Magmaraith

• Humanoid with exaggerated proportions — immense shoulders, trunk-like limbs, thick necks.
• Blood is hot and slightly viscous, leaving faint steam if cut.
• Internal organs partially shielded by natural plates of volcanic stone grown along ribs and spine.

• Gender differences minor, with males tending bulkier and females taller with broader hips for balance.
• Both can channel inner heat into temporary bursts of superheated aura, blackening nearby ground.

Reproduce through live birth after ~10-month gestation. Infants born nearly stone-gray and “ignite” into their ember patterns after their first year.

• Thrive in volcanic ranges, basalt canyons, and deep crater lakes filled with slow-cooling magma.
• Often found maintaining leyline stabilizers — huge rune-etched pillars that prevent catastrophic eruptions.

• Omnivorous, but their bodies require trace minerals and volcanic salts, often consumed in steaming rock stews.
• Known to chew lumps of obsidian or metallic ores, which strengthen internal crystalline deposits.

During heavy ley surges, become restless, needing to disperse excess heat by immersing themselves in lava pools or hammering at massive obsidian anvils.

• Calm, deliberate, with immense patience. Slow to anger but unstoppable once roused, like a rising eruption.
• They consider promises as seismic oaths — breaking one is nearly unthinkable, often leading to self-imposed exile.

• Live in small clans called Faultbands, each tied to a sacred volcanic site or ley conduit.
• Led by Stoneheart Elders, who carry the oldest, most heavily fissured forms.

• Broad, angular features; brows often ridge over molten eyes like obsidian crowns.
• Mouths glow when they speak, revealing inner emberlight.

Predominantly Embergarde — especially along the Thundering Spine, a line of semi-active volcanoes where they carve fortress-monasteries.

• Deeply intelligent, especially in geomancy, rune forging, and ley calculus (a form of arcane earth mathematics).
• Think slowly but thoroughly, often surprising “quicker” races with profound insights.

Sense shifts in bedrock vibrations and leyline tremors. Can feel earthquakes hours before they strike, or detect buried magma flows.

• Use heavy, grinding syllables, often tied to rock or flame imagery.
• M: Gronak Veinbreaker, Thaurum Hearthsplit.
• F: Zalakha Ashbraid, Kehlune Pyrestone.
• Family lines named for specific volcanic ridges or fault lines.

Courtship often involves joint stonecarving rituals, embedding runes into cliff faces to declare bonds.

Masters of obsidian engineering, rune stabilizers, and molten smelting. Their constructs often stabilize entire volcanic belts.

Speak Low Embercant (a slow, echoing dialect adapted from Emberkin tongue), plus deep-chested Draconic for ceremonial addresses.

• When greeting an equal, press foreheads together briefly — sharing a measure of internal heat.
• With strangers, place massive hands palm-up to show peace.

Simple leather wraps and rune belts. Often adorn themselves with huge slabs of obsidian inscribed with ley stabilizing symbols.

• See themselves as living keystones, essential to balancing Embergarde’s volatile heart.
• Believe each goliath’s body is a temporary vessel for the will of the stone itself.

• Quake Feasts: when tremors threaten, clans gather to feast, drum on hollow stones, and sing resonance chants that help ease tensions in the ground.
• Magma Baptisms: young goliaths step into shallow molten flows to awaken their ember veins.

• Dragonborn & salamanders: Allies in maintaining volcanic stability, though sometimes see goliaths as ponderously slow.
• Molten dwarves: Deep mutual respect; often work together to craft ley stabilizers.
• Fire genasi: Viewed almost tenderly, as distant cousins born of the same primal forges but with fleeting lives.
• True dragons: Emberdrakes regard them as living monuments — both challenge and protector.