Stone giant

Stone giants, called steinjotunen in their own language,, were a reclusive and artistic race of giants that lived in underground and mountainous environments. "We all know of dwarves who fell so deep in love with their craft, or the seeking of treasure or ale, that that they forgot how to live in any other way but in pursuit of it. That's what stone giants do."

- Elminster

Description
The bodies of stone giants had a gray to grayish-brown skin tone, hair that ranged in a spectrum of dark grays and bluish-grays, and eyes of a silver or steel hue. They also tended to wear clothing that was of a similar color to nearby rocks, which altogether made it easy for their race to blend in with their environment when needed.

Adults averaged about in height and  in weight. Though fossilized stone giants from the era of Ostoria show that in the past their race was capable of reaching heights of up to.

Combat
Stone giants preferred to fight using ranged weapons such as boulders, but if forced into melee they wielded gigantic stone clubs. Some were fond of simply flinging their smaller enemies through the air.

Biology
Stone giants had an excellent sense of smell and had infravision sight of up to. Stone giants were the longest living of the giants and generally considered among their peers to be the wisest of all giant races, despite their low position in the ordning. And their hearts were known to beat four times slower than that of a human.

Lycanthropy
Due to the resilience of their skin, stone giants were known to be immune to all forms of lycanthropy.

Sub-Races

 * Ash giants: An offshoot of stone giants that lived in the Black Ash Plain of east Faerûn. Their size and skin tone was approximately the same, though their bodies were hairless and their eyes a deep-set black. They often smeared themselves with ash as camouflage and were known to be shamans who specialized in controlling the ashes and embers common in their homeland.


 * Phaerlin giants: An offshoot that was created by the magic of the phaerimm, sometime after those aberrations were imprisoned in the Underdark. While intelligent enough to speak, phaerlin giants were savage brutes and had little in common with their stone giant forebears. Their bodies were hairless, had hardened skin very similar to that of a beholder, and were hunched from living in tight tunnels. They generally walked using both their feet and hands. They eschewed weapons, preferring to attack with their claws and the razor sharp teeth embedded in their protruding jaws.


 * Craa'ghoran giants: Stone giants who had been exposed long ago to elemental energy from the Elemental Plane of Earth by druidic devotees of Gond. They were taller than stone giants, could live up to 8,000 years, and could weigh up to ten times more than them due to the massive chunks of rock that formed much of their bodies.They were cruel hunters who delighted in using their innate abilities to create a maze of traps and blind corners for prey to get lost in. They did retain their ancestors love of art, creating massive and beautiful stone carvings with their magic.



Society
Stone giant family bonds were less important than the bonds between a master and his pupil. The ordering of stone giant society was based upon an individual's artistic ability.

The strongest stone giant nation was Cairnheim in the Underdark. It was a village located in the western part of the Darklands in the Upperdark inside the Giant's Run Mountains under the rule of the stone giant lich Dodkong.

Stone giants that spent too much time on the surface, either during their dream quests or as a result of banishment from their communities, became dreamwalkers, driven so far into madness by their isolation to the point that reality itself bent around them.

Language
Stone giants were known to speak the general giant language Jotun. But they also possessed their own language known as Jotunstein, which was derived from both Jotun and Auld Dwarvish. The written form of this language was known as "Metamorpherie".

Homelands
These giants were typically found living in temperate mountain ranges, caves, or caverns.

Stone giants were powerful enough to survive and make a living in the Underdark in the face of competition. They had a tendency to gather in larger individual groups the deeper the given group was located, but were primarily denizens of the Upperdark, though their numbers were small even there.

They carved their homes out of the rock and had a reputation as good artisans, though they generally maintained an uncaring stance towards other denizens of the Underdark and expected the same stance from the others.

Religion
Like all true giants, stone giants worshiped Annam All-Father as their chief deity, but unlike the other races they envisioned him as being an artist whose skills were perfection. Their patron deity among Annam's children was Skoraeus Stonebones, though lesser deities Hiatea and Iallanis were also known to have a significant following among the stone giants.

Priests of Skoraeus felt that their duty was to oversee their society's affairs and ensure that the stone giants as a whole continued to progress towards greater achievements in art and intellectual thought. But in order to accomplish this goal, they believed that their race needed to isolate itself from others, with the exception of individuals who might help expand upon their mastery of craftsmanship.

Relationships
Animal domestication was not common among them, though many were known to raise colonies of giant bats as a warning system and source of food. While others have been seen in the company of giant goats and cave bears. Out of all animals they considered purple worms to be the greatest of pests, since they can effortlessly burrow through their homes and destroy prized carvings.

Notable Stone Giants

 * Dodkong, a stone giant lich and chieftain of Cairnheim.
 * Kayalithica, ruler of the stone giants during the time of the ordning shattering.
 * Yauln

Trivia

 * Historians gave the year -160 DR the epithet "Year of the Stone Giant."

Appearances

 * Adventures:
 * City of the Spider Queen
 * Forgotten Tradition
 * Hoard of the Dragon Queen
 * Khamsa's Folly
 * Out of the Abyss
 * Storm King's Thunder
 * Szith Morcane Unbound
 * The Quest for Sporedome
 * Board Games:
 * Assault of the Giants
 * Cards
 * AD&D Trading Cards
 * Spellfire: Master the Magic
 * Novels:
 * The Captive Flame
 * Video Games
 * Menzoberranzan
 * Warriors of Waterdeep