There’s something different about cloud giants. The lesser giants are clearly creatures of the hills, mountains, and icy valleys they call home. But the greater giants, beginning with cloud giants, point to something more magical—even titanic—in character. When you face a frost giant, you have earned yourself a story; when you face a cloud or storm giant, you are in Story. Cloud giants’ spell-like abilities, sorcerous bloodlines, and affinity for griffins all reflect this, as do their divergent alignments. One cloud giant might appear out of the mist to save adventurers in trouble…and the next will grind their bones to make his bread.
The halfling eagle riders of Daergun report a previously unheard number of attacks from griffons, as well as a giant castle on the peak of Iron Crag that was never there before.
Perhaps, despite the legends, there never were any cloud castles…but there is one now. The cloud giant sorcerer Melin Eissbeard has sent his keep aloft on the mists, but now a tribe of evil cloud giants, led by a mad blind oracle with milk-white eyes, will stop at nothing to claim it.
A cloud giant enters town and causes a panic when he heads straight for the market. He politely commissions the town’s best smith to repair his Gargantuan longsword, mentioning that the dwarves who he usually patronizes seem to have vanished.
—Pathfinder Bestiary 147
If you’re looking for more evidence of the slightly fairy-tale-ish nature of cloud giants, Monte Cook’s Pathfinder module Curse of the Riven Sky features dueling cloud giant wizards driven apart by their overfondness of cats and birds, respectively. Just sayin’.
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