The Norgan Giant is a hulking, shaggy creature with mammoth tusks, found roaming the frozen northern reaches of Norgan. Its arrival triggers the message “Massive Enemy Encounter / Encountered: Norgan Giant,” but its health bar has no name. Most elements barely affect it, attacks do little unless they hit its head, and its breath can freeze you in place. The key is to bring it down with attacks to its legs, then target its vulnerable head.
Quick answer: Keep striking its heels and ankles until it drops to one knee or falls over, then climb up to its head and neck and stab. Fire is effective against it, but it resists Ice. If a blade is lodged in its hide, climb over and hold the “Draw blade (Hold)” prompt to claim an Ancient spoil and remove a large chunk of its health.
How to beat a Norgan Giant as a melee Fighter
The head is the only place that takes full weapon damage. Most damage types deal less than half damage to the body; fire deals half.
Pawns say that cracking its tusks sends the giant reeling and opens it up for a topple, so head and tusk attacks are useful. Bring your pawns back whenever they fall, as the breath and stomps often knock them down.
Many attempts go wrong when you stay in front of it as it prepares its frost breath. The attack sends a broad, lengthy blast of freezing air across the ground. Pawns give warning just before it fires, so get behind or beside the giant, or climb above the blast’s path.
What the giant does
- Stomps and arm sweeps at anyone beneath it, plus thrashing that throws off a climber.
- Tree trunk slams and ground sweeps, from the giants that carry one.
- Its icy breath drains your warmth; amid a whiteout, it can inflict Ice-Bound and leave you unable to move from head to toe.
- A rearing slam, rising on its hind legs to crash down and knock over anyone in front.
- An enrage, where red embers burst from its fur and it hits harder and more often.
Ice-Bound leaves you completely unable to move. It can take hold if you are drenched while frostbite is already affecting you. Pawns may also call out falling ice spikes or avalanches on slopes with packed snow, so keep an eye on the terrain as well as the giant.
The blade in its hide: “Draw blade (Hold)”
Some giants have an old weapon embedded in their bodies. Climb onto the giant and reach the blade to bring up “Draw blade (Hold)”, which is assigned to Circle on PlayStation. Keep holding the prompt until the pull is complete. The giant reels and loses a large amount of health, and you get an Ancient spoil. A giant may have multiple blades lodged in it.
The extraction point varies by giant. In North Valgrian Frostgrove, reach the blade hanging low across the giant’s back by approaching from behind. Taking it yields Spoils: Lv 3, Ancient Light Weaponry, and its bar changes from 5 dots to 4. It enrages immediately afterward. Once it is toppled, find another blade near its shoulders; removing that one uses roughly half of its final bar.
A blade is lodged high on the Mournful Giant’s back, behind its head. Taking it awards Spoils: Lv 2, Ancient Bowstaff, and its bar changes from 2 dots to 1. To skip the climb, let a pawn retrieve the object from its hide; the reward is a Lv 2 Ancient Long Weaponry spoil.
Not every giant has one. The giant by the Valley Cave System shows no blade prompt at all, so do not waste time hunting for a weapon that is not there.
Where Norgan Giants appear
These are four giants the main story puts in your way, not a complete list.
- Valley Cave System — Find it in a snowy valley of pines crossed by a flowing stream. The entrance is a stone gateway draped with icicles at the far end of a frozen riverbed. It attacks with an uprooted tree trunk. Four dots; no blade.
- North Valgrian Frostgrove — Head uphill from Northwall Campground to find it. The giant has five dots, swings a tree trunk, and has a blade lodged in its body.
- North of the Norgandian Settlement — the Mournful Giant, in a narrow snowy pass during a blizzard, for the quest objective “Defeat the Mournful Giant.” Four dots.
- Deserted Lakeside Estate — Find it at night on a dark, wooded slope. It has four dots, but you can run straight past without having to fight.
The Mournful Giant in Sage’s Wisdom – Riddle of the Body
The Mournful Giant is an unusually large Norgan giant, but its moves are the same: frost breath, stomps, red-ember enrage, and the familiar tactic of attacking the legs to topple it and the head to deal damage, with a blade available to draw. It begins with 4 dots. The fight takes place in a whiteout, leaving you exposed to the cold throughout. Its name appears in the quest text rather than on its health bar.
On defeat, the Mournful Giant’s Tusk is added directly to your inventory with the message “You obtained the Mournful Giant’s tusk.” This Valuable weighs 0.50 kg, cannot be sold, and is described as a particularly large fang from a particularly large Norgan giant. The tusk is the “token of its being” requested by the sphinx for the Riddle of the Body.
Norgan Giant damage and resistance reference
Both versions of the Norgan Giant have 240,000 Health. The split between body and head is what makes the climb worth it. Hitting the body is close to useless; hitting the head is where the fight is actually won. These are the damage multipliers by location.
| Damage type | Body | Head |
|---|---|---|
| Slash | 0.4 | 1.0 |
| Strike | 0.4 | 1.0 |
| Fire | 0.5 | 1.2 |
| Lightning | 0.4 | 0.9 |
| Holy | 0.4 | 0.9 |
| Ice | 0.25 | 0.5 |
Drops and rewards
You can search the carcass for spoils, while the giant sheds materials both during the battle and afterward. The material worth keeping is the Ponderous Bone, a robust piece of bone from a Norgan giant. It weighs 0.50 kg and sells for 1,000 G. This forging material is used for nine Smithed weapons: the Patterned Brand, Zephyr’s Arc, Taloned Steel, Gargoyle’s Perch, Brand of the Beast, Numinous Conductor, Anointed Edge, Soothstone, and Raptorial Liturgy.
Possible drops from a Norgan Giant include Scrag of Beast, Boreal Tuber, and Frigid Fungus; its carcass also yields Ancient Light Weaponry spoils. XP depends on the giant: the four-dot one near the Valley Cave System gave +83323 XP, and the five-dot Frostgrove giant gave +125188 XP. Treat these XP amounts as estimates, not guaranteed totals.
You do not have to fight every giant you meet, and the one near the Deserted Lakeside Estate can simply be left alone. But if you want the Ancient spoils, the forging bones, or the Mournful Giant’s Tusk for the sphinx, the pattern never changes: drop it with the legs, climb to the head, keep fire burning, and hold the blade prompt whenever one is there to pull.
