Giants

Frost giants

Information collected and gathered by Mo’Arghon Maroun.

General description

Frost giants are large giants living in cold northern areas of Meln. They have got their name just by those cold living regions. A typical frost giant is about 6.5 - 7 meters tall and weighs about 4500 kilos. Females are about same sized as males. Physique is well-proportioned and muscular according to many other giants. Frost giants are very agile in their movements. Skin color varies from nearly white to light-blue. Hair color to same extend varies from white to dark-blue. In some rare cases hair color can be light-yellow. Hair are usually long and straight or little curly. Eyes usually are dark-blue or black and glance is coldly stinging. Frost giant males often grow bushy beard, which has same color as hair.

Life expectancy of frost giants is about 350-400 years. According to many other giant races, either they do not usually experience natural death to oldness. Intensive lifetime could averagely said to be about 100-150 years and ending violently.

(Note: An image of a giant sized barbarian of north came into my mind, when I watched frost giants.)

General personality

Frost giants are unexpected and greedy at least towards other races they think to be lesser. This appears as arrogance and underestimating towards smaller and weaker ones. Frost giants are also said to be self-satisfied and stubborn to a certain extend. They however rarely are violent towards each other. They know that better solution than violence is to let the others do the dirty job and gain itself some benefit that way. Of course situations sometimes reach the point of fight, but even then usually only fists and wrestling are used, unless in case of some very serious disagreement.

Frost giants are believed to be quite intelligent, which is supported with more developed culture and technology than for example stone giants have. Certain kind of temper and chaoticness however give an image of lower intelligence. Perhaps another kind of biotope and better sources of food could make them calmer and release the true potential of their intelligence and make their culture blooming.

(Note: Self-satisfied indeed. I couldn’t stay away to meeting some lone giant I had observed for a long time. It was about to attack me, but praising its strength and superiority changed its mind and I was even able to converse a bit. Everything went fine as long as I remembered to let it think to be clearly higher being and in charge all the time.)

Clothing / Decorations / Architecture

Frost giants are well accustomed for living in cold climate though they commonly wear furs. Furs are gained from polar bears for example. Game animals are skinned and hide is cleaned carefully. Footwear is made of fur that is wrapped around foot and tied with leather string. All in all clothing is taken good care of and appearance is clean.

(Note: All in all cleanliness of self and clothing is taken good care and frost giants don’t drabble in filth like hill and mountain giants for example.)

Both males and females decorate themselves with different jewelry, which usually are robbed or found. In some cases they could manufacture simple neck and wrist jewels by themselves, but that is quite uncommon. Self-made jewels are usually bone pieces, teeth or stones attached to a leather string. Valuable items are some kind of measure of respect among frost giants. Different perforations are common and both males and females perforate themselves. Most common perforations are in ears and nose.

Housing / Society

Frost giants live in groups of 2 - 4 families. One family commonly consist of parents and one to two offspring. Dwellings are built in caves or in arctic climate made of ice and snow. Dwelling don’t usually have any furniture, or if is, those are made of ice. In some cases berth could be padded with furs. If the group doesn’t have cave or the possibility to build a dwelling, it usually wanders around all property with searching better place. The group doesn’t have any actual leader, but usually oldest and most experienced is trusted and followed.

In some cases several smaller groups could form a larger tribe, which usually builds a great fortress of snow and ice. The fortress is always built on so cold climate that it won’t melt down even in summer. The tribe is led by a shaman, who is able to cast low level spells. Shaman of the tribe is absolute leader, but the power has bad habit to rise into head especially among frost giants. Therefore autocracy acts of shaman can well irritate other members of the tribe. In those cases it is not uncommon that other members turn against the shaman and shaman gets killed.

Frost giants can mainly be encountered in arctic climates, but wandering individuals searching new living grounds can be encountered very south. Warmness is not a same kind of problem for a frost giants like it is for ice elves.

(Note: Frost giants don’t have same kind of fearful attitude towards magic like mountain and hill giants for example have.)

Livelihood / Economy

Due to their enormous size, frost giants need great amount of nutrition daily. Most common food is meat, which is gain from polar bears and other arctic animals. Seals and walruses are hunted from seashores and they are important source of fat. In some cases giants living close to seashore might build large, but simple boats, which are used moving on coastal waters. Commonly used material in boat making is grand fir, which grows common in northern climates and which are large enough for big boats. Boats are especially used hunting of whales. Whales are very useful because of their large size and it is beneficial for giants to take pains in hunting them. One whale gives enormous amount of meat and fat. In regions where frost giants live, vegetation is least and therefore their diet doesn’t consist of any plants and therefore they don’t either farm anything. One exception for this is the coldgrain, which is used if found.

Frost giants don’t have own currency. Groups and tribes trade some with each other and all trading is usually exchange. Trading with other races could be possible if the reputation of frost giants would be even little better.

Relationship

In frost giant society female takes care of family’s property and in any case female is the one who commands. Male’s task is to feed family while female takes care of home. Males and female are usually together for lifetime and get one to two offsprings. If the family belongs to a tribe, offsprings usually stay among same tribe. In case of smaller group, the offspring leaves on its own way searching for their luck.

Language and penmanship

Frost giants speak their own language fjord, which closely resembles the language of stone giants. The language is pretty slow and simple sounding. Actually the language is quite simple and one of the easiest giant languages to learn. Frost giants use some simple runes as graphemes, but don’t actually write any longer books or texts. Writing is mainly used in messaging.

Religion and Religious festivals

Frost giants respect and worship the great ice-worm, which they call by the name Gjar’daj, the spirit of coldness. It is said to be enormous light-blue worm living under the largest glacier and breathing coldness into the world. All snow and ice is said to be originated from it. At least once in a starturn frost giants sacrifice a living being to keep their god satisfied and climate warm enough. (Note: Living being can be of any size. Main thing is that it is alive.) The sacrificed being is tied to poles tapped on glacier and left freezing to death.

Frost giants are not known to be actually worshipping any other gods or divine beings. Unlike nearly all other giants, frost giants despise Gxotar, because they believe Gxotar had betrayed them in the War of the Black sun.

Myths and Legends

At least legend is commonly known among frost giants. It tells about their mythical hero Djores Jac’eral. He was told to have challenged The spirit of coldness to a measuring of strength and intelligence. Djores had left challenging The spirit of coldness to get alleviation to unbearable coldness of their biotope. With his intelligence and strength Djores had succeeded just barely winning The spirit of coldness on its own ground. The extreme battle lasted for nearly an eternity and took its tax. Because of severe frostbites Djores was blinded and nearly lost his life. In addition to that his hair, beard and skin turned to snow-white. But Djores won and The spirit of coldness promised to protect the frost giants and keep their living regions warm enough for living. The spirit of coldness however se a condition: Frost giants must sacrifice one living being once in a starturn to prove that they respect their protector and enabler of their life.

Knowingly among other races and cultures don’t have any known myths or legends concerning frost giants.

History / Comprehensions about history

There are plenty of speculations about the origin of frost giant as well there is speculations about origin of all giant races. Even though mutual kinship of all giants is not completely sure, by the most supported theory all giants, frost giants included, are degenerated titans. It has been assumed that a long times ago part of the titans got isolated or willingly isolated from the glorious culture and in the course of time all that glory, intelligence and dignity declined on a way of surviving and managing. Different living regions, conditions, diets, possible crossbreeding with other races and coincidence have gradually formed and shaped giants to completely own races with own clear features and characteristics.

While titans left the known Meln these deteriorated remained and have caused great amount of pain and suffering to other races during the times.

The War of the Black sun was a turning-point in the history of Meln and giants had strong part in it. At the Age of miracles power and influence of Gxotar - The lord of Chaos - grew especially among darker races and they begun preparing to the war, which would raise them to the leaders of the entire Meln. Giants throughout Meln gathered together with other dark races, like orcs and goblins, and formed armies everywhere. In those times frost giants were more common than nowadays and they were cause of biggest destruction in northern areas. With their help many villages and towns were destroyed when walls broke down under the pressure of large boulders.

Frost giants were mainly leaders in army units, because of their intelligence, size and enormous striking force. The war continued for years and numerous amounts of creatures, also giants, were killed. The war ended in time with known results and so ended also the conquest of frost giants. Their numbers had been considerably decreased and survived individuals withdrew recovering farther north beyond the reach of civilized world. The war ended, but hatred against frost giants was corroded into minds of intuals in perpetuity.

After the end of war numbers of frost giants have gradually increased and they have spread farther to the south and wandering individuals can be encountered even close to large towns.

Technology

Items and weapons manufactured by frost giants are surprisingly developed and their technology level can said to be from Dark Ages to middle ages.

Military / Common weapons and techniques

Frost giants are fearsome and nearly fearless opponents. Their enormous size, mighty strength and huge weapons make them to be real killing machines. Main weapons are huge battle-axes and ice or stone boulders. When a frost giant is also protected with armor, it is nearly impossible to win. Most used armor is chain-mail.

Most common tactic in attack is to begin attack with hurling great boulders to walls or palisades and not before the wall has a giant sized hole they begin their attack with battle-axes. Frost giant don’t hesitate to attack alone against several smaller opponents. That arrogance and linearity could also revenge itself when attacked group is too big. Frost giants are nearly immune to coldness. Only magical coldness can harm them, but not with full strength.

Relations to other races

Reputation of frost giants is worse than the reality is. It is truth that many villages and towns in north are protected with walls or palisades just because of frost giants. Even though frost giants regard themselves to be superior if compared to "little folk" and think that humans and other intuals should work as slaves for the benefit of frost giants, they anyway rarely attack village or town. Possible attack usually has other reasons than mere fun of destroying. Real reason for an attack could well be desperate attempt to get food and other supplies, when living conditions have worsened for some reason.

Frost giants and barbarians of the north occasionally cross swords, though the barbarians usually leave giants alone. Conflicts between frost giants and barbarians usually accede to living areas. At encounter the frost giants don’t necessarily always attack, but they have learned that battle and bloodshed aren’t only ways to solve problems. Frost giants could inform barbarians that it would be best for them to move living farther away. Depending on the size of frost giant society, barbarians could willingly move farther or begin open war and try to destroy giants threatening their living areas.

Frost giants get along quite well with stone, hill and mountain giants, but are hated by storm and sun giants. They don’t have dealings with cave giants.

Magic

Some frost giants are intelligent enough to be able to cast spells. Those individuals called shamans are able to cast low level spells. About 10% of all giants able to cast spells are especially talented and can cast also higher level spells. Spells usually have something to do with coldness and ice, controlling of those elements and protecting against them. Used magic is nearly without an exception wizard magic. Divine magic can also be used, but that is extremely rare.

There isn’t any proves about usage of psi-powers, but commonly it is not believed that mind of frost giants would not satisfy the requirements of psi-powers. Of course it is not completely impossible that somewhere could be a frost giant able to use psi-powers. In that case the giant itself wouldn’t necessarily know about its powers to say nothing about using them.