Born into the Golden Zephyr tribe, a tribe of Totemic native to a savannah-type section of southern Tone’pep Lo, Rahn was born under the glass ceiling of gender inequality in his tribe. His tribe are nearly entirely akin to Hyenas, and with the matriarchial nature of the animals themselves have come the nature of the Totemic tribe. Females in the tribe are born Broca, and are powerful warriors and leaders of the tribe… while the males are born Puca, and primarily serve as scavengers and crafters. The Chieftainess of the tribe is always the strongest female warrior, as determined by a yearly series of duels.

One of the most telling traits of the clan is the way in which the males speak. Males are forbidden from using the “I” or “me” pronoun, as they are meant to simply be a part of the tribe rather than true individuals. Instead, most males of the tribe refer to themselves in the third-person. Many who venture outside the tribe choose to drop this speech habit when not around females, as outside cultures often view it as a lack of intelligence, but for a male of the tribe to call himself “I” in the presence of a female is a taboo punishable by beatings, or even death if done so as an insult.


Rahn’s story is an odd one, however, by the standards of his tribe. Strong of body and mind from an early age, he became one of the few males of the tribe skilled enough to become a Hunter in his teenage years. Likewise, his claws - a rare trait among males of the tribe – proved to make him a worthy warrior as well.

Which, in a tribe dominated by an aggressive matriarchy, is not always a good thing. Any time he succeeded at something that was deemed “a woman’s job”, he was often beaten by the lead Hunter for getting too out of place, or worse, sentenced to the Pit, a punishment normally reserved only for females. The victim is sent into a cave in the tribe’s lands where a number of badgers live, and are kept in a near feral, starved state by the tribe, solely for this purpose – the victim must spend a night in the darkness, filled only with the feral balls of fur and teeth, and only are allowed to return to the tribe the next morning after dawn. Rahn spent many a night in the Pit, and has since built up an abject phobia of badgers.

The abuse culminate with an incident when he was 19, when he decided to fight back rather than have to spend one more night in the Pit just for being strong. And he won. A male defeating a female hunter in combat was not only unheard-of, it was considered an insult to the authority of the Chieftainess. Faced with execution, he quite literally beat a hasty retreat from the tribe, injuring men and women alike in the process… but once he had fled the savannah for the northern forests, the tribe chose not to pursue him.


Rahn has traveled north across most of Tone’pep Lo, hunting, scavenging, and working wherever hired muscle was needed, until coming to a port town just outside the forests. From there, he ended up working on a ship bound for the Daltanic empire, not having any idea about the place. Upon landing, he was almost immediately tricked into slave-labor by a group of traders at the port. After weeks of slave labor, the traders met with another caravan, led by a Gethanarian man named Theinen Trueweave… who promptly tricked them out of everything they owned. When the Daltanics attempted to sic Rahn on them as if he was some attack dog, he proceeded to laugh in their faces and beat them senseless.

Theinen took interest in the Rahn’s strength and sheer unwillingness to obey his former captors, and offered him a job as a guard. He has since travelled with Theinen’s caravan, even as it makes its way to the newly discovered Lucania.