Griddrir

Griddrir is an ancient city, built in the Lith-Crillion Era by storm and cloud giants. Built on the floating island Gurnskolf , it became the he seat of power for the giant empire Aslauthroa. For nearly two millennia, it serve as this empire's capital.

From the Moonstone Throne, in a throne room of colossal proportions where two hundred giants could stand comfortably, the empire’s leaders ruled from the sky. At its peak, they looked down upon 10,000,000 million subjects, across Gurnskolf’s 5,000 square miles, and to the land four miles below covering an area a hundred times that of their island in the sky. Their control also extended underground to the holds of peoples who spend their entire lives far below the surface, a world unto itself.

- Gothjid, cloud giant Griddrir historian - "Moonstone Throne"

After the fall of Aslauthroa in 1891 HE, Griddrir became an independent city-state. Even with declining power, she continued to seek tribute and fealty from the peoples of Cinazan. In 1487, Griddrir's Storm Duke, angry with Okrungknot's refusal to pay tribute, hired mercenaries to punish the place. For a few years thereafter, Okrungknot paid tribute. This ended after the hold learned that Griddrir were not up to the task of keeping them in check.

Today, the city still holds a good size population of storm and cloud giants with ancient bloodlines tracing back to the first storm giant and cloud giant families - a group called the Heinjar Sorgny. The leader of the city has the title Storm Duke, which harks back to the days of Aslauthroa when the kingdom was headed by a storm king and queen with storm dukes under them controlling the nation's five principalities.

Griddrir is built on Bal-Kriav's largest earth mote, a massive floating landmass called Gurnskolf. As a result, the only way to reach it is by skyship, magic, or by traveling up the Kernsking Koils. The latter route can be particularly hazardous without protection from the local wildlife or marauding bands of giants.

Griddrir and the Khazarkar Empire have a long standing animosity that dates to the early part of the Second Epoch when the the slave skiffs of Gurnskolf raided the land below, carrying off captives and whatever else they wanted. At the time, the Khazarkars were pushing west across Cinazan, so they were quite vulnerable to raids. The growing might of the empire ended up bringing their raiding and slaving to an end - the Khazarkars stated it simply, "face genocidal destruction or change your ways". The giants stopped, but their hunger for more minions continued. They started inter-breeding their slaves, had them co-habit, and giving them a lot more freedom to interact, basically making them the lowest class citizens on pitiful "near slave" wages. This allowed Griddrir to sustain and increase the population, with them actively encouraging copulations with money. This inter-breeding of khazarkars, was a great affront to them, a violation of the Khazarkar Purity Edict. One that to this day, they have never forgave. When the Khazarkar's got their own skyships they forced them to stop the practice and free all the Khazarkars, which under threat of skyships ten times their numbers, they did.

The inter-breeding of the Griddrir slave population resulted in the creation of the mongrelfolk. The giants classified them a new race, so they were not considered part of the Anti-Slave Treaty. After nearly two centuries of using them as their new slave pool, the storm titan Queen Kjadval was faced again with the wrath of the lowlanders. Not wanting to see Griddrir reduced to ruin by four Pyramids of Set and her escorts, she set free the mongrelfolk. They were removed from Gindinâth, taken down to Ânul and left to take care of themselves.