Tanen Kin'toni Clan

History

The Tanen clan was founded when Shavra discovered several smaller kin'toni hiding in a dark cave deep within her territory. Instead of killing them or chasing them out, she took pity on them and saw a chance to take control of the entire region. She took them in and taught them how to hunt for zu'aan to feed on and turn. The one issue that stood in the way of her goal was that these smaller kin'toni had a strange reaction to sunlight and thus hid until it was night. She taught them how to burrow through the ground and use their senses to locate prey they couldn’t see.

Over time they imprinted on her and looked to her as the queen in their swarm. Every night the smaller ones would leave their hive in the dark caves and scour the forest mountains looking for anything to eat and especially for zu'aan to turn. Those who came upon the small Tanen clan members soon discovered that there is never just one of them, as the entirety of the clan members swarmed every individual they find and drain them dry or carried them off to be turned before moving to take on the next person. The clan grew slowly as Shavra continued to send them out to hunt in ever further reaches of the region.

Shavra herself grew accustomed to her dark existence and could no longer stand the feeling of the sun on her skin. She closed herself in the heart of the hive her clan had formed in the darkest part of the mountain caves and refused to turn those she feeds on, having one of the smaller clan members turn them. After years of enduring the random strange attacks on their hunting parties, as well as reports of their prey disappearing, the other clans began hunting for the culprits. However, their initial hunts held a fatal flaw. they only were hunting in force during the day.

Due to this, the swarm was relatively safe from being discovered. However, this could not last forever as with each hunt the other clans got closer and closer to finding the entrance to the caves. Then one day it finally happened. One of the hunters made his way deep into the caves and stumbled upon the hive. His calls of alarm woke the swarm and within minutes they had enveloped and drained him. But Shavra knew it was too late and if they were ever going to control the region, they had to act quickly. She sent every member of the clan to burrow under the other settlements and attack everything that moved from below.

She stayed in their caves and took on any of the hunters she found there. Over the course of the next few days and nights, the Tanen clan slaughtered everyone they could find until the other clans gave up their settlements and fled to avoid being wiped out completely. Now the forest is filled with the remnants of settlements and villages that will never house anyone again.

Biology

The eyes of the Tanen clan members have light orange irises with white sclerae and horizontal slit pupils and see only in infrared. Though this can cause trouble for them when under attack, it also proves extremely useful for tracking their prey at night or from under the ground while they burrow. Their other senses make up for their inability to see normally. They rely on their extremely fine-tuned and sensitive ability to hear and their powerful sense of smell to orient themselves and those around them. However, the strength of both of these leaves them vulnerable to both loud high pitched noises.

And foul scents or too many overlapping strong scents. When in distress they excrete a particular pheromone that the rest can easily smell and track. Their sense of touch, while stronger than the average zu'aan’s, can only make them aware of the exact location of things within a radius of five to ten paces while they are standing still. While the majority of the clan is short, standing at four heads tall, the queen, Shavra, is a head taller than the average zu'aan. Their skin is pale and ashen and accentuates their thin, lean frame, giving them a very skeletal appearance.

This emaciated look means they are susceptible to both heat and cold and especially fire. They have developed long arms with crooked claws that assist them with digging through the soil as well as hooking into the flesh of their prey and ripping them open. Despite their small stature, they are surprisingly fast and agile though at the cost of being physically weaker than those they attack. The majority of the clan have a distended jaw and mouth, which houses seven rows of tiny razor-sharp fangs and a protracted tongue long enough to wrap around the throat of a zu'aan.

This allows them to hold their prey in place as they gnaw through their flesh. Shavra however, does not share her clan’s facial distortions and instead has a single row of fanged teeth. And while the rest of the clan has no hair except for whispy strands that have yet to fall out, Shavra has a full head of luscious black hair that flows to the middle of her shoulder blades. They have chitinous scales along their spines and the undersides of their arms and legs. With every generation, there are slightly more scales. The biggest weakness for the smaller clan members is their adverse reaction to the sun.

If one of them gets caught out of the shelter of their caves when the sun rises, they will get patches of first and second degree burns on any section of exposed skin. If not fatal, it is extremely painful and takes months to heal. Also, the pain will cause them to cry out and draw attention to their location, which is how Shavra initially found the first of her clan. It is this weakness that causes them to be nocturnal and to burrow under the feet of their prey.

Culture

To protect themselves from the sun and the elements on the surface of their forested mountains, the Tanen clan built a hive in the darkest part of the mountain caves. Each member of the clan rests within a specific cell of the hive. Shavra resides in a larger chamber at the heart of the hive. The hive was constructed by the clan out of mud and slate rock gathered through their burrowing. Special tunnels wrap around the core of the hive to allow the clan members and their queen ways to get into their hunting burrows and the upper sections of their caves.

There is a smaller separate hive behind the main one that was built specifically to house those of the clan who are healing from exposure to sunlight. Despite their vulnerability to the elements, the Tanen clan rarely wears much clothing other than a tattered skirt of leather. They often cover themselves in furs during the winter to protect themselves while they hunt during the night. During the rest of the time, they will often cover themselves in a thick coating of mud and clay to make it harder for their prey to spot them when outside at night.

Some of them take trophies from those they devour. These trophies are usually a tooth, a lock of hair, or a small bone to tie along the band or hem of their skirts. The skulls of their victims are collected by Shavra and placed in an empty slot of giant altar kept apart from the hive on the lowest level of their caves. The altar gets added to as they have need. While the rest of the clan is out hunting for food and zu'aan to be turned, Shavra spends her time painting designs along the walls of the lowest level and its branching tunnels.

The other clan members follow her lead and often fill their tunnels with simple pictographs that tell of their adventures. They use dyes crafted with a special bioluminescent substance found in some plants they discovered in the bowels of the lowest level of their caves. While the rest of the clan uses a myriad of colours in their paintings, Shavra only uses red for those closest to the altar, purple for the unbroken segments, and blue for the tunnels. Her designs are also not pictographs but rather symbols specific to the religion the clan follows.

Now that the settlements above ground are deserted, several members of the clan have begun collecting and trading random objects they find with each other. Others have taken to using the buildings and structures as covered exits for their tunnels as well as places to hide if they may get caught out in the sunlight. Near the top of one of the mountains in their territory, the clan has a massive domed structure. It has several tiny cells just big enough for a single person of their size with no room to move. This structure is where they put all of the remains of their dead.

Government

The Tanen clan has built itself around a social structure similar to how some insects operate, with workers and hunters working as a singular swarm following the direction of their queen. Shavra is the sole authority for the entire clan and sends them out to hunt and build extensions to their underground home. She teaches every member of the clan how to fight in unison with the rest of the swarm, how to burrow, how to paint, how to make and mend their skirts, and how the rituals work for their religion. She designed the hives they reside in and for the network of tunnels they use to avoid the light of day.

She is present for the turning of every new clan member as well as for their first time turning someone else. She acts as their strategist when they face hunting parties from other clans. While the rest of the clan is asleep she stands in the main cave to guard their hive against intruders. All decisions go through her. She leads them in their religion, treats their sick and their wounded, and prepares and buries the bodies of their dead. To the rest of the clan, she is the reason they exist and hunt and build. Under Shavra the clan is split into two sects.

Each sect has its own purpose in the clan and neither cross into the domain of the other. Instead, they work together in their specific tasks to further the reach of their subterranean kingdom. The first sect is made up of those who burrow and explore to find more caves and more ways to travel the region without having above ground or risk any exposure to the sun. They make maps and logs for and report their findings back to Shavra, who then will send them to explore a different area and to watch for any other kin'toni clans. When they discover any new clan.

The explorers will watch them at night before attempting to carry one back to Shavra to study and learn how best to kill. The other sect is the builders’ sect. They work to strengthen the hive and add on parts to their structures as it becomes necessary. Once a clan member has burrowed a tunnel, the builders will use bone and rock to strengthen the necessary areas to allow them to widen the tunnel for easy use. They also maintain the entrances and exits of their underground home and rebuild anything that might be damaged or destroyed by fighting, sabotage from other clans, cave-ins, or the passage of time.

After Shavra is pleased with the explorers’ discoveries, she’ll send the builders to make it possible for the new area to house the hive if absolutely necessary. As instructed by her, the builders will always construct a hive in any suitable cave set discovered a few leagues from the current residence of the clan. However when night falls, the separation of the sects disappear and they all become part of the hunting swarm.

Military

Under the command of Shavra, the Tanen clan fights and hunts as a swarm. Every night Shavra points them in a single direction and sends them after any living thing to feed on, or in the case of any zu'aan, turn into one of them. She instructs them in the best ways to face any particular foe and how to capture the zu'aan to bring back to their hive and turn. When someone enters their caves while the clan sleeps, they are killed and devoured by Shavra unless they wake the others with their screams. When they faced the combined forces of the other clans of the region.

It was Shavra who chose how they would strike back and when. It was her tactics that led to their victory and control of the entire region. The clan are melee combatants who don't use weapons and instead prefer to attack with their claws and fangs as they swarm their prey and either devour them and take their skulls for the altar, or carry them back to the hive to be turned in the presence of Shavra. They hook their claws in the most painful parts of their victim's bodies and often begin eating at the feet and work their way to the base of the skull.

They also have a few other tactics they use to decimate their enemies when they are in a larger force. One such tactic is for a few members to burrow under their prey and drag them partway into the tunnel while the others swarm the exposed half. Such a tactic has often prevented their prey from being able to attack before being overwhelmed by the clan. Another tactic that they use with all others is that they never attack a whole group at once. Instead will swarm a single target and all work together to overwhelm and kill them if they are not a zu'aan to be turned later.

Another tactic is to snag one of the group and drag them up into the trees where the others lay in wait to begin eating. This allows them to focus on taking one victim at a time while being stealthy as they hunt. When near one of the deserted settlements, they will use the bioluminescent dye to attract any prey to separate from their group and investigate before pulling them into the tunnels where the rest of the clan lays in wait. During the war for the region, the clan disregarded their usual tactic of attacking and subduing a single target at a time and instead each clan member targeted one victim each.

They burrowed directly under their feet and opened the ground to drag them under, eating them as they went. While this meant they didn't have to worry about the difference in strength as much as they usually did, it also meant that they wouldn't have the support of the clan like they were used to. Several of the clan members were killed as their prey fought back.

Religion

Taught to them by Shavra, and under her guidance, the clan worships death. According to Shavra its name is Chorgan, and it demands many sacrifices be given and rituals are performed daily in order to not have it come to take a clan member. To the rest of the clan, Shavra is considered a servant of Chorgan sent to protect them and guide them in the proper ways and methods to honour death and prevent it from getting angry with them. Thus every night they always bring Shavra the very best prey according to her own standards. And this is why they collect the skulls of those they devour.

They believe that if any of their fellow clan members dies they have displeased Chorgan. According to Shavra, Chorgan comes from the centre of the world and made its home at the core of the largest mountain in the region. As proof, she pointed to how it gets hotter the further down they would burrow. It is because of this that they bury their own dead in a domed structure on a mountain far from the tallest one. So that Chorgan would no be offended by their presence. Shavra also told them that Chorgan is why the sun exists. That it is there to punish them for not being in the caves before it rises.

And it is for that reason that those who receive burns from sunlight are separated from the others and only seen by Shavra until they recover. She also teaches them that Chorgan chose them to be its army against all others and that only the zu'aan are to be spared by turning them all into members of the swarm. And thus the clan hunts every living thing they find, including every animal and insect. The first ritual they are taught and perform once every full moon is to sacrifice a bit of their own blood by giving it to Shavra. She then ingests the blood.

And gives each clan member a drop of her own as a blessing from Chorgan. In this way they show their devotion and tie themselves closer to Shavra and Chorgan. Another ritual is to place the eyes of their victims in the skull’s brain cavity. This is so that those sacrificed to Chorgan don't have the honour of seeing its true appearance. Another of their rituals is to bath in blood on the night of new moon. On that night, the entire clan brings enough prey for them all and Shavra drains the blood from each victim into a large basin.

She then pours the basin out on each clan member in turn before they sacrifice three to bathe her. They are not allowed to wash the blood off until three nights later. According to Shavra, this is to cleanse the clan and make them worthy of serving Chorgan. Lastly they are only allowed to wear clothing made from something they killed themselves and must be stained in the blood of the kill or else it's an insult to Chorgan.

Miscellany

Nearby Groups

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Tanen Kin'toni Clan

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