Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Leonidus 04-11-06, 04:00 PM	Adding this because, dummy me, I love a good debate, but it doesn't belong in that thread. (Which to me just seems stupid. Better to post them, let them be debated, then have a secondary collection thread. Maybe that's what's happening already, but *I* havn't seen it.) The Eberron Campaign Setting (p. 304, ¶ 4) refers to "storm giant artificers and wizards" of the Age of Giants. Explorer's Handbook (p. 149, ¶ 9) makes the point that humans and other medium-sized—or even small—creatures can use magic items found in Xen'drik because they resize to fit their users: the rationale for this is that they were made to fit giants, who had a caste-based society that included "both Large and Huge members." This is not inconsistent with the statement from the Eberron Campaign Setting. Player's Guide to Eberron, on the other hand, asserts (p. 154, ¶ 2) that the ancient "giants" were a single race of titans, and that the modern giant races "splintered" from this root race. —Siran Dunmorgan Well, that doesn't neccesarily have to be a contradiction of facts. It could be that the original race straddled the border in statistical terms, or that there was a wide genomic variety that were still all the same race.
Siran Dunmorgan 04-11-06, 04:55 PM	Adding this because, dummy me, I love a good debate, but it doesn't belong in that thread. (Which to me just seems stupid. Better to post them, let them be debated, then have a secondary collection thread. Maybe that's what's happening already, but *I* havn't seen it.) That's because it doesn't belong on the Eberron General board: it's over in Characters & Races: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=619349 —Siran Dunmorgan
Syltorian 04-11-06, 04:59 PM	Well, maybe I am trying to find excuses and be apologetic, but the PGtE seems to assert that the most popular theory is that the giants were a monolithic entity, while another theory believes they were already diverse before the cataclysm. The PGtE mentions both. Maybe you could see the statement from the Explorer's Handbook as an almost in-game argument for that "wacky" theory. Explorers have found that giant equipment resizes, and hence the as yet un-respected theory. Which, given Eberron's tendency to leave things up to the DM to figure out, could be true. Many popular and common theories about history are now sneered at, and you could use the accademical wrangling as a nice background to a mission to Xen'drik. Nothing that would influence the campaign too much, perhaps, but a nice flavour backdrop if the two professors on the team launch into defending their favourite theories. :D But basically, the way I read it, the PGtE only gives an alternative. It does, admittedly, tell us out of blue skies that the only theory we knew before is the one nobody with any credit to their accademic name believes in. But still, it is only an alternative... (and who knows, maybe we'll get another alternative in Secrets of Xen'drik! :P)
Kreistor1 04-12-06, 11:03 AM	Well, it could be interpreted that way, but you have to read "titan" as teh race in the MM, instead of a general term covering anyone exceptionally large. Part of the problem with DnD is that as the adjectives get turned into nouns naming a creature, you lose adjectives that could be used in a more general sense. So, in this case, when I read the PGtE, I read "titan" as "titanically sized creatures", not the "Titan" of the MM. In any case, the PGtE is the odd-man-out, and it's the one you should probably discount. (Or just use it as one archeologist's pet theory.)
Leonidus 04-12-06, 11:20 AM	Well, it could be interpreted that way, but you have to read "titan" as teh race in the MM, instead of a general term covering anyone exceptionally large. Part of the problem with DnD is that as the adjectives get turned into nouns naming a creature, you lose adjectives that could be used in a more general sense. So, in this case, when I read the PGtE, I read "titan" as "titanically sized creatures", not the "Titan" of the MM. In any case, the PGtE is the odd-man-out, and it's the one you should probably discount. (Or just use it as one archeologist's pet theory.) Yep, and proper nouns, no less. I work from the basis of 'titan' as 'big people', not a 'Titan' like the MM critter. (Which is itself incorrect. Titans weren't giant beings of any kind, in mythology, they just got confused with the Gigantes, aka giants. (S'true, I read it on Wikipedia. *wink* That farce aside, I've seen other ref's to it.))
Beleriphon 04-12-06, 01:51 PM	Something to keep in mind with Giant nonemclature, WotC uses capitilzation to differentiate between game terms and general use. Thus we could have a large orc, that just happens to of abnormal size for an orc, or you could have a Large orc that becomes a Large sized creature.