The newest Dungeons & Dragons publication, a sourcebook called Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, follows in the footsteps of previous DnD 5e expansions such as Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, which center their content around the journals of famous DnD characters. The wizard known as Bigby, creator of the iconic Bigby’s Hand evocation spell, was a major NPC in Gygax’s Greyhawk setting, and is now the centerpiece character of this new, giant-themed DnD sourcebook.
Major NPCs from various DnD campaign settings, such as Tasha, Xanathar, Mordenkainen and Volo have featured heavily in many recent sourcebooks published by Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Aside from Xanathar (a Beholder who runs a Thieves Guild) these characters are each eccentric, wandering wizards who collectively invented many of the spells used by arcane mages in the DnD multiverse. Now, Bigby s their rank with his own book sharing more information about the lore surrounding the NPC and providing new campaign options for DnD players.
Bigby Presents: Glory Of The Giants Releases August 15, 2023
According to the Wizards of the Coast DnD website, Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants is a 5th edition sourcebook set to be released on August 15, 2023. Just as Volo’s Guide to Monsters was presented as an in-universe book written by the wizard Volothamp Geddarm, Glory of the Giants will be flavored as a treatise on giant lore compiled by the wizard known as Bigby the Great and the demigod giantess known as Diancastra. In some ways, this sourcebook will be the spiritual successor to the 2016 DnD adventure book Storm King’s Thunder, where adventurers protected the Sword Coast from giants and mastered runic magic.
There's A New Barbarian Subclass In Bigby Presents: Glory Of The Giants
Wizards of the Coast have confirmed there will be a new subclass for barbarians in Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants. It's likely this barbarian subclass will be an updated version of the "Path of the Giant" Unearthed Arcana D&D subclass on the Dungeons & Dragons website; although the original UA seems to have been taken down, the original text for the write-up is still available on certain wiki pages. Core features of this subclass such as "Giant's Havoc" upgraded the utility of a Barbarian's Rage power, letting them grow in size, improve their reach, and mimic DnD giant characteristics such as hurling boulders or elemental energies. Glory of the Giants will likely update this UA class to be less overpowered, but also more versatile.
30+ Items Are Added To D&D In Bigby Presents: Glory Of The Giants
The Storm Giant’s Thunder sourcebook introduced 8 magic items that were explicitly empowered by one of the Giant Runes, each possessing a feature allowing players to extract the rune's power and infuse it into another object or place. Many of these runes possessed Old English/Germanic titles and represented metaphysical concepts such as:
- Blod, the Rune of Blood
- Skye, the Rune of Cloud
- Dod, the Rune of Death
- Wyrm, the Rune of Dragons
- Venn, the Rune of Friends
- Hellig, Rune of the Sacred
- Kong, the Rune of Kings
The official D&D website has revealed Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants will introduce more than 30 new magic items, 3 of which will be "Illustrious Artifacts" with game-changing properties. At least some of these magic items will probably be associated with the 20 Giant Runes and have "rune transfer" features similar to the giant items from Storm Giant’s Thunder. Some of these may also be designed to synergize with the 2 new character backgrounds and the 8 new feats Glory of the Giants will also introduce. The aforementioned feats are said to grant D&D player characters access to new rune magic and forms of elemental power.
Bigby Presents: Glory Of The Giants Adds 70+ New Monsters
As a resource for Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters who need new ways to challenge their players, Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants will also contain a bestiary with more than 70 kinds of creatures, each with their own narrative descriptions, stat blocks, listed abilities, and tidbits of lore. Some of these monster entries will describe different kinds of giants (previously classified by Storm Giant’s Thunder into Cloud, Fire, Frost, Hill, Stone, and Storm). Other creature entries will be non-giant monsters, variably described on the D&D website as enormous and/or part of the ecosystem giants inhabit.
Source: Dungeons & Dragons
