There is one very significant thing about Storm King's Thunder that I just can't figure out, and I don't find any clarification on the web so far, so I turn to these forums^^
"What is the Ordning?"
By that, I don't mean what it means, but how manifests and, how, by any means, it can be "shattered"? I am all but sure that my players will ask that question, and there is no reference to it whatsoever.
Is it just some commonly accepted caste system and then Annam shows up and says like "Well you know, i don't like it anymore!" ? Or is it some form of magical item that keeps giants from fighting each other while the Ordning was intact (and how would that work?) , and Annam destroyed it? That whole concept seems very vague to me, I have no idea what the represantation of the Ordning actually looks like and therefore how it could be "shattered".
Also...who or what would decide if and when a new order is formed and "cool" and would install that as some official new "ordning" again? If at all?
You guys got any idea or a reference to some official statements about it?
Reference to the Ordning can be found in the Monster Manual and Volo's Guide to Monsters.
As defined in the Monster Manual, the Ordning is caste structure based on the different skills of each type of giant.
In Volo's Guide, it is stated that Annam the All-Father created this hierarchy.
In SKT, it is explained why Annam shattered the Ordning. For the purpose of not spoiling, Annam decided, because of recent events, that giants should now forge a new hierarchy.
Yep, I see all that. But what did he do, physically, to "shatter" the Ordning? Did he write a letter? Destroy an artifact? I mean...I can't plausibly say that "well the Giants accepted the social structure and thus decided they won't fight each other, but then, as some form of punishment, Annam wrote a letter that said "you might as well punch each others faces" and then they started fighting each other cause now it seems all that much more interesting than yesterday"
So it comes down to the questions "How does one create an Ordning?" (as Annam did) and "How does one shatter an Ordning?" (as he did as well).
The Ordning is imposed by Annam. He is a god, simply by will, he can do and undo the Ordning.
In SKT's introduction, it says " ... All the giants sensed the upheaval instantly... ". I think Annam does not necessarily need a letter or to destroy a physical item. I like to think that Annam sent omens: a powerful storm, an erupting volcano, an earthquake (one for each type of giants).
But, if you are the DM, you decide this level of detail.
The Ordning is imposed by Annam. He is a god, simply by will, he can do and undo the Ordning.
In SKT's introduction, it says " ... All the giants sensed the upheaval instantly... ". I think Annam does not necessarily need a letter or to destroy a physical item. I like to think that Annam sent omens: a powerful storm, an erupting volcano, an earthquake (one for each type of giants).
But, if you are the DM, you decide this level of detail.
Well, uhh, I find that to be a central detail. Cause that would mean...all giants are sorta "mind-controlled" by Annam? Because he just can? Dunno if I like it. And it doesn't correspond very well with the rest of the world. I mean, humans don't stop fighting each other because "Chauntea doesn't like it".
I mean...what was the implications of such a thing, say, if all the giants below the Storm Giants would have started a war 50 years ago? I mean, they could have, right? Unless they "were" in fact mind-controlled or kept from it by magic. So there should be some sort of...consequences for such a thing.
I think I have to somehow make that more plausible, and thereby believable.
If Chauntea ordered all humans to stop fighting, than the human worshippers of Chauntea would stop fighting and attempt to spread that word. If the worship of Chauntea was widespread and dominant enough to be their primary god, the supreme deity, then there's a good chance humans as a species would stop fighting itself, though outliers would always exist.
That's not mind control. That's religious obedience. Annam decreed the Giant social hierarchy, called the Ordning. Annam is the Giant's chief god, what he says goes for their entire race. Religious obedience kept that hierarchy in place for millennia. Annam apparently felt that the giants had disappointed him by allowing prior events to unfold as they did, and so determined that the social hierarchy he imposed should be removed.
From a giant perspective, it means their ambitions have no limitations. A Hill Giant is free to move above his station, and a Storm Giant might find his place among the higher tiers in jeopardy. The will of Annam is no longer holding society together, and now it is up to the giants themselves to impose a new order around the wills of their most capable.
Well, uhh, I find that to be a central detail. Cause that would mean...all giants are sorta "mind-controlled" by Annam? Because he just can? Dunno if I like it. And it doesn't correspond very well with the rest of the world. I mean, humans don't stop fighting each other because "Chauntea doesn't like it".
I mean...what was the implications of such a thing, say, if all the giants below the Storm Giants would have started a war 50 years ago? I mean, they could have, right? Unless they "were" in fact mind-controlled or kept from it by magic. So there should be some sort of...consequences for such a thing.
I think I have to somehow make that more plausible, and thereby believable.
Meanwhile Bane and Tempus very much do like fighting, and the human pantheons aren't exactly unified. If it wasn't just Chauntea but each and every god (including the gods of fighting)? Then yeah, the overwhelming majority humans would stop fighting. Because of that disunity, that makes a bad example.
A better example would be Moradin ordering all dwarves to stop making weapons. The dwarves would wonder why, but the overwhelming majority of dwarves would indeed stop making weapons of any kind as a direct order from their All Father. What Moradin says goes. Or Lolth ordering the drow to do something.
Think of the gods as the ultimate kings and queens over their respective races. If the king ordered you to stop a war, you stop. If the queen orders a revamping of all social structure, it happens. Any rebellion is squashed with extreme prejudice. with no chance of success.
And that's before we get into the fact that the Ordning is divinely ordained. It exists because the gods say so. If the gods no longer say so, then it has no meaning. To go back to the king/queen analogy, its as if the rulers passed a law stripping the nobility of their ranks and armies, and choose new nobles to put into place. The nobles can't resist, because they don't have the power to go against the royal armies (ie the gods). Its an absolute monarchy here.
Question: Is there any in-lore explanation as to why titans, mountain giants, fog giants, wood giants, ettins, etc are out of the Ordning? The titans especially because they used to be on top.
To the original post, kinda like Mephista, I think the best way to think of it is as the "divine right" some historic monarch were supposed to have, but make it literal because the ruler is literally divine. Sure when a human queen says "I dissolve parliament" bureaucracy rolls in with elections and these laws the "people" put in place if their monarch rejected them, but the presumption is that parliament dissolves and is re-constituted at the monarch's word. In the case of Annam, he says the Ordning is broken, so it's broken,
That’s not exactly what I mean. What I’m saying is that in 5e, the Ordning lists Storm Giants on top, followed by Cloud, Fire/Frost, Stone, Hill, and miscellaneous. But back in the day, the titans were on top, even over the Storm Giants. Plus, you have these other subtypes that 5e just leaves out, but were once part of the Ordning. Prior to it being shattered, 5e has Storm, Cloud, Frost/Fire, Stone and Hill. Where are the rest? Did Annam remove them from the Ordning?
In case anyone is just starting SKT, and wondering similar things, here's my solution after reading everything here and other places:
In my campaign, here's how the Ordning works: The Ordning is a top-down system, similar to the British Crown.
British Crown works this way: GOD gives divine right to rule to MONARCH, who creates a system of rules called GOVERNMENT to run everything in society. NORMALLY, when the current holder of the Crown dies, it passes neatly to the next monarch, the oldest child of the previous monarch. But, what if the monarch just goes missing? Assuming God exists, does he/she just give divine right to rule to the next person down? Or wait and see if the monarch turns up?
In my Faerun, ANNAM (God) gives divine right to rule to CHIEF STORM GIANT (Monarch) who creates a system of rules called the ORDNING to run everything in society. But what if the Chief Storm Giant just goes missing? Annam DOES exist, and in my campaign, he has gone silent, contemplating what to do next. He has no divine connection to Hekaton, but can't confirm he's dead, so he can't invest right to rule in Serissa yet, despite her being Hekaton's rightful heir. No giants' prayers are answered, and every giant can feel that the Ordning is shattered. Thus, the chaos to prove themselves worthy of Annam's favor to be the new monarch.
To compare to British history again, this is very much an Oliver Cromwell situation. The monarchy has fallen, so it's chaos.
Thanks to MidnightPlat for the inspiration. Also, can you tell I just finished The Crown on Netflix?
And as far as the other giants/titans, they don't live in the North in my world, but if the characters do complete the whole thing, perhaps King Hekaton knows of other strange and exotic giants in far away places, and has received an omen telling the characters to investigate...
That’s not exactly what I mean. What I’m saying is that in 5e, the Ordning lists Storm Giants on top, followed by Cloud, Fire/Frost, Stone, Hill, and miscellaneous. But back in the day, the titans were on top, even over the Storm Giants. Plus, you have these other subtypes that 5e just leaves out, but were once part of the Ordning. Prior to it being shattered, 5e has Storm, Cloud, Frost/Fire, Stone and Hill. Where are the rest? Did Annam remove them from the Ordning?
The Ordning seems to be what Annam says it is. SKT deals with one pronouncement of the Ordning being broken, but that's not to say it's the first or the last time Annam has made some sort of declaration.
And as far as the other giants/titans, they don't live in the North in my world, but if the characters do complete the whole thing, perhaps King Hekaton knows of other strange and exotic giants in far away places, and has received an omen telling the characters to investigate...
To follow on this with the line I put above. Maybe those species had fallen out of the Ordning in prior declarations of Annam. Perhaps the PCs can be heralds of Annam to deliver word of a new Ordning to giant species now being placed back in it. Of course, there will be challenges to prove the PCs truly herald the Ordning.
I see. It just seems odd to me that the other giants, especially the titans, were straight up removed from the Ordning. I was hoping there was a reason explicitly in canon just so I could run with it and have the titans cause trouble or something in an attempt to get back on top, but I don’t know what happened to the titans ever since the giant progenitors died along with Annam’s wife, not to mention all of the cataclysmic events like the Spellplague.
Titans aren't part of the Ordning, they look down on the Gods themselves and care nothing for the will of Annam. The Dawn Titan feels like an arbitrary literary title and that is a primordial clearly not beholden to the Ordning since it has to be stuffed into an Iron Flask to control. The Empyreans make no mention of the Ordning in their description as well.
I see. It just seems odd to me that the other giants, especially the titans, were straight up removed from the Ordning. I was hoping there was a reason explicitly in canon just so I could run with it and have the titans cause trouble or something in an attempt to get back on top, but I don’t know what happened to the titans ever since the giant progenitors died along with Annam’s wife, not to mention all of the cataclysmic events like the Spellplague.
They were not removed from the ordning, they were sealed away after waging wars with the gods.
Mrhexx has a nice video specifically about all this on YouTube, vary informative.
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Hey.
There is one very significant thing about Storm King's Thunder that I just can't figure out, and I don't find any clarification on the web so far, so I turn to these forums^^
"What is the Ordning?"
By that, I don't mean what it means, but how manifests and, how, by any means, it can be "shattered"? I am all but sure that my players will ask that question, and there is no reference to it whatsoever.
Is it just some commonly accepted caste system and then Annam shows up and says like "Well you know, i don't like it anymore!" ? Or is it some form of magical item that keeps giants from fighting each other while the Ordning was intact (and how would that work?) , and Annam destroyed it?
That whole concept seems very vague to me, I have no idea what the represantation of the Ordning actually looks like and therefore how it could be "shattered".
Also...who or what would decide if and when a new order is formed and "cool" and would install that as some official new "ordning" again? If at all?
You guys got any idea or a reference to some official statements about it?
Reference to the Ordning can be found in the Monster Manual and Volo's Guide to Monsters.
As defined in the Monster Manual, the Ordning is caste structure based on the different skills of each type of giant.
In Volo's Guide, it is stated that Annam the All-Father created this hierarchy.
In SKT, it is explained why Annam shattered the Ordning. Annam decided, because of recent events, that giants should now forge a new hierarchy.
Yep, I see all that. But what did he do, physically, to "shatter" the Ordning? Did he write a letter? Destroy an artifact? I mean...I can't plausibly say that "well the Giants accepted the social structure and thus decided they won't fight each other, but then, as some form of punishment, Annam wrote a letter that said "you might as well punch each others faces" and then they started fighting each other cause now it seems all that much more interesting than yesterday"
So it comes down to the questions "How does one create an Ordning?" (as Annam did) and "How does one shatter an Ordning?" (as he did as well).
The Ordning is imposed by Annam. He is a god, simply by will, he can do and undo the Ordning.
In SKT's introduction, it says " ... All the giants sensed the upheaval instantly... ". I think Annam does not necessarily need a letter or to destroy a physical item. I like to think that Annam sent omens: a powerful storm, an erupting volcano, an earthquake (one for each type of giants).
But, if you are the DM, you decide this level of detail.
Well, uhh, I find that to be a central detail. Cause that would mean...all giants are sorta "mind-controlled" by Annam? Because he just can? Dunno if I like it. And it doesn't correspond very well with the rest of the world. I mean, humans don't stop fighting each other because "Chauntea doesn't like it".
I mean...what was the implications of such a thing, say, if all the giants below the Storm Giants would have started a war 50 years ago? I mean, they could have, right? Unless they "were" in fact mind-controlled or kept from it by magic. So there should be some sort of...consequences for such a thing.
I think I have to somehow make that more plausible, and thereby believable.
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ModeratorIf Chauntea ordered all humans to stop fighting, than the human worshippers of Chauntea would stop fighting and attempt to spread that word. If the worship of Chauntea was widespread and dominant enough to be their primary god, the supreme deity, then there's a good chance humans as a species would stop fighting itself, though outliers would always exist.
That's not mind control. That's religious obedience. Annam decreed the Giant social hierarchy, called the Ordning. Annam is the Giant's chief god, what he says goes for their entire race. Religious obedience kept that hierarchy in place for millennia. Annam apparently felt that the giants had disappointed him by allowing prior events to unfold as they did, and so determined that the social hierarchy he imposed should be removed.
From a giant perspective, it means their ambitions have no limitations. A Hill Giant is free to move above his station, and a Storm Giant might find his place among the higher tiers in jeopardy. The will of Annam is no longer holding society together, and now it is up to the giants themselves to impose a new order around the wills of their most capable.
Meanwhile Bane and Tempus very much do like fighting, and the human pantheons aren't exactly unified. If it wasn't just Chauntea but each and every god (including the gods of fighting)? Then yeah, the overwhelming majority humans would stop fighting. Because of that disunity, that makes a bad example.
A better example would be Moradin ordering all dwarves to stop making weapons. The dwarves would wonder why, but the overwhelming majority of dwarves would indeed stop making weapons of any kind as a direct order from their All Father. What Moradin says goes. Or Lolth ordering the drow to do something.
Think of the gods as the ultimate kings and queens over their respective races. If the king ordered you to stop a war, you stop. If the queen orders a revamping of all social structure, it happens. Any rebellion is squashed with extreme prejudice. with no chance of success.
And that's before we get into the fact that the Ordning is divinely ordained. It exists because the gods say so. If the gods no longer say so, then it has no meaning. To go back to the king/queen analogy, its as if the rulers passed a law stripping the nobility of their ranks and armies, and choose new nobles to put into place. The nobles can't resist, because they don't have the power to go against the royal armies (ie the gods). Its an absolute monarchy here.
Question: Is there any in-lore explanation as to why titans, mountain giants, fog giants, wood giants, ettins, etc are out of the Ordning? The titans especially because they used to be on top.
To the original post, kinda like Mephista, I think the best way to think of it is as the "divine right" some historic monarch were supposed to have, but make it literal because the ruler is literally divine. Sure when a human queen says "I dissolve parliament" bureaucracy rolls in with elections and these laws the "people" put in place if their monarch rejected them, but the presumption is that parliament dissolves and is re-constituted at the monarch's word. In the case of Annam, he says the Ordning is broken, so it's broken,
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
That’s not exactly what I mean. What I’m saying is that in 5e, the Ordning lists Storm Giants on top, followed by Cloud, Fire/Frost, Stone, Hill, and miscellaneous. But back in the day, the titans were on top, even over the Storm Giants. Plus, you have these other subtypes that 5e just leaves out, but were once part of the Ordning. Prior to it being shattered, 5e has Storm, Cloud, Frost/Fire, Stone and Hill. Where are the rest? Did Annam remove them from the Ordning?
I really like this aspect of SKT. Explains a lot about giant society. I may have to check it out now that I know that.
In case anyone is just starting SKT, and wondering similar things, here's my solution after reading everything here and other places:
In my campaign, here's how the Ordning works:
The Ordning is a top-down system, similar to the British Crown.
British Crown works this way: GOD gives divine right to rule to MONARCH, who creates a system of rules called GOVERNMENT to run everything in society. NORMALLY, when the current holder of the Crown dies, it passes neatly to the next monarch, the oldest child of the previous monarch. But, what if the monarch just goes missing? Assuming God exists, does he/she just give divine right to rule to the next person down? Or wait and see if the monarch turns up?
In my Faerun, ANNAM (God) gives divine right to rule to CHIEF STORM GIANT (Monarch) who creates a system of rules called the ORDNING to run everything in society. But what if the Chief Storm Giant just goes missing? Annam DOES exist, and in my campaign, he has gone silent, contemplating what to do next. He has no divine connection to Hekaton, but can't confirm he's dead, so he can't invest right to rule in Serissa yet, despite her being Hekaton's rightful heir. No giants' prayers are answered, and every giant can feel that the Ordning is shattered. Thus, the chaos to prove themselves worthy of Annam's favor to be the new monarch.
To compare to British history again, this is very much an Oliver Cromwell situation. The monarchy has fallen, so it's chaos.
Thanks to MidnightPlat for the inspiration. Also, can you tell I just finished The Crown on Netflix?
And as far as the other giants/titans, they don't live in the North in my world, but if the characters do complete the whole thing, perhaps King Hekaton knows of other strange and exotic giants in far away places, and has received an omen telling the characters to investigate...
The Ordning seems to be what Annam says it is. SKT deals with one pronouncement of the Ordning being broken, but that's not to say it's the first or the last time Annam has made some sort of declaration.
To follow on this with the line I put above. Maybe those species had fallen out of the Ordning in prior declarations of Annam. Perhaps the PCs can be heralds of Annam to deliver word of a new Ordning to giant species now being placed back in it. Of course, there will be challenges to prove the PCs truly herald the Ordning.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Now that I’ve actually read SKT (which is definitely based on King Lear), I agree with everyone else who posted.
I see. It just seems odd to me that the other giants, especially the titans, were straight up removed from the Ordning. I was hoping there was a reason explicitly in canon just so I could run with it and have the titans cause trouble or something in an attempt to get back on top, but I don’t know what happened to the titans ever since the giant progenitors died along with Annam’s wife, not to mention all of the cataclysmic events like the Spellplague.
Titans aren't part of the Ordning, they look down on the Gods themselves and care nothing for the will of Annam. The Dawn Titan feels like an arbitrary literary title and that is a primordial clearly not beholden to the Ordning since it has to be stuffed into an Iron Flask to control. The Empyreans make no mention of the Ordning in their description as well.
They were not removed from the ordning, they were sealed away after waging wars with the gods.
Mrhexx has a nice video specifically about all this on YouTube, vary informative.