GoCorral

Physical Description

There are many kind of giants in Cimmeria but they are all huge, strong, and ferocious. The smallest giants stand at about eight feet tall while the largest are more than twenty feet tall. Weights are similarly variable with giants often being heavy for their relative height due to increased fat and muscle mass. The might of giants is legendary. Commonly giants will wield boulders as ranged weapons, throwing the large rocks accurately at targets several hundred feet away. Many giants are also blessed with minor supernatural powers. These powers vary between the different subraces of giant with no unifying factor across the whole race.

Culture

Giants use their increased size as their main weapon in life. Problems are always dealt with by force first and negotiation last. The strongest giants rule their tribes and villages. Intelligence is hated in giant families, where book reading and cleverness are punished rather than encouraged. Giant culture has advanced at a glacial pace over the centuries due to this practice. Many giantkin still use only stone tools as forging metal is too advanced. They can occasionally repurpose tools made by smaller races, but the difference in size makes this difficult.

While giants are violent as individuals, larger communities favor peaceful relationships with neighboring races. This behavior has been reinforced over many years. Giants are larger and stronger than other races, but their disdain for finer crafts puts them at a disadvantage in extended conflicts. A tribe of giants can often do little against a single flying mage raining fireballs down upon them. Thus, giant villages keep to themselves. The few giants that commit crimes are often exiled from these communities. These exiles are like natural disasters to the small villages they can find. A testament to the power of giantkin, even one rogue giant is sufficient to ruin any farming hamlet.

History

The giants came into being long ago during the Silver Age after the Olympians overthrew and imprisoned the Titans. Gaia was upset that her children were treated so poorly by her grandchildren. She gathered the spilled blood of Uranos and used it to form a new race, the giants. Their destiny would be to enact vengeance upon the Olympians for the barbaric punishments inflicted upon the Titans in Tartaros. These first giants fought a war known as the Gigantomachy against the Olympians. They were defeated by Zeus’s thunderbolts and exiled to the edges of the world.

Before even the giants, there were the Cyclopes. They are three brothers, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who were born to Gaia and Uranos before the Titans during the rule of Uranos. Their father imprisoned them for their ugliness, but Zeus freed them during the Titanomachy for their assistance in the war. The three brothers served Zeus as his forge masters until Hephaestus was born. These three saw a kinship with the giants after the Gigantomachy. They left the Olympian kingdom and became the rulers of the giants in exile.

From the union of the Cyclopes and the giants came the myriad of giant races across the world. Elemental giants, lesser cyclopes, two-headed ettins, brutish ogres, and savage trolls are all descendants of Brontes, Steropes, and Arges. These giantkin can be found in every corner of the Earth, not just in Cimmeria.

Within Cimmeria, the giantkin fought on the dragons’ side during the Dragon War. They were a particular problem for the dwarven cities and the people of Greshendale due to their locations in the Terror Mountains. Giants continue to occasionally threaten those areas, but not on the scale of the Dragon War.

Some giants settled in the Dominarie Mountians and the Shacklack Desert. The sand giants in the desert also fought alongside the dragons. After the establishment of the Lich Shade, these sand giants antagonized the Bane. The powerfully evil undead enacted his vengeance. The sand giants were exterminated to the last one. Bavastatner withheld his support, favoring the fire giants of the mountains instead. These fire giants have interbred with blue dragons over the centuries. Many show draconic heritage and lightning powers in modern Cimmeria.