The Fire Clans

Some say the cats fight their little wars in the underbrush, in their own world we cannot understand. In Suneka, this is an accepted reality. How can you deny it, when the cats tie blades to their paws and bear makeshift torches? When you can see them, driving their foes into wildfires and dragging away barrels of gunpowder to destroy their enemies. 
These are the Fire Clans, a name given to them by their enemies and adopted with glee as a self-anointed descriptor. They seek to live like humanoids- they have laws, writing, tools, cities. Many an abandoned, war-torched village is now alive with cats, crafting tools and repairing the old buildings. Little cat cities have sprung up across the continent, with some cats even working to raise poultry in little makeshift chicken coops. Across the occupied ruins, tattered cloth banners hold aloft the High Sunekan text: "We are With You", "We are Suneka". 
The Sunekan priests of the cat-god have taken notice in the last century, offering tools and aid in small amounts to the nearby cat settlements. But the cats do not need their aid- they grow closer to total self-sufficient production every decade. This is not entirely a good thing for cats underneath them: much of the labor required for this great project is motivated by indoctrination and violent community policing. This is a militaristic, authoritarian society- it aspires to the egalitarian communal ideals of the Suneka, but few cats have the status to partake in elections or community religion. Too much has been shifted to the future. 
The fireclan cats believe that they are destined to be reborn as humanoids, to live proper Sunekan lives. There is a deep undercurrent of self-hatred in their culture, that they are doomed to live apart from the other races because of their insufficiencies. This terrible self-loathing begets an even greater hatred of those cats who do not hate themselves- those traditionalists and Jellicle cats who "hold catkind back" and prevent cats from gaining the humanoid stature they have in distant Desmia. The Fire Clans seek always to undo the inequalities done to them by the Architects. They reach out with their paws to take the heavens, seeking to join the sedentary world that is slowly consuming their homes and habitats.

Structure

Fireclan is divided into Constellations, composed of many Clusters of one to fifty cats. Each cluster is led by a Star-lord named after an actual star. The First Star leads their constellation and selects the Stars of each cluster. Each constellation is largely autonomous and acts as a kingdom in its own right.
There are 80 named constellations recognized by the Fireclans, with 43 currently in use. There are also countless numbers of Asterisms, which can range from 1-6 stars and act as mini-constellations for less-populated areas.
Theoretically, all of this is led by the Polaris of the Kuyeki Constellation (aka Ursa Minor). The Polaris is the first among equals but lacks any meaningful apparatus to control the entire empire.
Within clusters, Officers rule over their squadrons of military cats known as Cadets. Beneath the cadets are civilian-cats, who are the bottom of the social ladder and the majority of the population.

History

Ikitli and the Kindling

Sunekan cat culture has always been rather traditionalist and militaristic. As the humanoid Sunekans diminished their habitat and the arrival of Kobold-born cats led to questioning of cat culture, traditionalist cat clans responded by doubling down on their old ways of life. Those cats who failed to integrate were exiled. Many joined the Jellicle cats in their urban colonies, but most simply lived short feral lives. Several large urban stray cat colonies formed in the 1000s ME that began to scare the traditionalist cat clans. Punishments grew more brutal as clans turned away from exiling their dissidents. Rural "exile lands" of mutilated dissident cats formed as dumping grounds, with traditionalist cats extorting food during famines.
And then, in 1370 in Southern Ikatlan, a cat was born to a rural Kobold Asuna priest named Koya. The cat's name was Ikitli, and Koya saw great potential in them despite everything. Koya's heretical beliefs kept her from trying to give her child-cat to the nearby cats, but encouraged her to keep and raise the cat as a proper child. She taught them writing, religion, and even tried to get them to integrate into Sunekan humanoid life. But Ikitli's lack of thumbs or bodymass made it difficult for them to integrate, and Ikitli left to go learn how the nearby cat clans lived. He was horrified to find that there was no order, no Suneka there- and that he had to surrender his upbringing or face a terrible fate as an exile. His name was taken from him, and he was renamed "Fire-tail"- but Ikitli always kept his old life close. He rose to become a warrior in the tribe that took him in, but he visited the exiles often. He built a network of allies, biding his time for the leader to die. After the death of the tribe's leader, Ikitli poisoned the second in command before fleeing with his allies back to his home town. There, they gathered blades and fire from his family before returning to seize control of the tribe. With fire and steel, the old guard fell.
Ikitli's seizure of the old "Sun Clan" and inversion of the old order attracted a great deal of negative attention. The tribes began marching as one against him, and he struggled to rally the exiles. But he never surrendered. In 1380, the invading cat army was lured into a manufactured forest fire and burnt alive, triggering a wave of dissent and infighting among the invading traditionalists. Through shrewd diplomacy and ruthless fighting, Ikitli had them bowing before him or driven into the hills by winter. The fleeing cats spread word of the "Fire Clan" that used the weapons of humanoids. Cats migrated across the Suneka to join his army and from 1380-1410 he conquered much of the heartlands of Ikatlan and a reasonable chunk of Gwalan to the South. He sought to organize the cats like humanoids, seizing abandoned buildings when possible and building rudimentary shacks when necessary. He taught them what he could of the religion of his youth, but so much of it was tainted by decades of yearning, nostalgia, and warfare. While not mainstream Sunekan religion, Ikitli's faith was filled with a kind of sorrow and self-hate that resonated with the exiles and strays. He sought his whole life to be the humanoid who could have worked in his home-village and been the child his parents wanted. He never could have done that- but his disciples claim that he returned to them a decade later as a human child, promising them the same rebirth after death. In truth, it was a mistranslation from his sister's daughter who came to find and take care of him. The Gods were never kind enough to grant Ikitli his wish. But his wish to be humanoid, like his weaponized fire, spread across the rural cat lands nonetheless.
Ikitli's Fire Clans were perpetually under siege by cats directed by the Cat Heavens, and each disciple lived and died fighting the feline hordes. But the fire clans adapted, innovated, and fought relentlessly. Their ties to the Asuna movement kept them armed and educated for a while- though the purging of Southern Ikatlan in the early 1500s saw the end of that. While the cats tried to reach out to the mainstream Sunekan priests, they found little success in re-establishing as close a connection. But they no longer needed it. Their brief communion with Sunekan society granted them access to technology, lore, magic, written language, and tools. Ikatlan, Gwalan, Akatlan, Tuzek, Matayan, each region fell without humanoid society even realizing.

The Great Collapse

The Fireclan's conquests were never fully complete- the traditionalists had no problems hiding or migrating to escape, and the Jellicle cat fortresses in the towns and cities could not be burnt out the same way the wild cats could. Overextension set in, the constellations began to drift apart during the 1600s. And one Constellation leader began to spread doubt of the necessity of conquest- a bard-cat by the name of Karika. Karika had negotiated peace with their local Jellicle court and had even hashed out a peace settlement with the local traditionalists. She began demilitarizing, shifting fire clan society towards civilian life. She ignored direct orders from the Grand Polaris, Tesmi, and actively preached her new way to nearby constellations. When confronted by Tesmi directly in 1690, she even revealed her supreme heresy: that she had spoken with and negotiated peace with the Cat Heavens, and saw herself as the reincarnation of Ikitli. She challenged Tesmi for the position of Polaris, and the two factions went to war. While Karika's decision to demilitarize meant that she lost time and time again, her rebellion offered a chance for a traditionalist counter-attack. From 1690 to 1800, periodic rebellions and traditionalist invasions shook the fire clans to their core. While Karika lost her revolt, she made sure to kill Tesmi with her- and the question of who should be Polaris rang again and again as Tesmi's designated heir proved to be unworthy. By the time the 1800s came around, there were five competing false-Polaris and an increasingly powerful Jellicle alliance that seemed destined to overtake them.

Mezipil and the Return

But the Jellicles did not strike swiftly. While they danced and politicked at one another, a storm cloud drew over Suneka. In 1870, a massive invasion from Calazen arrived in Ikatlan- and poured into the Sunekan heartlands. The primarily urban-based Jellicles suffered the most, as the brutal sieges and evacuations threw their way of life into the air. The landscape was set alight, and the traditionalists were unable to continue their offensive as well. The Fire clans, now taking in refugees from their former enemies, rose as Suneka burned. But the Fire clans suffered just as all cats did during the invasion - and many of the constellations were willing to set aside their differences to rise again together. In this dire hour, a hero emerged: Mezipil, a druidic cat from the far Northwest. Educated as mainstream Sunekan and with Hainish parents, Mezipil was a breath of fresh air for the Fireclans. He saw the position of Polaris as first among equals rather than an autocratic position, and he was voted in by the constellations as the new leader of the Fire Clan movement. Mezipil led the Fire clans to greatness- not through war, but by offering refuge.
When the Calazan forces withdrew in 1900, the Fire clans were in a perfect position: ruined towns and fortresses sat abandoned, ready for cat occupation, all across Suneka. Reunited and holding the advantage, they have spent the last century retaking their position as dominant cat force of the Suneka. The chaos of the 1800s saw the return of their old traditionalist enemies across Suneka, and many old traditionalist strongholds remain throughout Suneka to this day. But they are few and they lack unity- it is only through the constant interference of Cat Heaven that they remain alive. The failure of the traditionalists to return during the 1800s and the failure of the Jellicles to re-unite has left the Fire Clans triumphant. Now is the hour of burning, of rebirth. Now, Cat Heaven itself will be forced to accept the new order or fade from the Suneka forever.

"Reborn in Flame"

Founding Date

1380 ME

Type

Political, Federation

Demonym

Fireclan

Government System

Dictatorship

Power Structure

Federation

Official State Religion

Suneka

Location

Suneka (place)