This story isn't true. It's like ninety percent conjecture, and like maybe eight percent ancestral memory with just a hint of facts. I'll just start with those points that are irrefutable.
- Various types of humanoids exist. Short Vahobu in the Three Sisters, stout Jasuve in the hills, and the ever-nomadic Niechela of the plains.
- Then there are folks who resemble those guys but bestial: Satyrs, Tauren, Fauns, Centaurs, Merpeople.
- And then there are plant people who took that shape: Dryads, Nymphs, Naiads, and Ents.
- All of these groups have a story about Sacred Water, and it being lost during the cataclysm that caused them to flee south from the Giants - who by the way have their own Sacred Water Myth.
- The stories of their origins say that they fled together but left each other behind in various places: Their hunting animals fled during the Upheaval and settled in the forests. The Herds were cut off and headed into the southern wastelands. The three humanoids broke apart in the mountains and again in the hills. Each story begins with "After the loss of the Sacred Water..."
Now the Conjecture:
The Sacred Water was a transformative magical potion of sorts - magic distilled in liquid form. The taking of it turned the ancestors of the giants into the literal Giants we know them as. But that was if they drank it all. What if some only got a drop, while others took more? What if it wasn't drank but applied? And why have these various beings taken the form they have? I'll answer it all with another question: What if the Sacred Water's magic enhanced what you already had within you and gave you the sensitivity to magic?
We know that Magic changes the very nature of things. That it forces a form of evolution through consistent adaptation after exposure. The Giants prove this by their varied appearances and their divergent natural adaptations. If the Sacred Water was applied to some, that sensitivity to magic may be only skin-deep at first. Those affected by it may only change a little at a time over generations while maintaining certain distinct genetic differences - until the magic that forces the adaptation has changed them far enough from their various origins so that they can blend genetically. If that Sacred Water were bathed in, or sipped, the changes might be more complete, and the adaptations to their environment might be more complete as well. Finally, if the Sacred Water were to be absorbed by the roots of some species of trees or plants, especially if it was simultaneously absorbing genetic material of a person that died, said plants may awaken to our form of consciousness.
While this has all been conjecture: This theory is the most complete and believable in its entirety.
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