Calcobrinan Cyclopes

Appearance
The average cyclops is a giant, standing in the range of eight to nine feet tall with thickly muscled arms, sloping shoulders and a dusky yellow hide. Weighing in at nearly 600 pounds, they are the largest intelligent species in Calcobrina, save for the Dragons. As their name suggests, they have only one eye, located centraly in their head, and this eye is twice the size of a normal human eye. Cyclopes are able to see well in low light conditions, and do not suffer from a lack of depth perception.

History/Background
The Cyclopes tell a myth. It says that in the begining, there was the first Cyclops, who was blessed with a singular vision, and a desire to create. This giant wandered from place to place, piling up the mountains, and filling the sea of sand, and generally doing a good job of building the place. But after building the desert land, and girding it with the seas, he was lonely.

The eldest created the race of the Cyclopes as his children and as stewards of the desert while he went about the rest of his building in strange and distant lands. The Cyclopes are natural builders, crafting their homes from the native stone of the desert. From time to time, these ruins are revealed from the scortched flesh of the earth, silent monuments to the passage of time, and the erosion of their ancient kingdoms.

In older times, the Cyclopes were content to help build the septs of the Seitch, and even had a major role in the construction of golden Balador. However, they began to decline in number as they were maligned as monsters of the desert following the fall of Balador. During the reconstruction, they were hunted. Those who submitted were brought to the building sites an were forced to build. Those who refused were slain.

Now the Cyclopes haunt only the innermost reaches of the Sea of Sand and the broken wastes of Djaraha. Most of the surviving members of this race, now broken beyond repair, believe that the end of their kind will come in this last generation.

Cyclopian Ruins
The legacy of the Cyclopes can be found in the rare ruins that can be found across the desert kingdom of Calcobrina. Some of these ruins, such as Standing Stones are very well known and afforded a level of notoriety akin to Stone Henge, the rest are lost to the shifting sand dunes of the Sea of Sand, or simply hidden away in the twisting vallies of the blasted lands. Those who can find these ruins can see that the Cyclopes were once a very advanced people, with intricate writtings in the style of heiroglyphics, as well as excellent understanding of celestial time and potent magics. To see them know, hunking down in the wastes with long spears and bloody knuckles makes the image of the scholarly cyclops seem almost absurd.

Special Equipment
Cyclopes have no normal equipment, most go about the desert without even clothing. They are as much a part of the landscape as a scorpion or cactus.

Roleplaying Notes
Cyclopes are distant and unseen. Those who are encountered will retreat if they feel threatened, which is the most common responce. Those who feel they have the upper hand will attack without quarter or mercy. They will often attack mounts and water supplies and fade back into the desert and wait for their foes to weaken with thrist before moving in for the kill. They enjoy the taste of human and elf flesh.