Goliaths are massive creatures unafraid of throwing their weight around in a fight. Highly competitive, these strong nomads can prove to be powerful allies and welcome additions to any adventuring party.
Personality: Goliaths are known for their almost foolhardy daring. In their mountain homes, they leap from precipice to precipice, heedless of the fatal consequences of a misstep. They place great stock in clan and family; life in the mountains teaches even the youngest goliath to rely completely on his fellows for a hand across a crevasse. Because most goliaths are hunter-gatherers, they tend to be inquisitive, always curious about whether better hunting lies over the next ridge or a good water source can be found in the next canyon.
Goliaths are completely unsympathetic toward tribe members who can’t contribute to the well-being of the tribe anymore — an attitude reinforced by social structures. Old, sick and otherwise infirm goliaths are exiled from their clans, never to return.
Physical Description: A typical goliath is larger than the largest half-orc. Most stand between 7 and 8 feet tall and weigh between 280 and 340 pounds. Unlike with most other races, there is no appreciable difference in height or weight between male and female goliaths.
Goliaths have grey skin, mottled with dark and light patches that goliath shamans say hint at a particular goliath’s fate. Lithoderms — coin-sized bone-and-skin growths as hard as pebbles — speckle their arms, shoulders and torso. Their skulls have a jutting eyebrow ridge, wide jaw and occasional lithoderms as well. Female goliaths have dark hair on their heads, grown to great length and always kept braided. Male goliaths generally have hair only on their limbs. Goliaths’ eyes are a brilliant blue or green, and they often seem to glow a little from underneath their furrowed brows.
Because their skin mottling has cultural significance, goliaths generally dress as lightly as possible, displaying their skin patterns for all to see. For the same reason, few goliaths would willingly get a tattoo — to draw on one’s skin is tantamount to trying to rewrite one’s fate. Goliaths instead decorate themselves with jewellery, often sporting ear, nose or brow rings. A goliath’s lithoderms are also common places to embed a gem or two, since they have few nerve endings and stand out on the goliath’s body already.
Relations: When encountered in the mountains, goliaths are outwardly friendly to anyone who doesn’t threaten the tribe and can keep up with them as they climb from peak to peak. Humans who brave the mountains — rangers and druids, most often — can often earn a tasty meal by helping a team of goliath hunters.
Goliaths hold dwarves in particularly high regard, wishing their tribes had the dwarven aptitude for weapon crafting. Some of the bravest goliaths climb down into the tunnels and natural caverns under a mountain, seeking a dwarf community to trade with.
The smaller-than-human races are regarded as curiosities, but many a nimble-climbing gnome or halfling has earned respect by beating a goliath in a race up a cliff. Goliaths view the extended life span of an elf as vaguely frightening, finding it hard to imagine a person who could have known one’s great-great grandfather.
A goliath tribe’s attitude toward any nearby giants varies widely. Some tribes eagerly trade with giants; the giants’ weapons aren’t up to dwarven standards, but they are made in larger sizes (which goliaths greatly prefer). However, giants have a bad habit of trying to turn goliaths into their slaves, using them for menial tasks they’re too big or too lazy to do themselves. Conflict inevitably ensues, and soon either the giants are dead, the goliaths have fled, or the goliaths are chained up as slaves to a giant-lord.
Goliaths tend to hold goblinoids and orcs (including half-orcs) at arm’s length, noting that the “downlanders” they trade with regard such races as troublemakers. But because goblinoids rarely stray into the high mountains, they are usually someone else’s trouble, so goliaths don’t bear them any actual malice.
Alignment: Goliaths have a slight tendency toward chaotic alignments, which is reflected in their wanderlust and the small, mobile communities in which they live. Still, each goliath tribe has one or more adjudicators that settle disputes within the clan, and such goliaths are generally lawful. Goliaths have a slight preference for good over evil, since among the high mountain peaks, survival becomes much easier when one aids a fellow goliath without insisting on recompense.
Goliath Lands: Because they don’t support large-scale agriculture or extensive settlements, the mountain ranges where goliaths live are home to few other intelligent races. Most tribes of goliaths wander from peak to peak, tending their goat flocks and foraging for alpine roots and tubers. Typically, a tribe sets up a temporary village in an alpine meadow and remains there for a month or two, then moves on when the season changes or better hunting can be found elsewhere. Larger tribes tend to follow a similar trail from year to year, retreating to lower elevations in midwinter and when they need to trade, then ascending to the highest peaks once the snow melts.
Some goliaths live at lower altitudes among humans or other races, most often because their tribe exiled them after a crime, dispute or injury. Many a folk tale features a forlorn goliath working as a farmhand after a failed courtship in the mountains.
Religion: Kavaki the Ram-Lord is the primary deity of the goliaths. As the Chief of All Chiefs, he watches over the goliaths and their mountain homes. His clerics say that Kavaki created the goliaths when he found a bush bearing gems in place of fruit growing atop the highest mountain peak in the world. When Kavaki plucked gems from the bush, those gems became the first tribe of goliaths. Kavaki instructs his followers to seek out the hidden bounty of the mountains and keep the tribe safe from harm.
Language: For millennia, the goliaths have had only a spoken tongue, Gol-Kaa, which has only thirteen phonetic elements: a, e, g, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, u, th and v. Recently, the goliaths have picked up the alphabet of the Dwarven language, though the concept of a written language hasn’t spread to all the tribes yet. Those tribes that have learned the Dwarven alphabet are busily transcribing the goliaths’ vast oral tradition into carvings, cave paintings and even books.
Names: Every goliath has three names: a birth name assigned by the newborn’s mother and father, a nickname or honourific assigned by the tribal chief, and a family or clan name. The birth name tends to be short — often only a syllable or two — but the clan names often have five syllables or more and always end in a vowel.
The honourific isn’t a traditional name so much as it is a descriptive nickname, often a two-part sobriquet. The honourific can change at the whim of the tribal chief, whether because a particular goliath did something useful for the tribe (earning an honourific such as “Highclimber” or “Nighthunter”) or as punishment for failure (a middle name such as “Latesleeper” or “Wanderslost”). Goliaths who have been exiled from their tribe generally carry a middle name that reflects their status, such as “Solitary” or “Kinless”. Some specific roles within the tribe, such as lorekeeper or shaman, have honourifics attached to them as well.
When introducing themselves for the first time, goliaths always use the first name/honourific/family name construction, translating the honourific into the listener’s language if possible. Thereafter, they refer to themselves and each other by the honourific alone. Goliaths travelling among other races sometimes assign honourifics to their comrades rather than use their given names.
Male Names: Aukan, Eglath, Gauthak, Ilikan, Keothi, Lo-Kag, Maveith, Meavoi, Thotham, Vimak.
Female Names: Gae-Al, Kuori, Manneo, Nalla, Orilo, Paavu, Pethani, Thalai, Uthal, Vaunea.
Honourifics: Bearkiller, Dawncaller, Fearless, Flintfinder, Horncarver, Keeneye, Lonehunter, Longleaper, Rootsmasher, Skywatcher, Steadyhand, Threadtwister, Twice-Orphaned, Twistedlimb, Wordpainter.
Family Names: Anakalathai, Elanithino, Gathakanathi, Kalagiano, Katho-Olavi, Kolae-Gileana, Ogolakanu, Thuliaga, Thunukalathi, Vaimei-Laga.
Adventurers: Traditionally, the only goliaths to become adventurers are those exiled (voluntarily or otherwise) from the goliath tribes high in the mountains. However, since some goliath tribes spend more time with “downlanders”, especially the dwarves, it’s becoming more common for a tribe to send a particularly competent goliath on a mission that aids the tribe or goliaths in general. Once they descend from their mountain homes, most goliaths find the lowlands fascinating, although they are generally on their guard against “downland tricksters”. The same wanderlust that keeps goliath tribes moving often keeps a lone goliath among humans for far longer than he originally intended.
Source: Races of Stone (Page 54)
Your character can be either male or female.
Every player character starts as an adult. You can choose or randomly generate your character’s age. If you choose it, it must be at least the minimum age for the character’s race and class (see Table: Starting Ages). Your character’s minimum starting age is the adulthood age of his or her race plus the number of dice indicated in the entry corresponding to the character’s race and class on Table: Starting Ages.
Alternatively, refer to Table: Starting Ages and roll dice to determine how old your character is.
| Adulthood | Intuitive1 | Self-Taught2 | Trained3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 years | +1d4 (16—19) years | +1d6 (16—21) years | +2d6 (17—27) years |
1 This category includes barbarians, rogues and sorcerers.
2 This category includes bards, fighters, paladins and rangers.
3 This category includes clerics, druids, monks and wizards.
With age, a character’s physical ability scores decrease and his or her mental ability scores increase (see Table: Aging Effects). The effects of each aging step are cumulative. However, none of a character’s ability scores can be reduced below 1 in this way.
| Middle Age1 | Old Age2 | Venerable3 | Maximum Age |
|---|---|---|---|
| 35 years | 53 years | 70 years | +2d20 years |
1 -1 to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution; +1 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
2 -2 to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution; +1 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
3 -3 to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution; +1 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
When a character reaches venerable age, the DM secretly rolls his or her maximum age, which is the number from the Venerable column on Table: Aging Effects plus the result of the dice roll indicated on the Maximum Age column on that table, and records the result, which the player does not know. A character who reaches his or her maximum age dies of old age at some time during the following year, as determined by the DM.
The maximum ages are for player characters. Most people in the world at large die from pestilence, accidents, infections or violence before getting to venerable age.
Choose your character’s height and weight from the ranges mentioned in the appropriate race description or from the ranges found on Table: Height and Weight. Think about what your character’s abilities might say about his or her height and weight. A weak but agile character may be thin. A strong and tough character may be tall or just heavy.
Alternatively, roll randomly for your character’s height and weight on Table: Height and Weight. The dice roll given in the Height Modifier column determines the character’s extra height beyond the base height. That same number multiplied by the dice roll or quantity given in the Weight Modifier column determines the character’s extra weight beyond the base weight.
| Gender | Base Height | Height Modifier | Base Weight | Weight Modifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 6’ 0" | +2d12 (6’ 2"—8’ 0") | 220 lbs. | ×2d6 (224—508 lbs.) |
| Female | 6’ 0" | +2d12 (6’ 2"—8’ 0") | 220 lbs. | ×2d6 (224—508 lbs.) |
Source: Goliaths have an age range comparable to humans. (4th Edition Players Handbook 2, Page 13). The height and weight modifiers have been taken from the Feral Gargun stats (Races of Stone, Page 86).