The Fortin Clan
The Fortin Clan moves through the Tinderlands with their tents, horses, goats, and cattle, and no one in that arid expanse knows the land better. They squeeze moisture from spongy scrub grasses, hunt during abundant seasons, and subsist on goat milk mixed with goat blood when game is scarce. Their mobile camp, known as Tent Town, is a collection of sturdy canvas shelters that appears and disappears across the plains like something the wind decided to carry.
Their most lucrative trade is poison. Each year the clan visits the Poisoned Hills to harvest toxic plants, brewing them into liquors, tonics, and subtle poisons that are a family tradition passed down through generations. Some concoctions are medicinal. Most are lethal, designed to be slipped into a drink or injected with a blade, causing death either painless or agonizing depending on the buyer's preference. People travel from miles around to purchase Fortin poison. The clan also trades in horses and goats, and charges fees to guide visitors to the Stone Circle and other Tinderlands landmarks.
The Fortins are welcoming to travelers who approach properly, asking only for compensation: coins, shared food, or a story worth hearing. That hospitality is taken seriously. So is the alternative. Crossing the Fortin Clan invites Rover Justice, and Rover Justice does not negotiate.
Patriarch Lyle Fortin keeps the extended family in line from the head of the caravan, his piercing eyes and sun-cracked skin a walking testament to what the Tinderlands make of the people who refuse to leave them.
Their most lucrative trade is poison. Each year the clan visits the Poisoned Hills to harvest toxic plants, brewing them into liquors, tonics, and subtle poisons that are a family tradition passed down through generations. Some concoctions are medicinal. Most are lethal, designed to be slipped into a drink or injected with a blade, causing death either painless or agonizing depending on the buyer's preference. People travel from miles around to purchase Fortin poison. The clan also trades in horses and goats, and charges fees to guide visitors to the Stone Circle and other Tinderlands landmarks.
The Fortins are welcoming to travelers who approach properly, asking only for compensation: coins, shared food, or a story worth hearing. That hospitality is taken seriously. So is the alternative. Crossing the Fortin Clan invites Rover Justice, and Rover Justice does not negotiate.
Patriarch Lyle Fortin keeps the extended family in line from the head of the caravan, his piercing eyes and sun-cracked skin a walking testament to what the Tinderlands make of the people who refuse to leave them.
History
The Fortin Clan once roamed the plains of Sweet Grass Country in Mountaina. A dispute between two young men during a shared camp with the Meloy Clan escalated into months of fighting between the families. The Meloy Clan won. The surviving Fortins fled east to the Tinderlands, where the hostile terrain that should have killed them instead became their home. They learned the land's secrets, built a poison trade from the Poisoned Hills' toxic plants, and never looked back.
