Giff (CSH)

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==Giff==
Giff are powerfully muscled, 9'-tall mercenaries. They have stocky, flat, cylindrical legs, barrel-shaped torsos, broad chests, humanoid arms and fingers, and heads like those of a hippopotamus. Giff skin is black, gray, or gold, and often covered with brightly colored tattoos.
The giff live structured, organized lives centered on their obligations in a race-wide chain of command. They are proud of their strength and skill as warriors, and view all of life as pursuit of glory and rank. Their pride in their own strength makes them nervous around truly strong creatures (like giants), but they view most humans and demihumans as too fragile.
Giff enjoy fighting. They will brawl for the sheer fun of it, battling all comers in a friendly test of strength, granting quarter to any who ask it. Giff view weapons as a sign that the battle is serious, however, and will fight to the death against anyone who draws a weapon on them.
Giff have wandered the spaceways for so long that they no longer know where their own homeworld is. They tell stories of a jungle world where weapon caches lie beneath every tree, and smoke powder flows like the milk and honey of some humans' vision of paradise.
Giff platoons (the major form of societal organization) serve other spacefaring races. They wander from sphere to sphere, fighting in battles and conquering their employer's enemies, but they are at the mercy of their employers, as the giff cannot operate spelljamming helms.
Giff may be fighters (maximum 15th level) or thieves (maximum 10th level). They may not be multi-classed. Giff thieves function as military scouts, spies, and assassins.
The giff are widely traveled among the spacefaring peoples, avoiding only the neogi and the beholders. As mercenaries, they have found it useful to learn the languages of their employers. The initial languages a giff can learn are giff, common, dwarf, elf, and dracon. The actual number of languages is limited by the Intelligence of the PC (see Table 4 in the Player's Handbook) or by the number of proficiency slots allotted to language (if that optional system is used).
By nature, giff are nonmagical and never use magical or clerical spells. In fact, their nature is so nonmagical that they cannot use spelljamming helms; even the series helms of the mind flayers have no effect on them. Giff have 10% magic resistance to the spells of others, including beneficial magic such as healing spells.
Also because of their nonmagical nature, however, giff have trouble using magical items. All magical items that are not specifically suited to the character's class have a 10% chance to malfunction when used by a giff. This check is made each time a giff uses a magical item. A malfunction affects only the current use; the item may work properly next time. For devices that are continually in operation, the check is made the first time the device is used during an encounter. Malfunction applies to rods, staves, wands, rings, amulets, potions, horns, jewels, and all other magical items except weapons, shields, armor, gauntlets, and girdles. As might be easily understood, this propensity for magical failure has caused the giff to be deeply suspicious of magic and magical devices.
Giff use weapons of any sort, and have large collections of various implements of destruction. An unarmed giff is equally dangerous and can head-butt for 2-12 points of damage. Giff often are surprised at the damage they inflict on demihumans and humans. A giff head-butt that can kill an unprepared human is a gentle tap when giff play among themselves.
The giff's large size makes them more vulnerable to certain weapons. All melee and missile weapons inflict the damage from the "W column when used against giff. However, the giffs' tough skin gives them a natural armor class of 6; a shield can boost this to 5. If armor is worn, the giff receives the benefit of the lower armor class. Giff armor is expensive; their bulky physiques require triple normal cost for any suit of armor worn.
Because of their large size and sturdy builds, giff add 2 to their initial Strength. Their lack of imagination causes them to subtract 1 from their Intelligence scores.