Giant, Cave

Bestial tusks jut from the jaw of this hunched-over giant. It is clad in armor patched together from the bones of past victims.

ECOLOGY

Environment any underground
Organization solitary, gang (2-5), band (6-8 plus 1-2 monitor lizards), raiding party (9-12 plus 1-4 monitor lizards), or tribe (13-20 plus 30% noncombatants, plus 1 barbarian, fighter, or ranger chief of 3rd-5th level; 2-9 monitor lizards; 1-4 giant frilled lizards; and 10-15 dwarf, orc, or troglodyte slaves)
Treasure standard (battleaxe, hide armor, other treasure)

Combining the features of ogres and feral orcs, cave giants are the embodiment of primitive brutality.

Stooped over in a perpetual crouch, cave giants move as if they had never mastered walking erect. Their faces mix the worst features of ogre and feral orc. The largest would measure 10 feet in height if they ever stood straight. The typical cave giant weighs 1,000 pounds. Though few survive past 60 years, cave giants can live as long as 150 years.

While they prove remarkably adept with axes of all varieties, cave giants lack the patience to work metal. What metal a cave giant possesses was likely stolen from other giants or worked by enslaved subterranean smiths.

Slaves such as dwarves, orcs, and troglodytes do most of the labor in cave giant settlements. Poor treatment and the need for meat keep slave populations small and ever-rotating. New slaves are brought in whenever raiding parties remember to reign in their blood lust. Any prisoners who fail to submit to their new masters find themselves served on the dinner table or tossed screaming into the giant’s cave lizard pens. Giant lizards of all types serve as both guard beasts and sport for the cave giants. Giant frilled lizards are rarely pets, as most cave giants opt to keep less dangerous monitor lizards instead. Kept in check only by fear and brutal beatings, such pets turn on their handlers at the first sign of weakness. At feeding time, live captives are tossed into the pens, a festive event filled with boisterous cheers and spirited betting.

Average Height: 9–11 feet

Average Weight: 900–1,100 pounds

Favored Weapons: Battleaxes, clubs

Favored Companions: Giant frilled lizards, monitor lizards, orcs, troglodytes

Cave giants would measure close to a dozen feet tall if they ever rose from their perpetual stoops. Their skin tones range from slate gray to a dark mossy green.

Cave giants have manes of bristly black or gray hair that run from their heads down their backs. Their faces resemble those of orcs taken to monstrous extremes and framed with elephantine tusks. Cave giants clothe themselves in hides decorated with bones.

As their name suggests, cave giants live in rocky underground tunnels and caverns, rarely approaching the surface during the day. They keep giant lizards as smaller humanoids keep dogs, but they are cruel and neglectful masters.

Cave giants survive as hunter-gatherers, subsisting on subterranean animals and plants, yet they’re intensely envious of the innovations and yields other races produce.

Lacking both talent and patience necessary for creation or cultivation, they take what they desire by raiding other races or by enslaving them. Cave giants especially prize metal weapons, as they’re always at war, either with their own kind or with other races.

Though not particularly religious, cave giants pay homage to the god of earthquakes and eruptions. Their priests are mostly barbarians and rangers, though a few divine spellcasters exist. The latter are often devoted to grand but futile schemes, such as freeing the Rough Beast or blotting out the hated sun.