From Introduction:
Of all the giant monsters that haunt the carcass of Ardoussarlis, the one that goblins fear the most is the giant, fire-breathing wolf-man. Legends say that giants build their castles in the clouds and eat the flesh of men in the form of sandwiches, with loaves of bread made from the powdered bones that flesh is pulled from. But this giant lives beneath the earth and hungers not at all for meats of any kind. No, it is the purple crystals that he craves.
There is a theory, among those who study the city and the wastes around it, that this creature was once a werewolf — an “ordinary” one, too, if such a word applies — who came to Ardoussarlis from the south. He found some way to consume those purple crystals that are so treasured (and so dangerous), and he was changed by it. He grew in size and so did his hunger for that bright magenta glow. His mouth grew tusks, his head grew horns, his spine bent out of shape. Now addicted to the city’s crystals, how can he ever leave?
Sadly for this beast they have come to call the Giant Hunger, he is not that good at finding his favoured food. The mutant goblins who wish to feed the dragonseer have much more skill and luck than he does — but perhaps their luck is running out. For the Giant Hunger seems to have realized how good these goblins are at tracking down shards of crystal. Now he hunts them, too. He has learned to capture smaller creatures that he finds, and interrogate them in a thousand broken tongues. The little green ones know the most, he has decided, but why discount the others? If something pink or brown can lead him to the purple he desires, so be it. And if they, somehow, cannot? Well, they all bleed the same bright red when the spirit leaves their bodies.