Tellus: Making a Gigas Character

Lets end the year on a strong note for Tellus! This is just as much blog material as its the resource I will directly show the players when creating their characters. Rather than start with the three more common races I've decided to give focus to the least developed of the bunch: the fearsome children of the planet, the Gigas.

The Gigas

Strongest and longest-lived of all the mortal races of Tellus, the Gigas are not born 'naturally' but are rather a mortal emanation of the life energy of the planet's environment. Fearsome and wild, they live in isolated pockets away from civilization and rarely, if ever, truly interact with other races. However from time to time they find themselves dragged into the affairs of other races and at other times they even wage war against them.

Conceptual History and Setting Role

Art by Ricardo Yuji.

The Gigas draw both the most and the least from JRPG in their own weird way. When designing Tellus I wanted to cover all the basic archetypes covered by the more basic fantasy races such the city-dwelling humans, the industrious dwarves and the two archetypes of elves: wood-dwelling hippies and pretty, smug elusive magical beings on the decline. The latter is best embodied by the Sky-Folks (and the Moon Folks, but these guys aren't playable by default). However the whole 'guardian of nature' angle was left to be covered. Drawing inspiration from various sources in JRPG, such as the Gigantos (name should be a cue), various 'Beast Men' races and the Yaksha of Vedic mythologies I constructed the Gigas. They fill in both that 'strong guy' role, the 'barbarian' role and the 'hippy guardian of nature' role at once.

Where other settings have effete Wood Elves and stupid Gnomes, Tellus has the towering and terrifying (yet possibly soft-hearted deep inside) Gigas: a race which doesn't really draw from any clear source but its setting role feels oddly archetypal nonetheless.

Who are the Gigas?

To be born a Gigas is to be paradoxically more connected to nature and at the same time less. Gigas, unlike other living beings, lack parents: they are born from a confluence of magical geomantic energies in wild locales, they are born from this 'cocoon' of plant, rock, sand or ice and raised communally by the tribe which inhabit said locale. There is something rather bare bones about Gigas communities: people only speak when they need to, only forge weapons and armors when needed (and pass down any spares to whoever needs it) and meals are incredibly basic with only the crudest of agriculture. Even then most Gigas is expected to grow or raise some of his or her own food and not bother the community. This can make them appear to be dull-minded and even anti-social to outsiders: in truth, Gigas have a strong inclination toward primitivism and self reliance and treat most aspects of civilization as a luxury and not a core component of their societies.

Given their long life span and low 'birth' rate, Gigas society is inherently stagnant and dull. The only real hierarchy are based on age and one's ability to wield magic to support themselves and their community (but only in time of needs). There is always the risk of a young (relatively speaking) Gigas becoming curious about the extremely complex societies of the greater world. Those who return to their dull, naturalistic communities are welcomed back without any real punishment: being forever different from their simplistic kin is punishment enough by itself.

D8	Personality Quirk
1	You never speak unless directly addressed/asked a question. The only exception to this is when you inform your allies of something of interest. Unless directly addressed others can talk about you, in your face and you don’t seem to care.
2	You dislike being inside any building more complex than a simple tent. You will instinctively gravitate toward the windows and door for a quick exit should trouble manifest itself. You are also far too big to escape by windows but that won’t stop you.
3	You have developed mild paranoia about hurting those smaller than you, possibly due to troubled interactions early on. For someone so massive you have extremely focused, deliberate and delicate movements to minimize the risk of breaking someone or something.
4	Your emotions are very potent, which appears quite at odds with your normally relaxed and mostly expressionless face. Your outburst of joy, fear or rage are sudden and utterly baffling to others.
5	You have an artistic side. Too bad others can’t appreciate the joy and wonder of fungal artistry, plant ball-spitting painting, beard root-weaving and other rare forms of Gigas artistic styles.
6	You don’t appreciate the food of the ‘civilized people’ and will prefer eating raw, uncooked meat, chew on roots or stuff your face full of raw, live bugs. You completely lack the ability to see why this is seen as ‘weird’.
7	You enjoy gathering food and feeding your fellow party member as you believe them buying rations and eating in inn to be a sign they are too inept to properly feed themselves, akin to a young child.
8	You’ve become convinced that ‘civilized people’ are weak and/or morally reprehensible, making you boastful about your primitive ways being more honest and true. That you take people’s gold and spend it on booze doesn’t appear dishonest to you at all!

Physical Appearance

Gigas are large and heavy, with even the smallest of their kind being larger (and much heavier) than the average Ulm or Dragon Clan. Beyond the raw mass there isn't much any Gigas has in common with others of its race, as each is somewhat unique in the various physical traits they manifest. A Gigas' body is partially plant and/or mineral-like, often in somewhat baffling ways. Horns, tusks, scales, plant-like hair or beards or even stone protruding from their skin are commonplace.

Gigas Appearance
D6	Eyes	Skin	Feature
1	Gold iris, black sclera.	Earthy brown and mottled. High amount of body hair.	Bony or stony brow spikes.
2	Dark brown, almost black.	Grey with stony scabs. More stone-like at extremities.	Tiny antlers growing out of head.
3	Pure green orbs.	Dark green, with an almost leaf-like texture.	Hair and/or facial hair is plant-like.
4	Pure gold orbs.	Covered in short, small stubby spines.	Overly broad torso, longer arms and shorter legs.
5	Wolf-like.	Bark-like in texture despite being fleshy.	Large hands and feet.
6	Raptor-like.	Unnaturally dry and dirt-like.	Hair grow down to the middle of the back.

Note that this table is for the more common Mountain or Forest Gigas, which use the default Goliath or Firbolg stat block. Variant Goliaths would replace these traits with something similar but themed to their element, such as snow-white skin for cold-dwelling Gigas or glowing red eyes for those tied to volcanic places. Underground-dwelling Gigas would likely replace the plant and tree-like elements with mushrooms.

Gigas Names

There isn't much of a culture to the Gigas, at least not one which produce the wealth of names with religious, mythological and historical meaning which Humans (and other fantasy races in other settings) have. After all, in most languages names have a meaning. Gigas cut the middle man and simply give names which are description of an individual, be it some physical descriptor of some title which hint at their function.

Gigas Name
d10	Descriptor	Function
1	Barkback	Strider
2	Stoneskin	Hunter
3	Plantface	Protector
4	Weedhair	Wanderer
5	Stonebeard	Teacher
6	Flowernose	Warrior
7	Bushbrow	Guardian
8	Treeback	Keeper
9	Gnarlhands	Grower
10	Mushroom	Loner

Choosing A Class

Compared to the other races, Gigas are a lot more limited in their possible education, limiting them to classes which can be used to represent their innate gifts or simply self-teaching: which is even less common than it might appear, especially for the more complex use of magic. This does, however, leave Gigas with a somewhat pessimistic and determinist mindset. While there is some truth to this (such as magic gift or lack thereof), Gigas would produce much better warriors and spellcasters if they understood relying on knowledge and understanding rather than raw instinct or gifts.

• The Druid class is the most obvious pick for Forest-dwelling Gigas and, indeed, this is the class most associated with the race as a whole. While there are Druids among other races, the origins of Druid themselves are found among the Gigas. Most Druid Circles work for the Gigas race.
• The Sorcerer class may initially appear as an odd pick but it has several Bloodlines which are well suited to representing a manifestation of the innate gifts of the Gigas race. The Fury Magic is a good example of the 'barbarian' side of the Gigas made manifest through magic. Any Bloodline from the Children of the Wild homebrew/third party works well too.
• The Barbarian is the fairly obvious martial option for Gigas, representing their more destructive and primal side breaking loose. Indeed it is the race most associated with the class. In theory nearly every Barbarian Path could be used.

Of course these are but a small sample available to Gigas. Being naturally focused (but also ferociously destructive) beings make the Gigas well suited to any 'martial' class which make use of their brute force and, size and innate cunning.