Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Something's been bothering me about the Winter's Claw Tribe (food, logistics, and Inuits)

Darrosh Jewfist··20 votes·14,049 views

So Sejuani very clearly states 'We do not till earth like the Avarosan', right? That means the Winter's Claw Tribe doesn't farm and it appears to simply recruit warriors from the villages it visits.

They also basically live in an Arctic/Tundra environment.

After doing my best to research, the only northern/arctic culture I've found that subsists on a hunter-gatherer culture are the Inuits who, in their peak, numbered some 100,000 - man, woman, and child. And that's an area basically spanning from Alaska to Greenland. Their numbers have grown thanks to the advent of supplies and prepackaged food, but the current number of hunter-gatherers has dwindled quite a bit.

But the thing is, Inuit-Inuit conflicts are very rare. Partly because of their cultural background which is much more communal oriented but also because they're basically scattered across such a wide area since they can't all hunt in the same area or else they'd over-hunt and starve themselves.

So it's like... Sejuani, what are you doing?

I just find it extremely hard to believe Sejuani even knows what she's doing. She has no sustainable supply of food other than raids. Her income and supplies comes from what she seizes. And she has no plan to actually settle down and cultivate a civilization due to her aversion to agriculture. Like, how do the Winter's Claw even survive without agriculture and I guess the short answer is that they don't since Sejuani's the sole sibling to survive into adulthood.

It just seems suicidal. Even if by some miracle she manages to beat out the Avarosan or the Frostguard, Demacia and Noxus will go 'lol, no more food for u' and will steamroll them.

tl:dr - closest example to Winter's Claw are the Inuits and the Inuits don't have the manpower or food to wage war so why is the Winter's Claw going on this suicidal war?

58 Comments

RiotBioluminescence18 votes

Interesting!

So, to me, it seems that the Winter's Claw tribe is somewhat parasitic in nature. We know they do not 'sow seeds and till the earth' and that Sejuani A) compares her tribe to a wolf, and B) she rides a bloody great big boar. Neither a wolf or a boar is a herbivore in nature, and (while the wolf would prefer meat exclusively) they are both omnivores - they'll eat whatever they can get.

Here's a list of possible food sources that don't stretch the imagination toooooo much, I hope:

  • Reindeer/Caribou (or equivalent)
  • Meat (raw, boiled, roasted, smoked, dried, salted, lye-rotted)
  • Partially digested lichen (from reindeer stomachs)
  • Blood (consumed fresh or used in soup, sausage, or a sort of 'tofu')
  • Milk (raw, fermented, cheese, dried, butter, yogurt)
  • Bones (stock, marrow)
  • Whale/Seal/Walrus (or equivalent)
  • Meat (as above)
  • Blubber
  • Skin
  • Laver/Irish Moss/other seaweeds
  • Birds
  • Meat
  • Eggs
  • Bones (stock)
  • Fish
  • Meat (as above, also fermented)
  • Bones (stock)
  • Polar Bear
  • Meat (as above)

Then, maybe they have herd animals (even if they don't sow seeds) and we can expect there to be lichen (for the reindeer) but any other thin patches of grasses or root vegetables would support these as long as they were highly mobile:

  • Goat
  • Meat (as above)
  • Milk (as above)
  • Bones
  • Boar
  • Meat
  • Bones

Then lastly the two assumptions are that Sejuani's tribe TAKE what they want from the border villages (much in the way the Wildlings in Game of Thrones do) and then we have the added wildcard of there being legitimate Seers and other magic users who could help identify other food sources and/or mitigate hunger.

(Standard disclaimer - I'm only as well informed as any player here - I don't have secret Riot narrative team knowledge on this, as I am not part of that team.)

Sneak Dog19 votes

Polar Bear

Meat (as above)

Volibear Ursine disapproves

ArcticSirius4 votes

I should also mention that the tundra isn't really fertile ground to grow crops, so the land that Sejuani must live in was probably not great for agriculture to begin with. From her point of view, it must be that if they can't grow food, no one else should or that their way of life has made them strong. And I say they can't grow food as I've lived in the North most of my life (Inuvik has marshes and permafrost, while Yellowknife is simply too rocky to grow anything sustainable). With that in mind, it could be quite possible that Sejuani wants to rule the Freljord so that they can obtain more fertile lands and that accepting help from another tribe would be seen as a weakness (remember, they pride themselves on strength).

ElJanitorFrank8 votes

Don't forget the...well...

the summoner 31 .

I know, I know, hang me if you must, but a N*gga gotta eat.

RiotBioluminescence10 votes

{quoted}

Don't forget the...well...

the summoner 31 .

I know, I know, hang me if you must, but a N*gga gotta eat.

Oh you're quite right. To the right person, I'd bet a poro would be a tasty snack indeed.

Sharjo5 votes

Depends on how much meat is actually on a Poro. I mean considering the size of their mouths relative to their bodies there can't be that much on them, and a bunch is probably body fat, although in Freljord the fact they're probably easily lured out, trapped and killed would make it worth while due to how easy they would be to catch and kill, unlike other animals which would likely either be extremely viscous or elusive depending on the animal; you either hunt Boars, wolves, bears and hope you can beat them, or hunt deer, goats, rodents and rely on lying in wait and ambushing/trapping them in a frigid environment.

Would make for a situation where Poros are driven extinction simply due to the scarcity of food, which I suppose would explain why they would be found in abundance in places as remote as the Howling Abyss.

RiotBioluminescence6 votes

{quoted}

Depends on how much meat is actually on a Poro. I mean considering the size of their mouths relative to their bodies there can't be that much on them, and a bunch is probably body fat, although in Freljord the fact they're probably easily lured out, trapped and killed would make it worth while due to how easy they would be to catch and kill, unlike other animals which would likely either be extremely viscous or elusive depending on the animal; you either hunt Boars, wolves, bears and hope you can beat them, or hunt deer, goats, rodents and rely on lying in wait and ambushing/trapping them in a frigid environment.

Would make for a situation where Poros are driven extinction simply due to the scarcity of food, which I suppose would explain why they would be found in abundance in places as remote as the Howling Abyss.

Well, we've seen what happens to a poro if you feed it poro snax - it gets much bigger than it should realistically (conservation of mass, and all that) and then when it has consumed ten snax, it demonstrates a particularly unusual reproductive process and explodes into 8 small-sized poros. Now, the 9-snax poro looks to be almost half as big as Sejuani's giant boar, which I imagine makes for some good eatin' - especially if to get it to that size, all you need to do are feed it 9 Avarosan game hen meat biscuits.

And then, of course, there's the poro King...

Solideus4 votes

In many ways Poros don't seem...natural. What are the chances of them being malevolent, otherworldly creatures in disguise? 50/50?

RiotBioluminescence6 votes

{quoted}

In many ways Poros don't seem...natural. What are the chances of them being malevolent, otherworldly creatures in disguise? 50/50?

What does that make Braum?

Solideus4 votes

Secretly evil Poros are funny, but secretly evil Braum makes me uncomfortable.

ElJanitorFrank2 votes

The heart is the strongest muscle!

( TIME TO HARVEST THEM FOR MY EXPERIMENTS MUAHAHAHA )

Slushi Simcambi2 votes

Someone is watching too much Star Trek :/

Solideus1 votes

Freljord=Star Trek..? Makes sense if you really think about it. Federation, Klingons, Borg; it's all in there.

Sharjo1 votes

Big problem though, aren't Poro-snax Avarosan made? They're gonna have to pillage Avarosan just to fatten up the Poros, and then what would be the point with the Poros if you pillaged anyway?! I suppose they could just steal a recipe or something but the point still stands!

RiotBioluminescence4 votes

{quoted}

Big problem though, aren't Poro-snax Avarosan made? They're gonna have to pillage Avarosan just to fatten up the Poros, and then what would be the point with the Poros if you pillaged anyway?! I suppose they could just steal a recipe or something but the point still stands!

No I think you're absolutely right.

But imagine you're a bloodthirsty Winter's Claw raider, and you want the best way of storing and transporting food for your high-energy nomadic lifestyle. I'm suggesting that if you raid an Avarosan village or 12, you can butcher their hens and turn them into easy to transport poro snax. Then, in the bitter North, as long as you keep 1 healthy poro alive with you, then with 10+ snax you can replicate those poros into fresh meat.

Both grim as hell, and cute as bunnies.

Focus Teemo8 votes

{quoted}

Oh you're quite right. To the right person, I'd bet a poro would be a tasty snack indeed.

We need to add to Volibear 's lore that his favorite snack is summoner 31 , which of course makes him Braum 's rival. Best side story in the game!

GreenLore3 votes

And then they'll have to wrestle when they meet ingame!

Focus Teemo1 votes

Exactly what i was thinking!

junglerboy163 votes

I'm pretty sure that reindeer jerky from Finland is what inspired the name for them actually, so they're definitely not off the dinner table despite their cute cuddly appearance.

RiotBioluminescence3 votes

{quoted}

I'm pretty sure that reindeer jerky from Finland is what inspired the name for them actually, so they're definitely not off the dinner table despite their cute cuddly appearance.

Those look interesting! Tell me, do they have sugar/sweetener in them like most jerky, or do they use a different preservation method (like South African biltong)?

junglerboy161 votes

Sorry to say but I haven't the foggiest idea.

Lich My Ashe2 votes

That moment you realize item 2054 might actually be summoner 31 and everyone just misunderstood the wording. "What is Soylent Green?"

50000000000000001 votes

It's full of protein.

RiotBioluminescence9 votes

{quoted}

It's full of protein.

Porotein?

Xhader1 votes

Marry me pls item 1063

Focus Teemo3 votes

{quoted}

Don't forget the...well...

the summoner 31 .

I know, I know, hang me if you must, but a N*gga gotta eat.

In Soviet Freljord summoner 31s eat you!

RiotBioluminescence2 votes

{quoted}

Don't forget the...well...

the summoner 31 .

I know, I know, hang me if you must, but a N*gga gotta eat.

As I mentioned, some people would fancy a poro as a tasty snack! ;) (Check the background cage - so mean.)

Siachi1 votes

You subtle, foreshadowing little sneak you are.

=D

EDIT: Also poor poro; I choose to imagine Braum bursting into the kitchen and engaging in an epic mustache fight to save the poro.

RiotBioluminescence2 votes

{quoted}

You subtle, foreshadowing little sneak you are.

=D

EDIT: Also poor poro; I choose to imagine Braum bursting into the kitchen and engaging in an epic mustache fight to save the poro.

I request an epic cook-off TV series following Braum and Tahm, with the fate of the poros in the audience hanging in the balance. Will Braum's scrumptious savories save the day? Will Tahm Kench's despicably delicious dishes doom them all? Tune in to find out!

Xenos von Faneli2 votes

Only if Master Chef Pantheon is the judgePantheon

ElJanitorFrank1 votes

Request to change my name to Nostradamus please.

(Just kidding I think I'll stick with this one)

Fowus1 votes

what about yeti Nunu

TTUPhoenix11 votes

One thing that strikes me is Exact Words (tm):

The Winter's Claw do not till the earth. Other tribes do. If you (Sejuani) capture a village of another tribe, then they're obviously weak, unfit as warriors, yada yada. So it's fine for them to till the earth while the Winter's Claw does the fighting. As a result, she might have a sort-of-serf population of captured tribes or villages who do the farming for her to free up the real warriors to go ride boars or arm wrestle or whatnot.

50000000000000002 votes

Or even straight-up slavery.

GreenLore7 votes

I doubt that sejuani is really eager to make her tribe big,I think she values quality over quantity.

Scarce food resources means that only the stronger ones survive.If you want to live,then help in the upcoming raid and steal their stuff,hunt some animals or search for edible plants.

If you can't survive in the cold then you aren't worthy of surviving at all.

Darrosh Jewfist6 votes

It just sounds like a terrible way to lose a war. I think Sejuani can't even field the proper numbers to contest the Avarosan. I'm not sure what's the population size is, but the Winter's Claw tribe doesn't seem capable of feeding or clothing a population, much less a dedicated army on the warpath.

Massive attrition rates, and the Avarosan possess more farmland and a larger population pool. Given that the Avarosan are also probably the most industrialized tribe, they could begin building fortifications or even invite Demacian/Noxian trainers to professionalize their army.

GreenLore10 votes

The thing is: what use are these farmlands if their defenses are so meager that they are easily overrun by sejuani anyway? Ashes problem is that her tribe is so big its hard to defend against enemies.Her armies are relatively small in comparison to her overall population and not everyone among the avarosans is happy with ashe as their leader.

keep in mind that the winters claw is living in the coldest region of the freljord,I doubt they even could cultivate the land.

I doubt Sejuanis tribe alone could rival the city states in power,it is most likely much smaller,but the same goes for her opponents too.

Painted Celt3 votes

There are also North-East Siberian natives who at least partially subsist as hunter gatherers. If I recall properly (I read about this a long time ago), some of them herd wild reindeer, but the herds are treated as more of a natural resource to be tracked and protected rather than a case of developed animal husbandry. From what I know about them, they do occasionally have inter-tribal skirmishes but never on a very large scale due to small population sizes and isolation even between their own tribes.

Ah, found a Wikipedia page on one (Evenks) of the North-East Siberian native groups: "Traditionally they were a mixture of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers—they relied on their domesticated reindeer for milk and transport and hunted other large game for meat (Vasilevich, 620-1)."

"The traditional Evenki economy was a mix of pastoralism (of horses or reindeer), fishing, and hunting. The Evenki who lived near the Okhotsk Sea hunted seal, but for most of the taiga-dwellers, elk, wild reindeer, and fowl were the most important game animals. Other animals included “roe deer, bear, wolverine, lynx, wolf, Siberian marmot, fox, and sable” (Vasilevich, 626). Trapping did not become important until the imposition of the fur tax by the tsarist government."

I don't see any references to their warfare, but I recall seeing a picture of their battle equipment a while back - which was composed of mostly padded clothing and a large triangular wooden/leather "shield" piece across the shoulders.

ElJanitorFrank3 votes

One thing you gotta keep in mind is that this is a fantasy setting.

Meaning they could easily have extremely big fantasy monster to eat up there, plants that grow well in the frozen wastes, magic n shit, etc.

It's a bit hard to compare it to the real world. Especially the Inuit/Inuit conflict, Sejuani is warring with Ahse/Lissandra because they have different values, different cultures, they are Inuits.

And from my understanding, Sejuani is much more based on Norse culture than Inuit culture.

Darrosh Jewfist3 votes

One thing you gotta keep in mind is that this is a fantasy setting.

So to me unless otherwise noted, their world operates on the same principles as ours. I am not going to make baseless assumptions about their flora and fauna and hand-wave stuff as 'magicccc' unless the text explicitly states so.

ElJanitorFrank2 votes

I am not going to make baseless assumptions about their flora and fauna

The person you're nitpicking in the first place rides an enormous boar, presumably coming from up north where she lives, which would provide food for 10 grown warriors.

And Poros also live north, and in great quantities if the Howling Abyss is any indicator.

Sejuani has the ability to make someone icy and then detonate the ice, if that isn't magic I don't know what is.

Trolls live up north as well, very many trolls that live in large tribes. They need to eat as well, I would assume they are omnivorous because they do have tusks, which many herbivores have but seem very aggressive and barbaric like a carnivore. That would imply that large or plentiful game exists in the tundra as well as edible plants.

You know, it's not my fault you don't try to examine every little detail for clues on how they lived.

Darrosh Jewfist2 votes

Saying 'because it's magicccc!' is about as useful to me as saying 'it's a miracle!' for every natural phenomenon observed.

I see those things, yes. There could be magic, yes.

But barring the possibility of magic, how could Sejuani's tribe possibly survive and wage a war in such a landscape? Hell, are we even sure what the Winter's Claw landscape looks like? I always assumed it was arctic tundra.

But I must strongly disagree. I don't think it's examining much at all if you simply narrow yourself to an excuse like magic.

ElJanitorFrank2 votes

...Did you read the post? I only mentioned that Sejuani can likely use magic, nothing more. EVERYTHING ELSE was quite likely and simply the product of the natural fantasy world.

macromite1 votes

I think a viable food source could come from frost wyrms. their supposed to be large, and in areas her tribe has access to. they also are confirmed to exist lore wise.

YOLO420SWAGSCOPE3 votes

remember that this is riot writing lore

Teslablade2 votes

Also, instead of Vikings, Mongols had a similar lifestyle. Completely nomadic, pillaging and conquering from their mounts.

Matezoide2 votes

Sejuani is just a crappy leader with no plans for the future. She is going to end up starving to death before the war is over.

Teslablade1 votes

Well, there are also the Vikings...they were nomadic, Arctic-area-dwellers who subsisted on pillaging, and they did quite nicely. And on a side note, the word Freljord (I can't italicize on my phone) sounds more Scandinavian that Inuit. There's a bit of a dichotomy between the cultural inspiration for different Freljord champs. For example, Nunu is more Inuit, whereas Olaf is, of course a Viking.

Vistha Kai7 votes

Vikings weren't nomadic. They were pillagers, yes, but they had permanent settlements and cultivated land. You also forget the fact Vikings were seasoned merchants.

Winter Claw's Tribe is more like a band of outlaws hiding in the woods than anything really.

Darrosh Jewfist3 votes

Except Vikings actually operated out of permanent villages that did farming, herding, and fishing. Vikings pillaged mainly to supplement their income and gains instead of it being their exclusive form of income.

More from Story, Art, & Sound

Petition to keep the Bilgewater ARAM map in circulation
Story, Art, & Sound154 comments
1,161
votes
[SUPER IMPORTANT PETITION] Change Sion's ban quote...
Story, Art, & Sound54 comments
597
votes
Can we get an Honor animation?! 4 ways to insult an opponent but none to congratulate them.
Story, Art, & Sound202 comments
578
votes
Petition to make Rengar wiggle his butt when there's a pounce-able target near his bush
Story, Art, & Sound140 comments
476
votes
About this years harrowing...
Story, Art, & Sound357 comments
459
votes
RIOT, please postpone Blood Moon Diana and make it into a Legendary skin.
Story, Art, & Sound236 comments
423
votes

More by Darrosh Jewfist

What exactly is there to look forward to in League's narrative, lore, or story?
Story, Art, & Sound193 comments
111
votes
Whatever the BIG Lore Reveal for the Bilgewater event is, it's not going to be worth it
Story, Art, & Sound135 comments
85
votes
At this point, what is making League Lore stand out from other franchises? Seems generic
Story, Art, & Sound151 comments
83
votes
I'm glad Riot is investing in these cinematics but can we please get a map of Valoran?
Story, Art, & Sound56 comments
73
votes
"Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water" - Kurt Vonnegut
Story, Art, & Sound53 comments
52
votes
Can Secondary Characters be LESS useless? Case Study of MF, Fiora, and Taliyah
Story, Art, & Sound52 comments
38
votes