Five Jotuns

The Goliath of the Snow Lands have a marvelous oral tradition which many of them hold very dear. Not unlike the stories we tell our children. While I stayed with the most amiable of the five "prides" as they call them, I learned much of their history. I attempted to take notes of these stories for my manuscript, but was halted posthaste, this a sentiment that seemed to exist throughout the camp. I've had to commit what I could to memory for this here booklet. With that being said, I produce for you the story of the Five Prides, or more specifically, legendary figures know as the Five Jotuns.

Once in the old days-what we may call the Age of the Divine-there was a king of the Hillborn (their demonym). His name? King Arurbar the Runebreaker ruled over the Hillborn in a settlement they call Gyaneholme. The King had a queen, Queen Frekja the Fair, with whom baring children was a struggle. The king, though admired and respected among his kin, was not a faithful man, and one in need of an heir at that. Arurbar visited what the goliaths call whisper-woman, or a hag you might say. The hag told him his sons would lead the hillborn into a great empire across Caero (a cute name for the Snow Lands) and the southern regions past the Silent Summits. The hag told Arurbar that he must lay with his queen blindfolded and she would bare him sons. She warned him, however, that if he lay with his concubines his children would bring the hillborn to ruin forevermore.
Arurbar did as the whisper-woman instructed, but soon grew tired and furious at the ridiculous geas of the hag. Queen Frekja, however fair, was not fertile enough to bare children for her king for two years hence. Arurbar, seeking a legacy for his name and not finding it in his wife, lay with several of his concubines. And soon, all within the same week before the harvest fest, they bore him children. The first, he named Imir, after a frost giant he had met in his childhood. Imir had his father's stoicism and would be trained by Arurbar to be his heir. The second of his bastards, Voldar, had his father's courage. The third, his one and only daughter, he named Kith. She was an unexcitable child, no maladies afflicted her and she grew spoiled from her father's and brothers' affection. Next, Temkos, a child who inherited his father's bloodlust, his battle-rage which had made him such a fearsome warrior. The story goes that the last child, Ferox, was born from a witch who disguised herself as one of Arurbar's concubines. Ferox was a taboo child, never accepted and taken by the occult and darker members of the pride.
The children grew to be mighty hillborn, inheriting much of their father's prowess and tact. Among the hillborn, they became known as the Five Jotuns, a grand title granted to them in honor of their likeness to the great giant legends before them. After they all reached adulthood and had experienced much of battle and leadership, it came time for Arurbar to relinquish his leadership of the hillborn. Many believed Imir would be the likely choice, but it was known that Voldar believed himself more worthy of leading his people. The tradition for this was ritual combat so many were concerned over a fight between the brothers. What they did not expect, was that at the harvest fest, their father, Arurbar announced that he and Queen Frekja the Fair were having a child.
This did not sit well for the Jotuns. Some began to call them the Five Bastards, but only out of earshot of the princes and princess. This news devastated Arurbar's children. They left before the end of the harvest fest to their own demesnes, their spot in the succession line beat out by the unborn child of a woman who had despised them their whole lives.
Then tragedy struck. Before the babe Urbar could be born into the world, the Five Jotuns returned to Gyaneholme under the cover of night. While their father and his queen slept, they plunged their spears into their hearts. The King and Queen were dead and what followed would be the greatest war between the hillborn in all of their history. The largest united force of the half-giants split between the Five Jotuns, supporting that whom they believed to be most worthy of leading them. From then on, the tribes stayed to certain locations in the Snow Lands. Kith stayed to the western mountains, Voldar took to roaming around the tundra taking on any other of his siblings on sight, Imir traveled to the center of Snow Lands to isolate in self-contemplation taking with him those who wished to hide out from the war, Temkos became known as the Blackblood as his thirst for battle and bloodshed often left him covered in viscera, Ferox's followers took to dark arts now that Arurbar's restraints against had been lifted soon to be driven mad by their curiosity.
Gyaneholme soon became a site of many battles and soon was pillaged to ruins. It now stands as a testament to what the hillborn were once capable of. When a leader among them could unite them together.