Scaling Up Your D&D Game to Giant Proportions

March 19, 2022

Dungeons & Dragons/ Game Master Tips/ Monsters/ Previews

Giants have been a part of Dungeons & Dragons since the beginning of the game. I have always struggled with giants. They did not come up a lot early in my game play and when I watched the old ’80s D&D cartoon giants were much more massive than they are listed as now. But whether giants are just over 10 feet tall or over 100 feet tall they are still ginormous and difficult to interact with in D&D.

Too big to fail your D&D world

D&D lore suggests that in a previous age giants were the dominant species with sprawling cities and rich culture. If you take the giants with the smallest being just over 10 feet tall and the largest being double this height it would mean any two story structure would have to be minimum of 50 feet tall. This would be very cramped for the taller folk. It is not impossible for sure, but also a bigger city with bigger buildings requires a massive amount of resources. Was the world more full of materials in this past, and they have been ground down to earth and dust over the ages? I am bogged down with too many questions to understand the age of giants.

None of that precludes what they are able to do on the Material Plane now. I wonder if other Dungeon Masters ever think how many giants are in their world? I view giants as a fleeting folk. As massive and powerful as they are must be seen as more than a monster and a threat to the civilized world. They are not able to interact easily with the smaller folk. Giants tend to be stronger and sometimes smarter than humans and this easily gives way to their superiority complex. This of course leads to heroes looking to kill them rather than talk it out. I imagine pockets of life where giants attempt to carve out a home, but being as big as they are they can easily be spotted and require a larger amount of food. If giants settle near human civilization this could lead to herds going missing just to feed the giants. This naturally leads back to the heroes stepping in to intervene. The giants must either flee or do more killing. How do you break the cycle?

If giants had their own civilization, vast ruins either above or below ground should be cool places to explore full of runes so obscure even if you understand Giant language this only gives a chance to figure it out — this is Ancient Giant, full of incomprehensible and very powerful magic. Perhaps it was fueled by a different source of magic than what mortals draw upon now. This source could be mysterious or explained here. Describing a room meant for only a few could be a simple large gathering hall but should they find a cathedral size room it should be awe inspiringly massive! Fitting 100 giants in one room is mind blowing. Just trying to navigate a staircase could be a physical challenge for so many adventures. A DM might call for Constitution checks or saving throws to climb 100giant stairs, Strength (Athletics) just to open a door and things of this sort. Beings so much larger can make for some serious struggles, for sure, for the smaller folk.

I asked above about breaking the cycle of giants in our world. It will always come down to understanding and communication. When a being three times your size attempts to talk in a loud voice it might even hurt your ears, not to mention if a giant lets out a bellowing shout right in your face. Are the humans even capable of seeking a peace with such a folk? It could be a long road rife with challenges but what if the giants were brought into civilization. Their sheer size allows them to do much to help out a community. What would take a wagon to move, they could transport easily. Buildings, trade and so much more would be much easier if the giants were willing and able. They could exchange culture and language and learn from one another. The humans could provide food and materials for shelter. And who is crazy enough to attack a city or settlement with a giant or multiple giants calling it home?

Scale is important in size of buildings, size of appetite and of course the size of egos for all involved. The question is of course how do you consider giants interacting within your world? As a DM it can be eye opening when you examine the possibilities. As a player, do you ever have your character wonder about the past and how the giants lived before humans came around?

This post was inspired by latest release of D&D Icons of the Realms: Storm King’s Thunder miniatures by our friends over at WizKids. This amazing series of miniatures comes in three different sets. They are not blind purchase so snag them all or just the ones that speak to you the most. Box No. 1 includes royalty: King Hekaton, Queen Neri and Eigeron’s Spirit. These are all huge minis. Also included are two medium sized minis — Xolkin Alassandar and Lord Khaspere Drylund. Hekaton looks so badass with all the lightning dancing around the mini. Box No. 2 has the same setup as the first one with three huge giant minis and two mediums. The three giants are the princesses: Princess Serissa, Princess Mirran and of course Princess Nym. The two mediums are Kella Darkhope and Pow Ming. The last box only has four minis, three more giants and one large Yakfolk Warrior. The three giants are Hashnag the Grim, Iymrith and Zephyros.

These minis are all of staggering gorgeous detail. If you are running Storm King’s Thunder they would be a great asset to your game table to put out for battle or just have on display. But if you are not playing SKT (or the inside joke here at Nerdarchy — Sky King’s Thunder) then most if not all of these minis could be used as end bosses in any kind of game involving giants. Each box seems to have generously placed at least one giant who looks ready for martial battle and at least one giant who looks ready to cast spells. All in all I love these figures but looking past the great detail in the giants the medium Pow Ming that comes with a snake longer than they are tall is quite impressive and this too could make for a very interesting character or end boss (maybe a mini boss) depending on the style of your game.

Head on over to WizKids Amazon store to pick yourself up some new D&D Icons of the Realms: Storm King’s Thunder minis and help support Nerdarchy doing so. You can of course after release always get them at your local game store as well and support local businesses.

As always, thanks for reading. Until next time, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — The classic Storm King’s Thunder adventure deserves collectible miniatures of epic proportions, and WizKids delivers with three box sets of 14 iconic characters from Faerun’s realm of giants! [Image courtesy WizKids]