Stone giant

Stone giant

(Creature)

Common

N

Large

Earth

Giant

Humanoid

Level

8

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Images of stone giants

Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 170–171

Type

Humanoid
(giant)

CR

8

Environment

Temperate mountains

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Images of stone giants

Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 151

Stone giants are large humanoids with dark gray, leathery skin, who grow to about 12 feet in height. They tend to be both impassive and aloof, preferring to live in solitude in hills, caves, and mountains. Because of their skin color they tend to blend in among their stony surroundings—all the easier from them to crush unwary travelers with giant thrown boulders. Stone giants worship the god Minderhal, and revere their tribal elders.

Unknown to all but the most intrepid scholar, stone giant elders can speak with stones and bind the earth to their bidding. They believe themselves to be the purest species of giant, from whom all other giants descend.

History

The pre-written history of the stone giants is one of constant rivalry with the taiga giants and hill giants. Oral tradition tells the tale of the stone giants as the first of giant tribes, living in verdant glacial valleys teeming with wildlife and game. Not surprisingly, this idyllic situation was not to last: the stone giants were seduced by evil gods, their union resulting in the birth of fire giants and frost giants. The cloud giants and storm giants were elevated by benevolent gods to combat the evil giants, and thus the giant tribes were forever fractured.

The earliest recorded history of the stone giant tribes is from their alliance with the Thassilonian empire, from whom the stone giants learned rune magic, iron, and advanced weaponry. This arrangement was not without cost: the Thassilonians used their rune magic to create rune giants, magically augmented giants who subsequently enslaved the various giant tribes. Driven by their corrupted masters, the stone giants created massive monuments and cities throughout ancient Varisia, many of which still can be found throughout current the current day Inner Sea region.

After the Earthfall, the Thassilonian empire was destroyed and the stone giants were free. They retreated into seclusion, but their experience with the corrupt Thassilonians had altered them inextricably. For some stone giants, their rune magic had done more than alter their skin color and size—they could no longer speak with the spirits of their ancestors, and inter-marriages with other stone giants resulted in deformity and death. The stone giants split into two groups: the taiga giants, who held true the old ways and customs of the stone giants, and the stone giants permanently altered by the Thassilonians.

Society

Stone giants fight a gigas.

Stone giant society is composed of two main groups: the so-called "high culture", or Rune Road, who use taboo knowledge gained from the Thassilonians, and the "low culture", held true by craggy elders who refuse to give up the old ways.

The Rune Road culture is fading, soon to become nothing more than runic songs and legends of ancient Thassilon, stories of stone monuments stretching to the heavens, vast subterranean networks extending to the core of the planet, and mountain faces worked to vast visages of gods. These stories always contain elements of xenophobia against the smaller people, their tyrants and slavers.

The low culture of the stone giant stays true to the pre-Thassilonian ways: living in caves, hunting large prey, finding balance and harmony with the stone around them, and treating their elders with great reverence.

Government

Stone giant clans are organized as a zygarchy, ruled by the eldest couple in the tribe. This couple doesn't have a particular title, and their immediate and extended family gains no special benefit from their relationship. The ruling position is seldom sought after or seen as desirable, as the many responsibilities of the role are seen to greatly outweigh its benefits. The eldest couple is chosen for the role as their age is thought to bestow upon them the patience and wisdom needed to deal with family squabbles, ownership claims, and inter-clan relations.

Communities

Stone giants typically live within the shelter of hollowed out mountains, excavated using the stone giants masterful knowledge of engineering and stone. Stone giant communities consist of living quarters, stables, sheds, workhouses, and barracks. Within the outer walls of the mountain are built large watchtowers, from which stone giant guards can observe the surrounding areas.

In the center of the community is the tribe's Great Cavern. This is the hub of the tribe's social network, hosting everything from marriages, funerals, victory dinners, retelling of tribal history, and religious ceremonies.

Art and architecture

The Great Cave also houses the tribe's art and culture. These tend to fall into two main themes: storytelling, and stone crafting.

Storytelling is great tradition for the stone giants. Every night they gather in the Great Cave, and the cavern resounds with the low thrum of the stone giants telling the history and legends of their people. The bards and elders who perform these stories are known as "weavers".

Stone giant masons and quarrymen are also greatly valued by their tribes. Using only rope, string, square, level, hammers, and bone and sinew, they are able to build remarkable works of art from stone. The stone giants no longer build in the opulent, imperial style of classic Thassilon—the great temples, monuments, dams, and lighthouses of that dead civilization are now regarded as needless reminders of a failed alliance that ended in betrayal.

Death

Stone giants are long lived, many reaching ages of up to 800 years old, and some elders living as long as 1,000 years. The proper age of an elder is at least 600 years old. Juveniles become adults at age 90 (for women) and 120 (for men).

After death, stone giants are rarely buried in the ground. Instead, prominent stone giants are mummified and perched on top of high mountains, their remains guarded over by stone giant shamans. The mummy is richly adorned with furs, jewels, armor, and other such trappings of life. Less prominent stone giants are put to the pyre and buried under stone cairns, where the size of the cairn is indicative of the respect shown to the giant. "He'll leave a mountain!" is something said of a giant much loved by his tribesmen.

Religion

Stone giants have a great variety of gods and goddesses that they worship, including Erastil, Fandarra, and Minderhal.

In addition to the more typical gods, stone giants also believe strongly in ancestral ghosts, represented by The Ancestors, Father, Mother, and the Spirits of the Earth. Stone giants use divine magic to commune with these spirits. Stone giant communities keep shrines to these spirits in their halls, painted and lit with candles, and piled up with offers of bone marrow, amber, and burnt fur.

A recent development in the stone giant community has been the rise of Urazra and the Bear Cult. Practised by more savage and evil stone giants, this contentious religion divides the stone giant community: the elders stand against it, calling out its tendency to play to the primal, base, and bestial aspects of their culture.

Magic

Elder magic is the most common among the stone giants. This magic is centered around divination and transmutation of stone and earth, and is passed down from elder to elder. It rarely happens that a sorcerer manifests among the stone giants, but always obviously so: these young giants are easily spotted by their oddly colored skin, the crystalline formations growing on their skin, or short stature. Sorcerers are simultaneously revered and shunned, held on the same level as a druid or shaman. Wizards simply do not appear in stone giant society, a gross reminder of the indignity suffered upon the giants by ancient Thassilon.

Animal husbandry

Stone giants favor the following animals:

• Dire bears: Bears play the same role to stone giants that dogs play in human society. The are frequently used to assist in the giants in hunting game, where their keen nose, natural intelligence, and size provide distinct advantage. An oral legend of the stone giants attributes both races as children of the goddess Fandarra, the result of a union with Estig the Hunter. Some stone giant tribes have one or many "Bear Fathers", or hunters with extraordinary skills at handling bears.
• Dire wolves: Much rarer than dire bears, and frequently found in the company of stone giant bards, dire wolves—called "dog-giants" by the stone giants—are held as living embodiments of natural wisdom, and their winsome howls are songs of ancient lore.
• Gorgons: Some stone giants are known to favour the meat of gorgons as, once their tough hide is removed, the meat itself is tough yet beefy and very filling, even for a giant.
• Mammoths: In ancient times the temples of Minderhal were the home to hundreds of giant mammoths, fearsome beasts trained for mounted combat. The use of these magnificent creatures has sharply declined since then, but modern stone giants from the Storval Plateau are known to seek and train them as mounts.

In Golarion

The majority of stone giants in Golarion live in the Storval Plateau of Varisia, where they are divided between two cultural groups differentiated by whether they follow the Rune Road or the "low culture". The stone giant clans who inhabit the nearby Iron Peaks and Wyvern Mountains reject both traditions entirely, as they believe them to have sold their kin into slavery during the time of Thassilon. These mountain clans follow a more warlike and brutal lifestyle, worshipping Urazra rather than Minderhal or their ancestors and following the lead of brutal war chiefs.

Stone giants also live in the Tusk and Kodar Mountains to Varisia's north, where they often war with the clans of the Kellid Mammoth Lords. Stone giant children taken by the Mammoth Lords in battle are often fostered in their captors' tribes, eventually growing to identify themselves as part of the humans' clans.

References

Paizo Inc. published an adventure and major article about stone giants in Fortress of the Stone Giants.

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.