Zut

Built as soldiers for long vanished deities to fight against a forgotten threat, this species was engineered to be warriors. As a whole, they are truly massive with a voracious appetite and a warlike nature. Originally they came from a different region of the world, far across the now ice-covered north and migrated as their prey did. Hunter-Gatherers, they followed the herds into the glacial region. Because of their nature, and possibly genetics, they thrived in that harsh climate and got stronger. But the prey didn't. Continuing to consume at the rates of their prior environs left the herds, suffering from the cold already, decimated. Too far in to survive going back, their only hope lay forward, beyond the ice.

So it was that when the glaciers advanced south, the Giants advanced ahead of them. Drawing deep on ancient talents, they began ripping apart civilizations in a slow, centuries-long struggle for survival. They were a panicked group, driven by fear. Afraid of obliteration by the unforgiving glacier and unafraid to be vicious to these small folk. They drove the K'vut civilizations before them, forcing them from their lands.

The many nations and ethnicities of the K'vut fled their homelands, granted to them by the absence of their gods. In desperation and prayer, they fled toward the southern seas. When the Three Sisters rose from the ground it cut off any chance for the Giants to flee the advancing Glaciers or pursue the small K'vut. The eruption that settled the Plateau in place afterwards occurred just as the K'vut and their herds were descending into the sea of clouds. The people that would become the Vahobu had stayed on the Plateau and survived the wilderness and the eruption. Many beasts of burden were lost in that time, with only a small group surviving the fall into Falls Lake and making it ashore. As the beasts wandered and drifted in a quest to survive and understand their awakening sapience, a division occurred and the Azou split from the Zmai. The K'vut that made their way past the lake became the Jasuve and split into their three tribes. From the waters off the western coasts came the only unchanged survivors of the K'vut nations, a group of refugees of many ethnicities and colorations that joined together to form a single people - the Niechela.

And the Giants know this history, and speak their languages. Living now in the open plains of north, long after the swift glacial retreat, the Giants keep tabs on their "lesser" kin. During the invasion, the Giant elders recognized the K'vutan script as a curving version of their own angular script and recognized the sigils as the same gods-given literacy as their own. When the Three Sisters rose up, the Giants knew enough to stop - they recognize that their ancient masters are not gone from the world. Knowing that the K'vut are kin had stopped the Giant's depredations, and now they keep watch over them. From the skies, from the sea, trading information between tribes like gossiping neighbors.