Giant [Dark Sun]

Huge and hot-tempered, the giants of the desert world mostly live on the islands scattered across the silt sea. Three kinds are common: desert giants, plains giants and the psionic beasthead giants. Savagery runs through all of them. The humanoid kinds can be friendly if approached with care, but they anger fast and stay angry.

A desert giant towers 20 to 25 feet and weighs six to eight tons. Its face looks caricatured, with an enormous nose, mouth or ears. Skin is usually deep red, occasionally jet black, and the coarse, tough hair is light brown. Their strength equals a score of 25.

Defending home, they drive off visitors with thrown rocks (2d10) and spears carved from dead trees (3d10), either of which can fly 250 yards. On the attack they close quickly and swing spiked clubs for 2d8+14. Psionics slide off them: any psionic attack can be negated entirely with a successful save vs. spell.

Clans of 5 to 10, male and female, live in large caves in island rock outcrops, two or three giants per cave and four or five caves per clan. Their islands are true desert, so they eat little plant matter and prefer meat, keeping herds of scale-runners, pack insects and other beasts. By wading the shallow margins they can cross the silt sea, but they seldom visit the mainland. Rope makers buy their hair.

Plains giants match desert giants in size and strength (score 25) but look almost elven, with narrow faces, slightly pointed ears, rust-red or dark brown skin and blond to light brown hair. They throw rocks for 2d10 and fight with great stone daggers (2d6+14) or desert-giant-style clubs. They have no psionic powers but share the same resistance to all psionic attacks, including psionic combat modes.

Clans of 5 to 10 settle in the thickest scrub of grassy islands, each claiming a whole brush patch, which leads to fights when two clans want the same one. They mostly eat plants but also hunt herd beasts such as scale-runners, pack insects and sometimes great scale-runners. Being neutral, they get along better with other races and are seen more often on the mainland. A few hire out as mercenaries, though their kin call that dishonorable; others build cities and castles or work salvage and demolition. Their longer, finer hair makes lighter, handier rope and sells for more than a desert giant's.

Rarer and more dangerous despite their smaller size, beasthead giants stand 15 to 20 feet and weigh three to six tons. A pale pink or alabaster human body ends in an animal's head: goat, eagle, wolf, or local beasts such as the mind-hungry lizard fiend or the eight-legged desert cat. Clan members, three to six of them, usually share one head type.

Their shorter height makes silt-wading risky, so they rarely fight away from their islands. They hurl rocks (2d10) and spears (3d10), and favor clubs and staves (2d8+14) and spears (2d10+14). Some make vine slings that fling 15 to 20 pound stones for 2d8+14. In place of normal melee they can bite for roughly 2d10+14, and some head types grant other attacks.

They have the desert giant's psionic resistance plus strong defense modes that are always active as long as PSPs remain, even while they fight in melee. Instead of attacking, a beasthead may use one psionic power each round. Psionics: Clairsentience: clairvoyance and aura sight as sciences, with know direction, danger sense and combat mind as devotions. Telepathy: psionic blast and tower of iron will as sciences, with ego whip, mind blank, intellect fortress, id insinuation, life detection and conceal thoughts as devotions.

Born of magical mutation, beastheads are prized spell components. Their blood works in many spells, but only for life-respecting wizards and druids, and each head type yields its own components, such as eagle feathers for feather fall and other flight magic. They eat mostly herd animals.