Well met again, gentles all! ’Tis I, Volothamp Geddarm, once more thy humble scribe, endeavoring to entertain and enlighten with my paltry pen. This time, the focus of my admittedly meandering discourse shall be the Great Folk: giants.
Lumbering brutes to some, while to others, marauding monsters who bash and roast folk alive on spits for their meals and cloud-castle-dwelling superhumans of sophisticated, even decadent culture.
Let me confess that it was not my original intent to wax loquacious about giants. I was engaged on a longer and more varied project, one which a certain Elminster of Shadowdale encouraged me to pursue years upon years ago (before those tumultuous events sometimes referred to as “the Spellplague”). As I recall, he termed it “Hardly more dangerous than the prying and meddling into the affairs of thy fellow humans—and less annoying to the rest of us, which may mean ye live a little longer.”
Cheering words, to be sure, but being Volo, I took them as encouragement, and so began work that even now is bearing fruit, in the form of a modest little tome I am pleased to call Volo’s Guide to Monsters.
Yes, I have been faring far over the wilderlands of Faerûn, observing beasts both fearsome and strange as they prowl, prey upon, and otherwise interact with the rest of us. I have gathered details of passing interest, of solid entertainment value, and some that are quite possibly vital to your survival and mine, if we fall afoul of this or that “monster.”
Recently, I set forth from the fair city of Waterdeep into the Sword Coast northlands, seeking a few answers and details to provide the finishing touches to this latest of my bestselling and widely-celebrated Guides.
Perilous work, to be sure. Yet, possessed of my bright wits, my boundless optimism, the shining good fortune that seems to accompany me everywhere as Tymora’s everpresent bright cloak of favor, the deep wisdom I have built in my long and eventful life of stellar judgment, prudence, and all-encompassing modesty—not to mention girded with my own small spellcraft and certain magics gifted me by Elminster and the Lady Laeral (“To see thee safely far, far away,” the Sage of Shadowdale told me fondly)—I set out alone to scour the wild Savage Frontier in search of more monster lore.
It did not go well.
I lost an eyebrow—my left, for those keeping score—to an annoyed peryton when escaping from its nest on a frigid crag overlooking Phandalin; sacrificed the tip of my left little finger to the cause of winning free of an ettercap web garotte that was festooned with the rusting daggers, sickles, and handaxes of the creature’s earlier victims; acquired a scar down my left shin from the longest reaching talon of a wyvern’s claw that nearly severed my leg but instead merely laid half of it open down to the bones; and still have recurring vivid nightmares thanks to a mind flayer tentacle that almost extracted my brain. (Elminster asked caustically if I was certain about that “almost,” and intimated neither I nor wider Faerûn would discern a difference in a Volo with his brain and a Volo without, but that is churlish calumny unbecoming of an archwizard who’s been closer than most mortals ever get with Mystra, and I shall dismiss it as such).
Nor is this a comprehensive listing of my scrapes and near-fatalities; suffice it to say that I have good, firm, and plentiful personal reasons to know that there is a genuine and pressing need for Volo’s Guide to Monsters, as treating with wild beasts in their wilderland habitat is neither a safe nor a simple pursuit.
To cut a long fireside tale short, I ranged far and wide over the lands that have sometimes been called the Sword Coast North and have also been known as the Savage Frontier, and matters took a turn to the giantish (oh, yes, that’s a word; as proof, I direct you to the bard Rulglatheir’s Ode To A Hero Giantish, which has had at least four chapbook editions that I know of; I particularly recommend the ballad “His Club It Shook The Hills Around”). My journeys took me into the Upper Rauvin Vale, in a region of many rolling hills lightly cloaked in scrub woodland (the sort of terrain folk of the North call “wolf country” because wolf packs maraud across it with such ease).
In the end, I made a friend. Of a giant. Yet the road to that friendship was neither peaceful nor safe. (Yes, I’ll get to it. Promise. Have I ever lied to you before?).
Dwellings in the North
A general note for the wayfarer: the Sword Coast North has the tendency to be cold even in the warmest months, thanks to pitiless winds sweeping across the countryside, but it is a lightly-populated landscape, and so teeming with life because human hunters haven’t been so numerous and persistent as to scour out its bounty in the way they have in, say, the Heartlands. Moreover, aside from the frigid eastern verges of this region, where the Northlands give way to the frozen northernmost Anauroch, this is a well-watered land; drinkable springs, pools, lakes, and streams are everywhere. So it follows that wells and drought are almost unheard-of and a settlement can be located just about anywhere, if sufficient folk see a need for one.
In the past, energetic bugbear and hobgoblin raiding bands, hungry dragon attacks from the air, and recurring orc hordes frequently swept away settlements that weren’t also defensive strongpoints. These scourges all still occur, and have recently been joined by widespread giant violence (of which I’ll write more, later on), yet so much is afoot in the region, human prospecting and homesteading prominent among current activities, that more settlements are being founded—and are surviving—than ever before. So whereas the intrepid traveler in the North a century ago was either part of a large, well-armed caravan, or was very much on their own, these days a wayfarer can dare to hope that there might be at least a fortified stead, if not a way-inn, over the next hill, or within a day’s crawl.
That does not, however, mean any certainty of refuge, aid, or assistance, as I learned to my personal cost.
A Warning, And A Rescue
I made the mistake of hiring guides in a less than reputable taproom to conduct me to where I might meet with “any giants more eloquent than hill giants” nearby (so I could parley with, and learn more about, them). Tavernmaster Bhaerlo Uldryn recommended the Malvurtarl family, a clan of outlying steaders, as “the hardiest” local veteran trappers, hunters, and prospectors. I met with them, struck a deal (1 gp each/day, for two Malvurtarl brothers in the prime of life), paid for the first day up front, and was led east, on foot. We trudged for a day, drifting south to the northern edge of Turlang’s Wood—it struck me that the Malvurtarls did so more as a navigational aid than anything else—along the Upper Rauvin Vale, then turned our back on the woods and strode straight north “for at least five hills” as the most talkative Malvurtarl put it, “to get good and clear of yon woods, so any watchers won’t see our fire and come out by night to feed.”
Cheery advice, to be sure, and the supper they fed me was curious: fire-toasted slabs of black nutbread dripping with boarfat butter, and washed down with skin after skin of wine, until my head fairly spun. They told me much of the recent history of the north, notably that giants, after being little more than tales in the Sword Coast North for the last few decades, were suddenly everywhere—on the move and as violent as the orcs and ogres and trolls of the Frozenfar had ever been. (They also, by the way, told me that only “outlanders” who owned maps called the rolling hills we were traversing “the Upper Rauvin Vale”—to locals, this region was “the Hills” though they admitted they’d never seen that name written down anywhere, least of all on a map.)
And then, as they droned on and clouds like slow gray smoke scudded across the sky and blotted out the magnificent cloak of stars, warmed and numbed by all the drink they’d plied me with, I fell asleep.
Only my bladder saved me. It’s not an admission I’m proud to make, but it’s true; my pressing need to water the cold hills around me awakened me just as my guides were about to murder me.
Or rather, eat me alive. And then seize my valuables (why go to all the trouble and danger of finding a giant, when you can exterminate the client who’s hired you to do so, and collect your pay early and in a lump sum?).
I gather their usual method of dealing with victims was to get these chosen unfortunates weary and off alone, and then attack—oh, I nigh forgot to mention: these two Malvurtarls, and possibly the rest of their family, too, are jackalweres.
The ambush would have worked, too, save for my ring of ironguarding. Two of them thrust in side-by-side unison, putting all their weight behind shoves that would have pinned me to the ground with half the length of their scimitars through me.
The ring rendered my solid body “not there” to their blades, which, being unopposed by my too unsolid flesh, drove deep into the earth and stuck fast. Not for long, but for long enough for me to roll and scrabble frantically to my feet, and run.
I must admit that a goodly bit of the legendary Volo’s Luck is due to my fleet feet and lightning-swift grasp of when it is advisable to flee. I rapidly became aware that jackalweres, free to shift shape, can easily outpace even a swift human, which meant they would run me down about the time I got winded, which was just over the crest of the first hill.
So I was doomed unless I used my Art. Now, modesty has prevented me informing most I meet with that I have been trained in wizardry by such luminaries as Elminster of Shadowdale, and my spells have won the day a time or two.
So I turned, just beyond the crest of that hill, feigned cowering collapse—and as they raced into view and sprang at me eagerly, gave them fire.
A great wave of it, that lit up the night, and singed their hairy exteriors. The beasts were undeterred, though, and continued on with jaws agape.
They leapt before I could prepare even to scream, let alone work another spell, just as a boulder the size of a horse hurtled out of the night and smashed into the pair, flattening them to bloody pulp and splintered bones.
Being the intrepid man of action and all-seeing observant chronicler that I am, I spun in an instant to face the source of the boulder, and managed to notice a twenty-foot-tall armored warrior striding towards me.
Who as he marched nearer, loomed like a soaring castle tower against the few stars that still glittered through the clouds. He was keen-eyed, his head encased in a dragonskull helm completed with horns and jutting fangs that framed his flowing white hair and beard, and looked . . . happy. He seemed to be on the verge of smiling as he hefted a gleaming battle axe whose head alone looked bigger than my torso.
“Is that all of them, wizard?” His voice was a rough, deep rumble.
“Y-yes,” I managed to reply. Trying to sound calm and unruffled, and failing miserably. “My thanks!”
"Harshnag am I, late of Waterdeep.”
“Oh, me too. And I’ve heard of you. The Gray Hands. You’ve defended the city long and ably. I—Volothamp Geddarm, am at your service. Better known as just ‘Volo.’ I am, ah, not unknown among my kind.”
“Indeed. I have heard your name. Twice or thrice.” Harshnag sounded amused.
Ah. I drew myself up. “I stand by what I say and write. Some may call me a fool, but I say what must be said and cleave to truth.”
“And that is both good, and all too rare. I will sit fireside with you, small one.”
“Good, good! This way!” I said, almost babbling in relief, and walking north. A thought struck me, and I fumbled at my belt, then held up my most precious flask. “Elverquisst?”
“I must decline. Hate the stuff. Yet I smell something else on your person that does seem inviting.”
I stared up at the giant, who was striding unhurriedly along beside me now. In the distance, something with gleaming eyes that had been watching us from atop a hill got a good look at him, and hurriedly departed.
What could he possibly—?
The only other thing I was carrying was a skin of water, and a full bottle of some trailmeat in Neverwintan brandy that smelled like it had gone off the last time I’d reseated the cork, but that I hadn’t the heart to throw away, for the brandy was a throatslake new to market, and had cost me pretty coin . . .
The giant couldn’t want rotting meat, surely. I held up the water.
“I’m thirsty, wizard, not dirty.”
By the time I’d rehooked the waterskin to my belt and caught sight of the flickering heart of the uncovered campfire, the giant added, “You carry some rothé that’s getting ripe and ready, not blood-raw and overburnt like you humans prefer it.”
“Oh.” Eagerly I handed over the bottle. “Do all giants prefer, ah, well-matured meat? Or just rothé? Or just frost giants? And do all giants have a keen sense of smell?”
“You make the mistake, small one, of considering ‘all giants’ as unvaried and of one mind. Do all humans prefer the same delicacies? Agree on all matters, and see things the same way?”
“Humans pile mistake upon mistake,” I told him. “It is our way.”
“I have noticed,” Harshnag replied, sitting himself down by the fire. “Most giants seem to have keener noses than humans—certainly the folk of Waterdeep, whose smellers are worn dull by the deep layers of ever-present stink of their own crowding, wastes, cookery, and thing-makings. And most of us like our meat hung and aged. Smoked, though we differ sharply in how, and what woods to use, and what leaves and moss to add to the flames, and all of that.”
“Oh? So giants are interested in matters of the table? Cookery? What humans call ‘fine dining’?”
“Of course,” Harshnag replied, inhaling the foul smell coming out of my hardbottle deeply, in the savoring manner of any wine fancier. “By all means draw me out on the subject by subtle questioning, Volo. I know it’s what you do.”
Caught. I chuckled, and poked at the fire, then scrabbled in the Malvurtarl trailsacks to see what food and drink could be had. Probably not much; the main intended meal, after all, had been me. “Right, then,” I said briskly.
So we talked, and I have—as is my wont and my livelihood—set down what we spoke of, hereafter.
I Befriend a Giant: Giant Cuisine
So let us begin with giant cuisine, as Harshnag and I did, beside the fire. He reiterated that giants are personally as varied as humans in their tastes, fashions, and habits, and that a (brutish, sustenance-hunting) hill giant is a very different being from a (contemplative, isolated) storm giant; what “goes” for one giant may not “go” for the next.
However, I was able to discern some commonalities, at least when it came to filling the belly. Giants tend to be like some small furred foraging predators: they will gorge themselves when they can, to store for leaner times when they must fight, travel, and work hard without sufficient food or drink. Even a giant king living in the lap of well-servanted, abundant luxury will fill up before embarking on idle days of snacking. As a result of this ability to gorge, humans are warned that it is nigh-impossible for one of us “Small Folk” to out-drink any giant. Nor, obviously, out-eat one.
Most giants, however, seem to like mead, but not other sweet drinks, intoxicants or otherwise. Water is a “when we must” drinkable, not a favored one. Popular meal elements include whole roast oxen and boar, particularly rotten or overripe meat, like the trailmeat in my brandy, as well as honeybread and sharp cheeses (like the black cheese out of Berdusk and Elturel generally known as “Hadanther” after the now-dead cheesemaker who first devised it, and the blood-red cheeses made with wines and brandies in Sheirtalar and the Tashalar, such as Rindrol and Saerasczsuul).
I plundered what little the Malvurtarl trailsacks yielded, and Harshnag went on a brief hunting foray that yielded the carcasses of half a dozen wolves the frost giant termed “overbold,” that he gutted, skinned, and cooked on the fire with swift, deft skill and with the aid of three dead trees he’d felled along the edge of Turlang’s Wood and brought back with him as fuel.
As the flames roared and then died into coals, my newfound friend shifted the opened and splayed wolf carcasses over the heat and talked of giants (at first, he was as taciturn as his “grim” nickname suggested, but when he realized he was in the presence of someone who wanted to hear him out, and wasn’t just waiting for him to stop talking so they could speak, he opened up—and I have no good cause to think him anything less than candid).
I Befriend A Giant: Of Traditional Giantkind
Just as humans now dominate much of Toril, through sheer numbers and our collective industry (“busy-ness” was the term Harshnag used), so too did giants once rule most of the world—certainly, almost all of the landmass known as Faerûn—in empires in which goblinkin and even elves were subjects or even slaves, or were firmly kept to specific territories, as a human gardener prunes and trains thick plantings in a vast garden (or so Harshnag put it).
All of that “Great Age” for giantkind ended, the frost giant told me, when their wars with the dragons began. Dragons, it seemed, kept aloof, ignoring the giants, but preyed at will upon herds of rothé and elk and other hoofed edibles the giants founded and tended, and at length the giants decided that hunting down and exterminating dragons was not only desirable, dragonslaying “won glory” for any giant doing so.
That, Harshnag told me, proved to be “our darkest mistake,” for giants and dragons fought bitter wars that nigh-destroyed both (there is still bitter enmity between them.), and the weakened giant empires were doomed. Today, the once-mighty giant realms have fallen, and giant progress and innovation and “clearthinking society” with them; giants now dwell in isolated, scattered clans, the rivalries and divisions among them grown “deep and tall.”
Such rivalries are innate to giantkind, for all giants hew to a caste system, “the ordning,” in which every individual giant, all over Toril, is ranked (storm giants on top, all of them ranked against each other), then cloud giants, followed by fire giants, frost, stone, hill, and then the “giant kin” such as fomorians, ettins, and ogres.
Each giant race values different combinations of personal skills and qualities to establish their rankings—fire giants, for example, prize skill in crafting things (forgework) and martial prowess (leadership and battlefield success) above other qualities, whereas cloud giants see themselves as master manipulators of lesser giantkind, using those they can command or sway through manipulation to reorder the world. Cloud giants enjoy status among the ranks of their fellows based on their mastery of manipulation and besting of other cloud giants, and in the wealth they amass and how they display it.
To excel in the skills and qualities prized by the giant race a given giant belongs to, is the driving purpose of an adult giant’s life. Rank within a giant race bows to racial standing (a chieftain among the frost giants is ranked below the lowliest fire giant), but besting a giant of a “superior” race wins much advancement in status among your fellows—with one exception: cloud giants universally regard storm giants as addled “dreamers” and consider themselves the rightful and true foremost race of giantkind, so besting or deceiving a storm giant merely confirms that one is a true cloud giant, not that one is a better cloud giant than the next cloud giant.
All lesser giants compete and strive throughout their lives, but storm giants stand aloof and apart, devoting their lives to contemplation, not honing their status and standing. Most live in seclusion, striving to see ever more clearly what lies ahead, and the will of the god Annam, who turned away from giantkind so long ago and whose favor wise giants seek to win again. “Foretell, see more clearly, and so know the world better.”
Harshnag is of the blue-skinned, hardy, coldlands-dwelling frost giants, several rungs below storm giants in the ordning. His kind value brute strength and fierceness above all else, and their lives are centered on careers of raiding and pillaging.
Harshnag himself is nigh an outcast among frost giants, for although he lives to act, as any frost giant does, he also values humans and their society—including their laws, customs, and commonly-won and held peace.
Harshnag lived for years among humans in the city of Waterdeep, and though he now wanders the North, he forsakes not the company of humankind. Most of his kin prefer to smash and despoil in their raids. Whereas most frost giants festoon themselves with the severed heads of their foes and other grisly battle trophies, and are proud of their battle-scars, Harshnag collects friendships, and setting wrongs right, and protecting crafters and innovators (for as he puts it, “Slaughter a farm family, and where are their crops to be taken in next year’s raids? Kill a smith, and his forge falls cold. There is a tendency among many giants, my own kind included, to see the bounty of the world as endless—kill a smith, another will seize his smithy and be there to be slain in turn at your next raid—but I see this view as mistaken, and foolish, and wasteful. A good reaver is also a gardener or farmer, tending and encouraging what he later intends to reap, so that what is reaped shall be as abundant and high of quality as possible”).
“Storm and stone giants are the most ponderous of giants, and are the least cut-and-thrust pragmatic, of all giantkind,” Harshnag told me. “I once took the time to sit and talk for days, just as you are talking with me, with a stone giant whom I can only think believed that enlightening me as to his views would be a good thing. He told me that stone giants take the long view, and that this is not patience; it is seeing consequences and cycles and the ongoing changes in the world that are not the overnight, blink-of-an-eye concerns that so grip and govern humankind.
I Befriend A Giant: Upheaval
Or rather, all of what Harshnag told me of the ordning and giant views and doings were how things were “from the beginning of time, in the mists before the dawn, when first we Annamar—we giants—came to this world.”
Now, things are changing.
It seems something has happened (signs from Annam, perhaps?) that have plunged everything into chaos. Giants are erupting in violence everywhere (the North, all across Faerûn, in particular, for that is where they are most numerous, and encounter the least numerous and strong resistance from “lesser races”; in more southerly regions of Toril, giants tend to hold sway most in the largest, tallest mountain ranges, and raid down out of them, or make open war within them).
Oddly, a seer in Waterdeep caused a one-day sensation—not long after the open strife among the Lords of Waterdeep that saw violence in the council chamber of the Lords within the Palace itself—when he surfaced from a dream to proclaim, “Ostoria shall rise again!” Of old, Ostoria was the name of the greatest giant empire.
Harshnag believes giants who maraud beyond their racial habits (that is, beyond the club-prey foragings of hill giants, or the pillaging raids of frost giants) are seeking to impress the gods with their achievements and so win higher standing in a new ordning. Which would argue that any human who helps a giant do impressive deeds would be a valued ally. Or perhaps someone to be destroyed so such achievements would be the giant’s alone, and not partly the work of a lesser ally.
So it follows . . . don’t seem formidable to a giant, or he’ll see you as someone to be slain to better his standing in the eyes of the gods and fellow giants. Seem small and puny and weak, and your worth as a vanquished foe is little or nothing; you are beneath him, and to fight you is to lessen his standing in the ordning.
And provide ready food and drink: whole roast beasts and plentiful rivers of strong throatslake. Harshnag added, “And if you seek to poison a giant, don’t. What is deadly to a human may only make a giant burn or itch—and what could kill an entire human town may not be enough to take down one giant.”
This may or may not be true, but I leave experimentations to others. Though I warned the frost giant looming over my campfire, “Some humans will try, you know. Humans will be humans.”
He nodded, but muttered only, “Strength of Stronmaus,” which I gather is a curse among frost giants.
I also gathered that all sorts of giants do lots of cursing, these days.
And for now, that’s all from your helpful scribe, Volothamp Geddarm. I hope to learn more about giants—and their magic, in particular—but won’t delay publication of my guide to monsters to include it. I have a hunch that the learning will be neither swift nor easy!
KaC2009