D&D (2024) How's the adoption of the new Goliath types going?

I am referring to them narratively as elemental chaos associated there in the 4e elemental origin lore that giants had in 4e. The elemental chaos has a bunch more association with Chaos in my mind than the pre-4e elemental planes. Mixing disparate elemental themes in 4e elemental chaos monsters to create hybrid elemental combos was common in the first three 4e MMs.
Lore from a very short lived edition that hardly anyone played carries very little weight. Try reading up on some real world mythology. It has proven staying power.

You managed to hit upon a source that is even more obscure than Tolkien!
 
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I would avoid trying to apply modern biology to a fantasy setting, as it make no kind of sense. Why should a fire giant an a frost giant not be able to interbreed? Physically, both are similar to humans only bigger (which is physically impossible in and of itself). And if they can freely interbreed, they are the same species, says science.

So, it makes more sense that it's the kind of magic they are connected to that makes them different, not biology.
Linnaean hierarchy is just putting an artificial classification system on what we find to give some order to it that makes some sense. I agree species is simply the 24 term, race is the 14 term and neither are meant to really be the exact match ups to scientific species usage in their D&D usage. The 14 race phrasing is more in the "race of man" sense than in the common White, Black, or Asian type of usage with everybody still the same species who can interbreed with viable offspring.

The 14 MM referenced the different races of the giants "At the highest level of the ordning, the races of the giants are also ranked according to status." while different types of elves for example are subraces. So giant types are distinguished in 5e between themselves at the level of elf versus dragonborn and not at the level of high elf versus drow.

Whether different types of giants can interbreed in 5e lore though is an unknown as far as I am aware with no even indirect references until we get to 24 goliaths being descended from giants (again I don't have the Bigby's expanded lore book and there could be other references), so up to that point it is unspecified like tieflings and gnomes. Whether you get reproductive half giants or sterile mule style hybrids or giants or nothing is not defined in the 5e core books that I see. It seems to be a DM choice situation.

In Volo's Guide to Monsters in the Giants expanded lore section it says: "In an age before human and elf, when all dragons were young, Annam the All-Father put the first giants upon the world. These giants were reflections of his divine offspring and also children of the world, birthed from the marrow of mountains, the hot blood of volcanoes, and the breath of hurricanes."

Can something birthed from the hot blood of volcanoes breed with something birthed from the breath of hurricanes? Maybe?

They each have a different racial patron deity even though many worship other gods. This can cut either way as you look at Moradin versus Correllon but also Correllon versus Lolth and Rillafane.

Giants are not just differentiated by magic and elemental abilities in 5e, their average size by type ranges significantly from 16' tall to 26' tall. Fire giants throughout D&D when specified (1e -3.5 explicitly, 5e gives no text description, relying solely on the art of them being broad and squat) are also morphologically similar to giant dwarves and not humans weighing significantly more than the taller frost giants.

5e MM giant size differences.

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So for 5e a little less than 2/3rds ~ 65%? height increase to go from lower to higher average ends compared to the D&D humans just under 5' to well over 6' same species/race baseline a bit more than 20%? A human interbreeding with a giant (making them and goliaths and giants all the same scientific species?) to have goliath descendants would have a height differential of more than a 200% increase to get to the 16' tall hill giant. The 5e 24 PH goliath description just says descendants, it does not specify human interbreeding with giants though the 24 goliath PH description is similar to 24 tiefling with just saying tiefling and the 14 PH tielfing description specified human bloodline.

In the 5e Volo's Guide to Monsters it is interesting in the giants chapter there is no mention of goliaths and in the new races section that introduces Goliaths to 5e the one and a half pages of mostly lore on the goliaths never mentions giants at all and just talks about Goliaths as a big mountain habitat based race.
 

Lore from a very short lived edition that hardly anyone played carries very little weight. Try reading up on some real world mythology.
? just an FYI that 5e's elemental chaos is a reference to the much more developed 4e elemental chaos that ties hugely into ChaosKampf real world mytholgies. 5e's is an attempt to syncretize 4e Elemental Chaos with the pre-4e great wheel elemental planes including elements of both.

I don't think my diving further into the lots I have read on Norse myths and recognizing the D&D fire and frost giant's origins there, the stone giants origins in the Hobbit, or the giants in Jack the Giant killer folklore who are easily tricked as the basis for the dumb D&D hill giants would help you get the specific reference of the 4e giants connection to 4e elemental chaos and how the 4e elemental chaos concept (and even the 5e description of the 5e elemental chaos if you tie giants to it) supports your mix and match for individuals narrative much more than 5e's sparse lore mostly limited to descendants and specific giant type ancestry. If you want a narrative of giant blood from any giant is enough to tap into elemental power based on any giant then the 4e elemental chaos discussions in books like the 4e PH, DMG, Manual of the Planes, the Planes Below, or Players Option Heroes of the Elemental Chaos could be useful for seeing elemental connection as potentially connecting to not just one element and secondarily the discussion of giants in 4e books like the various monster manuals and vaults and could be useful for seeing giants as people of the world with some elemental chaos connections they can tap. 4e has a lot of elemental chaos beings who are one element themed but it has a lot of hybrid element beings the closer you get to the elementals and primordials and certainly more than other editions of D&D. PH2 updates 3.5 goliaths for 4e but they are like the 5e Volo's Guide and focused narratively entirely on them as a race of mountain big folk and never mention giants at all or the elemental chaos at all. The closest is that they "they have wandered the mountain ranges of the world since the primordials first shaped the peaks and valleys."
You managed to hit upon a source that is even more obscure than Tolkien!
You consider Tolkien obscure for a D&D discussion? Then just as an FYI, there is a lot of Tolkien in D&D, from half the 5e core races to a bunch of core monsters to a number of magic items. :)

Was my reference of the Hobbit above too obscure for you?

I really did not think 4e (and 5e) core book elemental chaos as more mix and match elemental stuff (because primordial chaos and elements is in the name) and giants' 4e core book elemental origin big themes (giants are on the Titan side of the ancient Primordials and titans versus the gods 4e cosmology central Dawn War where the gods one, ooh look a real world Greek mythology analogy reference:) ) as deep cuts obscure references.

I will give you that the 14 DMG discussion of the elemental chaos is only about a page long and few actually read the DMG.
 


How distant can they be when they're split into the exact same categories as giants, with lesser powers based directly on each giant type and not varying from it? They're literally called the giant names, like Cloud.

To me that's a big sticking point, because it suggests the different goliath types don't interbreed, which is exactly the sort of thing I thought they were moving away from.
 

There's no similar core for goliaths except the general Big Guy trope, because goliaths were made up by Wizards about 20 years ago and since they were never added to the SRD for others to play with nor properly integrated into any of their own settings there isn't much lore to work from.
I mean, technically they're TSR's fault. 3.5e goliaths are just the 3e stats for Dark Sun half-giants, but with the psionics stripped away and replaced with cold resist. Its just, y'know,, being "The big guy" was all half giants really had for them, so of course their setting-neutral variant would have issues

They did a whole heap better than some of the other "Races of the...." new options added, mind
 

I mean, technically they're TSR's fault. 3.5e goliaths are just the 3e stats for Dark Sun half-giants, but with the psionics stripped away and replaced with cold resist. Its just, y'know,, being "The big guy" was all half giants really had for them, so of course their setting-neutral variant would have issues

They did a whole heap better than some of the other "Races of the...." new options added, mind
Hence, I desire someone to flesh them out a bit, provide a template for people to work from, so as to make starting easier.
 

For that I think they'll need a new setting as shoehorning additional races into established settings can often lead to lacklustre results but if a new setting is created that integrates them along with the other phb handbook races, I think that will lead to better lore for goliaths.
 

I mean, technically they're TSR's fault. 3.5e goliaths are just the 3e stats for Dark Sun half-giants, but with the psionics stripped away and replaced with cold resist. Its just, y'know,, being "The big guy" was all half giants really had for them, so of course their setting-neutral variant would have issues

They did a whole heap better than some of the other "Races of the...." new options added, mind
Dark Sun's original half-giants were nothing like goliaths. OG Dark Sun half-giants were like 10-11 feet tall IIRC – solidly Large rather than Medium. They also didn't have inherent psionics any more than other Dark Sun characters did (that is, all PCs got at least Wild Talents, but that was a world feature and not a race thing). Instead, their racial features other than being Large were getting double rolled hit points (so a half-giant fighter with Con 16 for +2 hp/level would have d10x2+2 hp per level), and only having one half of their alignment fixed with the other half being something they could change on a day-to-day basis depending on outside influence. They also had a +4 Strength bonus which, together with the weird way Strength worked in 2e (there were like five steps between 18 and 19 called "exceptional Strength" which they could just bypass with their Strength bonus) meant they could easily be dealing d10+10 damage by using a greatsword one-handed.

The Expanded Psionics Handbook in 3.5e included a half-giant race that was a very toned-down version of the original, and IIRC that one did come with built-in psionics (the stomp power IIRC).
 

Dark Sun's original half-giants were nothing like goliaths. OG Dark Sun half-giants were like 10-11 feet tall IIRC – solidly Large rather than Medium. They also didn't have inherent psionics any more than other Dark Sun characters did (that is, all PCs got at least Wild Talents, but that was a world feature and not a race thing). Instead, their racial features other than being Large were getting double rolled hit points (so a half-giant fighter with Con 16 for +2 hp/level would have d10x2+2 hp per level), and only having one half of their alignment fixed with the other half being something they could change on a day-to-day basis depending on outside influence. They also had a +4 Strength bonus which, together with the weird way Strength worked in 2e (there were like five steps between 18 and 19 called "exceptional Strength" which they could just bypass with their Strength bonus) meant they could easily be dealing d10+10 damage by using a greatsword one-handed.

The Expanded Psionics Handbook in 3.5e included a half-giant race that was a very toned-down version of the original, and IIRC that one did come with built-in psionics (the stomp power IIRC).
Oh yeah, I know Dark Sun half giants, but the fact there's been more editions where half giants are indistinguishable from goliaths makes them a bit of an outlier. 3.5e, 4e and 5e link goliaths and half-giants.

The Expanded Psionic ones are the ones that ended up the Goliaths, just losing the psionic features for the cold resist
 

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