Skoraeus Stonebones

Skoraeus Stonebones was the giant god of craftsmanship and that which was buried, and was the primary patron of the stone giants. The Great Creator, as he was called by the stone giants, had chosen them as his people, the underground as his home, and artistic achievement as his domain. Introverted but intelligent, the King of the Rock was the wisest member of the giant pantheon.

"Only Skoraeus knows."

- Tavis Burdun

Description
Skoraeus's avatar appeared as a stone giant of great size (in some instances and in others  tall) with granite skin and thick, muscled forearms covered in corded veins. Stone giant art depicted him either as a pair of hands, a chisel in one and a hammer in the other, or with the largest statue or relief carving of a stone giant in a tribe's domain. Typically he was depicted as twice as tall as any other stone giant, with some depictions known to go as high as, and he might have additional features such as protruding spikes.

Manifestations
Skoraeus was known to communicate through subtle changes in natural beauty, such as the coloration of rocks, the growth or pattern of stalactites, sparkling fountains, and the development of underground mosses and lichen.

Personality
Skoraeus was a withdrawn deity, generally a very dour and expressionless loner. Unlike most of his siblings he was generally disinterested in the affairs of giantkind and indeed didn't really care for any race of beings, the sole exception to this rule being his obsession with the stone giants. Though he had his reasons for his seclusion, they were more self-centered and based on introversion than those of Annam All-Father.

Skoraeus was often considered the wisest of the giant gods, as well as the most knowledgeable (and he was deeply knowledgeable) regarding magics, wards, banes, hidden treasures, deeply buried wonders, and the secrets of the earth. By listening to the vibrations carried to him in areas touching rock, he could know everything that occurred there. Unfortunately for those who would want such information, Skoraeus kept his knowledge strictly to himself.

Powers
Skoraeus's avatar was immune to spells of elemental earth, as well as those of acid and petrification, and could only be hurt by at least +2 magical weapons. He slowly healed from injury if any of him was touching raw stone, and did so nearly twice as fast if underground. He could instantly summon 2-20 stone giants to come to his aid and once per day could summon 1-4 powerful earth elementals to serve him for two hours. He could cast crystalbrittle twice per day as well, as earthquake, though reports varied on whether he could do the latter once per day or once per minute. This was assuming he used magic rather than striking his enemies with his giant fists.

Possessions
Avatars of Skoraeus were often known to carry a wand of earth or stone that would recharge at the start of each day.

Divine Realm
Skoraeus had no known residence in any given cosmology,  though he was sometimes purported to lie at the heart of the world on the Prime Material Plane. In the Great Wheel, World Tree, and World Axis cosmologies he simply wandered, though in the second he specifically roamed the mountains of Jotunheim, preferably the roots of those mountains and the caves that lurked within them, and in the third he wandered across the vast, ever-changing mountainous regions of the Elemental Chaos.

Activities
Skoraeus often intervened in the affairs of the stone giants to guide their development, but only sparingly dispatched an avatar to Toril. In the rare cases he did, it was to protect them, lead them to new homes, or even more rarely to lead them to (or away from) a secret magical cavern or treasure or rich veins of stones or minerals, the latter kinds of interference being legend among the stone giants. Rather than these direct manifestations, Skoraeus more often used his preferred form of influence, his understated natural omens, signs only stone giants could discern, and his priests were capable of interpreting.

Skoraeus would never venture above ground, and could not even be summoned there.

Relationships
Skoraeus was one of the many children of Annam All-Father by way of an unnamed sky goddess. In many giant legends he was said to have sat on the sidelines while his other siblings schemed or fought. He acted as an observer and a confidant to all parties, keeping their secrets unless forced or tricked into divulging them, though in the past he was also known to use his knowledge to help them in one way or another.

Skoraeus was known to occasionally consort with the dwarven pantheon as well as the gods of the svirfneblin, though these were dealings done out of necessity rather than desire. In particular he was allied with the deep-dwelling dwarf god Dumathoin, as well as the earth god Grumbar.

Worshipers
Skoraeus was typically revered by stone giants, who worshiped him as the Great Creator. In their minds only Annam was superior in skill, and in his absence Skoraeus (as opposed to Stronmaus, the more commonly considered de-facto leader) was the head of the giant pantheon.

Skoraeus had both priests and shamans, and to become the former required a certain level of fortitude. Priests of Skoraeus were known to be gifted spells related to elemental earth, such as stone shape, stoneskin, passwall, flesh to stone, and stone tell. Other powers granted due to their close connection to the earth were spike stones and wall of stone, though the cost of these expanded powers was the ability to cast spells associated with other elements, such as resist fire or water walk. For priests of Skoraeus, the raw caverns of the Underdark were practically alive, with every geographical feature a trove of information regarding location, direction, and distance.

Skoraeus was a popular deity in the wilds of the Galenas and the Earthspurs, and travelers of those mountains would often find huge stone cairns built in honor of the King of the Rock. His followers believed stone giants to be the true rulers of the mountain passes, and included not only giants but also goblinoids (the term in this case including creatures like ogres), though since goblinoid of tribes that worshiped him had a longer life expectancy than those who didn't, it was debatable how much of that piety was sincere and how much was pragmatism. Medusae (and their male counterparts the maedar) did not worship Skoraeus, though they did respect the Living Rock.

Dogma
To followers of Skoraeus beauty was truth and knowledge was power, with secrets the ultimate power and the Underdark a large treasure trove of secrets. Stone giants believed that drawing shapes out of raw stone would reveal meaning inspired by Skoraeus. The greatest stone carvers of a tribe were appointed and honored as leaders, shamans, and prophets, their holy hands said to literally become those of their god as they worked.

Priests of Skoraeus spent most of their time either meditating or creating intricate sculptures or friezes. They generally isolated themselves from the rest of their tribe, but believed it was their duty to oversee societal affairs and ensure that the stone giants were constantly making greater artistic strides and intellectual discoveries. As per the teachings of Skoraeus, they believed the most certain way of guaranteeing this was to isolate stone giants from all other races, even the other giant races, urging tribesmen to shun interaction with outsiders on the grounds that it might distract from their artistic pursuits.

Exceptions to this general rule of isolation did exist; priests of Skoraeus would tolerate other giants and individuals who could add to a tribe's mastery of craftsmanship and lore. Even so, the grave and serious priests especially avoided other giants and ultimately sought to create a stifling orthodoxy that looked inward and repulsed outside influence. Around the time of the coming of the Twilight Spirit and renewed calls for Jotunbrud unity and rebuilding Ostoria, the priests of Skoraeus had to work harder than ever to achieve their goals, with many stone giants finding it difficult to ignore the outside world.

Like priests, stone giant shamans cultivated aloof and indifferent behavior. They believed that the happenings of lesser mortals were to have little influence on stone giant affairs and regarded both law and chaos with suspicion, possessing an inclination to reject the overtures of either force.

An ancient tradition among the people of Hartsvale said that Skoraeus would swallow those who took ore from an unconsecrated vein.

Rituals
Where they were in power, clerics of Skoraeus required any giant who violated their god's teaching, even those pledged to another deity, to atone through meditation. Normally this was required for somewhere between one to five hours, though the varied with the seriousness of the offense, and most giants, even those of other faiths, tended to follow this custom when in a Skoraeus stronghold just to humor the clergy, as not doing so often resulted from loud, annoying, and repeated rebukes.

Once every three months or so, the priests of Skoraeus ventured down into the Underdark alone, without any provisions, on a sort of vision quest. During this time they were believed to be gifted messages and instructions by Skoraeus in the form of omens and dreams, always returning fairly unharmed within four days.

Shamans of Skoraeus were not required to make sacrifices or undergo trials to increase in strength, generally living as they pleased, though they could not attain the same heights of power as his priests. On occasion, however, an extremely devoted shaman sacrificed all their possessions to him, keeping not a single coin or potion. When such a shaman reached the height of their power as such, Skoraeus might decide to grant them the power to cast earthquake (a spell far beyond their regular capabilities) once per month, which aside from taking ten minutes to cast and affecting a diameter behaved as a regular earthquake spell. Only 1 out of 20 of the most powerful shamans had this ability.

Clothing
The traditional dress of Skoraeus's clergy were skins, with the head kept bare.

Temples
One stone giant grotto in the Ice Spires had two enormous braziers flanking the main entrance which burned with blue, otherworldly smoke, and which were kept burning every day in tribute to Skoraeus. According to their legends, the braziers dying out was a sure sign of an omen for Skoraeus, the two most recent (though still incredibly rare) examples being the poisoning of Othea and the death of Hartkiller and the storm giant paramount who fought him. Deeper in the grotto, was a secret sanctuary used by the high priest of Skoraeus for vigils and prayers.

The xenophobic stone giants of the Greypeak Mountains believed Deadstone Cleft was sacred as it contained an ancient temple of Skoraeus and a magical stalactite known as the Steinfang. The stone giants carved questions into the stalactite believing that the responses that came from it were from Skoraeus himself, though in truth the replies were from an evil earth primordial, Draunn, trapped under the Greypeak Mountains since the dawn of time.

Notable Worshipers

 * Hgraam, the intelligent, martially-skilled, and diplomatic stonespeaker of Clan Cairngorm in Gracklstugh.

History
Skoraeus was born as part of the second generation of giantish deities, around the same time as Surtur and Thrym, and was believed to have performed many a task for his many siblings. It was said he taught Surtur the secrets of smelting, then later taught Thrym the art of enchanting old weapons with magic runes when Surtur refused to forge him new weapons. He crafted the spears that Hiatea would use to complete her ten legendary tasks of valor and aided Stronmaus in his defeat of a tarrasque by tapping his hammer on undersea stone to reveal where the chain-tunnels he needed to drag the beast down were located. Eons ago he even forged his father's mighty axe, Sky Cleaver.

Eventually, the evils committed by Surtur and Thrym and the general schisms of his pantheon would repel Skoraeus so much that he escaped them by going underground, becoming more withdrawn from his brothers and focusing on the stone giants. From then on he would ignore the evils without, but repulse any attempts made at invading his domain.

Rumors and Legends
In a classic giant tale, Memnor murmured something in Skoraeus's ear, which Surtur demanded to know. Skoraeus repeated what he had heard, resulting in Surtur brooding on the words and reacting rashly, as when taken out of context what was said was misleading. This, however, was not in any way seen as Skoraeus's fault, who had done exactly what was asked of him; if Surtur had instead asked for advice regarding Memnor's message, the legend would have ended very differently.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
 * Novels
 * ''The Siege
 * ''The Siege
 * ''The Siege