Kuhil Kin'toni Clan

History

The history of the Kuhil clan is one of the stories that is now told all throughout Taerel, it seems almost impossible that something like this could happen. The members of this clan actually belonged to another clan, this clan gave them everything they needed to survive and they enjoyed being a part of it. Some kin'toni had even risen in the ranks and were in charge of complex operations or military groups. One day, a group of warriors was told by the rulers of clan the Kuhil belonged to that they needed to find another place to settle, the winter was coming.

And their current region would become uninhabitable for the members of this tribe. This meant that the warriors were tasked with finding another place for their tribe, somewhere the cold would not affect them as much as it would in the region they were currently at. Right away, this group of warriors traveled south to find warmer regions, they scoured every desert and every boiling hot piece of land, however, not a single one of these regions were considered adequate enough for the clan. One day, as the group of warriors was just starting to lose hope.

They stumbled across a terrain they deemed good enough for a potential settlement, despite this positive first impression, a glance at the region was not enough, they had to do some research on it. After an initial research, they figured it would take a couple of days to assess the overall quality of this particular piece of land. Due to this, they set up camp and slept until the next day. As they woke up, it was almost as if they were somewhere else entirely, the group of warriors found themselves a small patch of land surrounded by water, which went as far as the eyes could see.

The next piece of land seemed to be dozens of miles away. As if this was not enough, they had until now traveled by land and did not have any boats with them, despite this dire situation, they figured that they could just wait until the next low tide and then the warrior could be on their way. However, the tides never changed again and for more than five years, this group of warriors and the zu'aan prisoners they carried with them needed to learn how to survive in the island, they built their own settlement with the items they had brought with them.

And with the resources they were able to gather throughout the years from the island. The zu'aan prisoners they had brought with them, and there were many of them, ended up becoming the most valuable asset the warriors from the Kuhil had, it allowed them not to die from a lack of blood, each day they would retrieve some blood from them, not enough to kill them, but also enough to feed all of the warriors. After five years, as the kin'toni woke up, they saw that the tide was again low, just like it had been that day five years ago. They quickly gathered all they could.

And left the island in the wetlands towards their former home. As they got home, every single kin'toni went out to see them, they were hailed as heroes for having survived for five years in that small island. Despite this, after they had been home for a while, the warriors from the island found out that absolutely no effort was put into trying to save them, everyone gave up on them instantly. This led to the warriors building a small fleet of boats and going back to the island, where they still are to this day.

Biology

Due to the different biological characteristics of the zu'aan they slowly infected during their time in the island, part of the members of the Kuhil clan have different biological traits from one another. This makes the Kuhil especially suited for a society that is organized in different sections, just as theirs is, because some have skills that allow them to be better at a particular thing like hunting and others have skills that allow them to excel at other functions. However, the majority of them have the characteristics that are normal in their former clan.

Large bodies with little resistance to the cold and yellow irises with white sclerae and crescent pupils. However, their time on the island changed them faster than it should in a biological sense. They developed a body perfect for swimming, a large back, long and powerful arms and legs and the time the average Kuhil could sustain his or her breeding for was, at the end of the five years, nearing ten minutes. Their hands also increased in size. Additionally, the several sections and the tasks they were performing also impacted their DNA.

Many Kuhil that needed to climb trees and that spent the majority of their work in the heights, developed animalistic-like reflexes enough to jump from tree to tree and climb several meters in a matter of seconds. These are abilities that became very useful once more after they returned to the island. The stomach of a normal Kuhil has the same size a stomach of a bird has. Due to the lack of nourishment on the island and their inability, for the first weeks, to properly hunt, the body had to adapt itself to this new reality and this biological change ended up saving the Kuhil.

These changes were so quick that the members of this clan believe there is something special about their body’s capacity for mutation.

Culture

The Kuhil have prioritized survival since they arrived at the island, and this can be seen in everything they do. As a member of the Kuhil clan, one must wake up early to perform the assigned task, such as hunting, for example, something the Kuhils do in small groups so that the preys do not scare due to their presence, but also as a way to ensure the safety of the hunters, in case they encounter a powerful beast. Activities such as building the settlement and taking care of the prisoners were also done with the utmost care while they were at the island.

This happened because their whole purpose during that particular period was to get back to the original clan where they had come from. This stage they were in, the five years spent in the island, were considered a dormant stage for these kin'toni. There was no particular interest in staying alive for much else than returning to their home, they lived each day as if it was an arduous task that needed to be completed so that one day, they could reap the rewards. The total lack of interest in other aspects of life in general are really evident when one looks at how the days of a normal Kuhil kin'toni are constituted.

It is almost as if the day is planned out mechanically, everything is already decided and every week they follow the same steps to achieve the same goals. The zu'aan were captured by the members of the Kuhil tribe as they were roaming Taerel looking for a possible settlement location, but before they got to the island. Because the zu'aan knew the lands better than the Kuhil warriors, they ended up getting used as guides to navigate the unknown locations that they passed through. It was only later, in the island, that the way the Kuhil looked at the zu'aan started to change.

Before they could just attack a small village and get their blood through those killings, however, in the island that was impossible, and it was after a few days of being stranded there that the Kuhil started looking at the zu'aan as animals, as livestock, ways for them to feed themselves. There is no real moral crime one can commit in the island, there is no action one can perform to which the others will react with hate and disdain, every single member of the Kuhil clan can do whatever he or she pleases, they can do almost everything imaginable.

But there are not many who decide to do something terrible that harms other members of the community. However, there used to be a strict code that dictated what a kin'toni could or could not do, this code was in effect during the five years the kin'toni that did not yet call themselves Kuhil were trying to get back to their clan. The code stated that although one could do anything they please, it was a crime to do something that directly impacted their chances of going home. Committing this crime was punishable by something the Kuhil still call “swim around the world”.

This challenge, which is in fact a death sentence, consists in one trying to swim to the nearest piece of land. If the kin'toni comes back, they will be tortured and killed immediately, the only way to survive is to somehow get to land, unfortunately this is not possible.

Government

There are two distinct time periods in which the political landscape of the tribe was very different from one another. The first one is what it was like the first five years on the island, which then influenced the second period, when they returned to the island. The Kuhil used to have the different areas of focus divided by sections, there was the supplies section, the defense section, the construction section and the prisoner section. Each of these had a section chief, someone who oversaw all the activities that were a part of that area.

The section chief was chosen through a voting process, in which the various workers of the section would nominate the kin'toni who’s work had stood out. This meant that these chiefs were changing constantly, it was always the best performer that had the job of the highest importance, “the best should have the best”, as the Kuhil said. The Kuhil were familiar with power and those that when they had it, did not want to give it up, this is why they created this system in which staying in a position of power for more than one year was very complicated.

These section chiefs would then have meetings with each other in which they discussed the best ways for the tribe to achieve their ultimate goal, returning home. Sometimes, they chose to trade kin'toni from one section to another, to evaluate their performances in different jobs. Also within their power was the ability to make decisions regarding changes in the direction the clan was going in, for example, if the construction section was focused on housing instead of getting building a ship big enough to take them back to their original clan.

They could rearrange this so that the clan does what it is supposed to be doing. Besides the “swim around the world”, there were a number of public executions that were arranged by the defense section. These helped with morale and those that would be killed were, mostly, zu'aan from whom so much blood had been drained that staying alive much longer was next to impossible. In the period after the Kuhil came back to the island, the political system went back to being constructed around section chiefs, however, there were some slight differences.

More sections were added, the previous system was not intended to be permanent, this one is. Furthermore, the section chiefs needed to stay in their positions for about two years, the Kuhil decided that one year was not enough for one to make the changes one wants to make. It is now a stable political system, focused on expansion and ways to overcome the challenges that exist when one group of kin'toni separate from the clan they belonged to.

Military

In the five-year period, there wasn’t much need for a military, not even once was the island attacked by zu'aan or enemy kin'toni pirates, roaming Taerels waters in search of supplies or valuables. Although this meant that it was impossible to steal a ship in order to return to land, it also meant that the Kuhil did not have to worry immensely about a potential attack or invasion. Therefore, the Kuhil military during this period was not larger than a couple of dozen warriors that were prepared for any eventuality. These warriors, however, were not happy due to the lack of confrontation.

They had to be on the lookout for twenty-four hours a day, for something that would never happen. Because of this, the Kuhil warriors were known to torture zu'aan prisoners for fun, just to pass the time. What lacked in warriors was compensated by slave masters, there was a group dedicated to managing the prisoners, so that they were healthy enough to have good quality blood, but also not energetic enough so that they could think about rebelling. The prisoners would be sent on morning walks to exercise, but would all be bound together by a large metal chain.

So that moving more out of pace with the others resulted in being thrown on the ground due to the weight of the metal chain. These slave masters were a sort of police to the zu'aan prisoners and over the years they built cages to put the prisoners in, cages in which one could not even stand up or lie down, the zu'aan would have to be sitting down, with their legs close to the chest to fit in the cages. The military also created some small rafts, they could no build a ship large enough to carry all of them, and even using a raft was dangerous.

If the sea was restless there was no way the raft would not flip on itself. These were used on calmer days to see if land was visible or served as a maritime outpost to spot other rafts or ships. There were many accidents and several Kuhil warriors even lost their lives due to these rafts, because of this the rafts were finally given up on, they were the main cause of death for the Kuhil military. The weapons members of the Kuhil military used were the weapons they had brought with them, mainly broadswords and very small shields. The shields were particularly small because they were meant to be used as fast as possible.

The Kuhil have great precision and are able to defend themselves with a swift move of the shield. However, the Kuhil have also started to create weapons with the things they find in the island, since then, they have become more reliant on spears, which they throw or fight with. Due to them being in a hotter region, the need for armor has been weighed against the discomfort of having an armor, and the Kuhil have decided to give up armor sets except when they know that they will be fighting.

Religion

Nowadays, the Kuhil clan does not have a link with any religious practices or beliefs, they do not hate religion per se, but what they think is that it does nothing but provide a false sense of security. The former priests or spiritual guides have now changed professions and focus more on being a valuable asset in different ways. However, this has not always been this way, the Kuhil, before they were Kuhil and still believed themselves to be members of the clan they belonged to and had the same religion of this clan. They believed in two distinct powers, the heavens and the earth.

The earth was supposed to be an ancient God that gave its life to the animals, the zu'aan, the plants, the kin'toni, it gave life to each of its different constituents. Therefore, the earth was worshipped, the Kuhils would try to honor it in any way they could, this is the reason this clan does not rely on agriculture for sustenance, they believe that the God earth makes the choices, they will only pick what has been naturally growing in a region. Things such as planting trees just to gather wood is a practice very much frowned upon, gathering wood should only me done from previously existing trees.

The Heavens on the other hand, was an even more archaic God. It had existed long before the Earth had existed, and whereas the Earth allows millions of things to exist in it, the Heavens allow everything to exist. This means that just like the Earth created us, the Heavens created the earth itself. Due to this, the Heavens are worshipped as the creators of everything, the “mother of existence” is what the Kuhil normally call it. Apart from this special religion, whilst they were in the island for five years, the Kuhil developed some spiritual ideas regarding their connection with the former clan.

They had an immense desire to go back home, all they this was to further this goal, they started saying that it was their purpose to go back to their former clan. Many Kuhil even stated that they felt a connection with the kin'toni miles and miles away from them. This love for their home was so strong that they started branding the symbol of that clan in their bodies, it was a horrible and painful process, but they believed it helped them connect even further with their clan.

Around the third year in the island a new idea started to appear, maybe due to the desperation that they were experiencing. They believed that being on the island may be a test, a way for the Gods to prove that their love for the clan was strong enough, real or not this gave them an extra motivation at a time they neared death. And in the end, this is part of the reason they withstood so much time, despite the decisions they chose to make in the future as they were reunited with their clan.

Miscellany

Nearby Groups

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Kuhil Kin'toni Clan

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