Fire Giant

(From D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual - 2014):

Master crafters and organized warriors, fire giants dwell among volcanoes, lava floes, and rocky mountains. They are ruthless militaristic brutes whose mastery of metalwork is legendary.

Fire Forged. Fire giant fortresses are built around and inside volcanoes or near magma-filled caverns. The blistering heat of their homes fuels the fire giants’ forges, and causes the iron of their fortress walls to glow a comforting orange. In lands far removed from volcanic heat, fire giants mine coal to burn. 

Traditional smithies occupy places of honor in their demesnes, and the giants’ stony fortresses constantly belch plumes of sooty smoke. In more remote outposts, fire giants burn wood to keep their forge fires lit, deforesting leagues of land in all directions.

Fire giants shun cold as much as their cousins the frost giants hate heat. They can adapt to cold environments with effort, though, keeping their hearth fires burning bright and wearing heavy woolen clothing and furs to stay warm.

Martial Experts. From birth, a fire giant is taught to embrace a legacy of war. At the cradle, its parents chant songs of battle. As children, fire giants play at war, hurling igneous rocks at one another across the banks of magma rivers. In later years, formal martial training becomes an integral part of life in the giants’ fortresses and underground realms of smoke and ash. The fire giants’ songs are odes of battles lost and won, while their dances are martial formations of pounding feet that resound like smiths’ hammers throughout their smoky halls.

Just as fire giants pass down their knowledge of crafting from generation to generation, their renowned fighting prowess comes not from wild fury but from endless discipline and training. Enemies make the mistake of underestimating fire giants based on their brutish manner, learning too late that these giants live for combat and can be shrewd tacticians.

Feudal Lords. Humanoids conquered in war become serfs to the fire giants. The serfs work the farms and fields on the outskirts of fire giant halls and fortresses, raising livestock and harvesting fields whose bounty is almost entirely tithed to the fire giant kings.

Fire giant crafters work through insight and experience rather than writing or arithmetic. Though most fire giants place little worth on such frivolousness, they sometimes keep serfs at court who are versed in such skills. Serfs not destined for court or the fields (especially dwarves) are taken to the fire giants’ mountainous realms to mine ore and gemstones from deep within the earth.

Fire giants low in the ordning manage the mine tunnels and the serfs that toil there, few of which survive the difficult and dangerous work for long. Though fire giants are skilled in the engineering of mine tunnels and the gathering of ore, they place less importance on the safety of their serfs than on smelting and working the bounty those serfs produce.

Skilled Artisans. Fire giants have a fearsome reputation as soldiers and conquerors, and for their ability to burn, plunder, and destroy. Yet among the giants, fire giants produce the greatest crafters and artists. They excel at smelting and smith work, as they do at the engineering of metal and stone, and the quality of their artistry shows even in their implements of destruction and their weapons of war.

Fire giants strive to build the strongest fortresses and most potent siege weapons. They experiment with alloys to create the hardest armor, then forge the swords that can pierce it. Such work requires brawn and brains in equal measure, and fire giants high in the ordning tend to be the smartest and strongest of their kind.

(From Volo's Guide to Monsters - 2016):

The fire giants were the officers, engineers, and crafters of ancient Ostoria. Their position and unparalleled skill, along with their domineering outlook, make them haughty and arrogant. 

Ordning of Craftwork. Fire giants are the gre~test smiths, architects, and technicians among giantkind. The iron-lined halls of a fire giant stronghold, deep inside a mountain or a volcano, support the unimaginable weight of the stone above them and enable the giants to harness the heat of rivers of magma to power their forges. 

A fire giant's prowess in the occupations of crafting determines its place in the ordning. Although fire giants put stock in combat skill, they recognize that success in battle or on the hunt derives mainly from the quality of one's weapons and armor, and those that can fashion the finest gear enjoy the highest status in the clan. Master artisans, architects, and engineers select the best disciples to pass their knowledge on to, along with their standing. Often pupils are children or siblings of their teachers, but that's not always so. Leaders are chosen by general recognition from among the best crafters in the clan. 

One group of fire giants, known as the dreadnoughts, owe their place in the ordning not to their crafting ability but to their extraordinary physical prowess. They take on a lot of the work of guarding the forges and keeping them stoked- effort without which the crafters couldn't succeed. (See chapter 3 of this book for more information on fire giant dreadnoughts.) 

Fire giants don't spend a lot of time crafting works of art, although they would maintain that all of their feats of metalworking and engineering are themselves forms of artistic expression. Beyond such accomplishments, true artwork is scarce among fire giants, and most of what exists is jewelry, made from gems and ore that they mine and then refine. A unique form of art that some fire giants produce involves manipulating magma as it cools, forming it into fantastical, one-of-a-kind shapes. The most striking of these works are collected and displayed inside the stronghold, not unlike how other cultures create topiary gardens.

Mighty Fighters, Poor Planners. When fire giants aren't honing their crafting skills, they're drilling with weapons or exercising to keep themselves fit for battle. The typical fire giant has a mastery of combat tactics that few other warriors can match, but the giants' understanding of strategy is rudimentary. 

This deficiency isn't born from a lack of ability, but has it~ roots in tradition. In ages past, when the giants worked together to dominate the world, strategy was determined by the cloud giants and the storm giants. Ever since the clans went their separate ways after Ostoria's wars against the dragons, the fire giants have not mounted a grand, strategic effort to extend their sway, but they have fought countless skirmishes and other tactical engagements, mainly to solidify their hold on territory they have already claimed. If an ambitious fire giant ever became a master of strategic planning (or captured and enslaved a cooperative general), little could stop a tribe of fire giants that enjoyed this additional advantage over their neighbors. 

Fire giants raise and train hell hounds as war dogs, and they sometimes persuade human wizards (free or enslaved) to harness fire elementals as guardians for their strongholds. Some allow trolls to roam free in rarely used parts of their fortresses, serving as perimeter guards of a sort. Trolls require little maintenance, able to survive on the fire giants' scraps and on dead or diseased slaves; they're tough enough to deter most intruders; and their susceptibility to fire makes them little threat to a fire gi~nt. 

Slaves: Labor-Saving Devices. It takes a lot of work to build and maintain a fire giant stronghold. Most of that effort comes not from the giants themselves, but from the slaves that they keep. Fire giants enslave other creatures to accomplish unskilled labor, so the giants can concentrate on the more vital aspects of foundry operation and crafting that only they are capable of. They aren't overly cruel masters, but neither are they particularly kind- they are uncaring about their slaves, because slaves aren't giants, and there are always more to be had if the supply runs low. 

Most creatures that fire giants capture are put to work in the giants' mines or on surface farms the giants claim as part of their domain. Even master crafters of other races are consigned to unskilled labor, because so few of them have talents the fire giants consider "skilled." Only creatures that have skills the fire giants need but don't practice (because they aren't valued in the ordning), such as accounting, brewing, and medicine, are allowed to continue plying their trades. 

Skilled slaves receive better treatment, at least in the sense that an owner uses less force with a delicate tool, but as a rule fire giants view humans in much the same way that humans view horses: they have utility if properly directed, and some might be prized for rare qualities, but even the smartest, best trained horse isn't a person. That said, it's not unheard of for a fire giant to "consult with" a slave physician when it falls ill, or with a slav~ engineer right before beginning a difficult stage of tunnel excavation. (Such a consultation would only be to ensure that the right tools and materials are on hand for the excavation, not to solicit a second opinion on the giant's personal assessment of the structure's integrity.) 

Giants that stand low in the ordning are assigned to manage slaves and mining operations. Excavating mine shafts and digging out ore is important work, but smelting and metalwork are valued more highly than effort spent keeping a tunnel from collapsing on slaves. 

Paying the Price. Fire giants on many occasions have ransomed captives back to their families or communities, once the giants determined that a slave had no particular talent they needed and others were willing to pay for its return. Affluent prisoners such as merchants and aristocrats are the most likely to win this sort of reprieve, for obvious reasons. The ransom demanded rarely involves baubles such as gold or gems: fire giants prefer payment in mithral, adamantine, or different slaves (ones with more useful talents or stronger backs).

Surtur's Cleansing Fire. Surtur, the chief deity offire giants, is befieved to have been born alongside Thrym. Each twin then tried to be the first to cry out, the first to walk, and the first to talk. and they have competed with one another ever since. Often in legends these contests are bloody batttes, but some tales have the brothers acting side by side on grand adventures. Surtur is seen as the more clever of the two, and fire giants emulate his unsurpassed skill at creating and building things. 

In the fire giants' world, fire is strength. It burns away fmpurities and leaves behind only what is strong enough to withstand the heat, such as the best steel from the forge. When fire is controlled, it is the giants' most powerful tool; when it rages unchecked, it can bring down forests and lay waste to cities. 

Because of the destructive power of fire, the worship of Surtur is tinged with an apocalyptic air. Some observers suspect that priests of Surtur maintain clandestine workshops and armories where they manufacture and stockpile battle gear in preparation for a final. air-encompassing battle that wHI decide the fate of the world. If the suspicions are true, these sites are expertly hidden and kept secret even from most fire giants.