Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)

2026-05-08T10:14:33Z

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{{Infobox:TwilightAgeGroup
|Type = Zu'aan tribe
|Name = Asom Tribal Zu'aan
|Parent Groups = N/A
|Descended Groups = Unknown
|Areas Controlled = [[Nydra Emerald Cliffs]]
|Date Founded = 4E 134
|Date Disbanded = N/A
}}

==History==

In the year of 4E 134 an expedition group was sent out by the Aleor tribe, with the objective of exploring the vastness of the many lands which existed around the walls of Krorror; in such expeditions, the group came across many obstacles, be them fungal forests or kin'toni infested shields. That continued on for 4 years, where many members were lost in travels, and ration supplies often depleted (in the majority of the time due to negligence from the Aleor government), and that continued until they struck gold, or in this case, struck emerald.

That group of around 127 expeditioners discovered the Nydra Emerald Cliffs, and from the moment when such messages were reported back to Aleor, they thought of it as a huge opportunity not only for the obtaining of riches, but for the expansion of their very tribe. However, the latter caused some issues, with the fear of having to federalize the iron rule of the monarch in the Aleor, they established the group in the Nydra Emerald Cliffs as, formally, its own tribe, however it very much still acted like a simple expansion of the Aleor tribe.

Now calling themselves the Asom Tribe, the members of this new creation occupied the Nydra Emerald Cliffs with the objective of "buying" cheap slave labor from the Aleor and selling back mined emeralds for also cheap prices. However, such opportunity wasn't something the now Asom tribe was looking forward to wasting, which is why they underwent about 10 years of infrastructural adaptation to guarantee that no other tribe would even have the knowledge of where this flow of emeralds to Aleor came from, logistical routes were hidden under lush lands.

Ignoring simple shortcuts as to remain hidden and nearly untraceable, and by also forcing the first five years into removing any visible samples from the outside layers of the cliffs, then, by also hiding any hints that led to their mineral routes, they were on the trail to keep this source of income safe, and thus, allow their tribe to thrive via the cruel practice of continuous slave labor. Or so it was what they thought, as in the year of 4E 166, just as it became common to celebrate the turning of the century.

A joint legion of the Aleorma and the Enr tribe during exploration, sneakily followed one of the transportation lines from Aleor to Asom, which allowed for the tribe, which was now highly peaceful in terms of military dependency, to be plundered, months of mining were stolen and brought back to the legion's tribes. This event served as a marking moment in how the Asom tribe would now function. From now on, heavy militarization was the norm, any non-identifiable individual seemed to receive an arrow on sight if they even dared to reach a kilometer from the edges of the Nydra Emerald Cliffs.

And the tribe seemingly disappeared from the landscape, keeping both its free social functionings and the slave labor within the very Nydra Emerald Cliffs, this in turn allowed for the intensification of extreme slave labor, stronger members were forced to be bred in non-hygienic rooms and the ones with labor tasks underwent severe treatment and would often times be tortured publicly if they showed signs of exhaustion or rebellious thought.

==Psychology==

It’s necessary, when regarding the psychological profile of the Asom tribe, to speak about two sections in individual form. First, the ruling and managerial classes of the tribe, the so-called “free” members of the tribe that are able to enjoy the fruits brought forward by slave exploitation; the psychological baseline of that portion of the population is one rooted in a deep and chronic sense of paranoia, often times promoted by the idea of being, in terms of numbers, the minority in comparison to the enslaved mass.

This paranoic notion is fed by a constant expectation of revolt, rooted in the idea that Asom might become a birthplace for many Aleorma tribes if it doesn’t exhaust their slaves to a pulp. This, in turn, leads to a higher level of dissimulation amongst the leaderships, making it so they perform under the logic of “rationality and order”, which are things promoted to not only distance the leaders from their very fears regarding slave counterattacks, but to also erase any sort of empathy from their mind, allowing them to remain constantly brutal.

Furthermore, economic greed is one of the most crucial vectors to the escalating moral corrosion suffered by the leaders, intensifying their emotional collapse and actually leading to a stagnation in productivity; this is often caused by targeting continually in the emerald extraction without ever seeking for stabilizing measures, like those which allow for specialized work. Instead of improving the rights for the workers and slaves forced into mining duty, they’re forced into longer shifts, reduced rations, and harsher punishments.

Psychology in the leadership becomes a short-term limited mess, which is exactly what is needed for the maintaining of the order within their tribe to remain unchanged, not to mention how, due to their promoted apathy, slaves are by most free members cognitively reduced to simple output metrics, which allows violence to remain, shifting from something instrumental into a habit. On the other side of things, the psychological framework of the slaves in Asom lacks an origin myth, which makes it so, in terms of psychology, there is no narrative that justifies what happens.

This lack of metaphysical justification results in a way darker worldview among the slaves, which promotes the psychological defeat into plain nihilism; there is no redemption to their efforts, no order which promotes it, it is all just cycles of physical punishment made to break one’s will. Suffering, in turn, becomes endless and unreasoned, a simple fact that will remain to plague their lives regardless of what they choose to do within those hills, which makes it so hope just collapses, and when it doesn’t collapse, it’s not expressed either, simply remaining in the abstract home to ideas.

Furthermore, this notion of hopelessness leads to the only constant in their psychological lifetime to be constant and ruthless despair, which causes one practice to become a custom amongst the slave population, that being suicide. The apparent meaning of life being reduced to plain suffering makes it so many slaves, once losing hope due to perhaps seeing a whipping done to a child, simply choose to suicide, the most common methods being with the very pickaxes they use for work.

They’ve reached a stage where it’s nearly impossible to articulate reasons as for staying alive; there is no narrative or justification, time is oppressive and unknown, they can’t tell if it’s been a month or a week, and even their very future becomes something unimaginable. For the ones that do choose to live, let’s say, more than 25 years of age, they often replace either their nihilism or their candid blindness with plain emotional numbness and cognitive emptiness. Living, due to these conditions faced by the enslaved population, becomes simply automatic rather than intentional.

==Culture==

The culture in an authoritarian regime is, without a doubt, one that is deeply shaped by the residues of the governance structure and choices. Asom does not have a culture that is produced by the zu'aan who live in the tribe, instead simply living what was left over from governance that utilizes those people as simple tools for extraction. Cultural practices, just like in many other tribes, were not celebratory or symbolic, and functioned under an adaptive and practical set of customs.

However, the key difference is how the whole objective is to maintain the objectives of the authoritarian rule, which forces the members of the tribe to live in subhuman conditions. This leads to a tribe with no clear cultural self-image; after all, what would culture look like when it is not allowed to exist? Expression itself has been deemed something not only unnecessary but a redundant practice that is often regarded as dangerous; thus, the only sort of emotional expression demanded from the citizens (mainly from the slaves) is emotional numbness.

Where if they were to express sadness even by eye contact, it could be deemed a set of rebellious practices. All of this is, of course, reinforced by how empathy is seen as something dangerous, and how indifference to suffering was taken as the only acceptable stance, any other being inefficient, childish, and even dangerous; all of this suppression is done simply for the benefit of distant authorities. Violence is often reframed within the cultural framework of the tribe as necessary procedures.

As has been previously mentioned, punishments would be scheduled and done publicly, as if a spectacle; the standardized methods would be taught to individuals as young as 12 years old, including whipping until loss of consciousness, prolonged suspension by the arms, controlled starvation, exposure under the sun without water, and the removal of fingernails with basic tools, and oftentimes people would bet around the outcomes of a scheduled public torture procedure.

If the slave in question would die during the whipping, be badly wounded from suspension or dehydration, lose fingers or teeth, or simply hold his breath during the procedure so as not to suffer any further. No one in Asom is fully identified as an oppressor, which is quite rare for a tribe in such a situation. Even members that torture others directly are not seen as completely cruel; often, those roles are brought forward with an overall theme of inevitability, as though it is a mere serfdom in the face of commands or a set of truths that are undeniable for those who live in the Asom tribe.

This leads responsibility to be, at least at a cultural level, displaced upward towards the controlling tribe of Aleor, which transitions collective guilt into collective helplessness. In conclusion, cultural production is stagnated; ontologically, this tribe remains at almost a constantly sad and gloomy state that is masked by numbness, and unfortunately, the Asom tribe cannot evolve because it lacks the right to control its own future.

==Government==

In terms of governance, what exists and is formally recognized as the Asom tribe defines itself as an independent territory with internal administration which dictates an authoritarian style of governance, but in material reality it functions more-so as an extension of the Aleor Tribal zu'aan, which reduces Asom's power to that of a colony. This fictional independence is one of the main bevtors of their economic monoculure and full dependency on Aleor for legitimacy and survival.

This is evidenced in crtiical moments where, due to excessive torture, the slave population of Asom might decrease lots, which causes the Aleor to export slaves with the destiny being Asom. This sort of puppet regime creates political conditions where the decision making, along with the accumulation of political power, resides in external authorities, removing the power for members of the Asom tribe to act locally. This makes it so real practical political power is concentrated by the Aleor's crown.

Which is responsible for appointing the leadership positions of the Asom, transmitting decisions often times by letters and decrees, which contributes to slowing down any real necaessary processes, a very big issue in times of crisis. This asbence of decision-makers within Asom soil creates a sort of remote control that transcends presence, and individuals, be them free or enslaved, feel very powerless within that tribe. This structure of authority which doesn't allow for the development of sovereignty actually contributes for making the hierarchy of the tribe all the more rigid.

Stopping any means of participatory mechanisms, which, in turn, creates a legal system where laws are designed for the sole purpose of emerald extraction and of mass control, instead of any means for social organization. This enforcement around rigid power structures prevents any level of actual policy-making. This extends even to guards, overseers and the so called free citizens, whic by the eyes of the slaves appear powerful, but they are fundamentally empty in political terms; those very local agents are turned to instruments which simply reproduce the will of the crown of Aleor.

Enforcing violence without ever having the power to define it, which contributes to a very strong feeling of alienation, since no one in Asom fully has control over the system's functioning. Since obedience follows this flow of being undoubtebly coerced to all the members of Asom, be them upward or downward in caste, it simply reinforces powerlessness in the fact of punishment quotas and surveillance duties. The psychology section explains how the tribe also goes through practices as to prevent their individuals from feeling levels of emphathy towards those who are publicly tortured.

This contributes to a massification of emotional numbness. This leads to the importation of violence as the very political logic of the tribe, creating an undeniable bond between this administrative imposition and the tribe's culture; things such as labor expectations and punishment tandards are seen as naturally rough, despite the fact that it's all maintained to satisfy distant economic demands, which sustain this violent cycle without ever being a direct part of it.

==Military==

The Asom's military is unlike many other organized and institutionalized matters of enforcement, its main focus deriving from the both most usual usages, being defense and/or warfare; it instead acts as an extension of bureaucratic control, responsible for guarding mines (including the participation in slave torture and the reinforcement of productivity quotas), the escorting of slave transports from the Aleor tribe to the Asom tribe, and by doing the same path back when escorting large amounts of mining products.

This creates an interesting contrast where the main enemy the Asom's military forces train for aren't external, but deviation from the norms applied within the tribe. Another interesting part of the Asom military is its lack of formal and independent command structure, which makes it so even formal training and their development of strategic doctrine to be very slow. This happens because orders ultimately originate from Aleor, which not only guarantees delays but it makes the military a sluggish and reactive institution that is incapable of acting according to the needed adaptation during a crisis.

Which also compromises their ability of adaptation to their own terrain, instead of training military forces on the different characteristics of the Nydra Emerald Cliffs, they're forced to go through the same training as the Aleor's, with the small inclusion of tactics to control misbehaving amongst slaves. The ranks of the forces are filled with locals which by the age of 24 lack any formal job, coerced recruits, and individuals who often seek minimal protection, slaves are not allowed to partake within the actions of the military.

Following the same exclusionary logic of the Aleor, that is attributing to that caste the possibility of rebellious thought. Military service is an obligation of the highest degree, disobeying it would get an individual to suffer punishments that can be fairly compared to those slaves suffer. The process of promoting an apathetical outlook and an erasure of emotions (mainly empathy) is even more reinforced amongst the military, be them guards, soldiers, overseers, they are put through sessions where they'll be forced to watch and provoke physical suffering until their very minds are numb from generating emotion from it.

Be it by the repeated whipping of small cute critters, or by lining up slaves by queues for execution, where the trainee would be forced to slay each one until they are either seen as too emotional and unfit for the job, or truly "mature" enough for the position. Since the military functioned within the insides of the Asom tribe itself, it is often used as a surveillance tool for policing of not only slaves, but also guards themselves, citizens, and the very military institution.

Paranoia was so normalized and provoking, that each member of the military would at some point during training be dragged aside and told of their very important rank they should hide, and that they should be wary of any action by any other member, as to basically not trust anyone even within their own division.

==Religion==

The Asom, in terms of official recognition, does have an official religion, and that formality expresses itself materially, so there are temples, a clergy, and a series of recorded rituals where that faith is allowed to be expressed (though limited to free citizens), but however, unlike how it's utilized as a tool in Aleor, here it reduces itself to having very minimal political protagonism. The recognition of Emauos as the official religion is, thus, basically an administrative decision that is alienated from day-to-day life within the tribe.

Religion sort of functions as an extra detail that is attached to the symbolic bureaucracy which governs the tribe, it makes it so rituals are performed basically just out of habit, protocol, and a small group's tradition, clergy, unlike how it is in the Aleor, aren't treated as part of their own caste, and are simply seen as functionaries, which removes much of the religious institution's political protagonism and presence, which turns faith into a simple tool of maintenance and, often times, of domination, since it's a set of practices reinforced by the Aleor.

A tribe which, as is explained in the government section, limits the autonomy of the Asom. Now, when talking about the disconnection of daily life, a few common phenomena should be discussed, since, daily, the routine of the majority of the population (slaves) is filled to the brim with suffering, exhaustion, and violence, which not only crowds out religious engagement for those slaves which were believers as they were imported, but for any of the few which were born there, making it so it's rare for religion to act as a guidance or to carry any consolatory tone.

Furthermore, this disconnection is also seen due to how nihilism tends to overpower faith in the Asom tribe, this doomy philosophy is often widespread by the naturalized suffering which goes on in the tribe, which acts as an inhibitor for any sort of religious meaning; this happens since belief here fails to organize hope, morality, or any sort of resistance or redemption, suffering is accepted, seen as something inevitable, and it sort of makes most of the zu'aan question if there really is a point to following a framework of belief if their life remains hellish regardless of their decision-making.

Even amongst the few believers that are enslaved, thoughts that expect transcendence, justice, are all seen as futile, and something which the order of the Asom tribe simply does not allow, thus, it won't be experienced. All of this compounded institutional stagnation and irrelevance makes it so religion as an institution doesn't form itself in any concrete manner within the tribe, it depends, for its survival, entirely on not challenging the authority from Asom and Aleor, creating a structure that persists simply because it doesn't make a difference.

Which gives it an interesting position, since it is one of the very few examples of historical and cultural residue left over from what could be considered an old home, an old home which, for many, is no less oppressive than the current home.

==Miscellany==

{{NearbyGroups
| Centre = Unknown
| North = Unknown
| Northeast = Unknown
| East = Unknown
| Southeast = Unknown
| South = Unknown
| Southwest = Unknown
| West = Unknown
| Northwest = Unknown
}}

{{CrossSiteAttribution
|User = kalilbao (Discord)
|Holder = kalilbao
}}

[[Category:2nd-century Twilight Age zu'aan tribes]]
[[Category:kalilbao's contributions]]

Asom Tribal Zu'aan - Revision history

Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)