Hkepites & What Happened to the Giants

masashi kageyama

All you need to know about the giants is they were massive, grade-A, Greek-God-level dickweeds. They were the beloved children of a greater race before them, spoiled and arrogant, and all the world belonged to them. They made love to mountains and had thousands of children, which they abused for their own amusement. They had shitty asshole names like Bezos and Kanye. They were big, they were smart, they ruled the earth for a couple millennia, and then they all died.

There was one female giant, ever. In most accounts, she hunts her brothers to the last, probably out of shame.

Anyway.

The people named Hkepite (meaning “earwig” in a tongue time has forgotten) are not hunters of giants. They are scavengers and detritivores, living in the ancient corpses, standing guard at the tombs of the godlings.

You’ll find them in the Dessication. They don’t get many visitors—the desert expands with each passing year—so expect a lavish welcome.

They’re a sedentary people, prone to obesity, inclined to merriment and religiosity. They give good hugs and sing when they pray. They wear sun-scorched leather and drink cactus juice. They drawl. They laugh. They make really stunning stained sand art.

They were led here by a dream about a whale.

Each family is tasked with eating an entire giant, which they believe will prevent the giant’s reincarnation. The flesh is perfectly edible; decay can’t seem to make a dent in it. After a particularly wet rainy season, the bodies even seem to grow.

Once a giant is fully consumed, the family builds a boat from their bones and sails into the ocean for their eternal reward. This has only happened four times.

Before the feast began, they were carvers and butchers. They recall bits and pieces of this heritage, now expressed as a mastery of bladecraft and an odd dance form. A cut from a Hkepite blade is imperceptible, at least until the skin flap gets caught on something. They’re made of giant bones (pretty much everything here is) so they keep the edge as long as they don’t touch anything harder than a tough hide.

The Hkepites build very little. Mostly they carve new chambers. Sometimes they build lookout towers, forgetting the last few endeavors, and are freshly disappointed by the lack of things to look out for.

About whales

There’s a rumor about whales; they don’t need to swim. Anything with that much power and gray matter could figure out walking if they wanted to. Rumor among sailors is they’re afraid of something, which is why they ran to the sea.

These tales are told only by long-retired sailors, in taverns far from the sea. The risk of a whale overhearing is too great shoreside.

armando veve