Giants

Overview
Giants are an ancient and noble race of titanic humanoids, and are one of the oldest races of Prime Material Plane, if not the very first. According to HISTORIA ANNORUM, after humanity was freed from the enslavement of the Old Ones and given life, they found large portions of the world ruled by Giants. Little is written about these ancient empires or the Giants themselves, besides old humanity's brief periods of time shared with them. As mankind expanded and their ambition grew, the Giants were forced to grant humanity dominion over the earth, according to ancient law and the will of the All Father.

The Dominion of Giants
"Though dominion of the earth has been given to man, the world first belonged to the Giants; the primordial children of fire, frost, earth, sky and storm. The Giants of storm were the greatest of all, for their hands were lightning, their wrath was the sea, and their voice was thunder.

"It came to pass that man, in his newfound spirit of triumph, came upon the seas of the Giants, and wished to conquer them. The lord of the Giants looked down, and saw that the race of man was weak, and thus sent Osius the Champion, saying 'He who is worthy to conquer the sea must first conquer thou.'

"Thus rose Herowan the Great, who fashioned the first longbow, and strode to the cliffs of Orobar to meet Osius the Champion, declaring 'To the victor, dominion is his.'

"In the sight of all men and all lords of storm, Osius descended to the cliffs of Orobar and charged; Herowan thus stood unmoved by thunder, wind or spray, and in his string he placed one arrow of mithril. As his foe approached he shot, and with all speed and deadliness did the gods guide his arrow, into the right eye of Osius the Champion, who fell headlong from Orobar with a great cry, which could be heard on that day from all shores of the world.

"Thus the race of man rejoiced in victory, and the Giants conceded, saying 'To the victor, dominion is his.'"

Storm Giants
The oldest and most powerful of Giant kind were the Storm Giants. They are described by Ulo the Historian as having voices of thunder, hands of lightning, and wrath of the raging seas. In times of old they are said to have resided in titanic kingdoms that rolled over the sea in enormous masses of dark stormclouds. It is written that the Storm Giants were forced to give up large portions of earth's dominion to mankind, and that an unknown catastrophe crumbled their remaining empire to ruin thousands of years later. This cataclysm that befell was a painful blow to all Storm Giant kind and their pride, who have virtually ceased to exist in the known world.

It is said that the few Storm Giants that are left wander aimlessly in grim and furious sorrow on the bottoms of the seas, remembering their ancient empire, and grieving over the forgotten pride of their once noble race. It is said now that the wrathful storms of the sea are the grievances of the immortal Storm Giants, who's sorrow and anger churns up chaos in the world above.

Cloud Giants
While the Storm Giants resided in thunderous black kingdoms over the raging seas, the Cloud Giants drifted high above the land in in cloud-borne mansions, looking down on the wide green world. Cloud Giants were noble and proud without the arrogance of their Storm kin, preferring to reside each in their own estates, enjoying the simple luxuries of life. In their great houses and gardens high above the world, they would grow fruits and vegetables of giant size, sometimes climbing down to earth from great beanstalks to trade their produce with ancient man.

The Cloud Giants were generous, but their culture possessed a strong sense of ownership and personal pride. To offend a Cloud Giant was a great dishonor both to them and to the offender, and thus, as the ages passed and man's desire for power grew, humanity forgot their bonds of peace and made war, for they too wanted to rule the skies in cloud-borne mansions of light. And thus, the Cloud Giants receded from humanity, riding atop the high winds and drifting to uncharted corners of the earth, where the greed of mortal creatures could bother them no more. There they reside to this day in peace, not bothering to meddle with the affairs of man, who can only know harmony for a short time, until war proves more beneficial to them.

Fire Giants
The greatest smiths that the world has ever known were the Fire Giants, who were the first beings to fashion objects from the metals of the earth. During the early ages of the world, Fire Giants were worshiped by dwarves and revered as gods. It was they who taught the burrowing folk how to shape metal with smithwork, and how to cut stone for their great halls. These concepts and passions were imbued into the dwarves as a people, who have become the only race ever to rival the craft of the ancient Fire Giants, though no mortal craftsmanship could ever compare.

In times of old it is said that legions of Fire Giants could scorch entire regions just by stampeding across them, and that if they had decided to fight intentionally, there would be nothing left but ash. Despite this, when mankind claimed dominion over large portions of the earth, the flaming titans followed the ancient code and receded into underground caverns, deep below the surface, where their hollowed underground empires still may exist to this day.

Stone Giants
Great sculptors and painters were the Stone Giants of old. They were philosophers and artists; a great people who enjoyed simple peace. Their canvases were the ancient mountains and cliff sides, where they would sculpt titanic and beautiful shapes, and depict great stories and ideas that they felt the world should not soon forget. In their day, it is said that the stone giants would hurl rocks back and forth between one another for fun, in the same way that we might play catch. Their mastery of this simple sport was renowned, so much so that ancient men would gather on the elder mountains to watch the giants for hours.

It is said that when man and dwarf began to multiply and conquer the world in vaster portions, the great works of art created by the Stone Giants were defaced en masse, tarnished and destroyed by war, greed, and mankind's innate desire for power. Thus, in sadness, the Stone Giants migrated to the underbelly of the world, sealing the ancient pathways that led there, and leaving the bright surface world to seek a new home in the caverns of the earth. It is said that, to this day, the Stone Giants still sculpt, paint, and tell stories, but now, they reminisce about the great beauty of the surface world, and about the blue sky and bright stars that they, as a race, have not laid eyes on since the earth was young.

Frost Giants
Great warriors and huntsmen of the world's harshest climates, the Frost Giants are on the lowest rung of intelligent Giant society, but they could care less. Frost Giants are elementally adept in cold climates, and have thus concentrated themselves as a race in the most polar of earth's environments, where the temperatures do not permit human kind to survive comfortably. This has allowed them to be one of the last races of Giants to actively survive on the surface world. And with ancient codes concerning mankind's dominion forgotten, it is unlikely that the Frost Giants will ever budge from their home turf, even if it is encroached upon by man.

Frost Giants are the dim-witted vikings of Giant society, brandishing crude axes and armor fashioned using what metals they can find, and great fur coats made from unfortunate multitudes of polar beasts. Few mortal beings have ever survived a Frost Giant attack, and precious fewer have ever seen them or studied them up close. It is known that the titans have learned to bend other arctic monsters to their will, likely through threats of violence. These monsters include beasts such as winter wolves and frost trolls, and there is even a claim that the Giants had learned to master a remorhaz, but such a concept seems unlikely.

In modern ages, Frost Giants are still reported to prowl the windswept tundras of Yookay in the far east, and it is doubtful that they will ever expand from there, as long as the supply of game lasts. Conveniently, it is these brutish warriors that unknowingly aided the Spaurians during the Grimbrand Wars, by making Yookay utterly impassable for the Grimbrand dwarves, who were not accustomed to cold climates, and were no match for the brute force of the Frost Giants.

To this day, the arctic titans hold their ground in Yookay, intolerant of any who should encroach on their land. As some of the only civilized giants still left in existence on the surface world, the Frost Giants are brutal reminders of the size, power, and majesty of the Giants of old.

Hill Giants
The scourge of Giant-kin, the Hill Giants are nothing short of brainless ogres who wander the countrysides in search of their next meal, whether that be a farmer, his cart, or the dirt underneath the cart. Not much is known about the Hill Giants, and the rest of Giant kind cares not to speak about them, viewing them as the retarded youngest offspring of a noble lineage of titans. Strangely, though the other five giants are each bound to one of the five Major Elemental planes, the Hill Giants don't appear to be elemental whatsoever in their nature; neither do they share any intelligent qualities possessed by others of their kind. Though Hill Giants are capable of speech, their vocabulary is mostly limited to grunts, groans, giggles, and the occasional babbled words in Common or Giant. They do not fashion tools or clothing in the same degree of expertise as other Giants or even humans, choosing instead a fallen tree as a club, and a torn up tarp as a loincloth. They are brutish, crude, and very ogre-like in nature, their very existence a stain of disgrace on the otherwise noble race of Giants.

Hill Giants were not uncommon during the Pre-Spaurian and early First Age, and posed a massive problem for settlers, farmers and explorers. Though they did not always seek out humans for food, they wouldn't hesitate to eat them if necessary, and they had a habit of snacking on large numbers of sheep and cattle when they could get their grubby hands on them. Though the new world of Glaun Encaru presented many monstrous threats, it was the Hill Giants that sparked the existence of the Spaurian Rangers, who made it their mission to turn hunters into hunted. As the decades passed, the Hill Giant population rapidly decreased, until the creatures were almost extinct. It is thought that many of their number fled to the Slagrim Mountains and vanished into the lands beyond, but some still remain in Spauria to this day, mostly avoiding human settlements, and preying on the beasts of the wild near the Trollspine Mountains and other remote locations.

Religion and Society
Though the different kinds of Giants rarely interacted with one another, they considered themselves brothers, and held one another in mutual respect. There are no recorded incidents of Giants ever attacking one another, and interaction between two separate Giant kinds only ever occurred if necessary. Each Giant-kin had their own structured society, but the only shared creeds that bound the five races together was a ranking system known as "the Ordning," and their mutual respect for "the All Father."

The Ordning ranked the Giants according to the will of the All Father, and according to all known lore, there has never been any dispute about this ranking system between the Giants, who accept their individual places within it without question. The greatest and most noble in the Ordning begins with the Storm, followed by Cloud, then Fire, Stone, and finally Frost, with Hill Giants being excluded from the Ordning entirely. According to this order, Giants who's rank exceeded that of another Giant-kin had a certain level of authority over them as a race.

The All Father is said to be the father of the Giants and of the primordial world, having created it with his own hands, and given it to his mighty children to govern. Though the All Father has the characteristics of a god, he is not worshiped as one in the same way that humans might worship their deities. Instead, he is held by each individual Giant as their immortal father, to be obeyed and respected by all of Giant kind. According to the will of the All Father, Giants are to allow man to conquer the world as they expand, though with ease his children could have wiped man from the face of the planet during their infant stage. Dominion over the earth has been given to humanity, but the Giants have been given the gift of prime nobility and peace. It is said that, so long as they should hold to the ideals and the code of the All Father, the Giants shall never experience war and turmoil such as the humans do. Thus far, this has held true, and the Giants have never seen war amongst each other, or a loss of their great nobility but for the Storm Giants, who were once the greatest of the Ordning, but have been reduced to wandering titans of sorrow.

Trivia
It was been pointed out by scholars that the All Father shares many similarities with the Ao, the Great Dreamer of Spaurian mythology who first created the world and the cosmos.

It has been hinted at by Volo the Giant, who regularly visits Spauria in his cloud-borne house, that a society of Cloud Giants exists somewhere in the world beyond the Slagrim Mountains, but that they should not be sought out, as "their hearts have turned sour."

The first and last known appearance of a Fire Giant on the surface of Glaun Encaru was that of Arkk-Sul during the Grimbrand War.