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A History of Blood and Gold
Clan Roas has been at the top for most of recorded history.
Two thousand years ago, their strategic holdings and heralded military might proved adequate leverage to gain them a seat in the first meeting of the clan high lords, a political leverage they would not shy away from using. Within the next hundred years a combination of backstabbing (both literal and figurative), blackmail, and tenuous negotiation, would see Clan Roas’s power increase tenfold. Though their manpower, general production, and trade left much to be desired, by the end of the century the small Kiffar clan seemed to have their hands around the necks of half the important figures on Kiffu.
Then there was the discovery of rich gold and electrum deposits along the Sagay peninsula.
The once politically powerful, but materially weak clan would suddenly find itself quite literally standing on a gold mine, and they would waste little time capitalizing on this new resource. soon Clan Roas would become the single most powerful Clan on all of Kiffu, bar none. They held the reigns to political power as well as the wealth of kings. They wanted for nothing.
But with lavish keeping comes decadence, and with decadence comes decay. In only a couple generations the Roas clan would lose much of its previously infamous web of informants, spies, and proverbial daggers to the other clans throats, increasingly relying on their wealth to stem such losses. At first, this would seem to work. Gold can buy a lot of things, including protection and while the mines chugged on the clan kept ahold of its power with an iron grasp.
However, fifty years ago, the mines finally ran dry and the once iron hand was revealed to be little more than an empty gauntlet.
The Present State
The clan of the star. A fading star now, it’s legacy tromped on by other, newer, rising clans, clan Roas has in recent years been on the downward slide to insignificance. In its prime it held the claim to the greater islands of the rising sea and half the men on all of Kiffu, now only a couple hundred or so families cling to it's rotting carcass.
Already clan Shefe and the southern tribes of clan Esh divvy up Roas’s holdings like vultures picking out the choicest cuts, as they circle far above. In just the last five years, clan Erros has brought up their removal from the greater meetings of the clan high lords four times, and once even managed to push the matter to a vote. Increasingly often, Inlanders of clan Vanet raid the generators and fishing towns about the eastern fringes of Roas territory, raping and pillaging with seemingly little in the way of repercussions.
Whispers of unease stir in the underbellies of Port Meda, the heart of Clan Roas. Taverns and pubs brim with dissent against the current Clan lord Kelles Roas and his wife Quice Roas. Even those that had initially supported the powerful marriage between the daughter of the heiled Matriarch Partha Roas, and the honored general of the silver morning, have since begun to wonder if their faith was we'll placed.
But all is not quite doom and gloom. Ezan Roas, the second born of Kelles and Quice Roas, and their first born son, has proved himself a natural leader even with his comparatively few years. He is strong, charming, capable, and well liked by the people. Indeed, with his sister, the Clan Lord’s firstborn, handily being inducted into a distant order of monks, even the birthright of leadership of the Clan falls on Ezan’s shoulders. Perhaps he will be the hero the Clan needs to restore its once grand fortune.
Symbols and Qukuuf
The Star
The 16 points of Clan Roas’s star symbolize the first sixteen families to join together to form the greater clan. According to legend, those sixteen families would also be the purest bloodlines descended from the first Kiffar on Kiffu (though of course this particular legend is likely mirrored in half the clans on Kiffu).
The Qukuuf
The Roas clan’s Qukuuf is, in almost all circumstances, a golden bar across the face. The exact orientation and length of this mark is usually left up to the parents of the offspring, but four distinct styles are common.
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Clan Roas
Before the confederacy reached it’s grasping fingers into Kiffu; before the Vos clan rose to prominence; and before the Sith imperium forced the Kiffar into a hundred years of slavery; there was Roas, the clan of the star.
Before the confederacy reached it’s grasping fingers into Kiffu; before the Vos clan rose to prominence; and before the Sith imperium forced the Kiffar into a hundred years of slavery; there was Roas, the clan of the star.
A History of Blood and Gold
Clan Roas has been at the top for most of recorded history.
Two thousand years ago, their strategic holdings and heralded military might proved adequate leverage to gain them a seat in the first meeting of the clan high lords, a political leverage they would not shy away from using. Within the next hundred years a combination of backstabbing (both literal and figurative), blackmail, and tenuous negotiation, would see Clan Roas’s power increase tenfold. Though their manpower, general production, and trade left much to be desired, by the end of the century the small Kiffar clan seemed to have their hands around the necks of half the important figures on Kiffu.
Then there was the discovery of rich gold and electrum deposits along the Sagay peninsula.
The once politically powerful, but materially weak clan would suddenly find itself quite literally standing on a gold mine, and they would waste little time capitalizing on this new resource. soon Clan Roas would become the single most powerful Clan on all of Kiffu, bar none. They held the reigns to political power as well as the wealth of kings. They wanted for nothing.
But with lavish keeping comes decadence, and with decadence comes decay. In only a couple generations the Roas clan would lose much of its previously infamous web of informants, spies, and proverbial daggers to the other clans throats, increasingly relying on their wealth to stem such losses. At first, this would seem to work. Gold can buy a lot of things, including protection and while the mines chugged on the clan kept ahold of its power with an iron grasp.
However, fifty years ago, the mines finally ran dry and the once iron hand was revealed to be little more than an empty gauntlet.
The Present State
The clan of the star. A fading star now, it’s legacy tromped on by other, newer, rising clans, clan Roas has in recent years been on the downward slide to insignificance. In its prime it held the claim to the greater islands of the rising sea and half the men on all of Kiffu, now only a couple hundred or so families cling to it's rotting carcass.
Already clan Shefe and the southern tribes of clan Esh divvy up Roas’s holdings like vultures picking out the choicest cuts, as they circle far above. In just the last five years, clan Erros has brought up their removal from the greater meetings of the clan high lords four times, and once even managed to push the matter to a vote. Increasingly often, Inlanders of clan Vanet raid the generators and fishing towns about the eastern fringes of Roas territory, raping and pillaging with seemingly little in the way of repercussions.
Whispers of unease stir in the underbellies of Port Meda, the heart of Clan Roas. Taverns and pubs brim with dissent against the current Clan lord Kelles Roas and his wife Quice Roas. Even those that had initially supported the powerful marriage between the daughter of the heiled Matriarch Partha Roas, and the honored general of the silver morning, have since begun to wonder if their faith was we'll placed.
But all is not quite doom and gloom. Ezan Roas, the second born of Kelles and Quice Roas, and their first born son, has proved himself a natural leader even with his comparatively few years. He is strong, charming, capable, and well liked by the people. Indeed, with his sister, the Clan Lord’s firstborn, handily being inducted into a distant order of monks, even the birthright of leadership of the Clan falls on Ezan’s shoulders. Perhaps he will be the hero the Clan needs to restore its once grand fortune.
Symbols and Qukuuf
The Star
The 16 points of Clan Roas’s star symbolize the first sixteen families to join together to form the greater clan. According to legend, those sixteen families would also be the purest bloodlines descended from the first Kiffar on Kiffu (though of course this particular legend is likely mirrored in half the clans on Kiffu).
The Qukuuf
The Roas clan’s Qukuuf is, in almost all circumstances, a golden bar across the face. The exact orientation and length of this mark is usually left up to the parents of the offspring, but four distinct styles are common.
- The first mark, known as the heroe’s Qukuuf due to its tendency to be given to the greatest figures in Roas history (though this increasingly becomes more of a self fulfilling prophecy), is a short bar falling across, but perpendicular to, the nose.
- The second mark is a long horizontal bar that falls across the center of the face. This is the Qukuuf of the current Clan lord Kelles Roas.
- The third mark, and most popular mark in all the Roas clan, is a long line that, like the hero’s mark, crosses across the nose perpendicular to the nostrils. However, unlike the Hero's mark, this mark continues across the cheeks and ends underneath the Kiffar’s ears.
- The final mark is a slash of gold that runs from the bottom of one jaw to the top of the forehead of the opposing side. In recent years this last mark has begun to lose favor, being seen as “ugly” and “unflattering" by the more powerful families.
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