RQ2 Errata. As published in the RuneQuest Companion p61
"Page 81: Giants - Giants are actually of the Disorder rune, not Chaos. Many people, including giants, can not tell the difference."
This is correcting RQ2 which describes them as Chaotic (twice). The disorder rune is probably an explanation for:
"Giants are so naturally contrary that any magical attempt to influence their actions or emotional response [...] only has a 5%
chance of working on them."
RuneQuest 2 p81
The Elder Races Book makes no mention of this saying:
"Giants predate humans by eons, and some claim they predate the
gods (though nobody can guess where they came from in such
circumstances). They appear in many ancient stories and myths in
essentially the same form they are found today."
Elder Races Book p82
Nothing is said about the Elder Giants there which implies that Gonn Orta is the same type of giant as the others (except for the Grey Giants and the Dingri). The bit about the Elder Giants comes in a gloranthan document (Pavis and Big Rubble p131) that has several statements the truth of which we don't know. There's also the Annilla cult writeup which is a mishmash of incoherent facts collected by Thorloss the Scribbler. The only evidence for the Elder Giants as a distinct species is that their children are bigger (10m infants whereas adult giants are between 3 and 15 metres).
IMO the bit about the disorder rune was an ad hoc justification for a particular attribute of giants. It's not repeated elsewhere. You could broaden this out into Giants having runic natures (ie Harmony, Illusion etc) but the connection between disorder and huge size seems rather weak.
I really see the Elder Giants as being a spiritually advanced portion of the Giants as a whole. The relationship between them and ordinary giants is more like the relationship between Dwarves and Diamondwarves or between Brithini and other Malkioni rather than being separate species.
--Peter Metcalfe
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