Kanza of Tamiir Quah
The Stormgazer
The Ink & Chord: Field Interviews are a traveling chronicle devoted to preserving first-hand accounts from those whose lives intersected with the Misfits. Over the years, the interviewers - Quillon Brambletack and Calla Waywillow - sought out allies, rivals, mentors, enemies, witnesses, and survivors. Their purpose was simple: to record testimony before rumor distorts it, before memory softens it, and before time erases it entirely. Each interview presented in their series has been transcribed and preserved with minimal alteration beyond what was required for clarity. Together, they all form an invaluable record of the lives and legacies surrounding the Misfits.
Ink & Chord: Interview #01
-A conversation recorded in the Bear Claw Winter Hall of Daruun
by Quillon Brambletack and Calla Waywillow
It was only a matter of time before our work led us to Lady Kanza: shaman, clan-mother, and one of the architects of the Bear Claw Clan. Among her own, she is spoken of with a mix of reverence and exasperation: the woman who carries storms in her blood and has little patience for anyone who ignores the wisdom of the anscestors.
We met her in Daruun, the Bear Claw's winter hall, on a night when the wind clawed at the walls and the smoke from the hearth burned sharp in the lungs. Kanza did not greet us with warmth. She watched as we approached, measuring us with a steady, unblinking calm. When she finally inclined her head to acknowledge our request, it felt less like welcome and more like permission.
She had agreed to this interview, she told us, for one reason only: to keep her sons and her people from being turned into comfortable stories.
What follows is a faithful transcript of that conversation, preserved as closely as ink and our ears allow.
Lady Kanza speaks
Kanza: Unity. We are neither Shoanti nor Ulfen, but something forged between the two. Proud folk. Not the brightest or the wisest, but every one of them would die for their neighbor without hesitation.
Tell me, scribe, can a city claim the same?
Kanza: Resistance? No. Both sides respect strength. And a leader who can become a bear big enough to tear you apart tends to keep arguments… brief.
As for Shoanti customs, those are not up for negotiation. I brought the ones worth carrying. The rest stayed with the mountain. And no, little one - most of them are not for your ears.
Kanza: Loneliness isn’t the right word. My legacy is a thing I carry, not something that crushes me. When I felt alone, it was usually because my people - spirits bless them - are not the brightest. The Bear Claw produce exceptional warriors, unwavering loyalty… and remarkable stupidity. My sons are a great example of that.
Kanza: Of course. It is the truth.
Kanza: Hot-heads, all of them. Storm from me, bear-rage from their father; what serenity did you expect?
Eilif had Earl’s fire as he was in his youth: ambitious, reckless, inspiring and infuriating in the same time.
Elroy is gentler. Still impulsive, still foolish at times, but with more root beneath him. He always reminded me of my mother.
Einar… ah, Einar. Fierce and stubborn, but with a soft heart he tries - and fails - to hide. Too quick to burn, too quick to regret. That softness is his father’s legacy.
Kanza: Earl gave the Bear Claw its voice. I am more… withdrawn. Shaman paths pull you inward. But Earl? He is the one people sought out. Inspiring, protective, steady. A shield when needed, a spear when required.
Kanza: Earl knows enough to show respect. That is all the spirits require. Understanding is another matter entirely. And no, that was never his strength.
In a glance
Calla's Corner
Quillon's Notes
Editor's note
Kanza:
His name was the Eye of the Storm, scribe. Use it.
As for where I stood no, that I do not remember. But I remember the storm that came the day before. Sudden. Violent. The kind that arrives without warning- like an omen. Something tugged at my blood, though I could not name it. When my sons returned and told me what had happened, I was… taken aback. None of our stories spoke of such a thing. Even the ancestors were silent. I felt surprise. Earl felt fear and the boys were eager.
They left within a week.
Kanza: Of course it did. He lived among us, but he was not Shoanti. He knew the stories of the storm, not the weight of them. The power my father carried was hereditary; passed from him to my brother, and from my brother it should have passed to his son. That is how our line was meant to run.
For the Eye of the Storm to appear and set a challenge before my sons?
That had never happened. Not once in our history.
Kanza: Fear is not the word. I wondered. I asked the spirits, and even they had no answer. I felt proud… and wary. A trial that chooses only one can set brothers against each other, no matter how tightly they’re bound.
But refusing wasn’t an option. Legacy binds us. They honored the Eye of the Storm’s command and I believed they would honor his decision as well.
I was mistaken.
Kanza: As the Eye of the Storm commanded, they climbed the peak again after a year and a day. Each carried his answer. The spirit listened, weighed them, and chose. He chose Einar. Eilif - my eldest - did not accept the choice. Rage took him. He shifted into a bear and charged his brother. Einar had brought companions; one of them, Davina, stepped between them. Eilif meant to kill her.
So Einar killed him first.
Kanza: Of course he regrets it. Any man with a soul would. But I know he would make the same choice again if he had to. That is what it means to lead.
Kanza: He changed, as he should have. A leader who remains the same is unworthy of the storm. That’s enough on that topic.
Outside bonds are necessary. I left my whole Quah for an Ulfen slave, didn’t I? Shoanti insight is keen, but it doesn’t make Shoanti choices perfect. Isolation is a fool’s path.
The people he met shaped him. They tempered him. He found the answer the Eye of the Storm demanded because of them.
Kanza: Opinions, yes, though not full judgments. I don’t know them well enough for that. Davina I respect. She’s clever - too clever sometimes - and young enough to mistake recklessness for bravery. Time will hammer her sharp or break her; we’ll see which.
Alycia strikes me as aloof, though perhaps that’s simply the way she carries her thoughts. The dwarf - Gus - has sharp eyes. I value people who pay attention.
Kanza: Storm runs in their blood, whether I feel it or not. They’re young, woven from more cultures than most Bear Claw see in a lifetime. That alone will make their futures… interesting.
My blessings are for the spirits, not for your little book. But I’ll tell you this much: I’ve asked them to keep watch over Faith. She is touched by forces not born of this world. That will make her road harsher than most. And if the old laws still hold… one day the storm will sit on her shoulders.
Kanza: I am not a fortune teller, gnome. And I am not one to carve boundaries into their future. They will walk where the wind pushes them. As we all do.
Kanza did not wait for another question. When she finished speaking, she rose at once. She inclined her head - once, sharply - indicating the interview had concluded. We offered our thanks. She acknowledged them with a single, efficient nod before stepping back into the dimness behind the hearth, where the smoke obscured her completely.
For documentation purposes, I will note this: Kanza speaks with the certainty of someone who has long since weighed her truths and accepted their cost. As Calla observed, she is a woman carved by storm and spirit; unyielding in presence, and no less so in recollection.
After Interview Notes
Six months after we spoke with her, Lady Kanza fell near Hado’s Passing while shielding her infant grandson, James Earl. Witnesses disagreed on what she faced, but all agree on how she faced it: steady, unmoving, unafraid. The child lived because she gave her life to ensure it.
Her body was returned to her people, and the rites were sung over her in the ways of the clan she had created. Many of the choices she made - the migration paths, the defensive patterns, the rituals she revived - remain untouched. Changing them now would feel, to the Bear Claw, like trying to rearrange the stones of a mountain. They do not speak of her death with grief so much as with a quiet, heavy respect. And when they claim the wind shifted the moment she fell, I find myself believing them.
Not long after her passing, Earl left the tribe without much warning. Some say he went to seek solitude; others say he followed the wind in hopes it might carry him back to her. Whatever the truth, no one has seen him since.
Faith still keeps the braid-ring her grandmother made for her. She turns it in her fingers when she thinks no one is watching.
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I love, love, love the in-universe interview style for the article; very immersive :D I love how each character has a unique voice, and their dialogue having different fonts and colours is a nice touch ^^
Thank you so much CoolG!! I hope I'll get to write many more characters like this <3