like once we get past the
player options which are really cool and
I really like the Barbarian you know
path of the giant because you get big
you can move people around the
battlefield you can throw people even
against their will and they have to take
damage you get to be huge yep it's very
Barbarian
friendly yes the next chapter is really
about bringing Giants to life and
showing how eclectic they are in d d
because I'm a big fan of giants I never
thought I would get this much giant lore
yeah so it starts off talking about sort
of giving the DM tips for for bringing
the giant to life at the table helping
you convey the scale of the encounter
that you're having to the players
um everything from stand up on the table
and stop your feet Make Some Noise to
things like the giant is holding a
watermelon and takes a bite out of it as
if it's an apple right just that kind of
okay I get a sense of how big this is
um so then it goes on to talk about
things like giant Society giant
organizations giant Gods is a big part
of it we talk about Anam and all his
children but then also all the evil or
subversive forces that try to lure
Giants away from the worship of Anam and
his children which include things like a
couple of demon princes
um yinugu kashichi Dima Gorgon but also
forces like Elemental Evil which tie
into the Giant's Elemental connections
but but twist those to corrupted ends
aside from all the Adventure hooks
there's a lot of great locations that
themselves feel like Adventure hoax
whether it's like a like a root of the
world tree and that's a location tell me
about the different locations that we
can find right so there's like
18 locations I think something like that
each of them has a full page map and
then a full page of description we
included six that are pretty closely
tied to the six giant kinds in the
monster manual but they're not just like
studying of the Hill giant Chief glacial
Rift to the frost Giant yarl in each
case we were trying to evoke the the
glory of giants right there's like a
star Forge literally from a fallen star
where where Bigby went and forged his
beneficent bracelet which uh appears in
the book as well the kind of place where
you go to make an artifact there's a
demi-plane the idea being it was removed
from the world before the fall of some
great giant Empire of the past to sort
of preserve it off in the distance but
but what's happened to it in the
meantime then there's a huge section of
magic items uh these are items that are
giant themed in various ways there's
there's actually three artifacts in this
chapter one is connected to Anam one is
connected to Diane castra and one is big
bees beneficence bracelet but then a
whole bunch of other magic items that
might be things that giants made for
their their little humanoid friends yeah
or things that they made for themselves
many things that incorporate giant runes
on them there's like a giant Blunderbuss
gravitated towards I'm like that's going
to have some heft yes uh it really is
much like you know Fizz Ben's treasury
of dragons they're like what are all
these giant themed magical items uh
that's what's really fun yep there's a
lot there's a lot for players in this
there is it might not be immediately
obvious when you look at it Beyond you
know that first chapter of player
options but then those Treasures are
a pretty Saucy draw so we've got like
all those gray Adventure Hooks and we've
got a lot of tables are really fun and a
lot of those those encounter tables are
referencing brand new monsters that
we've never seen before
um that you kind of interact with in
ways that you've never done before I'm
surprised by how many monsters are in
this book there's a lot it is primarily
a monster book The bestiary chapter is
like 75 monsters it's the biggest
chapter of the book yeah can you break
down some of that because because I
expected Giants but we're getting
different types of giants Giants that
have been affected by the elemental
planes Giants have been affected by the
you know the Outer Planes that have made
deals that you know magic we have hoax
we have other different creatures that
we haven't encountered before and it's
it's so there's so many different
choices and great narrative hooks
associated with all of them I'm
genuinely shocked at how many Giants
there are in this and how different all
of them are yeah first off the mine
flyer Eden is discussed
[Laughter]
things like that there's a giant tick
there's like everything that you could
possibly kind of want or like whatever
you know creepy permutation or or like
have wondrous like the Mist Hulk stuff
like that is just amazing to me you did
a pretty good job of hitting on the
major categories of monsters that are in
this chapter there's uh
a couple of new kinds of giants the
death giant I think is the the big one
there yeah as well as like fermorians
that are not corrupted not Fallen yeah
um but then magic using Giants Giants
that all have some Rune carved item on
them that fuels their magical power
we've got giant cultists so that
includes things like four Elemental Evil
Giants but then also Giants that have
been transformed into fiends by their
contact with a Demon Lord or an archdel
the elemental hulks are sort of a a
withered branch of the giant family tree
these are giants that have strayed so
far from their their personhood they're
they're really just monsters at this
point they're Elementals they're not
Giants anymore and they're weaker and
smaller than um Giants but they're
they're good monsters to just fight when
you need a
this is oh we're exploring this ancient
giant ruin it's not inhabited by Giants
anymore it's inhabited by these things
we've got a lot of Beast type creatures
including dinosaurs and the
aforementioned ticks and oxen and the
grinning cat is a nod to this there is a
giant goose that lays golden eggs I'm
very fond of that goose that's another
one of my weird little things I put in
this book is that the table for what
happens when you open the golden egg
what did you enjoy the most about like
creating this book because it's
something I keep on hammering home this
really does feel like the companion book
two Fizz bands we're getting that much
lower that may match clams we're getting
so many more monsters True Confession
time yeah I was nervous when I started
off working on this book because dragons
felt natural and exciting for me it was
like yes I can totally write a book
about dragons and make it awesome Giants
was like a harder cell but actually
something that you said when we were
talking about Fizz bands helped
crystallize it in my brain you talked
about
re-mystifying dragons
and so from the outset my mission
statement for this book was
re-mystifying Giants in the same way and
emphasizing that they're not they are
big people but they're not just big
people they're powerful and magical and
ancient and glorious
um and really digging into that and
singing my teeth into that made me
appreciate Giants in D in a way I never
have before it's kind of like the giant
lore book I always kind of wanted like I
would read this even if I didn't play D
D and look through the monsters because
there are so many and again there's also
unique that and the art is so metal I
have no other way to explain this the
art is so
it's over the top because they're giants
like if you're a death giant you're not
subtle about it like you're picking up
on that Vibe you know like if you are
part demon part infernal and also a fire
giant you are you look like serger from
like Thor Ragnarok I guess it's so
intense why should dungeon Masters and
even players pick up this book what do
they get what anybody who picks up this
book is gonna find is a great big
toolbox so whether you are looking for
tools you can add to your character to
give them some connection to Giants some
flavoring of Giants or you're looking
for tools to add to
a single encounter a whole Adventure an
entire campaign built around Giants this
book is chock full of resources you can
use to do that
English (auto-generated)

 

[TravDoc42]

I'm very excited to see what this Grinning Cat entails! (Pun intended)

 

[Parmandur]

I'm very excited to see what this Grinning Cat entails! (Pun intended)

Yeah, we have a pretty broad idea of what we'll see in this book, but the little surprises.in the Bestiary have me excited.

 

[Voadam]

Not quite sure from the descriptions so far how this will tie into various different gaming worlds versus generic D&D. FR has a history with the 2e giants sourcebook and trilogy of novels, and the original 1e giant modules were Greyhawk.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not quite sure from the descriptions so far how this will tie into various different gaming worlds versus generic D&D. FR has a history with the 2e giants sourcebook and trilogy of novels, and the original 1e giant modules were Greyhawk.

That's the point of the First World conceit - the lore is similar across multiple D&D settings, unless the DM rules otherwise.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Huh. I was very uninterested in this after Fizban's (I know others loved it, but it sits in the deep shadow cast by the Draconomicon for me), but I like what I'm hearing.

 

[bedir than]

Huh. I was very uninterested in this after Fizban's (I know others loved it, but it sits in the deep shadow cast by the Draconomicon for me), but I like what I'm hearing.

Same.
I moved from a won't buy to a maybe due to James and Emi's passion

 

[Parmandur]

Huh. I was very uninterested in this after Fizban's (I know others loved it, but it sits in the deep shadow cast by the Draconomicon for me), but I like what I'm hearing.

Unlike Dragons, Giants haven't had this sort of attention outside of one booklet in 2E, really, so there's more space to extend, rather than picking and choosing from a broader predecessor.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Unlike Dragons, Giants haven't had this sort of attention outside of one booklet in 2E, really, so there's more space to extend, rather than picking and choosing from a broader predecessor.

From my perspective, it also looks like one book was just sort of "meh, I guess we have to do one of these" versus "ooh, you know what would be really cool to do?"

Lots of subjects have been covered many times, in many mediums, but someone fired up about a project can still do something great with it. How many comic books has Batman been in, for instance? And yet, every year, there's at least one truly great new Batman story.

Yeah, giants have been covered a lot less, but dragons are freaking Batman. It's always possible to do something awesome with Batman.