Using Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants to Enhance Your Campaigns
It’s been a few months since Wizards of the Coast released Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. As a big fan of those big guys, the Giants, I had the book on pre-order and had planned on writing a review not long after I received it. However, its release was marred by its controversial inclusion of AI-generated art, surprisingly short length (192 pages), high price tag ($70?!), and more. These controversies made it challenging to focus on the book's content and provide an objective review, so I decided to give it some space to breathe and come back to it at a later date.
Months later, I’ve taken the time to thoroughly give it a read and I think the better path to take is to focus on what is in there that will be useful for you Dungeon Masters (DMs) out there who want to effectively and creatively use Giants in your upcoming sessions and campaigns. There is a lot to cover here, so to make it a bit more digestible, I am going to post it as a series of shorter blogs covering each section of what I include below. Let’s take one giant leap into the world of Giants.
What’s in the Book?
The Hill Giant from the First Edition Monster Manual.
Lotsa Lore:
Giants have long held a position of awe and reverence in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, in fact they’re one of the monsters that has been found in the game since it released in 1974. In those years there have been various iterations of their long and deep history for Dungeon Masters to pull from. However, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants offers the most in-depth and complete version of this and will give you so much to work with when adding them into your game. The book traces the giants' origins from primordial chaos to their current place in the world, detailing their interactions with other races and their role in shaping the Forgotten Realms.
These towering figures command respect and embody the power of nature itself. Within the pages of Glory of the Giants you’ll find a treasure trove of information on these formidable creatures with a comprehensive guide that unveils their history, culture, and societal structures.
That is the biggest and greatest aspect of this book, its lore. It gives a near full Saga on the Giants and their brethren throughout the history of The Forgotten Realms and it does so with a focus on being able to introduce the lore into your adventures.
Not only does it offer a crash course on the annals of giant history, tracing their origins from the primordial chaos to their current place in the world, the book also meticulously explores the diverse types of giants, from the formidable cloud giants to the enigmatic storm giants, each with their unique traits, customs, and motivations. This detailed exploration allows DMs to craft compelling storylines that weave giants seamlessly into the fabric of their campaigns. In this recent post, I’ve explored this lore and offered a few ways I think it could be used in your campaigns.
New Monsters!:
While they don’t have to be monsters, the simple fact is to most anybody, even in a fantasy realm, a Giant would be a terrifying figure to come across. The book offers up 71 new monsters, which is a massive amount of new baddies for such a short sourcebook. I already covered one of my favorites, a Barrowghast, in my post on Terrifying Monsters for a Horror Campaign. However, there are countless types of monsters found in here including gargantuas, magic-using Giants, cultists, Scions of Giants’ Gods (my faves)r and even dinosaurs. In my post on monsters I’ve included my favorite ones found in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants and offered some ways that I might use them in my own campaigns, feel free to take them for your own. As I’ve said before, one of the best ways to make DMing easier is to take ideas and use them in your own campaigns.
Backgrounds, Subclasses, and Feats, oh my!:
Are you a player, or do you have a player in your game who is going through the character creation stage (if they are, you might send them here for some tips wink) who wants their character tied to Giants? Good news: Glory of the Giants offers up quite a few new ways to make this dream come true. If you’re planning on playing one of the physically largest D&D classes out there, Barbarians, there’s a new Giant subclass for you. If you want the backstory of your character tied to Giants, there are two options for backgrounds to choose from. And finally, there are some new feats your characters can take that tie them to the world of Giants. All of these additions are great additions to the ever-growing option list for players looking to branch out and play something a little off-the-wall.
A Giant’s Share of Items:
You can never have enough fun items to add into your bag of holding or onto the shelves of the merchants around your world, and there are 30 new magic items to choose from within the pages of Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. It’s never a bad idea to drop some unique items around your world to simply make it feel bigger and more lived in, so I’ll share some of my favorites here for you to add into your games.
Giant Enclaves and Assorted Tables:
So, this is one of my only real gripes with the book and its that there are just sooooo many pages of tables. For some DMs that may be exactly what they’re looking for. For me, I find tables to be mind-numbingly boring and while they may spark creativity, I find them to be akin to casting Bane on the creative mind. There are also mini maps with adventures sprinkled in that take up a decent portion of the book. I will include the ones that stood out, but truly I found it a slog trying to get through most of this stuff, so I’ll save them for the last post.