The humans that inhabited the lush farmlands of the northern continent lived a blind life. The church was the government. Local towns and villages had minor governments but in all reality, the only power that controlled large swatches of land was the church. They held huge influence over towns, churches, education, and therefore the hearts of most of the humans of the north.
This arrangement came about through a mix of ignorance and manipulation. Certain factions wanted to keep the populace in the dark about certain truths. Other factions believed that by allowing people to arrange themselves in small communities and taking a hands-off approach, that they would maintain their own knowledge and histories.
Oral traditions were important among smaller villages where being literate was a rarity. Reading and writing was something you did if you have enough people to teach the younger children about it. Otherwise, if you lived in a small farming village devoid of books, you weren't worried about reading as much as you were about making sure your fields were protected and you had enough to eat during the lean months of winter.
The downfall of this meant that certain important facts of the world were lost to most average humans. They weren't lost to everyone, the facts were written down. These facts languished in the printed word, laid down in heavy black ink that had been hand-copied so that future generations would never forget.
What these wordsmiths didn't anticipate was that everyone would forgo education for comfort and simple day-to-day routines.
And this laziness of the mind led to the situation we had now. If you asked the average rural farmer about the rest of the world he could give you massive amounts of information about soil, watersheds, his family, and the neighbors you could get to with a few day's walk.
Now if you asked about the other races that lived on the planet they might look at you blankly. Most of the humans either believed they were a myth, or that they were all dead. The most pervasive lie was that humans were the only ones left on the planet and the real inhabitants to god's will.
This led to the first major problem for humanity. The far north of the continent was mountain ranges filled with ice and snow. Massive beats roamed the lands where they couldn't be hunted by humans. A single human wasn't much of a threat but packs of humans could wipe out an entire species.
So a sort of balance took place in the mountains. The fantastical large flora and fauna found equilibrium in the mountains. And because they thrived the few northern demi-humans found equilibrium as well in the harsh conditions.
Giants were a strange breed of demi-humans. They technically weren't demi-humans. They were a race of gifted humans, blessed with size, stamina, vitality, and power. The problem was the size of the normal human's brains. They couldn't use that smaller brain to appreciate their larger brothers and sisters.
The Giants weren't some race of ridiculously huge beings who could destroy a village with one foot. They were about the size of three full-grown men standing on each other's shoulders. The problem was they looked menacing because of this size, and the reptilian part of the smaller human's brain invoked fear and panic before curiosity and compassion.
Because of this, the Giants had moved north along with their larger food source. There was no need to mingle between the two anymore. If a giant came to the humans they only did so while they were still young and looked like the regular humans. They had some distinguishing characteristics, like larger heads and thicker hair. But that wasn't as scary as the sheer difference in height.
Normally the news in the human world didn't travel to the demi-human worlds with the exception being in areas where trade was tolerated between them.
Several pieces of news were spreading through the northern lands right now. Rumors of a prophet of the divines working his way north through southern lands came first. People rejoiced at the idea that the savages of the southern lands would learn about their benevolent divines. Then came word that a false god had been killed by humans and eaten by the inhabitants of the southern lands.
The last rumor was that the demon races and dragon races had reawakened. This was only partially true. The demon race was entirely subjugated and lived entirely underground. They wouldn't survive above ground or without their food source. And only one dragon was still alive, the emperor himself and his one rider.
To the giants, the word made it to their traders and caused a commotion. They weren't particularly afraid of the humans, or even the demi-humans, they had fought both in the last great war. They were familiar with dragons though, and the thought of them unbalancing the world again drove them into a panic.
For a very long time, the last living dragon had slept in the mountains where the heat of a long-dormant volcano kept him alive. He had educated the young of the giant race and ensured they remained enlightened to the real ways of the world.
The reality was that the giants were actually better scholars than the humans and demi-humans in almost all ways. Their isolation led to creations that the others would never come to. It also caused them to be more cautious about breeding and family. The cold could easily kill your family if you weren't careful about what you did for survival. The giants were intelligent, educated, cunning, and very very worried about what was happening south of them.
At the current moment, the oldest members of their race were seated in a circle at the table where the corpse of the last dragon was mummified in stone still sleeping. The giants gathered around him in respect and the belief that if they were ever truly in trouble he would come back to help them.
The oldest among them stood in the center of the room. He was covered in clothes made of white fur with black trimming. He stood talking to the other men around him. They sat cross-legged, covered in blankets of wool or wearing leather covers from beasts they had killed for food.
"Brothers, if a dragon has actually reappeared we need to confirm who. Our elder, the last great dragon, gave us the list of who we are to watch out for." The elder took that moment to point to a carving of names on the wall. The list of dragons who had turned against humanity, or those whose hearts were pure but simply lost.
"As the last great caretaker of the dragons, we must find this dragon and bring him here with us or take him out before he can destroy the world. We must prevent the white gold disaster again." He stamped his foot down on the stone floor.
The men around him grunted in acknowledgment as they listened to his words. They agreed, something had to be done. The problem was identifying what needed to be done. From the back, a voice broke the silence.
"Won't the dragon come here to us?" One of the younger village elders spoke from the back.
The man in the middle held up a hand to silence the voices as he prepared to reply to the question. "He might, but can we take the risk of sitting back and waiting? We are protected and covered here in our mountains, the only thing that can touch us is a dragon. Do you want to see them come here, looking for their kin, and destroy your home?"
"So is it war then?" A man closer to the front spoke up.
A great commotion started as the thought of open conflict spread through the elders. The Giants settled disputes in organized combat. The thought of war was something they wanted to avoid. They knew they had the advantage over almost all other races except for a few and the dragons. If they decided to do so it wouldn't take much for them to organize and destroy almost all other living things on the planet.
"We will not ravage those to our south! Our safety is the fact that they don't know where we live. We will do nothing that jeopardizes the safety of the secrecy of our home!" Another man in wool and brass armor said as he stood up next to the man in white pelts. His armor identified him as the war chief. He was the strongest of all giants and most cunning. If he wanted to avoid a war he only had to say so. If he wanted to go to war, no one would stop him from doing so.
The rest of the men murmured among themselves. The elders had all lived long enough to understand the ebb and flow of life. Giants lived about three times as long as the average human so they had three times as much wisdom to pull from. The idea of venturing into the human and demi-human worlds was dangerous. After your 20's you never went south again. Almost all of them had been in the human worlds at one point or another, for some of them, that time had been 90 to 100 years ago or more.
A man in the back of the room stood up. His advanced age caused him to hunch over, making him smaller than his younger brothers. "What about a small party, sent south to investigate?"
The others looked from him to the leader looked towards the back and strained his eyes against the dark to identify the face of the voice. "Who would you send to find them? Who wouldn't stand out?"
People started to volunteer names of giants with exploits as hunters and trackers. Some volunteered the names of men and women who had spent time bartering with the humans. Finally, one man stood up and made the suggestion that stopped all voices.
"Send the two outcasts." The suggestion came from the back of the room like the sound of breaking rock.
Even among a race that lived in harmony with nature as well as the giants, they had outcasts. Criminals were dealt with swiftly and without mercy. Misfits were another issue. Due to their isolation, their species was genetically very pure. Occasionally a trading caravan would go south and intermingle and bring back new genes.
This crossing of genes was probably the biggest debate the giants actually had. Some of them fought for the idea that the giants should stay pure and clean as a way to honor the way the creator had made them. Others believed that they were a race who left to avoid the blood-shed and any giant, regardless of his parentage, should be welcomed equally. So when a giant was born with traits of other races, they were considered misfits, or outcasts. They couldn't be refused the safety and comfort of the northern lands, but that didn't mean that they had full acceptance of all their brothers and sisters.
Most outcasts or half-breeds died due to disease or lack of housing. At current only two remained. They were smaller than the average giant so they survived well on the meager support they got from the other clans of giants.
"Can they pass among the humans?" Another voice popped up. This sparked debate among the giants who were currently split on sending a war force or the very young to sneak into the human lands.
The leader let the discussion work its way through the room as he listened quietly to the different debates. When he finally had a grasp on the feeling of the room he silenced them all with another stamp of his foot.
The noise and reverberation got everyone's attention. All but the most angered voices fell silent, and they eventually stopped when they realized they were the only ones talking.
"Bring me the outcasts. I want to meet them and make sure they understand what we are asking them to do."