Goliath
Goliaths are a sentient race of tall, grey-skinned mortals descended from stone giants. They are characterized for their great height among mortals, their unique, patterned grey skin, and their sturdy, alpine-tested constitution. Like their stone giant ancestors, goliaths are usually found in remote mountain ranges and have historically shun interaction with outsiders. However, after the Sundering Arcana, many goliaths began to migrate into the territory of other mortals and today can be found in a variety of cultural and environmental contexts.
Basic Information
Anatomy
The anatomy of the goliath owes its distinctive characteristics to their genetic forebearers, the stone giants. Though they do not attain the same monstrous size of the bjargrisa, goliaths are the tallest of the mortal races, averaging well over seven feet tall. Like stone giants, pure-blooded goliaths cannot grow hair. However, goliaths can breed with humans, resulting in half-goliath children. These children bear most of the same traits as their goliath parent but do retain the human ability to grow hair, particularly on their scalps.
Goliath skin appears light grey with distinctive dark patterns of ash grey or black. These patches cover their entire bodies and are usually vertically symmetrical. In addition, goliath skin bears striking similarities to the unique dermatology of the stone giants. Their bodies are covered in small, coin-sized growths called "lithoderms." These lithoderms are comprised of calcium, biotite, and quartz which goliaths appear to produce within their bodies. This is similar to the composition of stone giant skin, however, instead of having millions of small, interlocking cells made of this lithic material, goliaths bear concentrated deposits that form within their durable skin. These lithoderms are particularly prominent along their arms, shoulders, and superorbital brows.
Goliaths are specially adapted to life at high altitudes. They have much larger lungs proportionally to other mortals and can give live birth without their offspring succumbing to infant hypoxia. They also can endure colder temperatures more effectively than other mortals, in spite of their lack of body hair or fur. This allows them to shrug off traumatic injuries even at high altitudes and perform athletic tasks that would exhaust most other mortals, even those adapted to similar alpine environments.
Genetics and Reproduction
Goliaths generally mate in the spring when female goliaths are most fertile and the community can support caring for a pregnant individual during the harvest. They then give viviparous birth about ten months later in the late winter. Traditional goliath society sees goliaths being exceptionally devoted partners and usually mating for life. However, many goliaths living in continued proximity to other mortal races have begun to become sexually promiscuous and socially monogamous. Goliaths can breed with humans and their offspring share far more traits with their goliath parents than with their human parents. Goliath-human offspring are able to reproduce but after two generations, goliath-human populations become prone to severe genetic deformities. Goliath-human offspring can grow hair, unlike pure-blooded goliaths.
Growth Rate & Stages
Goliaths age around the same rate as most other young mortal races. They reach sexual maturity around age seventeen and full adulthood soon after. Most goliaths live hard lives, rarely living more than seven decades, though some blessed individuals seen close to a century before passing through to the Realm of Souls.
Ecology and Habitats
Goliaths are adapted to living in high altitudes and generally prefer residing in such environments. Here, goliaths tend to rely on pastoralist traditions of herding and breeding hardy livestock or live as hunter-gatherers foraging for tubers and wild game on windswept plateaus.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Goliaths are omnivorous and have a wide ranging diet depending on their environment. Their bodies are adapted to process non-goliath milk and they often brew it with tea to help fortify their bodies before long hunting expeditions or herd migrations of their flocks. Much of the traditional goliath diet includes root vegetables—specifically potatoes—hearty stews, dumplings, and many yak and goat byproducts including meat, milk, butter, and cheese. One exceptional facet of goliath cuisine is their heavily salted meats or foods sprinkled with calcium-rich "sand seasonings." These strange ingredients help promote the durability of the goliaths' unique lithoderms.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Traditionally, goliaths evolved a clan-based social structure. Each clan numbers between twenty and fifty individuals. However, within this broad clan-based structure, two specific forms of social organization appear—one based around pastoralist traditions and one based on the fundamentals of a hunter-gatherer society. Whether a clan follows either of these two systems of social organization generally depends on their environment. In areas with healthy populations of wild game, varied terrain, and a lack of easily domesticated animals, goliaths live as foraging hunter-gatherers. In areas such as mountain plateaus or steep vales of alpine tundra, goliaths follow the pastoralist model, keeping migratory herds of yak or markhors and traveling with them as they seek fertile pastures.
Pastoralist goliaths are matriarchal. Female goliaths have sole ownership over their herds and concentrate their efforts on breeding and harvesting the byproducts of their animals. Male goliaths serve as lookouts, scouts, warriors, and guards against the many mountain predators that endanger the clan and the animals that compose their livelihoods. Generally, the leaders of these clans are a married couple, with the lead female being the clan's spiritual sovereign, while her partner acts as the leader of the clan's warriors. Males and females can switch roles on occasion, but often have to undergo a ritual overseen by the matriarch that "transforms their gendered essence" thus making them nominally male or female. This is not a true transformation like a fey Pool of Possibilities, but a cultural expression of social roles and the adjustment of those roles to fit the needs of the community and its members.
Foraging goliath clans, like most hunter-gatherer societies, are more egalitarian and place less emphasis on gender roles. Males and females spend most of their time foraging for lichens, root vegetables, berries, nuts, and other herbs and plants. However, they will engage in hunts each week to bring down large game for the clan. Generally, this action is carried out by the males of the tribe, but unmarried or unpartnered females also participate. Foraging goliath clans can be led by males or females, though regardless, the leader is usually an individual of great hunting prowess or shamanistic reputation. Foraging goliath clans almost always have several individuals with at least some knowledge of wild or nature magic, and many clan shamans' are in fact druidic practitioners.
Facial characteristics
Hairless face and scalps. Jawlines and superorbital ridges often covered in calcified growths called lithoderms.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Average Intelligence
Goliaths are of average intelligence. Within their home territory, have a rich culture structured around nomadic clans and small chiefdoms. However, many goliaths have left these bastions of tradition in the mountains and moved into communIties of other mortals. Here, they are often regarded as formidable and sometimes boorish brutes, yet many goliaths have shown great aptitude for the pursuits of higher knowledge and attained positions of leadership positions in tolerant interracial mortal societies.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Though naming traditions vary across goliath communities, goliaths that remain in their traditional clan societies typically boast three distinct names.
The first name is given upon their birth by their parents. Today, these names often reflect the naming conventions of neighboring mortal communities (so a Mazabar goliath's parents will give them a Mazabar name.)
The second name, and the name of greatest importance within a clan, is the goliath's "deedname," a kind of epithetical byname given by the clan's leader to denote a deed or attribute the community wants to remember the goliath by. These names are typically first given during a coming-of-age rite of passage. However, if a goliath achieves something later in life considered worth remembering by the clan's leadership, their deedname may change. This can happen multiple times and can happen as the result of positive or negative actions on the part of the goliath.
The final name of a goliath is their clan name. All members of the clan share this name. Historically, these names came from their stone giant ancestors, but overtime they have evolved to fit whatever language and culture the goliath clan most firmly identifies as.
Beauty Ideals
Goliaths culture frequently promotes complete hairlessness as a sign of strength and fertility. Some goliaths whom have coupled or had relationships with other mortals, such as humans, are accused by more tradition-minded goliaths as having a "hair fetish." Children of these goliath-human pairings can grow hair and are thus often stigmatized among other goliaths for the ugliness of their hair and heritage.
Gender Ideals
Overall, goliaths are quite egalitarian, as an old goliath saying states, "Let the one who does it best do the deed." Some pastoralist goliaths have stricter rules for gender roles within the society, particularly when it comes to switching between those roles. However, neither gender is considered inferior to the other, and gender neutral or non-conforming goliaths are common as well, particularly in forager goliath societies. As male and female goliaths have little physical differences beyond sex organs, even telling the difference between goliath males and females can be struggle and most goliaths do not see a reason to perform their gender outwardly.
Average Technological Level
Traditional goliath society relies on pre-metallurgic technologies including hafting, fletching, basic mud masonry, and stone knapping. However, goliaths are of average intelligence for mortal races and above average for most sentient races, and so have adopted many foreign technologies into their own traditional society. Additionally, many goliaths that have entered interracial societies have proven themselves proficient in a variety of technological crafts and professions.
History
Little is known about the early history of the goliath people. Archaeological evidence suggests that goliaths first evolved in the Mazabar Highlands of Hakoa in the Middle Mithril Era. However, today goliath populations can be found on every continent and in nearly every mountain range, regardless of how isolated the region is. Moreover, there are no records of goliath migrations from the Mazabar to these desperate regions, unlike the Great Exodus of Man during the First Intermediate Period. It has been suggested that while the first evidence for true goliaths exists in Mazabar, many of these early goliaths may have retained retained their knowledge of and adaptations to the vast networks of underground caves and passages that make up the Holosian crust. These early goliaths could then have spread out through these tunnels, much in the same way their stone giant ancestors did. But instead of remaining in caverns at the edges of the map, the goliath people emerged overtime to colonize the mountain ranges.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Pastorialist goliaths typically keep yaks, markhors, and other herd animals specially adapted for high altitude grazing.
Goliath clans have had particularly strong relationships with dwarves and often can be seen intermingling in mountain dwarf strongholds. Goliaths often trade foodstuffs and textile work for finished goods produced by dwarven blacksmiths and metallurgists and goliath clans have come to the defense of dwarven strongholds during times of war.
The greatest foes of the goliaths are the yikaria, or yakfolk. Like goliaths, yikaria are most at home at high altitudes, with the majority of their societies hidden in remote mountain enclaves and forgotten vales, specifically in the Mazabar Highlands of Hakoa and mighty Rhapalkan of Iroa. Gifted with magic and filled with undaunted discipline, yikaria see themselves as the rightful heirs to the legacy of Oheilion, the Bloodied Lord. To that end, the yakfolk make frequent raids against goliaths and other mountain dwellers capturing their kin and keeping them as slaves. Such brutal despotism is anathema to goliaths and many goliath communities have sworn eternal war on these zealous yakmen.
by Aurore Folny
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Origin/Ancestry
Giant
Lifespan
70-95 years
Average Height
2.13-2.4 m (7-8 ft.)
Average Weight
127-145.1 kg (280-320 lbs)
Average Physique
Goliaths are considered Medium creatures but their powerful build allows them to carry loads and perform tasks only a Larger creature could normally accomplish.
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Grey skin with dark grey-black vertically symmetrical patterns.
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