Giant

Ancient empires once cast long shadows over a world that quaked beneath the giants’ feet. In those lost days, these towering figures were dragon slayers, dreamers, crafters, and kings, but their kind fell from glory long ago. However, even divided among secluded clans scattered throughout the world, the giants maintain the customs and traditions of the old. Towering over humans and their kind, they are humanlike in shape, though some have multiple heads (ettin) or deformities (fomorians). The six varieties of true giants are hill giants, stone giants, frost giants, fire giants, cloud giants, and storm giants. Besides these, creatures such as cyclopes, ogres and trolls are giants.

World Shakers

Giants and giant kin rank among the world’s most fearsome creatures, literally towering over the other, younger beings that crowd the world. Yet nowadays most giants live in isolation or in obscure locations, exhibiting none of the collective grandeur and power of their forebears. In remote regions of the world, the last remaining plinths, monoliths, and statues of the great giant empires bow their heads in desolate obscurity. Where once those empires sprawled across all lands, now the giants dwell in isolated tribes and clans.
Giants are almost as old as dragons, which were still young when the giants’ heavy feet first shook the foundations of the world. As they spread across new lands, giants and dragons fought bitter generational wars that nearly brought both sides low. No living giant remembers what started the conflict, but myths and tales of their race’s glorious dawn are still sung in their steadings and holdfasts, vilifying the primeval wyrms. Giants and dragons continue to harbor grudges against one another, and it is seldom that they will meet or occupy the same area without a fight.
The origins of the giants however are unclear, with the history of these great monsters nearly disappearing into myth. From what modern historians have gathered from ancient stone carvings and text scrawls, the giants first came into being during the Founding when the gods went to war with the Primordials. The first giant, Joutyr, is widely accepted as a dead god who with the aid of the Primordials was responsible for his children's creation. However, the actual creation myth of these creatures is as vague and debated as that of humanity. The prominent theory is that the giants were the direct children of Joutyr when he bedded a host of great primordials, each one giving birth to a different lineage. However, they also might be the gods' first attempts in the creation of humankind. Or instead, giants are dwarves and elves who tried to ascend to godhood, making bargains with the Primordial and imbuing themselves with essences of the elemental spirits.

The Ordning

Each of the main giant races — the cloud, fire, frost, hill, stone, and storm giants — are related by common elements of history, religion, and culture. They view one another as kindred, keeping any inherent animosity over territory and ambition to a minimum. Giants belong to a caste structure called the ordning. Based on social class and highly organized, the ordning assigns a social rank to each giant. By understanding its place in the ordning, a giant knows which other giants are inferior or superior to it, since no two giants are equal. Each of the giant races analyzes a different combination of skills or qualities to determine the ordning. Giants make excelling in these qualities the purpose of their lives.

Types of Giants

Giants are divided into two common categories, the highborn and the lowborn giants.

Highborn

Although there are no different races of highborn giants, humanoid races still divide them into types: cloud, fire, frost, stone, and storm. These are different cultures of giants and although they have adopted different magics, codes of ethics, law, and fighting styles, they are all highborn. Hill giants were highborn as well, but they were stripped of their nobility and exiled by the Council of Seven Scepters.

Cloud Giants

Cloud giants live extravagant lives high above the world, showing little concern for the plights of other races except as amusement. They are muscular with light skin and have hair of silver or blue.

Fire Giants

With dark skin and flaming red hair, fire giants have a fearsome reputation as soldiers and conquerors. They dwell among volcanoes, lava flows, and rocky mountains, and are known for their ability to burn, plunder, and destroy.

Frost Giants

Frost giants are creatures of ice and snow, with hair and beards of pale white or light blue, and flesh as blue as glacial ice. They respect only brute strength and skill in battle.

Stone Giants

Stone giants are reclusive, quiet, and peaceful as long as they are left alone. Their granite-gray skin, gaunt features, and black, sunken eyes endow stone giants with a stern countenance. They are private creatures, hiding their lives and art away from the world.

Storm Giants

Storm giants are contemplative seers that live in places far removed from mortal civilization. Most have pale purple-gray skin and hair, and glittering emerald eyes. Some rare storm giants are violet-skinned, with deep violet or blue-black hair and silvery gray or purple eyes. They are benevolent and wise unless angered, in response to which the fury of a storm giant can affect the fate of thousands.

Lowborn

Hill giants, ogres, cyclopes, and other giants not identified as highborn are the lowest of the giants. The lowborn group together, cast out from highborn society and forced to fight and forage to survive.

Cyclopes

Cyclopes are one-eyed giants that eke out a meager existence in wild lands. They are a terrifying threat in combat due to their size and strength, but they can often be tricked by clever foes.

Ettins

An ettin is a foul, two-headed giant with the crude characteristics of an orc. It never bathes if it can help it, and its thick skin is usually encrusted with a thick layer of dirt and grime beneath the stinking hides it wears. Its long stringy hair hangs in an unkempt mess about its faces, and its breath reeks from mouths filled with crooked teeth and tusks.

Fomorians

The most hideous and wicked of all giantkind are the godless fomorians, whose deformed bodies reflect their vile demeanors. Some have facial features randomly distributed around their misshapen, warty heads. Others have limbs of grossly different sizes and shapes, or emit terrible howls each time they draw breath through misshapen mouths. Their wretched appearance rarely evokes sympathy, however, for the fomorians brought their doom upon themselves with the evil that rules their hearts and minds.

Hill Giants

Hill giants are selfish, dimwitted brutes that hunt and raid in constant search of food. Their skins are tan from lives spent beneath the sun, and their weapons are uprooted trees and rocks pulled from the earth.

Ogres

Ogres are hulking giants notorious for their quick tempers. When its rage is incited, an ogre lashes out in a frustrated tantrum until it runs out of objects or creatures to smash.

Trolls

Fearsome green-skinned giants, trolls eat anything they can catch and devour. Only acid and fire can arrest the regenerative properties of a troll’s flesh.