Aliit Tm'halk

Clan Tm'halk
General Information
Status	Active
Leader
Historical Information
Founded	Year 9 Day 277
Political Information
Affiliation	Mandalore
Type	Mandalorian Clan
Holosite	Clan Tm'halk Holosite

Clan Overview

- The Tm'halk are the least obvious of all the clans. Their strength lies not in the physical but in their superior intellect and cunning. They are known to Mandalore simply as "the thinkers" because they are not known to actively participate in any of the games of physical skill or prowess that the other clans join in.

- Having been more or less concealed from the rest of Mandalore since a few hundred years after the crash, they tend to be secretive, though not because they are unwilling to share about their lives but because they are not used to telling others about everyday events.

Clan History

In the year 178 AA, the colonists began breaking apart, forming what was then called cliques. One of these groups was mostly psychologists with a few physical scientists sprinkled in with them. While most of the groups turned towards weapons and even hand-to-hand fighting for survival, the Tm'halk slowly edged towards what most people would call mind control, though was actually just a form of psychological intuition that served a greater purpose. As the years progressed and their knowledge of the mind and how it worked got more and more sophisticated, the Tm'halk gradually began to do more than just survive: they began to prosper.

By 1845 AA, the Tm'halk had become a true clan, accepting the responsibilities, privilege, and secrecy that most of the clans despised. Communication among the Tm'halk was at a premium, and no other clan had the slightest idea of how well the Tm'halk knew each other's thoughts. Clan Tm'halk was slowly acquiring the land, animals, and technological capacity to rely entirely on themselves, and, as a result, their mysteriousness deepened into complete secrecy. Suddenly it seemed as though no one had ever heard of them. To all others, they had vanished from the face of the planet.

That is how the Tm'halk managed to remain free of the five-hundred-year civil war that engulfed the rest of Mandalore. Or, so they thought. However, they eventually realized that if Mandalore were to become a nation, and not merely a bunch of infighting clans, they would have to become involved. In the midst of the worst battle yet, when the Sti'va were about to be wiped out, they made their decision to intervene for the first time. They decided to give one man a series of visions that would convince the warring tribes to lay down their arms and build Mandalore. But they did not want to give these visions to anyone. It had to be someone fit for the task of leading the Mandalorians and promoting unity, strength, and prosperity.

One man fit these expectations, and he lay dying on the battlefield, stabbed in the back with a knife. The Tm'halk fed his emotions, giving rise to the feelings that would free Mandalore. But they must heal him first. With the most intricate of touches, delving deeper than they had ever gone before, they stretched into his mind and began the process of healing his wounds through pure thought and possibly their attunement to some kind of force healing. But for one man to be healed, another must suffer in his place. Thus Ch'ilph, the first speaker, died. Channeled through his mind in his last moments, the Clan gave the last visions to P'narq and also gave him the will to be the "God" of the Mandalorians.

Even today, the legend of Ch'ilph has been all but forgotten by the remnants of Clan Tm'halk. For after Ch'ilph died, the Clan fell apart, and violence suddenly held sway. In the brokenness that followed, one man stood apart from the others and fashioned a form of combat that none could call violent. He called it Ra'kthai and he used it for one purpose; to bring the clan together again. Le’choq united the Tm'halk in a way none thought possible; through deception. He lied to the people about everything from what their neighbor did last moon cycle to the plans a certain group of dissidents had concerning the rest of the population. Amazingly, it worked, for in a short time the ways of the mind can become forgotten, and the Tm'halk had forgotten even the simplest of manipulations.

But Le'choq had not. He used the forgotten arts to lead his people together again to form the Clan once more. And he was hated for it. When the Clan was once more a single unit, focusing the powers of the mind on the world again, they realized that they had been deceived, and they knew that they could not leave a deceiver unpunished. So Le'choq was exiled to the deep parts of the jungle and the Clan was whole again, untarnished, and prospering in the dark, unknown areas of Mandalore.

Then came the period of siege, when the Vuana came. Clan Tm'halk forced itself to control things from the inside instead of going out and spending its lives fighting the ultimate enemy. They strengthened from the inside and steadily poured their knowledge of weapons and war into the minds of the other Mandalorians to build ships capable of withstanding the alien technologies. And they focused their minds on understanding their foe and learning to control them. For twenty years the Clan was able to hold the Vuana off, and then the enemy mysteriously disappeared. During the first year of the reign of Hek'thor the passive, the Clan remained ignorant of the Vuana's plans. They lost their tenuous hold on the alien minds and forgot to maintain their vigil. And that is when the Vuana returned.

In a sense, you could blame the Tm'halk for what happened next, though it should be forgiven considering all that the Clan had done for Mandalore. Clan Tm'halk never got the advantage again. Though they tried furiously to make up for their failure, they only succeeded in failing time and time again. Though they were able to prevent Mandalore from being wiped out, they did so at the cost of two alien races. Races so distinct and interesting that even though the Vuana were blamed for killing one of them, it was the Tm'halk that were forced to sacrifice the Juannar to save Mandalore. And through each compromise of the Clan, another, worse decision had to be made. Thus, Mandalore was forced to commit genocide on the Vuana and destroy the civilization that they had built up.

Finally, the Tm'halk had enough. No longer would they remain cut off from the rest of Mandalore. They began exerting their influence on the rest of the world. Tm'halk Emig has been commemorated as the first speaker that succeeded in challenging the pacifist worldview that Mandalore had adopted. However, it was not a clean challenge, and the rest of the Clan took care that Emig, and anyone else like him, would never be able to rise to power again.

Clan Traits

Members of the Tm'halk Clan are, by nature, very secretive. They can communicate with others in the Clan extremely well through telepathy. Using their minds does have its disadvantages though; when a person becomes blind, their other senses are normally heightened to extremely sensitive to make up for the lack of visual acuity; but when a person gains another sense, like the mind, they tend to slowly become less attuned to their other senses and focus more on the mind. So, while they may not be able to see, hear, or smell as well as other people, their sense of perception is actually raised and their awareness becomes more powerful.

- Their entire list of features has one thing in common: grey. Everything, from their toes to their clothes is in some form of grey.

- Their eyes are a gunmetal color and strength seems to pour from them so that when someone looks in their eyes, they can easily lose themselves to the power contained therein.

- While not small by any means, they normally do not exceed six feet in height.

- Though not necessarily as strong as people from other clans, they still have a high likelihood of winning in a hand-to-hand fight because of the Ra'kthai that all Tm'halk has learned as a result of the great deception.

- Technical and scientific skills vary from person to person since some wish to learn more about the mind while others prefer to study mechanical and computer skills.

- Whether serving Mandalore in the Army or the Navy, all Tm'halk maintain a link with the rest of the Clan via telepathy.

- No tattoos or other bodily decorations adorn any member of this Clan for the sole purpose of remaining as smooth and easy on the mind.

Clan Totem

Some would say it was Le’choq who brought the Clan out of misery, but others, like Le’choq himself, know that the actual Clan totem was the first speaker himself: Ch'ilph.