Folklore and Customs of the Land
The plains are its land, and its people keep it, that’s the way it has been before and the way it shall always be. No keeper is more zealous in their duty than the giants, the caretakers of the plains floral, fauna, earth and water. The Giants of the central plains are united by the concept of family. Their concept of family is rooted in purpose and values over blood relationship. The families of the plains are the Bison, The Gardeners, The Farmers, the Preservers, The Shepherds, the Arborists and now the Dire Resurrection. Each family aims to keep what they find dear as their main purpose but no family would tread on another’s domain to further theirs, but the cohesion of these duties has caused arguments and spats in the past.
All families of the giants venerate the gods of the seasons, harkening back to a time of planting crops, tending fields, and caring for flocks. The seasonal gods have developed with the myth of the great giants of old, now lost.
The myth says that in the North lives the god of Winter, in the East the god of spring, in the South the god of summer and West the god of fall. giants of old forgot themselves and thought they were worthy to live among the gods. They left the central plains for the land of the seasons and each in turn we’re judged worthy or not, but none returned alive to the plains. The giants see the tale also as a warning of favouring any season over another in sacrifice or veneration, going as far as to require a family whose member joins a clerical position for one god must offer up a family member to the other three seasons as well.
The Hall of the Seasons
An important central cave which links multiple tunnels and cave systems. This large cave has an opening in its ceiling letting the sunlight come through, it is one of the very rare places in the roots where the sun can be seen, hence its sacred status. A waterfall also comes down from the hole, a source of renewed water for the beasts of the giant families. On the ground, a large disc of stone has been assembled and engraved with markings corresponding to the beginning and end of the seasons and other important calendar events. As the sun moves during the year, it illuminates the corresponding area on the disc. In the center of the space grows the last robur tree, a tree special in the giant culture as a meeting place of the families to discuss politics, the laws of their familial agreements and voice any disputes that might be festering. Before the robur covered the plains and each direction had one but now all families meet under the robur in the Hall.
To let them see the passage of time in the extended tunnels they keep starlight beetles, a beetle-like insect that holds the glow of the sun with it for the amount of time it was in the sun. So a starlight bettle who spent a day in sunlight will hold a day’s light, exactly.
This wasn’t the only insect the giants turned to for their new timing dilemma. Also cultivated in Central grottos are The eral fourwing, a butterfly species native to the eastern plains, it is a caterpillar for the winter, spins its cocoon for the spring, lays in crystallises for the summer, and hatches in the fall. The eral fourwing shifts a dazzling array of colours in this time and has given a new tradition to calling times of the month by the colour of the insect at that time. This gift of the eral fourwing as well as ancient giant gods of the seasons has given to a new renewal of the changes of seasons as the changes of forms and fortune.
Festival of Abundant Sacrifice
There is a concept for the giants families that nothing is ever gained without first losing what you had, boiled down in the proverbial saying “You can’t sow seeds with your hands full of last year’s harvest.” In honour of this belief a festival is held every 5 years in the Hall of the Seasons which all families gather and observe. During the 5 days of festivities you must give up something to another and by this gesture your next 5 years will bring abundance.
These offerings can be of a material good, many give crops though things that took time like cheeses, fermented vegetables, a grown animal and distilled goods are seen as great sacrifices for the time put into making them. They also could be the promise of your services to a family, person or task, the most common of which is to seed shepard, for the five years however it is seen as dire bad luck to reach the next festival not having completed the task so one must be realistic in what they offer.
The sacrifice is not just just personal, all the families of giants make a familial sacrifice of their dead and rotten to the insects of the tunnel to renew the pack of their habitation of the caves and to honor the ancestors of the tunnels they now call home. The families may give a willing member to the clergy of the seasons or to the Tunnel Seekers, an order that maps the depths of the caves at their own peril.
Plots and Reciprocal Stones
The ties to the land for the people of the plains go beyond idealism, the connection some make to the land the foster works to the point of magic. In the plains above and the caves below stand stones that mark a plot of a person who has taken wardship of that land. Through days long observational meditation one reads what it is that land needs, whether it is to be preserved, tended, encouraged to grow, or to be cultivated. Once the type of care the land needs is noted on the stone then the person puts their name or moniker on the stone and claims the plot as their ward.
If the plot is well cared for by the one named on the stone they can call for aid from the life of the land. The magic that the person calls from the plot often falls in line with the plot’s purpose, so a preserving plot may give healing or restorative magic while a growing one may give creative or transmutation magic. So too do the bison herders and shepherds bind their names to the animals they keep and if the relationship is strong they can call on beasts like strength and stamina, though this is done by carved wooden collars that adorn the animals.
There are many of these plots in the cave systems, however the practice of standing stones was left on the surface and now the stone walls themselves bear the name and pledges. The last menhirs of the plains stand more as gravestones, marking dead plots often kept by the dead. These ruined plots tended by those who are now dead are often utilized by the Dire Resurrection family to call on spirits for their strange experiments and rituals.