Introduction to the Clans of Anieth

By definition, a Clan is a group of families, usually related. In Anieth, the word "clan" is used to designate a group of shape shifters who all take on the same shape. In Anieth, the child inherits the shape of the mother and the magical mind of the father, thus a Rowan woman gives birth to a Rowan child, no matter who the father. In their experience, like must join like to produce a sane and healthy child. There are animal shapers and tree shapers in Anieth and the two do not mix. However, there is a patronage, where most animal clans are allied with tree clans. This is explored in later articles.

The Clans number less than twenty for the dryads or tree-shapers and less than twenty for the animal shapers. Some of the clans are extinct. Others are split into two camps of different races, and many are split into extended family camps based on political alliances. The major clans number five and they have many client clans.

This picture shows a breakdown of the alliances we found between the Clans. There are five major groupings along mostly geographical boundaries. Pine in the mountains, in the Slevrana Lia and the heights above the great lakes; Holly in the far north; across the River Bras and very central, controlling An Doras were the Oak; Ash to the south, and the Willow in the mouths of the rivers along the coast.

However, we discovered that there was little reason behind the patron Tree Clan and the Client Clans, except some geographical alliances.The larger Animal Clans followed the stellar pattern I discussed in the previous article, but the minor Clans were a mix back and forth between patrons and geographical neighbors. Some Clans, like the Thorn and Rowan were very nomadic and had split alliances or mixed alliances depending on where they were at what part of the year.

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Nick Stanford did several maps of Anieth during his surveying as King Raol. Of course much of his knowledge was based on hearsay and work done by others such as the Ibarrians who had explored the Coast. During the time of expansion of the Nations, before they were pushed out of Anieth, much was learned about the woodlands. This is one of Nick's first maps of the area with rough boundaries of the major Tree Clans. He is also using a phonetic alphabet, so the names of the Trees will change somewhat. I am showing you these two maps so that you can become acquainted with the general Clan areas.

This second map of Nick's shows more detail about the areas occupied by the Tree Clans and also shows the hill forts and major towns of the Nations. It may become more obvious to you why the Nations were tied to certain Clans. The Holly are close to Dumona and the Veldonacci, the Pine near the Fire Nation, the Birch near the Deer Nation, the Ash near the Sun Nation and the Yew near Massona and the Summer/Hawk Nation. The ruling families of the Nations, because of interbreeding with the Clans, often showed similarities to their patron Clans.

In this map, I have tried to show better the distribution and mix of the Tree Clans. You can see the geographic preference for some of the Clans for higher ground where their trees grow naturally. It makes sense for the Clans to inhabit areas along climate lines, for at the end of their lives, the Tree Shapers took on the shape of their Tree and formed ancestral groves. This map differs somewhat as we learned that the Yew, who once were patrons of the Saffron Nation, or Eagle Nation at Massona, were replaced by the Thorn when the Yew became too hostile toward the humans. You can see how the Thorn Clan, who included the Hawthorn, the Blackthorn, the Apple, and the Rowan, were dotted her and there admidst the other Clans, where the Aspen territory is very small and those people were almost extinct.

The most Clans allied under the Pine. Although there seems to be many Clans, they were small mountain communities under a very loose alliance, relying on the difficulty of the terrain and their small numbers to protect them from incursions from the Oak or Ash. Many of these Clans were the friendliest to humans. The Silver Birch for generations acted as escorts for those humans traveling the Trader's Road from Dumona to the East. One of the most effective of the human patrons, was the King of the Thorn, who overlooked the doings in two of the Nations, the Saffron Nation and the Green. Yet it was the White Holly who became most involved in the Invasion and the human wars.

The Ash and the Oak had different approaches to the humans. The Ash had no laws, even common laws, and kept their young males in check within family boundaries alone. If a young Ash overstepped these bounds repeatedly, they were often cast out and forbidden intercourse with females. Most often they died, but sometimes formed killing couples with other outcasts and were extremely dangerous. On more than one occasion these outcasts went on killing sprees against the humans. The Druaccii were of the most ruthless of the ruling families, and respected little but sheer physical strength and competence in their games.

The Oak lived in strict communities, yet they were traffickers in human slaves. They also though nothing of enslaving "lesser" Trees and Animals. On rare occasions, shapers would get into the human population by way of the slaving routes. The Oak often kidnapped humans and ransomed them to human slavers. Many of the other Clans frowned on this practice, but the Oak were a numerous and brutal people and much larger than other shapers. Thus, they might disapprove, but few could stop the Oak.

The Trees

The Tree Clans numbered twenty, yet some are now extinct. There are five clans called "Greater Trees" and the rest are "Lesser Trees" and in some kind of alliance with the five. The Tree Clans differ from the Animals in that once past childhood, Trees do not change in and out of shape without extreme effort unless they are masters of illusion and not shaping as much as deceiving the unwary with shapeshifting elements, such as changing a hand or the face. As they grow older, Trees take on more of their tree's nature until the "call to root" is so strong that they cannot resist it and go to the Groves and plant themselves. Each Clan has a group of sacred groves wherein stand their ancestors. For this reason, the Clans abhor fire and are careful with it in the extreme. Part of Bob Gallanis's success in conquering Anieth was in his use of fire.

Some claim that they can hear the words of their ancestors in the Groves. This is a game among children, who will often take root as saplings in the Groves to hear better. Of the Elders of the Clans it was said that Tenga of the Holly and Nion Naoú were Listeners. The Thorn King was not so much a listener as he claimed he knew "the heart of the wood," yet we all feel that he was hand in hand with Lucia Shields, who seemed to know more about Anieth than anyone else of our groups, in or out of the Wood.

The Trees tended to look like their tree shapes. The holly tree has dark leaves and white wood. The Holly people had black hair and white skin. The Oak were heavy people, golden of skin, brown of hair. The Hawthorn had white hair and pink skin, the Blackthorn, black curly hair (often in dreads) and deep golden skin. The Elder were the darkest of skin; the Holly were the darkest of hair and the lightest of skin; most of the Clans were in the middle ranges with fair hair among the Birch and Rush and darker hair among the Alder, Thorn, and Elder. There were golden blonds among the Aspen and ash blonds among the Ash and Birch, and red hair among the Rowan and red-blond among the Apple. Most of the Clans also affected costumes, weapons and a "look" that seemed congruent with their Tree.

As you can see from this sketch showing the differences between the Clans, size was a great variable, usually connected to the size of their trees. In this collage, you can see Kileen and Nathartha and Lucia Shields, all under five feet tall, next to Raol who is over six feet tall, next to the holly who average about 6 and a half to seven feet, with the exception of Tenga, who is so old, she is well over seven feet tall. The oak you can see here average about seven to 7'4" and the Ash warriors on the far right who are a bit taller and thinner. The Ash mother is the tallest of the Trees, standing almost 8'6". You can see here some of the "look" of the Tree Clans.

They also varied enormously in level of technology, mores and customs, political structures and taboos. They were different in how they treated the humans and the Animal shapers. Some had a taboo against metal, others taboos against eating flesh or using leather products. I have tried to do a survey of the Clans, both Tree and Animal and have published my works on these pages.

The Animal Clans

The Animal Clans enjoyed something that was difficult for the Trees; they could change shape at will. However, the more time they spent in their animal shapes, the more like that animal they would become. The taboo against marriage outside of the Clan was much more strict among the Animals, for the wolf mind in a deer shape would be no good at all! Few, if any, had the discipline to change the shape of the mother. Only two Trees did it, and a handful of Animal shapers learned to shape multiple animals. For this they were shunned, feared, and often hunted down. The one capital offense among most of the Wood Clans and among the Horse People was for half-breeds. The fear of them was so great that they were put to death. It was so rare that a half-breed remained sane past the first shaping or into adolescence, that it was thought more compassionate to kill them.

The Animal Clans numbered twenty, yet there were Animal shapers with no Clans and Animals who banded into Clans but were of different shape. The Thorn, for example, were a multi-clan group of many different shapers and three Tree Clans who had been to small to be of consequence, but enjoyed the protection of the Thorn King. The Owls, clients of the Hawthorn, the Falcons, clients of the Blackthorn, the Serpents, also clients of the Blackthorn, and various other birds, owls, raptors, even some blackbirds, were part of this group. The group was nomadic and covered a vast territory, so it was more of a roving party. Still, within groups even such as the Thorn, Owls mated with Owls and so on.

Animals also tended to look like their animals, and wore their "skins" or "feather" or "bones." It was as easy to tell an Animal shaper as it was a Tree, the one exception being the multi-shapers. This multiple morphing tended to confuse the "skin" of the person who could shape different animals, however, in practice there would be one shape that was dominant in the way the multi-shaper looked and their skins.

Animal shapers also tended to act like their animals. Trickster animals such as magpies and ravens and crows, would tend to be trickster humans. Predators acted like predators and herd animals likewise. For instance, the Nine Daughters of the White Doe all followed the oldest daughter who chased after her friend even though it led them out of the Wood. This was herd behavior. It was not in the girls' natures to not go as a group.

Like the Tree Clans, the Animal Clans had taboo behaviors and were set in their ways, and feared those their animals feared. The White Doe, as example, feared my settling in Coombe Charria close to her lands, because my base animal was a wolf. Although, even as a wolf, I would have not preyed on her people, the animal was high in her and ruled much of how she felt about other Clansmen. However, this behavior was often modified by their allegiances to the Tree Clans who patronized them. Again, the White Doe, was of the Fallow Deer, who were clients of the River Birch. When the River Birch joined into the Marsh Alliance to get the humans out of their territories and ban the Clans from interacting with the Nine Nations, the White Doe was on the side of those people and was antagonistic toward any human she encountered and fought with those who consorted with them, such as the Rowan, her neighbors.

I shall now go on to talk about the politics and societies and arrangement of the Clans. For costumes and other kinds of information, there are better articles on other pages.