Arandolian Giants | amazonempire

Arandolian Giants (Extinct)

Sub-Species Name: Homo Sapiens Colossaeus

Distinctive Characteristics: Colossal height, massive strength and resistence to cold. Intensive inbreeding was what made them so strong and massive, but their immunologic system grew weaker with it, leading to their ultimate extinction. Nowadays, only their hybrid descendants remain.

As an isolated biome set aside from the rest of the world, the mountainous highlands of the Arandolian Archipelago were once the home of great creatures from long gone eras. Mammoths, giant sloths, sabertooth tigers and other ice age animals managed to survive the defrosting of Earth in the cold areas around the tallest mountain of Arandolia, up to the point of many of them still existing not too long ago.

Amidst those long forgoten animals, a distinct group of humanoids flourished there in immemorial times, thriving in the cold weather and growing not only in numbers, but also in size. For some rather odd cultural reason, those isolated people began to adopt inbreeding as their main form of reproduction, concentrating their already naturally enhanced growth genes in such a way that each new generation was born taller and stronger than the last one.

After ages living like this, their kin grew so large that they were often seen by their average-sized celtic neighbours as an entirely new species. Many even considered them some kind of sentient mythological creatures created by the Goddesses, but in reality they were just the byproduct of a drastically narrow gene pool.

Although the Giants were very peaceful towards the amazons once they discovered, colonized and hellenized Arandolia in 1000 B.C., it was the amazons who unwittingly led to the demise of the giant species. A fate not even the goddesses could predict.

In the peak of their society, the Giants were great hunters and mighty warriors. Over 3 meters height and up to 250 kgs of pure muscle mass meant they were simply unstoppable in any kind of confrontation, so they lived out of hunting large beasts for their survival.

But size can be as much of an incredible evolutionary advantage as it can also be a huge burden on any creature. Being so big and so strong demands a lot of food intake in order to survive, while all the inbreeding brought its own problems to the giants. Their narrow genetic pool made them mightier than any other humanoid species on the face of the Earth, but it also rendered their immunologic system weaker by each new generation, exposing themselves to contagious diseases without the slightest defense to it.

With the arival of the Amazons, enlightment and hellenization were brought to Arandolia. The giants were respected and trade in between their civilizations flourished, with new technologies and ideas being widely accepted by the giant kin, and even inter-species breeding happening every once in a while. However, the amazons also brought diseases from the European mainland with them. Epidemics were all but a minor annoyance to a normal human being's strong immunologic system, but for the arandolian giants up the mountains, it was a mortal pestilence that killed the majority of those who ever got sick.

The giants' numbers declined rather fast in the centuries that followed. The megafauna that provided their livelihood began to dwindle as well because of the same viruses that now killed their kin by the hundreds, causing a shortage of food and pelts that entailed in famine and hypothermia, worsening the situation even more. After all, hunger and cold were the main factors to bring the death by the mortal flu, and the giants had grewn so dependant on a meat-rich diet to sustain their massive bodies that vegetables and fruits did not help them at all.

By the year of 800 B.C., the only surviving prehistoric creatures that endured this slow decay were the mammoths and the sabertooths, which were simply too dangerous to be hunted in large scale by the starving giants. Without an abundant source of fresh meat, the last scattered settlements of the giant kin began to disappear. Once a mighty race of numerous, vigorous and healthy colossal beings, only a small portion of them survived, having no other choice but to head out towards the coastline to seek shelter amongst their amazon allies. They were received with open arms, even treated as demi-gods up to some degree, but the closer contact to the flu amongst the amazons soon caught them as well.

Unable to resist, the entire species was doomed to their ultimate extinction. However, that would not come to be the end of their bloodline. Although no pureblood Arandolian Giant survived their final demise, there were sexual intercourses in between giantesses and seed-amazons, which ended up originating the ultimate salvation of a dying race. When the last pure-blood giant fell dead to the sickness, the extinction of those ancient beings was marked by the ascension of a brand new race to carry on its legacy. Hybrid descendants of mixed blood survived and thrived, possessing most of the size and might of the now extinct giant kin, and also the strong immunologic system of the amazon kin.

Atop of their outstanding 2.25m average height, the Amazon Half-Giantesses now cast a shadow over the rest of the amazon population of Arandolia. Not nearly as big as their long gone ancestors once were, but still big enough to stand out in any crowd like a sore thumb. They are a minority scattered all over the amazon nation, but the legacy of the colossal women lives firm and strong inside them, while the County of Riesenberg will always offer a safe haven for the half-giant kin.