History of Giants

"Long ago, The Giants had one of largest kingdoms in Toril, rivaled only by the Dragons')

~Sandyse Thunderquill~

## History

### **First Giants**

The Giants came into being through the first nine children of Annam All-Father, a Greater deity and His wife Othea, a Lesser deity.

The Progenitor of the Giants

* Dunmore (First Wood Giant)
* Arno and Julian (First Ettin, Two head Giant)
* Lanaxis (First Titan)
* Masud (First Fire Giant)
* Nicias (First Cloud Giant)
* Obadai (First Stone Giant)
* Ottar (First Frost Giant)
* Ruk (First Hill Giant)
* Vilmos (First Storm Giant)

These nine were the first true giants and unlike their descendants they were all immortal, and their children would life for thousands of years, however with each generation of giants, their life span becomes less due to the blood of Annam gets diluted.

Unbeknownst Annam, Othea had affairs with Ulutiu and Vaprak, both lesser Deities, resulting the creation of the Giant-kin

* Dunmore (First Wood Giant, with Ulutiu)
* First Firbolg (with Ulutiu)
* Two other Giant-kin (with Ulutiu)
* First Orges (with Vaprak)

### **Creation of Ostoria**

Annam built for his children a grand kingdom, Ostoria. He gave each of them a section of the kingdom to rule, The ocean for the Storm Giants, Fire Mountains were given to the Fire Giants, the cold barren lands in the north for the Frost Giants, all the rolling hills for the Hill Giants, the underdark cave systems for the Stone Giants, the forests for the Wood Giants, the skies for the Cloud Giants, and the vast plains for the Titan. Arno and Julian being the "runts" of the True Giants were not given a place to rule.

Lanaxis, being the strongest and largest was the leader of all the giants. At some point, Lanaxis built the capital of Ostoria, Voninheim, which was believed to be somewhere north of where the ice mountains currently exists. The Kingdom at its peak was so large it covered the north half of Faerûn, and the giants ruled this half for around 4000 years.

### **The Thousand Year War**

It was believed that, while the giants ruled the northern half of Faerûn, the Dragons ruled the other half. Around 4000 years after the creation of Ostoria, war broke out between the giants and the dragons.

The war began with a few skirmish from both groups for small territory, and then eventually a full scale war broke out.

The war was not fought on any front lines, battles raged all over Faerûn, causing massive about of damage to the land and caused numerous causalities.

The war the war ended is not very clear, Ancient dwarvish records say that the war ended when the dragons sued for peace, believing they would have a massive civil war in the future, between the metallic and the chromatic dragons. However, Ancient giant ballads say that Annam and Garyx, one of the dragon gods, decided to settle the war with a game of *wah-ree*, the game ended in a stalemate, and the war came to an end.

### **Downfall of Ostoria**

After the 1000 year war, Ostoria was is ruins, with only a few hand full of their cities including Voninheim survived the war.

After the war, Othea's affairs with Ulutiu came to light, along with her affair with Vaprak, resulted in the creation of orges. Annam was furious after learning this, so he came down to Toril and killed Ulutiu's avatar. When Ulutiu's avatar was killed the body had an amulet, which activated. the amulet created frost and started to freeze the surrounding.

Anaam despite knowing of Othea's affairs, wanted her to have one more son, who would be blessed by Anaam, and reunit his brothers to usher in a new age for Ostoria. Othea rejected Anaam's proposal, because she was furious that Anaam had killed Ulutiu, but Anaam forced her to have the child anyway. Once Othea was pregnant, she gave Anaam an ultimatum, she would give birth to the child before it was fully developed and have orges tear it limb from limb, unless Anaam left Toril and never came back, he could only come back Toril when that new baby, rebuild Ostoria and called his name. Anaam accept Othea proposal and left.

As the frost cause by the death of Ulutiu, expanded and threatened to destroy what was left of Ostoria, Lanaxis called his brothers and most of the surviving giants, to Voninheim, to come up with a plan to stop the frost, after learning that the frost was caused by the amulet worn by Ulutiu. However, Othea forbade, the siblings from stopping the frost, because she believed it was Ulutiu's rightful vengeance and that Ostoria should be destroyed.

Lanaxis changed his plans, and planned to first poison Othea and kill her, the plan backfire. Instead of just Othea being poisoned, Lanaxis ended up poisoning all of his brothers as well, except Dunmore, the wood giant, and Arno and Julian the first etten. Before Othea succumbed to the poison, she cursed Lanaxis to lose his immortality if he ever left her shadow. The Lanaxis and his titans, fled to the plane of Arborea.

After Lanaxis's plan backfired and he was forced to leave, Voninheim was deserted. Eventually over time the frost from Ulutiu's Amulet buried the city in layers upon layers of ice, this can be said for the rest of a majority of the kingdom as well.

Furthermore, Due to Lanaxis's plan and the dilution of Annam's blood in the giants, only around 500 of each type of true giant remains.

### **The Promised Savior**

As for Annam's unborn son, was born at some point, whether he was born before or after the fall of Ostoria is unclear. However it is known that the other giants never believed him to be their savior, rejected him, because of his size, he was only 12ft tall, while the average giant tend to be at least 25ft.

His name was Hartkiller, and after the fall of Ostoria, he went from tribe to tribe and town to town, to gather the support of his giant brethren, but they all turned him down due to his size. However, Hartkiller was able to gather the support of the giant-kin, and with them he planned to rebuild Ostoria. He planned for giant-kin to rule Ostoria instead of giants, this angered the giants and they fought him.

Hartkiller ended up fighting the king of the storm giants in a battle that lasted 100 years, the battle ended with both Hartkiller and the storm giant king dying. Seeing Hartkiller killed, angered and forced Annam to disown his children. At the moment of Hartkiller's death, a spirit appeared before every giant in the vicinity of the Hartsvale, where Hartkiller was killed. The spirit told the giants that, for rejecting the will of Annam, the giants have to suffer the kingdoms of humans and the kingdoms of elves, but the spirit also told them this punishment would not forever, and that one day a young king born of Hartkiller's bloodline would surface and revive Ostoria.

### **1485DR**

The ordning was broken by Annam, causing a large scale civil war among the giants and giant kin, to chose the new ruling race for when the ordning gets restored.

Before the ordning was broken, Hekaton, a storm giant was the King of giants. shortly after the ordning was broken he disappeared. His wife, queen Neri, went to look for him, leaving their youngest daughter, Serissa, in charge, but Neri disappeared too. After the Queen disappeared, their was conflict in the giants court on who shall lead the storm giants and the giant kind as a whole. The storm giants were split into three between Serissa and her older sister, Mirran and Nym.

Meanwhile, Cloud giant named Countess Sansuri looks for artifacts from the dragon's old kingdom to help her become the Queen of giants, one of her first targets is the nightstone of the town of Nightstone.

Frost Giants, Stone Giant and Fire Giants attack towns and cities through out the Icewind Dale.

Zephyros, a cloud giant and friend of Queen Neri communes with beings in the far realms. He receives a vision of Four Heroes who would put an end to the war. He met with three of those heroes and and task them with the quest.

Frost giant's lead by the Ever lasting ones try to lay siege to Byrn Shander, to look for the Ring of Winter, but are tricked to leave by the three heroes Zephyros met.

Queen Neri's corpse washes up on a distance shoreline.

## Ordning

At some point in the past Annam, established the Ordning. a structure of choosing the ruler of giant kind.

This Structure was abolished sometime around 1485DR, cause a civil war among the giants and giant-kin. Most giants believe the ordning will be restored and they want their kind to be at the top when it does.

### **Former ordning ruling structure**

1. Titans (in exile)
2. Storm Giants
3. Cloud Giants
4. Fire Giants
5. Frost Giants
6. Stone Giants
7. Hill Giants
8. Giantkins

## Known Giants

### **Kings of the Giants (Under the former Ordning)**

1. Lanaxis, First King of Giant
2. Storm King, who fought Hartkiller
3. Various storm giants
4. Hekaton Storm King (till 1485DR) (currently missing, possibly assassinated)
5. Serissa, Storm Queen (Since 1485DR)(Acting)

### **Giant King Claimants**

* Serissa (Storm giant)
* Mirran (Serissa's older sister)(Storm giant)
* Nym (Serissa's older sister)(Storm giant)
* Countess Sansuri (Cloud giant)
* Jarl Storvald (Storm giant)
* Duke Zalto (Fire giant)
* Guh (Hill giant)
* Unknown giant/s

### **Other Known Giants and Giantkin**

* Harshnag (Frost giant) (Member of Force Grey)
* Neri (Strom giant Queen)(deceased)
* Zephyros (Cloud giant) (Friend of former giant queen, Neri)
* Shmrek and Shmiona (Orges) (deceased)
* Drufi, a Frost Giant Everlasting One (deceased)
* Vaasha, Son of Sven (Storm Giant) (Storm King Guard)