Clans and Sects of Sacred Valley. Seven factions beneath the suppression field. Three clans and four schools, each walking their own Path on their own mountain.
The Seven Factions
The clans are the
Wei Clan
The
Kazan Clan
The Kazan walk the Path of the Mountain’s Heart: earth and force madra shaped into dense bricks of power. Every man, woman, and child of the Kazan wears armor, even where it could not possibly grant any protection. Their badges are four to five times larger than the Wei clan’s, worn as chest plates. Brown-and-red banners fly beneath stone dog standards. [US Ch.7-8]
They share Mount Venture’s western slopes with the Golden Sword School, splitting mining profits from the rust-red cliffs. Their mounts are Craghounds: stone dogs the size of horses, Forged constructs created by Soulsmiths. Their delegation to the Seven-Year Festival brings halfsilver ingots, sky-iron statuettes, and goldsteel blades as tribute goods. [US Ch.8, Ch.12]
Li Clan
The Li Clan identifies itself through excess. Remnants fly around their members’ heads as display: jade hawks, silver butterflies, twin-headed crimson eagles. The most honored elders wear five rings in each ear and two on each finger. Their banner is a snake wound around a tree, carried on tall wooden branches by Copper attendants. Musical accompaniment follows their delegation everywhere. Green and gray are their colors. [US Ch.8]
Their specialty is unusual for Sacred Valley: spatial research. The clan purchased an ancient stone tablet from a Nethergate auction, a fragment dating back thousands of years containing half of a script “intended for direct spatial transportation.” The Remnants they hunt reflect this interest: a rabbit that crosses yards in the blink of an eye, a bat that vanishes into nothing, a mole that burrows through thin air. [US Ch.8]
The spatial research concealed a generational conspiracy. Li Clan Grand Patriarch Li Markuth had ascended from Sacred Valley centuries ago. The clan spent generations decoding the portal script to enable his return. At the Seven-Year Festival, Li Markuth stepped through: a being with wings and fangs, radiating power entirely deficient to describe in Gold terms. He slaughtered the gathered clans until Suriel intervened and reversed time. Li Markuth was sentenced to 503 years imprisonment in Haven. [US Ch.8-9, Epilogue]
The other factions never learned what happened. Time itself was rewound. But the records note that the Li Clan had been “suspiciously quiet” before the festival, making no motion to improve its strength. They did not need to. [US Ch.6]
Heaven’s Glory School
Heaven’s Glory occupies Mount Samara, the tallest peak in Sacred Valley, blanketed in snow. Their most visible asset is Samara’s Ring: a massive halo of pale white light that circles the summit, appearing at sundown and disappearing at sunrise. The ring is a construction of light aura bound into form by an expert centuries past, enabling night cultivation of light-aspect arts. It is visible from anywhere in the valley. [US Ch.6, Ch.8, Ch.12]
The school’s reputation among the other factions is poor. They abduct talented children from other clans to bolster their ranks. “There are disadvantages to living near Heaven’s Glory,” Wei Shi Jaran told his son, referring to the clan members who disappeared. [US Ch.4, Ch.6]
Heaven’s Glory murdered the Sword Sage. A Jade-level sacred artist from outside the valley, the Sword Sage had come to explore the Labyrinth beneath Sacred Valley. The school’s elders poisoned him in his sleep, then stabbed his corpse. They did it for his treasures and his Remnant. The school lost thirteen of their own in the process, including Elders Harbek, Nasiri, and Serenity, killed by the Sage’s Remnant before it could be subdued. [US Ch.13, Ch.19]
Elder Whitehall is the school’s most notable Jade: a genius trapped in a child’s body by a failed youth elixir, appearing no older than twelve. His Heaven’s Lance Striker technique is the most devastating ranged attack in Sacred Valley. Elder Rahm, keeper of the Lesser Treasure Hall, commands flying sword constructs and Forged glass defenses. The school guards a significant hoard: halfsilver daggers, spirit-seals, a Starlotus bud, a Sylvan Riverseed, a Thousand-Mile Cloud, parasite rings, and clearblood pills. [US Ch.13-15]
The school’s entrance trial, the Trial of Glorious Ascension, is a staircase carved into Mount Samara’s slopes that tests resolve and spirit foundations. One in three disciples dies or has their spirit broken. Those who complete it before sundown may choose one item from the Lesser Treasure Hall. [US Ch.12-13]
Fallen Leaf School
The Fallen Leaf School occupies Yoma Mountain in the north, where purple orus trees grow on the slopes. They practice life techniques and control most ancestral trees in Sacred Valley, distributing ancestral orus fruit and Starlotus buds to the clans as their primary source of political leverage. [US Ch.1, Ch.6]
Their mountain guards the Nethergate: a thirty-meter door carved with a Dreadgod image that opens every ten years. The school’s elders retrieve treasures from the shallowest levels of the Labyrinth beneath. The Nethergate is “the largest and most obvious entrance” to the structure that forms the foundation of the entire valley. [US Ch.6, Ch.12]
Holy Wind School
The Holy Wind School controls Greatfather Mountain in the south, whose peak is shaped like the mouth of a bottle. Year-round storms concentrate water aura at the summit. The Dragon River cascades down from pools at the top, flowing through the valley below. [US Ch.6, Ch.12]
Their most prized resource is Greatfather’s Tears: a regenerative pool at the mountain’s peak where favored elders bathe, regenerating their vitality of body and spirit. Access to the pool is the school’s primary trade commodity, and they guard it accordingly. [US Ch.6, Ch.12]
Golden Sword School
The Golden Sword School shares Mount Venture’s rust-red cliffs with the Kazan Clan, occupying the shortest of the four peaks. They are craftsmen first, warriors second. Their primary contributions to Sacred Valley are parasite rings (devices that siphon and store madra) and the products of their mining territory: halfsilver, goldsteel, and sky-iron. They split profits with the Kazan Clan. [US Ch.6, Ch.12]
The Seven-Year Festival
Every seven years, the seven factions gather in a circular arena of orus wood to compete. The Festival’s original purpose was to promote unity, but it became the primary stage for political maneuvering. The arena features tiered seating separated by clan colors (purple and white for the Wei, green and gray for the Li, brown and red for the Kazan) with a guest box for the four schools. A hundred-yard white stone stage divides into eight sections for combat exhibitions. [US Ch.7]
The Festival doubles as a talent showcase. Heaven’s Glory scouts for children to recruit. The schools display their most promising disciples. The clans negotiate territory, trade, and grudges. In the year
The Outside Perspective
To the Blackflame Empire beyond the mountains,
The “curse” is a suppression field that reduces all sacred artists within the valley to roughly Jade-level power. The clans and schools of Sacred Valley are not weak because they lack talent. They are constrained by a system they do not know exists. Their Paths, traditions, and rivalries developed within these invisible boundaries. The entire political structure described above operates inside a cage whose bars no one can see. [BL Ch.10]
A Dragon in the Valley
Orthos spent months in the valley training Kelsa. He retrained her Iron body from scratch (harder than learning right the first time), and she advanced to Jade under his guidance. When Jai Long and Jai Chen entered the valley through Heaven’s Glory’s defenses, Orthos recruited Jai Long for a rescue operation to free Wei Shi Seisha from the school’s prison. [WS Ch.27]
The operation succeeded in freeing prisoners but not in escaping the school’s territory. Then the Wandering Titan’s spiritual pressure crashed over the valley, golden veins of earth aura blazing across the sky. Orthos: “We’re out of time. Anyone who can feel that is too close.” [WS Ch.27]
The Evacuation
When
The Kazan Patriarch listened to the warnings, cross-checked them with his own scouts and scholars, and committed his clan within the hour. Stocky and black-bearded in chainmail with a bear pelt, he made his assessment and acted: “Everything you’ve said lines up. I believe you. We entrust ourselves to your honor.” The Kazan activated their emergency beacons and war alarms to gather the entire clan territory.
The Li Matriarch, gray-haired and dignified in a silver tiara with an emerald-set jeweled snake on her shoulders, refused. She suspected manipulation: “Perhaps you hope we will make ourselves vulnerable in our haste.” She planned to shelter in place. [BL Ch.9]
The Wei Clan responded worst of all. Old prejudices against their outcast Unsouled ran deeper than survival instinct. The Patriarch dismissed
When the sky turned gold and the Titan arrived, the holdouts ran out of time.
The Wandering Titan destroyed Sacred Valley. Mount Venture cracked open. The Wei Clan’s central avenue, the Shi family district, and Elder Whisper’s tower were crushed. The Seven-Year Festival arena, where Lindon had first met Suriel, was gone. The Titan tore a chunk from Samara’s Ring and consumed it, its cracks glowing briefly yellow with absorbed power. Only three of the four sacred peaks remained standing. [BL Ch.16]
The Successor
The Twin Star Sect was born as a bluff. Jai Chen, leading several hundred Sacred Valley refugees through the Desolate Wilds, encountered Jai Clan scouts who demanded to know what faction backed them. Panicking, she claimed: “We were sent here by the Sage of Twin Stars.” Gasps erupted. “A Sage?” [BL Ch.20]
Eithan formalized the Twin Star Sect in Lindon’s name (without consulting him). The symbol: a starburst with one half red and orange, the other half blue, fused together. Lindon served as Patriarch and “enigmatic mysterious expert” while Eithan handled operations from the Windfall cloudship. The sect recruited Sacred Valley refugees and Desolate Wilds locals, offering elixirs, training, and the promise of relocation east. [RP Ch.3]
By Waybound, the Twin Star Sect had grown to rival the Arelius family presence in Serpent’s Grave. Wei Shi Kelsa, Lindon’s sister and a Lowgold on the Path of the White Fox, was appointed to speak with Lindon’s voice. Sacred Valley itself had become a refuge for displaced populations from across the world: the original clans, Desolate Wilds refugees, Blackflame Empire evacuees, and survivors from Dreadnought City in Everwood. More people sheltered there than ever before, living in the labyrinth’s outer layers through entrances Lindon left open. The seven factions that once defined the valley had dissolved into something larger. [WB Ch.4-5]
The New Order
After the Monarchs ascended and the Dreadgods died, the seven factions that defined Sacred Valley for centuries ceased to matter. The Twin Star Sect controlled the territory. Wei Clan banners came down; Twin Star banners flew in their place. Sages and Heralds became the greatest powers on Cradle, and three Dreadgod cults moved into the vacuum: the Silent Servants, Redmoon Hall, and the Stormcallers. [TH S8]
The Wei Clan elders still held meetings. They fought over territorial scraps of old Sacred Valley while outsiders held the real power. Samara’s Ring, shattered when the Wandering Titan consumed part of it, was rebuilt by
Wei Shi Kelsa, Lindon’s older sister and a Truegold on the Path of the White Fox, became the factions’ primary point of leverage. The Silent Servants assigned Balari, a Herald, as her bodyguard, calling her “Little Sister.” The Stormcallers bestowed the title “Daughter of Dread.” Redmoon Hall’s Kahn Mala, an Archlady with a Blood Shadow cobra around her neck, cycled through titles: “Matriarch,” “Daughter,” “Your Highness.” Every faction wanted proximity to Lindon, and Kelsa was the closest they could reach. [TH S8]
The Twin Star Sect’s influence ran deeper than politics. At the Black Star Troupe underground arena, a short woman called Bloody Thorn fought with two cores: pure madra wielding the Empty Palm technique and yellow earth madra that stiffened her dress into armor. She was a Twin Star Sect member, trained in the
When
Akura Charity, now the Heart Sage, expressed displeasure that Lindon had visited her territory without informing her. The old seven factions of Sacred Valley had been replaced by something larger: a web of continental powers orbiting two people who had once been children in the valley’s lowlands. [TH S13]
Elder Whisper
The ancient white fox who lived in his tower within the Wei Clan compound was not what he appeared. Elder Whisper revealed five tails, an onyx panther transformation, full mastery of the White Fox Path, and the ability to open spatial tears. He had visited Heaven’s Glory unseen. He had watched everything. He had known the truth all along. [BL Epilogue]
His final words to the survivors: “Would you like to know how to kill the Dreadgods?” [BL Epilogue]