Editing Ourworld:Goliaths (section)

== The Goliath People ==
The Goliath are a dark-skinned race, whose smooth skins devoid of body hair range from a slate grey , through brown to an almost red, with distinct bands of differing pigmentation around the face and chest. They tower over the other races with heights of 6’10-7’6 being the norm. In addition to their great stature they are powerfully built, with massive shoulders and muscular arms and legs. Their hair colour is invariably a lusterous bluish black and very thick and straight. In many ways the most striking feature of the goliaths is their eyes, whose irises range in colour from gold, green, hazel, blue and violet.Combined with the promenent brows from which they peer what makes their eyes particularly striking, however, is that both the iris and “whites” of their eyes vary in colour drastically depending on the goliath in question’s mood. This feature makes it very easy to tell the mood of a goliath if one is at all familar with this phnomenon

They are quiet people who are proud of their traditions, many of which seem odd to other races. One of the most important traditions that they uphold is the principal of “non-violence” (it should be noted here that their conception of such isn’t quite what other races might mean by the term, they are also a somewhat “rough and tumble” race). The Goliaths inhabit a harsh land, filled with many potential dangers (aberrations for instance) the summers are lean, and the winters are vicious. As a result of these many dangers, goliaths are all too aware how dangerous life can be, and go to great lengths not to perform any action that would place another in greater danger. One example of how this manifests is in their approach to tribal warfare (they are peaceful people, not living saints). When two tribes come into conflict, say, over a hunting ground both feel they are entitled to hunt upon, then a “war” often ensues. These wars , however, are fought with non lethal weapons; bare fists, crops and nets. Those rendered unconscious, caught in nets or even tripped by the crops consider themselves to have been “defeated” and withdraw from the conflict. Such a withdrawal brings with it a great sense of shame, however, which leads to another tradition of the goliaths.

Goliaths are very touchy about their “honour” (which for them means something along the lines of “being a productive member of society”) anything that detracts from their honour  causes them great anxiety , which the will go to great lengths to assuage. The strongest action a goliath can take in this realm is to publicly announce that they will work of an obligation they have amassed, either setting a length of time, or some discreet task (such as digging a well or some such) . The causes of this might be a man who had a broken leg, who was cared for by others, or a warrior defeated in battle. In this last case, the debt is usually (read: always)  paid to the victor or the victor’s tribe. This results in what might appear to outsiders to be slavery, but is in fact voluntary on the part of the “slave” , and if one was to call it slavery to a goliath, they would fist be confused, and then offended and outraged at the affront.

It should not be taken from this that the Goliaths are humourless. Indead they have a great love of jokes and japes, though many other races find that something gets "lost in translation" and that what Goliaths see as "friendly rough and tumble" actually equels "terror filled threat to life and limb". As an object lesson in Goliath humour, the following prank (considered the height of Goliath tomfoolery) is illistrative: Step 1, contrive to send someone of on a small errand or fetch it mission. Step 2, when they are out of sight, have your pet Krenshaw wait behind a convinient boulder or wigwam. Step 3, when the patsie retuurns, Krenshaw screaches, folds back face and frightens the bejeezus out of the patsie. Step 5 entire tribe rolls around on the ground in gales of laghter.

Another area that probably deserves some mention is the fact that the goliath’s plains have the highest incidence of abberations in the world. This is due for the most part to the fact that the greatest number of meteorites from the meteor shower 11 hundred years ago that brought the abberations fell on or around the goliath lands. The goliaths are a people who regard themselves as caretakers of the natural world, and , as such,  hunt down mercilessly all the abberations that exist within their lands.



=== Goliath Racial Traits ===
Goliath are medium monstrous humanoids, they recieve a +4 bonus to strength, a +2 bonus to constitution and a -2 penalty to dexterity. They recieve a modified version of the "Powerful Build" trait which means that they may utilise weapons of 1 size catagory larger than normal, an recieve 1/2 the size bonuses accounted to large creatures (i.e. +2 to trip, bull rush etc). They treat rolling hills, deseart, plains and tundra as favorable terrain for overland movement purposes due to their namadic lyfestyle without the benifit of ridable domesticated animals. Their deep, sonorous voices give them a +2 racial bonus on perform (oration) and perform (singing) checks. The strange, colour shifting nature of goliath eyes, however, gives all those who have encountered the efect before a +2 circumstance bonus on sense mative checks directed at Goliaths.

Goliaths are usualy Good, though their devotion to and respect of traditions balances their inate love of fun and freedom, meaning that as a society they are inclined towards nuetrality with regards to law and chaos. Individuals are spread accross the same spectrum of conformists and free thinkers as most cultures, though neutral (good vs evil) goliaths are rare and evil ones all but unheard of