Family is everything in Vaneha. Each of the Ninety-Nine Stars (the true number has shifted historically, but the name is still used regardless) is god of a region of Vaneha, and spiritual parent to all who call that region their home. A clan therefore consists of many mortal families, who are made kin not by shared blood but shared patronage and a shared home. Adoption is common, both within and across clans, and an outsider who takes up residence in a clan’s lands is considered as much a member of the clan as if they had been born there, at least in theory. Proud Vanehans say this makes them more openhearted, compassionate, and loyal than other peoples.
Each clan is led by one family, which has the clan god’s favor. If the god is their clan’s spiritual parent, the ruling family is the eldest sibling. They administer the clan’s holdings and name local deputies to steward particular towns, estates, and tracts of land. These stewards1 in turn lease the land to tenant farmers or otherwise put it to use for the clan’s and state’s benefit—so long as they can pay their own lease to the ruling family, the steward is free to reap the profit.
As the ruling families are their clan’s elders, so is the Sword Prince’s line senior to the clans. The Sword Princes personally claim only the land immediately surrounding Ama-Ni-Traya, including the capital, as well as a few other strategic spots, but reserve for themselves the right to parcel out regions among the clans in exchange for taxes and corvée labor, legitimized by their possession of the Imperial Daiklave. Their patron likewise is foremost among the gods, the First and Hundredth of the Ninety-Nine Stars.
Mentioned Clans
These clans have been mentioned in setting material outside the corebook:
- Clan Iachi rules the rolling hills of Orm. Its clan leader is Tesero and its tutelary deity is Jieke Blooms-in-Winter
- Clan Uema rules in the city of Noru, where anvils ring day and night. The clan’s eldest daughter is the warrior-poet Sen and one of Gensuji’s hostages in Jibei. Its patron is the forge-god Megemi Ironhilt
- Clan Datei has lost its ancestral holdings but still exists, employed by other clans—except the Iachi, on account of an ancient feud—as spies and assassins
- Clan Atsei, whose “famed gardens bloom year-round in lakeside Osai”
Footnotes
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Across the Eight Directions outright calls them jitō, which has a weird ring to me since that’s a relatively deep cut/specific terminology. Maybe it’s fine. ↩