Mountain giant

Mountain giants, called fjelljotunen in their own language, were a brutish giant offshoot race of hill giants.

Description
Mountain giants largely resembled hill giants, though they were slightly smaller and roughly as strong as fire giants. Their bodies typically displayed a skin tone that ranged from a light tan to a reddish-brown tan. Male mountain giants often had heavy beards, but never mustaches, as well as large pot bellies.

They typically dressed in rough animal hides or skins, much like hill giants tended to, as well as a breechcloth. Due to poor hygiene, their bodies often had foul odors lingering off them that could travel along the wind for over a distance of a or more.

Personality
These giants were often given to cruelty and erratic behavior. They were suspicious of outsiders and reluctant to interact with them. However, they were more than capable of agreeing to peaceful relations with other creatures.

Biology
Mountain giants possessed high olfactory senses, allowing them to track down and detect many enemies through means of smelling.

Abilities
Though not the most charismatic of giants, whenever this race called for aid a number of monsters would quickly arrive to fight alongside them. Most often these calls for help were answered by ogres, though trolls and occasionally hill giants were also known to come at such calls.

A mountain giant had some degree of control over these other creatures, able to issue them broadly defined commands, but they still valued their own lives over that of their summoner. Often times this ability would be used to acquire guards and underlings for their cavern homes.

Combat
Mountain giants were rarely known to use any form of tactical planning, deceit, or ambushing maneuvers. Rather, they preferred to straightforward approach of tossing down massive boulders at their foes from afar and rarely took cover while doing so. When fighting in close quarters they were known to use a club that were the size of logs or tree limbs.

When it came to unarmed combat against smaller opponents they were known to jump up into the air, up to heights of, and attempt to land on their foes, thereby crushing them. Otherwise, they would simply try to trample their foes, engage them in acts of grappling, or fling them away.

History
Mountain giants broke off from their hill giant ancestors after a civil war in the ancient past of Faerûn. The exact date in which this civil war occurred was unknown, but it happened sometime prior to -339 DR.

In the late 14 century DR, in the Western Heartlands a small band of mountain giants that lived in the northernmost mountains encircling the Battle of Bones battlefield were rumored to be led by an undead fire giant that had come from the deserts of Anauroch.

Society
A mountain giant tribe was generally a very loose network of several families, scattered across a given mountain or range. These families were polygamous, typically in the form of multiple men sharing a single woman. Tribes were led by a 3-level shaman, who typically lived alongside other friendly creatures rather than their own race. They presided over a tribe's occasional gathering and would counsel those willing to travel in order to talk with them.

Mountain giant shamans typically derived their powers from the spheres of All, Animal, Charm, Combat, Elemental, or Healing. They also possessed an innate ability to locate any cave or cavern entrance within a half mile of them, with the exception of those hidden through magic.

Mountains were often known to take the items of humanoid creatures and carry them around in bags alongside their rocks, keeping the items as playthings. Such items could include things such as furniture, wagons, or even whole huts.

Diet
Mountain giants were foragers and hunters who ate a variety of nuts, tubers, and other edible mountain plants. Their most favorite food was typically mountain sheep.

Homelands
Typically mountain giants lived solitary lives in mountain ranges and volcanoes, dwelling in spacious caverns they carved out.

During the days of the Netheril empire, mountain giants were known to inhabit the Eastern Forest.

In the Lands of Intrigue, they could be found in the Omlarandin Mountains. There they were known to herd giant sheep. In the Savage Frontier of northwest Faerûn, tribes of mountain giants lived in the Greypeak Mountains.

In interior Faerûn, a tribe of mountain giants known as the community of the high brows lived in the Orbrekh branch of the Orsraun Mountains.

Beyond Faerûn, mountain giants could be found in the temperate mountain regions of Kara-Tur.

Relationships
Despite often resenting intruders, they would occasionally keep a few dwarves or humans as pets. If found in groups, they were usually a pair of mates with children.

As mountain giants descended from hill giants, they were still considered true giants. They stood just above their distant kin in the giant hierarchy, or ordning, and just below stone giants.

Notable Mountain Giants

 * Grug, a herder of giant sheep in the Omlarandin Mountains.
 * Oogle, a shaman of the community of the high brows in the Orsraun Mountains.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds • How the Mighty Are Fallen • Dungeon #69, "Sleep of Ages"
 * Video Games
 * Neverwinter Nights: Tyrants of the Moonsea
 * Card Games
 * Spellfire: Master the Magic