#Kelenthor the Clanless

[indignantlemur]

Larger image (STRONGLY recommended): HERE The resolution on this is painful, so I'm including detail shots below the cut.

This meeting room was furnished many centuries ago by a renowned artisan who could carve stone and shells in stunning detail, and could shape and colour glass in a way that was never seen before and has never been replicated since. He took the secrets of his techniques to the grave, dying at an unexpectedly young age in a duel with a public safety official over the seizure of a rare and extremely toxic pigment imported from a Clan to the far south. His name was Kelenthor, and he was the only Clanless to ever attain such a high level of renown and fortune purely on his artistic talent. He lived during what would eventually be called the Post-Unification Andorian Renaissance. While this artisan was alive, he had a somewhat adversarial relationship with various officials and was known to use his art as a medium to mock and criticize his social betters. He was beloved by the general populace for exclusively taking on students from the lower social classes - almost as much as he was resented by the upper classes for his habit of hiding subversive messages in his commissioned works. Regardless of where one stood with Kelenthor, none could deny his talents. If you wanted the best of the best, Kelenthor was the one to commission. As such, he was eventually commissioned to design and create furnishings for a number of rooms and even entire buildings which are now used exclusively by government officials today or otherwise preserved as precious cultural works.

This particular room is widely regarded as his best work: the walls are conspicuously and almost insultingly plain, barely carved at all. At the centre of the room lies a heavy and imposing table of solid marbled stone - also barely ornamented, save some bevelling along the edges. The surface was treated with a substance which renders the stone almost entirely impervious to damage. No matter how one might rain blows upon it, barely a scratch remains to remember them by - much like many of the politicians who have sat at this table since its creation, which many believe was the subversive message behind the thing in the first place.

The focal points are the throne-like seats arrayed around the blunt instrument of a marble table, intricately carved and inlaid with precious shell and glasswork, iridescent and shining under even the faintest rays of light. Each scatters prisms randomly around the room, illuminating the shadows and often causing quite a few headaches when meetings stretch too long. More importantly, every single one of them was deliberately carved to be as uncomfortable as possible. No one in a position of power, Kelenthor once said, should be comfortable there.

First up, courting and wedding bands! Shral and Dagmar are only courting, so they have simple rings with minimal ornamentation, with Dagmar's being modified to fit as a cuff earring.

Thoris is married, so he has two bands on each antennae. Quite often marriage bands are more decorative and ostentatious than his, but Thoris isn't one for baubles and it's bad enough he has to wear these ridiculous robes. Frankly, if he could get away with just wearing his old Guardsman uniform to these meetings, he'd vastly prefer to. As such, his wedding bands are almost incongruously plain for his rank and status.

Next up, the lady and gentleman in the foreground! These two are Ministers, and high-ranking Andorians besides, so they ornament themselves rather loudly in comparison to our main cast's more sedate preferences. The lady on the left is Minister Zaathi, who we will be meeting in-fic very soon, and she's very fond of gemstones and carved hair beads - and not afraid of losing any, if she sheer number she's wearing are any indications. It's a weighted fashion statement, if nothing else, from a woman whose home province is small and relatively modest otherwise.

By comparison, Minister Bhael - on the right - is much more conservative in his ornamentation, but his robes are heavily embroidered and that is quite a lot of Andorian silk to be toting around. A closer look will reveal that his sleeves are embroidered with an ocean wave pattern, which is particularly interesting given the relationship Andorians have with the sea. Is it some kind of political statement, or just an odd choice of attire?

If those two are making statements with their sartorial choices, then Thoris has them all beat for layered meanings.

The silvery outer robes of office are closer to a cloak than a robe, with an inner layer that is belted around the waist and a loose outer layer that is joined to the inner layer at the shoulders and seams along the upper arms. This permits the maximum range of movement for the wearer. Being made of Andorian silk, which is several times stronger than Terran silk, it is an excellent means of protection against slashing and stabbing weapons. Despite their merits, however, Thoris loathes them. They're lightweight, sure, but they're still long and ostentatious and entirely too liable to get caught on something in a real fight. Sadly, they're also mandatory, or he'd have binned them ages ago.

The vibrant blue mid-layer is a heavy material, durable Andorian silk woven through with tiny filaments of something very similar to a carbon fibre composite, providing a measure of protection against many forms of projectiles, though less so against phase weapons. The innermost tunic is more obviously armoured than the other two layers, with panels mimicking an extensive chitin pattern along the length of the torso and forearms. The sleeves in particular draw attention to a very vibrant yellow flash - much like the chitin of the predatory veeg he is known for hunting in the past.

Next we come to Shral, who is obscured partially by shadow at Ambassador Thoris' right hand - and ready to draw his ushaan-tor at a moment's notice.

This is not standard armour for an Andorian, but rather something one might wear while sparring or training in their personal time. The armour takes the form of layered, almost beetle-shell like layers, layered over a long, cowl-necked tunic. The cowl is an unusual choice for sparring attire, as it provides a potential hand-hold for an opponent - only a very arrogant or a very skilled duelist would wear such a thing while sparring.

In contrast, Dagmar stands in the light on Thoris' left. Her working attire is lightly embroidered, and features large, pearly buttons - but otherwise she's almost conspicuously plainly dressed. Hyper aware of how shockingly pink she is in comparison to everyone else in the room, Dagmar wears muted and neutral colours to try to off-set how glaringly alien she is - which, ironically, only serves to highlight her differences even further.

@the-lady-general  @starrynightgardens  @emilie786  @horta-in-charge  @emochook  @velvet-luvie  @creature-of-the-stars @unknownfacelessfanfictions @auroramagpie

[indignantlemur]

He looks great! ☺️ Well done!

Kelenthor the clanles.

Drawn by @indignantlemur and coloured by me.

His impressive wavy hair was a nightmare.

[indignantlemur]

Larger size HERE

A quick drawing of Kelenthor, a revolutionary and cheerfully subversive artisan during the Andorian renaissance several hundred years ago. He is best known for his larger commissions, which include several government buildings still in use today - all of which include subtle and none-too-subtle subversive messages to mock his higher-ranking patrons. A Clanless Andorian of little means and less reputation, Kelenthor's rise to fame was down to pure talent and sheer, bloody-minded stubbornness - the latter of which was ultimately responsible for his untimely death. 

While a remarkable artist, craftsman, and entrepreneur, Kelenthor's talents did not extend to the martial arts, and most certainly not to duelling. He was slain in a ushaan duel with a customs officer who had tried to prevent the artist from importing a rare and extremely toxic pigment from the far south of the continent. The artisan was survived by twelve apprentices, none of whom had managed to learn any of his deeply coveted techniques and trade secrets.

(Facial piercings are no longer popular on Andoria - partly because having metal embedded in your skin in sub-zero temperatures can get a wee bit uncomfortable - but they did enjoy very short-lived burst of popularity during the renaissance period in which Kelenthor lived. In fact, Kelenthor is thought to have started the trend.)

@the-lady-general  @starrynightgardens  @emilie786  @horta-in-charge  @emochook  @velvet-luvie  @creature-of-the-stars @unknownfacelessfanfictions @auroramagpie

[indignantlemur]

I don't think Kelenthor the Clanless is beating the Caravaggio allegations...

He really, really isn't. Bless him, Kelenthor's only saving grace in this situation is that he, unlike Caravaggio, dabbled in multiple mediums rather than restricting his talents to painting alone. Otherwise it would be an open-and-shut case.

[indignantlemur]

Where do the Clanless and outcast andorians come from exactly? Are they the same thing? Are the Clanless ones a clan of their own in a way? Also why did people start abandoning children after Weytahn?

-Horta-in-Charge *boop*

Clanless Andorians are all outcasts, and as a group they are comprised of a mix of political exiles, criminals, and individuals who have brought sufficient shame and disrepute to their birth- and marriage-Clans that they have been disowned. They are not unified or even particularly organized, and trying to impose order upon the Clanless has always failed in the past.

Andoria has always had criminals - thugs, thieves, drug-peddlers, murderers, smugglers, and even pirates. During the first contact war with Orions, the Clanless' numbers expanded to include collaborators and informants, and this more than anything else has tarnished the reputation of the Clanless beyond repair.

To become Clanless is to become less than a person; a Clanless has forfeited all the rights and privileges of an upstanding citizen, and most of the protections as well. Once, a Clanless Andorian could be killed without consequence, often without even declaring a duel - and though this has not been permissible since the Unification, it took a long time for society to catch up to the laws laid down by the first Emperor.

Children born into quads of Clanless Andorians are often taken in by the birth-parents' Clans as a matter of course, or sometimes by unrelated families who cannot have children on their own. Andorians no longer slay Clanless on sight, but they also do everything possible to ensure their numbers do not increase. It's not a perfect system, and indeed it is often cruel, but most Andorians accept this as normal and even beneficial in the long-run. Some Clanless parents opt to keep their children, of course, and these families are watched very carefully by the authorities - largely for the children's education and general well-being, as Clanless are often of limited resources and opportunities comparatively. A second motive for such observation, much less often discussed but equally valid, is to prevent these quads from forming mafia-like crime families and fomenting discord.

These children grow up as full citizens of Andoria, but they also occupy an awkward grey area between Clan and Clanless Andorians. Many of these children choose to join their birth-Clan relatives and integrate into broader society once they're considered old enough to understand the decision and its consequences (roughly fourteen). This is actively encouraged, though not everyone is happy with the situation.

Kelenthor the Clanless was an amazing artist, true, but what makes his legacy profound is the fact that he came from nothing and clawed his way to fame and fortune through sheer, bloody-minded determination and stubbornness as much as raw talent. He was a rare, once-in-a-millennia sort of man, and no other Clanless has ever attained such acclaim. Many believe no other Clanless ever will.

Unfortunately, a number of small, nomadic families often get lumped in with Clanless Andorians, which is categorically unfair. These nomadic families eschew the Clan system and modern society and prefer to live in remote, self-sufficient villages far from the rest of society, which they travel between seasonally. They are not criminals, and are actually generally law-abiding citizens - if only through disinterest in interacting with the rest of Andoria. They pay their taxes (by a proxy) and keep to themselves, and that's how they like it. The Emperor is happy to leave them to it, so long as they swear loyalty to Andoria and keep out of trouble; the nomads feel much the same way about the Emperor.

As for Weytahn and the cases of abandoned children, these were mostly accidental or deemed to be the result of panic rather than deliberate. During the Pre-Federation skirmishes between Andorian and Vulcan forces, which often broke out very suddenly and violently, civilian evacuations could be haphazard and fraught with danger even with military oversight. Despite everyone's best efforts, sometimes individuals were left behind and families were separated. In some cases, parents were killed during evacuation (often by pure chance and bad luck) but their children survived and did not make it to the extraction points. Wherever possible the Imperial Guard would retrieve these orphaned and abandoned children, even undertaking risky incursions into Vulcan-occupied territory to do so. From there, the circumstances of the children's abandonment would be thoroughly investigated by arbiters specialising in such cases.

Edit: almost forgot!

[indignantlemur]

The Directory!

Emigre: link

Pairing(s): Original Andorian Character/Original Human Character (Dagmar/Shral), Andorian/Andorian, Andorian/Human/Andorian/Andorian

Rating: Explicit (as of chapter 44)

Status: In-Progress, available via AO3

A tear in the fabric of space and time has consequences that echo across ages; an unexpected arrival from the twenty-first century challenges a nation's perceptions and sets a most unlikely precedent. An exploration of Andorian culture from a Human's POV.

The Stars Keep Watch: link

Pairing(s): Va'Al Trask/Original Human Character (Va'Al/Mira)

Rating: Explicit

Status: In-Progress, available via AO3

Mira Vos signed up for Starfleet only to find herself posted to hell. Undersupplied and overstressed, the fighting on J'Gal threatens to wear her down. The arrival of a special forces unit led by a handsome Andorian promises a break in the routine... A classic wartime romance - but In Space.

🎄🎁❄️Deck the Halls (and Not the Vulcans): link

Pairings: Dagmar/Shral (background)

Rating: Teen

Status: Complete, available on AO3

It's winter time in San Francisco, and the Andorian embassy has just been challenged to participate in a friendly competition between the Federation's founding species' embassies. The objective? To see who can best decorate a Terran Christmas tree. The prize? Nothing less than deeply coveted bragging rights for the coming year.

Dagmar Gunnarssen has never been so ready for anything in her entire life.

Hoarfrost: 🚧🛠️

Pairing(s): Dagmar Gunnarssen & Ambassador Thoris th'Kor, Background relationships from Emigre

Rating: Teen

Status: In-Progress, not yet available via AO3. (Pssst! Sneak peak available: link)

An unusually powerful ion storm forces Ambassador Thoris and his retinue to abandon ship over a largely uninhabited planet. Some of the last to make it to the escape pods, Thoris and Dagmar wind up separated from the others. Together, they must navigate a frozen, eerily barren landscape - and survive.

HERE

Andorian Headcanons:

Andorians and Food

Andorians and the Sea

Andorian Governing Bodies & The Role of Nepotism

Andorian Marriage Dynamics & Divorce

Andorian Proposals

Andorian Religion & Spirituality (And horror stories)

The Andorian Imperial Clan

Andorian Hair

Andorian Holidays

Andorian Courtship Ring Metallurgy

Andorian Medical Professionals

Andorian Awards and Commendations

Andorians and Figure Skating

Andorians and Dancing

Andorians and Currency

The Andorian Facepalm?

Andorian-Vulcan relations pre-ST:ENT

Andorian Language and Conlang

Andorian Weddings and Funerals

Andorian Attitudes on Interspecies Relationships

Andorian-Human Hybridization

The Am Tal and The Andorian Incident

Andorian Clan Identification and Chitin Patterns

Andorian Names

Andorians and Adoption

Clanless Andorians

Andorians and Rites of Passage into Adulthood

The Code of the Ushaan and the Holmgang

Andorian Fairy Tales

Kelenthor the Clanless and Watercolours

Human-Andorian First Contact headcanons

Andorian Fashion and Fabrics

Are Andorians Extroverts or Introverts?

Andorian Family Dynamics

Andorian Cosmetics and Perfumes

Andorian Arts: Theatre/Opera/Poetry/Etc

Andorian Quad Marriages vs Bonds

Temperatures on Andoria

Andorian Humour and Philosophy

The Spirits of Andoria

Andorian Blood Chemistry RE: Toxins and Cyanide

Andorian Homes and Decor

Star Trek Species in the Star Wars Universe

Andorian Mate Selection (Pheromones, Personality Traits, & More)

Andorians on Punks and Goths

Andorians on Diss Tracks

Andorians and Crime & Punishment

Andorian Etiquette vs Human Etiquette

Emigre General Discussions:

Healing and Grief in Emigre

The Bulreeng Taal Beatdown

Author's Commentary: Chapter 41 - Grace and Poise

Author's Commentary: Chapter 37 - Connection

What Do The Andorians (and Dagmar) of Emigre Smell Like?

Author's Commentary: Chapter 43: The Star Thief

What Language Is Dagmar Speaking?

Author's Commentary: Chapter 46 - Face the Facts

General Writing Asks:

Advice For New Writers

HERE

HERE

OFFICIAL TAG LIST

(You can always request to be added to the list!)

[indignantlemur]

Emigre Art:

Shral: finished

Thelen: finished with detail shots

Miraal: in-progress update

Ambassador Thoris: finished (tentative)

Vrath: finished

'An Eventful Meeting' : finished

IndignantLemur's Very Serious & Accurate Antennae Expression Guide: here!

Dagmar's courting ring: here

Kelenthor the Clanless: here

Fancy Drinks and Fancy Duds: in-progress

Andorian Chitin Map Reference: Thelen, Thoris, Shral: here

IndignantLemur's Very Serious & Accurate Quad Marriage Diagram: here

Dagmar sketches: here

Thoris sketches: here

Shral sketches: here

Hallway Conversations: in-progress

Andorian Mermaids/Swimming with Dagmar: finished

Winter Holiday Series: Dagmar/Shral 2023: finished

Cozy Scenes: Dagmar & Thelen: here Dagmar & Shral: here

CANON Fan Art: Shran: here

Commissions/Gifts:

Serrin of Romulus: finished (@bigblissandlove1 commission)

S'Talon of Romulus: finished (@bigblissandlove1 commission)

Gift commission: finished (@the-lady-general commission)

Emperor Georgiou: finished (@the-lady-general commission)

Lt Hemmer: finished (@nichestartrekkie0-0 gift)

Cmdr Ophelia Zubira: finished (@unknownfacelessfanfictions)

RETURN TO THE DIRECTORY!

[sideshowkaz]

When I heard about Kelenthor the Clanless from @indignantlemur he reminded me of a character I’ve had kicking around for a wile and in the last year I’ve managed to develop. More of a Picard sort of time Andorian. He’s an artist though a holo artist and one of the creations he’s most proud of is the fairy who acts as his interpreter as due to some damage to his jaw he finds it more easy to use sign language. A lot of his art mixes the real and the false and the old and new along with different peoples cultures. This shows in his clothes as well with the earth style goth skirt and shirt put with a traditional Andorian belt. And though he likes stabbing holes in his face he’s smart enough to use silicone and plastic for jewellery as it’s safer if theres an accident as he’s on ships a lot. The only exception to that is one ring with crushed LuAG decoration as the material is a very good radiation indicator. This outfit is very subtle club wear. Lots of blue though so you can tell he’s still going to make a bad decision and regret it next morning. The freckles are just tattoos and his logic in getting them was he was raised on earth and it’s fun to find out how many humans think they are real. He also has no patches of chitin and this is intentional.

Thank you @indignantlemur for the post about Andorian clothinig and for inspiring me to draw my little rebel.

This is Rynass, and his creation Tink.

[indignantlemur]

Kelenthor the Clanless is an amalgamation of dozens of famous renaissance and medieval artists - most notable Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Bernini, Jean de Chelles/Pierre de Montreuil, Giambologna - and, yes, Caravaggio.

Kelenthor dabbled in multiple mediums, from paint to sculpture to rare pieces of metal-working and even pottery. He was generally bored with architecture, though he made the majority of his fortune on such commissions, and nearly rabid about glasswork - everything else usually fell in between these two extremes.

He tried everything at least once, but the only medium he actively hated was watercolour. Few things would send him into a rage quite like a watercolour piece not working out exactly as he'd envisioned it, and he was not above tearing the work apart and burning it out of spite when it happened. One of his acolytes had a rare talent for watercolour, however, and approached Kelenthor with terrible trepidation to ask for his opinion on what would later become a very famous piece. Contrary to everyone's expectations at the time, Kelenthor was not angry with his student, but instead professed to adore and admire the man - and, supposedly, immediately took him as a lover. One scandalised account has this taking place on the spot in the middle of a pottery workshop where several dozen pieces were waiting to be fired - the end result leading to countless clay casualties, a somewhat dazed acolyte, and one very smug master artisan.

This account is generally regarded as hearsay, however, as it came from another acolyte whose would-be masterwork was apparently destroyed in the event. Whether or not the supposed masterwork ever existed is heavily debated, but the acolyte in question stoutly defended her version of events until her death some eighty years later.

I don't think Kelenthor the Clanless is beating the Caravaggio allegations...

He really, really isn't. Bless him, Kelenthor's only saving grace in this situation is that he, unlike Caravaggio, dabbled in multiple mediums rather than restricting his talents to painting alone. Otherwise it would be an open-and-shut case.