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Let's Read the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Goliath
Dark Sun always had “half-giants” ever since its 2e days. They were very large, very strong, and had this funky random alignment rule. Here in Fourth Edition, they’ve been syncretized with goliaths.
The Lore
Athasian goliaths are also known as half-giants. They’re not a natural species, but a product of sorcerer-king experimentation blending human and giant DNA. Nowadays, most goliaths live in the city-states, but there are communities of them out in the mountains of the Tyr Region.
I think it’s official: The Dark Sun Creature Catalog has nothing nice to say about anyone. Here, it says city-dwelling goliaths are brutal enforcers for the templars and the Sorcerer-Kings, and that mountain-dwelling ones are “barbaric raiders” who have little use for companions who are not “pets or slaves”. Some of them dwell among the giants of the Sea of Silt, where they are treated as menial servants but also permitted to take part in raiding.
2e lore about half-giants said they were so lolrandom that you actually rolled on a table every day to see what half your alignment would be. This is gone from their 4e incarnation.
The Number
As usual, goliaths are Natural Humanoids and occupy the very high end of Medium size. Their speed is 6, and their signature power is Stone’s Endurance, a minor action encounter power that gives them some amount of damage resistance for a turn. Here, the specifics vary per stat block.
Goliath Enforcer
Representing your typical goliath thug, raider, or mercenary, this is a Level 8 Brute with 105 HP. It’s armed with a Greatclub, and if surrounded by PCs it can Push Through as a minor action. This is an attack vs. Fortitude that deals no damage, pushes 1 square, knocks prone, and lets the goliath shift into the vacated square. It recharges once it’s first bloodied.
Stone’s Endurance here gives Resist All 5 for a turn.
When the enforcer is reduced to 0 HP, Vengeful Clout lets it make one last attack with Vengeful Clout, targetting Fortitude, dealing greatclub damage, and knocking prone on a hit. Despite the name, the enforcer doesn’t have to target the person who defeated it.
Goliath Enforcer Legbreaker
This is the same Goliath Enforcer from before as seen by PCs in the mid-Paragon tier, who have far surpassed it in skill. It’s a Level 16 Minion Brute. It has the same Greatclub and Vengeful Clout attacks as the regular level 8 version, but dealing appropriate damage for its level and minion-ness. Its Stone’s Endurance makes it take no damage from the next attack that hits it before the end of its next turn, which sounds powerful but is the only version of the ability that would make any difference on a minion.
It’s interesting to note that both the Enforcer and the Legbreaker are worth 350 XP, so XP total ends up being an interesting guideline for when to upgrade or downgrade a monster’s quality as it goes down or up in level.
Goliath Gladiator
A better-trained goliath fighter usually met in the arena, with a big bone greataxe and an arsenal of fancy tricks. It’s a Level 11 Soldier with 114 HP and the Leader tag.
The attacks of the Bone Greataxe deal standard damage and immediately end the target’s marks on the gladiator. It can also use the weapon in a Leg Strike that targets Fortitude, deals the same amount of damage, slows and prevents the target from shifting for a turn. And finally, it can be used in a Skull Cleaver maneuver that also targets Fortitude, deals heavy damage, daze, and impose a -2 penalty to saves (save ends both). This recharges when the goliath misses with the power, so it will keep trying until it hits.
It looks to me like the gladiator really wants to get past the party’s defenders with the help of its basic attacks, and then use the special maneuvers on the party’s squishies that are likely to have a worse Fortitide defense.
The goliath’s leaderly abilities are all Minor Actions: Get Up! (recharge 5+) lets an adjacent ally either stand up as a free action, or make a save against a dazing, immobilizing or restraining effect. Offensive Form lets it mark every adjacent enemy for a turn. Its Stone’s Endurance gives Resist 10 All for a turn.
Goliath King’s Guard
When you finally go meet that crime boss or petty warlord who has an army of goliath legbreakers at his service, these are the dudes who will be standing next to him as his elite bodyguards. They’re Level 16 Soldiers with 154 HP, wielding halberds and wearing scale armor. Their weapons give them Threatening Reach 2.
They might also have metal blades, because their basic attack is described as a Halberd without any material qualifiers as “bone” or “obsidian”. They do standard damage, slide the target one square and mark it for a turn. The Mighty Clout technique (recharge 5+) deals heavy damage, slides 1 square, and knocks prone. Their Stone’s Endurance gives them Resist 10 All for a turn.
A relatively simple stat block, but it’s good at its job of preventing PCs from getting close to the boss. As mentioned above, it goes well with a small army of legbreaker minions in addition to the boss.
Encounters and Final Impressions
Despite the vitriol heaped upon them by the book, ultimately Goliaths also fit the category of People, so you might find them in the usual Mixed People Encounters as well. They can be allies or enemies, free or not.
The stat blocks are pretty simple. Big fighters with big weapons. I thought the gladiator was the standout here, lots of interesting martial tricks on that one.
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Let's Read the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Golem
That’s the title of the entry, but I’ll try to not to use it outside of the monster names since it’s a bit appropriative.
The Lore
As as far as D&D goes, these are our “top-tier” constructs, usually placed in guardian roles but sometimes found following their creator around and responding to direct commands from them. They’re made by binding an elemental into a physical shell made out of some material, as we saw in the Monster Manual/Vault reading.
Bone, clay, flesh and stone constructs are as common here as they are in other settings, but not even the wealthiest and most wasteful of Sorcerer Kings would make a construct out of iron, let alone other metals. Instead, Athasian wizards have developed other models made of more commonly available materials. This doesn’t mean the constructs themselves are common, as most of the rituals to make them are jealously guarded secrets, and even those who still know them don’t necessarily know the theory behind the recipe.
Mind you, metal constructs might still be found in the depths of some Green Age or Red Age ruins, and they remain exceedingly dangerous.
The Numbers
All of our specimens here are Large Natural Animates with the Construct tag. They’re immune to disease, poison, and sleep. Everything else varies per stat block.
Salt Golem
This is a construct made out of rock salt, which has some different properties from common stone. The most relevant here is that it’s surrounded by a haze of salt particles shed from its main body, which it can control. Salt is highly toxic at these concentrations and the creature can send it right into your bloodstream if you have any open wounds.
Salt constructs are Level 11 Elite Brutes with 278 HP, a ground speed of 5 (cannot shift), and Darkvision. They’re surrounded by a haze of Toxic Salt that acts as an aura (2), which inflicts -2 to the defenses of any enemy inside. If the enemy is bloodied, it also takes 5 poison damage when it starts its turn in the aura.
The creature attacks with the now-traditional Slam, which deals heavy damage and on a hit inflicts 5 ongoing poison damage and -2 to attacks (save ends both). Double Attack lets it slam twice in one action. Its special attack controls that salt cloud to cause Horrid Dehydration (close burst 3, enemies only, recharge 4+), which damages then weakens and slows for a turn. If the target is bloodied it the conditions become (save ends both) instead.
Dune Golem
This is a construct made out of loose sand bound together by air magic. It can hold a humanoid shape, but it’s diffuse instead of solid, making it particularly resistant to conventional attacks.
A dune construct is a Level 13 Elite Soldier with 184 HP. It has a ground speed of 5, and a burrow speed of 5 on loose earth. In addition to the standard immunities to disease, sleep, and poison, it also takes half damage from melee and ranged attacks. Unlike its solid cousins from this entry, it can shift.
The creature is surrounded by an aura (2) of Gusting Sands, which counts as difficult terrain for enemies inside. Whenever such an enemy tries to stand up from prone inside the aura, they must roll a save. If they fail, they stay prone and waste the action they spent trying to get up. We also see the Unhindered trait here, which lets the construct pull grabbed victims along when it moves.
The construct’s Slams deal the usual damage, and grab on a hit. It can have up to two grabbed victims, and can sustain the grabs for free. It has Double Attack, so it could grab two victims in the same action if it hits with both slams.
Grabbed victims are susceptible to Engulf, a minor action attack that deals light damage but starts inflicting ongoing 15 damage until the grab ends! And then you have Shifting Sands a move action power that lets the construct either shift its speed, or to shift half its speed and gain phasing during this movement. While shifting, it ignores difficult terrain and can move through enemy spaces, so this is a good escape hatch in addition to being a way to play keep-away with the suffocating grabbed victims and their allies. One special condition with the phasing here is that it only works if the surface in question has a hole wide enough to let a grain of sand through, which shouldn’t be a problem in most cases.
Obsidian Golem
Another construct made from a type of stone with specific properties. In this case, obsidian is more or less natural volcanic glass. Like the stone they’re made from, these constructs are very very sharp. They’re also deceptively fast.
They are Level 19 Elite Soldiers with 358 HP. Their speed is merely 4 and they cannot shift, but they’re Razor Sharp. This property is modeled as an aura (1). Any enemy inside the aura that moves to another square inside the aura takes 10 damage.
Instead of Double Attack, obsidian constructs have Inexorable Action, which lets them roll initiative twice and take two whole turns per round at those counts.
The construct’s Slams deal the usual brute-tier damage, push 1 square, knock prone, and inflict ongoing 5 damage (save ends) from the bits of obsidian that break off and get stuck in the wound. It can also use a Stunning Handclap (recharge 6+) which attacks all enemies in a Close Burst 5. On a hit it deals thunder damage and stuns for a turn!
A rechargeable multi-target stun is a terrifying prospect. A lucky recharge roll might let the creature use this twice in a round, which is a very bad thing for the PCs.
Encounters and Final Impressions
You’re gonna run into some of these things eventually in any D&D campaign that goes on for long enough, and these ones are reasonably interesting.
If guarding a site, they’ll either be accompanied by more constructs or by other long-lasting guardians such as undead, devils, or demons. If found as bodyguards, they’ll be accompanied by their masters and any other goons you care to add to the group.
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Let's Read the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Gith
A gith warrior with a spear. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.
The Lore
One of the things we learned about the cosmology of Athas early in the Campaign Setting reading is that its Shadowfell is locally known as the Gray, and it’s suspected to block access to the Astral Sea and any other worlds beyond.
This becomes relevant here, because the people known as the Gith are said to have arrived on Athas long ago, sailing from beyond the Gray in silvery ships. Once here, however, they found out they couldn’t go back. To make matters worse, these alien visitors found out that they were particularly susceptible to the corruptive influences of Athasian arcane magic, which turned them Darker and Sunnier over the generations.
Present-day gith are more monstrous in appearance than the ones you’re used to. Their mindset is also more monstrous, which is saying something considering these were probably githyanki invaders to start with. Despite the mutations they’ve undergone, they retain their psychic abilities.
Gith organize in nomadic hunter communities, wandering through the moutains and the Tablelands region. They make no particular distinction between standard animals and sapient outsiders when it comes to chosing their prey, and think both make fine eating. Some Gith groups are dedicated to gathering the scattered parts of their original ships, hoping to reassemble them so they can get off this rock.
The Numbers
Gith are Medium Natural Humanoids with Speed 6. Their signature power is the same as that of standard githyanki: Telekinetic Leap, an encounter power that lets them fly 5 squares as a move action. Other attacks and abilities vary with training.
Gith Savage
The rank-and-file of any large gith raiding force, the book describes their lives as nasty, brutish, and short. These Level 4 Minion Skirmishers fight with obsidian-tipped spears.
The gith’s basic Spear attack damages and lets it shift 1 square. Once per encounter they can enhance one attack into a Telekinetic Pierce, which targets Fortitude, deals the same damage and pushes the target 1 square. I think this above might be the first psychic power I’ve seen that doesn’t target Will. There are a few others in this entry.
Gith Hobbler
These hunters are level 4 Artillery with 46 HP. They prefer to stay far away throwing Range 20 Javelins. Once per encounter they can throw a particularly well-aimed Pinning Javelin, that does a bit more damage and immobilizes (save ends).
If someone gets too close, they’re subject to the hobbler’s aura (1) of Brain Fog, which inflicts a -2 penalty to attacks and damage to enemies inside. I wonder if there’s one of these near me these days. Someone who insists on attacking them in melee might force the hobbler to use its bone dagger, which does light damage and lets them shift 1 square on a hit.
Gith Spearhead
A front-line fighter wielding a barbed obsidian-headed spear. It’s a Level 5 Brute with 76 HP. The Vicious Spear is pretty strong, as expected of a brute, and can be used in a Focused Stab (recharge 4+) that deals more damage and knocks prone. If the target is bloodied, the attack deals even more damage and dazes (save ends).
If the spearhead is reduced to 0 HP, it lets out an Ancestor’s Appeal, a Close Burst 1 that targets Fortitude and deals psychic damage. In addition to the damage, a hit also inflicts ongoing 5 psychic damage, and a further 5 psychic damage whenever the target uses a daily or encounter power (save ends both).
Git Drone
Drones are gith that show increased psychic aptitude as children, and are subject to a torturous training regimen to further develop their powers. They’re Level 5 Controllers with 62 HP.
Drones emit a Brain Fog aura that works like the hobbler’s, but is much wider in radius (3). They fight with Bone Daggers in melee and with Telekinetic Thrusts at up to range 5. These deal force damage, and slide 2 squares.
Every so often they can use a Psychic Nova (recharge 5+). This is an Area Burst 1 Within 5 that targets Reflex, deals untyped damage, and makes the target suffer 5 psychic damage whenever they use a daily or encounter power (save ends). If the target is bloodied, it instead deals ongoing 5 damage (save ends).
Encounters and Final Impressions
The one time I briefly played a Dark Sun game, one of the PCs was a “standard” gith fighter, so I had thought the gith of Athas were both unchanged from their astral relatives and playable. Turns out I was wrong! Mechanically they’re still similar to githyanki, but their look and feel is pretty different than what I expected, and there are no rules for gith PCs in the Campaign Setting.
Gith are commonly found in all-gith hunting parties, perhaps accompanied by domesticated baazrags or other trained beasties. They can also be found in mixed parties of People, whether as willing members or as slaves commanded to fight.
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Quar and Their Guns in GURPS
Recently, I became aware of the Quar. Aren’t they neat?
A squad of Quar soldiers, with officers, standard-bearer, and messenger squirrel handler. Source: https://rhyfler.com These funny anteater people are the stars of a couple of miniature wargames, the 28mm-scale Clash of Rhyfles and the 15mm-scale This Quar’s War. Both of these have their rulebooks freely available here, which is also where the image above comes from.
An individual Quar is a funny little person who just wants to chill with a hot cup of tea and a plate of moth cakes. Quar societies however are very, er, quarrelsome, so most of their history is an endless procession of wars.
I was motivated to write this article both because I think the setting is neat, and because the technical information about Quar weapons in the Clash of Rhyfles game made me think I can stat them up in GURPS.
Very Short Setting Summary
The wargames cover a particularly turbulent period in the history of Aldwyn, the Quar home world. It’s marked by at least twenty years of worldwide trench warfare between two large multinational coalitions. The tech level is somewhere between WW1 and WW2, and this is pretty much the war that introduced industrial warfare to their world.
If the idea of these adorable creatures being fed into one of the worst meat-grinders imaginable is horrifying to you, then you get the setting’s main idea. I’ve heard it described as “grimsical”. It replaces the “dark” vibe from “grimdark” with “whimsical”, but it’s still grim. The cuter the miniatures for their soldiers and tanks get, the stronger the dissonance becomes.
The Clash or Rhyfles quickstart book centers on the two main factions of the war. The Crusade is a coalition of former monarchies who successfully toppled their old regimes and became republics. They’re led by the Republic of Tok, and made up of many smaller nations that follow the same standards for equipment and tactics. The rules here could be used for quar from any of those places.
On the other side, the Kingdom of Coftyr leads an alliance of the world’s remaining monarchies to stamp out this revolution. Each kingdom here tends to be visually distinct, as their whole thing is adherence to ancient traditions and heraldry. Therefore, the book only covers Coftyr itself.
Free add-ons provide details for “sub-factions” allied to either side. These are Crusader or monarchist nations who do their own thing on the battlefield.
As usual for wargames, both sides are morally ambiguous. Opposing monarchy is a good thing in my book, but the Crusade is also the side that introduced industrial warfare to the world. Coftyr flavor text is all about honor and chivalry and heroism, but they adopted industrial warfare just as readily and at the end of the day are still defenders of absolute monarchy.
I get the impression that the world of Alwyn could settle into a more or less stable configuration if everyone just stopped and signed a status quo peace treaty, but they’ve all been fighting for 20 years by now and none of their leaders show any sign of wanting to stop.
As usual for wargames, you pick the side you think looks neater, paint them up, and pit them against other factions in battles that would fit somewhere in those decades of war. Most of these battles focus on infantry with the occasional tanks thrown in. There seem to be airships, but I don’t know if they have airplanes yet.
Quar in GURPS
The typical Quar is about 1.5 meters tall and weights around 60kg. They follow a largely humanoid body plan. Their skins can take on any of a large number of hues, from yellows and greens to blues and purples and oranges. Often, they’re a little mottled. Their diet tends to include lots of bugs, though those are often prepared as ingredients in dishes that we would otherwise recognize.
Stat-wise, I’d say they are absolutely identical to humans. If you insist on being strict, make them about a foot shorter than their ST would indicate, but do not adjust their stats in any other way. Being a Quar costs 0 points.
Because that’s the thing, you see? Quar are just people. The horrors inflicted on them are horrible because war is horrible, not because Quar are adorable.
Quar Guns in GURPS
Guns in Clash or Rhyfles don’t actually have damage ratings, just range and optional traits. The results of a ranged attack roll depend entirely on the degree of success for your skill roll. They might leave a target unaffected, Gobsmacked (stunned) or Taken Out, which is different from “dead”: they might still be rescued during or after the battle.
However, the skirmish game rules include enough fluff about the infantry weapons of the Crusade that I kinda want to try statting them up in GURPS. If I ever get the same information for the Coftyri ones, I’ll stat them up too.
The book mentiones the muzzle velocity and caliber of a couple of the weapons, and if I make a guess about the weight of the bullet I can plug those three things in the simplest possible version of the unofficial official GURPS ballistics equation to get a damage figure.
That link also contains a complete spreadsheet that demands things like chamber pressure, which I have no chance of figuring out. So stuff like Accuracy and range will be derived by the older method of eyeballing existing guns, as will bullet weight.
The numbers in the original material are just there for color, of course. None of them affect the rules of the miniature wargame itself. But if we take them as true, we see that Quar are very fond guns with big bullets and powerful propellant charges, fired out of guns with short barrels and very light construction. The recoil on those is gonna be ridiculous.
The Bogen Rifle
The signature weapon of the Crusade rhyfler, the Bogen semi-automatic rifle is said to fire a 12mm bullet at 580m/s. It uses a 5 or 10 round magazine and weights 2.4kg “fully loaded”. Its effective range is 150-250 meters.
The closest real-world bullet to this one in GURPS High-Tech is the .45-something family of rifle rounds, which are 11.43mm in diameter and weight 31 grams. After some fiddling, I decide to go with a slightly lower 27 grams for the Quar bullet, which gives us exactly 7d damage. This is pi+ because of the caliber. Picture them as being broader, shorter and rounder than Earth rifle cartridges, which is in theme for all things Quar.
This gives us a gun that packs about the same punch as a real-world M1 Garand rifle while having almost exactly half its weight and about the length of an M16 assault rifle. That’s going to have a significant kick, to say the least.
TL Weapon Damage Acc Range Weight RoF Shots ST Bulk Rcl 7 Bogen 7d pi+ 3 900/3500 2.4kg/0.36kg 3 5(3) 11† -5 4 The Rhyshi (R4) Heavy Rifle
Only slightly longer than the Bogen, the Rhyshi fires a huge 20mm round with a 720m/s muzzle velocity. Its magazine carries seven of those, and it’s said to require a solid stance and firm support to shoot with any kind of accuracy. A squad mate’s shoulder will do for support, according to the book, but I’m going to give this rifle an integral folding bipod because I’m not a monster. A properly braced R4 has greater range than the Bogen, and can penetrate up to “medium” vehicular armor.
The closest thing to this I can find on High-Tech is the Mauser Tank-Gewehr 18, the WW1 German anti-tank rifle. Its caliber is “only” 13mm, but it’s the largest anti-tank rifle in that table that is even removely Quar-portable. Plugging its bullet mass, caliber and printed velocity in our magic spreadsheet, we get 10d+3 damage, which following High-Tech convention can be rounded and written as 5dx2. Let’s also give it an armor-piercing round, because I see the WW1 tank examples in the book have DR 45.
5dx2 is the same damage as the T-Gew18, but the Rhyshi again weights less than half of what the real gun does. It’s not that much longer than the Bogen either, so it’s gonna be a beast to handle unless it’s properly braced. As the book says, Quar Crusaders frequently attach a bayonet to the Rhyshi because there’s no way it can be fired in close quarters.
TL Weapon Damage Acc Range Weight RoF Shots ST Bulk Rcl 7 Rhyshi 5dx2(2) pi+ 4 1100/4400 7.5kg/1kg 3 7(3) 18B† -6 7 Grifkis Shotgun
This is a 10-gauge, six-kilo trench gun firing buckshot ammo. The only Crusade gun to still be largely hand-made, it’s carried by officers as a badge of honor and a symbol of courage. The illustration shows its barrel is fairly short, but it still has a shoulder stock.
No need to fiddle with spreadsheets this time, we have a 10G double-barrel shotgun in High Tech. Let’s borrow its stats and adjust for the shortened “whippet” barrels:
TL Weapon Damage Acc Range Weight RoF Shots ST Bulk Rcl 6 Grifkis 2d-1 pi 3 40/800 6kg/0.15kg 2x13 2(3i) 12† -4 1/7 The short barrels give this gun a more pronounced muzzle blast (+1 to Hearing and Vision to locate when fired in the dark). I’m using the listed weight for it here, which makes it about 50% heavier than the real world example from High-Tech. Big caliber, two barrels, extra chonky? This is basically the Doom Super Shotgun.
H-11a Light Machine Gun
According to the book, this LMG fires the same round as the Bogen rifle, and the Crusade likes to use it as an offensive squad support weapon. It appears longer than the rifle, and can also be used in vehicular mounts when the force can’t find heavier MGs to put in there.
I think I’m just going to crib from High-Tech again, and blend some of the Bogen’s stats with those of the MG34.
TL Weapon Damage Acc Range Weight RoF Shots ST Bulk Rcl 7 H-11a 7d pi+ 5 900/3500 15kg/2.5kg 15 50(5) 12B† -7 2 This gives us a gun that’s actually heavier than the Rhyshi rifle, and whose recoil is manageable enough that it’s worth firing more than one bullet per turn. It fires rounds from a non-disintegrating cloth belt.
Final Impressions
Look at those things. Just look at them. Their damage values combined with the light weight and short barrel means they have powerful powder charges. Quar like big booms and they cannot lie.
The recoil on these things means the act of firing them is somewhere between “comical” and “painful for the shooter”. I’m guessing that a Taken Out result in the wargame very often means the target got spooked and decided to play dead, instead of actually being hit. This also explains why a quar can take themselves out on a bad skill roll.
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Let's Read the 4e Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Giant
This post is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.
Athas has a lot of the same giants we can see in the Monster Manuals and Monster Vault. Athasian giants are less militarily aggressive than their counterparts in other worlds, but they still don’t like interacting with the “small folk”. They prefer to make their homes in isolated islands on the Silt Sea. A giant who wants to visit the mainland can often just wade through what to them is chest-high silt. PCs might be able to negotiate a ride with such a giant, if they’re diplomatic enough.
In this entry we’ll take a look at two Athas-specific giants, whose descriptions will help explain why they don’t like the small ones very much.
Beast Giants
A snake-headed beast giant. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. Beast Giants are the product of psionic experimentation by ancient masters of the Way, who have stabilized into their own species. They have bodies similar to that of hill giants, but the heads of beasts.
Each giant’s head is different, and can be similar to that of any Athasian beast, whether currently living or extinct. So PCs might be faced with something familiar like a Cilops or Baazrag-headed giant, or with some exotic ancient cryptid like a lion, tiger or bear. Oh my! Their skill at mind-reading is such that they can copy most techniques used against them on the fly during a fight.
Beast Giants are fairly cosmopolitan sorts and frequently associate with other types of giant and giant-kin who share their islands: hill giants, firbolgs, brohgs, and others.
Beast Giant
The typical beast giant is Large Natural Humanoid (Giant) and a Level 15 Brute with 180 HP and a ground speed of 7 and Low-light Vision.
No matter what their head looks like, it gives them a Rending Bite that deals heavy immediate damage and ongoing 5 damage (save ends). Once per encounter they can use the Red of Tooth power to make three bite attacks on the same action, each against a different target.
When someone attacks a beast giant, they can use Psionic Retention as a reaction. They still suffer the damage and any riders normally, but they also “retain” that result, so keep a note of it. They can then use this to power their Psionic Release attack (melee 2 vs. Fortitude). A hit deals the exact same amount and type of damage, and the exact same riders, as the giant’s “retained” attack. Psionic Release recharges when the giant uses Psionic Retention again, so it effectively “spends” the retained attack.
Beast Titan
The oldest Beast Giants have grown enough in power and size to qualify as Beast Titans. They’re a lot more aggressive than their younger counterparts and love displaying the skulls of their enemies as trophies.
These are Huge instead of Large, and they’re Level 20 Elite Brutes with 466 HP. Their ground speed is an 8, and their Beast Reflexes let them roll a save to avoid falling prone.
Their Psionic Retention and Release powers work the same as the giant’s, with the greater range and numbers from their larger size and level. Their Gnashing Bite is also upgraded.
As a minor action the titan can use Titan’s Embrace (melee 3 vs. reflex) to do some light damage and grab on a hit. And once it has a grabbed victim, it can use Head Rip to deal massive damage, plus the same ongoing damage as the bite. The giant also throws the victim 10 squares and knocks it prone at the end.
Shadow Giant
A human adventurer cowering from a shadow giant. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. Unlike the Death Giants of the monster manual, who are merely death-_themed_, Shadow Giants are actual undead. They’re vengeful spirits who seek retribution from an ancient slaughter, likely from the Red Age. They look like shadows cast on a wall.
They tend to be loners, or to ally with those giants that still retain a strong elemental connection (like fire and stone giants). Sometimes, a brohg renegade will seek them out to learn the ancient arcane secrets the shadow still rememebers.
Shadow Giants are Large Shadow Humanoids with the Undead and Giant tags, and Level 18 Soldiers with 185 HP. They have darkvision, a ground speed of 7, and a flight speed of 3. Like most undead, they are immune to disease and poison and have 20 necrotic resistance. They’re also insubstantial, but lack Phasing.
A shadow giant projects an aura (5) of Shadow Malaise that halves any healing that takes place inside. Whenever they take radiant damage, they’re Revealed by Radiance and become substantial for a turn.
Their basic attack is a Necrotic Touch, which targets Reflex, deals necrotic damage, and marks on a hit (save ends). They also have a non-basic Death Touch that is similar, but exchanges some of its direct damage for an additional ongoing 10 necrotic damage rider (save ends both this and the mark).
If a marked enemy makes an attack that doesn’t include the giant, they are Cast Into Shadow as a reaction. This is a melee attack that targets Reflex. A hit does no damage, but removes the target from play for a turn! This means they’re stunned and removed from the map, reappearing at their previous position when the effect ends.
The giant’s ability to possibly mark multiple PCs makes it a very effective “defender”. Cast Into Shadow is a very potent “save or suck” attack, so PCs will have an extra incentive to focus on the giant and not on its other buddies. And if they don’t, the giant has just removed a whole PC from consideration for the next round.
Encounters and Final Impressions
Athas is prime giant country and plenty of core giants would be happy as clams living here, but I guess it makes sense to have some setting-specific ones to signal that we’re not in Kansas any more.
Beast giants and titans feel a bit redundant, but their appearance is certainly striking. Shadow Giants have intriguing mechanics, but you probably don’t want to have more than one of these in play at any given encounter. They can also be used in other settings without a lot of modification, as “undead giant with a grudge” is a pretty universal concept.
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