An Alternative Ecology of Giants

So, I had people ask for this one, a deep dive discussion into the hows and whys of giants. Where do they come from? Why do they exist? What are their ties to the elements? How do they just ignore the square cube law? Ok, we might not really answer that last one. But let's get into it!

Giants in myth are actually pretty similar across cultures. In Greek myth, Giants are all monstrous offspring of the Titaness Gaia, the earth herself. In Norse myth, the Jotuns are offspring of the titanic primordial entities Ymir and Surtr, and there's a giantess called Jord...who is the earth herself. In Abrahamic lore, giants were the spawn of man and fallen angels. In Irish myth, the Fomor are a race, sometimes giants, of godlike beings that predate the Tuatha de Danaan and interbreed with them...as the Jotun do the Aesir, and the Titans do with the Greek Gods. So here, the commonality seems to be: Titans/Jotuns/ Fomor/Giants are an expression of primordial power, predating man and his gods, very often representing uncaring elements of the natural world. So in a fantasy world like D&D posits, what dose that give us as an origin?

In the Forgotten Realms, the giants are simply the mortal offspring of their gods. This is seen as sort of the default. But it doesn't work well in every setting...like settings with a single pantheon of gods that oversee everything. So we need a more unified approach, one that fits into more backgrounds...and matches with the near universal tendency for the giants to be enemies, rivals, and sometimes lovers of the gods...but not gods themselves, per se. Not exactly.

So. Let's start with origins. Back in the formation of the world, before things were really made, gods became aware, somehow. At the same time, in most of these myths, there were other things, sometimes already awake and aware. Most myth systems call them primordials, or Titans, things like that. They represent elemental forces with no concern for mortals whatsoever. In this scheme, this approach to giants, the giants become the mortal, or semi-mortal, descendants of the Titans. As an example of this, and you'll note you could use this origin for dragons as well because of this: Loki, a Jotun, mates with another Jotun, Angrboda, and their offspring are Fenris Wolf, Jormungandr, and Hel...all giants, only one of whom is humanoid, and half-dead. Their offspring, in turn, become types of giants. In addition, the spawn of Ymir become the frost jotuns, and the children of Surtr are the fire Jotuns. So in a way...every giant (and by extension dragon and most other 'kaiju' size beings) in this case is an expression of one aspect of primordial chaos. That which opposes the gods...mostly...but certainly is outside their purview. Jotunheim, for instance, is literally also called Utangard 'outside the enclosure' of Midgard, or the world created by the gods. These giants would probably worship their primordial, titanic forbears...but those would still not be exactly gods. Ina lot of ways, they are closer to what modern Christian myth would call demons...but not inherently evil, per se...just not governed by the laws of the gods. Order vs chaos, as a struggle, greatly predates good vs evil.

What dose that mean for giants in D&D? Well...true giants in D&D are mostly based on the Jotun. The most common kind are hill giants and stone giants (earth), frost giants (cold), fire giants (heat and fire) cloud giants (representing the sky as a whole) and storm giants (storm, lightning, thunder). There are a whole bunch more giants and giant kin, but these will suffice for the examples.

So. Where do they come from? Their titanic forbears who represent primordial chaos. They themselves become world bound expressions of elemental energies and chaos. Like elementals, but in the world, and of it, even as they lie outside the ruler of the gods. They don't live on a distant elemental plane or in primordial chaos itself...they live right outside civilization. They live in the wild places. In some cases, they controlled everything before the gods took it from them to give to mortal races, and they want it back.

Why do they exist? They just do. That's literally their point. They are manifestations of reality outside the limits and control of the gods. They are wild, fundamentally, even if they appear orderly.

What are their ties to the elements? They are the elements, in a very real way. Direct, humanoid (or other animal) manifestations of elemental power, in the world and of it, despite being 'other', than the gods.

Looks like we are actually going to answer the square cube law thing, by the way. They don't obey physics because physics are part of the rules enforced by the gods, and they are outside those, beyond them, inherently. So they can be human shaped and functional, despite being 15, 30, 60 feet tall. Their mind boggling ability to just ignore the rules we function by is literally fundamental to their existence.

What does this mean in actual ecological terms? Well...it's a bit of cop out. We avoided that with dragons...so...how do we integrate them?

There's a couple of big issues. Even more than dragons, because these creatures are found in groups. These aren't solitary monsters covering a huge hunting range, but whole towns and steadings of giants. Luckily, there are also giant animals...so we basically just assume that anywhere humanoid giants live everything is upsized the same amount, so the ecology takes care of itself. Giant cows, giant sheep, giant deer. Which gives us more cool monsters as well as explaining what the humanoid giants eat, and what eats them. Put dragons in that same oversized ecology and you actually have an easier time explaining their behavior. And maybe the animals wander sometimes and the giants chase them, giving reasons for an occasional foray into the 'human' world.

In my world of Teryn, all these oversized things lived together on the Cloudlands. In the Successor States of Rega, giants and their animals are from lands far distant from the civilized ones, far to the north past great mountain ranges, except for cyclopes, and those unique giants spawned from Invidia’s blood. So, in general, it’s important to give them some separation from normal creatures...unlike monsters of more normal size, which can live right next door.

Put your giants in Giantlands, where they can be part of Giant ecologies, because when they interact with normal sized ones...they cause devastation. Of course, that's why they are monsters. Those times they interact with the smaller world are nigh apocalyptic for the little people...so treat them that way. The Jotuns, or eaters, should be a significant thing if you use them at all. Like Godzilla and Kong wrecking a city with their fight, Giants can be a campaign changing element when you introduce them, if you think of the implications. And when the little, normal sized folk go to their lands...that's when things get really mythic, because even normal animals are an epic threat...and you get to tell stories like Jack the Giantkiller, or Thor's Journey to Utgard-Loki's house.