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Zhorn
2020-06-01, 10:55 PM
Just seeking some opinions for discussion; what's you preference for depictions of firbolgs?

Looking into images on google; the cow-like aesthetic has taken off very successfully since the introduction of Pumat Sol in Critical Role, which is a pretty big departure from the more big-norseman-esque depictions from earlier editions.

I like both, but I like the more fey-flavouring the bovine features bring to the race just a little more.

How about you fine folk? Monster Manual depiction? Critical Role's style? Older editions? Other?

Luccan
2020-06-01, 11:22 PM
Just seeking some opinions for discussion; what's you preference for depictions of firbolgs?

Looking into images on google; the cow-like aesthetic has taken off very successfully since the introduction of Pumat Sol in Critical Role, which is a pretty big departure from the more big-norseman-esque depictions from earlier editions.

I like both, but I like the more fey-flavouring the bovine features bring to the race just a little more.

How about you fine folk? Monster Manual depiction? Critical Role's style? Older editions? Other?

I've headcanoned that each race with Powerful Build in 5e is in someway related to giants and thus technically exist within the Ordning, but I haven't ironed that out yet. So for me, they're still giants, but I also wasn't introduced to them until 5e, so I like to pull on what I can find there to inform their portrayal. As a result, they're largely peaceful, but will be terrifying foes to those that violate their wilderness sanctuaries. Since they can alter their appearance, they generally take a more frightening form for combat.

Also, I'm not sure why in Crit Role they look so much like cows. The example picture in Volo's guide looks like a tall blue-grey elf-man with a big nose, not a cow person.

Zhorn
2020-06-01, 11:44 PM
Also, I'm not sure why in Crit Role they look so much like cows. The example picture in Volo's guide looks like a tall blue-grey elf-man with a big nose, not a cow person.

That part started when Matt was describing Pumat as 'his nose being wide and bovine-like' and being 'covered in a fine greying-brown fur' which alone doesn't deviate that much from the Volo depiction. Having the image up while listening to the depiction, it actually sounds fairly accurate.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7esGeAXDjk

The art community took some of Matt's word choices, exaggerating and amplifying those aspects, so Matt leaned into it for the next few firbolgs used in the campaign because the depiction resonated so well.

Luccan
2020-06-02, 12:16 AM
That part started when Matt was describing Pumat as 'his nose being wide and bovine-like' and being 'covered in a fine greying-brown fur' which alone doesn't deviate that much from the Volo depiction. Having the image up while listening to the depiction, it actually sounds fairly accurate.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7esGeAXDjk

The art community took some of Matt's word choices, exaggerating and amplifying those aspects, so Matt leaned into it for the next few firbolgs used in the campaign because the depiction resonated so well.

Ok, that's where the description first pops up. I think Pumat actually just looks like a big dude (Matt did a cosplay of him and that's basically what I think of), but then you have Cad who is definitely a cow-man in his art. Which is weird, because every fan depiction I've seen of Pumat looks more like Matt's cosplay than someone like Caduceus. I honestly wondered if I was missing something in Volo's or somwhere else.

Tanarii
2020-06-02, 12:35 AM
Huge Vikings/celts. 5e firbolgs look silly, I can't take them seriously.

Heavenblade
2020-06-02, 04:07 AM
My favourite depiction of them is actually in 4e - They feel a unique niche of "Wild hunt fey" that is really awesome and well done, while also giving a much needing contrast to the eladrin and gnome races which are the more "aesthetic and arcane fey" - their art and mechanics was awesome, and they are probably my favourite monsters in MM2 of that edition

Grod_The_Giant
2020-06-02, 08:49 AM
I like chocolate peanut butter firbolgs, personally.

Willie the Duck
2020-06-02, 08:57 AM
Huge Vikings/celts. 5e firbolgs look silly, I can't take them seriously.

Hold on. Did you see the picture of Firbolgs in the AD&D 2e Monstrous Compendium? With the nose you could use as an echo chamber?
I'm not saying that the 5e art is good, merely that it carries on a long and storied tradition of dumping on the creature, art-wise.

Mastikator
2020-06-02, 09:47 AM
Hold on. Did you see the picture of Firbolgs in the AD&D 2e Monstrous Compendium? With the nose you could use as an echo chamber?
I'm not saying that the 5e art is good, merely that it carries on a long and storied tradition of dumping on the creature, art-wise.

Are you talking about this one https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Firbolg?file=Firbolg2e.png ? It looks more dwarf-ish or perhaps nordic or celtic style. The 5e ( https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Firbolg?file=Firbolg-5e.jpg ) one looks more elf-ish with animalistic traits. Or like the blue elf smurfs from Avatar. The themes and styles are entirely different IMO, "big nose" is a common trait but those two are wholly different.

malloc
2020-06-02, 10:22 AM
Well since I don't really take 5e games seriously, I'm okay with that description in that context. They look so dumpy and stupid, and the one I'm playing is sort of a world ignorant gentle giant, so it fits.

If I'm running something serious, I would go back to the more traditional Celtic roots.

Joe the Rat
2020-06-02, 11:10 AM
So long as they have a large sack fixation, I'm fine with anything.

Rerednaw
2020-06-02, 01:32 PM
The answer is always flumphs!

Psyren
2020-06-02, 03:28 PM
Large nordic/celtic dude.

Here's the PF art:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NfOOvc6bEQo/V75thtkFIoI/AAAAAAAAAVo/1oI0HxZvcyQevxRKm5rQ0vzLs0ycqNqkACLcB/s1600/pathfinder___firbolg_by_rogierb-d9hu73a.jpg

Tanarii
2020-06-02, 04:36 PM
Hold on. Did you see the picture of Firbolgs in the AD&D 2e Monstrous Compendium? With the nose you could use as an echo chamber?
I'm not saying that the 5e art is good, merely that it carries on a long and storied tradition of dumping on the creature, art-wise.looks normal to me:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/3453-dissapointed-with-the-firbolg

Max_Killjoy
2020-06-02, 04:50 PM
I prefer the original non-D&D Firbolgs from Irish mythology.

Vykryl
2020-06-02, 05:15 PM
The 5e version reminds me more of Vodkin (if I got the name right) from 2e Huminoid Handbook. Looks like a forest elf-giant hybrid

Millstone85
2020-06-02, 05:38 PM
Looks like a forest elf-giant hybridTheir 5e lore and playable traits suggest this as well. They are related to the fey and have a talent for druidic magic, which is reflected in some of their racial features. They also have the same Powerful Build trait as the goliaths. Most importantly, they speak Common, Elvish and Giant.

Nifft
2020-06-02, 09:02 PM
I've never really had a use for them.

Half-Giants (the psionic Athas dudes) and Goliaths (the Races of Stone peeps) have filled that niche when I've needed something bigger than a Half-Orc.

Oh, and one Half-Ogre. That PC was funny.

Vykryl
2020-06-03, 03:09 AM
Their 5e lore and playable traits suggest this as well. They are related to the fey and have a talent for druidic magic, which is reflected in some of their racial features. They also have the same Powerful Build trait as the goliaths. Most importantly, they speak Common, Elvish and Giant.

Which was the Vodkin in 2e

Eldan
2020-06-03, 07:16 AM
I honestly know them more from mythology than from D&D... I must have a look at their 5E description sometimes, it doesn't ring a bell. And from mythology, I mainly know that they built a lot of old fortresses and turned infertile soil fertile, sometimes with the help of magic sacks? So playing them as some kind of nature fey druids would work. Oh, and they fought the Tuatha de Danann a lot.

Edit: wasn't Lugh Lamhfada a Firbolg? Sreng is certainly one.

Draconi Redfir
2020-06-03, 09:51 AM
honestly i'll never be able to see the word "Firbolg" without immidiately thinking of the stout bear-people from Warcraft. they were my first ever encounter with the term, so they've kinda been locked in as the default.

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/231306-stave-of-fur-and-claw.jpg

Tvtyrant
2020-06-03, 10:20 AM
My personal system with giants is that each generation reproduces faster and lives a shorter life then the last, but with less and less noticeable changes. The Ordnung is actually the generations after their Primordial/Titan ancestors (immortal and deity-like) down to Humans who are so many generations away they no longer noticeably change over hundreds of generations. It is why none of the Gods claim Humans as their creation; they aren't.

This explains why Giants look like big Humans, and can get lycanthropy.

Firbolgs would be one of the generations that moved to the Feywild, along with Fomorians, Cyclops, etc. They are out of the upper generations, the "true giants" who live for tens of thousands of years but before Ogres who are the last pre-human generation. They gain fey traits like the ability to talk to animals and plants, but not being Fey they make cold iron fortresses to keep the Fey out. Their generation is past and they are in steep decline, no longer reproducing but living millennia long lives so they are still around.

Willie the Duck
2020-06-03, 10:21 AM
looks normal to me:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/3453-dissapointed-with-the-firbolg

I have never seen that picture. Is it from the 2e reprint edition perhaps? I was thinking of the one Mastikator showed--


Are you talking about this one https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Firbolg?file=Firbolg2e.png?

Psyren
2020-06-03, 10:43 AM
honestly i'll never be able to see the word "Firbolg" without immidiately thinking of the stout bear-people from Warcraft. they were my first ever encounter with the term, so they've kinda been locked in as the default.

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/231306-stave-of-fur-and-claw.jpg

Aren't those called "Furbolg" for that very reason? I'm pretty sure it's a joke that eventually became a whole race, much like Pandaren.


My personal system with giants is that each generation reproduces faster and lives a shorter life then the last, but with less and less noticeable changes. The Ordnung is actually the generations after their Primordial/Titan ancestors (immortal and deity-like) down to Humans who are so many generations away they no longer noticeably change over hundreds of generations. It is why none of the Gods claim Humans as their creation; they aren't.

This explains why Giants look like big Humans, and can get lycanthropy.

Firbolgs would be one of the generations that moved to the Feywild, along with Fomorians, Cyclops, etc. They are out of the upper generations, the "true giants" who live for tens of thousands of years but before Ogres who are the last pre-human generation. They gain fey traits like the ability to talk to animals and plants, but not being Fey they make cold iron fortresses to keep the Fey out. Their generation is past and they are in steep decline, no longer reproducing but living millennia long lives so they are still around.

Pathfinder changed all its giants to be Humanoids and made "giant" into a subtype. In addition to more closely relating the two as you describe, it also allows various magical effects to treat them the same, like Charm Person, Hold Person, and Animate Dead.

Tvtyrant
2020-06-03, 10:59 AM
Pathfinder changed all its giants to be Humanoids and made "giant" into a subtype. In addition to more closely relating the two as you describe, it also allows various magical effects to treat them the same, like Charm Person, Hold Person, and Animate Dead.

That makes sense to me. Does Pathfinder have the Dawn War in its backstory?

Psyren
2020-06-03, 11:14 AM
That makes sense to me. Does Pathfinder have the Dawn War in its backstory?

Uh... the what? :smalltongue:

Tvtyrant
2020-06-03, 11:29 AM
Uh... the what? :smalltongue:

It's one of the good bits from 4E IMO. I should really look into the Pathfinding setting, I do love settings.

Kaptin Keen
2020-06-03, 12:55 PM
From the very first time I encountered the nature or wood giant - they became sort of woody themselves. Barklike skin, grassy or leafy hair, deep green eyes. They do all kinds of nature magic, summon all sorts of nature creatures, and regenerate when allowed to take root.

If I want to make them more ... special ... I give them the ability to produce seeds (in their hair) that yields various strange things when grown. I've had them have a sort of tree-leport. And of course, to really kill them, you need to kill the root - otherwise, they'll grow back.

Admittedly, I have low regard for published material, so if I don't immediately like it, I make up my own in short order.

Millstone85
2020-06-03, 01:59 PM
That makes sense to me. Does Pathfinder have the Dawn War in its backstory?
Uh... the what? :smalltongue:
It's one of the good bits from 4E IMO. I should really look into the Pathfinding setting, I do love settings.The Dawn War is mentioned in at least two 5e books: the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.

But of course...

4e had different versions of the Dawn War depending on whether you were in Nentir Vale or Forgotten Realms.
It is now unclear how much FR lore remains true in 5e.
Wildemount is a continent on the world of Exandria, also known as the Critical Role setting. While clearly inspired by NV lore, it is yet again a different version.

Tanarii
2020-06-03, 08:21 PM
I have never seen that picture. Is it from the 2e reprint edition perhaps? I was thinking of the one Mastikator showed--Huh. Okay, did some research.

That pic with the huge nose is from both the Monstrous Compendium Volume 2 and the Complete book of Humanoids. That makes it the original for AD&D 2. The red headed Viking is from the monstrous manual, which is hardcover collection of MC 1 & 2 with updated art.

I used both but it's been a long time, so I didn't recall big noses.

Hilariously on the link to the Faerun page with the big nose pic, someone added the caption:
A firbolg leaning on his axe. (Not all firbolgs have noses so large.)

Caption is not in either MC2 or CBoH. :smallamused:

Willie the Duck
2020-06-04, 08:00 AM
Huh. Okay, did some research.

That pic with the huge nose is from both the Monstrous Compendium Volume 2 and the Complete book of Humanoids. That makes it the original for AD&D 2. The red headed Viking is from the monstrous manual, which is hardcover collection of MC 1 & 2 with updated art.

Well that explains that. Me and my gaming group picked up the 2e core when it came out, as well as various supplements through roughly the red/brown splatbooks, but stopped following the system (in favor of going back to our BX/BECMI/AD&D-hybrid roots, as well as other TTRPGs) for most of the rest of the original run. Thus to me, the big-nose picture is the iconic TSR-era Firbolg.


I used both but it's been a long time, so I didn't recall big noses.

Hilariously on the link to the Faerun page with the big nose pic, someone added the caption:
A firbolg leaning on his axe. (Not all firbolgs have noses so large.)

Caption is not in either MC2 or CBoH. :smallamused:

Back in the day, procuring art (especially massively multiple pieces or art, such as for the Monstrous Compendium) was a big deal, particularly if working under a time crunch. Sometimes you got a piece of art and the artist decided to go in a weird direction with something, and you just said, 'eh, good enough.' It certainly had happened before (http://pumpkinheadedbugbear.blogspot.com/2016/02/what-is-pumpkin-headed-bugbear-anyways.html).