Mirroth Kin'toni Clan

History

Also known as the “runners in the night”, the Mirroth are an old clan, they have been surviving since shortly after the Shattering. In the second year of the second Era, the Mirroth had already gathered a substantial number of members, some of these were simply recruited from other clans, some joined the Mirroth because they had nowhere else to go and some were zu'aan that, in the middle of the chaos after the initial outbreak, were turned, which meant that they could no longer return to their zu'aan city or tribe, they would no longer be accepted there.

It took a few years for the clan to find its way, every other clan they seemed to encounter had a particular characteristic that se them apart from other, be it a biological trait or something else. The problem was that the Mirroth did not have such a characteristic, they though of themselves as the outlier in this sense. A few decades after this clan was created, they were already quite powerful, a few hundreds of kin'toni were already in their midst and the next logical step would be to create a settlement that they could live in, something that until now they had avoided for a particular reason.

The Mirroth grew restless quite easily, it was not rare for a Mirroth to disappear during the night just to waste some energy, through killing some wild animals or doing something completely different. Due to this, they had chosen to remain nomadic, this clan has been almost all over Taerel, despite them coming from the Ghaechsh Sandstone Ranges. At first, the Mirroth walked all over and pillaged what they wanted to pillage, slept where they wanted to sleep and killed who they wanted to kill, but now the clan was becoming too large for this type of lifestyle.

Moving groups of a few dozen of kin'toni is not very difficult, however, moving a clan of a few hundred seems very difficult. The way they found to adapt to this new reality was through improving the travelling itself. The Mirroth stole some of the best horses in all of Taerel from many different zu'aan tribes and kin'toni clans, furthermore, they started to build large circus-like caravans in which they could carry a few dozens of kin'toni, these caravans were moved through literal horsepower. Alongside these caravans, they had built several other wooden constructions.

That, in case they needed to settle down for a few nights, would be able to form a temporary settlement. If the stop took even more time than that and they chose to settle down for a few weeks, which was rare, some of the wooden construction even served as wooden walls, it became a very complex system. The Mirroth kept growing and travelling, it was only many years later that they came across a different clan, the Muelm clan. The members of the Mirroth clan did what they usually tended to do, they forged a false bond of trust with the kin'toni of this other tribe.

They convinced them that there was an underlying connection that all the kin'toni had and that if one belonged to this species, it was a horrible crime to betray a fellow “brother”. The Muelm seemed to be convinced and, during the dinner, the Mirroth drugged their food and, when the others were asleep, they took as many of the Muelm as they could and locked them up in a large prison they had previously built. However, this quickly went south for the Mirroth, it turns out that the Muelm, despite their appearance, were very energetic and desperate to get their clan back.

They had even been able to find the Mirroth on foot, they followed the tracks left by the caravans and the horses. There was a struggle and, despite the larger number of soldiers that the Mirroth had, they were decimated by this peculiar clan. This marked the end for the Mirroth.

Biology

The members of this clan were, for the lack of a better term, often described as “unremarkable” by the other kin'toni clans and even some of the zu'aan tribes that they fought with. Most kin'toni had a particular trait that benefited them in some way, however, the Mirroth had no such trait. Their arms were not particularly long or strong, most zu'aan had the same or even more brute strength than the members of this clan. Their torsos were equally unimpressive, their legs were mostly short and did not allow them to generate a lot of power for kicks ore jumps and their endurance was.

Although they later found a way to partly fix this problem through the horses and caravans, laughable. This made it so that, despite the fact that they were a relatively large clan, no one took them seriously, the villages they attacked usually fought back an were able to kill quite a few of them, even when these villages were made up of zu'aan that had never seen a sword or a hammer before. The strongest of the Mirroth were very highly considered, everyone looked at them as if they were superior to the rest of the clan. Although there were very few of them.

And the rest of the members of this clan were incredibly proud of these soldiers, they would be considered slightly above average in what came to their physical ability. The only trait that set them apart from other groups of people or kin'toni, was the excess in small bursts of energy, the inherent restlessness of the Mirroth. They though that this was a usual trait of the kin'toni and of being in general, but later on, when they first came across another clan and spent a few days with them, still early on in the second era, they understood that they were different in this small way.

The moment where this was realized, became for the Mirroth incredibly important, until now they had though of themselves as lesser beings, whilst every other group of kin'toni was gifted in some way or another. But now they saw that this was not true, these small bursts of energy allowed them to be explosive when they needed to, they could perform a surprise attack against another clan or tribe with relative ease, no one expected their quickness in those moments. However, this was not able to help them in the fight against the Muelm, there were two particular problems in that moment.

Although they were happy performing surprise attacks, defending themselves from surprise attacks was even more difficult for them, this burst of energy could only be used after resting or staying still for a long time. Because they were ambushed while they had just settled camp, this meant that they had been walking or riding for hours until that point, the extra energy was nowhere to be found. Secondly, there needs to be a certain degree of control that they feel in order to activate this, but in that moment, there was no control, the Muelm were in control.

Culture

All of those years, before the Mirroth came in contact with the Muelm Kin'toni Clan, the clan that ended up destroying them, they were evolving as a clan. They had grown their numbers quite dramatically and they had created an identity for themselves that needed to remain a secret from all other clans and tribes so that it could continue being cultivated. This secret and the punishment that would be dished out in case it got out, was something every single member of the clan was very aware of. They had small groups of kin'toni dedicated to maintaining things this way.

Their role was to evaluate every single move of every single kin'toni of the Mirroth clan. This was done with the utmost discretion, most Mirroth would not be very pleased if they found out that there was constant, twenty-four-hour, surveillance on them. These discrete interior spies acted as if they were normal members of the clan, they ate with the others, they did the tasks that were asked of them by the group, they slept in the same caravans as other Mirroth, some of them even had romantic partners. However, they were assigned this very important task and there was nothing that could make them betray their duty.

They used to be analyzed for years before a decision was made that a particular kin'toni would receive this job. In what came to priorities, being this type of spy was the biggest thing one could do, there was nothing in the world more important than this, even if they did have a romantic partner, if the partner did something that could be considered suspicious, the spies would report this suspicious behavior to their rulers. If a strong case was being built against a particular kin'toni, that member of the clan would “mysteriously disappear” in a way that no questions would be asked about them.

Days later, that body would appear near some dead wolves or a cliff, so that the Mirroth would not entertain any other possibilities. So, what was the big secret that a select few of this clan were trying to keep? The Mirroth had, slowly, over the course of several years, become a clan that benefited immensely from slave-trading. They would come across dozens of clans and tribes during their travels and, in every situation that they could, the Mirroth presented themselves as a kind and valuable, they would offer the foreign clan goods or things they might need on their travels.

And then, once a mutual trust had been established, the Mirroth would propose a big feast, in which the other clan or tribe, and a large group of the clan itself would be drugged with a particular plant that left a kin'toni unconscious for several hours. After this, they would take the members of the other clan that they could to underground prisons that they had built out of metal in a specific location. A few Mirroth stayed behind just to take care of the facilities and sell the slaves to other clans, without revealing their identity. The whole identity of the Mirroth revolved around this lie.

Government

The word “government” might not be the best one to describe the rulers of the Mirroth in a political sense. According to the majority of the Mirroth, there are no specific rulers of this clan, most decisions are made as a group, there have never been elections of any kind, nor has there been a kin'toni that has chosen to impose him or herself as the rightful leader of the clan. Seemingly, this was the system that was put in place right after the outbreak, when the clan first was created. Apparently, since that first year of the second Era, this system has never changed, the Mirroth kept not having a specific leader.

Maybe this was the problem that led to the lack of aim in the clan a few years after its formation. There were several kin'toni that were becoming too popular and probably would receive the post of “ruler” if they so decided, but there were never any attempts to become the head of the clan. There were even more dramatic events, in which other clans proposed to ally themselves to the Mirroth and serve as unofficial rulers, an offer that the Mirroth declined, although the other did not receive this decline in a positive way. Despite this feeling that there are no rulers in the Mirroth.

Some of its members know that this belief does not pose a reality. Although there is not a government in the strict sense of the word, there is a group of kin'toni that make major decisions that affect the direction the clan is going to take in the future. These decisions are not regarding every single aspect of the clan; however, they are impactful enough for one to say that the ones who make them are in control of the Mirroth. This seems to have right around the time that slave-trading was first considered, a few members of the clan saw another clan doing this and analyzed the ways in which they could do the same in exchange for currency.

This group vouched to keep this a secret and they went on making a plan for a few years, it took them a long time to gather enough information so they could do this the right way. These alternate Mirroth clan members started enslaving small groups in wooden prisons and to trade them with other clans, maybe three or four kin'toni or zu'aan at a time. More than that was beyond their capabilities. After a while, they integrated other Mirroth in their scheme and the inner circle grew steadily for a while. This meant that they were able to scale their operation in order to be able to trade even more slaves.

Before the entire clan got killed, they were intending to tell the Mirroth that were still in the dark that this had been going on for a while. Their motivations were always a matter that they themselves were confused with, they did not have an enormous need for money, nor other goods, but there seemed to be an inherent greed to the Mirroth.

Military

In the early days of the clan, the Mirroth were considerably focused on the military. After the initial outbreak, the military was considered the most important factor for a clan, whilst chaos ran everything, the most important thing was to defend oneself and those that relied on you. Due to this, the Mirroth focused almost the entirety of their members on the military effort, even those who had no formal training were, as best as could be, trained in order to expect an attack at any instance. Despite this focus, they did their best not to start any wars.

It was almost an impossible task at a time where the everyone wanted to kill everyone. However, there was one large war that the Mirroth needed to go through, it was called the “war of the weak”. Only three clans took part in it and only one of the three had any interest in the war itself. This clan that started it, was, as the name suggested, incredibly weak. However, they saw this war as a means to take what the other two clans had and to become powerful to a respectable extent. In the end, the war was not won by any of the three clans and it only made them weaker.

The Mirroth miraculously survived and the other two ended up being destroyed by far more powerful clans and kin'toni tribes. Since that moment, the focus on military has decreased, maybe the Mirroth realized the futility of war or maybe they simply chose to focus on other aspects of the clan, since they understood that excelling in raw power was going to be a difficult task. Their ability to speak to the rulers of other clans and agree on pacts of non-aggression became quite important because they did not have tools to defend themselves properly.

In fact, it was through a couple of Mirroth realizing that they could “enchant” the rulers of other clans, that the idea of using this charm in order to enslave them came about. And in order for this idea to work, the Mirroth had to, again, think about creating some sort of armed forces, there needed to be a few Mirroth soldiers that would escort the slaves in shackles, and use the caravans in order to transport them. Furthermore, drugging an enemy clan was always risky and they had to have troops that could control the situation in case it went south and they needed to perform a quick get-away.

Religion

The Mirroth believed one God each year, they though that there was an unlimited number of Gods and that these Gods were not what created the zu'aan and the kin'toni, as many other clans and tribes believed, these Gods, according to the Mirroth, had nothing at all to do with the creation of any being or object in Taerel. All of the Gods were created by one single entity “time”, when time appeared, it allowed reality to exist. Time is a necessity so that things can exist in it, existing outside of time seems like an impossible task, according to the Mirroth.

This means that time is the ultimate creator and even the Gods were subjected to its will, they did not choose to exist, time created them independently of their desires. These Gods are, therefore, more similar to the other creations of time than to time itself, and although they are considered incredibly powerful, they are also under the natural order of things. Their power allows them to come in contact with the zu'aan and kin'toni and affect reality in a specific way. Most of them develop their own wishes and desires due to peculiar circumstances.

In turn, these desires end up reflecting on the other beings in the world. The Mirroth never know which God has the most power that year, they need to wait for a few days, weeks or sometimes even months to know which is the God of a specific year. Then, suddenly happens that can only be attributable to a particular God, for example, if the leader of the clan dies in his sleep, the God of death is more likely than not, the God for this year. If a brutal war breaks out, then it is probably the year of the God of war. Some Gods are the most powerful for years.

And some will probably never show their faces, but the Mirroth believe in all of them and act accordingly throughout the year. They pray to them, create thing in their honor and attempt to communicate with the specific God. Additionally, it is said that all of them will make an appearance, because time is infinite, it will allow each God to be the predominant God for 365 days.

Miscellany

Nearby Groups

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Mirroth Kin'toni Clan

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