✧ Maiyr Salyt ✧

"Stay wild, for the world will never be tame."

Dawntrail Updates〖 Tural 〗
Maiyr sailed to The New World in the hopes of entrenching herself in the culture and seeking out new and interesting magics. She seems to have a keen interest in consuming folklore across the multitudes of cultures in Tural in the hopes of finding something specific.Endwalker Updates〖 Garlemald 〗
Maiyr embarked to Garlemald with the Ilsabard Contingent as apart of the Ossuary group under the title of survival specialist. Her main duties consisted of hunting to feed the soldiers and working with scouting parties, using her sleep and ice spells to render any Garleans they stumbled upon inert. If your character was there, they may have met or even spoken.〖 Blasphemies Undone 〗
With Maiyr's clan being isolated, fearful of magic, and rather primitive, the events of the Final Days were too overwhelming. Maiyr lost a third of her clan, two of which were her blood sisters. Some turned into Blasphemies, some were killed by those those who were turned. Maiyr is currently looking into any remote chance that the souls of those who have been turned could be restored and returned to the aetherial sea.General Hooks〖 Just Like Me 〗
Maiyr is attempting to find other adventurers willing to form a party with to tackle more difficult leves.〖 Not In My Woods 〗
Maiyr is slowly but surely becoming known within the Adventurer's Guilds for hunting down slavers. If a job has even a hint of the cretins in it, she'll likely take it on.〖 Hunter 〗
A hunter from birth, Maiyr is still learning how the trade of civilized world works. She’s willing to track, hunt, and kill beasts for respectable purposes.〖 Adventurer 〗
Starting out her career in the adventurer's guild, Maiyr's always eager to take on a new job. Some jobs are solo, some get interrupted, and some are assigned or required partners. Care to work?〖 Woodland Guide 〗
Maiyr has lived in parts of The Black Shroud that have yet to be settled by civilized folk and thus has intricate knowledge of the most dangerous parts of the woods. She is capable of guiding individuals or parties to their goal in the unfamiliar woods.〖 Raging Magic 〗
Aether courses through Maiyr and erupts in unstable and often disastrous spells most often when emotions boil past the point of tolerable or dire situations leave her no choice. This magic takes a toll on the Keeper, but she has gained some control during her studies at the thaumaturge's guild. Now she works as an adventuring apprentice.〖 Beyond the Beyond 〗
Maiyr's work within the Ossuary has led her into the specialization of dealing with what lingers after the body is long gone. Uninterested in corpsekeeping, instead ashkin, specters, poltergeists, bhoots, and more are now under her charge as a thaumaturge. Granting the restless dead peace and calming the tide of chaos they bring to the living is her main concern.〖 Words of Eld 〗
With clan ties back to Gelmorra, Maiyr is near fluent in Gelmorran. She can offer translations or insights on the culture outside of that of the typical scholars.

I love walk-up roleplay! I try to always be in character even if I don't have the RP tag on, so go ahead and pull me IC if you'd like. If I don't reply or I'm afk feel free to give me a nudge with a whisper. I'll do my best to reply when I get back. I prefer roleplaying in /say and /emote, please ask before initiating RP in whispers.I use a lot of modded outfits and hairstyles these days, so feel free to ask for my Mare code.

The Salyts are a small to medium sized clan of Keepers of the Moon that reside in the wilds of the Black Shroud, preferably far from the workings of civilized life. These nomadic traditionalists travel with the ebb and flow of food no matter the season, as to never run out of game or to risk stripping the landscape of all of its nutritional vegetation before it has a chance to regrow. Their nomadic lifestyle also allows them to evade trappers, slavers, and woodwailers that may threaten to disturb their way of life. Descendants of Gelmorra, many generations already cycled yet with little progress, the Salyts lag behind much of the world's civilization.

General Reputation
Listed from Hated - ✖ to Friendly - ✔

〖Shroud Keeper Clans〗➳ ✖ ◈◈◇◇◇ ✔
〖Northern Shroud Settlements〗➳ ✖ ◈◈◈◇◇ ✔
〖Eastern Shroud Settlements〗➳ ✖ ◈◇◇◇◇ ✔
〖Southern Shroud Settlements〗➳ ✖ ◈◈◇◇◇ ✔
〖Ixal (Certain Septs)〗➳ ✖ ◈◈◈◇◇ ✔
〖Sylphs〗➳ ✖ ◈◈◈◈◇ ✔
〖Coerthas Settlements〗➳ ✖ ◈◈◈◇◇ ✔

As previously mentioned, the Salyt clan lives a nomadic life as gatherers and hunters with strict traditions and rules that each member must follow if they are to remain with the clan. This clan tends to live in the deepest and often most dangerous parts of The Black Shroud where Gridanians and their expanding villages refuse to step foot, and are a dominantly nocturnal group. Due to this, trust and respect are must-have requirements to both join and remain in the clan, not only for the survival of one but for the survival of all. Everyone has a role to play in the clan and those who cannot contribute are left behind.Women in the clan are most often brought up to be the hunters or shamans where as the few men that choose to stay are given a choice as taking on the role of scouts, clan guards, or the craftsmen which turn the goods hunters bring back into food, clothing from leathers and furs, and weaponry from the bones of beasts. However, men are encouraged to leave the clan to spread their bloodline, and even those that choose to stay are encouraged to roam at least once a cycle.Due to the way the Salyts live, so deep in a forest that quite literally will kill on a whim, their life expectancy is not all too long. At age seventeen, women often have their first child. Around twenty-five to thirty one is considered middle aged. By fifty a Salyt is considered elderly. By sixty to sixty five, if a Salyt is still alive but can no longer contribute due to an aging body or a failing mind, it is not uncommon for the eldests to take their own lives in a ceremonial manner to ensure that resources are not spent on them. It is considered an honorable way to go to the clan, and they are offered extra care during their burial rites.Coming of Age Ritual
At the ripe age of nine, both boy and girls are required to take part in the coming of age tradition. This tradition consists of going with the huntress group and taking your first kill shot on prey. Children begin at a young age to learn the ways of hunting and tracking, and should be fully capable of taking prey down by nine cycles. A Salyt is not considered an adult until they are capable of feeding the clan when necessary, and this is often achieved through the use of a short bow. The huntresses will continue to take children out until they have taken their first kill shot, but will not offer them any further instruction on how to complete the task.Inter-Clan Relations
The Salyt clan hesitantly welcomes other small clans to join them for short periods of time as long as joining forces is lucrative to all clans. Alliances are often seasonal or temporary due to the Salyts nature of picking up and moving around the Shroud often. They generally consist of separate campsites for each clan in close proximity to each other, to which the Salyt clan keeps one scout to watch their ally’s campsite at all times.Outside of inter-clan relationships established by matriarchs and leaders, the Salyt clan often responds to outsiders firstly with violence to incapacitate a person before investigating their reasons for being near their clan and what their intentions are. If they are deemed even the slightest of threat, they are either killed or brutally maimed and sent free to give warning to villages or other clans. Due to this, it is common for Gridanians and civilized folk that have heard of the elusive Salyt clan to label them savages and brutes.

Physically, Salyts typically have pale and ashy skin, giving them a corpse like appearance with desaturated colours when it comes to their usually thick hair and fur. Their eyes, however, are generally brighter colours with large pupils that reflect in the low light of night. Fangs are typically large-set, and around 30% of Salyts are born with retractable claws which can be quite sharp. Body types, sizes, and tail shapes are varying and ears tend to be in one sense or another quite large and often very mobile to keep tabs on their surroundings.Their clothing often consists of furs and hide with the occasional cloth gained from hand weaving or the rare case of trade. It’s not uncommon to see both men and women in the warm seasons without chest coverings for the sake of keeping cool. Small jewelry and trinkets are hung from their clothing, often hand made from materials they find or trophy bits of bone from hunting.Salyts have a tendency to take on animalistic behaviours, and they can find it troublesome communicating with humanoids that do not possess fur, moveable ears, or tails. They are often accustomed to the many indicators and cues to communication, emotion, and thoughts that come from such body features. For example, the bristling of fur to show apprehensiveness or the thrashing of a tail paired with growls and snarls to show distaste or act as a warning. In terms of language, Salyts use huntspeak in the right settings and learn the common tongue - although sometimes broken in nature with varying proficiencies. A good portion of the Salyt clan are fluent in ancient Gelmorran, with higher proficiencies than that of the common tongue.Everything in life about a Salyt is about survival. There is no shame in losing a fight, or fleeing (though abandoning kin is looked down upon) if it means you survive another day.Weaponry & Battle
The most common weapon used in the Salyt clan are short bows with arrow heads carved of bone or stone when in a pinch. They are used in both hunting and defense of the clan. Spears are also used but are often limited to one spear holder per hunting party, and are more traditionally used for clan protection. Large battle axes made of stone, bone, and wood are the main weapon of war against other humanoids for the Salyts due to their devastating power to cut through armor to cut or even crush enemies. Smaller throwing axes are a must have secondary weapon on all, whether they are hunting or defending and tend to learn early on how to accurately throw them. Blades such as swords and daggers are not very common in the clan outside of carving knives, and tend to be made from stone.When it comes to battle Salyts are both brutal but tactical, using guerilla warfare and the landscape to their advantage. Most Salyts, after growing to adults, wear war paints with minute traces of poison in them. Since infants they have been exposed to the mild poison and have grown a tolerance for it, but if ingested or slipped into the bloodstream of enemies without this tolerance it will cause minor illness that includes nausea and headaches. It is nothing life threatening, but instead used to tip the scales in the favour of a Salyt.The Salyt clan, however, are ultimately a survival oriented clan. Due to this they prefer to avoid outright battle with others and sometimes contact all together.

The Salyt clan is a dominantly matriarchal society in which the High Matriarch is usually a woman with both childbearing experience and still of childbearing age, making the ideal age of the Matriarch between mid thirties to mid forties. Her responsibilities include clan protection, leading the clan on their travels, trade and inter-clan dealings, granting approval of newborns, and upholding strict traditions despite her personal feelings on the matter.A Matriarch is chosen based on a clan vote, rather than succession. When a Matriarch is voted in, however, she retains that power until her death. Two to three candidates are chosen by a Matriarch before she passes away. If she dies in a manner in which she cannot voice them, it is discussed amongst the clan based on their memories of the late Matriarch to who she may have picked. Due to the high need of trust and respect in the clan for survival, very few to no clan member would ever be believed to be lying during the discussion process. After candidates are chosen, a vote is taken and the woman with the most votes becomes the Matriarch. It is a lifelong responsibility that is not often sought after due to the high stakes.

The Salyt clan, while fully believing in the Twelve, do not worship any one God. Instead, the clan reveres the wilds that they live in and worship the Black Shroud like a living, breathing god of its own. A great respect is given to nature, whether it be plant life or animal life. Disrespecting the forest is among the highest of heresy in the Salyt clan, right up there with the crime of kinslaying. There is a symbiotic relationship between this clan and the wilds. For instance, if a clan member were to gather flora or vegetation for medicinal use or sustenance, they must give back to the forest something of equal value that has been taken and often results in immediately replanting seeds so it may regrow. It is not uncommon for a Salyt to kill gluttonous poachers or maim those who do not give back the resources they take, although they have been known to teach the rare travelers they come across in how to sustain the land with an annoyed demeanor.The kills taken for the protection of the wilds are used as offerings to the forest as well, the corpses of which are often left in known hunting grounds for the predators of the forest donned with ritualistic flora and the rare addition of scraps of meat which the clan cannot find use for before it rots.Hunting Practices
Due to the worship of nature, Salyt hunting comprises of a few key rules. The first of which is to never go hunting without a pack of three to four huntresses. Hunting alone in a forest with a will of its own is highly dangerous and is thought to guarantee death, as game will often flee to thickets to hide or lose the huntresses. Secondly, sustainable hunting practices must be enforced. A huntress who takes more than needed, or hunts mothers with young are punishable offenses. Thirdly, a kill must be as painless as possible and because of this, the most common hunting tool used is a short bow to deliver a quick shot straight to the heart.After a kill the body is respectfully taken back to the main campsite, where the huntresses will allow shamans to quickly purify and give the beast it’s rites before dismembering it. Every part of the kill gets used, whether it’s meat for food, bones for weapons, leather and hide for clothing, or organs for medicinal use. The skull is taken buried in respect for the beast, to return it to the soil that it was birthed from.Healing & Magic
Magic is not something the Salyts dabble with, nor do they enjoy being around those that use it. They believe it to be a bad omen and that the failings of the past should serve as a warning to stay away from such practices for the sake of survival. Because of this belief, the shamans that the Salyt clan have focused on homeopathic and botanical medicine.If an injury is life threatening, the shamans will do all they can without resorting to magic. If the patient is too far gone, they do what they can to make them comfortable and allow nature to take its course. Salyt shamans believe the ability to resurrect or heal wounds are an aberration against nature and will bring misfortune upon the soul that has been aided by this magic.

A few times a cycle interested women from the Salyt clan will gather with other clans for mating purposes. It is custom for the father to be unknown to rid the sense of ownership of children, so Salyt women often take on multiple partners during the breeding season. Partners are chosen primarily on their survival abilities and genetics that will give strong children that can live in the harshness of the wilds. Physical strength is not necessarily the dominant desired trait when it comes to children. Salyt women have a varying degree of desire for intelligence, instincts, reflexes, or speed. For example, men that may not be physically strong but display quick thinking and reflexes still stand a good chance at breeding opportunities in the clan. It is considered a personal choice for which survival traits a woman wants her children to inherit. Having a static relationship and monogamy are considered highly unusual and not often practiced.Inbreeding is strictly prohibited and children born due to inbreeding are destroyed by the Matriarch. Much to the same extent, runted or ill babies are often adored on for a few hours after birth and then abandoned in the wilds for nature to take its course in the strong belief that runts will never survive the harsh landscape and seasons that the clan often endures. It is preferred for children to be born in spring or early summer, so they have the full warm season to grow and fatten up for winter, but winter children are not unheard of either.Men are taught from a young age to treat women in the clan with reverence and respect for the rigors they endure with childbearing, and often are fiercely protective of all women with child. In the same sense, women are protective of their men and will not allow other clan women during this season to mistake the respect of their men for submission. Due to the mysterious nature of who’s child belongs to who, the men of the clan typically act as father figures to all children and consider each child born to the clan as one of their own. Men are also encouraged to bring back children they may have sired whose mothers and subsequent clans cannot care for them, rejected them, or passed away. Because of this, healthy orphaned Keeper children with no place to go have a good chance of being taken in by the Salyt clan, whether they share bloodlines with the clan or not.The entire clan claims responsibility for child rearing, and while children clearly answer to their mothers they are also taught and overseen by all. Children are taught from a young age that their teeth, primarily their fangs, are their greatest weapon in any emergency. Often the children fight for food and resources, and have been described as acting like wild animals which sometimes continues into adults, earning Salyts the reputation of being a brand of beasts themselves rather than humanoids. Roaring, snarling, snapping of teeth, and instinctive responses are encouraged and nurtured for the majority of their lives.

Burial rituals for this clan tie back into their worship of the wilds that they live in and are used as another offering to the forest. Upon death the body is collected and wrapped to keep animals and insects at bay long enough for a suitable young sapling to be located that is thought to embody the personality of the diseased; thick barked for someone who was strong or vast canopies for those who were nurturing for example. When the tree is located, a grave of around six to seven feet is carefully dug around the root system and the body is lowered into it with no covering, clothes, or material goods. It is believed that by burying the deceased like this will allow the tree to absorb the nutrients that the body provides, leading to the deceased to giving back to the wilds that gave them life for so long as well allowing their essence to be forever embedded in the tree to watch over future generations. At times gifts and trinkets will be hung from the tree as gifts for their fallen comrades.This ritual causes the Salyts to be extremely protective of the trees of the forest, and they will kill without question anyone that attempts to cut down a tree which an ancestor is joined with. When logging for their own purposes, collecting dry wood that has already fallen or dead trees is prefered over the cutting of living trees. When it is necessary that a fresh tree must be cut for resources, much time is taken and deliberation amongst the clan’s elders over which tree to take down to ensure no burial tree is accidentally disturbed.