Shadow Giant

Shadow giants are fierce natives of the Shadow Plane, where they have dwelled in perpetual twilight for millennia. Their cultures vary greatly depending on whether the giants reside in their land of origin or have relocated to the Material Plane. On the Shadow Plane, they live in familiar groups and uphold a nomadic way of life as they roam across ancestral lands between shadowy forests and misty chasms. These hunter-gatherers pass down lore through oral histories, conduct pilgrimages to unholy ziggurats of black stone, and bathe in the blood of their long-standing foes, including rival shadow giant clans and velstracs intent on enslaving their kind. On the Material Plane, conversely, they are secretive and isolationist, keeping apart from other peoples in forbidding structures of black stone in high, isolated mountain valleys.

Standing 15 feet tall, with gray skin and hair only a shade lighter, shadow giants are fearsome foes with a well-earned reputation as zealous warmongers and ruthless combatants. They rarely interact with outsiders, though they may treat with proven warriors who show the giants the respect and deference they feel they deserve. Only a small subset of shadow giants worship Zon-Kuthon, and most of these Kuthites are so firmly entrenched in the culture of Nidal that their Shadow Plane-dwelling kin would hardly recognize them. Most shadow giants instead practice an ancient religion, unique to their people, with its own bloody themes of sacrifice and self-mutilation.

Shadow Giant Locations

Some shadow giants travel to the Material Plane to serve as agents in Nidal’s Umbral Court. Rumors of these massive shock troops deployed by the court’s mysterious members are common, and such rumors often place them in the mountains near Cheliax and Molthune.