Gunbar Crag

Official Name: The High Kingdom of Gunbar Crag
Ruler: High King Gromgar Stonefather
Government: Absolute Monarchy
Capital: Gunbar Crag
Resources: Iron, Gold, Adamantine, Stone, Slaves
Population: 48,000 (45% Giants, 20% Ogres, 10% Ettins, 5% Trolls, 20% Mixed and Slaves)
Languages: Giant, Common
Common Alignments: Lawful Evil, Lawful Neutral, Neutral Evil
Major Religions: Surtur (LE), Stronmaus (CN), Skoraeus Stonebones (N)


Gunbar Crag is unlike any city built by the younger races. Rising from the face of an immense mountain, it is a place of impossible scale. Staircases hundreds of feet wide climb between vast terraces carved directly into the living rock. Gateways stand forty feet high, whilst halls large enough to contain entire Human villages disappear deep into the mountain beyond. Great statues of forgotten Giant kings watch over the city, their heads rising above the surrounding peaks, weathered by thousands of years of wind and snow. Strength governs every aspect of Giant society. The strongest rule. The weakest obey.

Every Giant is expected to prove themselves through labour, battle or leadership. Challenges between rivals are common and the High King himself must regularly demonstrate his strength before the assembled clans or risk losing their loyalty. Mercy is rarely admired and weakness is considered a failing rather than a misfortune. Slavery has long been accepted as part of the natural order. Prisoners taken during raids labour in the quarries, mines and forges that support the kingdom. Humans, Orcs, Dwarves and even rival Giants have all known the chains of Gunbar Crag. To the Giants there is nothing cruel in this arrangement; they believe the weak exist to serve the strong until they prove themselves worthy of greater status. Despite their fearsome reputation, the Giants are not simple brutes. Their stoneworkers remain unmatched in shaping entire mountainsides, whilst their smiths produce enormous weapons and armour of remarkable quality. Within the deepest halls of Gunbar Crag are said to lie records stretching back to the earliest ages of the world, describing kingdoms, races and even mountain ranges that disappeared long before the first Human kingdoms were founded.

Few outsiders have ever entered Gunbar Crag and returned. Those who have speak of a civilisation both magnificent and terrifying, where everything exists upon a scale almost beyond comprehension and every visitor is reminded that they walk amongst a people who still believe themselves the rightful masters of the mountains. The Giants have little interest in the politics of the younger races, yet they watch them carefully. They have seen kingdoms rise and empires crumble, and they believe the age of Humanity will pass just as those before it did.

When that day comes, the Giants believe the mountains, and perhaps the world itself, will once again belong to them.