Giant

Legends say that giants (the various kinds of which are collectively called giantkin in the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting) were the gods’ first attempts to create what would become humankind. Others say that the giants are humans who tried to ascend to godhood, making bargains with fiends and imbuing themselves with essences of the elemental spirits. Today, giants live far away from other civilizations, as they have been hunted down for centuries and driven away.

Highborn
Although there are no different races of highborn giants, humanoid races still divide them into types: cloud, fire, frost, stone, and storm. These are different cultures of giants and although they have adopted different magics, codes of ethics, law, and fighting styles, they are all highborn. Hill giants were highborn as well, but they were stripped of their nobility and exiled by the Council of Seven Scepters.

Cloud Giants

 * &rarr; Main article: Cloud giant.

The cloud giants have a flying city-state, Jovatthon, floating invisibly above Tal'Dorei and are ruled by two wedded kings who are particularly concerned with appeasing the storm giants, who lost their own flying city long ago and whose remnants could easily conquer Jovatthon.

Fire Giants

 * &rarr; Main article: Fire giant.

On the Material Plane fire giants have a civilization beneath the Cliffkeep Mountains (that occasionally allies with the duergar of the Emberhold) and beneath the Ashkeeper Peaks. In the City of Brass in the Elemental Plane of Fire, most fire giants were enslaved or cast out following a betrayal by some of their own. Some of these exiled fire giants served the ancient red dragon Thordak when he controlled Emon.

Frost Giants

 * &rarr; Main article: Frost giant.

The mostly nomadic clans of frost giants roam the northern wastes of Tal'Dorei and Wildemount. They are are master animal-tamers, seen with such dangerous creatures as purple worms, remhorazes, mammoths, and even white dragons at their side. (That said, one ancient white dragon, Rimefang, destroyed a society of frost giants and kept some as slaves.) An artifact recovered from the ruins of Aeor instantly turned a fortress of frost giants in Eiselcross into zombies; the Mighty Nein fought three zombie frost giants near an entrance to Aeor.

Stone Giants

 * &rarr; Main article: Stone giant.

Stone giants prize physical perfection, and to that end they hold a quadrennial sporting tournament at the greatest of their strongholds, Skyanchor Citadel, carved out of a mountain in the Alabaster Sierras. One nearby group of stone giants was killed and raised as zombies to enforce the Briarwoods' rule over Whitestone. Over in Xhorhas the Mighty Nein helped a group of stone giants retake their home from a demon incursion.

Storm Giants

 * &rarr; Main article: Storm giant.

These mysterious giants had a flying city-state long ago that was cast into the Lucidian Ocean; now they are relatively isolated, protecting themselves and their families. As of 836 PD storm giants were blocking the sea trade routes from Icehaven to Balenpost.

Lowborn
Ogres, cyclopes, and hill giants are the lowest of the giants. The lowborn group together, cast out from highborn society and forced to fight and forage to survive. They tend to be ruled by cyclopes, and some hill giant warriors are known to ritualistically tear out an eye in order to imitate their rulers. Wealthier hill giants create exotic eyepatches to wear over one of their eyes. Ogres rely entirely on numbers and brute force to overwhelm their foe. Sometimes lowborn tribes are taken over by trolls or oni—creatures so detestable that the highborn banished them from the caste system—and transform lowborn communities into terrifying armies of evil.

Hill Giants

 * &rarr; Main article: Hill giant.

Among the giantkin cast out of highborn society, hill giants were forced to fight and forage when Hillqueen Ovam'mura was banished from the Council of Seven Scepters. Hill giants were (apparently unwittingly) responsible for the destruction of the gnomish city of Wittebak.

Ogres

 * &rarr; Main article: Ogre.

Ogres look like large, muscular humanoids with large heads, and they are integrated enough with humanoid society that several have joined crews at the margins of society: Buddy joined the then-struggling Darrington Brigade, Kutha works for the Gentleman's Troupe, and Bouldergut served as bodyguard for the pirate Avantika.

Cyclopes

 * &rarr; Main article: Cyclops.

Cyclopes tend to rule the lowborn giantkin settlements, and some hill giants remove one eye to imitate their rulers. When born during a powerful storm, a cyclops might become a stormcaller, with innate magical ability offsetting a smaller stature and reduced physical strength; there has been a locus of stormcaller activity in the Daggerbay Mountains of Tal'Dorei. There is also a roving band of cyclopes in the Iothia Moorland of Xhorhas.

Ettins

 * &rarr; Main article: Ettin.

A pair of these two-headed giants ambushed and chased the Mighty Nein's wagon in the Wuyun Gorge.

Fomorians

 * &rarr; Main article: Fomorian.

Vox Machina encountered one of these fey-cursed giants outside Yug'Voril, named him Tiny, and dropped him on K'Varn's temple to destroy the apparatus he used to control the mind flayer colony there.

Oni

 * &rarr; Main article: Oni.

Oni have innate spellcasting abilities, and are sometimes inaccurately called "ogre mages." The disguised oni Lorenzo, who headed the Iron Shepherds, killed Mollymauk Tealeaf and changed the course of the second campaign.

Trolls

 * &rarr; Main article: Troll.

There are various kinds of trolls. Vox Machina's fight with common trolls in the pre-stream adventures led to a funny anecdote, they fought a group of zombie trolls in the Crypts of Thomara, an ice troll fought in the Victory Pit in Zadash, and a venom troll caused trouble for the Mighty Nein in the Labenda Swamp.