Tofar / Loyal but Ferocious

Tofar’s most notable physical features are their faintly-poisoned keratin spines, but especially their ominous bone masks. Like deciduous teeth, it breaks and sheds several times during childhood, until the permanent one starts to form in teenage years. It grows from the temporal and mandible parts of the skull, tightly adhering to the skin, with a layer of microflora between – a kind of protection from dirt, dust, infections and diseases that can occur in these hard-to-clean crevices.

The remains of primal and feral ancestors show that the ancient Tofar had a significantly different mask from that of their modern, specially Noble, descendants. It was longer, with a deformed nostril airway inside the mask and an actual skull; the bones were thicker, with sharp teeth and tightly-clenched jaw; the mask itself was also covered with a superficial layer of powerful muscles and skin. Presumably, it was used mainly for biting off large chunks of raw meat and grinding them into smaller pieces before chewing them once more in the inner mouth. Another use would also be as a natural weapon during primal hunting and wars.

Nevertheless, such basic craft as cooking, and then future technological advances, drastically reduced the Tofar’s dependence on their bone masks, even for food consumption. Over thousands of years it has shrunk, exposing the mouth, with only the basic muscles around it remaining. Loosing or even badly damaging the mask, hence exposing real face underneath, is still a very embarrassing and shameful experience for any Tofar, and they afraid it more than pain and torture.

***

As a tribe, today’s Tofar learn to be devoted to family, pack, and nation, obeying the orders of the social hierarchy and putting the interests of a group ahead their own ambitions, developing a strong incline for self-sacrifice... and they as well learn about the history of deep-seated aversion towards their tribe, which has became mutual, converting them into isolationists.

During the early Age of Crumbling, the Tofar kin was driven away from the Sea of Birth and the Thigh Region by other tribes for their erratic brutal nature, high prospects of becoming the Envious, and especially for their indiscriminate meat-based diet – abhorrently, othertribe sistren were not an exception for Tofar in the primal era. As a result, the Tofar were among the first to settle in the unexplored lands of Her Gorgeousness as a whole tribe, rather than just a handful castaways. Most of them went south, to Her Mountains, founding the first settlements there – they were the forerunners of the Noble Tofar; and centuries later, having subdued inner primal ferocity, they would establish the Kingdom of Bosom, alter later became the Realms of Bosom. Still, their views on being civilized and courteous differ from what most othertribe sistren consider polite and amiable – they are aggressive and ruffian even among the Royal Family, who represent themselves as the best of own kin.

Hair poses a special meaning in Noble Tofar society. Higher-status members grow it long and fashion into various coiffures to indicate their current sentiment or professional mood: hair gathered in a knob is neutral, a sign of fairness, or an indication that they are engaged in an important undertaking and should not be disturbed by petty reasons; a ponytail or single braid thrown over the right shoulder is a sign of dominance and command, aggression, self-confidence and libido, or disapproval of circumstances; a ponytail or a single braid thrown over left shoulder is a show of friendliness, respect, approval of the current situation, willingness to act and cooperate; setting hair loose means exactly that – being free of duties and responsibilities, in which case tilting head left or right is equivalent to what was described previously. It is also traditioned for Tofar who are married, engaged, or not looking for relationship to retain at least a few visible braids in public.

One of the other Noble Tofar beliefs, which spread and deepened in the Bosom and Waist Regions, is the physical and mental bonds we make when we eat food of the same source: from a family that eats their dinners prepared in the same oven, to a nation eating bread baked from the same harvest; but most importantly – we are all always bound, as we all feed on what is bestowal and gathered from Meora’s Gorgeous Body.

Other Tofar, who were fierce and uncultured even for their own people (and still are), discarded themselves to the far north with other outcasts – they are called Feral, and they rightfully earned this name in those times. There aren't many of their kind left now – throughout the hardships of history, many perished in virulent swamps, malignant jungles and hot deserts of the Crus, from bane and hunger, by the claws and thorns of the Tarfested animals and plants, by the Brood of the Crus, and then the storms brought by the First Angel of Candor during her battle with the Leviathan, took the lives of many. The torments of the Feral Tofar lasted even into the current age, until the thirteenth century, when the Chiefess-great-grandmother Tagara Fohr united the hidden clans of her people before they all shamelessly succumbed to the influence of the Serpent. She had the only dream – redemption: to prove her children’s loyalty to Her Light, even if animus by other tribes.

Today, Tagara’s dream lives on, today the Feral Tofar are twice proclaimed citizens of the Feet Republic, and many of them are ravenously committed to become Hussahr and Jagers in their mission to eradicate the verminous Cult of the Snake that still nests and incarnates in the perilous plaguelands: for they see it as their duty to erase from existence their kin who shamelessly flocked to a false salvation.

***

Modern Tofar can be brilliant in mind, well-educated and disciplined, but don’t ask them to focus and participate in activities that require significant precision, tidy, recurrence and calmness – they still retain a bestial temper, and such activities drive them really mad. What irritates and vexing them most, fueling their hotheaded temper, is this modern, more polite way of life with repetitive values and artificial restrains of own nature, which the Tofar reluctantly force on own society. You should especially worry that even so the Tofar today control their savagery better than their predecessors millennia ago, they still retain the highest number of the Envious and Abominations among the Eight Sacred Tribes, but without the culture they now abide to, things would be much worse.

Abhorred by other and loathing these others, the Tofar have chosen to remain on the same side with them and live the same live as they do – not for forgiveness, nor out of fear of corruption... but for Meora alone, because they too are Her children, Joyful and Gorgeous, like Her. They understand own problems, and from a young age many Tofar mold within themselves a willingness to axe own life in the last moments of conscience, rather than succumb to the Serpent and betray the Allmother; and they do so in fear of the burden and dishonor they will leave to their sistren when they no longer be in control of own bodies and thoughts. At best, they go on the Sacrificial Hunt, to seek an honorable death in combat, hoping to take as many of the heinous procreations of the Serpent with them as possible; those who are too powerful to perish even in this way can still ask to avoid the dreadful fate in the most noble way they recognize – the Warm Embrace of Soft Death – death by breast smothering. In any case, Tofar refuse to surrender to the Black Capes of the Herquisition, as this would be tantamount to proclaiming oneself a traitor, which is not so far removed from the views of other tribes.

Nevertheless, the Tofar ARE exalted by Meora with the Aspect of Hope, vindicated by Her Light; and so even the most mindless zealots of the Red Capes do not dare to vacuously question the rights to exist not only of the Tofar, but of other envy-pliable tribes as well: if the Tofar are blessed with Her Aspect – then our Allmother still loves them, and therefore She loves all of us with the flaws we bear.