Last updated 2023/10/08
Clan structure
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Rules
My clan does not have laws - that is, there's no formal punitive system. But we do have social rules, passed down orally. The primary rules are the rules of bonds, the rules of taking, and the rules of sharing.
The rules of bonds are the most basic and easy to understand: You are not born with bonds, your bonds are created, and the bonds you’ve created should inform your actions. So, you aren’t tied to any people from birth, not even your parents. Parenting is done communally anyways, so, while you usually know who conceived you, it’s just as likely that another couple will become your main parental figures. Most adults choose to care for you and offer to bond with you, and, as you grow up, you reject some bonds and accept others.
Most bonds are not "official," but you can choose to officiate any bonds you want with any people you want, the same way humans officiate bonds with their mates through marriage. If you choose to officiate a bond, you and the other person(s) go through a ceremony, and are now considered "life partners" of sorts. It is possible to break an official bond after it’s been made, and divorce the other person, but it's extremely rare - at least, I’ve never seen it happen.
When you’ve chosen to accept the bond (officially or not) between you and another person, your actions should always have the other person’s interests, as much as your own, in mind. You can’t do anything that would make the other person in any way disadvantaged to yourself. Bonding is serious business and bonds require perfect loyalty.
There are also more abstract bonds between the individual and the clan as an entity, but they basically require the same things: If you choose to accept your bond with the clan, you should always have the clan’s overall interest at heart. If you don’t accept this bond, the clan has no responsibility to protect you or feed you or care for you.
The rules of taking are based a bit on practicality and a lot on spiritiuality. 'Taking' is badly translated from gnoll language - there isn’t a word in the English language that accurate summarizes the gnollish concept. 'Actively consuming' is maybe the closest thing.
In short, you are not allowed to take without actually using. You are not allowed to hoard or waste things - everything you keep, you should have a plan or an idea of how you want to use it. For every animal or person we kill, every body part must be used in some way, as food, tool, fuel, or decoration, and we’re only allowed to kill if we know nothing will be wasted.
We are only allowed to live on a given land as long as we respect that rule. If we become too greedy and wasteful, the land will go against us and force us to move - usually the signs of the land "not liking" our presence is a lack of prey and edible plants. Since we're semi-nomadic it's just an accepted part of life that eventually we will have to move away from any land we've settle. You're never gonna find a gnoll city, only temporary settlements.
The "only take what you need, actually use everything you take, and the area provides for you" mentality also extends to other people who might enter our area. Meaning if travelers are passing through, we will understand that as an example of the land providing for us, and if they have stuff we can use, we will take it from them, including their lives. This doesn't apply to other gnoll clans, though - there is peace among the clans.
The rules of sharing basically say that, if anyone within the clan asks for something, you have to share it with them. You can't say no. The onus is on the asker to only request something if it's appropriate for the other person to give it up. So instead of the individual being responsible for keeping their belongings for themself, the clan's responsibility is to respect the individual's property. This rule may be hard for humans to understand without an example:
While courting Ïʀya I gave hrir a lot of gifts, including jewelry. You might think that nonconsumable/lasting gifts like jewelry are kinda meaningless in a society where everyone owns everything, but that is not the case. It's true that, if anyone asked to wear the necklace I gave Ïʀya, hri would let them use it. But because of the responsibility to respect other's property, no one would dare ask to use that necklace.
It's a social contract - if someone asks for things they shouldn't, they can be sure others will ask them for things they shouldn't in return. Not respecting others' boundaries leads to conflict, while respecting the boundaries creates a deep trust between all clan members. So if someone who was known to respect the social contract asked for Ïʀya's necklace, hri would know they had a good reason to ask for it and hri would give it to them without hesitation.
Gender
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Hunting
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Child rearing
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