Ulding's Tithe

Ulding's Tithe is a book recovered from the Rail Raider camp in Halterslate Islet.

## Description

Ulding's Tithe appears to be a historical tome that strays between both fiction and fact, with reference to the first king of the giants, Ulding.

## Research

### Completed by Ódóvir Jotunsson

Storied by wondrous bards and poets to the point of conflicting information, Ulding is more than a mere piece of fiction conjured by parents across the continent to stop their children from straying too far, lest they pass into the lands of Ulding and enact a dreadful toll. The concept of Ulding's Tithe is not an unfamiliar one to most, for certain, and many within places of civilisation that see it within their right to fine those that tread upon their private property carelessly cite Ulding's Tithe as the justification for such matters. So far reaching is this tale that it appears in the lawful documentation of no fewer than seven Realms - near all with regard to trespassing or elsewise lingering where one should not find themselves for but a second.

It is said, thusly that Ulding was the first of all giant kind, though each of subraces generally remark that Ulding was surely of their own, while a few amongst them instead suggest they were a being that represented all giants. One arm engulfed in ice, another flame, complexion pale but with a voice that echoed like thunder, alongside a grace unbeknownst to beings of their size, and an appetite to match such majestic scope. Regardless of the depiction, herein starts the matters of dispute between scholars and philosophers alike. It is widely considered that Aita was responsible for the creation of the giants, shaping them from stone alongside dwarves and gnomes, but a few instead believe that Ulding, who while a progenitor of sorts, was not the first of all giant kind, but their creator. As Ulding fought fiends, primordials and deities alike during the wars before Aita's Second Gift, wherever his blood fell giants sprung from the jotun's almighty ichor, their type dependent from where the original wound was dealt - arms, face, chest or belly. And wounds aplenty did Ulding suffer, for he claimed the Ironfangs are his own, and enacted a tithe and toll upon all those that deigned enter his domain uninvited.

Ulding and his Ironfangs would prove to be an ongoing obstacle for the battles to come, distracted by the ongoing chaos as the divine and damned combatants were. No sooner did the fights spill into his domain were his demands offered, and those that petitioned him for passage were swiftly declined, stalwart as was he. When the divinity of the Principal Sixteen finally prevailed in the continent it was said that they punished Ulding for his stubbornness, transforming him into a great mountain peak from which he would be able to watch over his domain ever more. The stone of Ulding's Keep, the tallest mountain in the Ironfangs and located at the heart of the northern jaw of the range, is often heralded to be so dense and tough that is readily breaks any piton, pick or shovel used against it - something attributed to the strength of the bones of Ulding from which the mountain was wrought. The dwarves of Mol Boramm have used the stone of Ulding's Keep for a number of ceremonial inlays upon weaponry and armour over the years for this very purpose.

Regardless of the original however, the concept of Ulding's Tithe is perhaps most notorious for most with regard to the Cloud Giant city that circled all the major Realms adjacent to the Ironfangs demanding fealty and/or tribute from each in turn. Not just gold and silver was enacted, but food and livestock - with the threat that both would be cast into shadow long enough by their flying city that crops would wither and die for lack of sunlight, and beasts would grow mad from the gloom. As their pet rocs circled overhead, growing ever hungrier, most paid the Tithe, whether or not they believed they had indeed trespassed, but others petitioned instead any that would listen with the power to throw back the city - dragons, other giants of both cloud and storm, powerful mages, all in turn descended upon the city, sparking repeated and frequent conflicts until might and magic alike was spent.