Eldritch Giants

The forgotten brothers of the storm giants, and the direct offspring of Orin, and his search for the wisdom of the worlds, the Eldritch Giants are formidable masters of swords and magic. Seeking out knowledge and creating powerful artifacts, these giants are one opponent even other giants would avoid fighting.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Comparable to all giant kin, Eldritch Giants are bipedal humanoid creatures that stand above the trees. They have two legs, two arms with regular hands, a head, and a torso, and often hold a muscular physique.

Biological Traits

Through the power of their tattoos, and their verve rune, the Eldritch Giants are born with the innate ability to detect and dispel magic, and often times release arcane attacks in the form of magic missiles. On rare occasions, an Eldritch Giants markings could grant them the ability to cast spells such as dimension door or globe of invulnerability, as well as absorb the spells of enemy casters.

Ecology and Habitats

The Eldritch Giants prefer living in mountainous environments, within a temperate climate, though, like other humanoid races, they are known to spread out and can be found in many habitable regions across the realms.

Additional Information

Social Structure

The Eldritch Giants adhere to a hierarchal structure of strength, though those who can outwit a brute are considered stronger in their culture. Oftentimes, most Eldritch Giants can deduce a superior before a fight breaks out, and even more often, they will ignore such focus's, only holding duels in the event of a disagreement, or in order to deduce a stronger member for similar purposes.

Society

Eldritch Giants tend to be a solitary race, preferring to perform experiments and expeditions on their lonesome, or with weaker underlings of other races. These tendencies lead to Eldrict Giants rarely banding together, with the exception of the forming of families or research groups, in a manner akin to a wizard coalition. Even then, the number was small, with groups of 8 being the rare upper limits.

Facial characteristics

Eldritch Giants have a comparable facial features to their sibilings, the Storm Giants.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Eldritch Giants are spread out accross the realm of Muncaelo, having no set home territory, and limited settlements due to their reclusive and individualistic nature.

Average Intelligence

The Eldritch Giants are quite the intelligent species, being one of the smartest giant species, as well as having a natural affinity for learning, especially within the fields of magic. Due to these natural gifts, they tend to be highly intelligent, though not immune to the effects of emotional outbursts when their thoughts and beliefs are played with.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Eldritch Giants experience traditional sensory capabilities, including sight, touch, taste, and sound, along with the extrasensory capability to see and sense magic, which they utilize in their quest for items of an arcane nature, and their expansive studies into the schools of magic.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Common given names among storm giants included the following.
Males

Zladbar, Gilver, Fongi, Vrilor, Tizus

Females

Wusor, Flogrus, Geder, Glalith, Wewfur

Major Language Groups and Dialects

Eldritch Giants speak the general giant language Jotun (Giant), while also speaking their own specialized version based on the storm giants Jotunuvar, known as Jotunseidr, and tend to be well versed in Common. Unlike most other giant races, the Eldritch Giants hold a high level of literacy among their kin, in part due to their nature to seek out forgotten texts and tomes.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

Upon reaching adulthood, an Eldritch Giant will leave home to pursue their own lives, either choosing to research magic, seek lost spells, lore, and magical items, or to become a crafter, creating magical items themselves. Eventually, when they felt the time was right, they would seek out a mate and form a family, splitting once their offspring reached adulthood and left to pursue their interests.
Occasionally, a child will seek out a parent to receive information, or for a simple family visit, but such occurrences are rare and brief.

History

The Eldritch Giants have a long history, primarily full of battle and discovery.

Arcane Seekers

As descendants of Orin, Eldritch Siants experience an unearthly drive to seek out the secrets of the realms, focusing on unraveling the many secrets of magic. To this end, Eldritch Giants would seek out ruins and temples to help with their personal research on spells and collect forgotten magical relics, or they would take the time to craft their own magical items, as a means of manifesting their arcane knowledge or testing their magical hypothesis.
Their desire for knowledge leads them to live solitary lives, only ever interacting with other Eldritch Giants to share notes and ideas, but more often than not keeping their knowledge to themselves and hiding it away in their studies or in long-lost ruins. The Eldritch Giants were more likely to meet with settlements, seeking out materials that they themselves could not produce than to meet with other Eldritch Giants.
Beyond this, Eldritch Giants also liked to collect lores, secrets of forgotten civilizations, and the stories of the happenings of the cosmos. To this end, many lore seekers would attempt to meet with the Eldritch Giants to try and learn their forgotten secrets, however, while Eldritch Giants would conduct business with the settlements of humans and other humanoids, they didn't like to be bothered and would turn hostile if offended.

Runechild

The Eldritch Giants were created by Orin after his discovery of runes and their magical abilities. Using this newfound source of power, he crafted the verve rune as a power source and then made the first of the Eldritch Giants, based on the structure of the storm giants, the difference is their connection to the verve rune granted them powers over the magic that normal storm giants didn't have, and caused their skin to grow purple and eldritch birthmarks to appear across their bodies.
Orin had hoped these new giants would act as a more powerful replacement for the storm giants during the Grilarstór War, however his own destructive desire for the truth was indicative of the nature of his new creations, and despite being powerful, the Eldritch Giants shunned the waring nature of the children of gods, and abandoned the giant clans to act upon their own desires, sometimes even trading information with the dragons, causing many giants to see them as a threat to themselves.

Cousins of Thunder

Being created by the first storm giants as an improved version of themselves, the Eldritch Giants shared a lot of similarities with that of the storm giants, including similar constitutions, strengths, and wisdom of the elder storm giants. Even so, the Eldritch Giant's connection to the verve rune caused them to connect to the pure magical energy of the realms as opposed to the energies of the stormy skies.
At first, this difference did not lead to too much enmity between the storm giants and this newly created race, but when the Eldritch Giants started to show signs of disrespect to those who came first and started to show their true capabilities, the storm giants--lead by Thor--sought to eradicate the Eldritch Giants to eliminate the new potential threat of them changing the hierarchy of the giant races and removing the power of storm giants.
This, paired with the trading of information between the Eldritch Giants and dragon was used as an excuse, and the Eldritch Giants were hunted down as traitors and removed from the greater giant society. The eradication wasn't all too successful, thanks in part to the great strength of the Eldritch Giants, but feeling abandoned by Orin, and no longer a part of the giant's culture, the Eldritch Giants made it a point to kill any storm giants they come across and a never-ending message to those who betrayed them.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

On rare occasions, some Eldritch Giants will forgo their societal revenge, and settle down with a Storm giant, or other giant kin. For the most part, and offspring with either be a new Eldritch Giant or a more intelligent and magically inclined variant of the giant species they have bred with.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Storm Giants

Scientific Name

Jotunseidr

Origin/Ancestry

Jotunuvar, Orin

Lifespan

3,000 years

Average Height

Male: 26'4" - 29'4" Female: 23'8" - 26'8"

Average Weight

15,000 lb

Average Physique

Eldritch Giants have a comparable physique to their sibilings, the Storm Giants.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Eldritch Giants have faint purple covered in what appears to be eldritch marking or tattoos, and light-colored hair, usually of ginger or blond coloration. Their eyes subtly changed colors between blue, green, and violet depending on their mood. The Eldritch markings that covered an Eldritch Giants body were the source of many of their arcane abilities and would appear on them at birth, though artificial markings could be added by the giant later in life, providing the same benefits.