Ogre Giant

Despite their size, ogre giants are closer kin to ogres and ogre magi than to true giants like the hill, stone and jungle kinds. At 20 feet and about 8,500 pounds they outsize many true giants. Tan to umber bristles cover their massive bodies, and they go unclothed and unarmored except when a master teaches otherwise. About six in ten have a single eye in the middle of a hairy brow. Their heavily veined ears droop to the shoulders like an elephant's, and gentle flapping cools their blood. Males have huge curling tusks wet with drool. They can live 500 years, going fully gray in the face by the end.

They speak ogre, and those near caravan routes or towns also know the local human tongue. A few legendary individuals found enlightenment and became missionaries to their kind, but most remain savage.

Ogre giants fight with their fists or by throwing boulders like true giants, though only small ones, for 1d10 at up to 120 yards. They can throw one with each hand, two a round, and from a fortified height with stones close at hand, they can keep it up indefinitely.

A clan is led by a single male who has the maximum possible hit points, along with one to three wives with standard statistics, his children and his unwed siblings. For a random youngster roll 1d4: a 4 means it has a common ogre's abilities and statistics, otherwise an adult ogre giant's.

Some serve powerful loners such as genie-binders, sorcerers or ogre magi who value privacy, guarding against nuisance intruders in return for protection from serious enemies. Ordinary ogres, the enlightened ones anyway, keep away from their erratic, savage cousins.

Ogre giants keep no slaves and never eat intelligent beings. They pile stones over slain enemies and over their own dead, adding to the cairns for generations until they resemble small mountains. Tomb robbers and necromancers seeking materials sometimes dig into these mounds, a sacrilege the giants punish with death.

Simple and easily fooled, they know it, and are very vengeful toward anyone who lied to or cheated them once they work it out. Their tempers are volatile, and an angry ogre giant lashes out to destroy whatever, or whoever, confused it.

Clans are scattered and rare, partly because of their enormous appetites. Some herd goats and sheep and some deal with human traders, yet most stay to themselves. A lone ogre giant is usually a male seeking a clan with marriageable daughters or a place to found his own.

Crowds bewilder them. They cannot cope with soldiering, and most cannot even manage a trip to a market. Under too much pressure an ogre giant goes berserk, smashing everything that confuses it, and one rampaging through a crowded bazaar does as much harm as several earthquakes. As a result, people mostly leave clans alone.