Your tribe can be split into extra Tribes or sub-Tribes. When the tribe splits, it becomes known as the Clan.
There are two ways of splitting:
- create an Element (or Garrison or Fleet)
- create a new Tribe
Elements:
Elements have already been mentioned earlier.
A Tribe is permitted a number of Elements (or Fleets – but we won’t bother about them for now; thinking about them lies at least 12 months into your future, and being in a position to build ships will be a year or two beyond that). The number is determined by Admin level.
At Admin 2 you may have 1 Element (mobile or immobile).
At Admin 4 you may have 2 Elements.
At Admin 6 you may have 3 Elements (one of which must be a Fleet).
Normal Element
A normal Element can be configured in any way you want it to be. You can fully mount the personnel and send them scouting or you can configure them like a Tribe and have them occupy a Village, or man them with an abundance of actives and go mining. Their composition is your choice.
Elements are under the constraints of its parent. They share skills and all the limits imposed on those skills, and limits on scouting too. Elements cannot develop their own skills.
SETTING UP A NEW TRIBE
Splitting off new tribes is a matter of your Diplomacy skill level. At level 1 you can have 1 Tribe, level 2 enables 2 Tribes etc. The highest Diplomacy level in the clan determines how many tribes you can break up into.
When you split off a sub-Tribe from an existing Tribe the brand new creation will have no skills, unless you choose to give it some of the parent organization’s skills. At no other time may skills be transferred.
A maximum of one Clan may occupy Villages (that is, have Village buildings) in the same hex. A Village is here defined as buildings with Meeting House.
Transferring People
Initially you may transfer as many people as you like into a new sub-Tribe (as long as they satisfy the 1/3 of each type of people condition, that is, equal numbers of Warriors, Actives and Inactives). After the initial start-up of a new sub-Tribe you may transfer people to it. Any subsequent Transfers from one Tribe to another must hold the 1/3 ratios steady where possible (though this does not need to be the case if a Tribe Transfers people to one of its Elements).
A Sub-Tribe can be split from a Tribe or an Element.
Absorbing Units
It is permissible to absorb the entire population of a Tribe into another Tribe, but you lose all the absorbed skills. So, if you are going to dismantle a unit it is best to transfer all its goods to another unit first, and the people can only be reabsorbed back into the Tribe with the highest Diplomacy level.
Elements cannot be absorbed into a different Tribe from their parent Tribe if it will affect certain other rules.
You can disband a unit completely (meaning that it is abandoned) but will lose 0.01 Morale by doing so.
The Nomadic Element cannot be absorbed; to absorb a unit, you have to share a hex with the Tribe into which it is being absorbed.
Ask the GM
Much of this can be quite confusing for older players as well as new ones. If you have any doubts whatsoever, ask the GM for guidance – he’s a very approachable guy.
Next:
At this stage you have just about all the basic concepts for playing the first 6 turns. You know about skills and, if you’ve read the beginner’s rules, you’ll know what you can make. You know about scouting and elements. You know how to move around and how to assign activities. However, there are a couple of things that you need to be aware of for future planning.
The Fair is the main one, and it is vitally important for the growth of the Clan. That will be covered in the next section. And that will mean touching on the requirements for having a village and how to build one.