Taem Kin'toni Clan

History

The Taem started as an large collection of travelers and non-affiliated kin'toni. They banded together for mutual protection from the harsh world. The clan itself was formally founded in 4E 77. The founder wasa kin'toni called Fayk'mal. Fayk'mal was an travelling kin'toni merchant who carried his goods on his back. He found the group before it was a clan and earned their trust.

He eventually earned enough trust to be voted as the leader. Once he became leader, he declared the group a clan. The clan was travelling East of the Xerea Empire's capital city when they came across the Roeghough Overgrown Spires. The Overgrown Spires had a large amount of caves, being a karst formation. The clan decided to settle in the largest ravine, the Ae'vve.

The Ae'vee was dark and deep enough to expose new room. It had caves along its side and a large river that once ran on the surface. The region's local zu'aan city, built into the rocks was the main problem. It was a well-fortified prize. The clan had used spies to find the city's entery and scout for weak points. It was found the rocks were softer and thinner around one of the waste channels.

The clan decided to weaken the city before they attacked. They cut off all food and water from the city. The wells were poisoned as to force the zu'aan to have parties leave for water. When those parties left for water, the clan attack and ambushed them. The city had to ration food and water with the wealthy and powerful taking more then their fair share. This bred rebellion along the city's zu'aan.

When the city's scouts learned that things had reached a head, the clan made its move. The clan used members with iron tools to dig though the rock and into the city. The clan attacked the leaders and elite first to cut off their leadership. After that, the zu'aan were rounded up and mass turned. From this turned city, came the Xarte Kin'toni Clan, Yergha Kin'toni Clan and Vlakia Kin'toni Clan.

By the Shattering, the new clans had gone their separate ways. The two-thirds of the newly turned kin'toni that did not join the Xarte, Yergha or Vlakia went to join or found another group. The Taem had decided to reuse and fortify the city after the clans had moved out. The clan weathered the Shattering in their new fortress. Their main issue was the poisoned water that would take more years until it was cleaned.

To deal with that, the clan had to get water from nearby river. This risked being picked off by rivals. The Shattering past mostly uneventfully. After the Shattering, the clan had to defend their holdings from rival groups such as the Isa Band, Esra Band and the Vahil Band. These bands were taken down by being hunted to their lairs and killed while they was sleeping. The lairs were looted of all usable belongings.

By 4E 500, the clan has started to notice the Ice Age. The river and ponds started to freeze earlier each year and stay frozen for longer. The lest cold hardy plants and animals started to die off or move out. The clan thought they can endure the Ice Age and win over it like they did the city. They have noticed the kin'toni moving in slowly from colder regions.

Biology

The travels the Taemians have gone on have deeply impacted their biological characteristics, they have travelled more than any other clan has and nature has acted upon them like it acts upon very few. The members of the Taem clan are have dark yellow irises with black sclerae and crescent pupils, they are resistant to almost every climate, in windy pastures, they walk without even being phased by the wind. In hot and dry deserts, they do not feel thirsty or dizzy from the heat and in cold mountains, they can walk almost without any clothing.

This way, nature presents almost no challenge to the Taemians, this clan does not fear the power of tides or rainstorms, they see it as an event that has happen and that they will experience again. Their skins also change according to where they are, it takes about a week to get accustomed to the new environment. Which means that before a very long travel, kin'toni of this clan will spend a week just getting adjusted to the conditions. Their eyes have Dark yellow irises with black sclerae and crescent pupils and can see better at night than even most kin'toni.

Almost as if there were absolutely no difference between day and night-time. Despite these common characteristics, it is usual for kin'toni of this clan to be vastly different in their biology, due to the fact that the Taemians travel all over the world, many of the kin'toni in the clan come from very distinct regions and have incredibly different backgrounds, which means that their biological traits also seem to be different, some have longer legs or arms, some have marks on their bodies, some cannot stand a particular environment, some need no food to survive, other may need constant food to survive.

All of these differences make the Taem clan more unpredictable than most zu'aan tribes or kin'toni clans, an enemy or an ally never know what to expect biologically from someone of this clan, there is not a distinct way, by their exterior characteristics, to tell them apart from anyone else. Taemians can, however, tell each other apart so easily that it baffles outsiders. Additionally, the Taemians can walk for up to eighteen or nineteen hours a day without needing to rest. They are more comfortable walking than lying down and sleeping.

Also because of the walking, their leg muscles have increased in size the past century or so and they can exert enough force to kill a zu'aan if he is hit in the chest by a powerful enough kick. Their strong legs also allow them to run faster and jump farther than most being that live in Taerel, which means they can use them either as a defensive mechanism or as an offensive weapon.

Culture

Just as with their biological characteristics, the culture of the Taem clan is fragmented. It is a melting pot of hundreds of different cultures that exist in the same space. It is not like the members of the Taem clan do not understand the culture of one another, that have been almost everywhere and seen almost everything. Because of this, the kin'toni Taemians are quite accepting of all different cultures.

Some members of the clan even adopt cultures that were previously foreign to them because they find them interesting and captivating. In the style of many other partially nomadic tribes, the Taemians do not find the use for money, no matter the currency itself. This is the way it is due to two different reasons, first of, because they move from region to region on practically a monthly basis.

If they used currency, would end up needing to exchange it in every town they went through, unfortunately this is not something every single town does and they would simply be losing enormous sums of money very often. Secondly, it is almost impossible to have large amounts of money if one lives the nomadic lifestyle, most of the things the clan eats are things that they hunt or find in nature, they have no need for money most of the time. This means that no clan-member is rich or poor.

They all have the same amount of goods to share and no conflicts are created through wealth inequality, this then strengthens the bond of a community. From each place they pass by, the Taemians try and keep something to remind them of that specific place, they usually choose whatever it was most striking to them, it could be a book written by a local, a flower, a drawing of a house, a song, etc.

These pieces of a region’s identity are then brought back to the spires and are put on the “infinite wall”, a wall that serves as a final resting place for everything that the Taemians bring back from their travels and adventures. Just like the philosophy of the clan, the wall and the items that are stored in it, are never-ending. As their history shows, the Taem clan and its members have their cultural roots in their pursuit of the meaning of life. The whole life of every single kin'toni of the Taem clan has to do with this impossible goal.

Most kin'toni or zu'aan that wish to join this clan are lost in their lives, they have lost someone dear to them, they are having a crisis of faith, either way, this clan offers a way for people to find meaning in the pursuit of meaning itself. If they find an answer or not is, as strange as it may seem, more irrelevant than anything else. Some even end up leaving the clan because they believe they are now at peace with themselves and have decided what their path is, however some do not leave and end up dedicating their entire lives to this cause.

Government

The government is a very complex subject within the Taem clan, there is no official leader of the Taemians, but there are kin'toni that occupy positions of leadership. The main settlement of this clan is controlled by the oldest members of the tribe. The oldest members are usually considered the wisest and the closest to the goal that is figuring out life itself. Weather this happens to be the case one cannot know for sure. But these older kin'toni have dedicated more time than anyone else to this life and are, therefore, seen as the “masters of thought”, as they are often called.

These male and female kin'toni do not seem to have a desire of controlling anything and usually and actually against the idea of having a leadership role, however, they are the most experienced and must lead the way for the younger ones. These older kin'toni are in charge of al the meaningless technicalities that need to be taken care of. Even so, most decisions are, as it happened during that first time centuries ago, a process for the whole clan and usually take many days or weeks for them to come to a reasonable conclusion.

Outside the settlement in the Spires, the Taemians have no distinct ruler, every single member of the party takes care of one specific group and most of the actions they must take have already been taken care of before they left to wander the rest of the world. As long as they agree with the meaning of the clan, Taem is happy to accept refugees from all over, due to this, they have started to be seen as a group for lost souls and outcasts, something that does not always match the reality. Outside of this, the Taemians have no political alliances or even connections.

They tend to keep to themselves in all aspects of life. It is only when they go to learn about a specific town or tribe that they must build some sort of link with the kin'toni of that region, this means they have unofficial friends and enemies all over Taerel. Just like in other parts of their existence, the political side of the Taemians is confusing and has a total lack of order.

Military

Every single one of the Taemians would hesitate to call their fighter a military, it is more as if there are individual fighters that defend their people from outside threats, however, they are not a military in the truest sense of the word, most militaries need to me organized armed forces, and although the members of the Taem clan do have weapons with which they fight, it would be an exaggeration to call them organized. Their soldiers are, despite this apparent negative aspect, strong enough to go toe to toe with a powerful opponent.

Their resistance to almost every type of environment also translates to a resistance to different types of wounds. Many the kin'toni that belong to this clan come from places so remote that they do not even appear on most maps, this can lead to a language barrier and many of the kin'toni do have difficulties communicating to each other. This is partly what contributes to the overall lack of organization of the military, however, this also has its advantages. The skills they possess and the knowledge they have is all from very different sources.

This means that their fighting styles are incredibly unique to each single member of the clan, some use their superior body strength do dominate a hand-to-hand combat, some prefer to use long-ranged weapons because they have incredible aim. This is from training with this type of weapon from an early age. Others might prefer to use their athletic skills and lighter weapons to bring an enemy to his or her knees. This often confuses opponents, they see one Taem kin'toni fighting with a shield and an axe and, suddenly, as if out of nowhere.

A group of assassins enters their midst and slaughter several fighters from a vantage point. No one knows what to expect when fighting one of these kin'toni. Unfortunately, this also means that some Taemians will be absolutely useless in specific fights, because their skill set might be too specific, there is no use for assassins in an open plain, for example. Armor is also relatively specific to each member of the clan, however, due to their nomadic lifestyle, it is hard to carry many objects while walking all over Taerel with only four or five hours of sleep a night, something they can handle.

This means that the armor that they do carry with them must be vary light and, therefore, it does not protect as much as it sometimes need to protect. This means that the Taemians are not very resistant to wounds, outside their natural protections against them. When a member of this clan gets hit with the blade of a sword, they can almost be sure that it caused a cut in the skin. But the Taemians always avoid large fights and usually stick to defending their own people. Their fighting style is characterized by many as an “in and out tactic”.

they attack the enemy with all their might and retreat after they deal that initial blow that leaves the enemy disoriented. In the Spires, where their settlement is located, there is no military. Firstly, because it is not needed, it is an incredibly secluded region where only those with enough will-power to find it, actually do find it, but also, because their settlement is not a place of war, it is a place of reflection and where they meditate on the what they consider to be the important questions one need to ask himself.

Religion

Almost all the kin'toni that have joined the Taem clan over the years come from a background where faith or religion was an important aspect of everyone’s lives. There is only a small minority of Taemians that never had any connection with religion before joining the clan. However, many of those who believed in god, several gods or were spiritual were lost in their own lives. Many asked themselves what the point of worshipping a god if he does not help them in any way. Others started getting inquisitive and were cast out their former clans, that did not accept doubting one’s faith.

As they entered the Taem clan, many kin'toni simply gave up their religious beliefs and started trying to find another way to improve their lives. Entering this clan is a process that requires questioning everything. From the most superficial things in life to the deepest things one must go through. Religion is one of these things. A kin'toni called Bure was one of the first members of this clan and he came from a family, before being infected, where one God was prayed to, it was said to be a God that controlled everything, not only one particular aspect from existence.

Bure, in the past, had always been deeply connected to his religion and even got in trouble for trying to make others follow his religion. However, as Bur became a kin'toni and lost his family in the process, his beliefs started to change and he began to think that his God had forsaken him, and that he had wasted years of his life worshipping a fraud, like his story there are many in the Taem clan. This clan has been called the “philosopher clan” its members are more attached to a way of thinking about life.

Than to a specific belief system in itself. They are interested in the questions and constantly argue for both sides of something just to see which option is the best one. The conversations are an important part of the Taemian society, each week in the main settlement, located in the spires, the Taemians have day-long discussion in the town square regarding every single topic imaginable, from the struggles of this new Era, to the upcoming Ice age and how that will change everyone’s reality, to the importance of death. The relationship of the members of the Taem clan with death is particularly interesting and spiritual.

They believe that death means being set free from the purpose that is inherently connected to life, which is to find meaning in it. This way, death can be seen as something positive, because finding meaning is an impossible task. However, the process of finding meaning, according to the members of the Taem clan, is what sparks the joy in our lives. Due to this, death, as the Taemians see it, is a double-edged sword that brings about the end of all suffering, but also brings about the end of all pleasure.

Miscellany

Nearby Groups

Unknown

Taem Kin'toni Clan

Unknown