Daera Kin'toni Clan
History
The Daera are a warrior kin'toni clans that lives in the caverns of the Mal Jade Cliffs, and within these caverns they have built a life for themselves that few kin'toni of the world would envy. Theirs is a difficult life, requiring much hard work and toil, they live in an environment that requires them to be able to hunt beyond the abilities of a common kin'toni, in that they require the use of their special longbows that are crafted from a tree species that is endemic to the forests that grow in the valley at the base of the Mal Jade Cliffs.
Not only are these forests seen to be some of the most dangerous in the world, but are also some of the most fertile plains in all of the kin'toni world. At the time of the Xerea Empire, the zu'aan barely used the valley or the cliffs, they were allowed to remain wild for even then the valley had been a particularly dangerous place involving several rabid and dangerous species. When the ascension happened there were but a zu'aan habitations that existed in the Mal Jade Cliffs and even those that did exist in the region were not truly populated too densely.
The Daera have always been a non aligned clan, that is until recently, composed of a few hundred kin'toni that had found the kin'toni nations to be oppressive chose to come to the Mal Jade Cliffs in order to build a society of their own that would not be bogged down by the rules and regulations of the stuffy kin'toni nations. The Mal Jade Cliffs were the ideal place for them as they were able to cultivate a culture of their own without the approval of other kin'toni. For the longest time those few hundred remained at that number.
Their location allowed them insularity from the machinations of the other kin'toni nations and clans. Besides a few rumbles of the the earth,, even the shattering seemed to leave them undisturbed, passing by them without contact. In this bubble of a world, the Daera clan prospered and developed their own distinct culture. They began to adapt to the region they had chosen as their home and began to learn to not only survive within the cliffs but thrive. The most notable development of the Daera was their skill with the bow.
The kin'toni are certainly some of the most skilled archers to have walked the lands of Taerel, initially this skill was developed due to the requirements of the region within which they lived, for life in the cliffs ca be extremely distressing for those that are not able to rappel between the different faces of the cliffs and are not able to hunt prey from a distance, for the cliffs although plenty in both game and prey are filled with dangerous plants that could just as easily end the life of a kin'toni as it would another animal.
This skill truly became their strength when they learned to apply it in war.
Psychology
Although the Daera are not a clan that was initially created with the intention of making a body of warriors, it did end up becoming one due to the intervention of the circumstances that the Daera were exposed to. Initially they used their skill only for the hunting of their food and travelling through the difficult terrain of their world, but as word spread about the efficiency of their force of arms, many outcasts made their way to the cliffs in order to join their ranks.
In other cases the kin'toni that came to their home were not as interested in becoming a part of their clan but unseating them and taking over their built homes, and so through the experience of some very painful raids the Daera developed their skill as warriors. Like most warrior kin'toni the Daera have come to relish the struggle involved in war, they have an iron will and have a focus that has no equal on the face of the planet. Most Daera warriors cultivate their focus with long hours meditation that allow them to sharpen their mind.
It is said that before a Daera looses an arrow, he fires it twice, once in his mind’s eye and the second in actuality. Their capacity to visualise is peerless in comparison to other kin'toni. The Daera lead a very simple life as well, shunning a luxuries and privileges for a spartan lifestyle, their meaning of life isn’t to accrue material wealth but rather experience life, although they have become warriors of renown they still prefer the role of a hunter. Their most important aim in life is the defence of their way of life.
And any those who form a threat to their lifestyle or their homeland for that matter are immediately eliminated or assaulted. This is exemplified by the account of their first contact with the Fa’aka Kin'toni Clan warriors of Swaynis Highland, these noble kin'toni are thought to be the masterminds behind the Adon alliance even though it was the Daera that founded the Adon Kingdom. It is said that the delegation of Fa’aka clan was nearly completely wiped out for they had failed to inform the Daera prior to their arrival.
Upon sighting the company of armoured kin'toni, the Daera assumed them to be a threat without second thought and the Fa’aka kin'toni were only able to survive due to their own significant experience in battle and knew well the sound of loosed bowstrings. It took several days for the Fa’aka kin'toni delegation to engage with the ruling elders of the Daera, their natural dislike of outsiders in the recent days had become tinged with an insecurity about the troop movement of their neighbouring kin'toni nations.
The Fa’aka had sent forward a delegation only to establish diplomatic relations, but the Daera displayed their keen acuity by convincing the Fa’aka warriors that the future of the kin'toni race as a whole could be made secure if the warrior clans ousted the now corrupt political class that ruled most kin'toni nations.
Biology
The Daera are short and stoutly built kin'toni, their habit of consuming the venison they hunt down for blood has had a definite impact on their physiology. Where most kin'toni are thin and spindly even, the Daera are thick of both arms and legs. Due to the hot environment that they live have been conditioned in, the Daera have evolved to become nearly hairless, losing even the hair follicles on their scalp that the zu'aan and many kin'toni were very fond of. As part of the initiation ceremony of the newly recruited Archers.
The Daera tattoo their scalps with their unique brand of language. Those that are familiar with the way of the Daera and their unique written language are able to differentiate the roles that the Daera has chosen to observe after their ascendance into the Daera ranks. Although not a common adaptation, some Daera have evolved additionally ciliary muscles in their eyes, these muscles give the kin'toni archers are able to control the size of their pupil very acutely.
This ability of manipulating their pupil size allows the finest of the Daera Archers to focus on targets that would be difficult to distinguish with even the superior eyes of a kin'toni. This adaptation is indeed one of the reasons why the Daera have gained fame in the world of kin'toni as one of the finest archers, but it isn’t the primary reason for their prowess. Undoubtedly though the Daera kin'toni skill is indeed sourced from tireless practice and exquisite fashioning of their bows, the adaptation of their bodies that has helped them the most is their incredible arm muscles.
The Daera’s are muscled not only with with extenders and retractor muscles, but the tensile force that they are able to bear is also beyond what typical zu'aan or even kin'toni muscles can bare. This strength of their muscles allows the kin'toni archers to shoot arrows much further and with much more force, a typical Daera arrow fired at short range has the ability to the bunch through a breastplate fashioned of steel by the kin'toni of the Turenth Lush River.
The other adaptation that has helped the kin'toni excel with their chosen weapons is a unique sense of rhythm, although many have argued that the rhythm that Daera are able to tap into is not in fact an adaptation at all but rather a learned trait, one which is inculcated within them through hours of rigorous practice and training. However, accounts indicate that those Daera who were recruited and trained outside of the Mal Jade cliffs are unable to tap into this rhythm.
So although the rhythm’s source is not completely understood, it is confirmed that it is begotten through the effect of the cliffs and as such may be a biological adaption. This rhythm is able to help the Daera keep pace with their archery for an archer the most difficult thing to adjust to is the pace of his fellow archers, and this ability of the Daera thus allows them to conjure an arrow storm the likes of which is able to block out the very moon itself. They have dark green irises with white sclerae and vertical slit pupils.
Culture
The life and culture of the Daera is extremely accommodative, although they are mistrustful and shy of outsiders, they are still able to embrace new ideas and concepts and work them into their culture. The Daera, once exposed to an outsider long enough, are able to abandon their insecurity and display the workings of their society, given that they are coaxed enough. Overall though, theirs is a society of hunters and adventurers, wherein all members of the society have a particular role and are raised to it from their ascension as kin'toni.
There are certain important ceremonies that all kin'toni of this clan must go through in order to be considered as full members of the clan, these ceremonies played an essential role in the early years of the clans formation, as none of the initial members were actually related by blood and were instead converted by other kin'toni clans. These ceremonies helped the newly joined members attain a new identity with formality and functioned to adhere the clan members closer to one another.
The very first ceremonies that is carried out by the Daera for intimates, who have passed the test of mind and body as well as determination for wanting to join the clan of Daera, is the crafting of their own archer’s bow. The process can be very exhaustive, for it involves the searching of valley forests for a willow-wood tree that is closest to death. As tradition dictates there exists a distinction of choosing a tree close to death versus a tree that is closest to death, while in the former a kin'toni could choose any tree that had neared the end of its lifespan.
In the latter however, a Daera initiate must search through the entire valley forest and from all the trees that seem to be dying choose one which would die most quickly. This ceremony is so rigorous that it has been known to take up to a decade for just this part of the step to be accomplished, and it has been designed to be so. The years that the initiates take catalog the trees is meant to make them explore the various facets of the valley within which their home lies, and to learn of not only the dangers that lie within the forest but also the beauty that lies there.
The Daera are linked spiritually with not only the animals of the forest but the trees and plants there as well, and throughout their life they remain bonded to each other through the love all of them grow to have for their homeland. Once the tree is selected the the choice must be approved by one of the elder Daera clan members and subsequently the process for the fashioning of the stave of the bow that they will carry throughout their lives. The whole process that involves the shaping of the bow is a process that the Daera initiate must fulfil independently with only a few pointed instructions from an observing master of the bow.
Government
The structure of governance is very simplistic among the Daera, they rule their domain with only one unifying law that the Daera clan members have their own interpretation, and although it isn’t a democratic model of governance, the voices of all clan members are heard but the decision ultimately lies with the elder clan members. The single ultimate law that all the kin'toni of the Daera clan seek to uphold is the preservation of the forest. The forest must be preserved at all costs.
And understanding this aspect of their society allows one to understand how the Daera make all their decisions and what spurs them to make them. For instance, the decision to found the Adon Kingdom seems to be at first glance completely contradictory to what one would consider to be the typical behaviour of the close minded and insulated Daera but when examined with the knowledge of the imminent threat of the Ashat nation and Itkali kingdom, their actions seem to make sense.
With the advent of the Adon Kingdom, the polity of the Daera has shifted although not as much in terms of their domestic affairs as much with the concerns of how they interact with the rest of the world. They nominate a different elder Daera for every decade they are allowed the command of the Adon armies, and given they were the ones who conceptualised the formation of the alliance that resulted into the formation of the Adon Kingdom, they were the clan that was given the privilege to lead the armies for the first year.
In their rule, they yet again confounded their neighbours and allies, for the conservative and relatively calm warrior kin'toni came to be the most aggressive ruling clans of the Adon armies. Where others thought they would be passive, they became active, and on frontiers where it seemed the boundaries had been solidified, the Daera raised disputes. The aggression wasn’t only visible in their ruling policies and strategies for the battlefield but in their participation in war as well.
The Daera came to be one of the most active participants in the Adon Armies, forming a good proportion more than a quarter of the total size of the Adon Kingdom. The arrow storms that they have been seen to conjure seem to have been things of nightmares, and have caused massive casualties in the wars of the Adon Kingdom. It is said that it was the effect of the Daera arrow storm that caused the first ever rout of the Itkali troops to ever have taken place in the history of the kingdom.
The defeat of the Itkali at the hand of the Adon armies was a truly epic tale that has been severely repressed by the priest class of the kingdom, and of the few warriors that survived the engagement with the Adon during that battle have been made to believe otherwise. For a part of the fame and renown that is ascribed to the fact that they do not break in battle.
Military
The primary troops of the Adon are the Archer units, although there are distinctly different kinds of archers among the Daera. All kinds of Daera are archers, but not all of them go to war, in order to be allowed the privilege of going to war the Daera must first prove themselves in the forests of the valley by providing food for the clan. This tradition however was lifted when the Adon armies were turned towards the Itkali kingdom, and all Daera at the time interpreted their law, that of preserving the forest.
To mean the destruction of the Itkali forces, and so all those warriors who had strung their bows went to war. The nature of a Daera troop is determined by the kind of bow the archer wields, initially all the warriors yield the same kind of bow and that is the bow of the hunter. This is the bow whose string is fashioned from the. Hemp plant, and part of the challenge of using the bow is not only the fragile nature of the bowstring but also the difficulty of its fashioning.
For the fashioning of the Hemp bow string is part of the ceremonies that the Daera practice and it is meant to teach them not only about the exact nature of a bow string but also its proper care. If the Daera archer is not careful with their bow, and end up snapping their bow string, they would end up wasting months of their time creating a new one. The bow stave of the Daera remains the same throughout their life but as they move from one stage in their career to the next, they are allowed the opportunity to seek the next source of their bow string.
After the hemp bow string which is sourced from the plants that grow in the valley, the next bow string is carved from the ua-aerkea’s gut, the challenge of hunting the animal is obvious as it is not easily pierced with the arrows of the Daera, due to its thick skin and a very large layer of fat. A Daera hunter is only allowed to advance to this bow string when they have learned the proper care of their bow strings and have continued to hunt in the forests without having to replace their hemp bow strings for a whole five years.
The hunt for the Ua-aerkea is done in squads of ten, and only that hunter that is credited with the kill of the animal is allowed to take from its gut a bow string, what makes this process all the more challenging is that as per tradition, only one string can be drawn from one animal. As such the ua-aerkea is the animal that is hunted most often even though its perhaps the most dangerous animal to hunt as a source of food, even among squads that have served together since first being risen to initiates there exists completion for the honour of scoring the kill and advancing to the next stage of progression.
Religion
The Daera like most warrior clans are very pragmatic and have little belief in any concept of God or religion. For them their lives revolve around the well being of the forests upon which they live and take all measures to ensure that it remains undisturbed by forces outside of the natural cycle. Even the Carnivorous plants that live within the confines of the valley forest, the Daera find nothing to hate, according to them, the Carnivorous plants of the Mal Jade Cliffs are as much a part of the region as the Daera are themselves.
And although the plants are capable of harming and killing the kin'toni, there exists no real malice in the animal, and although those who find death through the way of the plants are mourned, theirs is said to be a gentler and more desirable death. For by being killed by the Carnivorous plants means that their essence will eventually come to inhabit the forest, and this forms the second reason for why the carnivorous plants are left undisturbed. The many kin'toni that they have consumed over the centuries now live in the forest through the plants.
Just as the Daera kin'toni consume not only the flesh and blood of their prey but also absorb the animals’ essence. This belief is deeply founded and forms a gentle undercurrent throughout the culture and history of the kin'toni. They do not have any priest class of citizens like the Itkali kingdom, and nor do they have any sort of religious leadership like the Galaka Kin'toni Clan from Ashat Kingdom, but they do seem to be able to remain true to their ideology despite the differing integrations of their laws.
This harmony is not a new thing but took several years to achieve, initially the old guard of the clan had tried to enforce a much harsher and stricter set of laws that aimed to regulate even the minute areas of the lives of their underlings but this resulted into severe forms of rebellion, and there was even talk of a split between the Daera kin'toni, but the elders saw this as a grave turn of events that they partly shared responsibility for and so they came up with one ultimate law that must be upheld at all costs and agreed that voices of all their clan members were just as important as their own.
There was a wave of concessions made from both ends of the spectrum and it was acknowledged that although they all differed in their lines of thought, they were all ultimately trying to ensure the survival of their own well being as much the forests. In order to seal this law, many of the Daera that had founded the rules that had led to the conflict voluntarily chose to embrace death through the carnivorous plants, claiming it to be their last attempt at ensuring the survival and prosperity of the Daera clan.
The plants that consumed these Daera are seen to as places of supreme importance in the forests and many a kin'toni can be found meditating in these fields.
Miscellany
As mentioned in the earlier passages, the Daera have a unique procedure of establishing the level in their military, after having functioned with the Hemp bow string for sufficiently long period, they are then allowed to advance to the Bow string drawn from the ua-aerkea. Wielding this bow they Daera must prove to be skilled hunters that are able to care for the clan and provide food for those warriors that are occupied with the ever necessary duty of manning the boundaries of their region.
In order to be invited to hunt and draw a string from the intestines of a akrela-ieuali, they must function in the capacity of the hunter for two decades. For many Daera this is the ultimate goal as they are allowed the privilege of hunting or the good of the clan and this position comes with the respect and adoration of their clan members. But for those that wish to serve the clan in a different capacity and increase their skill with the bow, they aim to be one of the Marked Archers.
The Marked archers from the different companies of warrior archers that are fielded in battles of the Daera themselves and now that of the Adon Kingdom as well. The Marked archers are of peerless skill, they have won renown for the Daera from all across the Taerel, and it was one of the marked archers who demonstrated his skill to the Ashat Pioneer clans’ council in a contest that had been held to test the ability of archers. The contest had been to have an archer shoot an arrow through the eye of a flying humming bird from a hundred yards away.
And although the task was a difficult one, the Marked Archer exceeded the expectations and instead chose to shoot off the wing feathers from the Humming bird while it was in flight and never drew blood from the animal. And although the concerned archer was particularly gifted even among the ranks of the Marked warriors, his skill still remains a good indication of what the Daera archer is capable of. In the last ceremony that can involve a Daera warrior is that of the hunting of the akrela-ieuali once an invitation has been extended to the concerned Daera for a position among the Marked Archers.
The hunting of the Akrela-ieuali is not truly a test of skill even though it requires much in order to be accomplished but rather a matter of choice. Most hunters admire the akrela-ieuali with much fervour and sometimes even going to the extent of aiding the older akrela-ieualis hunt by injuring prey for them to find within their territory. And in choosing to kill the animal, the hunter chooses to leave behind his old life and place the greater good of the whole clan prior to their own personal goals or needs.
As such it could be done together with a squad or alone, but the akrela-ieuali is never consumed and all of its gut used to make strings that could be used as replacements during times of war.
This article is written by Anmol K. Copyright 2023 Anmold Kaushal "All rights reserved" unless otherwise stated.