Hill Giant

"These hills, they don't move like us, brother, but they be listenin'. Every stone got a memory, roots got secrets too. We guard them, see? They don't ask, but we do it anyways. The hills gave us life, so we keep their stories safe."

— An overheard conversation between a meeting of hill giants

That's no boulder

They move through the rolling landscpes like misplaced boulders come to life, their massive forms blending with the terrain until they choose to stand. They are creatures of the land, as much as part of the hills as the grass, the stone, and the shifting winds. To see one is rare, for they prefer solitude and obscurity, but to feel the ground shudder beneath their footsteps is unforgettable.
Unlike their fiery or storm-touched cousins, hill giants lack the tempestuous power of the elements. Their strength is simpler, rooted in earth and muscle, and no less formidable. They are shaped like the hills they inhabit; broad, uneven, and unyielding. Their skin carries the texture of weathered granite, often streaked with moss and lichen, as though the land itself has grown upon them.
They are not known for their intelligence, though to dismiss them as simple brutes is a grave mistake. Hill giants are deeply attuned to their surroundings, capable of reading the language of the earth; subtle tremors, the whisper of shifting soil, the quiet groan of roots stretching. They use this connection to navigate their world and, when threatened, to fight with cunning that belies their slow speech and lumbering movements.

It's still not a boulder

Hill giants rarely gather in groups, preferring solitary lives spent tending their hills. Their homes are not carved or built but worn into the land, hollowed spaces beneath the roots of ancient trees or caverns that open like mouths in the hillsides. They have a peculiar reverence for these places, treating them as kin, murmuring low songs to the stones and the roots before they sleep.
When they do interact with mortals, it is often with quiet curiousity or, if provoked, unrelenting fury. They can crush a man with one hand yet spend hours patiently watching the flow of a stream. Hill giants are not gentle but not unkind either, simply creatures of endurance. Of time measured not in days, but in seasons, their hearts beating in rhythm with the slow, steady pulse of the earth beneath their feet.