Giant, Storm

This giant is a towering, muscular human of heroic proportions, with bronze skin, dark hair, and sparkling green eyes.

Storm Giant CR 13

XP 25,600
CG Huge humanoid (giant)
Init +2; Senses low-light vision; Perception +27

DEFENSE

AC 28, touch 10, flat-footed 26 (+6 armor, +2 Dex, +12 natural, –2 size)
hp 199 (19d8+114)
Fort +17, Ref +8, Will +13
Defensive Abilities rock catching; Immune electricity

OFFENSE

Speed 50 ft., swim 40 ft. (35 ft., swim 30 ft. in armor)
Melee mwk greatsword +27/+22/+17 (4d6+21/17–20) or 2 slams +26 (2d6+14)
Ranged mwk composite longbow +15/+10/+5 (3d6+14/×3)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 15th)

Constant—freedom of movement
2/day—control weather, levitate
1/day—call lightning (DC 15), chain lightning (DC 18)

STATISTICS

Str 39, Dex 14, Con 23, Int 16, Wis 20, Cha 15
Base Atk +14; CMB +30; CMD 42
Feats Awesome Blow, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (greatsword), Improved Sunder, Improved Vital Strike, Iron Will, Power Attack, Vital Strike
Skills Acrobatics +18, Climb +17, Craft (any one) +13, Intimidate +20, Perception +27, Perform (sing) +12, Sense Motive +24, Swim +22
Languages Auran, Common, Draconic, Giant
SQ militant, water breathing

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Militant (Ex)

Storm giants are proficient with all simple and all martial weapons.

Water Breathing (Ex)

Storm giants can breathe water as well as air.

ECOLOGY

Environment any warm
Organization solitary or family (2–5 plus 1 sorcerer or cleric of 7th–10th level, 1–2 rocs, 2–6 griffons, and 2–8 sharks)
Treasure standard (mwk breastplate, mwk composite longbow [+14 Str bonus] with 20 arrows, mwk greatsword, other treasure)

Storm giants tend toward tanned complexions, though some rare specimens have violet skin, deep violet or blue-black hair, and silvery gray or purple eyes. Such violet coloration is considered to be good luck among storm giants, and those possessing it tend to become leaders among their kind. Adults are typically 21 feet tall and weigh 12,000 pounds. Storm giants can live to be 600 years old. When at rest, they prefer to wear short, loose tunics belted at the waist, sandals or bare feet, and headbands. They wear a few pieces of simple but finely crafted jewelry, with anklets (favored by barefoot giants), rings, or circlets being most common. Yet when they outfit themselves for battle, they don shimmering breastplates and wield enormous greatswords and bows.

Storm giants tend to be reclusive, preferring to dwell along remote coastlines or on tropical islands. Yet like their namesakes, they are prone to violent mood swings. Storm giants are quick to anger in the face of evil and can be brutal, dangerous foes when insulted. In battle, they prefer to send a hail of arrows to rain down on their foes, only drawing their greatswords after opponents get inside their bow range.

Storm giants live in well-constructed towers, castles, or walled settlements, and prefer to live off the land. They maintain enormous, well-tended gardens and manage hundreds of acres of farmland per group. They often hire other humanoids, such as elves or humans, to help them run their massive farms. A storm giant enclave often takes responsibility for the safety of an entire island or stretch of coastline.

Eldest children of sea and sky, storm giants are benevolent colossi who tower over almost all other giants in size, strength, and glory. They garb themselves in armaments that match their imperial beauty, and are masters of all they survey. Wind and water thrum in harmony with the thunderous beating of storm giants’ hearts, and their attunement to the natural world is so strong that the goliaths’ moods are often reflected in their very surroundings, the calm winds and raging tempests that follow them indicative of their fickle manner.

Storm giants are wild and awe-inspiring—throughout history they have captured the hearts of mortals and immortals alike. Enraptured with the vision of untamed, raw beauty, suitors have given up treasures and birthrights in their usually fruitless attempts to earn storm giants’ affections. While storm giants are hardly immune to the charms of other beings, they are haughty and proud, and demand tests of valor or cleverness to prove the worthiness of those seeking their hands. Even the giving of such a quest is often wrapped within a riddle, which must first be deciphered before the suitor’s true task can begin. However, while it is incredibly difficult to earn the graces of a storm giant, once they have been befriended, their allegiance is unfaltering, and allies of storm giants can always count on these benevolent behemoths in times of need.

All storm giants possess some amount of wanderlust, and are apt to fall into moody discontent if forced to remain in one place too long. When among their own kind, families of storm giants often travel the world together, though they may drift apart for years or decades at a time before reconvening to reestablish their ties.

Storm giants are legendary figures to most mortals, rumored to dwell in castles or enormous towers on remote islands. They are said to soar through the skies astride tamed rocs, trailing griffons in their wake as a human lord might use a pack of hounds to hunt. Some claim they can change their shape into that of eagles, or even into the semblance of human men and women, and that they walk unknown among the lesser races, testing the hospitality and generosity of those they meet. While such myths are regarded as children’s tales by the learned, there remains at least a plausibility to such ponderings, for storm giants are indeed powerful, and their reclusive natures give them an air of mystique few creatures can match.

Variant: Storm Giant, Typhoon (CR 13)

[Source]

This giant is a towering, muscular human of heroic proportions, with blue skin, long white hair, and sparkling dark eyes. Typhoon giants live only in the northwestern basin of a world’s most western ocean, where typhoons are known to form. They are far wilder than their storm giant brethren, wallowing in the destruction they create.

Alignment CE; this replaces a storm giant’s CG.

Deadly Tempest (Su)

Twice per day as a standard action, this ability creates a powerful vortex (20-ft. radius, 40 ft. high) of raging wind, water, and lightning that moves through the air, along the ground, or over water at a speed of 90 ft. during the typhoon giant’s Typhoon Giant turn. This deals 2d6 points of cold damage, 2d6 points of electricity damage, and 2d6 points of bludgeoning damage to all creatures and objects touched by its area of effect (no save). Any Large or smaller creature coming into contact with the vortex must also succeed on a Reflex save (DC 25) or be picked up bodily and held suspended in its powerful winds, taking the same damage each round on the typhoon giant’s turn (no save). Huge creatures (and Large or smaller creatures making successful saving throws) are limited to one-half speed within the vortex but take damage as normal.

Gargantuan and Colossal creatures take damage but are otherwise unaffected.

Within the vortex, a creature takes a –4 penalty to Perception checks, and all air or land movement is at one-half speed. Missile weapons are deflected (automatically missing) if they enter or pass through the vortex, while any other normal ranged weapon passing through the wind has a 30% miss chance (giant-thrown boulders, siege engine projectiles, and other massive ranged weapons are also affected). Gases, most gaseous breath weapons, and creatures in gaseous form cannot enter or pass through the vortex (though it presents no barrier to incorporeal creatures).

As a move action, a typhoon giant can concentrate on controlling the vortex’s movement or specify a simple program (move forward or backward, follow a circular path, move from corner to corner through a room, and so on). As part of this move action the typhoon giant may direct the vortex to eject any carried creatures whenever it wishes, depositing them wherever the vortex happens to be when they are released. The vortex lasts for 15 rounds and must remain within 1,000 ft. of the typhoon giant. The save DC is Constitution-based.

This special attack replaces a storm giant’s call lighting and chain lightening spell-like abilities.

Ecology

Adult storm giants stand over 20 feet in height and weigh upward of 12,000 pounds. Newly born storm giants average 7 feet tall at birth and weigh approximately 200 pounds. Storm giants are almost always single births, but one pregnancy in a thousand produces twins, which storm giants call tor-turlinger (“thunder twins” in their dialect of Giant). Such births are regarded as great omens, and such giant twins usually develop powers even more prodigious than those of most storm giants.

Storm giant children begin walking and climbing by 5 years of age, and can talk by the age of 10. Adolescents reach physical maturity and the awakening of their magical talents between 50 and 75 years, but are not recognized as adults until they reach 100 years of age. Venerable giants past 500 years earn the honorific “semillennius,” and a few live beyond 600 years. While younger storm giants sometimes dally outside their kind, only adults receive the blessing of their elders in marriage, earning the privilege of bringing new storm giant children into the world. Couplings between adolescent storm giants are rare and bring considerable shame upon the lovers, their families, and children they bear.

Storm giants provide for themselves through agriculture, and their gardens, orchards, and vineyards are legendary for their absurdly large produce. They are also fond of meat, and under their care livestock can grow to enormous size and girth, the massive animals sufficient to slake even storm giants’ enormous appetites.

Storm giant enclaves are most often found along rugged coasts, sandy atolls, rocky cliffs, and rising atop sea stacks, though some also dwell below the waves in aquatic strongholds. They love mountainous islands with cloud-swathed peaks, plunging cliffs, and crashing seas, and all are adept at hunting in both sky and sea. Some storm giants take to sailing, using their mastery of wind and wave to explore the farthest reaches of the ocean and its depths. Though they are adept swimmers in their own right, storm giants are fond of training whales, sharks, and even sea serpents as mounts or beasts of burden, either for riding or pulling their enormous watercraft. Seagoing storm giants consume vast quantities of kelp and often lair near sargassos or seaweed beds to supplement their diet of whatever maritime creatures they can catch.

Storm giants have unusual variance in their skin pigmentation. Most have dark hair and human-like skin tones, usually tan tending to a deep burnished bronze. However, some ancient marine storm giant families have skin of pale blue or sea-foam green. Rarely, storm giants are born with lavender to violet skin, lustrous purple or blue-black hair, and eyes of silver or amethyst. These atropurius (“star-touched”) giants are considered blessed by the gods and possessed of both wisdom and good fortune, and often rise to leadership within their families.

Habitat & Society

Each storm giant family or clan is guided by its eldest matriarch or patriarch, though all semillennius elders commands authority. Though they keep their collectives relatively small, generally comprising up to half a dozen individuals, storm giant families will occasionally gather in grand conclaves with other families to share history, memorialize the fallen, or record new discoveries and happenings among their kind. Clan alliances sometimes arise in the face of crisis, often to counter the spread of tyranny and oppression in a nearby region, and one semillennius among the families is elected as proconsul for the duration of the emergency. A few have tried to hold onto power once the crisis has abated, but storm giants enjoy their independence and no proconsul has ever been able to keep separate families together for long.

Acknowledging no rulers among themselves, storm giants rarely attempt to establish dominion over other races. Lone storm giants (and, rarely, storm giant families) sometimes hire smaller races to maintain their farms, fields, and sprawling walled estates while the giants travel the world. With storm giants’ long lifespans and habitual wanderlust, decades and sometimes generations may pass without these tenants ever seeing their landlords. Regardless, the colossal nature of storm giants’ holdings and their unabashed benevolence mean that workers are never uncompensated, and most servants to storm giants regard their occupations as nothing short of paradisiacal.

Campaign Role

Storm giants are rarely villains per se, but may work in higher-level games as adversaries, as their capricious nature and arrogance may lead them to take offense easily and to work at cross purposes with PCs. If not plied with flattery or gifts, they may use their power to interfere in the party’s activities or try to embarrass and humiliate them. PCs also may indirectly run afoul of storm giants if their adventures lead them to take some treasure, relic, or location already claimed by a domineering storm giant. Proud storm giants generally believe their claims supersede those of the PCs and demand the surrender of any items taken, either by right or at the very least by bargaining. PCs who do not accede to these demands inevitably earn the haughty giants’ enmity.

A rare few storm giants are wholly wild and dangerous, seeing in themselves the incarnation of nature’s indiscriminate power and destructive force. These renegade storm giants rationalize their destructiveness as simply acting within their nature. In such giants’ eyes, any who suffer when they unleash their inner tempest are at fault for foolishly trying to defy the storm rather than simply fleeing before it.

Aquatic storm giants often dwell in underwater sea caves or coral palaces, where powerful currents and surges flush smaller creatures out unless they are prodigious swimmers. Storm giants can breathe water as easily as air, but many establish homes that feature air-filled feast halls for entertaining guests from the surface, or else simply seek out abodes that are only partially submerged—such as new volcanic islands—allowing the storm giants to sun themselves at their leisure.

Storm giants are friendly with bronze and cloud dragons, and sometimes dragon turtles as well. They often train animals and magical beasts of limited intellect to serve them, such as rocs and griffons, or sea serpents for aquatic storm giants. They despise warmongering in any race, and may use gifts, bribes, diplomacy, or (when necessary) threats to recruit emissaries, scouts, and sentinels from smaller races—primarily humans and elves on land, and merfolk and tritons below the waves. Storm giants ask these diminutive helpers to keep watch over their domains and alert them to major threats that might require their direct attention. However, the unpredictable nature of a storm giant means she may not always be there to answer her cohorts’ summons, placing the burden of protection on these hapless heroes.

Treasure

Storm giants love to collect trinkets and mementos from the places they wander, and are especially fond of banners, flags, and pennants from localities large and small. Many storm giants take up weaving in their spare time and craft tapestries that depict their journeys or the astonishing sights they’ve seen, sometimes sewing pennons and other cloth souvenirs into their work. A storm giant tapestry often depicts sweeping natural vistas and landmarks, and can fetch a high price in any market.

Some storm giants also collect coins, fascinated by the various minters’ marks and the evolving differences in size, shape, and content of currency. Written materials such as books, scrolls, and maps often find their way into storm giant holdings, as well as musical instruments and others bits of artistic or technological bric-a-brac that demonstrate the innovations of the cultures they have visited or observed from on high. The sorts of collected souvenirs vary with each giant, but almost all have the impulse to hoard, and a storm giant’s treasure trove is more often a strange jumble of obscure and rare artifacts than a glittering pile of gold or gems.

While the greatsword and longbow are the traditional weapons of storm giants and they typically wear breastplates, greaves, and crested open-faced helms, many storm giants discover exotic weapons and armors in their travels (or maintain the use of ancient arms that have fallen out of common use), and manufacture or even enchant Huge versions for their personal use.

In addition to the relics of civilization, storm giants collect natural treasures that catch their eye, including twisted driftwood, blackened or storm-broken logs, crystal geodes, and even ordinary rocks in interesting shapes or colors. Naturally refractive crystals are polished and strung together in rainbow-casting mobiles with bells or chimes so as to tinkle in the wind. Storm giants highly prize fulgurite, the twisted and branching natural glass tubes formed when lightning strikes sand.

Storm Giant Bags

The following list of random treasure includes items one might normally find either on a storm giant’s person or in her dwelling.

d%	Result
01–07	Collection of polished crystal prisms
08–09	Coin collection (50 × 1d12 coins from many countries and time periods; total average value around 1 gp per coin)
10–13	+1 full plate armor
14–18	Leather satchel containing 2d8 tubes of fulgurite glass
19–24	Dreamcatcher 1d6 feet across decorated with roc or giant eagle feathers
25–29	Oversized spyglass (1,000 gp, 100 lbs.)
30–31	Huge bronze crested, ornamental helmet (1,200 gp, 65 lbs.)
32–38	2d6 × 10 yards of sailcloth
39–43	+1 khopesh
44–46	Chest of 1d6 × 10 books and maps in various languages, including 1d4 random scrolls
47–52	1d3 javelins of lightning
53–57	Collection of 2d6 ancient flags or heraldic crests (1,750 gp)
58–63	Bag of 2d6 enormous fruits or vegetables
64–69	1d6 sunrods
70–74	Drinking horn from a huge aurochs (50 gp)
75–79	Ornamental longbow (550 gp)
80–83	Pair of cold iron or alchemical silver brass knuckles (equal chance of either)
84–90	Large bronze bell or wind chime (200 gp)
91–94	Exotic riding saddle for rocs
95–100	Large brocade or tapestry (1d6 × 100 gp)

Examples

Advanced Storm Giant (CR 13)
Storm Giant Matriarch (Cleric 13; CR 20)