Glory of the Giants
Glory of the Giants is an epic fantasy sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons, written by Makenzie De Armas, Dan Dillon, Ben Petrisor, and Jason Tondro and published by Wizards of the Coast.
By Dave Pierson
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The Homebrew DM’s Perception
DISCLAIMER: Bigby accepts no responsibility for injuries sustained by adventurers who seek out the glory of the giants without proper preparation, including but not limited to lighting strikes, falls from cloud castles, incineration, hypothermia, crushing boulders, or being sat upon.
Wizards of the Coast, Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants, 2023
Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants is Wizards of the Coast’s most recent release involving D&D’s iconic wizards, documenting the various foes, races, and monsters across the planes. Bigby himself has been involved in decades of lore and has given names to some of the most iconic wizard spells. Once the traveling partner of Mordenkainen, Bigby now finds himself fascinated with studying giants after being reincarnated as a gnome following a not so kind encounter with a giant’s club.
Bigby’s Glory of the Giants is the exploration of the many roles Giants play in the D&D realms. The book begins by introducing us to Diancastra, a revered demigod of many giant folk, and throughout provides glimpses into the interactions between Bigby and Diancastra. We then delve into our giant-themed options for our player characters – from subclasses to feats, the options are there to tap into the power of the giants. The remainder of the book focuses on items for the Dungeon Master; how to play giants in your campaign, tools to help build encounters or even whole campaigns, discussing where the different giants typically dwell, details around treasures that may be found when exploring the hidden realms of the giants, and then ending with our typical stat blocks for the bestiary – including new giant kinds.
At first, reading the subclass title of “Barbarian: Path of the Giant”, I was intrigued. Even the tag lines of “As they rage, these barbarians surge with elemental power and grow in size” had me dreaming of playing a barbarian once again. The subclass feels a little underwhelming upfront, however subtly builds. Your first path feature has you increasing your size to large and the ability to add your rage damage to strength-based thrown weapons. Now, not every barbarian wants to throw things, however when you look to combine this trait with your level 6 path feature, Elemental Cleaver, all of a sudden, you’ve got the godlike powers of Thor. Elemental Cleaver allows you to change your weapon’s damage to acid, cold, fire, thunder, or lightning, and adds an additional 1d6 damage on top of that. It also gives that weapon the Thrown property, which builds very nicely off of the 3rd level feature. Then, if you do throw the weapon, it immediately returns to your hand in time for the rest of your attacks. It’s here that the path of the giant really becomes a weapon of destruction, and the rest of your path features continue to build this powerful combo.
The rest of Glory of the Giants provides a lot of detail around giant life, religion, and encounters, so much that you could easily take this book and build a whole world just around giants. You can tell the team took care to provide just the right amount of detail, but still leave it open to a DM’s creativity. There’s plenty of tables to roll against or use to help get the creative juices flowing and there are some nice maps that you can incorporate. There’s even Prehistoric Figurines of Wondrous Power – want to ride a triceratops, you can! But what I really found interesting were the Death Giants. Former cloud giants that traveled to Shadowfell in search of a way to preserve this empire; these giants ended up on the wrong side of a bet with the Raven Queen and now serve her, seeking those souls that try to escape her grasp.
Overall, I give Glory of the Giants high marks as a supplement for DMs looking to incorporate more giants into their campaigns. As a supplement for players, beyond chapter 1, there’s not much there for you, but if you’re interested in the path of the giants for your barbarian, there are plenty of resources online that can provide you with the details you seek.
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