Hill Giant

Hill giants have a brutish, apelike look: very long arms, hunched shoulders and sloping foreheads. They are the smallest true giants, yet their limbs are thicker and heavier than any other kind's. A typical adult is 16 feet tall and 4,500 pounds, and females are built the same as males. Their eyes are black, their hair black or brown, and their skin anywhere from light tan to deep reddish brown. They may live 200 years.

Natural AC is 5, improved to 3 by the crude hide garments nearly all of them wear, which count as leather armor. In some communities more hides mean more big kills and greater standing. About 5% hammer the armor of slain men into metal armor for AC 0. Each hauls a hide sack with 2d4 throwing rocks, its wealth and 1d8 other everyday items. They speak their own tongue and the common giant tongue, and half also speak ogre.

Hill giants like to perch on rocky heights and rain stones on their enemies while staying out of harm's way. Thrown rocks deal 2d8 at targets 3 to 200 yards away, and they can snatch incoming rocks and the like 30% of the time. Their beloved giant clubs deal 2d6+7, twice a human club's damage plus Strength.

Cunning, selfish and brutal, they live by hunting and by bullying and raiding their neighbors. A lair houses 1d8+8 giants, typically one sprawling family that sometimes takes in stray loners. With six or more present, half are male, a quarter female, and the rest young: roll 1d4 for each, with 4 an infant with a gnoll's hit points and no fighting ability, and 1 to 3 an adolescent that fights as an ogre in Hit Dice, damage and to-hit.

Now and then one of average intelligence appears and rallies enough of its kin to multiply a normal band by 2, 3 or 4. These self-styled giant kings lead raids on human towns and on other giant races.

They favor temperate lands but settle in any climate with plenty of hills and mountains, living in caves, dug-out dens or rough huts. Those in cold regions have grown skilled at preparing hides for warmth and for sealing their homes against the wind. Half of all lairs have guards: 2d4 dire wolves (50%), 1d3 giant lizards (30%) or 2d4 ogres (20%).

Most distrust magic and try to destroy magical treasure they win, and they kill captured mages in ritual fashion.

Meat from the hunt is their main food. Young green dragon is a delicacy, so forest-dwelling hill giants organize parties to find dragon lairs, and green dragons in turn hunt hill giants. Bands sometimes trade with one another or with ogres for food and trinkets.