Giant-Blooded, descendants of the Giants for D&D 5E

The Giant-Blooded

In the Sea of  Stars, there are no humanoid monster races such as orcs and goblins (for reasons discussed here) but there are still giants, not many, but some and some of them have had human lovers and their bloodline survives in a diluted form among many of their descendants.

Giantblooded Traits

Your giant-blooded character has certain traits deriving from your distant giant ancestry.

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. Empowered by your giantish blood, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You cannot discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Age. The giant-blood mature as humans. They age as humans but often have a slightly longer lifespan if their violent lifestyle does not catch up with them sooner.

Alignment. The gaint-blooded are often loners, finding themselves outsiders wherever they go.

Size. The giant-blooded are useually somewhat larger and bulkier than humans, and they range from 5 to well over 6 feet tall. Your size is Medium.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Giantish.

Menacing. You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill.

Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You cannot use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Strong Attacks. When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.

They may also select one Giantish Trait:

Blood of the Elements, the giant-blooded chooses an elemental damage type (acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder) and gains resistance to it.
Hard Hands, the Giant-blooded unarmed strike uses a d4 for damage and if unarmed or without a shield or weapon in their off-hand, they gain a +1 bonus to armor class.
Home in Nature, choose one terrain type and ignore the penalties for moving through difficult terrain in that terrain and gain advantage on Wisdom (Perception and Survival) rolls in that terrain.

Notes: Half-orcs are actually an interesting option in D&D 5E so I wanted players to have access to similar option for characters in the Sea of Stars, but had to work around that whole “no orcs” thing.  Luckily, I had already done the Giant-Blooded for Pathfinder.

Image: Poster: London Pavilion : Giant Constantin. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)