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Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants
A Manual Of Mammoth Marvels!
Players will find a wealth of giant-themed character options: a subclass for barbarians, two backgrounds related to giants and their runic magic, and feat options that evoke the strength and primal magic of the giants. Dungeon Masters will gain inspiration for bringing giants to life, from maps of giant built sites to tremendous treasures and intriguing trinkets in a giant's bag - as well as dozens of big new monsters!
Let Bigby teach you everything about the iconic giants of D&D!
• Delves into unrevealed giant lore, including an overview of the hierarchical structure of the ordning and giants' religion, and ideas about giants' organizations and societies across the multiverse.
• Adds giant-themed player character options where adventurers can evoke the glory of giants with 1 new barbarian subclass, explore the vast world of giants with 2 new backgrounds, and unlock 8 new feats to unleash runic magic and wield elemental power.
• Displays a wondrous collection of 30+ magic items, including 3 illustrious artifacts.
• Offers a plethora of tools for Dungeon Masters including lair maps, adventure hooks, encounter tables, treasures, and giant roleplaying inspiration.
• Presents a giant bestiary! More than a third of the book is devoted to monster descriptions, lore, and stat blocks. Discover a vibrant ecosystem filled with new giant kinds, 70+ new monsters, and other enormous creatures.
Players will find a wealth of giant-themed character options: a subclass for barbarians, two backgrounds related to giants and their runic magic, and feat options that evoke the strength and primal magic of the giants. Dungeon Masters will gain inspiration for bringing giants to life, from maps of giant built sites to tremendous treasures and intriguing trinkets in a giant's bag - as well as dozens of big new monsters!
Let Bigby teach you everything about the iconic giants of D&D!
• Delves into unrevealed giant lore, including an overview of the hierarchical structure of the ordning and giants' religion, and ideas about giants' organizations and societies across the multiverse.
• Adds giant-themed player character options where adventurers can evoke the glory of giants with 1 new barbarian subclass, explore the vast world of giants with 2 new backgrounds, and unlock 8 new feats to unleash runic magic and wield elemental power.
• Displays a wondrous collection of 30+ magic items, including 3 illustrious artifacts.
• Offers a plethora of tools for Dungeon Masters including lair maps, adventure hooks, encounter tables, treasures, and giant roleplaying inspiration.
• Presents a giant bestiary! More than a third of the book is devoted to monster descriptions, lore, and stat blocks. Discover a vibrant ecosystem filled with new giant kinds, 70+ new monsters, and other enormous creatures.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2023
2 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
James Wyatt
101 books146 followersJames Wyatt is an award-winning game designer at Wizards of the Coast, and now holds the position of Design Manager for Dungeons & Dragons. He was one of the lead designers for D&D 4th Edition and one of the original designers of the Eberron Campaign Setting, and has written and co-authored dozens of game supplements. He grew up in Ithaca, New York, and now lives in Washington State with his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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October 3, 2023How? My "read all my RPG books" project coinciding with my "writing an adventure for D&D" project.
What? Like the Fizban book on dragons ( Fizban's Treasury of Dragons (Dungeon & Dragons Book) ), this is a deep dive into giants and giant-ish things, including giant monsters, giant magic, some giant-related locations, and more stuff about giant society and mythology. Also: rune magic and some notes on giant adventure and campaigns and secret societies. That's a lot, right?
Yeah, so? Well, there's a lot, but it's not very _good_. I liked the dragon book because it focused a lot on dragon psychology and dragons are kind of clear: like gods in a lot of mythologies, they're people turned up to 11. Can a person be greedy? Yes, but whoo boy, not like a dragon can be.
Compared to dragons, what is a giant? The answer from this book is that dragons are connected to the primal forces that created the world(s), that they were around in the beginning, and failed in their mission to rule/help the smaller races. So giants are connected to primal forces (fire and frost and stone giants being old standby); and also to primeval stuff, like dinosaurs.
And also, giants are related to the primal powers of creation magic through runes. Which means that a lot of the stuff that's here related to giants is pretty close to "a wizard did it." Like: there's a chapter called Giant Enclaves, which is a collection of giant-related sites, like an old giant tomb or several locations where a giant rune has been left untended with strange side-effects. So the underground cavern where a "life" rune is a blazing sun and creatures are growing giant -- that's fun, but why is it important that it's a life rune? Or the dreaming circle where a "dream" rune has been left untended -- as if giants in myth are connected to dreams in any meaningful way. In a way, this giant book isn't giant-specific enough.
The book is also a little boring to me in some sections. Like, the bestiary: here's a fire giant variation, here's a fire giant who is undead (and very fiery), here is a fire giant who is more elemental (so more fiery), here's a fire giant who has turned to the worship of evil elemental fire. Do I need all these different but not totally distinct fire giants?
To end on a higher note, I think the more successful section is when they discuss giant society and what drives fire giants, et al, or where they get a little weird, like "what's in a giant's bag?"
What? Like the Fizban book on dragons ( Fizban's Treasury of Dragons (Dungeon & Dragons Book) ), this is a deep dive into giants and giant-ish things, including giant monsters, giant magic, some giant-related locations, and more stuff about giant society and mythology. Also: rune magic and some notes on giant adventure and campaigns and secret societies. That's a lot, right?
Yeah, so? Well, there's a lot, but it's not very _good_. I liked the dragon book because it focused a lot on dragon psychology and dragons are kind of clear: like gods in a lot of mythologies, they're people turned up to 11. Can a person be greedy? Yes, but whoo boy, not like a dragon can be.
Compared to dragons, what is a giant? The answer from this book is that dragons are connected to the primal forces that created the world(s), that they were around in the beginning, and failed in their mission to rule/help the smaller races. So giants are connected to primal forces (fire and frost and stone giants being old standby); and also to primeval stuff, like dinosaurs.
And also, giants are related to the primal powers of creation magic through runes. Which means that a lot of the stuff that's here related to giants is pretty close to "a wizard did it." Like: there's a chapter called Giant Enclaves, which is a collection of giant-related sites, like an old giant tomb or several locations where a giant rune has been left untended with strange side-effects. So the underground cavern where a "life" rune is a blazing sun and creatures are growing giant -- that's fun, but why is it important that it's a life rune? Or the dreaming circle where a "dream" rune has been left untended -- as if giants in myth are connected to dreams in any meaningful way. In a way, this giant book isn't giant-specific enough.
The book is also a little boring to me in some sections. Like, the bestiary: here's a fire giant variation, here's a fire giant who is undead (and very fiery), here is a fire giant who is more elemental (so more fiery), here's a fire giant who has turned to the worship of evil elemental fire. Do I need all these different but not totally distinct fire giants?
To end on a higher note, I think the more successful section is when they discuss giant society and what drives fire giants, et al, or where they get a little weird, like "what's in a giant's bag?"
September 1, 2023
As cosmically important creatures in the world of Dungeons & Dragons, Giants have always kind of played second fiddle to Dragons. I would be hard pressed to find people putting giants even in their top 5 of D&D creatures. This is a pity however, and this book shows us why.
In the first place Giants in D&D have an immensely rich history and lore, even historically one of the first commercially available adventures for D&D were the Against the Giants adventures, which take players through Hill, Fire and Ice giant lairs, before introducing the much more popular Drow as the campaign continuation. Even there Giants were left behind by a much more charismatic villain. That being said, in the last 50 years the giant lore has developed greatly and they are far from the simplistic monsters of early days. Now there's Stone, Cloud and Storm giants more intelligent and with different alignments, and this book makes a great case for Giants being at the centre of D&D.
The best things about the book are it's pretty extensive bestiary and the endless adventure hooks and suggested maps, you could really build a whole campaign of Giant adventures with this book as your main source, and that's a great thing for what is mostly advertised as a lore book. The release of it has been marred by the unfortunate revelation that one of the artists used AI to kind of "cheat" at drawing. Fortunately WotC has come forward to put in place rules so it doesn't happen again, but it still shows a bit of a lack of attention to questions which are pretty important for their creators. Still, the book itself it pretty nifty.
In the first place Giants in D&D have an immensely rich history and lore, even historically one of the first commercially available adventures for D&D were the Against the Giants adventures, which take players through Hill, Fire and Ice giant lairs, before introducing the much more popular Drow as the campaign continuation. Even there Giants were left behind by a much more charismatic villain. That being said, in the last 50 years the giant lore has developed greatly and they are far from the simplistic monsters of early days. Now there's Stone, Cloud and Storm giants more intelligent and with different alignments, and this book makes a great case for Giants being at the centre of D&D.
The best things about the book are it's pretty extensive bestiary and the endless adventure hooks and suggested maps, you could really build a whole campaign of Giant adventures with this book as your main source, and that's a great thing for what is mostly advertised as a lore book. The release of it has been marred by the unfortunate revelation that one of the artists used AI to kind of "cheat" at drawing. Fortunately WotC has come forward to put in place rules so it doesn't happen again, but it still shows a bit of a lack of attention to questions which are pretty important for their creators. Still, the book itself it pretty nifty.
February 19, 2024
Giants have always been one of my favourite parts of D&D going back to when I played Against the Giants as a teen for the first time. This books gives the reader more information on giants and their society within the D&D realms along with new monsters, characters and an adventure. Worth a pick up!
October 28, 2024
Giants. Just not that interesting.
December 17, 2025
A perfectly serviceable book, especially if you want giants in your game, but I wouldn't say it's a "must have" book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews