Fog giant

Fog giants, called skodjotunen in their own language, were a giant offshoot race of cloud giants.

Description
Fog giants were among the largest of giant breeds, with males standing around tall and females being slightly shorter at. Both had heavily muscled frames. They had milk-white skin and flowing silver-white hair. While they were incapable of growing facial hair, they were otherwise very hirsute. They generally wore no armor, but would do so if necessary.

Abilities
Much like their cloud giant kin, fog giants had vision that extended into the infrared spectrum. However, they did not have true infravision and their vision was not hindered by bright light or strong heat. This allowed them to see through fogs and clouds with ease. They also possessed a good sense of smell, allowing them to track creatures by their scent.

Fog giants were known to be exceptionally good at hiding when in fog banks. Their keen senses made them difficult to surprise, while in contrast their ability to hide in the fog gave them a clear advantage when trying to surprise others. They were also known to typically be skilled in making traps.

Combat
Fog giants were surprisingly stealthy. They preferred to start any battle from cover, surprising and scattering their enemies with thrown rocks before charging into melee range to attack. Generally they preferred to use clubs and their fists, but were known to wield swords as well.

Society
Fog giant settlements were typically located in remote caves or thickets within the marshes, forests, or coasts they had claimed. Clans were generally made up of between 10 and 20 individuals.

In fog giant clans men did the majority of the hunting, going out in pairs or small groups to hunt within a dozen miles of their homes. While settlements usually had a mix of alignments within them, hunting parties were generally formed of giants with the same alignments and would occasionally include a sorcerer or cleric.

Due to their large size and the proportional amount of food necessary to sustain them, each hunting group required a large amounts of territory to hunt in. These territories were marked along their boundaries with cairns of rock and wood, and the giants could become aggressive when these markers were dismantled or others intruded on their territory, particularly when hunting was poor. When fighting other fog giants, they threw stones or fist-fought rather than using weapons such as swords. If the dispute was not too serious, it could be settled with an arm-wrestling match or a game of copsi, in which two giants took turns throwing increasingly large boulders for their opponent to catch. The loser was the first one to drop an incoming rock.

Fog giants could be talented craftsmen, prizing their ornately carved clubs made of wood or bone. One clan was known for wearing armor crafted from white dragon hides. Above all other things, fog giants treasured silver. They would trade for silver when nothing else would convince them, and traditionally young males were not allowed to take a mate till they had claimed a large silver ornament as their own. Whether this treasure was found or bought did not matter, but several young giants would usually work together to acquire these silver objects for one of their number.

Diet
Fog giants preferred to cook their meat, although cooking usually only entailed being roasted on a spit over a fire. Hooved animals were their preferred food, including sapient creatures like centaurs. They had a strong taste for sweets, and enjoyed confections and sweets immensely. They also enjoyed drinking large amounts of alcohol, although they did not brew or distill their own drinks. They would sometimes smoke fresh milkweed pods in pipes as well.

Lycanthropy
There were never any known cases of fog giants contracting any form of lycanthropy. This was speculated to be due to their relation to cloud giants, who possessed an immunity to all forms of the affliction, though whether or not they were truly immune was unknown.

Lairs
The area around their settlements were often trapped with deadfalls that they could easily trigger against intruders with a thrown rock. More traps were set on the regular pathways to their homes and hunting grounds, as these trails were difficult to simply hide.

Homelands
Fog giants were particularly common in the Evermoors, and more rarely in the Frost Hills to the north or the Nether Mountains to the east. In the Shining South they were known to inhabit the Great Swamp of Rethild. In the Unapproachable East, fog giants were known to inhabit the Umber Marshes.

Relationships
Fog giants generally did not mix well with other races, although they would trade with those of similar alignment and could be paid to provide services. Evil fog giants were known to raid the settlements of other races. The exception to animosity this was cloud giants, who they retained a cordial relationship with. One or two cloud giants could often be found with a fog giant hunting party.

In the Ordning, fog giants were ranked fourth, just below their kin cloud giants.

Languages
While they spoke both Jotun and Jotunskye, they also had their own dialect of Jotun likely called Jotunskod. This dialect was unintelligible to all other giants except cloud giants.

History
Thousands of years ago, fog giants split from cloud giant society in the aftermath of a civil war.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds
 * Card Games
 * AD&D Trading Cards