Half-giants

Four peoples were known to exist on Tal’Dorei when the world was reborn out of the ashes of the Calamity. The elves, who emerged from the Fey Realm. The dwarves, who emerged from the earth. The orcs, who endured the Calamity through strength and determination. And the half-giants, who safely rode out that war in mountaintop retreats before eventually descending to the windswept plains below.
Averaging seven feet tall, with hairless, craggy bodies and skin tough as stone, half-giants are often colloquially known as stoneborn or goliaths. Descended from stone giants, these folk have long been viewed as exemplars of rugged endurance and individualism. They are found in settlements across Tal’Dorei, where they are known for their innate strength and their commonly held belief—passed down from the giants of old—that all must take fate into their own hands.
In ancient times, goliaths and orcs lived off the same land, and their nomadic clans frequently warred and intermingled in equal measure. As such, it is common for orcs and goliaths of Tal’Dorei to discover common ancestors somewhere in their family trees.

Nomadic Herds

Stone giants believe that physical perfection is the world’s greatest virtue, and this belief has been passed down culturally to the goliaths who live in the mountains and upon the Dividing Plains. These plains-dwelling half-giants call their clans “herds,” and unite behind the stone giants’ philosophy of “might makes right.” Though at one time these herds were mostly made up of stoneborn almost exclusively, recent generations have come to include humans, orcs, dwarves, and even physically diminutive people such as halflings—as long as they agree with the philosophy of strength above all.

Rivermaw.

The greatest of the half-giant herds is the Rivermaw, whose members use their strength of arms and political cunning to protect their ancestral lands from incursion. The Rivermaw herd includes many goliaths from the now-broken Herd of Storms, whose folk suffered at the hands of the tyrant Kevdak many years ago, and who now seek to protect others from ever suffering as they did.
Ravagers. Opposing the Rivermaw are the Ravagers—a group that the Rivermaw have stripped of the title of “herd” in disgust. The Ravagers are more a death cult dedicated to the Betrayer God called the Ruiner than a true clan. Just like the contemporary Rivermaw, the ranks of the Ravagers are filled with people of many different ancestries, from goliaths to humans to bloody-minded firbolgs—all of them rejecting order to embrace slaughter and cruelty.
Towers of Stone Tal’Dorei’s most famous goliath, the legendary hero Grog Strongjaw, is renowned for being a warrior first and a thinker second. But goliaths are no less intelligent or canny than Tal’Dorei’s other peoples. Despite being known as nomadic folk, many half-giants understand that stone is sturdiest when formed into towers, walls, and bridges, and cities such as Kraghammer and Emon have long been filled with the works of goliath masons and architects not given the historical recognition they deserved.
Great advances in mathematics and civil engineering have been made by other city-dwelling stoneborn, and scholars of the Cobalt Soul are working to confirm which of the beloved Emonian and Westruunian structures that survived the Chroma Conclave are actually the result of pioneering goliath minds. Westruun has long been home to vast numbers of half-giants dwelling there to be close to their former herds, but many others have set down more recent roots after the Battle of Westruun, helping rebuild in the wake of the destruction wrought by the dragon Umbrasyl and the Herd of Storms.