World: Jotunheim
Diet: Anything, preference for meat
Height: 16’4″
Lifespan: 300 years
Habitat: Plains, forests
Activity Cycle: Diurnal
Jotunheim does not have a natural seasonal cycle. There is no winter and summer, or cycles of wet and dry. Instead, winter follows on the heels of the frost giants. These nomadic giants travel in groups of 15 to 30 adult members, with a smaller number of juveniles and children. Anybody who approaches an individual can feel the chill radiating off of them, dipping below zero when multiple members find themselves in close quarters. This effect takes time to cumulate into winter storms, and by moving frequently, they keep themselves just abreast of the eternal blizzards that follow in their wakes.
Even powerful creatures and larger giants fear the approach of frost giants. They are as hungry as any giant their size, and they need to keep their entire number fed. As such, they are voracious hunters, and will sometimes strip a region nearly bare before they are forced to move on. The storms that follow will further devastate the land, and it can take decades for it to recover. As such, frost giants take care to not visit the same places too often or cross one another’s paths. To this end, they leave deep carvings in convenient rock structures, or pile up their own to make markers. Through a complex calendar system, they mark when they last passed a region and so leave the world vital enough to recover. The oldest member of the group is traditionally its leader, tasked with keeping track of their markers and choosing the direction of their wanderings.
As the feminine equivalent of fire giants, frost giants are all female. Whenever they cross paths with a settlement of fire giants, nearly every member of each group will couple with at least one partner, often multiple, before they head off again. Females born to the group will be kept, while males are left with the next fire giant population they come across.
