Giant-blood

When the fallen stars came down and took the daughters of men, their children were giants, and the giants took the world. But not every child of that blood was a giant. Some were only very tall. Their children were less tall again, and their children less still, as generation after generation of ordinary human blood thinned the inheritance of the fallen. The Giant-blood are what remains: still head and shoulders above any other people, still strong enough to lift an ox, still carrying something old and terrible in their veins. But men. Wholly men, with a man's soul and a man's choice.

Most of them live in the strongholds of the Heights, the high mountain country where the true giants keep their thrones, or in the gilded city, where giants rule and Giant-blood stand closest to the throne. They are the giants' captains, their bodyguards, their tax-gatherers and their enforcers. Ordinary people step off the road when a Giant-blood passes. Lesser beasts slink away without a fight. Fear walks a step ahead of them wherever they go.

And yet. The blood of the fallen is in them, but the fallen cannot be redeemed, and a Giant-blood can. A few have discovered this. They have walked the hardest road in the world, out of the giants' halls and down into the hills, and knelt at an altar where everyone who saw them come trembled. The faithful do not trust them easily. They never forget, either, what it cost a Giant-blood to come.

Huge. A Giant-blood stands a quarter again as tall as other men, broad as a doorway, with hands that make a sword look small. The men shave their heads but for one long braided war-lock and bind their heavy beards in gold rings, the women ring their heavy braids in gold and hang great gold from their ears, and their Giant-court gear is heavy gold, black and dark bronze, crowned by a trophy necklace of great teeth set in gold and handed down from the oldest hunts. Their voices are deep, their tempers slow to rise and terrible when they do.

The Giant-blood are the greatest defenders of any people: Berserkers and Sentries who cannot be moved, Predators and Shepherds who strike like falling trees. Their Old Blood tradition even makes for fearsome armored healers. The arts of the mind come hard to them, but nothing is forbidden.

You want to be the biggest, strongest and most feared person in every room. You want an inheritance you did not ask for and a choice no one can make for you. The blood of the fallen is in your veins. What you do with it is entirely your own.