Land of the Fomorians
by Giampaolo AgostaThe Southern Giant-Kingdom in the Taymoran Age
Population: 8300 Giants, various types
Standing Army: 221 Giants, various types
|
Race |
App. # |
Role |
|
|
|
|
|
Frost Giants |
600 |
Hunters & raiders |
|
Cyclops |
2000 |
Shepherds, Winemakers |
|
Stone Giants |
1500 |
Philosophers, rulers, builders |
|
Hill Giants |
1200 |
Hunters, shepherds |
|
Veerbeg |
3000 |
Farmers, shepherds, craftsmen |
History
During the Taymoran Age, a major Giantish nation controlled the Altan Tepee mountains. These Giants came from the North before the Taymoran people reached the Bronze Age, fleeing from stronger, rival clans in their homeland.
The Fomorians were a mix of various Giant and Giant-Kin races, including the Cyclopskin, Stone and Hill Giants, a large number of the lesser Veerbeg giants, and even a few Frost Giants, who retreated to the highest peaks, where they still live.
The giants of the Land of the Fomorians were not crude nor lacked intelligence like their modern brethren. This was an effect of the Taymoran struggle between followers of Nyx and Thanatos.
The Taymoran nations initially battled the Fomorians and traded with them as well. Neither nation was able to get the upper hand in battle, as the Giants were strong but few in numbers, and the Taymorans were powerful sorcerers and priests, but no city-state wanted to risk a full-scale war with the Giants, which would have exposed them to attacks from their rivals.
Around 2250 BC, a large elven migration reached Taymora. There were four clans, all belonging to the Sheyallia elves, the Vyalia, Veirdyr, Melydor, and Shiye. The elves were tired of travelling, and wanted nothing more than a forested land were they could settle. The Taymoran Necromancer-Kings of Baruminis, Sulqis and Tarshiz saw this, and decided that the elves could provide them with the strength needed to solve the Fomorian problem. They offered a large slice of wild lands that laid east of Sulqis to the elven chiefs, in exchange for their service as mercenaries.
The elves proved good fighters, and pushed the Fomorians back to their mountains, even reaching the city of Zargash. When Zargash fell, the Stone Giant leaders sued for peace, and signed a treaty of alliance with the northern Taymoran states.
In the following centuries, Giant workers and engineers helped fortify the major Taymoran city-states, building structures that would survive through the ages, resisting even to the cataclysm that destroyed the Taymoran culture.
When the civil war between followers of Thanatos and loyalists of Nyx flared, several Hill Giant clans were corrupted by envoys of Thanatos, and attacked the other races. The lesser giants were nearly destroyed, and the Giant civilisation was shattered. The Stone Giants and the Elves forced the Hill Giants out of the Land, but at an high cost.
Many Giants died in the floods while they were fighting the armies of Thanatos in Taymora, and others were killed or enslaved by the Nithians. Others yet migrated to the Isle of Dawn, were they clashed with the local Firbolg.
Nowadays, only Frost Giants remain in the Land, while a few Stone Giants and several clans of Hill Giants live in the western mountains, and some Cyclopes are scattered in the eastern Altan Tepee. Veerbeg are likely extinct, at least in the Known World.
Cities of the Giants
Tursh (pop.: 1200, mostly Stone Giants and Lesser Giants), Capitol Zargash (pop.: 1000, mostly Hill Giants and Lesser Giants)
The major towns of the Land are Tursh, a massively fortified citadel near what now is the Castellan Keep in Karameikos, and Zargash, a rough hill giant town near the Sheyallia border.
Tursh is the siege of the Stone Giant philosopher-kings, a centre of great learning in architecture, engineering and geology. It is called the City of Towers by the Nithians. It houses the embassies of several Taymoran city-states, including that of the King of Baruminis, whose ambassador is also a powerful Nosferatu priest of Tanyt.
Zargash is a battered towns composed of wooden buildings. It faced the assault of elven mercenary companies during the Taymoran-Taymoran war, and most of the original stone buildings were destroyed and never rebuilt. The stone giants have all but abandoned the city right after the war, leaving the hill giants to rebuild it with their comparatively poor skills. The elves helped in the rebuilding, and established an embassy and a temple to Urtni. The local hill giants grew resentful of the elven interference in the later years, leading them right into the arms of Thanatos' envoys.
The Fomorian Pantheon
Sethlans (LN, Patron of Law, the Mountains, metals and ores) Tanyt (N, Patroness of Taymora and the Night) Urtni (NG, Patroness of the Elves and Nature) De (NG, Patroness of the Forested Lands) Terra (LN, Patroness of the Stone Giants) Cadjalis (NG, Patron of the craftsmen)
Sethlans (Wayland) is the major patron of the Giants. While he is revered in Taymora as well (under the slightly altered name of Sethlanis), he does not love the Taymorans and their entropic powers. During the Taymoran Age, this Immortal suffered a major setback, as his Giant followers were all but destroyed, and his image was later considered by the Nithians as one of their fiendish enemies, under the name of Seth*. There he was seen as a power of destruction and evil, since in the end he was the patron of those same volcanoes that destroyed the Taymoran civilisation. [*I've not yet decided whether Wayland was just portrayed by the Energy Immortals of Nithia as an evil power, or he was set up by a fiend or Taymoran king who usurped his name: ideas?]
Two foreign Immortals are acknowledged by the Fomorians, Tanyt, the Taymoran Immortal, and Urtni, patroness of the Elves. Neither is especially loved, but the building of temples to these goddesses was included in the peace treaty between the Land of the Fomorians and their elven and Taymoran enemies.
Other Immortals were worshipped by the Giants, especially those of the Sphere of Earth like Djaea (De), Terra (name?) and Kagyar (Cadjalis), but this worship was mostly limited to Stone Giant philosophers and priests.