Half-giant

Half-giants are mythological creatures, born to a giant and a human, or some other creature.

Mythology

In actual legends, half giants and part giants are rarely the extremely large people portrayed in RPGs, often they are of normal size and either have abnormal or supernatural abilities, or are unusually strong and hearty. Beowulf, for example is often considered to have the blood of giants in his legend and he is mentioned as having the strength of ten men.

In Greek mythology, Antaeus is a half-giant who is the son of Poseidon and Gaia.^[1]

Popular Culture

• They feature primarily in fantasy role-playing games, where they often are a playable race (for example, Half-Giants in the Dark Sun setting for Dungeons & Dragons and another race of half-giants in the MMORPG Horizons: Empire of Istaria).

• In the Harry Potter series, Rubeus Hagrid and Olympe Maxime are human-giant hybrids.^[2]

• The White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia is half-giant and half-djinn.

Notes