Fire Giants

Image credit WOTC

## Fire Giant

Master crafters and organized warriors, Fire Giants dwell among volcanoes, lava floes, and rocky mountains. They are ruthless militaristic brutes whose mastery of metalwork is legendary.

***Fire Forged.*** Fire giant fortresses are built around and inside volcanoes or near magma-filled caverns. The blistering heat of their homes fuels the fire giants’ forges, and causes the iron of their fortress walls to glow a comforting orange. In lands far removed from volcanic heat, Fire Giants mine coal to burn. Traditional smithies occupy places of honor in their demesnes, and the giants’ stony fortresses constantly belch plumes of sooty smoke. In more remote outposts, Fire Giants burn wood to keep their forge fires lit, deforesting leagues of land in all directions.

Fire Giants shun cold as much as their cousins the Frost Giants hate heat. They can adapt to cold environments with effort, though, keeping their hearth fires burning bright and wearing heavy woolen clothing and furs to stay warm.

***Martial Experts.*** From birth, a fire giant is taught to embrace a legacy of war. At the cradle, its Parents chant songs of battle. As children, Fire Giants play at war, hurling igneous rocks at one another across the banks of magma rivers. In later years, formal Martial Training becomes an integral part of life in the giants’ fortresses and Underground realms of smoke and ash. The fire giants’ songs are odes of battles lost and won, while their dances are martial formations of pounding feet that resound like smiths’ hammers throughout their smoky halls.

Just as Fire Giants pass down their knowledge of Crafting from generation to generation, their renowned fighting Prowess comes not from wild fury but from endless discipline and Training. Enemies make the mistake of underestimating Fire Giants based on their brutish manner, learning too late that these Giants live for Combat and can be shrewd tacticians.

***Feudal Lords.*** Humanoids conquered in war become serfs to the Fire Giants. The serfs work the farms and fields on the outskirts of fire giant halls and fortresses, raising livestock and harvesting fields whose bounty is almost entirely tithed to the fire giant kings.

Fire giant crafters work through Insight and experience rather than writing or arithmetic. Though most Fire Giants place little worth on such frivolousness, they sometimes keep Slaves at court who are versed in such Skills. Serfs not destined for court or the fields (especially dwarves) are taken to the fire giants’ mountainous realms to mine ore and gemstones from deep within the earth.

Fire Giants low in the ordning manage the mine tunnels and the Slaves that toil there, few of which survive the difficult and dangerous work for long. Though Fire Giants are Skilled in the engineering of mine tunnels and the gathering of ore, they place less importance on the safety of their Slaves than on smelting and working the bounty those Slaves produce.

***Skilled Artisans.*** Fire Giants have a fearsome reputation as soldiers and conquerors, and for their ability to burn, plunder, and destroy. Yet among the Giants, Fire Giants produce the greatest crafters and artists. They excel at smelting and smith work, as they do at the engineering of metal and stone, and the quality of their artistry shows even in their implements of destruction and their Weapons of war.

Fire Giants strive to build the strongest fortresses and most potent Siege Weapons. They experiment with alloys to create the hardest armor, then forge the Swords that can pierce it. Such work requires brawn and brains in equal measure, and Fire Giants high in the ordning tend to be the smartest and strongest of their kind

# Fire Giant Dreadnought

The giant presented here is more powerful than others of its kind, either because the gods have shown it favor or because fate has dealt it a bad hand and forced it to seek out other paths to power.

The ordning for Fire Giants emphasizes not just Strength but also skill at forgecraft. The foundry is the heart of any Fire Giant community. It is Temple, school, proving ground, and political hub rolled into one.

Those who have brawn but little brain are usually consigned to the lowliest of tasks such as working forge bellows or moving coal. However, there is one role at which the strongest among them can excel and gain rank: the dreadnought.

***Weapons of War.*** Dreadnoughts are massively powerful Fire Giants who wield two huge Shields like plow blades. These Shields bear spikes on their exterior and have hollow interiors into which the dreadnought pours hot coals at the first sign of danger. Armed with its two Shields, the dreadnought can present a fiery wall to any attacker. When the dreadnought has finished, often all that is left of a foe is a smoking smear on the floor.

When not called on to fight, dreadnoughts maintain their Strength by using their Shields to shove huge quantities of coal, stone, or ore about the foundry. Occasionally, dreadnoughts are called on by their superiors to accompany a war or diplomatic delegation, The presence of the dreadnoughts presents a fierce face in either case.