I had heard tales of the First Giants, myths whispered in smokey fire-lit halls and murmured beneath breath on long winter nights. But no tale, no song nor legend could have prepared me for the moment I first laid eyes upon one. It was somewhere in the Western Ranges, a fortnight south of Fistfire, where the jagged peaks stand like broken teeth against an endless gray sky. I was scouting an overland route to the high plains of the Northern Drift, mapping the treacherous passes where no roads dared carve their way.
Understand now, that the high mountains are a forgotten place. Untamed and wild, they rise like the bones of the world itself, towering against the sky where few dare to tread. A vast cathedral of snow-locked peaks and shadowed valleys, a place where time moves slow, and the wind carries secrets older than men. No king seeks to rule here, for the land is sovereign unto itself, bound by laws not written by mortals but whispered in the howling storms and shifting snowdrifts. Even the Old Emperor, in his fickle wisdom, turns a blind eye to that place, for his banners and armies would find no purchase on those craggy heights, where frost grips rock and talus like a jealous lover.
It is an alpine wilderness of thin air and tempestuous weather, where the skies boil with dark clouds, and the breath of the gods stirs the mountain’s wrath. Here, no man makes his home, for the land is a mercurial host, offering no solace to weary travelers. The winds scream through jagged passes, twisting and swirling ripe with ancient spirits lost in the storms, and the snow falls in thick, heavy curtains obscuring all but the nearest step.
Even the eagles, those lords of the sky, shun these peaks, their sharp eyes turned elsewhere, for there is little life to sustain them. The game is scarce, and the creatures that do live here are strange and elusive, pale things that move like shadows across the ice, their tracks vanishing and secret. It is a place where silence reigns, save for the groaning of glaciers and the crack of ice splitting ‘neath unseen weight. The air itself is thin and it bites at your lungs, making each breath a struggle, as if the very mountains themselves resent the presence of intruders.
And yet, there is a majesty in that forgotten place, a terrible beauty that can only be known by those who venture beyond the realms of the known world. The peaks stand eternal, draped in their icy cloaks, watching over the earth with a cold, indifferent gaze. They are timeless, these mountains, unbowed by the passage of years or the rise and fall of empires. Here, where even the stars seem distant and faint, one can feel the weight of eternity pressing down, the sense that these high places ignore the world of men and will remain long after we and our cousins have perished.
The high mountains are a place of ghosts and legends, where ancient spirits are said to dwell, trapped in the frost, waiting for the day when the world grows cold enough to free them. Travelers speak of hearing strange whispers on the wind, voices carried down from the peaks, but no one knows who—or what—calls from those frozen heights. Perhaps it is the mountains themselves, old and restless, whispering their secrets to those foolish enough to listen. Or perhaps it is simply the wind, mocking those who believe they can conquer a place that belongs to none.
A torn fragment from an old map of the Northern Continent.
I had heard these tales before, yarns spun with pipe and pint in hand. But standing now in the shadow of the Western Ranges, I found the truth far colder and more unforgiving than any watchman’s midnight tale. It had been snowing for three days, relentless and unyielding. The snow fell in heavy, suffocating drifts, each flake a cold whisper, piling upon itself until the world was nothing but a white, silent tomb. My companions, sensible folk of the lowlands, had turned back long before, their spirits worn thin by the relentless cold. I alone pressed forward, stubborn as the mountains themselves, my breath a fog before me, my body wrapped in furs that did little to ward off the gnawing bite of the wind.
The storm had swallowed the world whole—sky and earth melded into a single seamless void. Yet as I trudged forward, sinking into the snow to my knees with every step, a strange stillness fell over the land. The wind ceased its howling torment, and in its absence, the silence pressed down upon me like a chapel’s weight. It was then that I saw him.
Through the veil of snow and shadow, a figure began to take form—towering, tremendous, ancient. At first, I thought it a trick of the light, the snow playing cruel games with my weary eyes. But no, the shape grew clearer, solid and imposing against the swirling storm. He stood at the edge of a frozen ridge, a sentinel of the old world, his immense form carved from the very ice itself. His shoulders rose like the cliffs that guard the Northern Drift, his limbs thick as ancient pines, and his skin—if one could call it that—was pale, almost translucent, as though the cold itself had sculpted him from glacier and frost.
His breath came in slow, thunderous clouds, rolling from his mouth like smoke from the volcanic fires above Pyretown, and his eyes—gods, his eyes—twin shards of sapphire, glinting with a cold, hard distant light. They gazed out over the vast, frozen expanse, as though seeing far beyond our world, into realms where winter forever reigned. There was a stillness to him, a heaviness in the air around him, as if the very mountain held its breath in his presence.
For a moment, I stood frozen, not by the cold, but the sheer awe of the sight before me. A First Giant, a being from a time long forgotten, before the first men had crossed the Sola Sea to wage their conquests. A massive creature of legend, Eriaheim’s most beloved child, whose very existence defied the warmth of my life and light. And I tell you now, I could feel the ancient power radiating from him, his cold sinking deeper into my bones as though the air itself had turned stone.
I dared not move, dared not breathe, for fear any motion might shatter the fragile silence that bound us. The storm seemed to pause in reverence, and the world became still, as though time itself had stopped to bear witness.
Then, without warning, his great head turned. Slowly, deliberately, his gaze fell upon me, and I felt the weight of centuries in those eyes. They were not unkind, but neither were they forgiving. Eyes of winter—cold, indifferent, eternal. My heart pounded in my chest, each beat a hammer blow against the quiet. The air between us seemed to thin, and in that moment, I felt so very small, insignificant, a fleeting breath of warmth in a world of endless cold.
As he spoke, his voice was like glaciers grinding against rock, the deep rumble of ancient ice shifting beneath groaning earth. “Lo!—a wind doth blow…” His words rolled out like the storm itself, carried on the wind that had moments before howled through the crags and peaks. They were not meant for me, I knew that much. I am no fool. No mortal ear was meant to hear the thoughts of such a being. And yet, they echoed in the emptiness between us.
His words twisted through the air, woven with the very essence of winter’s breath. I could not move, could not tear my eyes from him, as the Giant spoke of winds that raged from west to east, of icy fingers that tendered frozen branches and of a life long wearied by relentless cold. His lament was carried not in sorrow, but in resignation—an acceptance of a fate bound to mountain and wind, where even Brother Sun’s warmth could not reach.
As he continued, I felt the earth beneath me tremble, as though it, too, listened to his ancient song. The roots of the mountain groaned, crumbling sugared snow whispered across the frozen drifts, and the cold seemed to press tighter around me, as if urging me to listen, to understand.
“And still I feel a frozen stone… having moved past spring’s season, wretched winter close behind… always chasing.” The words chilled me to my core, not from fear, but from the weight of the truth they carried. Here was a being trapped in an endless cycle, a creature who had watched the world thaw and freeze time and time again, and yet he alone remains, long after familiar life has expired and all else has moved on.
I did not speak, I dared not, for what words could I offer? What warmth could I provide to one who had known time’s embrace as he?
So I listened, cautious but curious, the very air shivering, as he continued. This tremendous creature, more monolith than man, seemed to me, to carry the weight of ages upon his broad shoulders.
“West now east… icy fingers tender frozen branches.” He gestured with a hand the size of a tree trunk, his fingers splayed wide as if to show me the very winds that heeded his call. His words hung in the air, the cold wind wrapping itself around each syllable, whispering them back to me in a voice not unlike his own.
“Tendered brightly flame and fire,” he sang, and I watched as his massive hand traced the empty sky. “Their blaze unannounced thaws—This crucial heat makes hot our blood, defrost my weary life’s cold syrup.”
He paused then, and for a moment I saw something strange in those frozen eyes. A longing, perhaps, for warmth, for the life and fire he could never fully grasp. His words, though powerful, trembled more fiercely, a crack forming in glacial ice.
“And still,” he rumbled, “I feel a frozen stone—having moved past spring’s season, wretched winter close behind, whose frosts forever follow.” He bowed his great head, his breath misting in front of him, and I could see the cold that had taken root in his soul, a frost that no flame nor ember could hope to melt.
The wind stirred again, high above, whipping clouds into dark shapes that swirled and twisted like mages working some secret spell. He lifted his gaze, his voice growing sharp with bitterness. “And what a peculiar wind up-high still blowing, west then east, makes secret the clouds these cruel occult apprentices. Part! Let sing your golden priest!”
His voice rose, commanding, yet it was tinged with resignation, as though he knew the sun’s light would never answer him. The sun had fled this land long ago, leaving aching cold in its wake.
“But I resign… bitter and tepid,” he whispered, his voice softening. “And would repent my careless conception, had I the heat.”
There it was—the very heart of his sorrow, laid bare before me, and I am not ashamed to admit my heart ached for this Great Giant, immense and ancient, bound to the cold bones of the world, shouldering the weight of his creation like a yoke no age could lift. A being tied to a time long gone, a relic of frost and stone who yearned for a warmth he could never know. His words, though mighty, drifted into the wind like scattered flurries, lost to the sky, fading with the faint sigh of a dying flame.
I stood there, silent witness to his sorrow, watching as the storm renewed swallowing him whole, and then he disappeared back into the snows from which he’d appeared—
I am Kofi Trachamon, a free ranger and scout by trade, and at times, a sword for those whose coin too often out weighs my honor. I hail from the Northern Continent, where the winds still whisper forgotten things, where man must survive by wit and mettle. And this—this is my tale, as I have lived it.