The very bloody tribe of life... (Patreon)

While Zencori myth holds that there was once thirteen tribes begat by higher powers, in reality there were hundreds involved in the Great Migration.  These tiny family based groups fused into clan which formed the twelve and one tribes of today.  Some tribes fused as a product of undergoing the migration at the same time, while others were far more confrontational.

The tribes of Nalis and Caris were notorious rivals often turning the migration into a race for the next good camping location.  Eventually the race became a brawl as well, bloody with the occasional death.  Yet once the migration was settled, both proved to be exceptional farmers, turning the blood spilt into an offering for the earth.  Mythically, the two tribes were unified following a duel between Baccus and Carnia.  Whatever the actual events of the fight, the two champions became lovers, and forced a union between the two tribes into the Carnilians.

Of all the tribes, the Carnilians are by far the most specific about reproductive issues.  Sex begets new life, and the tribe has oscillated between formal, spiritual reverence for the act to wild and carefree debauchery.  This split has increasingly lead to more and more tension that has followed the tribe for centuries.  Thus, like the two tribes that unified, the tribe has always been at odds with itself.

In the first Empire, the Carnilians were more noted for their fertility rituals and deep, complex rites and pacts with spirits than sex at all.  The act was private and done at the solstice which ensured that foals would be born after readying for winter, or when food was most abundant before harvest.  Many tribes honored the phases of life, but the Carnilians took it a step further, worshiping the act of conception itself, of life.  When a zebra died, a tree or flowering bush would be planted atop it for the spirit to reside within, until a new foal could be conceived.  Eventually the dead were interred in carefully tended forests that were treated as a 'soul retirement' until such time as they could be reborn.  But as the tribe grew, some elders were more selective about who got to retire or be reborn.  They became gatekeepers, and unwanted souls could be left untended in the cycle of rebirth.

It was during the first Empire that the tribe became increasingly renown for their farming skills.  Carnillians used their innate connections to life to try and give their trees and crops a spiritual push.  Sex gradually intermingled with their spiritualism till the act itself was seen as an appeasement to the spirits,  Something done for them rather than for lesser purpose.  This may have been fine until the tribe started to intermix in the propoli villages.  A Carnillian mare might have twenty children in her lifetime and think nothing of it.  This led to a bit of resentment and fear that Carnillians might somehow 'outbreed' other tribes.  However, the Carnillian stripe pattern is very distinct and recessive, with children of mixed couples having the stripes of the non-Carnillian parent.  Thus if a few of those twenty foals had Propoli stripes or the like, they were much more tolerated.  Thus began the root of 'Carnillian promiscuity.'  For the tribe, more babies was more life which was good for the spirits, and for the other tribes, Carnillian mares were population machines.  And sometimes they were too good...

Carnillians have always battled famine, pushing the land and spirits with making sure there is enough to go around.  Many villages would have cycles of allowing Carnillians to settle, have some children with locals, and then force them out when there were 'too many mouths to feed'.  Ironically, at this point Carnillian stallions were more welcome than mares... though there was friction there as well.  Though stallions are excellent farmers, they tended to also regard any mare as 'fair game' and thus there was more than a few fathers wondering if the local Carnillian was actually the sire.  These would occasionally fester until they too were driven out.  Of course once the village needed more people, they'd welcome the Carnillians back and the cycle would resume.  Many Carnilians learned to play the cycle for maximum advantage.

When Nightmare Moon ended the First Empire and gave rise to the second, the Carnillians found themselves at the forefront of a cultural and population explosion.  Many Carnillians left the tribe to join others in the sprouting towns and cities, and at one point a sixth of the zebra population was Carnillian or half Carnillian.  Revolutions in herbology and medicine allowed mares and stallions to control their fertility for the first time ever and it ripped the tribe in two.  While a mare could have twenty children, that didn't mean they wanted to, and to be able to express their desires without children resulting was a great liberation to much of the tribe.  However, it horrified traditionalists who saw sex moved from a reproductive act into a recreational one.

However, the 'corruption' of sex wouldn't end with sex for pleasure.  No, for the first time gay and lesbian Carnillians began to publicly reveal their orientations.  This deviancy was intolerable for many Carnillians.  Homosexual members of the tribe were driven out and forced to relocated to the cities.  However, there they took their own proclivities and refined them.  Carnillian bathhouses, massage parlors, and bordellos became cultural hubs in the cities and the use of contraceptives removed much of the animosity the tribe faced.  City Carnillians were dashing, polyamourous, frequently gay or bisexual, and subject to admiration or envy.  Rural Carnillians were purists, overpopulated, and often individually poor, but incredibly productive for food.  Rural Carnillians unhappy with their lot either left for the cities or joined other tribes.

During the Second Empire many of the Carnillians cultural norms settled out.  In particular was the tribe's fondness for curves and rounded shapes.  Many Carnillian villages are laid out as a circle surrounded by six circular farms and fields.  Carnillian homes are curved row houses or domed single structures.  Some have joked the only thing not curved is a stallionhood.  (anatomists note that too has a slight curve as well, which is one reason Carnillian stallions are so pleasurable to most mares.)  The tribe likewise enjoys fabric that follows contours, like silk and other clingy fabric.  Carnillian cuisine is likewise second only to Tappahani chefs, with an emphasis on quanity.  No one leaves a Carnillian desert hungry.

Marriage for Carnillians is economical and agnostic to sexual fidelity.  In fact most Carnillians scoff at such selfishness.  A Carnillian family is always centered on a farm or business, and if it fails the family may dissolve.  Carnillians likewise marry for 'love', but it's usually secondary to other advantages.  For traditionalists, it doesn't matter how many mares or stallions wed so long as they are reproductive.  Sex for Carnillians is public and generally joyous, however there are two iron clad traditions.  Young Carnillians learn by watching and experimenting with other young Carnillians.  An adult that attempts to get with a colt or filly will find themselves castrated or mutilated for 'plucking green shoots'.  Likewise, sex is always a combining of two willing partners.  Rape is 'seeding poisoned fruit' and is likewise marked with branding.  Because sex is so easy for most Carnillians to find, forcing it or getting with young is seen as inexcusable.

As Zebrinica modernized, so too did the Carnillians.  While rural traditionalists obstructed change, Carnillians working with Propoli developed modern agricultural industries that proved pivotal to the empire.  Their interest in life science lead to fertilizer, biotechnology, and organic chemical engineering.  Carnillians learned to turn biomass into fuel and plastics, and even flirted with genetic engineering at the time of the last caesarian election.  Though the traditionalists were adamantly against the union, the elders who profited greatly by the new arrangements whole heartedly backed the Propoli candidate.  When they died abruptly, the Carnillians moved their support behind the Roamani candidate.

Following the election, however, the Carnillians seemed to have come up all roses.  Their close ties to the Propoli and Caesar allowed them to push the biological limits of biology and spiritualism.  More than half the tribe lived in cities, working in factories.  However, when the war began, the Carnillians tried to remove themselves from the Roamani.  Feeding a war effort was profitable, but the Carnillians didn't have much interest in dying for the Caesar.  However, when Nightmare Moon ascended, the tribe was pulled in regardless.  Carnillians were second only behind Roamani for infantry, and many found themselves targeted directly by the war effort.

One of the bright spots for the tribe was Claudio, the Magnificent Twelve member of the team.  The bad boy of the team, he was suave where Horito was angry, serious when Herne was fooling around, and could seduce the horseshoes off any mare, pony or Zebra.  He was infamous for his flirting and an inspiration with his wide brimmed black hat and shotgun.  The films, in particular, loved to show Claudio making a fool of Applesnack.  However, as the war ground on, he was increasingly critical of the war and the 'role' he was playing in the twelve.  It was reported that he died in combat a year before the end of the war, but no body was ever recovered.

The day of doom, like everything, split the tribe.  Half felt it was a justified comeuppance.  Half felt that it was the end of a golden age.  Many Carnillian businesses were abandoned and looted by hungry mobs.  Only the chemical company Carnico escaped devastation, working with Rice River to preserve the Carnillian race.  Many Carnillians disappeared within a generation, others were quickly absorbed.  While the Carnillians initially bounced back from the war faster than other tribes, they quickly found themselves overwhelmed by the Legions.  The Blood Legion in particular claimed thousands of Carnillians for their horde, working and breeding them into an army that took over most of the northwest.  It is a deep shame that most of the leadership of the Blood Legion were once Carnillians.

Those that escaped the legion soon found themselves battling a new foe: razor grass.  A single seed could start a clump that would double in size every week.  Within years, it claimed huge areas of the north, and Carnillian traditionalists found it resisting all natural remedies.  The grass pressed the populations in, and the Carnico company traded concessions and wealth from their fellow Carnillians.  Not only did they get riches from the weed killer but also from the chemical resistant seeds needed to grow in the poisoned soil.

Other populations of Carnillians can be found in the east, south, and the Free City of Bastion. Some wonder if the Carnillians have lost their way.  Others wonder if the tribe has ever known their way.  And still others wonder if the tribe has a future where it can look beyond it's ideological divides.  One thing is clear: if there is any tribe ideally suited to restore the zebra to zebrinica, it's the Carnillians.