Giant Kings

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I enjoyed reading the theories in ROK about the Giant Kings. What I am trying to figure out however is what exactly makes them Giant?
The Vampire in ROK is listed as one of these and Xaltotun is said to have perhaps been of this race but I guess I was expecting at least large sized creatures (Not hill giants mind you).
Are they just abnormally tall but still within Med height or did they have giant egos?
Someone help.
 
Dale Rippke, in his essay “Children of the Fallen,” links the idea of the Giants Kings to that of the Nephlim, from the Book of Enoch. This essay used to be available online, but has been removed because it is now included in a publication called “Hyborian Heresies” from Wild Cat Books.

Rippke: “And finally, anyone who has read my essay “Children of the Fallen” (REHupa #169) should recognize that Howard based his Acheronians on the Dragon-Kings of ancient Persia, children of the demonic Ahuras. These Ahuras are identical to the Fallen Angels of the Bible, whose chief is Satan, the Great Dragon.”

However, Rippke’s essay “The Mystery of Pre-Human Stygia” luckily is still available online. Here’s the part that should answer your quesition:

“If one looks hard enough through the Conan stories there appear small threads of information that when woven together presents a visible tapestry regarding the pre-human race that lived in Elder Stygia. They are not a race of serpent-men, although they do worship Set.
Our first bit of information comes from the Howard yarn, THE GOD IN THE BOWL. The story takes a look at Stygia's prehistory in the following quote: "Kallian Publico believed that it contained the diadem of the giant-kings, of the people who dwelt in that dark land before the ancestors of the Stygians came there. He showed me a design carved on the lid, which he swore was the shape of the diadem that legends tell us the monster-kings wore." Now this is interesting! The pre-human race that existed before the Stygians arrived were giants, taller than the average human. Did a race of giants exist during the Thurian Age? The answer is yes!
In the Howard yarn THE ALTAR AND THE SCORPION a member of the "Old Race" that existed before mankind makes an appearance. His name is Thuron and he is the high priest of the Black Shadow, an Elder god. His appearance is that of a "a tall, gaunt man, a cadaverous giant. His eyes glimmered like fiery pools under his heavy brows, and his thin gash of a mouth gaped in a silent laugh". He is also described as being incredibly strong and his stride is sinuous, like the glide of a crawling snake. Of all the Elder races described, his is the only one to fit the description of the pre-Stygians as giant-kings.
And there is more. In THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON there is a wealth of evidence about the pre-human, pre-Stygian race. If we look at the HYBORIAN AGE essay and add up the years it covers we discover that approximately 6,500 years have passed between the Great Cataclysm and the Age of Conan. Yet in THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON Conan encounters an undead vampire named Akivasha and recognizes her: "The name of that ancient, evil, beautiful princess still lived the world over in song and legend, though ten thousand years had rolled their cycles since the daughter of Tuthamon had reveled in purple feasts amid the black halls of ancient Luxor". She confirms her age when she states: "Ten thousand years ago I died to live forever!" So in other words, she became a vampire 3,500 years before the Thurian Age was destroyed in the Great Cataclysm! We also learn that the city of Luxor existed during the Thurian Age. Akivasha is described as: "Her ivory skin showed her to be Stygian of some ancient noble family, and like all such women she was tall, lithe, voluptuously figured, her hair a great pile of black foam, among which gleamed a sparkling ruby". Conan believes her to be a Stygian, since there are still white-skinned Stygian nobles existing during his lifetime. That she is not is inferred by the date that shows her to have been alive several millennia prior to the founding of Stygia. Also notice that she is tall, as is all the women of her race. An additional bit of information adds weight to the theory that she is of the "Old Race": "Once when he (Conan) spoke to her, she turned her head toward him and he was startled to see her eyes glowing like golden fire in the dark". She has the same glowing light in her eyes that Thuron is described as having.
We know the people of the east that founded Stygia were not white-skinned because Howard tells us as much. In describing a colossal pyramid, Howard states: "No man could approach of those somber piles of black stone without apprehension. The very name was a symbol of repellent horror among the northern nations, and legends hinted that the Stygians did not build them; they were in the land at what immeasurably ancient date the dark-skinned people came into the land of the great river".
Another piece of the puzzle is added when it is understood that Acheron was not founded by the Stygians, but by the "Giant-kings". In THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON, upon seeing Xaltotun restored to life, Valerius declares: "He (Xaltotun) was not a Stygian. That part at least was true." Lying in his sarcophagus, Xaltotun is described as: "a tall, lusty man, naked, white of skin, and dark of hair and beard". He is not a dusky Stygian; his appearance is the very description of a member of the Elder race. He has the same glowing eyes: "slowly intelligence grew in his dark eyes and made them deep and strange and luminous. It was as if long-sunken witch-lights floated slowly up through midnight pools of darkness" and "the lambent lights of hell flickered in his eyes". When Xaltotun appears after the Battle of Valka, Conan recognizes his approach as being like that of a serpent. And as a final bit of proof, we have the fallen priest, Orastes, observation: "we have loosed a demon upon the earth, a fiend inexplicable to common humanity. I have plumbed deep into evil, but there is a limit to which I, or any man of my race and age, can go. My ancestors were clean men, without any demoniacal taint; it is only I who have sunk into the pits, and can sin only to the extent of my personal individuality. Out behind Xaltotun lie a thousand centuries (100,000 years) of black magic and diabolism, an ancient tradition of evil. He is beyond our conception not only because he is a wizard himself, but also because he is the son of a race of wizards." Even considered as a bit of hyperbole, 100,000 years takes the race far back into the mists of pre-history.
The pre-human civilization that ruled the land of the great river did not consist of serpent-men. Howard's own writings suggest that they were the Giant-Kings, an Elder race of tall, white-skinned wizards with glowing eyes and a demoniacal taint in their blood. They wielded incredible magical power due to consorting with the ancient Elder Gods of earth's infancy. They founded the Nightmare Empire of Acheron after the Great Cataclysm. The dusky-skinned refugees of the East destroyed them in Stygia. And they were destroyed in Acheron by the Hyborian migrations. The remnants of Elder Stygia and the refugees from fallen Acheron settled in Stygia, their ancestors becoming the white-skinned Stygian nobles of Conan's era. They brought Set worship to Stygia and their ruins yielded magic and mystery and terror to the people who succeeded them. Their influence extended across the breadth of the Hyborian Age and beyond.”
 
Wow! Thanks, that was a lot of great info that will be helpful.

So they were bigger than average men but at the same time were larger than life really.

Thanks again for the reply.
 
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