Giantkin

From Tearsofblood

Revision as of 21:52, 7 November 2007

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Physical Description

The Giantkin are a large, but benevolent and friendly folk who live in the tundras of the north. During their everyday life,they do not have much contact with other people besides the Omeshik who also live in the north, though there is one quite big exception - a travel to the South in their youth in some Giantkin groups. However, since the Giantkin live in a vast area and are not great in number, most of them don’t end up in Feldarin or other „civilized“ areas. People tend to recognize Giantkin, although most know little about them besides the fact that they are big, also, there is very few research about their life in their homes. Sometimes a Yuyungese or Feldarin explorer has studied them, but this was the hobby of a few and unknown to the masses. This was the state before the Plague. Sometimes a farmer saw a giant shape asking for way from him and had something to tell his grandchildren about when he grew old. People knew that they existed, and as long as they minded their own business, they didn’t care. However, they gained more attention during the Plague, because of their strange immunity to it. The Giantkin had a most queer quality – the Plague left them completely untouched. When people heard of this, despite the immunity to the Plague, being Giantkin wasn’t more dangerous than before, starting with problems such as angry mobs beating them to death out of envy and finishing with rich Feldarin nobles who feared the disease and ordered them to be captured and studied in all possible ways (usually with little care about the Giantkin individual). This was not without lasting effects – now, about ten years after the Plague, the Giantkin still prefer to travel to non-civilized areas because of the tales of „southern people growing and mad and bloodthirsty in their terrible disease“ and Giantkin have slightly demonized in the Feldarin-area folklore. The scarce correct information about the Giantkin grew even scarcer and people know very little about Giantkin as such.

One of the few sources of information about Giantkin in their everyday life comes from an Feldarin traveller, explorer and writer von Nordlicht (name taken himself). He travelled to the far north with five human servants and lived with the Giantkin for ten years. His diaries reveal a lot of information about that strange, but calm folk. Besides the Giantkin, he also writes about the harsh but beautiful northern nature, other folk who live in the northlands and the strange creatures and anomalies that he encountered.

Day 78. of my expedition I now have mastered – nay, not mastered, for I feel that mastering this strange tongue is impossible for anyone who is not a Giantkin. But i can understand their speech and – what is more – their stories so that i could understand this folk. They speak Feldarin, but do not speak in it to anyone but me and my companions.

One of the things that has shocked me about these Giantkin are not religious – they have no respect or knowledge about the Five Gods, making them a bit alike with the native Caltan in some way – Caerdan seemed to grasp their way of thought better than I.

But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t spiritual. They seem to think that everything in nature has a soul, every bird, fish, animal, tree, grass, snow, stones - anything you can name has one. They want these spirits to be friendly so they put to mind never to hunt or fish too much; they speak and pray with the trees and stones, and I think they think that the trees speak back.

Perhaps that is a language even more difficult than the one of the Giantkin.

Culture

The Giantkin live in small tribes of 30- 300 Giantkin ruled by councils of elders or chiefs. Generally they don’t any inheriteable class system – but there is an exeption – thorough the lands there are three or four Giantkin who could be best described as storyteller-lords. They do not command tribes nor have much power besides their stories - but that is a great power among the Giantkin and they are very much respected. There are also stories about the lords - that many can’t face their stares and that their bodies are penetrated in some ways under their heavy wollen clothes. They live alone as a rule (on marshislands and lonely hills and islands) and are respected and even feared and thought of being wise. They haven’t called the Giantkin together for seven centuries or done anything but telling stories to those who dare to visit them. They even function as ones to scare the children. Few Inuit know about their existence and if they do, they fear them. In the days long past, when the Giantkin had a stronger sense of unity, there was a tradition of tribes travelling and gathering near the lord of the area where there would be an occurence every five years that could be best described as a very big fair – lots of trading, court disputes of great importance, competitions for the best wrestlers, archers, singers, storytellers and many others. During the Plague, one of the lords wanted to revive the tradition and call together the gathering, but only two tribes appeared. Nowadays these fairplaces are long left behind, only wind, birds and reindeer going there and lords live in the swamps and islands.

Day 379 of my Expedition

Today Caerden died. I wept. He had been a good, honest and trustworthy man, although of low birth and i had gone a long way with him. He had been suffering under a disease for couple of weeks and today, just when he had started feeling better, he dropped dead on foot. It is hard to dig a grave in this climate, but I and Dhuarda managed to dig one. The other humans had gone hunting. I laid him in his final resitng place – or at least, i thought so – and said a short farewell prayer. Then Soojärvi came, lowered his head, but said that this cannot be left so. I was outraged when he took Caerdans body out of grave and took it away. I battered him with my fists but he was silent and kept moving. When we reached the main hall, he laid the body on the table and asked, if we as his closest friends wanted to prepare his body for eating. I was so outraged that i blacked out. I woke up in the evening. They all have gathered in the hall and there is a great plate with meat on it. I was disgusted but in a strange way i understood. This was their way of mourning and honouring the dead. This is what they are. I cannot stop that. I am not sure why it is so, but they say that it both to honour him and because they have always done so. They didn’t seem to like the idea of burying him – or as they said – leaving his body to the wind, rain, snow and the things that come from far. It sounded like some adage – in fact, i am sure that i have heard a similar phrase in some of their stories. The flesh of Caerdan actually tasted quite well.

The Giantkin have a ritual of passing from youthhood to official adulthood called Retke. That means undertaking a journey off to the far lands, to the far south to see the world. Usually they are spiritually prepared for this journey by a local shaman or monk. They start this journey when they are 40-50 years old of age and it usually lasts from three to six years. They are often guided by dreams on these journeys. They usually need to live through some events before they can return. After the Plague, despite their dreams many Giantkin youths prefer to avoid the Feldarin lands because many of their older friends who went to the Feldarin lands, did not return, or returned crippled and told tales.

Most iron in the north is obtained from lakes and marshes and although this is a good source of metal to the Giantkin smiths for tools and weapons, that they smith with chants for better qualities, metal is not cheap and not accessible to all. Bone, stone and wooden weapons are usually used for hunting but many Giantkin have found a way of fighting without or with little weapons to more dangerous enemies than the reindeer. The Yuyung explorers compared this to their monkish tradition and indeed, it is similar to it. The monkish speed is balanced by the vast size of them and they can be quick on skis. The monks in the far north are not trained by wise masters or any tutors. They learn this craft by feel, when they need to combat those creatures that live in the far north. They value the perfection of the body along the perfection of spirit although sometimes the shamans think that they are too concerned on the affairs of the body. Some Giantkin monks believe that iron is cursed despite the powerful chants of the smiths because of the great evil that iron has caused as a weapon material. They believe that the angry spirits of the marsh and lake can cause damage to the owner of the tool or weapon because of the disturbing of their peace during the taking of iron. There are fighters and warriors though, who say that the „anger of the iron“ causes more damage to the enemies.

Language

The Giantkin don’t have written alphabets, but they do have a rich oral heritage of stories and songs. Storytellers, singers and players of music instruments are honored as both wielders of a sort of magic and passers of time. The art of storytelling becomes very needful during snowstorms that sometimes last for many days so that people wouldn’t become nervous just listeningto the storm. A traditional ending to many Giantkin stories is „Behold, for I have defeated the storm!“ They also have a tradition of singing together in a way where one person sings a line and the others follow. The songs are usually chracterised by parallelism and alliteration and a small range of notes and could be seen as half-poetry-half-song. Saunas are valued in many parts of the Giantkin lands. Saunas are viewed as holy places, as the places of purification of both body and soul. Since the smoke and heat in saunas kills the seeds of the diseases, saunas are the best places for children to be born.

Religion

The Giantkin gods rarely have a single figure that gets worshipped. They tend to be omnipresent – everywhere around you there are marks of the gods, be it pebbles, trees, moss, houses, rivers, the stars – and all of them are paid the sort of respect that could be called worship. It is hard to tell the difference between a druid and a cleric really. Sometimes a mythological figure or two form a bright example of the god. Nature The omnipresence of the Giantkin Gods is best represented by Nature. The Giantkin word for „nature „ is synonymous with the word for „world“. All things that are real are nature. Earth and sky could be considered the things, if one really wants to make such an artificial difference, that associate with the Nature God most, but really, when a Giantkin worships anything, he also worships nature. There is no single folk hero figure that represents nature, since they all do. Travel When the winter comes, birds travel south. When spring returns, they return with spring. Stars move throughout the year – sometimes they hide behind the horizon, but they always come back. Reindeer herds travel vast distances, but come back Young Giantkin travel south and return as adults. Every soul is travelling through this life. Retke is considered a way of honouring of the constant travel, but besides it, it also gets an amount of tribute, respect and sometimes worship through honouring and speaking to birds, reindeer, moving stars, rivers, wind and all things that move. Tuuletallaja, a hero that was cursed to travel the Ursoule forever for stealing a book of wisdom, could be considered the „focus“ of the Travel God. War Life is full of struggle and change. Two reindeers fight for the right to mate with a certain female.Old days are thrown behind the edge of the world and new ones get smithed there. Iron is taken from the lakes and smithed into swords and people get killed. Smiths create new weapons, yet they are not evil, but necessary. Smiths make knives and tools. Smiths make weapons for hunting. When the sun fell down, Saarenmeesi, the legendary smith, made a new one. War is represented by every conflict and the heart of the god of war is in the battlefield and in the smithy. Magic Song and magic are everywhere. Trees sing and wind sings and sea sings. Mothers sing besides the cradles. Music has the ability to change things and find the inner soul. Indeed, a popular hero, Taivantarka, was the best singer there has existed and he could command all the forces of nature. Shamans use song and drums to fall into trance. For the Giantkin, music and song are the first and foremost aspects of magic. They do sense the other sides of magic too, since shamans and druids are able to work magic without song. Sorcery is also known and respected. Worship of God of Magic consists mainly of worship of singing birds ang all people that are able to sing. Death All things come to an end. Cold winter can take quite a number of lives. Staalu and diseases kill cunningly, secretively. Sea is deep and many souls drown. Yet death is not a final thing, since souls of the ancestors come to visit their living families in late autumn to see how their families are doing. Tables are covered in the cellars so that the souls of the departed could eat and saunas are stoked for them. Death and the dead should always be remembered and honoured, but they should not dominate the lives and they should never come back in living form. Bodies are a thing of the living world. That is why the dead are eaten. There are very few tribes of Giantkin that do not eat their dead, but they either burn them or, in case of burial, heavy stones are laid on the corpse so that should it awaken, it couldn’t move itself. The person from the folk tale that represents the God of Death most is a dead woman Tuisku from the deepmost north in the sky that hoards many treasures but loathes to give them away.

Racial Traits

• +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Dex, -2 Cha.
• Large Size
• Base land speed: 30 ft.
• Reach: 10 ft.
• Cold Resistance +5.
• Weathervision.
• +2 Racial Bonus to Survival Checks.
• Immune to the Plague
• Unable to benefit from speed bonuses.
• Initiative penalty.
• Heavy Armour Proficiency must be bought with a regular feat - it cannot be granted through a Class feat.
• Reduced starting gold (amount to be decided).
• Automatic languages: Feldarin and Giantkin
• Bonus Languages: Giant, Omeshik, Ogre
• Favoured Class: Monk.