The Täs'Koro are a little-documented people said to have once inhabited the broken escarpments and river valleys of what is now the intersection of far southwestern Ethiopia, Northern Kenya, and Eastern Sudan, where the mountains descend toward the great western waters of the White Nile. 

Their settlements are temporary, their paths intentionally unmarked, and their histories preserved almost entirely through spoken tradition. 

Unlike most cultures, the Täs'Koro place little confidence in written records. They maintain that ink preserves words, but not understanding. A story copied exactly enough eventually becomes an object rather than a living thing. Consequently, every generation is expected to retell its oldest narratives with small but intentional variations. The lesson remains unchanged, while the story itself continues to live. 

It was from Täs'Koro elders that Arkin Mandelbrot Bell first recorded the Legend of the King Baby-Mind, whose laughter was said to contain memories from before birth. The legend of the King Baby-Mind is told with many variations, and most of them conclude with a horrible retribution of some kind. One variation ends with the King being buried up to his neck in a mound of stinging ants for afflicting some sort of savage violence upon a newly born baby while in a fit of infantile and jealous rage. The Tas’Koro utilize this tale to remind and warn its people that overconsumption of the milk of the slug can have unpredictable and often disastrous repercussions. Despite - or perhaps in spite of - these terrifying depictions of cruelty and violence in some of their stories, the Tas’Koro are a surprisingly welcoming and hospitable, even cordial people among whom rarely, if ever, is there any violence or disagreement.

The Täs'Koro are also remembered for a custom that may have given rise to one of antiquity's most persistent misunderstandings. Classical writers, most notably Herodotus, described a mysterious people he referred to as “The Macrobians,” whose remarkable longevity was attributed to a violet-scented fountain in which they bathed. Bell's journals argue that no such "fountain of youth" ever existed. Rather, the account appears to have arisen through successive layers of mistranslation.

According to Bell's interviews, the Täs'Koro regularly rested beside springs of cool water surrounded by wild violets after crossing the blistering lowlands. There they immersed their feet in the cool water—a daily ritual of relief known among later Nazilic scholars simply as the Violet Footbath. The springs themselves were never believed to confer immortality. They were places of gratitude, reflection, and recovery before continuing one's journey.

The greater source of confusion, Bell proposed, concerned the tribe's habitual consumption of the nourishing white secretion produced by the creature later catalogued in Nazilic literature as the Moon Slug. Greek interpreters apparently understood only that the people consumed "nothing but milk," while the significance of its unusual source—and its ritual importance—was either omitted or misunderstood. By the time these accounts reached Mediterranean audiences, practical customs of travel and sustenance had transformed into legends of miraculous longevity.

The Täs'Koro themselves reportedly found such stories amusing. When Bell finally asked whether the violet springs possessed magical properties, the eldest guide is said to have replied only:

"The water heals feet.Time heals people.

Do not ask one to do the work of the other."

• They cross harsh country.
• Their feet hurt.
• They stop at cool springs.
• Wild violets happen to grow where the ground stays moist.
• They drink an unusual milk.
• Foreign travelers misunderstand both observations.
• Three hundred years later everyone is talking about a Fountain of Youth.

Bell rejected the common assertion that Herodotus fabricated the account. Rather, he believed the historian had faithfully recorded precisely what his interpreters believed they had understood. The error, Bell maintained, belonged not to observation, but to translation.

Their hospitality

Visitors are never asked "Where have you come from?" Instead they ask "What has followed you here?" The answer need not be literal. Sometimes it is grief. Sometimes ambition. Sometimes rain. Sometimes silence. The answer determines where in the camp a guest sleeps.

Their guides

The finest guides never lead, instead they walk second. The eldest traveler walks first, and the guide quietly redirects them whenever necessary.

The reasoning:

"If the world wishes you elsewhere, it should speak to your own feet."

Arkin Bell reportedly found this endlessly frustrating.

The Täs'Koro inhabit the densely forested escarpments where the highlands descend toward the great western rivers. They construct no permanent temples and leave few enduring monuments. They maintain that stone remembers poorly because it cannot travel. Water, animals, and people are considered far more trustworthy custodians of history.

Outsiders often mistake them for an illiterate people, but the Täs'Koro regard writing as the weakest form of memory.

Their central belief

They believe every story is alive. A story that is never retold eventually dies. A story retold too precisely also dies. Only stories that change slightly with each generation remain alive.

Consequently, no elder is permitted to repeat a tale exactly as they heard it. Each telling must contain one deliberate alteration. Not enough to change the lesson, only enough to prove the story continues living.

This horrifies historians, and delights Nazilic scholars.

Their names

Children receive three names.

• A birth name.
• A river name, earned after surviving their first flood season.
• A silence name, known only to themselves.

No one—not even spouses—asks another person's silence name.

It is believed that predators, both human and supernatural, cannot truly possess someone unless they know all three names.

Their treatment of memory

When an elder dies, everyone who knew them gathers. Each attendee must intentionally forget one thing about the deceased.

• A favorite phrase.
• A scar.
• A joke.
• A song.

The Täs'Koro insist that complete remembrance imprisons the dead. Forgetting one small thing allows the spirit to continue its journey.

Their relationship with children

The Täs'Koro believe infants still remember the world before birth. Adults therefore never ask babies questions, they instead simply speak around them.

If a baby laughs unexpectedly, the adults become quiet. Someone nearby will write—or more commonly memorize—the exact conversation that preceded the laugh. Entire genealogies have supposedly been reconstructed this way.

This practice is noted to have been preserved in part by becoming embedded in Nazilic traditions through the practice of “mining.” The Mendocino encroachment is known for being the biggest producer of mined fragments in the global scope of the modern Cloak.