Clans of Newhome: Garnet

Flexible in both Mind and Body, the Kin of the Garnet Clan have a knack for exploration, discovery, and the collection of rare treasures. Of all the Clans, they tend to be the most adaptable, their slender bodies flowing snake-like through dense foliage, water bodies, and underground tunnels with equal ease. Comfortable in darkness, their thermal vision and sense of smell are exceptional.

When the first of this new Clan awakened into its telltale adolescent form, there was some controversy; its thinner body, shorter wings, and reduced mass invited accusations of weakness. Darktooth, however, welcomed and blessed them as the first of a great new Clan, and those who were not convinced of the new Clan's equality were fully cured of their misconception when the first Garnet defeated a Terran Kin ten times its age in an epic riddle contest, winning control of one of the planet's most coveted territories by weaponizing the older Kin's lack of familiarity with the poetry and Essence of Life on Newhome.

The surface of a planet is but its skin, and no Clan is more familiar with the riches and wonders hidden in Newhome's underground caverns and tunnels than the Garnet. Indeed, they seemed made for underground exploration, where their thinner frame, shorter wings and horns, and sensory growths on the chin facilitate movement and sense in even the most cramped spaces. A full-grown Garnet Kin can fit through any space a full-grown Human can, impressive given the fact that they are over 10 times more massive. Besides the thousands of miles of tunnels carved out of the living rock by the massive underground Malworms, Newhome's crust is filled with secrets, as the now-departed Progenitors built underground facilities in the spaces created by their late mass-mining activities, pulling millions of cubic miles of metal, gems and rock from the depths for their mysterious purposes and leaving behind subterranean arcologies and complexes. Garnet Kin have already begun to exploit these structures and spaces for both traditional and creative uses.

As if these advantages were not enough, the Garnet Clan also has two additional special physical features. Alone among the Kin, they possess large flaps of skin and feathery keratin growths down the sides of their necks. These are usually folded back, but can be unfurled and extended into a cobra-like hood, making the Kin appear larger and more impressive during fighting or courtship. The tips of their tails also glow when activated by temperatures over 100 degrees Celcius. Garnet Kin can easily activate this light simply by playing their tailtip in their mouths and heating them with their breath, and action which takes only a few seconds and provides an ambient light in the darkness. It dims as it cools naturally, or the Kin can cool it down and extinguish the light in other ways.

Just as the Malachite Clan proved talented in the manipulation of gravitational forces, Garnet Kin seem, on average, to be more skilled in the use of heat energy than any other Clan as a whole. An adolescent may be able to create enough heat energy to kindle a dry brush fire or raise/lower the temperature in a room-sized space between temperatures of about -25 and 75 Celcius, given enough time and concentration. The oldest living Garnet Kin at the time of the Succession Crisis, still less than 200 years old, was able even at that age to cause most beings to freeze or combust in a matter of seconds. Their breath burns the hottest of any Clan, and can melt metal.

Their shorter wingspan renders Garnet Kin unable to fly as high as the other clans, but while in the air that same short wingspan gives them remarkable aerial dexterity and a short turning radius.

The Garnet Clan was the first to normalize communication with the mysterious and deadly Yhara Tribe, and many are learned in the scent-based language of the Yhar. They have seen success as diplomats and leaders of other species as well; their tendency to shadow their prey for long periods of time, learning their movements and Ways, has proven equally useful when dealing with sentient beings. When a Garnet Kin shows itself, it has likely been there for quite some time, watching, gathering information, and learning before it makes its move. There are exceptions... some Garnet Kin are brash and impulsive... but the ones who live longest tend to be patient watchers from the shadows, striking with lightning speed at the perfect time to achieve their ends.

Next time, we shall introduce the powerful Obsidian Clan. Many blessings until then!

-L