Hiyas!

Under the Slayer calling there's a spot for an "Enemy lore" called Giant. Am I mistaken in thinking that there aren't any active giants in M-E? Why include this lore?

I'm confused!

Thanks!
Ñ

Giants are mentioned a couple of times in The Hobbit, but are never seen. Some people think they don't fit in Middle-earth, but I have no problem with the idea of men nine feet tall living in the mountains.

There are giants in the Misty Mountains, if one interprets the passage in chapter four of The Hobbit about stone-giants hurling stones at one another as more than hyperbole, and presumably in the other ranges of mountains in the North.

Gandalf says, regarding the entrance to Goblin-town, that he would have to remember to try and find a semi-decent giant to place a boulder in front of the Goblin-town cave mouth as it is the last safe passage over the Misty Mountains. Intimating that Giants in Middle-earth are rare and generally aligned with Evil.

I think any other references to giants are generic, not specific to events, and these passing references are easily missed in the text.

Just sayin'...

The Anglo-Saxon word for giant is ent. Might the Ents, after a fashion, be "wood-giants" modeled after the Green Man of Celtic myth? Certainly room for interpretation which would not be inconsistent with the legendarium. Trolls were created in mockery of the Ents, perhaps the varieties of Troll are indicative of there (at least once) having been multiple sorts of giants too.

For foggy stuff like this, I often look to British Isles and Scandinavian myth/folk lore. To me, giants in the mountains, beings born of earth, at home in the lightning storms of the peaks, hurling boulders for play...these totally fit both sources of lore, and thus fit Middle Earth.

I'm slowly reading through the Book of Lost Tales Book One at the moment and giants do get mentioned in there, can't remember the exact page, but could check if need be. Remember though the stories in BoLT #1 were the foundations of ME and not the final product.

There were active giants and some of them were even almost decent, according to Gandalf.

...which would suggest that they aren't all aligned with Sauron, nor that they would be corrupted spirits and creatures of Melkior like balrogs and trolls.

My favourite hyperbole is that, like the ents who are the 'shepherds of trees', giants are 'gardeners of mountains' or something of the sort, thus cousins of Fangorn and his kin (and perhaps the progenitors of mountain trolls and cave trolls).

Hi:

Yeah, kwl... I was looking for Waldo (the giant) there too!


Ñ

Hi:

If they fall under "Enemy-lore," along spiders, Trolls, Orcs, etc. I bet Francesco considers 'em ev-o-l.



Ñ

Jon,
ROFL! I now know, while you guys were away at Origins, my guess of the image's content was correct, it's the High Pass. (In case you missed it there were two separate topics about the 2-page section images. One was general - covering all of the images; another was specific to the Mount Gundabad image.)

Of course, now I'm going to have to zoom in on all the images looking for any other Easter Eggs!


UndeadTrout,
I have a mixed reaction to your suggestion. I would prefer more variety among adversaries, even if it means going outside of the legendarium. I would accept creatures of myth and legend that are appropriate to the setting and style of Middle-earth. I would not like dozens of variants on each and every creature. I don't want a Forest Boar, Wood Boar, Desert Boar, River Boar, Mountain Boar, Oceanic Boar, Glacial Boar, or any of the remaining dozen and a half variants I haven't already named. Why do I mention this? Because it is a problem the other current license holder, LotRO, is having. Halfway through that game the repetition becomes very, very obvious and highly annoying. TOR should not suffer this fate as much of the entertainment value depends on the Loremaster's efforts.

I mention LotRO, because Turbine has Ent-derived wood trolls in the game. However, the Hill trolls are animal, not vegetable based. I cannot recall at the moment what other types of trolls are represented within the game. All of the troll types are very annoying opponents since they're quite strong.


Glorfindel,
I figured Giants might be 55% evil, 30% indifferent/neutral, 10% neutral/semi-decent, 5% decent/good.

Nino,
Good point. Any LM can easily set up an Against the Giants type story arc within their own campaign setting.

The problem with that, as any naturalist can tell you, is that's exactly how the world works. If there are differences in habitat, behavior, and specialized adaptations, it warrants at least an aside covering those differences. There need not be dozens of variants for game purposes, it's more useful to provide notes on how to tailor an existing adversary for novel circumstances. A work more like Word Mill's Creature Crafter or One Bad Egg's Hard-Boiled Cultures is what would interest me. Give us scads of baseline creatures and show us how to tweak them to suit our needs. Want something akin to Old Shuck of English folklore? How about an evil spirit possession template to turn wolves into hellhounds and horses into nightmares? Many ways to work it, potentially.

Treebeard is supposedly the oldest being in all M-E, with the apparent exception of Tom Bombadil (and who knows what the heck he is?!), yet he's never heard of Hobbits. As far as he knew, the only free peoples of M-E were Ents, Elves, Dwarves, and Men. If Treebeard had never heard of Hobbits, is it so far-fetched that he had never heard of Giants? One of the wonderful things about M-E is that there is just so much weird stuff going on.

Alternatively, perhaps Giants are actually a race of Men. Tolkien is very clear that Men are very diverse, depending upon their lineage. The Druedain and the Dunedain are both men, but very different. And then there's the "half-trolls" from the southlands.

Of course, the true answer is probably that The Hobbit represents a relatively early stage in the development of M-E, and moreover was not originally conceived as taking place in M-E at all. So, a lot of Tolkien's off-hand comments in that book have to taken a bit loosely. In world, I interpret that as Bilbo's penchant for melodrama, versus Frodo's more sober and serious approach in composing LoTR.

UndeadTrout,
I've forgotten the term, but we're having two slightly different conversations that only appear to be the same on a cursory basis. We are using the term "variant" differently.

I was using the term variant in the context of "only re-skinned and re-named base creatures without substantial changes in abilities". (Which is the norm in LotRO.) Such a creature would not warrant a separate entry in a Bestiary. A sentence or two, in the form of a footnote or an equally terse paragraph, would be sufficient.

The variants you're referring to are effectively "re-skinned, re-named and sufficiently different in capabilities to warrant separate notice from the base creature". Thus a more substantial write-up (several paragraphs), or a separate Bestiary entry, would be optimal.

My ultimate aim was not to suggest that their could not be different types of giants. Just that I would prefer to see a wider range of creatures in preference to new types of giants (or any other base creature). So lions, tigers, bears, attack dogs, feral gerbils, etc along with the fire, hill, and cloud giants.

After all, if our adventures constantly use the same creatures, no matter how interesting the adventure plot is, the LM and players will become annoyed by the repetition of content and bored with the game.

I'm curious to know the reason behind your take. There is no record of Giants fighting for the Shadow against the Free Peoples. They seem to be quite neutral and take care of their own business.

There were no Giants in the Battle of the Five Armies, they are not mentioned by Beorn as evil, and they did not ally with Saruman (unlike the Misty Mountains Goblins).

However neutral, they could be problematic (i.e. raiding cattle and so).

So, I'd rather say they might be 65% indifferent/neutral, 10% neutral/semi-decent, 5% decent/good and 10% evil.

Just my take based on the lack of evidence of their malevolence.

Arthadan,
Middle-earth is a highly polarized world, particularly as it is dependent on Faerie Tales and Epic Tales (myths and legends if you prefer), tweaked to fit into Tolkien's perspective of this imaginary setting. In both of these sources, Giants tend to be against humanity and/or the gods (see Wikipedia: Giants (mythology) as well as Tolkien Gateway: Giants). In Middle-earth these are the actions of creatures aligned with Evil.

There is, further the somewhat muddled comment of Gandalf, quoted in prior messages. It is a bit of a "Is the glass half-empty or half-full?" kind of statement, but I construed it to mean that it's harder to find a decent/Good giant than it is to find a bad/Evil one when looking at the entire race.

However, as you are trying to point out, there is a serious split in the sources with a number of non-Evil giants and/or divine connection to giants (an aspect which Tolkien seems not to have used). That is why I split them mostly to Evil, but of the remainder the vast majority were neutral - more concerned with their own affairs.

Far more importantly, Francesco said so, at least by implication, because they're listed as potential targets for the Enemy-lore trait (AB p73 for giants' inclusion as a target, AB p97 for general trait description). None of the Free People are listed as potential targets of that skill. (And considering the animosity between Elves and Dwarves...)

Of course, this is just my opinion (and the Valar know I've been outright wrong on more than one occasion!), and you can do anything that you like within your own personal campaign. If you choose to make this change, just keep in mind that you might encounter story difficulties if a product released later specifically opposes your campaign's view.

True, which makes me believe that if giants aren't an allegory, then they must be akin to the Ents (and therefore listed as 'ents' according to Fangorn's list), the same way that hobbits are cousins of men.

Fangorn's ignorance of Hobbits might also suggest that list list is rather old and perhaps outdated. Giants might be a race branching off from ents which aren't all goodie-two-shoes creatures, despite the fact that they act as allies of the free folks during the war of the ring.

Glorfindel,
Just, FYI, you might want to take a look at the Tolkien Gateway link in my previous message. Toward the end of that article, there is some Giant / Ent discussion.

Thanks, good read.

I heard that Gandalf was held captive by Fangorn in early versions of LotR. I had forgotten that.

For what it's worth, giants were bred by Morgoth according to Tolkien. This is told of in the Lost Tales.

Though, as Tolkien's thought on this matured and he distinguished between beings created by Eru (the only "creatures" in the true sense of the word); beings the Ainur conceived in the Ainulindale, and later given freedom and life by Eru; and beings bred from the former two by Morgoth in mockery (and later Sauron and Saruman) as the three categories of Incarnates.

In this more complex world-view, giants were conceptions of Melkor sung into the Ainulindale, who at that time was more a rebellious and violent Ainu. Whereas Orcs and Trolls for example were bred from other Incarnates by Morgoth. Consequently, giants weren't not necessarily evil by nature though rebellious and violent most definitely. That is, more like Melkor before he was named Morgoth and truly became the great enemy and source of evil in Middle-earth. For an analogy think of a volcano and violent tetonic activity. These are functions of the discord sung in to Arda's very creation by the rebellious spirit Melkor. Giants are similar, though, given their free will they can choose moralyl evil acts and become as Melkor did evil incarnates.

Regards,
E

Elaudin,
Thanks for the information as I was not aware of all that. I haven't spent enough time digging in the HoMe since they're a tougher read. I thought the Giants were more of a failed Enemy breeding project, not a creature approved by Eru.

However, that does not change the fact that Francesco has placed them squarely in the Enemies category via their inclusion in Enemy Lore. No other sentients capable of free will are included on the list.

Besides, we need the extra Adversaries!

@Garn: Glad you found it interesting. As for Eru's approval, it's not quite like that. All things in Middle-earth have their Being from Eru--good and evil. Even things of Melkor that he sang into the Ainulindale were kept by Eru; that is, freedom is inviolate. All of this to say that the point of them being conceived by Melkor does not obviate there placement by Francesco in the category of Advesary. Both are true without contradiction. Thus the complexity of freedom and fate, two of the most perplexing elements in Tolkien's legendarium find an analogy in TORs mechanics. Quite nicely if you were to ask me.

Regards,
E

To add to what Eluadin has said, I'd say that while most intelligent creatures, and some unintelligent ones, are either Enemies or not, in a binary set, some are more varied. Ents, for instance, could easily be something you'd fight, but certainly not frequently enough encountered for it to be likely that even a slayer would have studied them to the point of having enemy lore for them.

I figure there are two types of creature you study the killing of. First, there are things like orcs and wolves, which are many, and pretty much always dangerous. Second, there are things like Dragons, which are exceedingly rare, but so dangerous, malicious and noteworthy as to be worthy of extensive study anyway.

Creatures like Ents, which may certainly be dangerous, and if you go into their territory and happen across the wrong one, wielding an axe and gathering wood for a fire, you are going to have to defend yourself, are not malicious by basic nature, but are dangerous and noteworthy. They don't get studied by normal good guys in a killing sense because mostly they're good or neutral, and you can avoid angering them by staying out of their forest. I'd say giants seem to be most like ents, judging from the primary source material.

Honestly, I'm not sure I agree with Francesco's decision to include Giants in the enemy lore, because I'm not sure they fit either slayer category, but can fit the third category.

Wouldn't that imply that they (the Giants) had a fëa, i.e. a "soul" that is the prerequisite for intelligence, capacity for speech/language and in general the ability to consciously decide about one's actions (e.g. for good or evil - or just neutral)?
If so, it must have come from Eru, since his and his alone is the ability to give a form conceived by an Ainu this "spark of life". He did so with Aulë's Dwarves after some thought and - on his own - with Elves and Men (Ents are more tricky).

If not, Giants would just be some kind of "smart animals", as this is the most an Ainu (e.g. Vala) can make wholly on his own and not necessitating a fëa.

Another option would be for the Giants to be some kind of permanently incarnated lesser Ainur (which have fëa themselves, given by Eru).

The last option would be the Giants as the result of another breeding experiment by Morgoth or Sauron, that for some reason did not go as planned and so these creatures are not seen in great numbers, but only in remote s rather than in the Enemy's armies.

Cheers
Tolwen

@Tolwen: The notion of Incarnates, those beings with souls enlivened by Eru becomes quite subtle after Tolkien begins meditating on the internal consistencies and integrity within his legendarium as you know. By the time of the writings bound in Morgoth's Ring the idea of creation and conception look astoundingly similar to his understanding of magic that we read about in his letters.

Enlivening matter (the material of Arda) with soul and freedom resides with the One Alone - Eru. But, this is preceded by Conception and this was a collaboration between Eru and the Ainur in all instances except Eru's Children, the Eruhini. The germ of this is already seen in The Silmarillion where Manwe unfolds for Yavanna the Vision renewed where spirits enter into Arda becoming the Shepherds of the Trees. This came out of Yavanna's part in the Song, but the Shepherds were Enlivened and given there freedom by the One Alone. In essence (in the metaphysical sense of the word), they were conceived by Yavanna but endowed with soul and freedom by Eru. How that happened even Tolkien himself never worked out to satisfaction. As he himself says, many of the metaphysical notions undergirding his legendarium in its youth were unconscious and second to the writing of myth. Only after the questions and probings of readers (once The LotR was published) placed amidst his own maturing thought did he begin to reflect upon the integrity or lack thereof in the wold-vision behind Middle-earth.

And, as you know, the mythic narrative and metaphysical integrity of Middle-earth never reconciled before his passing. In this conundrum documented in the HoMe, we have giants conceived by Melkor in his part of the Ainulindale given soul and freedom by Eru. How...who can say, but there are a number of attempts by Tolkien himself to offer a satisfactory explanation. Any of them would be good grist for the mill.

Or, so it seems to me...

On the flip side, we can stay with the notion that giants were bred by Morgoth as told in the Lost Tales just like Orcs. How could we reconcile Gandalf's comments in The Hobbit mentioned at the beginning of this thread....?

Best,
E

On another track, as a game mechanic it might be interesting to create a "table" based on the roll of the Feat die describing what happens if a giant happens to be in the narrative. What I'm thinking here is not so much the giant as a conventional Adversary but a plot device. Similar to the magic of Radagast in The Battle of Woodland Hall where his magic isn't so much a system of rules that a player-hero could emulate, but a mechanic that influences the story.

Any thoughts...?

And, playing of Gandalf's comment in The Hobbit, maybe a special encounter "chart" for a giant might be interesting, especially as the crux of an adventure...? Here's the advertisement: "Need giant for bouldering, looking for stout adventurers to find one and recruit..."

Regards,
E

I see your points and agree that the Giants are problematic. IMHO they are "leftovers" of the older myth version and have not been re-aligned with Tolkien's evolving mythological concepts. Or in other words: They no longer fit into the LotR-era metaphysical design (speaking from the author's POV - the "outside" position) of Arda, and Tolkien never (for whatever reason) made an attempt to re-concile them.
Therefore IMHO, any explanation or interpretation to fit them into the LotR-era "version number" is unsatisfactory for one reason or another.

I just found myself sympathetic to the idea that they are indeed "only" advanced animals (conceived by Melkor), comparable to apes, but without a fëa. Their origin makes them somewhat dangerous to deal with and the habit of throwing rocks at one another (or onto other people) may reflect that. Given that Tolkien is so scarce with information in his later designs, I do find it not a bad interpretation. The information that is supplied, IMHO does not suggest or necessitate any kind of human intelligence or the existence of fëa for these creatures.

That he grants souls to "later" designs is only after intervention and pleas on behalf of the respective Vala/Valië. Given Melkor's pride already in the beginning I cannot think him of asking, and Eru just granting it seems odd either.

In any case, it is a question of personal preference I guess

Cheers
Tolwen

What if stone-giants are caretakers of the mountains much as Ents are shepherds of the trees? Except as conceived by Melkor, they were created to wake the mountains, stir them into action (causing earthquakes and volcanoes) rather than keep them quiescent. While some were evil, allied to the Dark Powers, most were merely hostile toward those who sought to invade and/or despoil their mountainous homes. They likely battled Dwarves, Dragons, and even Durin's Bane, over the ages. But also like Ents, they were slow to breed and each giant that fell was not soon replaced. And as slow as Entish thoughts and speech can be, that of giants are even slower. But arousing the wrath of a giant is a terrible thing indeed, for it is sudden as an earthquake and as swift as a lava flow.

I suddenly feel like I'm ordering Take-out: I'll have three orders of Giants, two with a side order or Soul, the last without!


Well, along with the Mermaids, Vampires, Swanmays and others, yes I think Giants are an older part of the world's creation and inhabitants. Maybe they were meant to be more like an Elemental? Basically mountainous terrain preserving Ents (large, rare, reclusive, sentient, free will, can choose evil)? The Giant's function is to both wear mountains down and keep them rugged and sharp (trying to account for Lightning Toss)?

Edit: Hey, Cross-post! And Jinx!


That basically works for me UndeadTrout, although I think I'm still retaining Giants as predominantly Evil to keep in line with the Enemy Lore list. At least until we either know more from Tolkien, the revelations of Scholarly Investigation or SG/C7 storyline fiat.

Interesting thread.

All of this is absolutely conceivable. The main point is about their "status" as outlined above. To be truly capable of thought and "intelligence", they need to have a real "soul" - and this can only come from Eru. Thus Eru would have to grant Melkor's creation "real" life, and this is something really hard to imagine. In addition, it would make moot one of Melkor's main motives for rebellion - to have his own "children". He sought long to seek the Imperishable Flame to achieve just this and he failed. Eru was aware of his flawed ideas and IMHO it is hard to imagine, he would have granted it without further ado to a melkoric creation.

If only designed by Melkor, they would be mere automatons (e.g. like the Dwarves before Eru granted them souls) or animal-like (as I said above), but not capable of rational thought, intelligence, speech and all the other things associated with "intelligent" beings.

Cheers
Tolwen

Good point. And it works within Tolkien's later - and detailed - metaphysical concept of Arda and its inhabitants. Thus the Giants would be leser ainur permanently incarnated into their physical forms (e.g. no longer being able to exercise their original powers as spiritual beings). From their area of interest, they would be among Aulë's Folk or Independents (like perhaps Tom B.), but with similar interests. Their mindsets would be focussed on the mountains and superior in everything that concerns them, but otherwise quite limited in scope and "intellect" and knowledge/lore.

And then we could have melkor-made "Giants", perhaps even made in mockery (like Trolls for Ents), but without a fëa and more animal-like. Or he might have bred some "evil" Giants from captured specimens. That would make for some interesting controversy in the "giant community"

This would only necessitate the original Giants to be able to reproduce themselves. We have no positive evidence that this is possible. The only case (Melian as mother of Lúthien) was wedded with an Elf, who would be deprived of his ability to father children, and so Eru granted a fëa for the child (Luthien).
It is interesting to speculate whether Eru wpould grant them for two fully incarnated Ainur - who are not designed/devised to reproduce themselves at all. The old conception of the "Children of the Valar" found in the Lost Tales has been thoroughly and systematically eliminated by Tolkien and either replaced with Maiar (e.g. Eonwe as the leader in the War of Wrath) or dropped altogether.

Cheers
Tolwen

Giants battering down mountains doesn't feel right to me, but keeping them wild and impassable does. The greatest peaks have names, maybe each once had a giantish bloodline which tended and took its name from them. To turn things on their head, I suggest that there are many giants to few great mountains as a reversal of the ratio of few Ents to many trees. Might "stone-giant" be just another, earlier name for "mountain-troll"? Gandalf's remark in The Hobbit about finding a semi-descent one could then be considered an expression of futility rather than hope. This would keep them squarely in the enemy camp. Also, the tossing of boulders across a pass could then be understood not as a game, but as giants from the peaks on either side having a brief turf war while the sun was hidden by storm-clouds. However one chooses to play it, authenticity and maximum game fun should rule.

@Tolwen: Not only did Tolkien imagine this, according to Christopher Tolkien's chronological speculations on his father's late essays, Tolkien himself settled on this.

After unconsciously creating the problem while writing The LotR and in general all his early legendarium writings, that is, before concerns of systematic integrity and a metaphysical cogency entered his thoughts, he later began to address the problem of evil creatures exhibiting "souls" directly. And, this is when he began to imagine that evil creatures could be classified as rational Incarnates. But this was not without a number of twists and turns as he sought for a reasonable explanation

What does it mean if an evil creature speaks? How can an evil creature exhibit all the qualities of a "soul" as you described earlier? A question for which Tolkien by 1959 settled on as the gifts of "love and independence," i.e., will and freedom (MR, 411). In this same essay, Tolkien states explicitly Eru would not sanction Melkor's work and endow it with a fea, unless the evil creature were ultimately remediable, or could be amended and saved (ibid.). Given that Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, this makes complete sense. If it was part of Eru's Design, how could it not be sanctioned. Or, put into the context with which Tolkien was working: There is this dilemma of an evil creature bearing all the qualities of a "soul", therefore it must have a soul and consequently be part of Eru's Design. Problem-solved. Well, not really.

Because he actually throws that explanation out in favor of a different solution. Orcs (and Trolls and other evil creatures causing him this problem) were "created" from creatures already possessing "soul". Wait, that one didn't work either when examined under his new systematic lens. No earlier than 1960 (MR, 415), he realizes the above explanation upends the chronology of his legendarium and is untenable. It becomes invalid (at least in this particular essay). This is just one example where Tolkien is attempting to find another explanation than evil creatures that exhibit "souls" actually have souls as part of Eru's Design. Ultimately, though, they all produce problems of either chronology or coherency, etc. In the end, he returns to the notion that these evil creatures with soul-like qualities were conceived in the mind of Melkor, and if they do in fact have a "soul," then they must be part of Eru's Design and were gifted a will and freedom as Tolkien originally imagined. All of this to say, it is possible for Eru to grant to a conception of Melkor, a fea.

Of course, if we turn back to 1953, then we find the genesis of Tokien's own awareness of the dilemma. In Letter 153, Peter Hastings brought his attention to the matter while questioning Tolkien's theology. (Humorous in a certain sense as Tolkien laconically points out.) Maybe he offers in the same letter the most satisfactory answer to the question of how Eru could grant life to something conceived by Melkor. "[E]ven if exercising my sub-creator's right I have thought it best in this Tale to leave the question a 'mystery', not without pointers to the solution" (Letters, 190).

Best,
E

Given what we have to work with, this is a great explanation. It is possible that these were conceived by Melkor to operate in such a capacity. Aule sang predominantly of the earth. And, against Aule Melkor wrought the greatest ruin in sowing discord and seeding cacophony into Aule's music. Quite possibly the giants could be the actualization of the discord sown into Aule's music by Melkor's rebellious spirit. The giants, like Orcs were endowed with independence (freedom) and will. A gift granted by Eru according to his Design. Melkor enters Ea and eventually becomes Morgoth. Soon Morgoth expends much of his Will "upon orks, and still more upon the other far more formidable creatures in his service" (MR, 422) and subverts their independence. Such a long sojourn under the domination of Morgoth's Will corrupts the freedom and will of the giants, but not irremediably. (We can classify them under that category "for more formidable" than orcks.) These "mountain-shepherds" after Morgoth's demise bear corrupted spirits (yes, fear) and act evilly marking them clearly as Adversaries (should a player-hero run across one) and creating the necessity for Enemy-Lore. However, no evil creature endowed with a fea is totally evil. Hence, Gandalf can speak of finding a semi-decent giant either literally or as an expression of futility...

And, why would Eru's Design have included giants and other evil creatures granted fear? The essay quoted above may very well have Tolkien's answer. "Morgoth though in origin possessed of vast power was finite; and it was the expenditure upon the orks, and still more upon the other far more formidable creatures in his service, that in the event so dissipated his powers of mind that Morgoth's overthrow became possible" (ibid.). If Eru had not granted Melkor's conceptions freedom and free will, then Morgoth would never have had to expend himself as he did to align his mock "sub-creations" to his Will. Never, then, would he have been diminished enough to overthrow...

And, as UndeadTrout commented, "authenticity and maximum game fun should rule" (bold mine).

Regards,
E

UndeadTrout,
The affects of time and natural processes (erosion, landslides, induction, etc) on the mountain would be a part of the function of an Elemental.