So, I’ve finished the card collection of Dagda and listened to a few lines she had to say about the Jotun. Which reminded me of another lore post I did a long time ago.

Interestingly, Dagda’s tale matches the tale of Thrulln the Lost. That once upon a time the Jotun were godlike themselves in their use of an older, more primal magic. That they slaughtered each other and fell from grace.
“We were once mighty, wielding mastery over primal magics… Tyria once likened us to the gods themselves in power alone. But despite these gifts, we butchered each other. Stifled our own…”

#Ingame text Thrulln

The jotun
My people have walked these mountains since before the humans came, since before the gods put limits on magic, since before the dragons slept, since the Age of Giants.

About the Gods
The gods once favored the giants, the jotun. They gave us magic and blessed us with knowledge of mechanical and magical things.
The gods threatened to take magic from us. They were afraid we would use it against them. Our confusion was great, and the jotun kings began to fight among themselves.
The gods became unhappy with us. They took magic away from us and handed it in measured bites to their favorite races. My people have been sliding deeper and deeper into darkness ever since.

The arrival of the humans
The humans came in boats from across the great water. At first, they kept to the shores, but then they spread across the land and into our mountains. In the beginning, humans lived like grawl. The gods had not yet noticed them. Their magic was primitive: fire, earth, air and water. My jotun ancestors helped them survive.
Humans collected on the high plains. Tribes became settlements. Settlements became a kingdom. And that was when the gods noticed them and betrayed the jotun.

The dragons
Stories of the ancient time of dragons are rare, mostly forgotten. When I was young, an old jotun came to our fire, and told us about a time before the dragons slept.
Magic was wild. The dragons were merciless conquerers. They had the entire world under their talons.
They went to sleep, and the surviving races rebuilt. My jotun ancestors formed kingdoms. Giants, like the jotun and the norn, grew powerful. The chaos was tamed—until now.

The Age of Giants
The Age of Giants was a time when all the world’s giants ruled Tyria. Your people [norn], my people, we had magic like you will never know. Wherever we walked, the ground shook.
The other races looked up to the norn and the jotun. We were superior to all other races, and we were gaining on the gods.
The Age of Giants ended when magic was stolen from us. You norn turned to your Spirits of the Wild to redeem your strength and self-respect. We jotun have had no one and nothing to pull us from the quicksand.

It was a time when the norn and the jotun were not like you see us today. Our kingdoms were the most advanced in the entire world. We protected and defended other races.
You won’t understand. We had everything taken from us, and in out confusion at the betrayal, we lost all hope of ever being the great culture that we once were.
The norn have come far. Their Spirits of the Wild returned much of their dignity, heroism, and power to them. They are what I wish the jotun had become.#