Frost Giant

Frost giants have powerful, broadly human frames. A grown male reaches 21 feet and roughly 8,000 pounds; females are a little smaller but otherwise alike. Skin is snow white or ivory, and hair and eyes match, either pale blue or dingy yellow. They may live 250 years.

Natural AC is 5. Warriors wear chain mail and metal helms topped by feathers or horns for AC 0, plus furs, skins and whatever jewelry they own. Each carries a huge sack with 1d4+1 throwing rocks, its wealth and 3d4 ordinary items, all so filthy and worn that valuables are hard to pick out. They speak their own tongue and the common giant language.

Like other evil giants they are known as crude and stupid, a reputation they earn, but they are shrewd in battle. Cold cannot harm them. Adults throw rocks 3 to 200 yards for 2d10 and snatch comparable missiles out of the air 40% of the time. They open at range, throwing until rocks run out or the enemy closes, and a favorite trick is lying buried in snow atop an icy slope that attackers will struggle to climb.

Warriors prefer giant battle axes; their oversized weapons deal double man-sized damage plus Strength to any foe, so an axe hits for 2d8+9.

Each band consists of a chieftain, his lieutenants and their hangers-on, holed up in a rough castle or icy cavern. A lair holds 1d8+8 giants, half of them young: roll 1d4 each, with 4 a helpless infant with an ogre's hit points and 1 to 3 an adolescent that fights like a stone giant in Hit Dice, damage and to-hit. A strong or clever chief may gather a band three or four times larger, and one leading 20 or more is called a jarl, always with better armor than usual and a +1 to +3 weapon.

Each band has a 20% chance to include a spellcaster, 80% if a jarl rules it. Four times in five that caster is a shaman, a priest of 7th level or lower using normal or reversed spells of the weather, divination, protection, charm and healing spheres. Otherwise it is a witch doctor, a combined priest/wizard reaching 7th/3rd level, who enjoys magic that baffles other giants, such as invisibility, mirror image, ESP, ventriloquism, deeppockets, detect magic, shocking grasp and unseen servant.

Tamed beasts guard the lair. There is a 50% chance of 1d6 winter wolves, checked once per eight giants in big bands. Bands of 20 or more add a 30% chance of 1d4 yeti, checked once per 16 giants in larger groups. Under a jarl there is also a 20% chance of 1d2 subdued white dragons of age category 1d4+1 in addition. Captives of any race are taken for ransom or slavery, with a 15% chance of 1d2 per lair, checked once per eight giants in big bands.

Frost giants inhabit frozen arctic country of glaciers and deep snow. They live mostly on meat they hunt themselves and raid human and demihuman settlements for food and plunder.