Goliaths

“The mountains remember those who refuse to fall.”
— Old Kastovian proverb

Overview

The Goliaths are a race of towering humanoids native to the Barrier Range and other high Leyline-scarred mountain chains of Aesos.
They are the children of altitude, pressure, and exposure — a fusion of human and elemental adaptation shaped by millennia of life where the Leylines run closest to the sky.

To outsiders they appear as living stone; to themselves, they are simply the Enduring, caretakers of the world’s bones.

Origin Theories

The Elemental Hypothesis (Cezoran Science)

Early Mana scholars propose that Goliaths are human offshoots evolved by prolonged exposure to the Elemental Leyline, which vents freely through the Barrier Range.
Their bones contain trace silicate compounds and resonate faintly with Aether readings.

The Divine Hypothesis (Church Canon)

The Church of the Lifestar maintains that the Goliaths were shaped directly by the Lifestar’s mercy to guard the world’s foundations during the Age of Rebellion.
They are venerated as the Wardens of Stone — divine sentinels who never fell to corruption.

The Goliath Truth

Legends among the Goliaths speak of the First Carvers — ancient miners and masons who begged the mountains for strength when the sky fell.
The mountains answered.

Physiology

• Height: 7–9 feet tall; dense musculature and heavy bone mass.
• Skin tones range from granite grey to warm basalt, often marbled or veined with mineral hues.
• Hair is coarse, metallic, or crystalline in texture.
• Eyes gleam faintly in low light — a biological adaptation to Mana reflection.
• Internal organs include a unique Ley-gland that allows efficient oxygen and Mana exchange at high altitudes.
• Longevity averages 180 years; youth considered to last the first fifty.

Abilities

• Elemental Resonance: Can sense vibrations through stone and metal; capable of “listening” to rock strata and faint Aether currents.
• Endurance: Resistant to cold, pressure, and radiation; immune to most environmental Mana sickness.
• Stature: Exceptional strength; capable of carrying or striking with twice human capacity.
• Stone’s Memory: Deep meditative state allowing them to recall ancestral echoes embedded in rock—a communal memory called the Bedrock Dream.

Culture

Clanholds

Each mountain holds carven halls called Clanhollows. A clan may number a few dozen families bound by work, not blood.
Their architecture is seamless stone: no mortar, only balance and weight.
At the heart of each hall lies the Pillar of Names, etched with the clan’s lineage since time immemorial.

Law and Honour

Goliaths prize truth, endurance, and craftsmanship.
To lie is to shatter stone; to craft poorly is sacrilege.
Disputes are settled through Trial of Weight — a test of endurance, burden, or patience, never bloodshed.

Faith

Most revere the Lifestar as the celestial peak — the summit all souls climb after death.
Others quietly keep the Old Stone Faith, a pantheism venerating the mountains themselves as sleeping titans.

Language

Their tongue, Karn, uses harmonic tones and vibrations felt rather than heard.
When spoken in Common, Goliaths tend to speak slowly and with poetic precision.

Regional Variants

Relations with Other Peoples

• Cezorans: Respectful partnership in mining and construction, though wary of exploitation.
• Kastovians: Economic allies; Goliath craftsmen hold guild ranks equal to human masters.
• Skjoldar: Rivalry tempered by mutual respect for endurance.
• Church: Reveres them as holy sentinels but distrusts their independence.

Philosophy

“Stone endures not because it is hard, but because it yields to time without breaking.”
— Elder Morn Avas, Meditations of the Hollow Peak

Their culture revolves around the idea of Balance — that strength is meaningless without harmony.
Every Goliath seeks to leave behind something that will outlast them: a crafted tool, a carved verse, or a perfected act of endurance.

The Bedrock Dream

In deep meditation, Goliaths can enter a trance known as the Bedrock Dream.
There they relive memories of ancient ancestors, not as visions but as tactile experiences — the feel of carving, the rhythm of hammer and chisel.
Some claim to hear the voice of the mountains themselves, guiding them toward forgotten relics buried beneath Aesos.

Modern Presence (3360 YL)

• Population: ~1.5 million across Aesos.
• Political Representation: Clans maintain neutrality but send observers to Cezoran and Kastovian councils.
• Economy: Masters of masonry, mining, and Leyline tunnelling; integral to Mana conduit construction.
• Conflicts: Increasing recruitment by Cezoran armies; debates over the Church’s attempt to canonise the Goliaths as “Living Saints.”

Goliaths and the Leylines

“We do not worship the mountains. We listen to their heartbeat.”
— Elder Harn Korr, Ley-Singer of the Barrier Range

The Elemental Current

The Goliaths live upon the spine of Aesos, where the Elemental Leyline breathes closest to the surface.
Here, stone and Mana intertwine; veins of power run through granite like molten nerves.
The Goliaths’ existence is both a product and a guardian of that current.

Physiological Resonance

• The Ley-Gland in every Goliath acts as a living regulator, harmonising their internal Mana flow with ambient Ley energy.
• When storms of raw Mana sweep across the Barrier Range, Goliaths enter trance-like endurance states known as Stone Calm, allowing them to survive what would kill other races.
• Chronic exposure to Ley radiation during growth thickens their skin and bone, embedding silicate crystals that hum faintly when struck.

Elemental Memory

Goliath oral tradition claims that their ancestors could “hear” the world long before the Church’s priests discovered prayer.
Modern Resonants have confirmed that the low-frequency vibrations within Goliath clanholds match the rhythmic pulses of the Elemental Leyline beneath the mountains — suggesting a natural symbiosis rather than coincidence.

The Stone Choirs

Across the Barrier Range lie Stone Choirs — sacred caverns where Goliaths gather to meditate.
Each Choir is built around a Leystone, a natural crystal pillar resonating with the Elemental Leyline’s pulse.
When hundreds of Goliaths chant in harmonic unison, the pillar glows and the surrounding rock hums like a vast organ.

Scholars from Leolin Bay have recorded these frequencies; their notes imply that the chants stabilise the Leyline itself, preventing surges that might fracture the region’s Manafield.
To the Goliaths, however, it is simple devotion: “We sing, and the world endures.”

The Forge Covenant

Every Goliath clan maintains a Forge Covenant — a promise to use the earth’s gifts without depleting its strength.
Excessive mining near Ley conduits is taboo; to shatter a living vein of stone is considered murder.
Cezoran engineers who ignore this custom often find their machinery sabotaged or their tunnels collapsed by “natural” causes the next morning.

The Elemental Dream

In the deepest Bedrock Dreams, elder Goliaths sometimes glimpse fiery rivers beneath the crust — the Heartflow, where the Elemental Leyline meets the world’s core.
Some claim that the Architect’s first hammer still rings down there, forging creation anew each dawn.
Others insist that it is merely the sound of magma, but all agree: the mountain remembers.