#subtype giant

Most offspring of humans and ogres are twisted and degenerate ogrekin, but a rare few are born with an ogre's strength and a human's intelligence with no crippling deformities. Although they are shunned by both sides of their heritage, many such half-ogres find a place for themselves as adventurers.

Half-ogres look mostly human, only far larger and more muscular, with an ogre's crude and distended facial features. Most half-ogres stand 8 to 9 feet tall and weigh upward of 450 pounds. They often inherit their ogre forebears' short temper and uncouth nature, but are no less intelligent than the average human. Half-ogres are much like half-orcs on a larger scale, and members of the two races unsurprisingly often form close friendships.

Half-ogres are almost always the result of forced unions and are usually seen as shameful reminders  of such horrors by humans. The few half-ogres who find acceptance by humans typically do so by aggressively demonstrating as much piety and good-heartedness as possible, and even this is no guarantee against prejudice; many half-ogres simply stop caring and act as much like ogres as possible. For their part, ogres and ogrekin look down on the weaker half-ogres and often subject them to sick tortures; few half-ogres born to ogre mothers reach adulthood. The only race that treats half-ogres with genuine respect are orcs, who recognize their greater intelligence as a boon and may even elect human-born half-ogres as leaders over their own kind.

Sand giants are disciplined and honorable beings that dwell deep in the desert. These cautious and lawful giants make worthy guides and allies to those lost in their territory.

Standing 12 to 14 feet tall, sand giants have broad, squat features and flat faces; females are slightly larger than males. Their skin ranges from rich mahogany to light beige, and their hair tends to be dark brown or black. They favor loose garments in desert colors such as beige or khaki and avoid heavy metal armor. Sand giants are noted for their use of the sand blaster, a unique weapon that sprays stinging sand at enemies.

Unlike most desert natives, sand giants are not nomads, living in large, well-ordered communities carved into the rock of mountains and hills bordering the desert. Their dwellings are neatly ordered and organized, with strong defenses. Each settlement is ruled by a hereditary king or queen, with each member of the community knowing their place in the order of succession.

Although they live far from civilization, sand giants are not isolationist, and are friendly to travelers with good intentions, often hiring their services as guides to those who pay well. Sand giants consider the nomadic desert giants to be honored cousins, and the desert giants are their main source of news and goods from beyond the wastes. Long ago, human sorcerers forced enslaved sand giants to mate with humans, producing the half-giant race; today, sand giants view half-giants with a mixture of pity and revulsion, as the hybrids are a painful reminder of darker times. On Golarion, sand giants can be found in deserts throughout Casmaron, Garund, Tian Xia, and possibly even Sarusan.

For centuries, cruel humans have captured sand giants to breed with humans to create a slave race of powerful warriors and laborers. The result, the half-giant people, have only recently broken the chains of their slavery, and struggle to find a place for themselves in the wide world.

Half-giants live up to their name, standing 9 feet tall on average and weighing 500 pounds at the least. They resemble their sand giant forebears in coloration, but are less squat and their faces are not so wide. Because their enslaved ancestors were forced to keep their hair shaven, many half-giants now take pride in their long flowing locks.

Like half-orcs, half-giants face prejudice from both their parent species, and prefer to live in isolated communities in the deserts and badlands outside their ancient homelands in Casmaron and Garund. Half-giant towns are small but expansive, with a great deal of space between the giant-sized ceramic buildings for public gatherings and competitions.

As mutual care and compassion kept them afloat through their long years of slavery, half-giants are generally a kindly people, eager to help travelers in need. An uncommon number of half-giants are predisposed toward psychic magic; this talent, unseen in either of their ancestor races, is a source of pride for half-giants, as many half-giant occultists and geokineticists were instrumental in freeing their people. Few half-giants become mentalists, however, as the bending of minds to one's will is antithetical to their freedom-loving culture.

Fog giants are cousins of cloud giants with surprising stealth and cunning for their size. They lack their kindred's magical aptitude but are adept hunters with the ability to slip unseen through the mist.

A fog giant stands about 18 feet tall and is heavily muscled, though not quite as strong as a cloud giant. Fog giants have milky white skin and silver hair that aids them in blending in with the mists of their homes. They favor crude leather armor, though many tribes pass down white dragonscale armor in their ruling families. They typically use huge clubs as weapons, but sword-wielding fog giants are not unheard of.

Fog giants inhabit lowland marshes and mountain valleys where thick mists gather in the morning when they launch their raids. Fog giants are semi-nomadic hunter-gathers who range over large areas, often marked by ornately carved standing-stones and trapped with rockslides and deadfalls that can be set off by a carefully thrown boulder. They share cloud giants' ideological split between good and evil. Evil fog giants are merciless raiders no better than hill giants, while good fog giants will kindly guide travelers through their territory for a nominal fee.

They remain on good terms with their cloud giant cousins, and many tribes include one or two cloud giant emissaries from their highland fortresses as advisers or war leaders. Cloud giants are deeply respected by fog giants for their ability to magically summon fog and mist, aiding the fog giants in their hunts. Fog giants despise the degenerate marsh giants with whom they sometimes compete for territory, and even evil fog giants will seek outside aid to drive off marsh giants.

It is believed that fog giants are descended from a sect of cloud giant slaves in the ancient empire of Thassilon who attempted to throw off the chains of oppression and overthrow the empire's tyrannous runelords. Their revolution was quashed, and the rebellious cloud giants were stripped of their magical abilities as punishment. The nascent fog giants retreated from cloud giant society in shame, though they remained in contact with their cousins and were caught up in the same civil war between the altruistic and pragmatic cloud giant factions that led to both races' ideological split between good and evil. To this day fog giants are most common in Varisia where Thassilon once stood, especially in the lowlands of the Mindspin Mountains around Bloodsworn Vale.

Fomorians are a race of twisted giant-kin native to the First World of the fey. Once, the fomorians were titans gifted with great beauty and magical prowess, but they were cursed by the Eldest, the godlike rulers of the fey, for attempting to rise up and steal their power. Now the hideous, twisted fomorians wallow in their misery and plot to regain their lost glory.

Fomorians are massive humanoids that stand between 20 and 30 feet in height. No two fomorians look alike, possessing deformities such as limbs of different lengths, hides covered in warts and tumors, bone spurs erupting from their joints, or misplaced facial features, though all fomorians have purple skin and one eye much larger than the other, with a slit pupil. This "evil eye" is a focus for their last vestiges of arcane power, with which they can spread their curse to other creatures. Fomorians dress in only the finest clothing and armor.

On the Material Plane, fomorians live as solitary brutes much like other evil giants, but they flourish on the First World. Wishing to relive their past, fomorians surround themselves with beauty completely at odds with their horrifying visages. On the First World, fomorians inhabit vast subterranean caverns of eerie natural beauty, filled with glowing mushroom forests and otherworldly crystalline spires. The fomorians rule decadent courts of enslaved fey from darkly beautiful fortresses, occasionally sallying forth to make war on the fairy courts above.

Most fomorians have been reduced to a mere shadow of their former glory, but some of the oldest and most potent of their race, the fomorian titans, remain in their original beautiful forms. These titans of myth were too powerful for the Eldest to destroy, so they locked them away in prisons across the planes. Should the fomorians ever release their ancient masters from bondage, it would spell doom for the world of the fey.

Firbolgs are powerful giant-kin native to the First World of the fey. They are thought to be a "reflection" - or perhaps a prototype - of the true giants native to the Material Plane.

Firbolgs are wild, rowdy, and violent, but fiercely loyal to any outsiders who give them aid. They have a strong sense of honor, and their word is as strong as any oath. They hate the vile fomorians with every fiber of their being, but lacking the fomorians' numbers of raw power the firbolgs can rarely strike against them.

Living in great barricaded steadings, firbolgs are masterful hunters and trackers who can eke out a living from even the harshest environments, but they are not above raiding the settlements of other races to get what they want. The most accomplished warrior in a clan is selected as chieftain. Firbolgs' spiritual needs are seen to by druids who revere the moon and the raven as feminine and masculine creator spirits respectively; male druids typically select a giant raven animal companion (use stats for a roc), while female firbolg druids can take the Moon subdomain.

Firbolgs are rare on Golarion, living in small numbers in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and the islands of the Ironbound Archipelago in the Steaming Sea.