Blue Claw Clan
The Blue Claw are a clan of the Olona that live along the eastern coast of Old Ichtaca, especially the southeast. They are the source of a majority of the crab harvest considered a luxury in the inner Empire. The Blue Claw are renowned seafarers who make frequent trade with Kuasta, the Seven Lords, and the Singing Islands.
Structure
As with all the Olona clans, the Blue Claw treat themselves as a massive extended family. Each village belonging to the Blue Claw might have their own leader, but overall decisions that effect the clan go to the Chieftain. Due to the practice of Name Gifting, the Chieftain of the Blue Claw is whatever baby happens to draw the previous one's name out of the Ynar Todali, the Bag of Souls. Until that child (who by the process is always Ro'Karax) becomes a full adult, the eldest leader among all Blue Claw villages serves as the Trgth, or Speaker who acts as Chieftain without the full weight of the authority. The Trgth may not declare war where the Chieftain may, and the Trgth can be voted out of office by consensus of the other village leaders when no such threat is ever to be leveled against the Chieftain. In times of war, each individual village leader is expected to be in command of their village's warriors unless there happens to be a Shogun at the time.
Culture
The Blue Claw Clan are rooted strongly in tradition, and place great emphasis on storytelling. The position of Storyteller, the Rakh'Kro, is exalted and akin to a village priest. Blue Claw life revolves around fishing and crabbing. They accessorize with seashells, trade in crab and salt, and maintain wide logging forests to built new ships. Crab motifs are common, as are armor and weapons made out of seabeast shells and hides. All Olona clans believe in ko'na, Divine Luck, but the Blue Claw hold superstition that a successful harvest or trade restores spent luck. Similarly, doing something foolish that could compromise a harvest or trade is believed to drain luck even faster.
Like all Olona, the Blue Claw practice games that train them for combat from a young age. For the Blue Claw, these typically are games played in the ocean on small boats built for the purpose. These mock battles bear a strange resemblance to Braithstrom raids. Other games involve playing rugby with a live giant crab as the ball (while keeping the crab alive), wrestling under water, and boat-borne variants of capture the flag.
The Blue Claw have clashed with the Braithstrom more frequently than any other Olona clan, and as such have mixed with them more often. Blue Claw Orcs tend to have a more sea green hue to their skin that bright green as with other Olona, and the adopted Braithstrom children have added their names to the Blue Claw name pool.
Once every year, all the Blue Claw gather in Krogvixthelenti, in a massive fossilized crab shell large enough to serve as an auditorium, to celebrate Kaduth Rgtharn, Earth Breaking, when the Rakh'Kro of each village come together to tell the traditional Blue Claw telling of the legend of Ula Ular.
Assets
The clan as a whole has a fortune in ships, fish hatcheries, crab farms, wagons, and enchanted containers to keep shipped fish cold. The Blue Claw even maintain exclusive logging rights in their surrounding forests. Perhaps four thousand warriors can be raised at any time, and all Olona are almost always armed anyway. Aside from standard crabs, the Blue Claw also have several hundred Boulder Crabs around their holdings.
Type
Geopolitical, Clan
Leader
Parent Organization
Location
Related Species
Related Ethnicities
Related Myths
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