Giants

The magical adaptation of the giants is that they absorb, over several generations, the nature of their environment. In the long-distant past they absorbed size, strength and resilience from mountains, and became mountain giants as they are known today.

Because of this evolutionary nature it is difficult to make general statements about giant: giants from different regions may have different characteristics and abilities, as well as different culture. Strength, size and resilience is about all that is common to all, and those vary vastly in degree; meta-level giants are not uncommon, and the most powerful giants are the most physically formidable combatants in the Twilit Worlds.

That said, there is a tendency for giants to be slow and not very bright, and to have dull senses - or rather, to have senses more attuned to things their own scale. Only a few of them have Second Sight, though those that do are are capable of learning magic, and the giants boast a few excellent magicians. Some “sub-races” of giants, as determined by their habitats, are described below.

Mountain giants
Mountain giants are the most “ordinary” of the giants, seldom having much in the way of special abilities beyond the basics, though there are exceptions.

Culturally, they vary widely. If they live in close proximity to other races, they tend to adopt lifestyles and social structures similar to those of their neighbours. In remote areas, they tend to live in small family groups, often quite primitive.

Fire giants
Fire giants, or more accurately magma/lava giants, live around and within volcanos, and have developed resistance to extreme heat and an extremely high (variable) body temperature, such that their touch can burn other races and set things aflame.

Fire giants are the least numerous but most urbanised (and generally civilised) of the giants, because they can only develop in close proximity to volcanos (though it is rumoured their may be bigger “lost kingdoms” beneath the planetary crusts). Their cities are partly underground, carved (or melted) from the volcano itself, and as well-defended as dwarven cities, not least by moats of lava. As a rule, each volcano is a city state ruled by a king, who is one of the largest and/or most magic-capable of the giants. Of the giants, they trade most regularly with outsiders, exchanging the treasures within the earth for things not readily available in their habitat (including foodstuffs, though it is clear that some of their nutrition must come from the magma itself).

In combat, their burning touch is their most common weapon, and they hurl gobs of lava, either by hand or by means of various weapons, at their foes. They also have no shortage of magic wielders, and the wealthiest and most powerful have more conventional weapons and armour that can withstand high temperatures. A fire giant army may not be large, but is perhaps the most feared single force on the Twilit Worlds.

Ice giants
The ice giants live almost exclusively in the polar regions: land too barren and frigid for most races, but fine for the adaptable giants. Here ice kings rule the greatest of the giant kingdoms from castles built from the ice itself: though the population density is low, ice giants are civilised and often have large realms. The ice giant kings are generally chosen by physical might, and the kings are typically the largest terrestrial giants in existence, grown huge on vast polar ice sheets.

Ice giants have invulnerability to cold and a touch which is freezing to other races; some even have the ability to encase their enemies in ice at a touch, while others have a control over wintry winds, snow and ice. They wield ice javelins as missile weapons, with are not only sharp but may fragment explosively on impact.

Much of their material possessions, from tableware to buildings, is shaped from the ice itself.

Sea giants
The aquatic sea giants draw their strength from the seas themselves. They are the largest of the giants - ocean giants can be huge - but live their lives entirely in the water, being too large for land (though the smallest of them are amphibious). They have little in the way of material culture, and generally live in small isolated family groups with vast hunting grounds. The seldom have contact with terrestrial races, even other giants.

Sea giants are said to have power over the waves themselves, and storms at sea are sometimes blamed on them. It is possible, however, that this is myth.

Sea giants seem to have evolved after the migration to the Twilit Worlds.