Clan Varen Ebon (Vor-in Eh-bohn)

Thal an Ecruya, Home of the Ice Apple

Clan Varen Ebon of Thal an Ecruya

Clan Varen Ebon is located in the Northern Country of Thal an Ecruya, the land of 20 islands. 
Known for their colorful clothing and deep seafaring culture they are most welcoming to outsiders. They are expected, as part of their culture, to open their homes, boats, and land to any visitor that asks. 
However, they are deeply secretive of their culture and religion and do not reveal much of themselves to outsiders. Especially the knowledge that they have access to magic as well. 
Nestled deep on one of their islands is the temple of the Goddess Sultyana. The temple is star shaped with an opening in the middle of the star. 
In that vast courtyard is the only orchard of the Ice Apple, a cousin to the Golden Apples of Ludo, and Death Apples of Aulgulien.  

The Legend of the Ice Apple

Two thousand years ago, before King Ahmenebar of Ludo found the first Golden Apple, Sulyana of Thal an Ecruya, found the first ice apple. As she hunted with her family in the open waters across the islands, she spotted a glittering, white object floating in the water. 
Upon touching it, her hand turned white and the color spread to her hair, skin, and eyes. Like Ahmenebar, she lived for hundreds of years. Though, unlike Ahmenebar she retreated into her home and created a religion around the apple and its magic. 
No outsiders know of the ice apple. As the clan feared revealing its location and existence to Ahmenebar, he would come to conquer them as he did in Ludo, Ecror, Nehesebet, and Costa. They planted Sulyana's single apple in the center of the courtyard, in fear he would feel the magic and come in search of it anyway. 
Instead, the apple grew a single tree that continues to bear ice apples on the centennial anniversary of its planting. Currently, there are ten Ice Apples left on the tree, until the next flourishing. 

Characteristics 

• Location: Thal an Ecruya
• Religion: There is no official name, though they all mostly worship Sulyana and the ice apple 
• Culture: They must help others that are in need, but they must not share the truth of the apple with outsiders for fear they will be overrun by apple and magic hunters. Luckily, their remote location has kept them and their secret safe.
• Current Chief: Sul - Bon - Dur - Lam

Sulyana and The Ice Apple

Much of Sulyana's life is no longer known. When she came upon the apple, she told her family she felt the cold enter and spread through her, often saying that she never felt warmth again, only faintly. 
Unlike Ahmenebar, she feared the magic and what it could do. She did not want the magic to corrupt or hurt her people, so she focused all of her energy into using the magic's properties of healing for good. 
Much of her religion was in protecting the earth and all the creatures that inhabit it, using the magic to nourish the world around her. 
She also feared what would happen if others discovered the apple, and ordered it to never be revealed, and considering the secret has been kept for thousands of years, it is suspected that she used the apple's own magic to protect it. 
She never meets Ahmenebar, and he never learns of her existence until his death.

Type

Geopolitical, Clan

Clan Varen Ebon and The Ice Apple

While, like King Ahmenebar, Sulyana has gone into myth, much of who she really was has blended with her legend.  Like her Ludovian counterpart, her apple was planted and sprouted a tree and further apples. However, her apples are used by the clan daily in their medicine, hunting, growing, and religious processions. Ingraining itself into the clan's deeply secret culture.
Not only are ice apples still in existence, unlike its cousins the golden and death apple, this apples thrive with the care they are given by the clan.