What is Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants?

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants is a new book for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. The Monster Manual gave us monsters, the Treasury of Dragons gave us dragons. Glory of the Giants gives us…

DINOSAURS

But also Giants. It’s a book of all things huge, from gigantic Gargantua to towering titanosaurs. So let’s check out Bigby, his book, and what players and DMs can expect from the most recent 5E offering.

Who is this Bigby guy anyway?

Bigby is most famous in 5E for the spell Bigby’s Hand. He’s one of several characters to lend their name to a spell and now, he’s Xanathar, Volo, Van Richten et al by also getting his own book. Fizban, Tasha and Mordenkainen are the leaders in this regard: the only characters to get a spell, a book AND their own magic cards, while Bigby has to settle for being an on-card ability.[..1]

Bigby the Great was a human wizard from Oerth, in the Greyhawk setting. He was a member of the Circle of Eight, a group of extremely powerful wizards. He is best known for developing spells that summon fists, hands and digits, all collected in a spell book entitled Manual Powers Beyond Life.

In Glory of the Giants, Bigby is a framing device: after falling in battle versus some giants and getting reincarnated as a gnome, he meets the giant Diancastra. She shows him all the glorious things about her people. This is really cool, as we experience the same wonder that Bigby does as he learns how sophisticated and complicated giant culture is. In Glory of the Giants, Bigby and Diancastra feature in the same way as Volo and Xanathar did in their books – chapters and sections are headed up with flavourful quotes to provide moments of lore and levity.

The Giant Elephant in the Room

Before we go further, let’s talk about the bad rep this book has. The initial version of Glory of the Giants contained AI Generated art, which was met with anger from the TTRPG scene. Firstly, art AIs are trained using pre-existing images, which are almost always used without the original artist’s permission, attribution or compensation.

Secondly, AI risks lowering the already shaky working standards for TTRPG freelancers. Third… that AI art in Glory of the Giants looked bad. Wizards usually have very high standards for art in their books, and people were disappointed by substandard imagery.

The good news is that WotC have since apologized and promised to replace the AI art with better, human made art. So by the time you are reading this, it’s likely that any copy of Glory of the Giants you buy will have fixed this problem!

What’s in the book? Running Giant Adventures

Those familiar with 5e books will recognise much of the content: tables of short plot hooks to spark imagination, along with lists of monster encounters that can be picked directly or rolled for randomly. My personal favourite is the table of “what’s inside the goose’s golden egg”

The lore section of the book opens with advice for DMs on roleplaying as huge bellowing creatures. This is followed with information about everything from giant family dynamics to the history of their gods. Then there are encounter guides for different kinds of giants: (Cloud, Death, Fire, Frost, Hill, Stone, Storm and the subterranean Fomorians) and other “connected creatures” (dinosaurs, elementals, fiends, constructs, necropolitans, megafauna, and giant-kin like ogres and trolls)

Chapter 4 is a suite of mini-encounters (“mini”). Each has a page that covers environmental effect, magic and monsters, followed by a full page map. Whie none of the maps are creatively outlandish, this does allow the maps to be easily scaled down to normal sizes if you just want a human keep or an elven tower.

Chapter 5 gives us some lists of what we might find in a Giant’s bag, which is a fun way of doing loot tables. There’s then a few pages of neat magic items that do a good job of emphasising the ‘not just big and violent’ theme. There are of course a few items that make you stronger and tougher, but there are also healing, intellect and charisma items. Three in particular stand out to me.

First is our eponymous wizard’s own Bigby’s Beneficent Bracelet. This is Bigby’s only mechanical presence in the book, but the item makes up for this by being a super useful telekinetic tool.

Second is the Dinosaur themed Figurines of Wondrous Power, which have both adorable art and hilarious rules (turns out suddenly creating a magic T-Rex is dangerous, who knew?)

Third is the Delver’s Claws, a pair of gloves that give you a Burrowing speed and Blindsight. Burrowing effectively gives any character the simultaneous benefits of flight and total cover. Getting the stealth-hindering Blindsight is just the cherry on top.

Chapter 6 is the Bestiary and it is extensive. Not only are there 24 giants, but there’s also 3 aberrations, 2 beasts, 1 celestial, 2 constructs, 12 elementals, 5 fey, 5 fiends, 3 humanoids, 7 monstrosities, 6 undead, and 1 ooze (objectively the best creature type in D&D)!

That’s a lot of Monsters, what is there for players?

There’s only one new subclass in the book – a Path of the Giant for Barbarians. As well as literally growing a pint sized pugilist into an outsized threat, there are additional throwing weapon powers and utility cantrips (both of which are good ways to add variety to the class overall)

There are also two new backgrounds (Giant Foundling and Rune Carver) but really these are just entry paths to two of the new Feats.

The eight new feats are actually somewhat disappointing: seven of them are locked behind martial prerequisites, and simply include an ASI and a giant themed action. The other feat is Rune Shaper, which is much more fun. Runes are a big part of giant lore and culture, and this feat allows you access to a nice list of spells that you prepare each rest by carving runes (this sort of synergy between lore and mechanics is always fun)

There’s also a few statblocks for firbolg and goliaths. As these are playable races, it’s a nice opportunity to write more family members into a backstory. Finally there’s a table on the Giant pantheon, which gives some interesting holy symbol possibilities (like a double-bladed axe!)

So, should I get this book?

Maybe (and that’s a good thing!). Too often, tabletop games require you to get a whole book for just one or two relevant things. Bigby Present: Glory of the Giants avoids this pitfall.

It’s not necessary for all (or even most) D&D games. If you like things small, you can skip Glory of the Giants in favour of other setting books that are more to your taste.

But if you want to run a giant-centric game, it’s a brilliant must-buy one-stop-shop of all things big. Even when the book pints you to non-core materials like Tashas, it also suggests more readily available material. Rather than being all things to all people, this book aims at a specific topic and hits the mark.

“But I want MORE!”

Ah yes, there’s the other type of player who will want this book: the collector. Fear not my friend. If you’re the sort of collector who wants to own all the things, there’s plenty of cool options for you. Fans of Cynthia Sheppard’s fantastic cover art can buy the piece in wall-poster form, and a folio folder available for keeping all your notes and papers tidy. And of course, there’s also a special edition cover version of the book

Wizkids has also produced a range of miniatures for use with the book, including a towering necromancer and a giant lynx that is equal parts cute and scary.

You can also spice up your Giant games with miniatures from other companies. Games workshop produce multipart giants that have loads of build options. And if you want to get really creative, some small scale infantry will provide some teeny tiny humans to increase the gulf in size.

So sharpen your blades, eat some Weetabix, and get ready for some giant adventures!