“None among the little people may know the majesty of the Agduvar. Be not offended, pray – for the steps to the mountain peak are carven tall, and only the hardiest peoples may brave those jutting paths. Goliaths may, but even then it takes many months of training and preparation, and the use of runewritings. So be not offended, peoples, when I tell you that you may never gaze upon the tall and beautiful towers of the Agduvar, the City of the Storm Giants. Few men ever have.”

-- Oograglah, the guardian of Whitehill

The Agdu, or the Cities of the Giants, are the peak of giant architecture: literally and figuratively. In the early days of the world, when all was young, it is said that the giants could roam freely – but in times since the world has become small and frail, and it shakes overmuch beneath their feet. And so they built the Agdu: far from the prying eyes of the little people, away from the shaking earth, a place built for their titanic form, embued with the power of their runes. 

Of course, much like the little people that they so condescend, the variation in the giants meant that their first attempt at a city built for all of their kind – the Agdu-Skye – was filled with strife and mischief, and so there came the later cities, four of them: the Agdu-Ise, Agdu-Ild, Agduvar, and Agdu-Stein. And then, in order to sequester the Cloud Giants away from the rest of them, they built the Himminin. 

TITANIC PROPORTIONS

The Agdu are the halls of the giants, and though they receive the occasional outsider as a visitor – generally goliath runewielders – they are built to house those largest of the mortal races. As such, it is difficult for any of the smaller races to navigate within them. Even the goliath pilgrims that make their ways to the Agdu to learn the ways of the runemasters must be escorted around: a trip up a flight of stairs in the Agduvar may take an hour. 

SECRETS OF THE GIANTS

The halls of the giants have been their domain since long before the other mortal races ventured into what is now the Kingdom of Endon, and their magic has coloured the very rock beneath them. Into their walls is carved the history of their people, murals of long-forgotten events, treaties with long-dead races, and mystical knowledge. For a seasoned scholar, a handful of days deciphering the murals can give a wellspring of knowledge to rival any of the most well-tended libraries. 

It is possible for an individual or a group to be invited into any of the Agdu, as honour bestowed upon those who have done the giants a great service, but others have managed to steal into the strongholds before, though it is a perilous undertaking. The Agdu are true wonders the likes of which is rarely seen in the modern world, and the sight of them is marvellous.