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Originally posted by Markustay

Auril? Thats an odd choice for a giant (especially since we now know Auril if Fey, and Fey and giants don't like each other).

I just don't see Thrymm being very active in The Realms. Maybe he lost a bet to Auril a LONG time ago.

And now you have me thinking of Giantkin as 'fey giants'. That could work...

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The world was young.
And on the shores of Cold Ocean sat the woman, and she had the size of a mountain and the shape as well. She had great hips as large as hillocks and she had a bosom of craggy buttresses. The woman had also a sharp chin and a crooked nose, and cheeks as flat as cliffs. She had eyes round and black, as are caves, and white billowing hair, like snow blow­ing off the lofty peaks.
Ulutiu, the Ocean King, knew not the woman's name, nor did he care, as long as she came often to dangle her feet in his sea. Then he liked to climb to her shoulders and come sliding back down, to twirl his sinuous body around her peaks, to slip down her stomach and glide along the cleft where her thighs pressed together, then to leap off her knees at journey's end and splash back into the freezing waters. So much did the Ocean King like this game that he would climb onto the icy shore and do it again and again, doing it for days with no thought of hunger or fatigue or any­thing but joy, temporal and fleshly.
And the woman, who was called Othea, also loved the game well. The feel of Ulutiu's slick hide slithering over her skin she craved as her lungs craved air. She liked to brace her hands against the frozen ground, lean back, close her eyes, and think only of the icy pleasures ravaging her body. Deep into torpor would she fall. She would sink into a stupor as blissful as it was cold, and at last she would collapse in utter ecstasy. Then would her body quake, rocking lands far away, ripping green meadows asunder and shaking the snow from the mountains to crash down into the valleys with a fury as great as her rapture.
All this Annam the All Father saw. Mighty was his wrath, and mightier still because it was his curse to hear their thoughts and feel their lust. He raised himself from the canyon where he had lain, and even the crashing flood waters when the river flowed again were not as fierce as his temper. The All Father spat out his disgust, and a storm of sleet raged across the gray waters of Cold Ocean.
Annam strode forward. So heavy were his steps that the creatures of the air forsook their nests and flew, geese and harpies together, eagles beside dragons; so many were there that they darkened the sky with their wings. The beasts of the land also fled, hooves and claws tearing the plants from the meadows, and also the monsters of the sea, their fins and flukes churning the ocean into a cold froth.
Then did Ulutiu know he had transgressed against a high god. He peered over Othea's knee, and his whiskers twitched and his ears lay against his head.
"Othea!" Annam's voice howled across the shore like the blustering wind, and truly there had never been a tempest so terrible. "Have I not spoken against your dalliances?"
Ulutiu's dark eyes grew wide with terror, and he disap­peared behind Othea's bulk. Annam heard a splash in Cold Ocean and was not pleased. He rushed to the sea in two quick bounds and there he knelt, and when he spied a dark figure slipping from shore he stretched out his long arm and scooped the Ocean King from the icy waters.
"Annam, harm him not!" Othea's voice rolled across the icy shore as the rumble of a fuming mountain, and it was plain that she spoke in command, not supplication. "Ulutiu bears no blame in this. He was playing, nothing more."
"I know well enough what his games beget!" The All Father rose to his exalted height and faced Othea, and the cold water that dripped from his hand fell over the land like rain. "Firbolgs, verbeegs, fomorians, ettins!"
"Nay, not the ettin," Othea corrected, and when she spoke she showed Annam no fear. "That one you sired."
"Perhaps, but that is not the matter here."
Surely, it would have pleased Annam to deny the ettin's paternity, but the All Father knew he had sired the monster, and Othea would not say it had been someone else. That she denied him even this boon made his anger greater, and he thought that her punishment would be very hard indeed.
Othea paid no heed to Annam's ire, for she was not happy to have her game interrupted. "What is the matter, Hus­band?"
"I took you as Mother Queen of the giants," Annam answered. "You are to people Toril with my progeny—true giants—not with Ulutiu's bastard races!"
"Toril is as empty as it is young," Othea responded. "There is room enough for giant-kin."
"Did you not claim the same defense after your dance with rat-faced Vaprak?" Annam demanded. "And now ogres over­run Ostoria. Everywhere, they plague the empire of my children, gnawing at its seams like vermin."
"Perhaps your children are weak and Vaprak's are strong."
"I should have drowned the ogre when first you bore it!" Annam stormed, and a blizzard swept across the shore on roaring winds. "I should have crushed Vaprak's skull for dar­ing to cuckold me. I shall not make the mistake twice."
The All Father made tight his grip. Though the shriek that rose from the Ocean King's throat was long and loud, it was a mere gust against the tempest of Annam's anger. Ulutiu saw he would soon die, so he pulled with hands that were like flippers and he kicked with feet that were like flukes. But Annam was the strongest of the strong, and nothing could escape his grip.

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Originally posted by Dalor Darden

There are "fey" giants after all: Firbolg and Voadkyn...so Auril isn't too far off base.

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Originally posted by LordofBones

I'd say that Auril's cults among the frost giants LOATHE Kostchtchie's cults with a frozen passion. One would have mostly female giants, while the other is infamous for misogyny.

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Originally posted by farinal

I also think Auril fits very well with Gerti and I don't see any problems religion wise since Gerti, along with rest of the Realms is not a monotheist.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

You know, if anything this makes me feel like Othea is very similar to Skadi (a Jotunn associated with mountains, snow, skiing and bowhunting) and Ulutiu similar to Njord (a god of the sea, wealth, and fertility... who was also a Vanir rather than an Aesir, and father of Freyr and Freyja). However, Skadi and Ulutiu were not happy together, as one was the mountains and the other the sea, so they broke up and Skadi married Odin, the All Father. If Annam = Odin in this storyline, we have the 3 main players, but it would be that the story we've heard that Othea and Annam were not happy together but Othea and Ulutiu were happy together is the part that doesn't mirror the norse tale.

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Originally posted by Markustay

There is that, in the 'broader D&D sense', but we also have it from Ed that in the Realms, everyone pays lip-service to just about all the gods, and its not entirely unknown for someone to choose as a 'personal patron' a deity not of their own race. Look at Drizzt. He should have been following Eilistraee, but he chose Mielikki (of course, I think they're the same being, just different aspects, but what do I know). Unless a 'god' is an ascended mortal - and most aren't - then its kind of absurd to even think of gods as having a 'race'. They might have favorites, but that's as far as it goes.

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