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Seethyr
Master of Realmslore
USA
1217 Posts |
 Posted - 10 Apr 2025 : 14:34:04
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I know the connections between FR lore and generic 5e lore are wonky at best but I actually appreciate some of what was written in Bigby’s about the giant Ordning and the relationships between the gods and giants.
But it didn’t say anything about some of the FR specific giants.
So we have as far as I know specifically the Fog, Mountain, Phaerlin and Maur giants (is that comprehensive?). The latter two are degenerate versions of others (stone, I believe), but what about the fog and mountain? I’ve read that mountain giants are related to hill, and fog are related to cloud (also slightly degenerate) but do we have any hidden tidbits about them? There was a famous fog giant in GHotR from what I remember who had a major role in the Dragon War, which didn’t seem like something a fog giant would do, but whatever.
Has Ed or anyone else ever had anything juicy about these races?
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TomCosta
Forgotten Realms Designer
USA
985 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2025 : 20:03:12
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| There's all the Zakharan and other Realms settings giants (Spelljammer has a few too). Mountain could just be 5E gargantua. Fog a variation on cloud. |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11989 Posts |
Posted - 11 Apr 2025 : 15:21:31
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| One thing I would suggest in regards SOME of these offshoots is that they are giants.... but not related to Annam and his kin. So, like the giants in Zakhara for instance, I have zero problem with them having been created by another "power" possibly interacting with a "goddess"/"primordial"/"primal power" similar to Annam and Othea. It makes things a lot easier in my book, especially when you look at things like humans being turned into orcs and trolls in Maztica in the books.... so technically those orcs and trolls are not related as a result to Gruumsh or Vaprak, so a canon example people can point to and go "look, some races technically have no link to their racial gods". |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Seethyr
Master of Realmslore
USA
1217 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2025 : 01:41:25
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quote:
Originally posted by TomCosta
There's all the Zakharan and other Realms settings giants (Spelljammer has a few too). Mountain could just be 5E gargantua. Fog a variation on cloud.
Interesting, I never thought of using gargantua as anything in the Realms. I didn’t even think they had a place in it. That works though.
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
One thing I would suggest in regards SOME of these offshoots is that they are giants.... but not related to Annam and his kin. So, like the giants in Zakhara for instance, I have zero problem with them having been created by another "power" possibly interacting with a "goddess"/"primordial"/"primal power" similar to Annam and Othea. It makes things a lot easier in my book, especially when you look at things like humans being turned into orcs and trolls in Maztica in the books.... so technically those orcs and trolls are not related as a result to Gruumsh or Vaprak, so a canon example people can point to and go "look, some races technically have no link to their racial gods".
Yeah I can’t imagine the island giants having a relationship to Annam at all. Jungle giants, maybe a distant tribe from the dragon war days. |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11989 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2025 : 17:41:47
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I started this response, and as I dig, its making me think this would be a wonderful thread to maybe discuss designing a history for the giants of Zakhara. I created a section at the end after the bold face where I figured I might throw out some ideas for discussion.
Just to note, this thread made me just want to reread entries about the giants in Zakhara, because I knew there were very specific ones that were different. However, there's a section that talks about giants that would technically be considered Annam's children (specifically hill, stone, and fire giants.... but there's things like reef giants that speak cloud and storm giant language by default).
snippet from MC13 Al-Qadim Monstrous Compendium
The giants of the Land of Fate dress as most civilized people do, in robes and tunics and turbans made of fine cottons and silks. Hill giants in Zakhara do not wander the land like fur-clad barbarians: if they can afford it and have need of it, they wear armor. Porter and dockworker giants wear what they find decent and comfortable.
Zakharan giants are entirely willing to engage in trade to get various items such as coffee, cloth, and spices from other races. In exchange they offer rare furs and jungle flowers, riches from the sea, and opals or other gemstones taken from the deserts. A few exceptional giants take their skills to town and set up shop. Stone giants, for example, may work as master masons, jewelers, or quarrymen, and an occasional fire giant is sometimes found at the bellows or the hammers in a smithy. Desert and reef giants live so far from most human haunts that they venture into the great cities rarely, and when they do they generally remain in the suq or the bazaar. Generally only hill giants will
truly adapt to city life.
Although they call them hill giants, I'd personally be inclined to swap them out to a variation of verbeeg for the civilized giants living in cities very commonly. But, that's not a major thing in my book
However, all that being said, continuing this reading, it would appear that they have rules of society that are quite different from the ordning, but no less a structure. So, I figured it would be pertinent to add that to this conversation.
Children are treasured in giantish society, and all giants in a clan contribute to the upbringing of the young. Striking a child is a serious offense, and any mistreatment of children (one's own or the children of others) brings down the wrath of the clan on the perpetrator.
Zakharan giants have written traditions of poetry and scholarship. Desert and reef giants are the most literate, and the work of their historians and scholars is valued by humans because of its overview of long time periods.
All the giants of Zakhara are traditionalists: they believe that there are proper ways of doing everything, whether it be brewing tea, curing meat, negotiating a contract, or preparing a desert clan for battle. Not following giantish protocol is a serious breach of etiquette and often results in violent punishment or expulsion from the company of the giants, depending on the severity of the offense. Zakharan giants refuse to be rushed in anything, and they are supremely confident that their time honored methods are the best. Their scholarship is influenced by this tendency as well, with the result that it can be called plodding and reactionary. Giants look to the past more than they look to the future.
and this
Giants operate their legal affairs in their own communities by an ancient code of law that emphasizes taking back from the lawbreaker what was lost due to his crime. Theft, extortion, and even assault are judged with considerable mercy: criminals are forced to return property and sometimes forced to enter indentured servitude to restore the original way of things. In cases of murder, child abuse, treachery, and rape, where it is impossible to make amends, giantish law calls for branding and exile rather than death.
Giantish law is especially harsh on those who might expect to be least affected by it: nongiants. For reasons of racial pride in their past, all giants consider their code of law and their judges to be far above the primitive, upstart laws of other races. Creatures brought before a giantish court (for flouting protocol, for example) may not appeal to their own legal system. In this, the giants of the Burning World are unrepentant, and they insist that they are doing the world a favor by spreading their code throughout the land. In communities where giants live with humans, they abide by human laws, though they make their misgivings about it plain.
So, that being said, it raises a question of my own initial thoughts before .... SHOULD the giants of Zakhara be seen as possibly splinter group from Annam's children, possibly intermingled with another group of giants/giant-kin from some other "powers"? Just because they have a ancient code of laws doesn't mean much to that effect, but it does help.
It had also occurred to me that perhaps the giants were possibly brought to Zakhara from the elemental planes by the genies, but I'd be less inclined to that after reading this section, and noting that 25% of giants in Zakhara are "some kind of" spellcaster (divine or arcane.. though they say priests and mages due to it being 2e, I'm inclined towards bards, clerics, druids, fighters (eldritch knights), paladins, monks (way of the four elements), rangers, rogues (arcane trickster), sorcerors, warlocks, and wizards.
Giants and genies do not always get along, as genies refuse to recognize the power of the giants and their superior traditions, and giants refuse to give the genies tribute or sacrifice; neither will the giants acknowledge the genies as superior beings. The clash of these two proud groups has perhaps been responsible for the slow decline of the giants, though neither giants nor genies talk much of the other. The two groups never cooperate.
Finally, it should be noted with most of the giant races in Zakhara ... they've been cursed in some form
Desert giants were once numerous in the scrub plains and deserts of the Land of Fate, but they have fallen victim to a divine curse which transforms them slowly but inexorably into stone. They always wander the land in the company of their cattle and their mounts. Their great civilization has long since vanished under the sands.
Rom are thought to be all that remains of an ancient race of giant herdsmen. They lived in the hills and on the plains where their giant cows could graze, some practicing a limited form of agriculture. They were a quiet, peace-loving people whose end came when their wives produced only male children; there were no further generations.
Shaking their fists at the sad destiny Fate had passed upon them, they built enormous stone cairns for themselves, fashioned out of monolithic granite slabs. Entire clans of rom descended into their self-made tombs, burying themselves alive. However, so great was their collective self-pity and anger at Fate, that their existence persisted beyond death.
then there are giant-KIN or magically changed "giants" that one could easily relate to godly spawn of Vaprak with another being like Othea perhaps
Aside from their phenomenal size, ogre giants have more in common with ogres and ogre magi than they do with "true" giants (such as hill, stone, and jungle varieties). Ogre magi and other solitary beings may use ogre giants as guardians. Ogres, at least the enlightened ones, avoid their unpredictable and oft-savage cousins.
Island giants are one of nature's curiosities. Males are completely infertile. Females, on the other hand, are quite fecund. They can reproduce by coupling with any other giant or humanoid race. True giants are preferred, but an island female may successfully mate with humans, elves, dwarves, and even genies.
Silats are a race of female, shapeshifting hags that roam both the wilderness and cities of Zakhara in magical disguise, searching for food. In their true form, a silat appears to be a giant female humanoid with pale green or blue skin and curved ram's horns curling from each side of her head.
<snip>
In the wilderness, adult silats may be encountered alone, or with their family. Silats propagate their species by mating with ogre magi. Male offspring of such a union are ogre magi, while the female offspring are silats.
So after all that mentioned above... let's throw out some ideas and see where they might go
The picture I have in my head is that Zakhara may have once been a place where there were a lot more giants. It fits that hill, stone, fire, cloud, and storm giants all fit to the area. Then at some point, perhaps genie kind started to show up, and SOME of genie kind decided to make harems of male or female giants, or simply giant and genie fell in love and made offspring. For instance, I can EASILY see hill giant/jann offspring that becomes the desert giants. I can easily see storm giant/marid pairings that become reef giants, especially since they speak the "giantish trade tongue and the language of storm and cloud giants".
To add into this in another way of interaction between giants and genies, what if some of the tasked genies of Zakhara are somehow "enslaved" / transformed giants? What if the curses afflicting some of these giant races are a result of genie granted wishes gone awry (a note, giants are noted as NOT being able to be sha'ir... which implies that they are particularly disinclined to trust geniekind)?
I think we could definitely merge some of this with the discussion we had about 4 years ago regarind Lamashtu, Ereshkigal, Tawaret (and subsequent birth of Shajar), Sekhmet (as Kiga the Predator), and Maahes in this thread.
http://candlekeep.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24069
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Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Seethyr
Master of Realmslore
USA
1217 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2025 : 22:44:43
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As always Sleyvas, that’s some good stuff and a lot to think about.
I have a particular love for those island giants because I was a huge fan of the old Sinbad movies as a kid. That’s what I loved about Al Qadim and miss about it. Time to maybe pore over those old books. |
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FR Giants and the Ordning
