Giff Monster Class

The Giff are a race of powerfully muscled mercenaries. They are civilized, though due to their non-magical nature, spellcasters are rare amongst them. Giff regularly hire themselves with various groups as mercenaries, bodyguards, enforcers, and general legbreakers. The Mercane do a small business in Giff mercenaries, but usually local contractors do the task.
Personality: The Giff typically conduct themselves as soldiers. Asking little beyond what is their due, and priding themselves on their weapon skill, and past victories. They are generally a straightforward and honest race, usually willing to let others do the thinking, and leave the fighting to the Giff. Giff adore war stories of all kinds, and often engage in soulful retellings of past glories. They collect weapons as others might collect fine wines, attaching a vast storehouse of honors to the keeping of fine weapons.
Within the giff military society male and female giff are considered equals in every way, and once the children are on to solid foods, there is no such thing as "woman's work". Marriage customs are similar to humans, but skewed with the military lifestyle, and sense of loyalty. A giff family is known as a Platoon, and usually contains the various relations of a leading married couple.
Physical Description: The Giff is Humanoid, with stocky, flat, cylindrical legs a barrel chested torso, muscular arms and thick fingers. The head is the most striking feature, as it greatly resembles that of a Hippopotamus with a natural helmet of flexible, chitinous plates. Giff come in colors ranging from black to gray to gold, and many have colorful tattoos that leave their bodies a patchwork record of past deeds.
Juvenile Giff average between 7¼ to 7 ¾ feet in height with weight around 540+ pounds. While an Adult Giff is around 8 to 9 feet in height and can weigh as much as 1000 pounds! A Giff reaches physical maturity at around 16 years of age. Male Giff are slightly larger, and heavier than the females. Female Giff hold a slightly greater percentage of the population, with only one out of every three births being male. Female giff come into season twice a year if they have not become pregnant from a previous season. The gestation period is roughly twelve months, single births are the most common.
Much to the surprise of many folks, the Giff are almost exclusively vegetarian. In fact, except for the eating of an occasional fish, Giff consider the concept of eating "carrion" to be appalling. Giff can eat many plants that are far too course for most humanoids systems such as grasses, leaves, and the shells and seeds of nuts. Many Giff believe that the deficiency of physical strength amongst other races is due to the lack of "proper" foods. A famous Giff "stew" called Yaneesh, (boiled spiced grass) is a favorite. And while the yellow peppery broth is edible to humans the grass and shoots in it are not. Other Giff cooking should be considered similarly hazardous.
Relations: The Giff get along well with the more military minded races. The Giff in particular, appreciates the Dwarves, both for their fighting skills, and structured lives, as well as their weapon making skills. The Giff appreciates the structured and elegant Elven Fleet, however few friendships exist between the races, as the Elves frown upon mercenaries. The Mercane and Humans have the best overall relationships with the Giff, as Mercenaries are always needed, and human innovation keeps the Giff in good supply with smoke powder, while the Mercane supply transportation and frequent job opportunities.
Alignment: Giff are nearly Lawful in alignment, as their military upbringing is extremely structured, though there are those who rebel. The mercenary emotional detachment generally breeds a Neutral leaning to their alignment as well.
Giff Lands: The Giffs have no lands, wandering the spheres in the service of one race or another. The Giff homeworld is the stuff of legend, as no living Giff has seen it. Some tales say that the Giff, who were rescued by the Mercane, destroyed this homeworld. Others say that the Giff sold their planet and their lives for spelljamming helms that the Giff couldn't use. Still others say that the Giff world is just beyond the range of ones ship, in a land where such warrior races are common, and the losers are exiled to the known worlds. Whatever the truth, The Giff describe their world in legendary terms, a thick verdant jungle, covered with swamps, mangrove trees, and fruit plants. The few mountains are rich in metals, and gunpowder.
Religion: The Giff are not a religious people, not to say that they are atheists. They just believe in busying themselves with structured, and worthwhile endeavors. As they see it, an honorable military career.
Language: The Giff possess their own rumbling language, called simply Giff, though few young Giff actively speak it. Most Giff generally speak common, to better make deals with other races.
Names: Giff names are blunt, and uncomplicated. Often originating in the Giff language.
Male Names: Pomj, Dromb, Lewmur, Hurst, Ularn.
Female Names: Ulyrn, Weelso, Hrusta, Beluarr, Yuralsha.
Adventurers: All Giff are fascinated with tales of valor, and such tales often attract young Giff to pursue their own adventures. Other Giff, join adventuring parties as a fellow mercenary, while others still seek to escape the regimented lifestyle so prevalent among the Giff. Whatever the reason, the Giff can and do make excellent adventurers.

Racial Traits

R	Starting Ability Score Adjustments: +2 Str, –4 Int.
R	Speed: Giff land speed is 30 feet.
R	+2 racial bonus on saving throws against poisons: Giffs are hardy and resistant to toxins.
R	Head-Butt: A giff can deliver a head-butt as a standard action, dealing 1d6 points of damage (as a medium-sized creature, and increases to 1d8 when they become large sized creatures) plus one and one-half his Strength bonus. A giff cannot combine a head-butt with other attacks.
R	Spell Resistance: Giff are naturally resistant to magic and has spell resistance equal to 6 plus its HD from class levels. A giff cannot voluntarily lower his spell resistance, even for benefical magic such as healing.
R	+2 racial bonus on Intimidation, Intuit Direction (due to their military training), Listen and Swim checks: Giffs are very imposing creatures and are naturally adept to water!
R	–2 racial penalties on Jump, Balance and Forgery checks: Giffs blocky body and thick fingers are ill suited to these skills.
R	Malfunctioning Magic: The giff's resistance to magic extends even to magic items worn or used by the giff. Any magic item activated via spell completion (such as scrolls), spell trigger (such as wands and staffs), or a command word or mental activation (such as a ring of invisibility) has a 10% chance of simply not functioning when activated by a giff. Thus, most giff stick to magic items that don't require such activation, such as weapons, armor, potions, and the like.
R	Automatic Languages: Common and Giff. Bonus Languages: Drarven, Elven, and Orc. Giff find it useful to know the languages of their enemies ... or their employers.
R	Favored Class: Giff and Figher. A giff's giff class level and fighter class level do not count when determining whether it takes an XP penalty for multiclassing. Giff culture extols the virtues of the armed combat, and the vocation comes easily to the giff.

Class Skills
The giff's class skills (and key ability for each skill) are Craft (Int), Intimidate (Chr), Intuit Direction (Wis), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Int), Spot (Wis), Swim(Str).

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the giff monster class.

Weapons and Armor Proficiency: Giff's are proficient with all simple weapons and martial weapons, with light armor, and with shields.
Feats: A giff recieves one feat at 1st level and another at 3rd level. After 6th level it gains feats normally according to its character level, as shown on table 2–5: Experience and Level-Dependent Benefits.

The Giff

	Hit	Base Attack	Fort	Ref	Will	Skill
Level	Dice	Bonus	Save	Save	Save	Points	CR	Special
1st	1d8	+1	+0	+2	+2	(2 + Int mod) x4	½	Feat, +2 natural armor
2nd	2d8	+2	+0	+3	+3	2 + Int mod	1	+2 Str, +2 Con
3rd	3d8	+3	+1	+3	+3	2 + Int mod	1	Feat, +3 natural armor
4th	3d8	+3	+1	+3	+3		1	+2 Str, +4 natural armor
5th	4d8	+4	+1	+4	+4	2 + Int mod	2	Large size, Reach 10 ft., –2 Dex, +2Str
6th	4d8	+4	+1	+4	+4		2	+2 Con, +5 natural armor

Random Height and Weight Table for Giff *

	Base	Height	Base	Weight
Gender	Height	Modifier	Weight	Modifier
male	7'2”	+2d6	460 lb	x (2d10) lb
female	7'4”	+2d6	470 lb	x (2d10) lb

* This table assumes the giff has reached level 5 giff monster class, game master and player should work out the hieght and weight progression for the first 4 levels of the giff monster class.

Aging Effects Table for Giff

Middle Age*	Old**	Venerable	Maximum Age
28 years	42 years	55 years	+2d10 years

Random Starting Ages Table for Giff

		Bard	Cleric
	Barbarian	Fighter	Druid
	Rogue	Paladin	Monk
Adulthood	Sorcerer	Ranger	Wizard
14	+1d4	+1d8	+2d8

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©2002 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

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Giff, © 1990 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
d20™ System, Conversion of Giff ©2003, Aaron Siddall, Mark Doolan and Ron Pollard
Original Source: Lorebook of the Void & The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook
Special thanks to Andy Collins for his slant on the Giff as a PC race.