Editing Giant: The Perfidious (section)

== Blood of Ages: The Birth of a Giant ==
The Two Brothers were the ancestors of all mankind, and through so many millenia the blood of the Cursed Brother and the Martyred Brother has intermingled between every single human on the planet. The blood itself is symbolic, of course; A man with cursed blood is not immediately damned, because the sins of the father are not passed down to the son. However, occasionally someone with Cursed Blood will marry to someone with an exactly equal amount of Martyred Blood, and concieve a child while in a rural area. This will usually result in Half-Giants, very powerful humans with a perfect balance of blood that should normally create a magical giant, but the lack of potency from either parent leaves them only half-made.

A full Giant can only be born if his human pairings have a sufficient amount of the correct ancestry; an imbalance of Cursed and Blessed Blood that will accumulates over generations until a great majority of one type exists in a persons body. Were this person to mate with someone of opposing blood in a rural area and subsequently be with child, a Giant may be born. It is because of these stipulations that Giants have become so rare; The odds of finding a giant in the past was difficult enough, even with 97% of all humanity living in rural areas. In the last 200 years alone, humanity has become urbanized, and for the first time across the entire planet, urban and rural life is matched tit for tat, percentage by percentage. Giants themselves may breed, but two giants coming together will have disasterous consequences, with the child inevidably being a savage Grendal, and a Giant breeding with a mundane human, providing she survives the copulation, will only result in a Half-Giant child. Because many Giants Totemed with Love and Fertility, or just those with a fear for being alone, worry that this modern urbanization could mean a potential end of their species, a few less exemplary Giants have taken to sniffing out humans of potent blood, abducting and pairing them up, forcing them to mate in hopes of producing more Giants. Sadly, this sort of thing has become more and more common over the last few centuries, and Giants who continue to live in Clans usually have an Aphrodite cruelly nicknamed "The Midwife" appointed to perform these kidnappings.

A giant will grow up much like a regular child would, though unlike other supernaturals, his transformation isn't immediate and jarring. A giant magically knows of what he is from the moment he takes his first, painful breaths out of the womb. He may be diagnosed as autistic: The features of his hands, head and feet will be slightly exaggerated, he will have trouble reacting properly to situations; He will seem to suffer no pain when he should, and his parents may find him spending hours on end playing Minecraft. He knows what he will grow up to be, though he might not tell his parents, assuming that this knowledge is normal and expected of them, and when growing up must learn to deal with the problems that will balloon substantially as an adult, be it greed, cannibalistic cravings or assaulting those that don't obey him. The adults in the childhood of a giant are the very most important part of his development, and will help facilitate the transition, even if they don't know what he is. It's a case of Nature vs. Nurture. Their Nature is that they are keepers of the world, conquerors and demigods. Their nurture is an entirely different subject. How much different would Supermans life have been had he spent 5 more minutes in the atmosphere? A well adjusted child may grow up, god willing, to be a well adjusted giant, 

=== Aclima's Vow and Lamech's Oath === 
Aclima was the name of the sister and desired wife of Abel, whom the first brothers competed for by asking for God's favor. In the original Genesis story, it was the Earth herself that spat this curse at Cain, disgusted by his actions, forbidding him from growing crops again. God merely seared a mark on the murderer, so that everyone he meets knows who he was and what he had done. It was through bargaining that Cain managed to talk God into turning the mark into a form of protection, for the man that would kill him would suffer Cain's pain seven times. Cain's own decendant, Lamech, upon murdering a man, called this same curse upon himself, so his murderer would suffer 77 times for his own death. Giants, though supernatural, still carry the very human capacity of sin, and though they are all damned by their very blood, they can still have worth in their work, as their Martyred ancestor did. 

A Giant with a Worthiness of 3 or less is cursed with Aclima's Vow, where the Giant not only loses the Totems that define her, but finds that they have entirely abandoned her, and she can may very well lose her reason for being.  With their connection to nature severed, they begin to descend into savagery. The most wicked of Giants even may take on the title of a Pantheonic God in the worst way possible, by losing their Worthiness to the point where it recurses, their lost honors becoming twisted, bastardized versions of what they used to be, and they prepare to their ascension to Godhood in an existence that begins to deny them.

As such, those cursed with Aclima's Vow are now eligible to call Lamech's Oath upon themselves, instantly losing a point of Worthiness. The Curse of Cain appears on the Giant's flesh as a terrible burn wound, in a very visible are, tattooing in a blaze of fire a strange word written in the ancient pre-Babel tongue, forever claiming her as protected and dealing a point of Aggravated damage.

If the Giant is slain, her killer and those he calls his nearest friends will suffer 7 times for the Giants death, instantly turning a dice pool into a critical failure at the most inoppurtune moment. This divine protection is the lone reason why Giant-Slaying is such a risky endeavor. A far cry from the tales of Jack the Giant-Killer and Corineus, the slaying of the most wicked Giants rarely leave the victor with wealth and power for very long. Even so, many of the heroes from the old folk legends managed to defeat these terrible giants by imprisoning them, fooling them into suicide, or using Singing Weapons, which, being alive, will suffer the brunt of the curse.

=== Worthiness ===

''Cattle die, kinsmen die, one day you die yourself; I know one thing that never dies -- the dead man's reputation.''

- Nordic Proverb

Giants are damned by whatever exists on high; Both giant and human prophets have seen their fate, being cast into the Well of Giants, a desolate land but for a massive field of Giants  both buried and chained down so tightly they can do little but nash their teeth and blink. Yet giants are quite capable of escaping such a fate: By ascending to be a God unto themselves, and drink Ambrosia and Nectar for eternity in Valhalla, Mount Olympus or a Heaven of their own choosing. Doing so goes against the merits of human religion, and indeed, the limit of human sanity, for only the most vile and terrible of Giants can hope to escape Hell; And with the added benefit of being protected by Lamech's Oath, they are truly some of the most terrible foes in the World of Darkness. 

Giants are expected to exercise their god-granted Honors, and sometimes this means that the Giant will be placed on a pedestal. Being worshipped is, of course, an Unworthy action, but sometimes it's simply beyond the giants control, and it's easier not to attempt to rebuke it and simply remain humble. Doing so does not risk losing Worthiness. Now mind, being deified IS a misuse of power for the Worthy (It no longer comes into account for those abandoned by their Honors), but it only applies if you are forcing bent knees. A tyrannical War Giant enters town, demanding blessings and a place in their temple. He offers nothing and expects everything through coersion, and such an action would be Unworthy. On the other hand, a Giant wanders across a farmland in Angola, sees the soil infertile and the village on the verge of starvation. He begins cultivating the land, and the ripest crops the village has seen sprout as a result. The villagers see the Giant as a spirit, and begin praying to him. Whatever force decides whether he is worthy or not sees this, and grants it as a reward for his kind behavior.

Keep in mind, that your final worthiness is a reflection of the primary Totem that you've chosen. Showing mercy to an enemy under the Warchief is considered Unworthy, whereas showing mercy to a tribesman who has done wrong is neutral.

To summarize, a low-Worthiness Giant becomes more powerful, but much less, for lack of better word, playable, and you can't go back once you're judged poorly. You will lose all of your Honors, though you will be refunded half the experience you've spent on them. You will essentially be playing a brute from this point on, though you will always have access to Ley Energy and Rituals, simply because Unworthy Giants are better at causing weird unnatural events to happen then Worthy Giants are. 

	'''Worthiness 4''': A giant on the brink of losing favor with whatever exists on high and gaining Aclima's Vow, becoming Unworthy. Those that reach this point instantly recieve a Mild Derangement. 

	'''Worthiness 3''': These Giants have been abandoned by her beloved Honors, as Cain was by his soil, and are now considered to be suffering from Aclima's Vow forever. The Giant that has reached this point cannot increase her Worthiness past 3. The minor Derangement she gained at Worthiness 4 is upgraded to Severe in light of this curse. However, she can now roll for Terrasculpting without losing Worthiness. The Giant is now capable of taking Lamech's Oath, which will be marked on a visible place on his body for all to see for the cost of a level of Worthiness. If Lamech's Oath is called, it cannot be revoked.

	'''Worthiness 2''': A Giant with a Worthiness of 2 becomes a Goram, a mirror of the selfish, complacent, stupid and gullible Clan Gogmogag of old Albion, devouring the livelihood of local men, absconding with maidens and unjustly punishing those around them. They gain 9 again on all Strength rolls, but lose 10-again on all Composure rolls, and 1 subtract for their total number of successes. 

	'''Worthiness 1''': The Giant is now a Nephilim, a new God. She not only regains her Totems, but gains every possible Honor attributed to them, though only as a bastardization of what they once stood for. A God of War no longer cares for concepts such as honor or upholding peace, only to shed as much blood as possible. Fertility Gods become vile hedonists. A Nephilim player gains 9-again on any skill roll she wishes with an expenditure of willpower, and her Strength is upgraded to 8-again. However, any empathy rolls are now a chance die, and as per her demigod status, she is now only tangible in areas with active Ley Lines, though she cannot create her own, nor interact with the world herself besides wandering it. Any mortal that worships her will follow her every command, and mortals with an occult level of 5 may speak directly with her no matter where she is, provided she knows of the mortals existence. She may become an NPC at this point, at the storytellers call; Her personality has changed much, paralleling her to the solipsistic nature of the Gentry in Changeling: The Lost.

	'''Worthiness 0''': The Giant no longer exists in this dimension. Changelings who hear this tale shudder to think that perhaps the Gentry got its start by the ascension of terrible giants. After all, the similiarities between the Pantheonic Gods and the Gentry differ only in that the ascended Giants thrive in Pantheons. Only stories of the PC are left, though every Solstice and Equinox the Giants of the Jotnar Council can swear to have seen vague glimpses of familiar faces fighting alongside their hated foes.