Fog Giant

Fog giants are massive and thickset, with legs like tree trunks and arms bulked up by endless throwing games. Their milk-white skin lets them disappear into fog 80% of the time, and when they attack from fog or mist their foes take -5 on surprise rolls. Long silver-white hair covers their heads and grows thickly on arms, legs and chest, yet they have no facial hair at all.

Usually they trust their natural Armor Class and wear nothing more, though some don leather (improving AC by 2), and one band is known to wear white dragon hide studded with silver. They treasure huge, ornately carved clubs of polished bleached wood or bone. Besides their own tongue they speak Cloud Giant, and 30% know Common.

Hunting parties of 2 to 5 males are typical, sometimes joined by a cloud giant or two for a group of 3 to 7. They prefer to strike from cover, fog above all, opening with a volley of rocks to break up the enemy before charging in with fists and weapons. Rocks fly anywhere from 3 to 240 yards for 2d10. They catch thrown weapons of similar size 45% of the time but cannot catch fired missiles like arrows, bolts or sling stones. In close combat they mostly use clubs and fists, though stories of sword-wielding fog giants abound.

Sharp ears and keen noses give them +2 on surprise rolls. Approaches to their caves and usual hunting camps are often guarded by deadfalls of logs or boulders that a well-aimed rock can trigger the moment an attack begins.

Families settle into thickets, canyons and caves in the least accessible parts of swamps, marshes, forests and coasts. Men hunt in groups of like alignment, covering ground as far as twelve miles out.

They take great pride in their strength and skill and compete constantly while out hunting. The favorite contest, copsi, pairs giants off to toss ever larger boulders back and forth until one pair fumbles. Custom says a young male cannot take a mate until he owns at least one large silver ornament, so youths band together on quests to find one or gather the treasure to buy one.

They do not mix easily with others, but will hire out or barter with groups of compatible alignment, and refined silver buys their goods and services gladly. Lean hunting seasons bring border quarrels; friendly ones may be decided by copsi or arm wrestling, and even serious fights between fog giants tend to involve thrown rocks and fists rather than swords.

They love cooked meat, hoofed animals most of all: horses, cattle, deer, elk and centaurs. Meat is roasted on sword blades thrust into a big open fire. For dessert they want fruit and sweets, and they drink any liquor they can get, though they never distill their own. Some puff on fresh milkweed pods packed into wooden pipes, a taste far too bitter for humans or demihumans.

Big appetites mean each hunting group needs a large range. They mark borders with piles of boulders and logs and take a dim view of anyone who moves or topples these markers. Their regular trails are too obvious to hide, so they trap them with rock and log deadfalls instead.