Giant

**Giants** are humanoid creatures of great strength and size. They are intelligent creatures with their own set of cultures and customs mostly distinct from humans, orcs and elves. Intelligence generally varies according to the type of giant (and as with humans, with the individual) but most are roughly equivalent to humans in intellect.

Giants generally see themselves as superior to all other creatures, as expressed in the **Ordning**, often regarding them as unimportant due to their size. They often talk down to and patronize smaller creatures, referred to as the 'smallfolk'. Giants tend to live in tribes, but their numbers are often limited due to their size and the difficulty of finding sufficient food.

### The Ordning

The Ordning is the social order to which all giants adhere and assigns a rank to each individual giant so that there are none who are equal to one another, only inferior or superior. It is regarded as an act of evil to go against the ordning.

The Ordning dates back to the ancient kingdom of Ostoria, a class-based society with a social rank assigned to each individual. Therefore, each individual giant knew which other giants were inferior and superior to him or herself.

In the present day, the Ordning is divided among racial lines: True Giants sit above the Giant-kin, who sit above the smallfolk (humans, dwarves and other Major Races). Of the True Giants, storm giants sit at the top, followed by cloud, fire, frost, stone, and then hill giants. These are followed by the Giant-kin: cyclopes, ettin and then ogres. Some giants consider trolls to sit between ogres and the smallfolk though this does not seem to be consistent - many giants do not appear to consider trolls as Giant-kin.

## Races

There is a great deal of biological variation in giants. Giants are generally grouped into races with similar characteristics - Six of these races are recognised as True Giants, with others referred to as Giant-kin.

#### True Giants

* **Storm Giants**

These legendary giants are very few in number. There are very few records of interactions between Storm Giants and the Major Races outside of the War of Thunder and some believe them to be entirely mythical. Some stories state that they contain the spirits of Dragons and so there can only be a certain number at any one time. Others say they were once Cloud Giants that were blessed by Belanus. The Elders claimed that most of the Storm Giants were killed in the War of Thunder.

* **Cloud Giants**

Cloud Giants were originally the nobles and rulers of fabled Ostoria, the nation of the giants. The ones that live today mostly descend from those that escaped from the War of Thunder, abandoning their people to their fate. They supposedly affected this escape in their legendary sky-ships, a technology said to have been learnt from the Elders during the war. Many cloud giants have self-styled epithets such as 'the just', 'the grand' or 'the mighty' which are mainly a means of showing off to others.

* **Fire Giants**

The origins of the Fire Giants are uncertain. Some legends say that they were once cloud giants that made deals with devils or demons to escape the War of Thunder. Other stories tell of the fire giants coming from another realm entirely. Some Elder records from the library of Celasar the Traveller tell that creatures matching the description of fire giants can be found in the elemental plane of fire, the land called Muspelheim, though if this is where they originated, is unknown.

Many fire giants have been hunted and killed by smallfolk crusaders who believe they are demonically tainted, and they are now rare in the lands of Vedar.

* **Frost Giants**

The 'Scourge of the North'. These classic enemies in the myths and legends of Jordgardr are said to descend from cloud giants that made a pact with demons from the Abyss to escape and survive the War of Thunder.

Traditionally the explorers and navigators of Ostoria, the stories tell that they attempted to escape from the War across the frozen northern straits. When their ships became stuck, frozen in the ice, their situation gradually became more and more desperate. For weeks they laboured to free their ships to little avail. The despairing refugees prayed to all their gods for aid but the calls went unanswered, even as their meager supplies ran out. Even centuries later, Giant bones were said to wash up on the shores of the North Sea, cracked and broken, with the marrow sucked out and great tooth marks(though this may merely have been Elder propaganda).

Whispers say that, dying in the frozen wastes, they eventually resorted to blasphemous rituals. And, unlike the gods, something answered. Whatever responded to their call saved the giants, but also changed them forever.

* **Stone Giants**

Little is known of these enigmatic people. Likely the least populous of all the races bar the storm giants, even less is known of their origins. Like the fire giants, some believe that they descend from giants that made a deal with devils or demons to survive the War of Thunder. The aforementioned journals of Celesar, however, again make reference to very similar beings in what he referred to as the elemental plane of earth - the realm known as Nidavellr.

* **Hill Giants**

Hill Giants are by far the most numerous of all the races of giant. The hill giants descend from the commoners of Ostoria. In the War, many were taken into slavery by the Elders, an act that spread the hill giants across the lands of their dominion, and all of the Known World. When the Drukhari collapsed in the Aelderi Schism, and again during The Fall of the Elders, many giants in their lands, including the ancient lands of Ostoria, found themselves suddenly free.

Hill Giants tend to be smaller and viewed as less intelligent than the other races of giant, though it is unclear how much of this is genetic and how much can be attributed to their centuries of slavery and current tribal lifestyle. While the other races of giant descend from those that managed to escape and survive the War of Thunder, keeping some of their culture and learnings intact, the hill giants wholly descend from those giants browbeaten and tortured into submission by the Elders.

Many hill giants will blindly follow the call of another giant higher in the Ordning, and often worship the Storm Giants as almost godlike figures, if not gods outright.

## History

### Ostoria

Ostoria was the ancient kingdom of the giants in the present-day lands of Old Kanzah and the Tsardom of Ursus. At its peak it occupied an area of Vedar from the Dawnshield Mountains to the Endless Sea.

Along with the Elders, the legendary Old Ones and Ancient Akhmun, it was one of the four early civilizations of Vedar.

It existed as a nation perhaps as early as 7,000 PR (in the form of the Ostor city-state) and lasted until roughly 3000 PR when the Elders destroyed its cities and killed or enslaved its people in the War of Thunder.

Little is known of Ostoria prior to the War. What little remains are records written by Elder scholars sometimes centuries after the war, often filled with fantastical stories and wartime propaganda.

It is known that by the time of the War, the giant society had diverged into three castes: The *Thrymskyr* (later known as storm giants), the *Atla*, or nobles (cloud giants), and the *Etanan*, or commoners (hill giants). The Thrymskyr occupied the highest of positions but, as with today, were mostly removed from the day-to-day running of the society. They were more akin to high priests than kings, with the Atla occupying the more managerial positions. The Thrymskyr often journeyed across the lands of Vedar, leaving Ostoria to be managed by the Assemblage of Kings - a council of the heads of the various Atla families.

The Etanan made up the bulk of the populace of Ostoria, working as farmers, servants and soldiers.

The original capital is said to have been the city-state of Ostor, from where the storm giants united all giantkind, but during the war the capital was the city of Astaroth, greatest of all the giant cities.

When the Thrymskyr united the giants, they enforced what they called the Natural Order - a system of laws that governed how giant society was to operate. This included the Ordning as the most integral piece, said to come directly from the gods, however also included a multitude of other laws, what was 'right' and 'wrong', how giants were to individually be ranked, and punishments for crimes.

### Freedom from the Elders

When the Elders' rule was finally broken at the beginning of the Age of Heroes, many hill giants became free, but were left without direction or purpose. All of these giants had been slaves their entire lives and did not know what it meant to be free. As with all societal collapses, many hardships ensued. Many giants died, unable to find food or shelter in the new world without masters. Many wandered Vedar alone, while others managed to exist in small tribes or familial groups. Some ended up in tribes of smallfolk - if a giant could be coerced or convinced into joining a group of bandits, though difficult to control or feed, it could provide some powerful muscle.

Even a single hill giant could present a grave threat to an isolated hamlet, village or even small town in the Age of Heroes, and giants often feature as a threat in the stories of adventurers and champions that give the age its name.

Some of the giants that had survived and become free during the Scouring of the Drukhari found their way back to the ruins of Ostoria. Much of the land had been scoured and scarred by the titanic battles of the War of Thunder and the later depredations of the Drukhari, who had sought to take anything that could be of value from the land. By the time more giants found their way to the land after the fall of the Elders, they found a small but thriving community of giants living in the partially rebuilt ruins of the past. The largest of these settlements was at the old Ostorian capital of Astaroth, though the new settlement was based in and around the remains of the city walls. Only treasure seekers went much deeper into the once-great city.

These settlements, however, did not have the capacity or infrastructure to cope with this new influx of giants, and their simple systems of government began to collapse. Some giants began to journey south, with both individuals and groups seeking food pushing deeper into the lands of humans, orcs and other races that inhabited the Turan plateau.

### Growing tensions

With the new influx of giants and rumoured rebuilding of Astaroth, word spread that Ostoria was being reborn. It was not long before a few fire and frost giants arrived, and then a full clan of cloud giants, led by their patriarch Lord Geirröd. The cloud giants, as was their Ordning-given right, immediately sought to take leadership of what they called New Ostoria.

This takeover, though in line with the Ordning, spread resentment, and created even more cracks in the already fractious and pressured community. The cloud giants, along with many of the more conservative, generally more recently arrived, hill giants, strongly believed in the sanctity of the Ordning, which proclaimed the natural superiority of the nobles (the cloud giants) over the commoners (the hill giants). The giants that had been in the settlements longer, however, especially those born there, did not see why these interlopers had any right to the fruits of their labour, and many even viewed the Ordning as an outdated relic of the past, fit to be buried like the ruins around them.

The cloud giants took quarter in a few of the mansions of the unoccupied old upper districts and enforced the hill giants to rebuild and refurbish the palacial grounds therein. They also decreed that both frost and fire giants, as proposed descendants of noble houses, sat between themselves and the hill giants in the Ordning. This legitimized the fire and frost giants, and it is unclear whether this was done solely to gain their support for the cloud giants' rule. Many of these giants became enforcers for the cloud giants, including collecting 'taxes' from the hill giant communities, mostly in the form of food.

Tensions already at the brink by simmering resentment and the pressures of insufficient food were pushed over the edge. Hill giants were pushing ever further into dangerous outlying territories to get food while the cloud giants lorded it over their 'subjects'.

### Revolution

It is unclear what the final straw was - some point to a riot at a cloud giant parade, others to prominent unsatisfied hill giants and their families 'disappearing', but what ensued was a full-blown, bloody insurrection. Led by Lukil Stonejaw, the son of the previous leader of the hill giant commune in Astaroth and the leader of the local city guard, the hill giants rose up.

Many of the cloud giants' enforcers sent to quell the uprising, especially those of hill giant descent, changed sides upon seeing that they were fighting friends and families. Many hill, frost and fire giants were beaten and killed, and the throng moved through the open and unbarred gates to the Cloud District with little in the way of resistance.

The cloud giants were rounded up and their food stores distributed to the masses. Upon seeing their lavishly decorated mansions and stuffed larders, the rebels were enraged, though still they hesitated from killing any of the cloud giants - despite everything, the Ordning was still deeply ingrained, and many believed that to break it would be to go against the will of the gods themselves. Even when the private vaults of Lord Geirröd were uncovered, the people faltered. Then Lukil himself, in disgust, took up his axe and beheaded Geirröd before the crowd. Geirröd's chief enforcers and allies were similarly executed, and the rest were exiled from New Ostoria.

### Ostoria Reborn

Lukil set about leading the giants with a new zeal. He officially abolished the Ordning and outlawed priests from preaching of it. He likewise ruled that any giant could hold any position in the commune council, as elected by his peers. In the first of these votes, Lukil was overwhelmingly voted to remain as leader. It is unclear what Lukil's exact position was, but he seems to have been referred to in texts as 'first citizen of Ostoria', 'High Captain' and 'Story-teller' (a giant term for leader), interchangeably.

Lukil institued reforms giving more power and representation to all of the giants in New Ostoria, even the poorest giants of the commune, and set up a central stockpile for food distribution, which helped to greatly reduce the pressures of the community.

Lukil was known as a just and honest giant, but also severe and austere. He banned many of the traditional festivals and holidays, deeming them outdated, and relics of the old ways - indeed, many related directly to ancient Ostoria generally and the Ordning specifically - including the Consecration of Fealty, when giants traditionally honoured the 'rightful way of things', i.e. the hierarchy of the Ordning, and through it, their allegiance to giants of a higher caste and to the gods themselves.

These changes were unpopular with the people who enjoyed the festival days and many of whom, though they were content to relinquish the Ordning, also did not subscribe to Lukil's beliefs of 'honour through work and service'.

### A March of Giants

The uprising in Ostoria had not gone unnoticed. A number of giant clans had learned of the happenings in their old homeland and conspired against Lukil's young nation. These giants viewed the disruption of the Ordning as a grave crime - regardless of the actions of Geirröd, hill giants should never overthrow their cloud giant betters - it was an offence against the Natural Order.

Almost twenty years after the formation of Lukil's Republic, a coalition of fire, frost and cloud giants, with a host of hill giant thralls and even led by a storm giant, the Storm Lord Tethra, converged on New Ostoria. The bulk of the force consisted of the hill giant thralls, with Tethra leading from the front. An assembly of giants of this scale has not been seen before or since, as far back as the War of Thunder.

The event would have been a cataclysm in many of the smallfolk societies in the region. The giants' march would have presented an unstoppable wave akin to a force of nature, scouring the land of food, livestock and trampling any obstructing settlements underfoot. Some texts of Old Kanzah make reference to the 'Great March', with many attributing it to being sent by the gods to punish the unworthy or other superstitions.

### A revolution crushed

Many of Lukil's giants abandoned him in the face of the Storm Lord's advance. Only his most devoted followers, including his original Watch comrades, held the walls of Astaroth before the coalition. Though they fought bravely, the walls swiftly fell before the onslaught. Bloody fighting ensued in the streets of Astaroth, with every inch of ground being paid for dearly. Lukil eventually rallied his surviving comrades in the old Palace Square, the very same place he had executed Geirröd all those years before. Here Lukil faced Tethra himself as his oldest friends fought and died around him.

Tethra beat Lukil to within an inch of his life for his arrogance and insolence, including taking his axe-arm. Some say that Lukil's axe managed to draw a nick of blood from the storm giant, though cloud giant historians point to the obvious ludicrousness of the idea of a 'nobody' hill giant even slightly injuring a Storm Lord.

All of the giants of Lukil's realm were gathered to watch as Lukil was dragged through the streets of Astaroth by a team of horses before being strung from the top of the main gate and left to finally die, a lesson for all those that would seek to go against the Ordning.

Eventually, Lukil's body was cut down, stolen and buried secretly by his surviving supporters. Centuries later, human explorers found a great, unadorned headstone beneath the ruins of the Church of Pelor in Astaroth with an inscription, carved by an unknown hand, that read:

> "*Here lies Lukil Stonejaw;*
>
>
> *He tried to bring democracy to the People,*
>
>
> *but they voted against him''*"
>
>
>
>

### Post-Restoration

After the Restoration, as the ending of Lukil's reign came to be called, many of the clans that had participated in his overthrow left with their spoils - food, or recovered treasures of old Ostoria. Tethra charged the cloud giant Clan Mogerrod to stay and oversee their ancient realm, to ensure the heresy of giants acting against the Natural Law did not repeat itself. Many of the hill giants that had been driven there by orders of those higher in the Ordning also stayed - with the work done, their masters no longer cared what they did.

With even more new giants in the region and with the central stockpiles established by Lukil ransacked by the victors of the Restoration, New Ostoria destabilised even more. Agricultural and infrastructure works started by Lukil's government were left to ruin. The cloud giants of Clan Mogerrod that claimed the rulership of Astaroth cared little for keeping the various disparate groups together or ensuring needs, including food supplies, were met, as long as they received their tribute.

As a result, the society began to disintegrate as many giants, driven by desperation, left to other lands. Many emigrated into the ever-more developing, and therefore dangerous, lands of the Turan plateau where food was said to be more plentiful. What little social cohesiveness remained eventually broke down altogether as settlements and villages became abandoned. Clan Mogerrod also moved on once the settled area of Astaroth started to become a ghost town, with only those too old or sick to move remaining, waiting to die.

### Modern Ostoria

In the present day, the land that once made up Ostoria is now split mostly between the Tsardom of Ursus and the land known as Old Kanzah.