The basic ingredients forDungeons & Dragonsare right there in the name. You need a dungeon, and at the end of it, you need a dragon. This is a classic staple of the game, and the tabletop genre as a whole. And while the game has grown across its 50 years of existence, incorporating new monsters and playable creatures, exploring different genres and settings, and mixing in more narrative and pacifist adventures, the two cornerstones remain titular. But there is another beast that is worthy of far more spotlight than it currently gets - the humble giant.
I’m not suggesting the game be called Dungeons & Dragons & Giants. Oh my, no. Only a man as smart as Elon Musk would want to change a brand name as recognisable as D&D. Critical Hits are now called Critical Posts, and so forth. But I do think anyone looking to change it up a little bit should consider throwing giants into the mix. We might not get a fresh adventure fromWizards of the Coastfor a while, so homebrew might see an even larger rise in popularity as the new rules settle, and this is my personal billboard putting giants up For Your Consideration.
Giants Need More Dungeons & Dragons Adventures
Clearly, dragons remain a classic selling point. With the rules being overhauled,new books are getting slightly paused. The Players Handbook has just launched, while the Dungeon Master’s Guide arrives in November and the Monster Manual in February. After that, the new rules get their official debut in Dragon Anthology coming next Summer, a series of ten one shots all based around dragons. After that it’s the D&D Starter Set in Fall, which will be beginner friendly so likely won’t feature any giants and possibly no dragons either, although just for the ‘cool factor’ a weaker dragon likely will appear.
And hey, dragons are very cool. I’m not saying they’re not. But I am saying everyone knows that, and not everyone knows it about giants, who rival dragons in terms of lore, variety, and combat scale. One of the last books published under the 2014 rules was Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, which is where I finally discovered, well, the glory. Of the giants.
It’s not actually an adventure book, but instead it features chapters on the new giant subclass (Path of the Giant, available to Barbarians) andbackgrounds, agiant themed bestiary, somegiant themed magic items, and notes onplaying giants both in and out of combat. However, the real gem of this book isthe chapter on enclaves.
This section features 18 different giant lairs, including a map, a reason for its existence, and several adventure hooks that might lead players towards them. This makes folding giants into your game easier than ever, and can be a fantastic inspiration for encounters on the road, longer and layered side quests, or even the main conflict an adventure is built around. Several can be used as dungeons, and with a little bit of rewriting the enclaves can become lairs of other creatures - if your heart is really set on dragons, there are several in the book that would be perfect for dragons to dwell within.
Giants Are Just As Easy To Add To Adventures As Dragons
But the reason giants are so suited to these enclaves, not just because they were specifically designed for them, is because (like dragons) they can have variable intelligence and thus be a blunt object or a sharp dagger. They can be motivated as a man would, or as an animal. They offer natural range to a narrative, and are more malleable in combat due to their verticality, ability to use weapons, and much larger battlefields than the typical dungeon lair of a dragon.
Regular readers of TheGamermay recall updates from a D&D adventureled by me, and stumbled along/played ably by the crew at TG. As the first longer story I had written, I felt as we were going through it that it was a little thin and linear, with a focus on A to B. On a whim, I diverted the party from what should have been an uneventful stroll to the next village through a giant enclave from Bigby Presents, and it ended up being one of my favourite parts of the entire campaign. No experience is needed to make a giant an effective foe.
Now a new campaign is underway, one that is hopefully richer and more open ended, with a greater variety of quests, mythical encounters, and larger locations with more sprawling stories than continuing the A plot and doing some B plot fetch quests. Once we get to the thick of the campaign more updates may be abound, but after reading this it will not shock you to learn that it features dungeons, and dragons, and giants. Oh my, yes. We’ll see how the TG team deals with them, and if any enclaves prove too much for them to escape from in one piece…
