Cloud Giant

Since the end of the Draco-Giant War the cloud giant were casted to the Giant Island, and banned from their cloud castles that used to drift across the sky. The last of this castle is stuck, unable to leave the sky of the giant island on which the giants are banned.
No one can build those majestic structures any longer. The methods of their construction were lost (along with much other knowledge) when Ostoria fell. Some cloud giants believe the information might yet be buried in some long-forgotten, ruined library. Rumors of its existence crop up from time to time, stirring debate and dreams of resurgent glory among the cloud giants, but definite information has proven impossible to obtain. Many cloud giants think that someday, a hero will unearth this ancient secret. Until then, they must be satisfied with watching clouds drift past their mountaintop homes instead of living atop those clouds as in days of yore.

Culture

Family First

Most types of giants live communally in large groups of clan mates, but the central unit of cloud giant life is the family — a mated pair, their offspring (if any), and perhaps a couple of close relatives. Cloud giants prefer not to congregate in great numbers in any one place, to avoid drawing too much attention. It’s not that they fear attack from humanoids or monsters, because few creatures other than dragons can challenge them. But if more than a few lived in the same place, the size of their combined treasure hoard would attract an incessant stream of adventurers and other would-be thieves — a nuisance on the order of rats in the larder.
Despite the distances that separate the homes of families, cloud giants aren’t isolated. Every family or individual knows where its nearest neighbors are, even if the location is hundreds of miles away, and those neighbors know where their nearest neighbors are, and so on across the world. In a crisis, word is spread from family to family, so that a mighty squad of cloud giants could be assembled, in time, if need arises. Nowadays, with all the giants banned on the Giant Island neighboring cloud giants are much closer to each other.
Most cloud giant homes include one or more pets. Wyverns, griffons, giant eagles and owls, and other beasts of the sky are popular choices. Pets aren’t limited to flying creatures, though. Any sort of creature might be found in a cloud giant menagerie, with rare specimens treated more as status symbol than as companions.

Benevolent Overlords

Cloud giants were famous (or infamous) for demanding tribute from the humanoids that live beneath them. Such tribute is only proper from their perspective, for two reasons. First, their presence in an area benefits everyone by driving away many evils, especially flying predators such as manticores and wyverns. Second, the giants believe they deserve to be rewarded for their forbearance; no one could stop them from simply taking what they want, but instead of doing that they allow their tribute to be freely given. (The logic of that position is clearer to the giants than it is to those on the other end of the arrangement.)
Much of the tribute that cloud giants accept is in the form of livestock and crops, but this isn’t their only source of food. Cloud giants are avid gardeners. Almost all cloud giant strongholds devote space to a garden that produces enormous yields: beans as big as turnips, turnips as big as pumpkins, and pumpkins as big as carriages.
With the cloud giants banned on the Giant island nowadays, they do not rely on tributes to live anymore and do not protect the land under them as there is nothing to protect, the greatest threat of the island being the giants themselves.
The garden of a cloud giant family is seldom affected by drought, frost, or locusts. When such a calamity strikes nearby farms, families have been known to share their bounty to ease the humanoids’ food shortage. Such events are at the root of tales about magic beans and others about a human family living in a cottage carved from a single, enormous gourd. Beyond that, the cloud giants’ generosity in times of want helps to cement their reputation as friends of humankind — a reputation that serves them well, even though it’s not entirely deserved.

Ordning of Extravagance

A cloud giant’s position within the ordning doesn’t depend on talent or skill. It depends on wealth. The more treasure a cloud giant possesses, the higher its standing. It’s as simple as that. Almost.
Ownership is one thing, but wealth that’s kept locked away means little. To fully contribute to one’s status, wealth must be displayed, and the more ostentatious the display, the better. In a cloud giant family’s home, extravagance is omnipresent. One might boast windows framed in gold leaf, rare perfume stored in vials of crystal with silver lids, or a scene in the sky depicted in a tapestry composed entirely of pearls.
Another way for a family to demonstrate its wealth is by bestowing lavish gifts on other families. (A gift from one family member to another doesn’t prove anything about the family’s largesse.) No cloud giant truly believes that it’s better to give than to receive; a family does so only with an eye toward how the giving can elevate its status. Memnor and his trickery play a role in this “game.” The very best gift (from the giver’s perspective) is one that everyone believes to be far more valuable than it truly is. Only the giver and the receiver will ever know a gift’s true value, and neither of them would ever reveal that a gift is worth less than it appears to be, because to do so would reduce the status of both.
Wealth also changes hands between cloud giants when they indulge their obsession for gambling and wagering. Cloud giants don’t engage in betting for enjoyment; it is less a form of entertainment than a type of bloodless feud. No cloud giant is a good loser, and one would be aghast to hear someone else say, “I lost 40 pounds of gold, but I had a good time.” Betting wars between families can go on for generations, with fortunes and estates (and the position in the ordning that goes with them) passing back and forth repeatedly. What a parent loses, a child hopes someday to win back, plus more; what the child wins back, a grandchild probably will eventually lose again. The tales that cloud giants tell of their ancestors are seldom about wars or magic or battles against dragons — they’re about brilliant wagers won through boldness or deceit, and rival families brought to disgrace and ruin by the same.

Masks of Nobility

Ancient depictions of Memnor often showed him wearing a two-faced mask. Because of this, cloud giant nobles seldom show their faces, but instead wear exquisite masks made of precious materials adorned with gemstones. Each noble has a collection of these masks that it wears to conceal its face but still reflect its current mood; an individual might change masks many times during the day as its emotions shift.
A mask is prized both for its material value and for its accuracy in expressing the mood it represents. Only the richest of cloud giants can afford the dozens of masks necessary to show all the subtle differences in emotion possible among their kind. Artisans who can sculpt and craft masks that meet the cloud giants’ exacting standards in such matters are richly rewarded for their skill.

General Information

Scientific name
/
Geographic Distribution
Giant Island
Languages
Giant

Physiologie

Average Lifespan
400 years
Size
Huge

Others

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Giant