Giff

It's easy to spot the giff in a room: a group of 7-foot-tall, hippopotamus-headed humanoids attired in gaudy military uniforms, with gleaming pistols and muskets on display. These spacefaring mercenaries are renowned for their martial training and their love of explosives.

The Giff arrived during the Second Sundering of Toril, allied with the Gnomes of Lantan from Abeir.

**Military Organization.** Every aspect of giff society is organized along military lines. From birth until death, every giff has a military rank. It must follow orders from those of superior rank, and it can give orders to those of lower rank. Promotions don't depend on age but are granted by a superior as a reward for valor. Giff are devoted to their children, even as most of their education is geared toward fighting and war.

**Mercenaries Extraordinaire.** Giff are in high demand as warriors for hire, but they insist on serving in units composed entirely of giff; a giff hiring itself out individually is unheard of. Giff refuse to fight other giff, and will never agree to a contract unless it stipulates that they can sit out a battle rather than wage war against their kin. A giff prizes the reputation of its unit above its own life. Life is fleeting, but the regiment endures for generations or even centuries.

**A Whiff of Gunpowder.** Muskets and grenades are the favorite weapons of every giff. The bigger the boom, the brighter the flash, and the thicker the smoke it produces, the more giff love a weapon. Their skill with gunpowder is another reason for their popularity as mercenaries. Giff revel in the challenge of building a bomb big enough to level a fortification. They gladly accept payment in kegs of gunpowder in preference to gold, gems, or other currency.

**No Honor in Magic.** Some giff become wizards, clerics, and other kinds of spellcasters, but they're so infrequent that most giff mercenary units have no magical capability. Typical giff are as smart as the average human, but their focus on military training to the exclusion of all other areas of study can make them seem dull-witted to those who have more varied interests.

### ***Gunpowder by the Keg***

Aside from their personal gunpowder weapons, giff ships and mercenary companies carry spare gunpowder in kegs. In an emergency, or any time a large explosion is needed, a whole keg can be detonated. A giff lights the fuse on the keg and can then throw the keg up to l S feet as part of the same action. The keg explodes at the start of the giff's next turn. Each creature within 20 feet of the exploding keg must make a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 24 (7d6) fire damage and is knocked prone. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage and isn't knocked prone.

Every other keg of gunpowder within 20 feet of an exploding keg has a SO percent chance of also exploding. Check each keg only once per turn, no matter how many other kegs explode around it.

## Giff as a Race

### **Physical Description**

Giffs are thick-skinned, hulking humanoids with hippopotamus-shaped heads. They have stocky legs, barrel-shaped torsos with broad chests, and pudgy fingers. Their skin is black, grey or gold, and often covered with brightly coloured tattoos.

### **History**

Giff can no longer remember where their homeworld is, so long have they wandered between the spheres. They tell stories of a jungle planet where weapon caches lie between every tree, and smoke powder billows through the air. In fact, many historians think that these creatures came from a war-torn world of sorts, with death and destruction at every turn by the hands of either their own kind or an alien race of some kind. In anyways, they seem to live out their lives like they would in that land in their stories.

### **Society**

Giffs respect a chain of command that encompasses their whole race, and like structure and organization. They form platoons to serve other space-faring races on a mercenary basis. The leader is known as Officers and has the responsibility of guiding their race to new planets and deciding the final judgement in problems in platoons. Of course, they usually have the rarest of weapons in their private collection in their archive.

Giffs tend to be fighters and rogues, but can also be other classes depending on their lifestyle. Fighters act as bodyguards, marines and soldiers, while rogues function as military scouts, spies or assassins. Bards will usually be found in taverns and the like weaving stories of what they believe to be their homeworld and create music with automated instruments. Wizard and sorcerer giffs function as the collectors and archivists of their community, collecting artefacts of great power in their collection. They love weapons of any sort and tend to accumulate a collection of their favourite instruments of war. They will sometimes use these weapons they collect over time, but only enough so it doesn't permanently damage it in any way.

Giffs like unarmed fighting and will brawl just for fun. They like friendly tests of strength but can be nervous around stronger races such as giants. Drawing a weapon in front of a giff, however, is a serious matter, and they are known to fight to the death after such provocation. They will even use their prized weapon to fight for their life to the bitter end.

### **Giff Names**

Giff names are blunt and uncomplicated, deriving from the Giant tongue.

**Male:** Pomj, Dromb, Lewmur, Hurst, Ularn.

**Female:** Ulyrn, Weelso, Hrusta, Beluarr, Yuralsha.

### **Giff Traits**

Thick-skinned, hippopotami-headed spacefaring mercenaries with a love of firearms.

***Ability Score Increase.*** Your Strength increases by 2 and your Constitution increases by 1.

***Age.*** Giff mature faster than humans, reaching adulthood at 14 and old age at 60. They can live to 90 years.

***Alignment.*** Giff have a reputation for honoring contracts: many are Lawful. They are less concerned about the ethics of those contracts, so Good giff tend to be less common.

***Size.*** Giff are bulky and tall, and can be as tall as 9 feet. Your size is Medium.

***Speed.*** Your base walking speed is 20 feet.

**Spell Resistance.** You are immune to the effects of 2nd level spells or lower (including beneficial spells, and spell-like effects).

**Nonmagical.** You cannot attune to magical items, and you cannot cast spells.

***Menacing.*** When you make a Charisma (Intimidate) check against Medium or smaller creatures, you can instead make a Strength (Intimidate) check, adding double your Strength modifier (instead of your normal Strength modifier).

***Darkvision.*** You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

***Giff Weapon Training.*** You gain proficiency with simple and martial firearms.

***Hoplophile.*** You are proficient with smith's tools. In addition, when you use the crafting downtime activity to craft firearms, you make progress every day in 15-gp increments (instead of 5 gp).

***Languages.*** Common, Giant

## Giff as a Monster

*Medium humanoid, lawful neutral*

**Armor Class:** 16 (breastplate)

**HP:** 60 (8d8 + 24)

**Speed:** 35 (30 w/armor)

**Passive Insight:** 11

**Passive Perception:** 11

**Languages:** Common, Giant

**Challenge Rating:** 3

**Head first Charge.** The giff can try to knock a creature over; if the giff moves at least 20 feet in a straight line that ends within 5 feet of a Large or smaller creature, that creature must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or take 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone.

**Firearms Knowledge.** The giff's mastery of its weapons enables it to ignore the loading property of muskets and pistols.

## Actions

***Multiattack.*** The giff makes two pistol attacks.

***Longsword.** Melee Weapon Attack:* +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. *Hit:* 8 (ld8 + 4) slashing damage, or 9 (1d10 + 4) slashing damage if used with two hands.

***Musket.** Ranged Weapon Attack:* +4 to hit, range 40/120 ft., one target. *Hit:* 7 (1dl2 + 2) piercing damage.

***Pistol.** Ranged Weapon Attack:* +4 to hit, range 30/90 ft., one target. *Hit:* 7 (1d10 + 2) piercing damage.

***Fragmentation Grenade (1/day).*** The giff throws a grenade up to 60 feet. Each creature within 20 feet of the grenade's detonation must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 17 (5d6) piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.