Hedge Wizards (Sorcerers)
The peasants of the High Country live close and cramped alongside the mythic, magical wilderness. This produces a good deal of trouble– Wilk-hounds and followers of the Beast Kings a constant threat– but it also leads to a necessitated symbiosis. Many a rural fellow will pick up tidbits and tatters of magical ability, coalescing into a form of magic unlike that of the stuffier, scholastic wizardry. Rather, this Hedge-wizardry relies on wells of whatever natural magic it can find, drawing from reagents, components, and ambient natural magic about to create far less predictable spells.
Though far less bookish and easier to learn, it does come with side-effects. Wild magic is just that– wild. And it tends to use the sorcerer as much as the sorcerer uses it. A hedge-mage will find himself besot with all manner of magical affect: Followed by strange birds, unable to talk in anything but forgotten languages, smelling and hearing colours, et cetera. Sometimes, they'll find their magic works better if they dress, act, and speak in a way that the magic likes– a common manifestation of this is wearing strictly green clothing. Hedge-wizards wear lots of green, including fantastic wigs.
There're Giants in Them There Hills
Giants live and wander the High Country on their rangy legs and dangling arms. Big, faintly blue-tinged, and wearing the most fantastic beards possible, they are born relatively independent and are abandoned by their parent(s) soon for this reason. Giant's bodies, organs, and bones never stop growing, and never show signs of wear: The only downside of this is their brains grow at an exponential, rather than more linear rate. Meaning a juvenile giant is little more than a territorial, sword-swinging Gigantopithecus until the age of about 150, and becomes a towering, mystic sage revealing cosmic secrets by age 300.
Giants keep well away from each other (more fear of territorialism than territorialism itself). To keep each other updated on the goings-on of the hills, a long, complex, and remarkably intricate language of glyphs and symbols has developed to be carved into cliff-faces and cave walls. Giants each have an equally complex glyph that represents their name, but because they'd take more letters than a scrabble bag to read out, giants tend to adopt local human names for ease.
Speaking of which, giants are great friends with the "Small Folk". Being big enough to swing a greatsword with abandon, and with little other to do than hunt and hang out, (non-juvenile) giants are welcomed in most small towns as someone who is known for slaying evil for nothing more than a nap in the hay-stack and a small mountain of food.
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