Could someone suggest a good point of origin for knowing giants/rune knight?

[Odessa333]

Hey all. I'm building a human rune knight in the Forgotten Realms with the origin she is from the land of 'not here' and is traveling. I'm just wondering if there is a good/better place anyone could suggest a human might be from to be familiar with giants and runes. Thank you for your time!

[strangebloke]

I mean, a runic scholar can be from anywhere; runes are just a thing that exists and are presumably studied in places like waterdeep, but also in random tribes of orcs or dwarves or giants. Ostoria was a huge kingdom of the giants and covered much of the north, so presumably there are runes just covering the countryside. But places like the Great Glacier and Savage Frontier are very likely to be ideal locations.

Adding to this, if your DM is more tolerant you can reflavor all the rune abilities as something else. Maybe you're a shaman who summons spirits and your giant's might is actually a Spirit Stand that looms over you and attacks for you.

[Warder]

I will always suggest being from the Silver Marches, it's my favorite area of the Forgotten Realms. Silverymoon is a city of magic and warmth and safety in the middle of vast, untamed wilds. Lots of giants of many different kinds in the mountains to the north.

[Psyren]

A brief look through my Monsters of Faerun also suggests Silver Marches as having a lot of Giant history. I believe in antiquity it was part of the Ostoria empire mentioned as well.

[JLandan]

FR has giants throughout, so any locale will suffice. Were it my character, I would be from a settlement on or near ruins of a Giant civilization. An ancient cosmopolitan city that had all sorts of giants residing within, so lore and residual magic from each type of giant was present. Growing up and playing in and around the ruins, developed an affinity for the Great Peoples of (insert name of giant city). Now grown, the recognition and use of Giant Runes is second nature, and perhaps exposure to Giant Magic has influenced your body to somewhat.. grow.

[strangebloke]

FR has giants throughout, so any locale will suffice. Were it my character, I would be from a settlement on or near ruins of a Giant civilization. An ancient cosmopolitan city that had all sorts of giants residing within, so lore and residual magic from each type of giant was present. Growing up and playing in and around the ruins, developed an affinity for the Great Peoples of (insert name of giant city). Now grown, the recognition and use of Giant Runes is second nature, and perhaps exposure to Giant Magic has influenced your body to somewhat.. grow.

Or perhaps even, you are a giant who reincarnated as one of those puny little folk, and you're very upset about this. :smalltongue:

[Wraith]

Giants can be considered extra-planar beings - while most live on the Material Plane, you get their respective types on the Elemental Planes of Fire, Ice, and a few other places like Stygia.

So technically, that makes a particularly powerful individual Giant eligible to be either a Warlock Patron or a deity to a Paladin or Cleric. The difference being that if you worship them they don't give you spells or Invocations, they give you Runes because that's their language and how they use magic.
So that's how you get to be a Rune Knight - if anyone asks, your PC is a Paladin of your deified Giant and you're just using the Fighter class to represent it because that's how your deity rolls.

If that is a bit too extravagant though, a more mundane answer is somewhere like Icewind Dale, in the far north of Faerun. It's right next to the Spine of the World Mountains (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Spine_of_the_World) (although these stretch across much of the continent if you want to be from further afield), and most types of Giants tend to live there.

[Spo]

My level 13 half-orc rune knight is a mercenary whose brother-in-arms was a Goliath rune knight who pass along his knowledge to his honorable friend.

[Master O'Laughs]

I second Icewind Dale would be a decent place to be from.