Okohwe

The Okohwe are the most selective branch of the Bloodmoon, emphasizing intelligence over brute strength and encouraging cunning and manipulation. Even when born into the family line, the rites of passage and coming of age are particularly gruelling and exceptionally demanding, and even after they have passed their rites they are continuously tested to improve their skills as warriors, strategists and survivalists. In past times, the Okohwe have been extremely harsh towards male members of the family, refusing to coddle them or lower the high standards to which they hold all born of their line. Their limited and dwindling numbers have given the opportunity to prove themselves, and though the family’s reputation for cruelty and intolerance is well-deserved, a rare few choose to exercise compassion as a part of their cultural creed. It is for this reason that mothers have opted to turn over weak Okohwe kits to other families within the clan to be raised, rather than abandon them to be retaken by the wood.

Though the Okohwe revel in uninhibited passion and ambition, the creed by which they live stands as a unifying factor to their often selfishly driven pursuit of power. Many of the line walk the Red Path, the clan's covenant claimed to be writ into the heavens by the celestial baying of the Goddess's first companion, and believe that the greatest of their number rises to serve at Her side. There have supposedly been multiple Dalamuds in the family’s lore, each coinciding with the approximation of the passage from one age into the next. Though Dalamud has long been characterized in Bloodmoon clan stories as female, a male deity has become popular in Okohwe lore after his fall. This was likely derived from rumor that Dalamud had become a beast that had unleashed wretched children and had sired in the abyss to devour the world. Many mourn years after the Calamity for more than the deaths of their family: so too did a great champion of their people fall, and another has yet to rise to service.

Appearance
Dark of skin, pale of hair and well-suited to the shadows from which they were spawned, the mixed lineage of the Okohwe has rendered much of their recent issue with the vibrant, pale eyes of their closely related kin.The Okohwe tend towards a more typical appearance for miqo'te with subtle but evident influence from their traditional roots. Accustomed to creeping through the well-shadowed Bleeding Hollow fens and brambles, natural adaptation has rendered their ears large and well-furred, capable of turning up to 180 degrees independently of one another. More than any other bloodline among the clan, they have the most advanced sense of hearing and can pick up an approaching ally, enemy or creature from hundreds of yards away.

Their tails, longer and more heavily furred than any other family line, give them an exceptional sense of balance that proves useful over the difficult terrain that comprises their home territory. While Okohwe fur patterning has occasionally been known for subtle striping or spotting, they are absent any notable clan markings that set them apart from their brethren.

The Okohwe practice traditional tattooing methods that involve a wooden handle and metal needles attached via silk thread upon a child's passage from adolescence to adulthood. This method utilizes a special ink and specific cultural patterns with significance tied to the individual family member, containing anything from a declaration to social status, the precepts passed down their family line, entreaties to the spirits for their blessing, commitment to following the Endless Hunt or veneration for the Goddess's darker face. While a painful, time-consuming process done by a limited number of family specialists, the Okohwe wear their life's accomplishments writ into their skin.

The Bloodied Maw
Rare among the number of the Bloodmoon are the blades of the Bloodied Maw, Okohwe executioners given leave to take lives if it means saving many others. Many sworn to this prestigious order describe their duty as a deep sense of obligation and meaningful personal commitment to devoting oneself to sacred virtues that defined Menphina's beloved companion. Referred to as the Endless Hunt, the path’s uncompromising nature and the intense scrutiny one undergoes for violating one of the virtues would suggest that it is only for the most zealous of the clan, as self-sacrifice and loyalty to the precepts rise above all mortal attachment. Accordingly, the Bloodied Maw are often employed in targeted strikes to accomplish political goals and prevent all-out war or rising tensions from overcoming the peace of their people, maintaining a strict policy of impartiality.

The challenge of their inherent talent in taking lives has provoked a splinter faction of the maddened by grief that decry Dalamud's worshippers, hunt them for sport and burn them at the stake and in their homes, inciting an intense civil war that has not yet abated, even after several years.

Occultism and Bloodrage
Through the practice of highly coveted and closely guarded paths of blood and shadow thaumaturgy, a talented Okohwe occultist may perform powerful rituals that lionize an inner beast, granting them strength, swiftness and endurance beyond the restraints of their mortal coil. This delve into such dark magicks is often at the cost of their own life’s blood and requires great amounts of aether, placing great importance on ‘emptied vessels’ with a talent for aetheric consumption. These vessels, referred to as blood ragers, are bound by certain invocations - a consensual contract between the occultist and the high priestess - covered in runic tattooing. The invocations serve to limit or outright prevent them from draining all life from their immediate surroundings in their blood rage, and are often bound to a handler of considerable thaumaturgical talent to ensure that their penchant for destruction is closely monitored. Due to the nebulous nature of the magicks they use, there are very few occultists among the Bloodmoon.

The former matriarch of the Bloodmoon, Xihqeh, was one such vessel, though the willing and malleable nature of her soul saw her compromised by the lurking and opportunistic corruption of a powerful voidsent. In the end, Xihqeh’s practice of foul magicks was even beyond those which the clan tolerated and could not be forgiven by her own line. Her mastery of thaumaturgical might and the deep delve into void magicks has proven both a cautionary tale for those come of her line and a point of power to which all should aspire to.