Summary
- Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants introduces over 70 new monsters that offer a wide variety of abilities and attacks, providing dungeon masters with unique enemies to challenge players.
- The inclusion of monsters like bag jellies and frostmourns adds interesting twists to traditional DnD creatures and lore, bringing new material for players to explore.
- Encounters with monsters like grinning cats and scions of Stronmaus require dungeon masters to focus on verbal sparring and creative combat tactics, making for memorable and dynamic gameplay experiences.
Expansions to the Dungeons & Dragons bestiary are always exciting for dungeon masters and players alike, and the newest additions are arriving courtesy of Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. Unsurprisingly, this new sourcebook contains a number of new giant enemies, humanoid and animal alike, but also features a number of creatures of regular size with connections to giants in DnD lore. With over 70 new monsters, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants has something for every campaign.
Like many creatures added to DnD 5e in books released after the Monster Manual, the monsters put forth in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants feature a wide variety of abilities and attacks. Dungeon masters tired of falling back on enemies with basic bite and claw attacks should be satisfied with some of the more unique powers, and players interested in the lore of the giants will have plenty of new material to explore. The best Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants monsters deliver above and beyond in one or both of these regards.
10 Bag Jelly
Bag jellies are some of the weakest monsters included in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, but they're still one of the more interesting additions to the game. These oozes put a twist on staple DnD slime enemies by occupying bags carried by giants, making for a nasty little surprise for players who get a little too curious or greedy. Although the acid damage dealt by bag jellies isn't significant, their ability to grapple creatures could easily make things go south quickly for a party if a giant is lurking nearby.
9 Barrowghast
Dungeon masters who love the art of description can run wild with barrowghasts, undead hill giants with enormous potential for gross-out. These huge shambling corpses emit a stench that can poison creatures in their vicinity, and each wound they take sprays poisonous ichor in close range. Players might want to book it after dealing the fatal blow to these foes, as being crushed beneath a toppled barrowghast seems like a uniquely disgusting fate.
8 Frostmourn
Frostmourns are a completely different take on undead giants, dialing back a bit on the decay in favor of intensified invulnerability and power. Dead frost giants that rise again are bolstered by mummification provided by the extreme cold, and a long list of condition immunities makes it hard to get the edge on them with special moves or abilities in battle. Icy attacks at both melee and ranged distances give the frostmourn an aggressive edge best countered by returning fire with, well, fire.
7 Grinning Cat
The influence of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on grinning cats isn't particularly subtle. These devious fey creatures lounge in trees, reveal themselves in parts, and pass infuriating banter off on travelers in much the same manner as the Cheshire Cat. Although its attacks are generally standard fare, its abilities to fade away and teleport can make it hard to pin down in combat. All the same, making a memorable encounter with a grinning cat will require dungeon masters to focus more on verbal sparring than on damage rolls.
6 Hill Giant Avalancher
It's all too common for encounters in DnD to fall a little flat in the physical sense, with typically two-dimensional maps rarely making truly exciting use of vertical space. Hill giant avalanchers are the perfect enemy to capitalize on a little high ground advantage, with abilities that can hurl stones, knock players away, and, of course, cause avalanches. Although all of these can be employed on flat ground, the cinematic possibilities of staging an encounter on a hilltop are what make the hill giant avalancher a truly exciting option.
5 Giant Goose
The variety of monsters in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants includes a number of upsized animals, the most amusing of which is definitely the giant goose. Giant geese can be employed well for a tonal shift if DnD dungeon masters want to subvert player expectations in an intense moment, but they're no slouch in combat. The most devastating blow they can deal is the Thunderous Honk, which can deafen players while striking with major thunder damage. Players who know Giant and Sylvan can attempt to reason with these monstrous avian creatures, but they're unlikely to get anything but earsplitting noises in return.
4 Troll Amalgam
Singular trolls are unpleasant enough foes, but a troll amalgam makes them look like gentlemen that players could invite to tea. This mismatch of trolls formed through the carnage of battle or dark magical rites attacks with writhing movements and horrific self-mutilation, ripping off and flinging its own limbs for ranged attacks. Left alone for long enough, these limbs can themselves regenerate into trolls with a particularly lucky die roll, setting up a potentially nasty surprise for parties that don't clean up after themselves.
3 Regisaur
Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants introduces a new selection of dinosaurs in its bestiary, scaling up these prehistoric beasts to be truly gargantuan. The most ferocious of these is the Tyrannosaurus rex-like regisaur, which can swallow creatures alive to truly intimidate a party. Resistance against magical effects can make a regisaur particularly challenging to take down, particularly if a couple of fighters end up inside its stomach. Using the DnD 5e help action to ensure that physical fighters land crucial blows could be the key to victory.
2 Death Giant Reaper
The grim reaper is one of the most frightening images in the cultural consciousness, turning a scythe from a symbol of the worker to an instrument of death itself. What's more intimidating than a grim reaper is a death giant reaper, which wields, appropriately, a giant scythe. Death giant reapers' ability to teleport can inflict the frightened condition upon players, which these terrifying foes can then capitalize on by striking with a Soul Bolt that will turn damage into temporary hit points to bolster the giants' health.
1 Scion of Stronmaus
The scions of giants' gods are the most powerful monsters in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, and a scion of Stronmaus is the strongest of the strong. Typically sleeping inside a cradle of the storm scion, scions of Stronmaus awaken when their cradles are destroyed. Accomplishing this task is no small feat, as cradles themselves can fight, but the foes that lurk inside should horrify parties. With the ability to churn up storms, acid rain, hail, and lighting, scions of Stronmaus turn weather into a plaything and earn a rightful place as the best new Dungeons & Dragons monster in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants.