Seagravia Gelt
If I could bring them back without spilling a drop of blood I would do it no matter what it cost me. Yet, I don't think this terrible world will allow it ... so instead I must be prepared to spill every drop of blood that stands between me and seeing my family returned.
The Giants were purged from Tairos long ago, extinct to the last and relegated to creatures of myth, found only in storybooks or the works of scholars. Only the deviants of Clan Dougal remain and they are as far warped from the image of their ancestors as one can possibly be.
And then, one day, that all changed when a species went from a popular of zero... to one. That one, Seagravia Gelt, Princess of the great house of Gelt.
Beginning at the End
Seagravia was born during the final age of the reign of giants. While wars were fought on every front and the Great Houses strained against the advance of their enemies; she grew up unaware of the impending doom that encroached from all sides. Her early years were spent either in the Gelt's capital city of Sivga (built over by modern day Adirak) or in her summer home of Lödöse, the bones of which were used by the Balmorans when building Frial. She received an education fit for an ambassador and enjoyed a lifestyle deserving of the only-child of House Gelt. However; the older she grew, the more the decline of the Great Houses became evident, no matter how much her parents tried to shield her from the reality of it all.
As she grew; more and more of her daily lesson plans began including practical teachings about magical or martial combat. By the time she reached adulthood Seagravia was more accomplished a sorcerer and warrior than many of the giants filling the ranks of their house. Her weapon of choice was her great-grandfather's Bidenhänter (meaning two-handed in their House Tongue) blade. The weapon was almost as tall as she was and capable of slicing through regiments of smaller beings in one sweep. Her sorcery training focused on storms and blizzards, elemental affinities that all her family showed.
While she trained and grew, her family's kingdom was eroding away from all side and mostly due to the efforts of the druidic orders. House Gelt was a prolific industrial power and scores of workshops hungered for trees, for stone, and for farmable land. All these efforts tore at the earth and the spirits that lived with in. The Gelts, from the perspective of the druids, were the hungriest of all giants for their works were sought after by many of the houses and they always rose to meet these demands. Druidic agents fanned the flames of resentment within the serfdom, and at the same time the Totem Spirits sent terrible creatures to attack their logging, farming, and mining sites. Piece by piece, the wheels of the Gelt industrial machine were grinding to a halt.
Desperate Gambit
Ogmond and Halldis Gelt, the last rulers of House Gelt and Seagravia parents, were quicker to accept the reality of the impending defeat than other houses had been. They turned their industry to building massive barges that would launch from the north and carry them to a new home but this hope was dashed early on. Members of the druidic circles targeted many of the Gelts' logging operations, including the factories that were to be converted over to shipyards. With these burned to cinders it meant that any ships they could build would never be enough to take all of the giants that had sworn allegiance to their family. It would mean abandoning scores of giants and precious serfs; both of which were impossible for their infrastructure and their honor to survive. Instead, Ogmond turned to some of his allies from House Crius. Some of their number managed to escape the Skyriran purges of their territory and reach the safety of Gelt lands. Scylax, the Basileus (philosopher-kings) of House Crius was among those survivors and in the final days of their own kingdom he had been working on a grand ritual that he hoped would save his people. Though, it came too late when they had neither the resources or sages to finish the spell... The Aegis of Crius.
The wizards and sorcerers of House Gelt were powerful figures in their own right and Ogmond himself was a renowned artificer who had a passion for studying extra-dimensional space, time, and gravity. He saw what Scylax was attempting and by combining his own areas of expertise with the foundation of the Aegis formula he was able create something much grander. First, he built an object known as the Looking Glass, a standing mirror large enough for a giant yet collapsible to human size for ease of transport. The Looking Glass allowed the user to view any being who's name he knew and any place his mind could imagine. Not only could it show these to Lord Gelt but it could also show any point in the past of that person or place as well. Yet, it was more than just a viewer, it was also a gateway that led to a pocket realm of his creation. This realm was a palatial estate anchored on a chunk of brisk, wintry land. And this snowy paradise was set to drift in the ether, the place where the restless dead roamed free. Second, he perfected the Aegis (which he renamed to the Skjold af Gelt... the Shield of Gelt). It's original intent was to transport every giant within the capital city of House Crius to a distant corner of Tairos where they could rebuild. Ogmond extended its range with clockwork amplifiers places all over his territory, and once the ritual was cast these amplifiers would not only ensure that every soul in his realm was saved but also moved through the Looking Glass and to Castle Gelt. From there they would be outside the reach of this chaos, shielded by time and space. From there, they would be able be able to watch Tairos and wait out the wars, the totems, the Skyrirans and choose the right time to return.
Unfortunately, the totems were equally as cunning and inventive. They learned of this plan shortly before the completion of all the amplifiers and together they devised a means of turning this potential disaster to their benefit. The territory of House Gelt was already deeply wounded by their industry and the power of the totems was waning here. The eventual toppling of their dynasty would be a costly one and nature would take centuries here to recover, meaning the immediate gains would pale in comparison to the losses. Instead, they let the Gelts believe their plan was still a secret. They put all their efforts into turning key serfs within the palace at Sivga to their side and even transformed one of those humans into a vessel to carry the entirety of a Totem Spirit. The spirit that volunteered to step fully into the material world (and risk their very existence) was Auntie Weaver. Her plan was to wait till the Gelt spell was cast and their forms passed into the mirror. Before the mirror would be taken through its own tunnel and to the hidden palace she would strike, destroying the mirror and sealing the tunnel closed with her webs just like she had done to Grandmother Hydra ages before.
Her plan unfolded accordingly ... for the most part. The spell was cast from the summer estate of the Gelts (being more centrally located) and all the giants and their servants were transforming into wisps of light that darted across the night and into the Looking Glass. There she waited and watched, after killing all of the loyal Gelt servants in the chamber, and plucked a single wisp from the deluge of lights that flooded in. The one she snared was the only child and heir to the throne of Gelt, Seagravia. Her light is quickly bound in webs and tucked away. Then, when the last of the last of Gelts passed through the opening she created her seal of webbing... but also a key to open it. In her infinite and labyrinthian wisdom she believed that the Gelts could one day be the tool she needed to topple Grandfather Bear and take her rightful place at the head of the Totem hierarchy. And Seagravia would serve as a wonderful vessel when the time was right, to take control of the Gelt House and properly direct their industrious efforts according to her designs. And eventually use her to dispose of or reseal the giants.
And there Seagravia's story ends for a time. Stuck without a body, sealed within a web of Auntie Weaver's making, and trapped in a strange dream-like prison for eons untold. Her only company would be her pet Behir, Hrodigeir, who's light was so close to Seagravia as they sped toward the Looking Glass that Weaver couldn't distinguish between the two. And in dreams the giant and her pet would remain.
by Wizards of the Coast
Slipped Through the Cracks
Time has a habit of chipping away at anything that thinks itself eternal. While the totems would see the giants defeated, they in turn would suffer terribly to the expansion of the Empire of Skyrir. Many of their number would even perish at the hands of the Golden God himself. Even after the demise of Skyrir, other disasters would follow. The Ximezci and the Fang Crusades. The Plague of Undeath. And eventually The Queen's Rebuke. The power of the totems dwindled, their places of power crumbled, and their druidic circles collapsed. Auntie Weaver, like many of the other totem spirits during the Queen's War, took shelter in the Rylan Woods where nature was still strong. The many fetishes, relics, and spirit servants of Weaver were moved to the safety of this place including, Seagravia. She was a thing of energy now and could be kept in Weaver's webs just outside of the physical realm where she nested. But, the Looking Glass needed to be in an earthly place and somewhere safe. When the Balmorans built Frial they unearthed much of the old giants' summer palace, including some of their ancient relics like the Looking Glass. It was safely interred within the vaults of the city, something Weaver was entirely fine with. And when the city fell to the Fae the vault remained hidden.
The Rebuke crippled the totems as it had the gods and magic. Weaver, like her kin, was cut off from directly interacting with Tairos. It also created bizarre and unpredictable events all across the ether. Weaver's webs were destroyed and many of her treasures scattered or lost with them... including Seagravia and the key Weaver created to the Looking Glass. They would remain as clumps of webbing tangled around the energy of the heiress, tumbling through the ravaged ether like a billard ball bouncing around the table as it looks for a hole to fall into. That hole would come in the form of the Konning Castle Anomaly. There her energy remained, stuck safely until the anomaly was sealed off (mostly sealed off that is). She would spill out into the Rylan woods, much like hundreds of other figures pulled through time by the disruptive anomaly, and find herself in a version of her home that was entirely alien.
Heiress of an Empire
Seagravia found herself in a dying version of Tairos, one where magic was poisoned, where shattered kingdoms dotted the land, and giants were but monsters of myth. She was alone, the last of her line, the last of her kind, and wanted nothing of this awful future. All she had was the company of Hrodigeir and a strange amber orb that she knew nothing about. It had tumbled out of time and space along with her and her pet. The woods had changed since she was last here as well, new creatures populated it and beasts of old had died out. Outposts her family built were buried beneath the earth, familiar places she played as a child had all eroded away or sunk into the swamps. That was new to her as well, the swamps. Rylan was once a temperate place, warmer than her home up in Sivga but with a crisp breeze blowing through the verdant forest.Now it was warmer, wetter, and prone to constant floods.
She learned about the outside world when she stumbled upon a lone historian trying to retrace the routes the evacuating Gnomes took during the Queen's War. This humble historian was named Addison Dorne, a young native from the logging community of Rylan who was hoping to unearth more of the gnomes lost history to give them a better idea of where they came from. Instead, she stumbled upon Seagravia and was nearly eaten by Hrodigeir because of it. The two quickly became close friends; bonding over their love of the past and desire for knowledge that others would consider obsolete. Addison taught her everything she knew about the region, about the Queen's War, and devastation of the Rebuke. In turn, Seagravia told her about a past so distant that history books barely scratched the surface of it. Addison became infatuated with the idea of the Great Houses of the giants and the order they imposed on a lawless world. And, most of all, that if they were here today they might be able to restore the damage done by the fae.
It's with Addison's help that Seagravia was able to find the storage caverns once used to support the summer estate. While partially collapsed or filled in with mud, the majority of the underground complex was still intact and known today as the Dunklemeir Caves just outside of Highstone Village. Ancient supplies still remained, including the ice sculpture legion made by her father. She used to play among these statues as a child and was thrilled by the idea that they could be made to come to life but now the notion of turning them loose sickened her. Addison also told her that the Gelt summer estate now lay buried beneath Frial or torn up and rebuilt into the foundation of the city. Knowing the home where she spent half of her life had been torn down by squatters was difficult enough but it also offered a thin ray of hope. The Looking Glass may still be there, her father said it was nearly indestructible. And if not, than maybe his notes on the formula or the construction of a new Looking Glass.
Seagravia began to plot and plan for a way to sneak into the city and find what she was seeking but every avenue seemed barred to her. She spent weeks in the cavern, growing increasingly frustrated with the many dead ends she was encountering. And that frustration was often taken out on the trees in the forest or beasts she'd hunt for food. These outbursts did not go unnoticed. Unmarked communities dot the Rylan region and are home to those looking not to be found; debtors, gamblers, criminals, independent logging operations, and outcasts. They all started to take notice and share rumors of a new power in the woods, one that seemed to possess both the magic and the might of the old gods. Many of these loners were always in search of a second chance or a new hope and the whispers of something worth believing in spread like wildfire. They sought her out, a few at first, but then handfuls and even entire villages flocked to the Heiress of the Gelt Empire.
She was pleased to have serfs again but their demeanor was something else entirely. Rather than serve out of a sense of duty and sworn oath like the servants of old, these new followers did so for less than desirable reasons: blind faith, obedience, and a zealous need to believe in the deliverance of a higher power. Faith in divine powers was something looked down upon among her house, and most giants as a matter of fact, so this was entirely distasteful but unfortunately it was the hand she was dealt. She let them convert part of her cavern into a place of worship, she put up with their prayers and blessings, she even let them address her with divine titles. Only Addison and a handful of other close servants manage to honor her properly and to not grate on her every nerve.
This "cult" now forms the backbone of a force she's planning to unleash on Frial. Along with her legions of ice soldiers and Hrodigeir, Seagravia plans to take back what is her's. Not for the sake of vanity or lust for power but because beneath that city is the only hope she has for returning her kin from the Looking Glass and undoing the damage done to Tairos.
The Lady of Wintermoore Castle by Antti Hakosaari
Artifacts
The Looking Glass and glowing sphere that fell from ether along with Seagravia.
Divine Symbols & Sigils
The symbol of House Gelt
Tenets of Faith
Seagravia makes these up in the moment help her cult make sense of her orders
Holidays
There are A LOT of feasts. It's mostly an excuse for Seagravia to indulge in new food.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
The cult's goals are to bring their goddess' realm back together under her control and spread her word by any means possible
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Seagravia is the perfect healthy specimen of giant
Identifying Characteristics
Hidden on the back of her left hand is the symbol of House Gelt. Most giants of a noble house will have a magical brand here that can be made visible. These brands were difficult to fake and helped to identify one's self when meeting with members of other houses.
Physical quirks
Does her best to adopt a ridge posture when in the company of others but when with trusted allies she loves finding a place to slouch comfortably. She also has a hard time hiding disappointment and tends to sigh heavily when bad news is delivered.
Special abilities
Seagravia, like all giants possess a number of innate magical abilities. She is also an accomplished sorcerer who taps into the powerful wellspring of magical potential within giants to enhance and resize spells. Spells cast by such accomplished giants are often much more potent than those used by wizards of smaller statue and lesser magical potential. A fireball from a giant is a massive explosion. Even a mere cantrip like gust is capable of toppling cattle or carriages.
Apparel & Accessories
The climate of the region she now finds herself in has changed. It is much warmer now that when she vacationed here. She now prefers much lighter clothing then she would have worn in her former life. She tends toward dresses and skirts with lower and looser cuts. Reds and shimmery whites colors are her favorite. Gossimer lace a preferred touch on most of her clothes too.
Mental characteristics
Sexuality
Like most of giant-kind Seagravia is attracted to both male and females. She does not have a particularly long history of romance or sexuality though due to the nature of their crumbling empire and her desire to continue her education. In normal times she would have been groomed for the throne of Sivga and expected to marry one of the nobles of another house. These were often loveless and sometimes sexless arrangements meant purely solidify political bonds or reward loyal banner houses for service. Having a child at some point in her reign would be expected so that the line could continue but child of one of her uncles would have been an acceptable substitute to continue the line.
Education
Seagravia would have one of the best formal educations among all of giant-kind. This is due in part to her royal heritage but also because of her desire to continue her studies beyond what was required
Mental Trauma
Seagravia is deeply shaken by the experience of being separated from her family and left entirely alone in this new world. While she puts on a brave and commanding face for her servants she is secretly very hurt. She suffers from many sleepless nights, terrible dreams, and anxiety. This anxiety has led to a number of panic attacks that she must hide from her "cult" because she doesn't want them to overreact or seek retribution for their goddess' sorrows out on others. The only person who knows the depth of Seagravia's pain is Addison
Intellectual Characteristics
Deeply curious. A desire to know as much as possible about a subject rather than skim its surface. Distaste for blind obedience. Hatred for druids and totem spirits as well as necromancy. Lonely.
Taboos
Anything she considers disrespectful or mocking of the old ways of the giants. Bowing to "higher powers". Bloodshed without having exhausted every other option. Mistreatment of the weak.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Find the Looking Glass and free her people.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
She is an excellent researcher and knows her way around any library. Her mother and father taught her to be a good judge of character regarding who you can trust and who not. She is very good with most animals as well, having something of a natural touch when it comes to interacting with them. As a child she had an interest in making jewelry which is something she continue to practice into adulthood. Like all giants, she's very good at throwing things very very hard.
Likes & Dislikes
Likes
-Music of most sorts. She has a special appreciation for the bawdy shanties found in taverns or aboard ships. Contemporary music among the younger giants of her day was also a favorite. This music would have made heavy used of instruments similar to those found in Thai culture such as khong wong lek (a collection of 18 tuned gongs), Sueng (a plucked lute), Ranat (a crescent moon shaped keyboard percussion instrument), and Khaen (larger instrument similar to pipes and flutes)
-Spa treatments. She's used to a comfortable lifestyle and enjoys relaxing massages, baths, meditations, and skin/haircare treatments. She relies on her servants now to have apply these treatments which leaves human-sized individuals having to apply these soothing remedies to a giant-sized patron.
-Food. Like all giants she enjoys food and drink. She has a very distinguished palette thanks to her royal upbringing but enjoys foods of all class and culture. Since coming to the current timeline she has acquired a new appreciation for sweets. In the past the only common sweetener for food was honey and cultivating it in the amounts that would please giants was near impossible. Now, a plethora of sweeteners exist and even honey can be harvested in satisfying amounts for her. There is also a much greater variety of drink available too. Brewing processes were far less advanced in their age but now an impossible amount of spirits are at her disposal.
Dislikes Druids - They are responsible for the destruction of not only her family but all giants. She finds their talk of preserving nature to be backward, primitive, and simply an excuse to engage in bloodthirsty barbarism.
Necromancy - The signature magic invented by the Empire of Skyrir is loathsome to her and those that would embrace it are hard to see as anything but a threat
Religious Dogma - Seagravia recognizes that religion is important to some cultures but sees it often used a crutch for those of weak morals or a fear of responsibility/accountability The Heat - Many giants prefer cooler climates (aside from a few that dedicated themselves to lives beside their forges). The warmer temperatures that now pervade the Rylan region are miserable to her. They make her sweaty, irritable, and stand as another reminder of this awful future. If she were successful in returning the giants to Tairos its very likely they'd work to cool off the continent.
Virtues & Personality perks
Seagravia doesn't lie or deceive. She feels that all conversations and business dealings require the same foundation of truth to be successful
Vices & Personality flaws
Not particularly quick to forgive or earn forgiveness from.
Hygiene
Immaculate. Seagravia takes every opportunity to clean herself and enjoy spa treatments from her serfs. Many of the oils she uses for her massages and skin treatments use cedar, juniper, pine, and maple which is something she smells faintly off most of the time.
Divine Classification
Not a Divine Being
Alignment
Lawful Good
Current Location
Species
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Greifynja- roughly translates to Countess. This was the title used when dealing with the other great houses and one universally recognized among them
Prinsessa- This was the Gelt term for Princess and the title used within the empire when referring to her
Dýrmæta Dóttir - Used by Seagravia's family when referring to her. Roughly translates to Precious Daughter
Litla Drottningin Okkar - The casual when the serfs of the Gelt Empire would refer to Seagravia. It means "Our Little Queen"
Age
66 years (equivalent of a human in their mid twenties)
Circumstances of Birth
Only child and heiress to the Gelt Empire
Birthplace
Sivga (Now modern-day Adirak)
Children
Current Residence
Caves near Highstone
Pronouns
She/Her
Gender
Female
Eyes
deep blue with a frosty sheen like fresh snow
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Powder blue
Height
19 ft
Weight
3,800 LBS
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