Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 greyorm Apr 16, 2008 0:03:05	This is a bit shorter than the other color/history bits in my various postings, but I really like the idea and feel giants are one of the under-used and under-appreciated races in providing Athas its flavor. There's plenty of ideas to expand upon, as this is just a seed. History of the Giants of Athas The giants were the great-and-noble race of the Rebirth, learned and wise, valuing wisdom and order. They become diplomats and councilors and kings, ruling over and advising other races of the Rebirth. Many of them spawned legends and religious orders dedicated to the principles or ideas they espoused and would become known in time as the "lost gods" of Athas, after the Cleansing Wars had swept through the land and history become fractured myth and embellished legend based on nearly forgotten lore. The noble giants were betrayed from within by Rajaat's forces: humans in the noble courts were seduced by the War-bringer to believe the giants were dictators and despots, and that men should rightfully rule. Diplomats and councilors were carefully manipulated into disfavor and criminal controversy, or quietly assassinated. It was the giants who named Rajaat "the War-bringer", for they saw the pattern of his plans clearly, though the warnings of their prophets and ambassadors went unheeded by the other races until far too late. Multi-racial rebellions against the rule of giants led by these men drove the noble families into hidden places where they cut giant and impregnable citadels from the rock and guarded their borders carefully. Thus, when given the task of their eradication, Dregoth did not so much make war against the giants, but turned insidious sorceries against them in an attempt to destroy their kind from within. Before descending into the madness of the metamorphosis he pursued, and becoming consumed with his own change and power, Dregoth created a spell that was meant to transform all the giants of the land, mutating them and merging them with the wild pets they kept, turning their kind into savages and destroying their race through conflict they could not use walls to defend against and by destroying their ability to breed true. Dregoth's spell both succeeded and failed. Many giants changed into or were born as savage beast-headed creatures (or worse), their intellect and wisdom replaced in favor of instinct and nature. These creatures fought both the true giants and their own kind, and eventually began to breed, while those few giant families left unaffected by the plague fled into far mountains and valleys and to distant lost isles, where they struggled merely to survive and their advanced culture devolved into simplistic hunting-and-gathering. The Great Library of the Giants A place rumored to hold all the lost wisdom of the ancient world, this ruin stands nearly buried in a vast, waterless stretch of flat desert cursed by vicious and often deadly sandstorms and wind funnels. It is said to be guarded by a strange, beast-headed giant with snapping claws instead of hands and a dark maroon skin as hard as stone. Some tales say the beast can speak and tells confusing tales of what must have been wondrous or terrible things past. These tales also tell that the strange, forlorn sounds carried by the wind across hundreds of miles of empty desert and the distant sighs sometimes heard to drift subtly across the vast open land are ghostly echoes of the giant's maddened wailing and weeping. Other tales speak of the giant's mindless and unpredictable fury stirring up the sands and winds, and thus curious listeners seeking the source of the Giant's Song are led to their doom by it, swallowed by sandstorms, sinkholes, and hungry cracks that open in the earth, often with the giant's hungry maw waiting behind it all to devour them or his claws to crush them.
#2 squidfur- Apr 16, 2008 0:36:55	...and where does the story of Jo'orsh and Sa'raam (sp?) fit into this?
#3 Zardnaar Apr 16, 2008 1:36:05	I like. My theory is Dregoth failed to wipe them out due to heavily fortified island redoubts the giants retreated to. That and he was undergoing Dragon metamorphosis.
#4 cnahumck Apr 16, 2008 9:04:46	...and where does the story of Jo'orsh and Sa'raam (sp?) fit into this? Just cause they claim to be the first giants doesn't mean that they are. It is more likely that they convinced the giants of their island that they were the first giants in order to hide the Dark Lens. Otherwise, Dregoth wouldn't have been fighting giants for so long before the Dark Lens was stolen. Jo'orsh and Sa'raam stole the lens after boyrs became the dragon. After the Rebellion and the end of the Cleansing Wars. The giants couldn't have been created after the Cleansing Wars and have a Champion dedicated to destroying them.
#5 yog_slogoth Apr 16, 2008 9:11:20	The giants were the great-and-noble race of the Rebirth, learned and wise, valuing wisdom and order. They become diplomats and councilors and kings, ruling over and advising other races of the Rebirth. Many of them spawned legends and religious orders dedicated to the principles or ideas they espoused and would become known in time as the "lost gods" of Athas, after the Cleansing Wars had swept through the land and history become fractured myth and embellished legend based on nearly forgotten lore. Im no fan of this idea, generally no fan of "before Rajaat came all were happy, free,..." Before descending into the madness of the metamorphosis he pursued, and becoming consumed with his own change and power, Dregoth created a spell that was meant to transform all the giants of the land, mutating them and merging them with the wild pets they kept, turning their kind into savages and destroying their race through conflict they could not use walls to defend against and by destroying their ability to breed true. Dregoth's spell both succeeded and failed. Many giants changed into or were born as savage beast-headed creatures (or worse), their intellect and wisdom replaced in favor of instinct and nature. These creatures fought both the true giants and their own kind, and eventually began to breed, while those few giant families left unaffected by the plague fled into far mountains and valleys and to distant lost isles, where they struggled merely to survive and their advanced culture devolved into simplistic hunting-and-gathering. Excellent. Really good idea.:D
#6 greyorm Apr 16, 2008 14:13:58	Thanks, all! A couple specific responses: ...and where does the story of Jo'orsh and Sa'raam (sp?) fit into this? Wel...it doesn't? Honestly, if it's something from the Prism Pentad, chances are I have ignored it, either outright deliberately or because I never noticed it. If you're wondering why, it is because I am not fond of those books either as DS fiction or as literature in general. Cnahumck above points out some serious historical problems with the claims made by Jo'orsh and Sa'raam, which is enough to satisfy me that they can be fit together with the above as he explained (and I like his idea!). Im no fan of this idea, generally no fan of "before Rajaat came all were happy, free,..." I don't understand what gave you that idea. Could you explain what about the paragraph you're quoting indicates everyone was happy and free, as that is not the intent of the description and I'd like to correct any serious errors in the presentation.
#7 cnahumck Apr 16, 2008 16:27:51	Cnahumck above points out some serious historical problems with the claims made by Jo'orsh and Sa'raam, which is enough to satisfy me that they can be fit together with the above as he explained (and I like his idea!). I am not sure that it is my idea. I think I picked it up from the boards, and it might be discussed in the Forum Archive stickied above. That said, I think that we forget that we cannot always trust the words of someone in any of the books. Just cause someone says something, doesn't mean it is true. Even Hamanu in RaFoaDK isn't totally honest. Personally, I like the mystery and inconsistancy, as it allows for more freedom. And as to the way the Green Age was before the Cleansing Wars... I am working on some stuff for the latest DS revision that should be nice. In the meantime, look at Egendo's history from FFN, as he was around at the time, and was involved in the Preserver Jihad. (Techincally he is a Time of Magic guy, but you get the idea)
#8 jano Apr 16, 2008 19:12:21	And where in this story fits Taraskir the Lion last king of Gustenal, a beast headed giant?
#9 greyorm Apr 17, 2008 4:05:20	And where in this story fits Taraskir the Lion last king of Gustenal, a beast headed giant? Since the lost gods of Athas are memories of the giants confused over the generations, and since the lost gods we know of had animal features (such as the serpent thing worshiped by the wraiths in the temple under Tyr, or Taraskir himself), and had temples built to honor them (again, Taraskir), obviously, I think it fits into what is written above fairly easily. Perhaps some of the beast-headed giants weren't as savage and blood-thirsty as Dregoth intended and in various later periods of the Cleansing Wars rose to take their ancestor's place as leaders and visionaries among the other races, becoming warrior-prophets or disciples of peace, etc. Or perhaps, given the giants' mentioned propensity towards surrounding themselves with various animals as pets, the legends of the lost gods are both confused historical reality and once-metaphorical occult-wisdom taught by the giant cults, in the sense that the lore tied them so strongly to certain animals that they were (in some cases eventually and in others initially-only-proverbially) thought or depicted to have that animal's features, especially its head. For example, in the following cases we recognize the metaphor: Did Richard the Lion-hearted really have the physical heart of a lion? Do modern politicians really have forked serpent's tongues in their mouths? But a thousand years from now after some apocalypse erases nearly all our knowledge and we believe that rocks can speak and we have to sacrifice hearts to the sky to keep it from falling, if someone remembers some bit of mythical history about an ancient king who was born with a lion's heart in his chest or the fork-tongued leaders of the snake-people? So, did Taraskir really have a lion's head? Was he really the last king of Guistenal? Maybe. Or maybe not.
#10 the_peacebringer Apr 17, 2008 12:08:47	I really like the story you came up with, greyorm. I think it fits pretty darn well with DS' past.
#11 greyorm Apr 19, 2008 8:29:21	I really like the story you came up with, greyorm. I think it fits pretty darn well with DS' past. Thanks! Anything you want me to expand on or anything to add yourself?