This giant has chiseled, muscular features and a flat, forward-sloping head, looking almost as if it were carved of stone.

Stone giants prefer thick leather garments, dyed in shades of brown and gray to match the stone around them. Adults are about 12 feet tall, weigh about 1,500 pounds, and can live to be 800 years old.

Stone giants fight from a distance whenever possible, but if they can't avoid melee, they favor gigantic clubs chiseled out of stone. A favorite tactic of stone giants is to stand nearly motionless, blending in with the background, then move forward to throw rocks and surprise their foes.

Stone giants prefer living in enormous caves in high-altitude, rocky peaks. They rarely live more than a few days' travel from other bands of stone giants, and even raise shared herds of goats and other livestock between tribes. Older stone giants tend to wander away from the tribe for a significant period of time in their later years, either living in seclusion somewhere or attempting to merge into other humanoid civilizations. After decades of this self-imposed exile, those who return do so as stone giant elders.

Stone Giant Elders

Some stone giants develop special abilities related to their environment. Called elders, these stone giants have Charisma scores of at least 15 and three spell-like abilities (CL 10th). Once per day they can use stone shape, stone tell, and either transmute rock to mud or transmute mud to rock (DC 17). The save DC is Charisma-based. One in 10 elders is a sorcerer, usually of 3rd to 6th level. Stone giant elders add +1 to their CR.

Special Abilities

Improved Rock Catching (Ex) A stone giant gains a +4 racial bonus on its Reflex save when attempting to catch a thrown rock with Rock catching . This ability otherwise works like the rock catching ability.