Ormis Kin'toni Clan

History

The Ormis kin'toni clan was descendant from the Zagezwar Kin'toni Clan, one of the first kin'toni clans to travel and hunt zu'aan down. Their founding members had been a part of the attack on the Vorusk clan. When the battle started, Zagez was the first to fall. Yulu’ma, his lover, was paralyzed by heartbreak. She was dragged to safety by two of her friends, An’aeyl and T’omrua. Yulu’ma was inconsolable for days after the attack was carried out, but An’aeyl and T’omrua lovingly took care of her. After three weeks had passed, they suggested that Yulu’ma find a way to properly mourn Zagez.

Yulu’ma declared that she would not be able to rest unless her lover was given a proper burial. The three kin'toni travelled back to the site of carnage and found that the city was truly abandoned now. No one had been there for weeks. The kin'toni bodies decayed incredibly fast, and the bodies at the site were unidentifiable, but Yulu’ma was determined. Since she did not know which body belonged to Zagez, she buried all the kin'toni that had died in that battle. She refused to take any help from An’aeyl and T’oruma.

The two kin'toni used the time to scope out the city. They began to understand why the Vorusk won the battle. Although the cities rough brown walls were not visible from the forest, the buildings offered wonderful vantage points – any travellers in the forest could be viewed from miles away. They took their time to ensure that the city was truly abandoned and then took their plans to Yulu’ma. They were not sure that she would want to stay where she lost her lover, but she agreed immediately. She said she wanted to stay close to where he was buried. She also wanted to be reminded of his mistakes.

The three friends settled in the city, taking turns to scan the forest for any intruders. Thankfully, their part of the forest was well travelled, and they had no shortage of visitors. Any zu'aan that came their way were used to feed them. Any kin'toni were offered refuge. Their kindness could have been taken for granted, but the first group to come their way was in desperate need for direction. They had been young zu'aan when they had been infected and abandoned. They were trying to adjust to being kin'toni and to living in the new world order.

The addition of the six new kin'toni was the true start of the Ormis clan. They helped turn the city into a refuge for all wandering kin'toni. They also created a sort of refuge for the zu'aan. Having been converted themselves, they could not bring themselves to capture or torture the zu'aan. Instead, they offered a safe haven for the zu'aan with a catch. The zu'aan had to pay for every day they stayed in the city. However, the Ormis did not offer any protection once the zu'aan left the walls, and the kin'toni often hunted them down for fun. This trapped the zu'aan with the Ormis clan.

Biology

The Ormis kin'toni have beautiful purple irises with black sclerae and horizontal slit pupils. Despite living in the forest, they lived within the abandoned city and thus did not spend too much time in the sun. This resulted in skin that was incredibly pale. Since they had constant supply to zu'aan blood, they were incredibly well fed. Over the centuries, they taught themselves to eat zu'aan food, which resulted in them gaining weight. Most of the kin'toni lived life in luxury, eating and having as much alcohol as they wanted.

This resulted in them being quite overweight in general, no matter how much they exercised or trained. However, in the clan, their size was considered to be a sign of how comfortable their lives were and thus it was an admirable trait. The access to blood was restricted, but it was never in shortage. The zu'aan that lived in the city were treated well. Due to this, the kin'toni of the Ormis clan were used to consuming blood at least thrice a week. Their skin was so pale that when they consumed blood, their veins turned dark red and were seen through the skin.

Then, the colour of their blood faded as their body broke the blood down for nutrients. One could look at an Ormis kin'toni’s skin and tell how long it had been since they last consumed blood. When their veins were no longer visible, it meant that the blood they had consumed was completely digested and they were allowed to feed again. This entire process took two days for Ormis kin'toni as they used a lot of energy to consume zu'aan food and their bodies did not have any reason to learn to retain zu'aan blood for long periods of time.

To maintain the balance between the zu'aan blood sources and the Ormis kin'toni, the Ormis were incredibly strict about their numbers. They lost lives often to betrayal from visitors who wanted to take over their land, but that was the only danger they faced. Most kin'toni that took refuge in the city had to pay rent or work to earn their stay. They were also urged not to stay for too long as rent prices increased every additional week of stay. However, they enticed some kin'toni with the comfort their city offered for a longer time in return for turnees.

Culture

The Ormis treated their city as a refuge for all wandering kin'toni. This was a dangerous system but the Ormis were careful about how many external kin'toni were allowed to enter the city. The city is well guarded and any big groups were turned away using defensive techniques. The kin'toni that were given refuge in the city were not considered a part of the clan. They had to pay for their stay either in the form of zu'aan blood or by manual labour. Since most refugees did not have a lot of zu'aan blood, they paid in the form of manual labour.

They also created a sort of refuge for the zu'aan. Unlike the kin'toni, no zu'aan were turned away from the refuge. Having been converted themselves, they could not bring themselves to capture or torture the zu'aan. Instead, they offered a safe haven for the zu'aan with a catch. The zu'aan had to pay in blood for every day they stayed in the city. However, the Ormis did not offer any protection once the zu'aan left the walls, and the kin'toni often hunted them down for fun. This trapped the zu'aan with the Ormis clan.

The access to blood was restricted, but it was never in shortage. The zu'aan that lived in the city were treated well. In fact, they were fed more than enough and even given herbal teas and pastes to maintain their health. The zu'aan were not required to work, but they usually chose to help out due to boredom. It was not rare for the zu'aan to reproduce. During the zu'aan pregnancy, the mothers were not required to give blood as rent. However, the children born were all considered property of the Ormis clan and they had to give blood as soon as they reached their teenage years.

They were allowed to stay with their families, but they were not allowed to leave. After a few decades, more than half the zu'aan that lived with the Ormis clan were the property of the clan. Over the centuries, they Ormis taught themselves to eat zu'aan food, which resulted in them gaining weight. Most of the kin'toni lived life in luxury, eating and having as much alcohol as they wanted. This resulted in them being quite overweight in general, no matter how much they exercised or trained. However, in the clan, their size was considered to be a sign of how comfortable their lives were and thus it was an admirable trait.

All the inhabitants of the city lived within the abandoned buildings. The number of inhabitants was carefully controlled to ensure that there was enough room for everyone. The zu'aan were not tortured or kept prisoners. Their homes were kept on one side of the city, with the kin'toni refuge on the other. The Ormis treated the zu'aan kindly.

Government

The Ormis had a democratic government, however the roles of the office were not time-bound. This meant that the kin'toni who was elected to Clan Mother usually ruled over the clan for close to a hundred years. The first clan mother was T’oruma; she had been infected by Zagez and had survived the battle at the city by escaping with her friends An’aeyl and Yulu’ma. T’oruma and An’aeyl had decided that the city would become their new home and Yulu’ma had convinced the to open the city to refuges.

The three had decided that T’oruma would take care of the clan as a whole. She decided that the city would not be given a name, it would only be called her home. As the size of the clan grew, she created a government structure of four ministers that reported to the Clan Mother. Since the clan was small, it only required a small government. The city needed protection, so An’aeyl took over the role of the military minister. She had the largest number of kin'toni answerable to her, compared to the rest of the minsters.

Originally, her duty was to protect the city from outside threats, but as the size of the clan grew, the city also needed protection from the refuge kin'toni. The military minister decided which kin'toni that travelled through the forest would be offered refuge. Any kin'toni that looked unruffled or travelled in big groups were driven away from the city by the military. They were also the only reason why the Ormis clan had not yet been overthrown by the kin'toni that wanted to overtake the city.

The Ormis clan also had ministers in charge of resources and welfare. These ministers worked closely together and their job was to maintain the quality of life in the city. The minister of resources had to ensure there was adequate supply of blood for the kin'toni and enough water and food for the zu'aan. They were the reason farming was redeveloped inside the city. They also worked closely with the kitchen to make sure as little food as possible was wasted. The cities wells were almost dried out, so the minister had to send missions out to collect water from nearby water resources in the months when it didn’t rain.

The minister of welfare was a deceiving name. Rather than welfare, the minister focused on the number of people in the city. They were in charge of maintaining a balance of the populations of both the city, and the Ormis clan. They kept track of which zu'aan were free to leave the city and which ones were the property of the Ormis clan. They were also in charge of collecting rent and making sure that all the Refugees who did not pay in blood were completing their work.

They raised the rest for the kin'toni refugees every week so that they did not overstay their visit. The last ministerial role had been created by Yulu’ma. This minister used herbs to create pastes and medicines to keep the clan healthy.

Military

The Ormis clan decided to open their city as a refuge to kin'toni and zu'aan alike. Since the city was quite small, the number of people who could comfortably reside there was also small. In fact, the clan really only started with three people, Yulu’ma, T’oruma and An’aeyl. Their number started increasing when they took in a group newly inflected kin'toni who used to be teenage zu'aan. The city needed protection, so An’aeyl took over the role of the first military minister.

The military minister has the largest number of kin'toni answerable to her, compared to the rest of the minsters. Originally, her duty was to protect the city from outside threats, but as the size of the clan grew, the city also needed protection from the refuge kin'toni. The military minister decided which kin'toni that travelled through the forest would be offered refuge. Any kin'toni that looked unruffled or travelled in big groups were driven away from the city by the military.

The city itself was very well made for protection against attacks. It had always had high walls, taller than even a kin'toni could jump, and the military worked hard to ensure that the walls were strong and merged well with the forest. The walls had shabbily made platforms that the military used as watchtowers. The result of their higher ground, the structure of the forest, and the well camouflaged walls was that the kin'toni in the watchtower could see any travellers in the forest long before the city was visible.

If the military commander decided to offer refuge to the travellers, two members of the clan would go out to retrieve them. They would then be sent to the welfare ministers for processing and to be given their home for their stay. Refuge was offered to any zu'aan; if they refused it was the kin'toni’ decision whether to drain them of their blood and dispose of them or to let them go. More often than not, the kin'toni chose the latter as they always had access to enough blood.

The Ormis were much more careful when it came to kin'toni refugees. They were only offered refuge if they looked like they were in desperate need for shelter and there weren’t more than three of them travelling together. If the traveller kin'toni did not fulfil the criteria of looking ragged or having a small group, they were let to pass without any problems. However, the forest was equipped with bobby traps that could be set off from within the city walls.

If the travellers unknowingly tried to approach the city, the bobby traps would be discharged, chasing the kin'toni away from the city. The bobby traps employed multiple methods – some were armed to reign arrows and some were built to cause fake landslides. The Ormis did not have access to technology, but they were good at working with what they had. The Ormis preferred to keep their city hidden and thus avoided attacks by other kin'toni. Any attacks that did occur were thwarted by their strong defences.

Religion

The Ormis kin'toni were not a religious people at all. They had neither festivals nor days of religion. One of the main reasons that the clan never developed a religion is because the original members did not have much to believe in. The three founding kin'toni, T’oruma, An’aeyl and Yulu’ma had each been approached by Zagez to join his group. They had been smart enough to agree, even though they had been incredibly scared. Eventually, they adjusted to being kin'toni, but they still missed the comforts of their zu'aan life from before the outbreak.

They believed that if there was a god, they never would have let the outbreak occur in the first place. Yulu’ma had her personal reasons to not believe anymore. After losing all the comfort of her zu'aan life, she had adapted to being kin'toni. She had even found happiness with her lover, Zagez. She had felt as though she had been rebuilding her life when it was ripped away from her again. After that, she had taken a long time to find her purpose again.

T’oruma and An’aeyl had taken to defending and leading the newly formed Ormis clan. Yulu’ma had no interest in such positions of leadership, so she spent long hours of every day in the forest, learning about the flora there. Over the years, she learned the herbal properties of the plants and was able to apply her knowledge to keep the clan healthy. It became obvious very quickly that the kin'toni were much more resistant than the zu'aan. Since the Ormis clan depended on the well being of both, Yulu’ma’s healing abilities became invaluable to the small clan.

She helped keep the zu'aan healthy for much longer than their normal lifespans. She taught interested young Ormis her ways and ensured her knowledge was passed down the generations. This birthed a healing department that was the closest thing the clan had to a religion, since the healers were incredibly respectful to nature. As the clan grew in size, most of the new members had been infected against their will and thy did not feel particularly inclined towards their old religions any more. The ones that did were allowed to practice their religions in private, but it wasn’t common.

As the younger generations of the Ormis came in, many tried to put their faith in something. Some people believed that Yulu’ma should have been revered, some believed that T’oruma was an incarnation that came to earth to create the heaven-like refuge Ormis offered. A few even wondered whether Yulu’ma, T’urma and An’aeyl were gods that pretended to be kin'toni to bring some happiness to the disrupted world. However, due to the long lifespan of the kin'toni, there were always older generations who had witnessed the three kin'toni first hand, or heard first-hand accounts of their lives.

They knew that those three were merely mortals who wanted to make the world slightly better. The Ormis clan in general preferred this line of belief over any religion as it meant that anyone could make the world better, safer and more comfortable.

Miscellany

The biggest challenge to the Ormis clan was an attack by other kin'toni. They were a small clan and some members were required for maintaining the refugees and zu'aan. This led them to adopt the mentality that battles were best won when they were avoided. This meant that the Ormis were much more careful when it came to kin'toni refugees. They were only offered refuge to kin'toni if they looked like they were in desperate need for shelter and there weren’t more than three of them travelling together.

The clan was also more cautious in approaching them. They sent more than thrice the number of travellers, and each of them approached the group from a different direction. This ensured that their exact location was not given away. If the kin'toni did not agree to take the refuge, they were sent along their way. If they did agree to take the refuge, they were blindfolded and had dense bags placed over their heads. Then they were carried to the city by the clan members, usually via long convoluted routes to confuse their sense of direction.

Once they were given homes by the minister of welfare, the soldiers of the military monitored them for two days to make sure they do not disrupt the peace of the city. Any refuges that asked to leave the camp taken to the forest in the same way – with their eyes bound and head covered by a bag, being carried by one of the Ormis clan members. They were then monitored carefully to make sure that they did not try to uncover the location of the city. If the Ormis soldiers thought that they were, they attacked and killed them.

The clan had come under attack, especially in the times when their bobby traps failed to discharge or had not been reset. However, thanks to the strong defences the military adopted, the Ormis generally won from within their city walls. The biggest threat the clan had ever faced was an attack by the kin'toni that had taken refuge in the city. The Ormis prevailed in the end, however many lives were lost to the battle. After that, the military began patrolling inside the city as well.

The Ormis clan did not enjoy turning away those in need. They did charge for the refuge, but they believed it was a fair exchange as the refugees got safety from attacks and shelter from the weather. The zu'aan lived comfortably at the low cost of their blood and then kin'toni worked to pay for the place they took and the blood they consumed. The Ormis did not like turning away anyone in need, and that was the only reason why they noticed something was wrong.

More and more travellers in the forest looked like they need refuge – more than the city could possibly hound. The Ormis realised that something big was coming, but even the refugees could not tell them what it truly was, only what they were running from.

Nearby Groups

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Ormis Kin'toni Clan

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