The Clans
A buncha info about the Clan(s) Hide came from. Big WIP moment on this page
During spring until the end of summer, around half the Clan leave as part of the Caravan, acting as merchants. Of Hideâs immediate family, Amber, Brook, Lichen, Lizard and her girlfriend Kid, and Song leave on these journeys every year (more info on who those people are here). Thereâs three other Clans nearby (the furthest one being around a dayâs journey away) that Hideâs Clan interact with sometimes, and people from those Clans also join in on these journeys. Hideâs Clan is called Bright Peaks, located at the peak of a lesser mountain along the mountain range; the other three Clans are called Radiant Slopes (sitting in a large crevice along the side of one of the mountains; their land is partially out in the open but also delves into the mountain through caves and tunnels. Theyâre named after the slopes that span above them that catch the light and shine during winter), Whispering Dens (they live in a cave system further downwards along the mountain; named after the sound of wind that blows through the caves) and Tall Pines (they live along the base of the mountains). When referring to a Tabaxiâs full name, if you want to be more specific, itâs common to add the name of the Clan onto the end; for Bright Peaks that would be âon Bright Peaksâ (as in, Hide of Beast on Bright Peaks), Radiant Slopes is âunder Radiant Slopesâ (Rushing Arrow, Fleeing Deer under Radiant Slopes), Whispering Dens is âwithin Whispering Densâ (Brook Flowing Softly within Whispering Dens) and Tall Pines is âguarded by Tall Pinesâ (Black Ants Marching guarded by Tall Pines). Tabaxi who switch Clans can change their âlast nameâ if they want to, but itâs not expected; Hideâs mother, Brook, originally from Whispering Dens, didnât. Bright Peaks Tabaxi who donât leave with the Caravan stay behind to keep things running. People will separate themselves into various jobs â people who guard the Clansâ territory, people who work on upkeep and building stuff, people who make clothes and mend existing ones, hunters, gatherers, people who run around and help with everything, etc. It's not a strict I-do-this-and-only-this situation, but certain people will sometimes favour certain jobs. Bright Peaks has no single leader, and instead follows the guidance of a small group of elders, the oldest people in each of the families, but everyone has a say in what decisions are made. There arenât usually many decisions made. Itâs a very peaceful area just due to not being very hospitable to people who arenât 50% fur, and Bright Peaks are on good terms with the other Clans. Occasionally a traveler will happen upon the Clan, and theyâre usually offered a place to sleep and food to eat, although outsiders arenât welcome to stay for longer than a few days, and oftentimes will be guided off the mountain by a small group of Tabaxi from whatever Clan they stumbled upon.
All four Clans will meet together around once per month, taking turns which Clanâs territory they meet up at. They have a little party, spread news, etc. Itâs not uncommon for people to get into relationships with Tabaxi from another Clan who theyâve met through these gatherings, and thereâs a lot of intermingling, with people from one Clan leaving to join another, etc.
The Clans in general are pretty insular and wary of outsiders. Tabaxi who choose to leave permanently are seen as abandoning their Clan. The survival of the Clans is an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation. Right now the Clans function in harmony with each other, but itâs understood that things could go south bad if any one part wasnât doing its job. For that reason, someone making as selfish of a decision as just leaving for the good of themself with no regard for the good of the Clans is seen very negatively. Of course things arenât necessarily as black and white as that for everyone, but itâs not an action thatâs regarded positively.
Each Clan specializes in specific goods; Whispering Dens makes weapons, Bright Peaks specializes in clothing, Radiant Slopes specializes in Alchemy and Tall Pines specializes in farming; specifically, raising animals for consumption / materials as well as horses for traveling and leading the Caravan. Goods that are made through these specializations are sold through the Caravan. That said, not everybody sells those specific goods; thereâs a couple resident artists that sell goods as well, for example (i.e. Lizard, Hideâs sister, is in a band; Tall Pines has an artist named âBlack Ants Marchingâ who sells paintings, ones made both while at home and while on the road and theyâre quite popular along their route). Between each other, the Clans will often trade goods. All Clans use weapons from Whispering Dens for hunting, clothing from Bright Peaks, healing supplies from Radiant Slopes, and, probably most importantly, materials and food from Tall Peaks.
Each Clan has two or three healers each, excluding Radiant Slopes which has a larger team, and I wouldnât say Tall Pines is a group of vets but they do have a much higher amount of animal health knowledge than the rest of the Clans. These healers mainly work through alchemy; Whispering Dens, Bright Peaks and Tall Pines will send young Tabaxi to study in Radiant Slopes as apprentices under the workers there. The people of the Clans are what Iâd describe as casually religious under the Cat Lord; not religious enough to dedicate their time to raising clerics or anything like that, and they donât really have strictly organized religion â the beliefs of the Cat Lord are mostly seen as guidelines for their way of life.
Tall Pines is a little different from the others: of all the Clans this one is probably the most important. Bright Peaks gets a lot of mileage off of the wool that comes from the sheep and yak, and while every Clan trades amongst themselves, the relationship between Bright Peaks and Tall Pines is very hand-in-hand since Tall Peaks is essentially giving Bright Peaks the materials to make clothing for everyone as well as other items like ropes, saddles and other horse-riding tools. Tall Pines takes up the most space of all the Clans while also having the smallest population relative to the others. Itâs the only Clan that isnât actually placed fully on the Mountain, instead resting at the base. At this base, surrounded by the other mountains which keep it unseen, is a large, flat piece of land which is filled with farmland. The layout of the houses proper is somewhat uneven since the most ideal land (the clearing) is kept mostly untouched to make room for animal rearing and crop growing.
A good amount of the money from the Clansâ travels is spent towards maintaining their equipment; maybe half of the money made just goes towards keeping themselves and their horses fed, having repairs done, paying for bodyguards in especially treacherous areas (although their weapons and murder potions are usually enough), etc. The Clans donât actually have immediate uses for any money that is left over and brought back; each Clan has a sort of treasury thatâs hidden away, usually underground, and the money is maintained for emergency use (like if all their healers fell off a cliff and they needed outside help while they train new ones, for example). Those who require goods that canât be gathered from the mountains themselves (such as the Tall Pines artistâs paints and art supplies) will try to pre-emptively spend money to get their goods while on the road, or (if theyâve run out of goods and are not traveling) will travel to the nearest settlement to get what they need there, after getting permission from their Clan leader(s) to do so. The main purpose of the caravan is more meant as a way to gain new experiences and to learn things about the outside world (following the Cat Lordâs teachings), which are then spread among the Clans when the Caravan returns. Funnily, the fact that the Clans donât end up spending a lot of money means that in the end they are all technically reasonably wealthy after years of these travels â not absurdly so, but they have enough money that they could all live quite comfortably for some time in one of the major cities were they all to leave the mountains. This fact is never brought up while on journeys to avoid getting unwanted attention on themselves (plus this fact is so outside of the Clanâs immediate attention that it often just doesnât really occur to them, and most of the younger Clan Tabaxi arenât even fully aware how much money they actually have), and their lack of notability and the obscurity of their Clanâs location plus the inhospitality of the surrounding area to non-Manul Tabaxi means that there hasnât been much trouble when it comes to this.
The obscurity of the Clans is something that is upheld, so most Tabaxi who are on their journeys (and those who have left the Clans entirely) are expected to not really talk about the Clans and where theyâre situated much. The caravans follow a few set routes through areas that are relatively nearby, and Hide has over time drifted so far away from this route and the mountains themselves that they probably wouldnât need to worry about people charging over there but they still avoid going into detail just out of habit. It helps that most people arenât super interested where this random fluffball came from, anyway.
Hide wasnât the first person to leave permanently and wonât be the last. There are also individuals who leave on non-Caravan-related personal journeys every now and then, sometimes for years, but will still come back.
This info is really not necessary but Steph has problems and feels like they need to try and explain everything.
The Clans originated from the land beyond the Mountains. At the time they left conflict had begun between groups of humans. This conflict led to wars. Some Tabaxi Clans joined this conflict, some chose to remain but try and stay uninvolved, and the Clans that went on to form Hideâs Clans chose to try and leave through the mountains, which were thought to be certain death the deeper one went. The journey was excessively difficult. After running low on supplies and experiencing the deaths of a good chunk of animals that were brought with them it was decided they would need to find somewhere, soon, or perish. Luckily, the Clans happened to come across a series of four mountains that proved to be hospitable. The proximity of the mountains helped protect the Clans from the worst of the weather that the Mountains could supply, and the large clearing on the ground amidst the mountains was the perfect place for animals to thrive. It wasnât until some months after they began setting up base that they realized how close they were to Othye and that they had made it nearly through the Mountains. But they liked the place they found and chose to stay there. And the rest is historyâŚâŚâŚ
Btw idk where to fit this in but the Clans live in ger-like homes. Not all of the Clan buildings are exactly expected to be portable, but theyâre built to be able to be moved so that if they have to leave the Mountains they can try to take everything. Families joining the Caravan sometimes take their houses with them. Convenient! The construction of the ger is something ancient Tabaxi of the area adopted from earlier human groups; prior to that they lived out of dens in the mountains, but the movement afforded by gers was found to be ideal, even if Tabaxi of the area didnât need to move around as much as furless humanoids did to deal with the weather conditions.
As stated before: theyâre obligate carnivores! This doesnât mean that all they eat is meat, but it does mean that the vast majority of what they eat is meat. The Clan Tabaxi eat a lot of yak, goat and sheep, along with mice and other rodents, rabbits, birds of the area including smaller birds and larger ones (think eagles), fish, and, occasionally, horse meat (although the majority of the horses are kept alive to propel the Caravan, for manual labour, and to sire more horses).
Out of all of those, yaks, goats, sheep, rabbits and fish are the largest contributors to their diet. Tall Pines supplies the majority of the yak, goat and sheep that is eaten* and the animals raised there, aside from the majority of horses, are done for the purpose of consumption. Smaller rodents and birds are considered more of a snack or a side dish than a proper meal, and a large bird like an eagle is difficult enough to hunt that they are a relatively uncommon sight as food.
*The amount varies, but while each Clan outside of Tall Pines does hunt for food, they all get a lot of meat from Tall Pines. Clans that are further from Tall Pines probably end up eating more hunted food out of convenience, though. As for how they get the food, the Clans have a set schedule in terms of which Clan can go down with a big cart to get food from Tall Pines on specific days so that theyâre not running into each other and getting backed up. So like the Whispering Dens (which is closest) would do a food run Monday/Tuesday, Bright Peaks (second closest) would take up Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday and Radiant Slopes gets Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Iâm going to say between getting down there and getting the trades sorted out it maybe takes the Radiant Slopes team up until the end of the day to get everything sorted out, they stay the night down there and then are back to the top of the mountain by late the next day, so everyone has a lot of time. Or maybe they go on a biweekly basis? Idk
Raw and straight from the animal is considered the ideal method of eating meat. That said, itâs basically impossible to just eat raw meat all the time as a Clan-wide solution to hunger considering the amount of individuals needing to be fed, travel time to supply individuals with food, etc., so for the most part after slaughter the meat taken from yaks, goats and sheep is preserved and then eventually cooked before being eaten. âSnackâ animals are typically eaten raw since usually the person eating the animal is the person who caught it, but they are also commonly dried and used as rations (as mentioned prior) or the meat is cooked alongside other meat as part of a larger meal.
Another commonly consumed thing among the Clan Tabaxi is milk and all that can come of that. Cheese is very popular. They love that stuff. Yoghurt also makes an appearance. I would imagine the majority of Tabaxi actually donât do well with dairy (since most cats are lactose intolerant⌠just like me fr) but for the Clans and other communities from that area dairy is so commonly consumed that lactose intolerance is not nearly as large of a problem.
During the warmer months every year Tall Pines maintains a large plot of wheat which is then harvested and used to make flour. This flour is used to make dough which is then used for creating wrappers for dumplings, noodles for soup, etc. A lot of the recipes that utilize wheat were carried over from before the Clans came to the Mountains, but a more modern example would be bread, which has become very popular as an accompaniment for meat and cheese. Hide doesnât call it candy anymore since that nickname has caused a LOT of confusion in the past.
As for milk, the commonly drunk milk is yakâs milk (otherwise goat or sheep), which is often consumed alongside meals, usually as a milk tea. Tall Pines also uses mareâs milk to create a drink called airag, which is created by fermenting the milk. The resulting drink has a very low alcoholic content but is considered a delicacy. Of all the food and drink from Hideâs home, Hide is the most bitterly nostalgic about airag. It is incredibly difficult to find this far out from the Mountains! Kefir, which is a drink made with fermented yak-milk yoghurt, is another common alcoholic beverage, but Hide prefers the taste of airag. That said, if they came across a bottle of kefir way out here they would not be picky.
Every year when the Caravan returns home the Clans will hold a massive celebration; at this Celebration a horse, which was bred for this purpose, is brought up from Tall Pines, still alive, to the party. Itâs then slaughtered, broken down, and is served raw â this is considered a massive delicacy and is a highlight of the party. Each horse is born 3 years in advance to give it time to grow up big and strong. The horse is treated with the utmost respect, fed well, is groomed with regularity and is kept pristine and healthy right up until its death. You could make a Fatal Frame storyline out of the plight of these poor horses. Sometimes a horse dies before its chosen slaughter date and if that happens the Caravan tries to bring a (stinky, less tasty) horse back from outside of the Clans for that Celebration. Otherwise: no horse that year. Bummer!
If youâd like to comb through specific recipes, this website on traditional Mongolian dishes is very useful / interesting and the majority of whatâs listed here could be used as examples of Clan recipes. It covers contemporary recipes but whatever, if Dilbert can have a bodega Hide can eat a food thatâs maybe a little anachronistic. As a treat. Just cut out any vegetable ingredients. These cats HATE a vegetable!!! You can replace any given meat listed in a recipe with any of the meats I listed above in the first paragraph. Also no rice for the Tabaxi â I donât think theyâd consider growing it worth the effort. Also also, for the record, I made up the stuff about raw horses being eaten. Thatâs just a Tabaxi thing. Mongolian people donât eat horses raw. But if they did I would support them
On the topic of what the horses and stuff eat, apparently real life Mongolian horses just eat grass, barely get any water to drink, and in winter are just expected to paw through the snow to find food. Maybe this is how things worked in the Old Country but I think the Clans would adopt the practice of feeding the farm animals hay. For that they probably grow alfalfa during the warmer months that can then be cut and dried out to make hay for the farm animals in addition to the wheat. All the farm animalsâ great-great-great-etc.-grandparents were brought from the Clansâ country of origin (a large chunk of whom died on the journey), and the horses at least would be the fantasy equivalent of these guys. For the record, Hide has been mainly using Western horse breeds these days when they have needed to purchase them and vastly prefers the Clan horses.
The Traditional Clothing⢠of the Clan Tabaxi (which originates from the area beyond the Mountains) is an article of clothing called a deel! Basically anything that Clan Tabaxi wear comes from the basic blueprint of a deel. As generations of Clan Tabaxi have spent time in the Mountains with only the comparatively Western world of the lands beyond the Mountains to interact with there has been some influence from more Western styles of clothing; this can be seen in certain styling choices. Some Tabaxi wear something that resembles a combination between a deel and a tunic; Western fabric patterns have also been adopted.
Pants are often worn beneath the deel, and usually the bottoms of the pants are fastened to the lower leg via leg wrappings (which are made with either cloth or leather) to prevent the pants from being filled with snow or mud. Generally, Tabaxi donât wear shoes as their paw pads and fur protect their feet from the ground, although itâs not unheard of to wear foot wraps over dangerous terrain. In Hideâs case, they wear boots with their armour to avoid losing any toes, but otherwise try to avoid footwear.
Clan Tabaxi clothes are primarily made of wool via the yaks and sheep from Tall Pines along with cotton, which is gathered by Bright Peaks Tabaxi. Every year, the hair from the horse that is eaten at the Celebration is used to create cloth that is part of an ornate traditional deel, which isnât really made for use as an article of clothing and is moreso meant as a work of art and to symbolically represent the progress in skill the best tailors of Bright Peaks possess. These outfits are a group effort with different Tabaxi working on different pieces and are kept on display in the building that serves as a meeting hall for the Clan; the ten most recent pieces are displayed around the room, and then the rest are carefully folded, wrapped, and held in storage. Hide has worked on a few of these in a limited role and enjoyed this activity.
Beads threaded onto fur is a common accessory. This is done through the usage of a beading tool. Itâs a common bonding activity to help a friend or romantic partner thread beads into their mane. Generally the thickness of the fur is used to keep beads in place, but some Tabaxi will tie the ends of their fur to keep the beads in long-term.
Itâs also pretty common to tie oneâs fur into poofs. Here are some examples of Clan Tabaxi fur poof Looks:
Another example of an accessory are claw caps; they give the appearance of unsheathed claws and were historically meant to represent the ferocity needed as a Tabaxi to live in the wild. These are sometimes coloured red to represent the blood of the hunt, sometimes including beaded âblood dropsâ, but come in a variety of colours and complexity. The claw caps are fastened to the finger via tree sap, although in current times Hide uses whatever glue-like substance they can get their hands on.
Tabaxi also will paint their paw pads! This âpaintâ is actually more of a paste; Steph doesnât know the exact ingredients but itâs applied to the pads with a brush and once dry is somewhat thick, fairly waterproof and wonât rub off on floors. The texture is similar to leather paint.
Hide has, for the most part, left the clothing of the Clans behind. They do still wear Clan fashion at times, especially accessories like beads and claw caps, but they have begun to lean heavily into Western styles, especially Dwarven fashion. This is both due to the fact that the stature of both races are similar which make Dwarven outfits easier to modify to suit them, but also because Hide just really likes the intricacy of detail, textures, layering, and use of beading that Dwarven dresses utilize.
That said, a big factor for Hide leaning away from Clan wear is just the fact that Hide feels othered in this society, both emotionally and physically â Tabaxi are already considered relatively uncommon, but Manul Tabaxi, which are mostly found outside the country, are especially rare. Tuigan isnât common, either, and Hide speaks with an accent*; an accent that has grown more subtle with time, but still an accent that is not commonly found here. Hide has found they gain better results from people when they wear clothing that is more recognizable. Bummer!
Another factor is just that Tabaxi clothes are already difficult to come by and in this area Tabaxi deel are VERY rare, so if Hide wants to wear any theyâd have to make the clothing themself. They just donât have as much time to create entire articles of clothing anymore, fabric costs a lot, and as the years go by they get more and more nervous about wearing down the clothing they do have.
* YEAH THATS RIGHT Hide has an accent. I canât fake accents at all so I just havenât bothered; it really shouldnât come up all that much anyway, but it has lead to some weird reactions by jerks in their past. Hideâs accent probably sounds something along the lines of the girl in this video, although they have issues with not rolling their Râs and the accent probably comes out more when theyâre angry. I also came across this video which has a much stronger accent; note the rolled Râs. Hide straight from the mountains probably sounded more like this (assuming this video is accurate).
How the Clans Function đž
(kinda situated like dis. And then thereâs more big mountains in front that hides them away from distant onlookers)
(ROUGHLY something like this. The village proper is kind of staggered up the mountain.)
Extremely Simplified Clans Origin Moment đž
What do these suckers eat? đž
Clothes đž
Pictured: deel/tunic hybrid with pants and leg wraps.
(This is an old drawing, maybe nowadays Iâd have the bottom hem on the deel-tunic be further down. Oh well!)
From left to right; Shadow, Song, Brook
Hide with the ole claw caps! Beaded âblood dropsâ are featured. They own several different sets of caps.
Da beans.
But what does Hide wear?? đž