Giants in the Broken Lands
Written for the February 2026 Blog Carnival.
Giants only enter the Jewelsea rarely. The low latitudes are unpleasant at best for these relics of a bygone era, bitter paranoiacs with skin of bronze who blame humanity for cooking the world in a long-past War of Many Suns well outside the reckoning of any reputable history. They are a broken people, so distrustful of others that they refuse to work even with their own kind except for those they have shackled to their wills.
Their eyes sparkle like rubies or sapphires from a height twice that of any human. Few among their kind are anything less than meticulously groomed. Giants are fit, but not slim - insulation is essential in the far north. Someone foolish enough to attack a giant may create a trickle of verdigris blood before the giant strikes them with enough force to send them flying.
Giants in the Jewelsea wear few clothes, only carrying what's necessary to bring their supplies along with them. Belts, backpacks, or bandoliers are common. A giant can accurately hurl a spear or throw a rock hundreds of meters. Most are also expert users of spell devices, particularly a set of three metal spheres favored by the giants who have mastered telekinetic disciplines. Some suggest that spell devices were originally invented by the giants, given their mastery of those ancient tools.
The paranoia of the giants is not natural. They are cursed to hate and distrust each other. The giants blame the old empire for shattering their once-great civilization that lived in cities carved from the ice that once covered the world. They say humans were once giants; they traded their fundamental essence for the luxuries of civilization and turned on their former fellows. The giants refuse to speak about the exact deeds of the old empire, but the curse of mistrust does not apply to humans. It's possible for human and giant to work together, but cultural prejudice means it is unlikely.
A human that drinks giant blood gains a bit of that giant's puissance and grows slightly in size until the blood wears off. The rare giant who is able to overcome their prejudice will occasionally recruit servitors that they supply with their own blood, granting a modicum of their power to their servants. Long-term use of giant blood may make some of its effects linger.
Giant children are produced by sculpting them from clay - one giant creates the sculpture and the another breathes life into it. The curse of mistrust means that they most often do this in pairs, each creating a sculpture for the other. Only after this is completed do they reveal the location. Children gradually succumb to the curse as well, until their parent no longer trusts them and drives them away to live on their own.
The giant homeland is said to be in the Broken Lands, the places of legend beyond the Isle of Shivering Dawn where the Frost Age never ended. None foolish enough to visit have ever returned to the Jewelsea to tell the tale. Those giants who do travel south rarely share their reasons.