Armor and Weapon Crafting Practices of Giants at War

authored by Harding the Crimsonfist, Captain, Whiterun Militia

While we usually think of the huge lumbering Giants that are found across our land of Skyrim as dumb, simple beasts that keep to themselves and the mammoths they tend, we Nords must remember that this is a false, and dangerous assumption.

History has shown us that Giants are intelligent creatures, and while they might normally be a peaceful and wandering people, once angered their wrath is terrible. Tales passed down from Bards and written by Scholars tell us of Brog the Unbreakable, who led his kin to war against the Jarl of Eastmarch, and was said to have laughed off volleys of arrows and beat men fully armored in Nord steel to death with his bare fists. But while the Nords of Skyrim today know Giants as the large hermits that roam the plains with little more than furs and stone clubs, records from Brog's deadly but ill-fated campaign tell us of great hosts clad fully in thick armor, and wielding great weapons that crushed men into paste more often than they cut them apart. While there are none left alive to tell us of the war, and the Giants are reserved even to people who know enough to speak Giantish, descriptions from the old records and tales, reports from scholars who have claimed to see the practices firsthand in more recent times, and pieces that managed to survive in the trophy rooms of long-lived clans have allowed us to get a good idea of how Giants at war equip themselves for battle.

It is said that the ivory of mammoth tusks is hard as the strongest steel, and the Giants traditionally depend on this resource in the crafting of their finest armor: their great strength and their massive hammers are used to pound the ivory, and the resultant powder is added to similar powders made from the bones of great beasts. Added to this mixture is a combination of resins, animal fats, and other binding agents, which is then heated over great fires and poured into carved stone molds to cool and be further fashioned. The result of the lengthy forging processes produces great and thick plates of molded armor, apparently similar in strength to the highest-quality Dark Elf bonemold. The process can take a very long time, both by nature and by cultural practices, and is considered a sacred ritual to the superstitious Giantfolk: as such, such great and impressive pieces of armor are only fashioned for the great war leaders of their hosts and their trusted captains. For the more common Giant warriors, and for their leaders underneath their molded armor, great and thick coats of boiled or tanned animal hides are sewn together and worn in many layers. The protective effect is similar to the standard padded jack or gambeson, but amplified by the great thickness that is derived from the Giant's own prodigious size, giving them a great padded protection that will defend from the largest greatswords or the sharpest arrows. For the purposes of weaponry Giant craftsmen are much simpler in their work, making extensive use of carved stone and animal bones, bound with great rope and strong leather to wood frames or used on their own: weapons of such make seem to include large axes, hammers, and spears, with their massive bows and arrows being likened to handheld ballistae and their hand weapons to swinging towers.

Although the processes behind the make of their many other implements of war have been lost to time, there are mentions of great catapults that crushed whole homes, battering rams that could break open the sturdiest keep gates with a few blows, and other great devices that were used to great effect and caused the deaths of many hardy Nord warriors. With their massive tools of war, war mammoth mounts, great strength, and nearly unshakable determination, the Giants were only defeated after many a year and the departure of many great and brave Nord heroes for Sovngarde. Though we have become complacent in recent years, and have grown to greatly underestimate our cousins from Atmora, we must never forget the bloody lessons learned in the past or take the peaceful nature of the Giantfolk for granted, lest we learn again firsthand how a single Giant dressed in layers of leather and armed with a stone axe could kill dozens of men and only be felled by the efforts of dozens more.