Er'iri Tribal Zu'aan

History

The origin story of the Er'iri tribal zu'aan is a clear display of a historical moment shaped by a grim evolution, where we observe a thriving merchant society be completely ruined by the conditions proportioned by the Shattering Age, turning them back in time to when humans were nothing less than a predatory pack of survivors, It is a display of how quickly what is deemed a perfect civilization can fall back into barbarism, while still being a tribe that stands strong to this day, when critical conditions are met, leading to the downfall of what was once believed to be a thriving and unstoppable means of living in a society.

In the year of 4E 391, it is possible to observe and analyze the first possible ancestors to the Er'iri tribal zu'aan, which were a group of merchants that operated within a wealthy conglomerate that traveled across many of the lands of Taerel, These traders were responsible for controlling an industry that became more and more profitable as time passed, that being trades around salt and spices that became rarer the more scarce civilization became with the conditions of the Shattering Age, They were famous for their massive multi-wheeled vehicles powered by four-legged mammals, which were often displayed with silk, gold, and barrels of fresh water that allowed them to display how superior they saw themselves in comparison to other zu'aan who took to less profitable measures to survive.

Their superb view of themselves came crashing down around the year 4E 393, when the members of the Er'iri tribal zu'aan decided to cross the fearful Adisay Outback, seeing how doing so successfully would bring about enough profit for them to hold a banquet for the entire tribe, To their unfortunate surprise, the documentation that they utilized to cross the region was outdated, This meant that their planned pauses at oases around the desert were quickly cut short as many had run dry, All of this made it so within a single season, what was once a trade route became a death trap, Their large caravan found itself stranded in the heart of a ruthless region, halting their movement and forcing them into finally adapting to the harsh environment they decided to cross.

As the animals died, so did the members of the Er'iri tribal zu'aan, which led to more and more critical conditions that simply rendered their social contract nearly useless, The members of the tribe slowly became as ruthless as the biome around them, Since, when facing certain death, immoral acts are nothing more than a simple reaction, These acts would begin to be the defining feature that shaped the tribe, which began to normalize reducing any sort of body into a simple vessel that contained water, and if such water was still drinkable, then the body's life was treated as spendable, as a mere product, almost as though they never let go of their mercantile past.

Psychology

The psychology of the Er'iri tribal zu'aan allows for a haunting analysis of the consequences that arise when a society shapes itself around the higher states of abstraction of the commodity form and its usage of fetishism on the very concept of a human soul, This is seen within the Er'iri considering how they were proudly able to survive the collapse of their empire and their downfall into what can only be described as ruthless anarchy by how they treat others' bodies, which leads to a profoundly predatory form of behavior, This has shaped their psyche into one that is surgically detached from other zu'aan, disconnecting and dehumanizing their standards of sociability, To put it in simple terms, personhood is openly thrown out the window when value and volume are the reigning needs of a zu'aan, and this logic is what fundamentally shapes their psychological framework.

The fundamental core that shapes their mindset is one that treats humanity and zu'aan as nothing more than a product, which is the most striking feature of their behavior, This translates into a total lack of empathy for any sort of biological or anthropological entity, all of which makes it so these tribe members inherit the same commodity-based logic that the brains of their merchant ancestors had developed, though, it comes at the price of stripping away any room that could be utilized for social warmth, When a member of the Er'iri tribal zu'aan encounters an outsider, kin'toni or zu'aan, they do not see those individuals as threats or as friends, instead, their observation is one that attempts to deprive themselves of any emotions and take the foreign, as in, anyone who is not oneself, as a simple vessel for water, This leads to the treatment of social cues or interactions as nothing more than moments of mental calculation regarding the potential value of the water in the body of another zu'aan, Their killings are, thus, done in calculated and direct manners, They are terrifyingly calm with how they murder, It is not done out of rage, it is done out of a necessity for life, one that is normalized within their very brains.

Their entire behavior may be seen upon observation as something deprived of morals, and when asking a member of the Er'iri tribal zu'aan, they will agree with such observation, They find comfort in their lack of morals and observe this unethical behavior around denying community and seeking to objectify and commodify others as something that is simply pragmatic within the reality they live in, They live fully aware that their actions are immoral, but they treat morality itself as nothing more than a mere luxury that the hydrated have and weaponize to condemn the ones that truly suffer within the world, This style of mental framework is not something that they openly defend or debate for, it is simply taken as a fact that is hard-wired within the brain of the average member of the Er'iri, which allows them to commit horrific acts without even having to consider the potential burden of guilt.

Culture

The culture of the Er'iri tribal zu'aan allows for a masterful analysis of what can basically be seen as a high-speed downfall into plain nihilism, something observable and undeniable within every aspect and stage of their daily life, This extends to as little as how they behave at home next to their children to their artistic expressions, Everything is designed and treated as ephemeral and portable, and it also acts as a clear reflection of their predatory behavior toward members who are not themselves, This switches the positivism viewpoint that attempts to build and progress for a brighter future, instead choosing, or being left with the option, to simply remain within the present in a constant and relentless movement of scavenging.

The first cultural talking point that the Er'iri partake in, and that is widely different from many other actions promoted by other zu'aan, is something derived from how the tribe members lack the traditional sense of manners or moral codes, instead choosing to do whatever it takes to survive within the environment of the Adisay Outback, This talking point is nothing more, nothing less than an extremely rigid and dark ceremony surrounding how members of the tribe process and acquire their source of water, being the means of practically engaging in anthropophagy as a means to acquire a bigger source of water, This is especially true considering that the water acquired from the environment is monopolized by the elites of the tribe, This comes as a stark manner to display the measures one takes whenever situations reach critical conditions, and it is all done with quick, swift, guiltless, and cynical gestures, sometimes even raising hints of mockery, with drops of bloody water being spat on the dry soil as a means to show that the zu'aan being eaten will no longer have the right to step foot on the grounds where the survivor still stands.

Their artistic expression is, within its very nature and inherent characteristics, purely tactical in its creation and maintenance, replicating much of that nihilistic form of expression cited previously, A clear example of this is the development of the tribe's architecture, which attempts to be mobile not only to value their history as a nomadic mercantile people but also as a means to show the ephemerality of it all, Their architecture is titled by many as the "ghost fleet," being a series of tents designed for ease of access and how easy they are to set up and undo, This makes it so a family within the tribe is easily able to move to a better spot for water distribution or to flee from a region where they have killed someone for water.

Government

The government form of the Er'iri tribal Zu'aan allows for the organization of what can be considered a hydrically organized syndicate, something that shapes itself through a predatory kleptocracy where political power is measured and legitimated around the very millimeters that are the main tools utilized to determine the political protagonism a member of the tribe is allowed to have. This is thoroughly maintained through the absolute monopoly set up by a small amount of individuals around the life-sustaining fluids (mainly water); this sort of political structure has led to a tribe where the leaders don't follow what can be traditionally considered a leadership; it is instead a board of directors that operate around presiding over maintaining the status quo and their own control over water, as a means to guarantee that any parties that are outside their inner circle aren't allowed access to such necessary fluid.

This director board is fully responsible for being the ones managing the resources of the tribe. They stand strong at the top of the hierarchical structure of the Er'iri tribal Zu'aan; their rule is final and dictatorial by nature, oftentimes not even seeking to base their justifications around wisdom or divinity, but simply choosing to state and organize their control over the tribe based on their direct ownership of the means necessary for life within the tribe. The ones given titles of masters are directly organized around a vertical structure that depends on how much water an individual family is able to own, how large their reservoir is, and how mobile their development measures around property defense are. They don't even care about governing people for most of the time, instead simply choosing to manage the numbers around the tribe's total water reserves. This creates a political and economical elite that has direct and absolute control over the rest of the tribe and, due to the Er'iri's inherently developed apathy, exists within a superior plane that doesn't care about distribution or the establishment of work relations, simply allowing for most of the tribe to fight for crumbs, to die trying, or to get eaten by those who still have some will for life.

The common members of the tribe aren't given a relation to civility; they exist within a sense that treats them as nothing more than a simple indebted individual, something established as soon as the child is born, considering that their mother needed water to sustain the pregnancy, and such water is placed upon a scale in relation to the economic relations given around by the tribe's elites. This basically shapes life as a commodity, something defended not only within a psychological and cultural sense, but also organized within the institutions of the tribe and their direct relations to the formal and political functioning that regards each individual and their existence as a member of the Er'iri tribal Zu'aan. This whole forceful debt relation makes it so each member is forced into exploitative relations of labor, scouting, and participating in raids commanded by the elites so they can have the right to drink water in the amount that their "leaders" are willing to give out on a certain day, with no legal regulation over the necessary amounts.

Military

The military of the Er'iri tribal Zu'aan is nothing much less nor more than a mere scalpel utilized by the elite organized government of the tribe as a means to perform the extractions that are deemed as necessary for the maintaining of the interests of these same elites. With warriors that are designed, shaped, and trained for a sort of scouting that is based around high-speed terror and inhuman means to resource the liquids around any territory the elites have access to, they are not only a collection agency that dashes around with blades and highly questionable morals; they also are given tasks around the defensive guard of these same elites to make sure that the other "inferior" members of the tribe aren't able to even hold a chance of upholding revolts or revolutions against these minority elites. Basically, they are an entire armed monopoly of violence that the elites control within their interest to make sure the status quo of the tribe remains the very same as it has been ever since the downfall of their trade empire.

The most feared units within their military structure are the warriors that are deemed the most capable of reflecting and enforcing the order established by the hydraulic elites of the tribe, being able to reduce any threats to their hegemony with quick and swift actions that are often unnoticeable by most of the tribe due to how they're trained around acting in quick and violent manners that leave no traces behind. Their equipment is a series of hollow-pointed spears that are connected to long iron bases that they can rush around with with ease, and that are designed for handling various enemies at once as well. These spears are able to incapacitate threats by giving blunt force-based attacks via the base of the spears, while also being able to fully eliminate targets easily, be they individual via various stabbings or be they multiple via piercing attacks. Sometimes these troops don't operate quietly, though, parading around the corpses of their targets on top of their spears as they march, treating them as nothing more than spoils they were able to acquire from their missions and things that are much less than simple trash they carry around to throw out.

Furthermore, other than their tactical force utilized for direct measures of assault and silent killings, the military of the Er'iri tribal Zu'aan, never drawing away from the interests of the tribe's elites, also utilizes the toxic flora of the Adisay Outback and weaponizes it as a means for biochemical warfare against different threats. These units are composed of chemical experts of the tribe and are mostly utilized as a means to treat the kin'toni threat; they can be found carrying around jars of concentrated fumes and spores that are combined with the sap of the Adisay Outback's trees, which are often thrown onto kin'toni as a means to halt their advances. Not only that, they are also used sometimes as a tool of localized suppression and elite inter-conflicts by often being given the task of poisoning the reservoirs of different hydraulic family elites than the one they work for.

Religion

The religion of the Er'iri tribal Zu'aan is a direct reflection of the reality that the tribe faces, which means that it is incredibly cynical and marked by the very contradictions within their society's development and organization, taking the scorching of the sun as a divine action that rules above much of what their world can even begin to fathom to imagine is actually real and non-ephemeral. This all boils down to a belief system that is nothing more but a mirror of their already established predatory means of survival and their socioeconomic organization, which makes them view the universe not as a creation of a loving deity; it is instead a vast and celestial marketplace where all life is temporary and nothing more than the action of a loan that allowed each individual to live in the first place. This reality might seem gloomy and something that might lead a lot of individuals into suicide, but one of the first lines of their religious texts describes how an individual that gives up on living due to these harsh conditions will face nothing less than eternally raw torture for one thousand lives, making them feel trapped within this ruthless plane of existence.

The sun itself is seen as a deity, but not one the members of the tribe should seek to worship—well, not most at least. It is seen as nothing more than an auditor, a simple banking leader, that is oftentimes the one that gives out and determines the credit given to each individual; and, for the Er'iri tribal Zu'aan's lower class, we observe that they are seen as nothing more than indebted people that should seek to fear and respect this cosmic entity. Within their theology, they often believe that in the beginning of it all, the world was a vast ocean—an ocean that allowed everyone to live in rafts, an ocean built upon clean and potable water, one where existence was neat, tidy, and lovely. But this vast ocean was nothing more than pure capital that the Sun, which was seen as a ruthless merchant god, began slowly repossessing. Sometimes he got rid of much of this stock to make sure his prices could be kept up, all so that he could establish the world as it is today.

Furthermore, the entire belief system focuses itself around the notion that the lowly members of the Er'iri's lower class should seek to simply attempt to remain solvent and alive by any means necessary, something done as a means to justify and give reason to the common behavior within the tribe members to simply disregard morality as a whole—seen as something pathetic and nothing more than a plain privilege given to Zu'aan that have actual access to their lives without having to live in debt for a few drops of water. It is all seen as a fruit of the first investments the Sun gave away to the land, creating an ontological and philosophical logic based around how each individual is nothing more than property, and their very right to life makes it so they owe much to the deities above them, despite the fact that these deities, ultimately, want the demise of these lower members.

Miscellany

Nearby Groups

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