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Mountain giants, called fjelljotunen in their own language,[7] were a brutish giant offshoot race of hill giants.[8]

Description[]

Mountain giants largely resembled hill giants,[2][1] though they were slightly smaller and roughly as strong as fire giants.[2][3] Their bodies typically displayed a skin tone that ranged from a light tan to a reddish-brown tan.[4] Male mountain giants often had heavy beards, but never mustaches, as well as large pot bellies.[1]

They typically dressed in rough animal hides or skins, much like hill giants tended to,[4] as well as a breechcloth. Due to poor hygiene, their bodies often had foul odors lingering off them that could travel along the wind for over a distance of a 100 feet (30 meters) or more.[1]

Personality[]

These giants were often given to cruelty and erratic behavior.[1] They were suspicious of outsiders and reluctant to interact with them. However, they were more than capable of agreeing to peaceful relations with other creatures.[3]

Abilities[]

Mountain giants possessed high olfactory senses, allowing them to track down and detect many enemies through means of smelling.[1]

Though not the most charismatic of giants, whenever this race called for aid, a number of monsters would quickly arrive to fight alongside them. Most often these calls for help were answered by ogres, though trolls and occasionally hill giants were known to come at such calls.[3][1][4]

A mountain giant had some degree of control over these other creatures, able to issue them broadly defined commands, but they still valued their own lives over that of their summoner. Often times this ability would be used to acquire guards and underlings for their cavern homes.[3]

Combat[]

Mountain giants were rarely known to use any form of tactical planning, deceit, or ambushing maneuvers. Rather, they preferred to straightforward approach of tossing down massive boulders at their foes from afar and rarely took cover while doing so. When fighting in close quarters they were known to use a club that were the size of logs or tree limbs.[2][3]

When it came to unarmed combat against smaller opponents they were known to jump up into the air, up to heights of 20 ft (6.1 m), and attempt to land on their foes, thereby crushing them. Otherwise, they would simply try to trample their foes, engage them in acts of grappling, or fling them away.[1]

Society[]

A mountain giant tribe was generally a very loose network of several families, scattered across a given mountain or range. These families were polyandrous, typically in the form of multiple men sharing a single woman. Tribes were led by a 3rd-level shaman, who typically lived alongside other friendly creatures rather than their own race. They presided over a tribe's occasional gathering and would counsel those willing to travel in order to talk with them.[2][3]

Mountain giant shamans typically derived their powers from the spheres of All, Animal, Charm, Combat, Elemental, or Healing. They also possessed an innate ability to locate any cave or cavern entrance within a half mile of them, with the exception of those hidden through magic.[2][3]

Mountains were often known to take the items of humanoid creatures and carry them around in bags alongside their rocks, keeping the items as playthings. Such items could include things such as furniture, wagons, or even whole huts.[1]

Relationships[]

Despite often resenting intruders, they would occasionally keep a few dwarves or humans as pets. If found in groups, they were usually a pair of mates with children.[9]

As mountain giants descended from hill giants, they were still considered true giants. They stood just above their distant kin in the giant hierarchy, or ordning, and just below stone giants.[10]

Homelands[]

Typically mountain giants lived solitary lives in mountain ranges and volcanoes,[9] dwelling in spacious caverns they carved out.[4]

During the days of the Netheril empire, mountain giants were known to inhabit the Eastern Forest.[11]

In the Lands of Intrigue, they could be found in the Omlarandin Mountains. There they were known to herd giant sheep.[12] In the Savage Frontier of northwest Faerûn, tribes of mountain giants lived in the Greypeak Mountains.[13]

In interior Faerûn, a tribe of mountain giants known as the community of the high brows lived in the Orbrekh branch of the Orsraun Mountains.[14]

Beyond Faerûn, mountain giants could be found in the temperate mountain regions of Kara-Tur.[15]

Diet[]

Mountain giants were foragers and hunters who ate a variety of nuts, tubers, and other edible mountain plants. Their most favorite food was typically mountain sheep.[2][3]

History[]

Mountain giants broke off from their hill giant ancestors after a civil war in the ancient past of Faerûn.[8] The exact date in which this civil war occurred was unknown, but it happened sometime prior to -339 DR.[11][note 2]

In the late 14th century DR, in the Western Heartlands a small band of mountain giants that lived in the northernmost mountains encircling the Battle of Bones battlefield were rumored to be led by an undead fire giant that had come from the deserts of Anauroch.[16]

Notable Mountain Giants[]

Appendix[]

Notes[]

  1. The size of mountain giants in core 3rd edition changed drastically from that in earlier editions. However, mountain giants in the Realms were explicitly described in Giantcraft to follow the 2nd edition sizes, so those values are presented here.
  2. Mountain giants appear in the adventure module, How the Mighty Are Fallen, which this wiki treats as being set in −339 DR.

Appearances[]

Adventures

Novels & Short Stories

Video Games

Card Games

Organized Play & Licensed Adventures

References[]

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Ed Bonny, Jeff Grubb, Rich Redman, Skip Williams, and Steve Winter (September 2002). Monster Manual II 3rd edition. (TSR, Inc), pp. 112–113. ISBN 07-8692-873-5.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Doug Stewart (June 1993). Monstrous Manual. (TSR, Inc), p. 143. ISBN 1-5607-6619-0.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 David Cook (1991). Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms Appendix (MC11). (TSR, Inc), p. 24. ISBN l-56076-111-3.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Don Turnbull (1981). Fiend Folio. (TSR Hobbies), p. 42. ISBN 0-9356-9621-0.
  5. Ray Winninger (September 1995). Giantcraft. Edited by Karen S. Boomgarden. (TSR, Inc.), p. 27. ISBN 0-7869-0163-2.
  6. Ray Winninger (September 1995). Giantcraft. Edited by Karen S. Boomgarden. (TSR, Inc.), p. 19. ISBN 0-7869-0163-2.
  7. Ray Winninger (September 1995). Giantcraft. Edited by Karen S. Boomgarden. (TSR, Inc.), p. 28. ISBN 0-7869-0163-2.
  8. 8.0 8.1 Ray Winninger (September 1995). Giantcraft. Edited by Karen S. Boomgarden. (TSR, Inc.), p. 16. ISBN 0-7869-0163-2.
  9. 9.0 9.1 Ed Bonny, Jeff Grubb, Rich Redman, Skip Williams, and Steve Winter (September 2002). Monster Manual II 3rd edition. (TSR, Inc), p. 114. ISBN 07-8692-873-5.
  10. Ray Winninger (September 1995). Giantcraft. Edited by Karen S. Boomgarden. (TSR, Inc.), p. 25. ISBN 0-7869-0163-2.
  11. 11.0 11.1 slade (1996). How the Mighty Are Fallen. (TSR, Inc), p. 19. ISBN 0-7869-0537-9.
  12. Eric L. Boyd (July/August 1998). “Sleep of Ages”. In Christopher Perkins ed. Dungeon #69 (Wizards of the Coast) (69)., p. 54.
  13. Jennell Jaquays (1988). The Savage Frontier. (TSR, Inc), p. 16. ISBN 0-88038-593-6.
  14. 14.0 14.1 Jim Butler (1996). The Vilhon Reach (Dungeon Master's Guide). (TSR, Inc), p. 41. ISBN 0-7869-0400-3.
  15. Gary Gygax, David Cook, and François Marcela-Froideval (1985). Oriental Adventures. (TSR, Inc), p. 114. ISBN 0-8803-8099-3.
  16. Donald J. Bingle (April 1995). “The Battle of Bones”. In Elizabeth T. Danforth ed. Elminster's Ecologies Appendix I (TSR, Inc), p. 7. ISBN 0-7869-0115-2.
  17. Wolfgang Baur and Lester Smith (1994-07-01). “The Book of Chaos”. In Michele Carter ed. Planes of Chaos (TSR, Inc), p. 115. ISBN 1560768746.

Connections[]

True Giants
Cloud EttinFire (Fire titan )FogFrostHill (Earth titanMouth of Grolantor)MountainStoneStorm Titan

True Giant Offshoots
AshCraa'ghoranMaurPhaerlin
Giant-Kin
Cyclops (Cyclopskin)FirbolgFomorianOgre (Oni)VerbeegVoadkyn
Zakharan Giants
DesertIslandJungleOgre giantReef
Other Giants
AbyssalEldritchFensirDeathSand

Related Creatures
GoliathTroll (FellGiant troll)
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