[Alain]

First and foremost, welcome to EF. I know what you mean about the lore, it's something I love to get wrapped into.

As for the name / clan names, this section of the Therian page would will help you most regarding the names. The Clan itself can be anything, really, as many of the urban Therians often have clans as a more background part of their profile. It'd depend on whether your Therian was more urban or "wild."

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Naming Conventions

As with the rest of the culture, Therian names are fairly simple, with a first name and their clan name following. Even in cases where there are multiple families within a single clan, Therians use their clan name to distinguish themselves rather than their family ties (for instance, Maaike Sullivan is of the Sullivan clan and not the Sullivan family, though in her case they are one and the same).

Clan names are almost always Elysian even though many clans now live in Sylvan territory. This is perhaps because the vast majority of the clans started out in Elysian-dominant Daire and migrated, but it’s a testament to their skill as storytellers, keeping their history and heritage alive, that the clan names have survived for so long.

Given names, however, tend to be either Sylvan, Anyeli or Elysian depending on where the clan’s territory is located, since these are naturally more recent.
The out-of-character influence for clan names is mostly Celtic. Given names tend to be based on Greek and its variants, or on English (though this also includes Anglicized Gaelic).

[Faris]

*squawks*

Heya Jonathan!

EF loves user-created lore, so you can actually create your own Clan! (I created my own Zanaryan family when I first joined )
From what I know, the biggest part of Clan that affects an individual character is probably Territory, along with all the politics and possible aggression that comes along with it. If you don't plan on your character being involved in any of that, then just like what David said, it's going to be more of a family background-ish part of your character.

Welcome to EF!! ^^

PS. a super short self-intro since I feel awkward when I don't introduce myself in reply to an intro thread :3
I'm Pchan, player of Faris and Argyris, one of the many lore-junkies over here at EF. Hope to see you around, and please do let us know if you've got any questions!

[Xanth]

David and Pchan are right so I'll just say hi and welcome to EF, Jonathan. I'm Emma, the admin, and I play a bunch of crazy characters so I won't list them. It's good to meet another lore monkey, I think you'll have fun here. ;D

P.S. There's a [[!Therian Clans]] tag that will take you to this list of written-up clans. There's also Maaike's Sullivan clan, whose territories are listed on the world map. I just haven't had a chance to write up their page, but they're a typical clan so if you want it, there's a ready-made attachment to a played character right there.

[Xanth]

Yay! We'll have to figure out what relation Enthyos is to Maaike. Cousin sounds good to me. :3

Citizenship depends. Most "wild" Therians would call themselves Faeth (citizen of the Fae Forest) even though the term "citizen" is a very loose one.

Forms can be real Earth animals, but they do have to be justified. If a Therian has never been to the desert, they aren't likely to have learned a desert animal first-hand (though they can have learned it from another Therian who has; the more "generations" there are between the first-hand experience and the current "student" of a form, the more errors there are). Also, while Elysia probably has the full spectrum of habitats, not all of them have been fully explored or settled, so not all "real" animals are feasible.

Hrm, the occupation thing is a bit trickier. I should think messengers would actually be pretty uncommon in the Fae just because of numbers. They'd be more likely to rely on merchants passing through for news of other clans/rest of Elysia than someone doing it day in and day out. I can't see it as being a very well paying job, either, not in and of itself. That's not to say it couldn't work, but clans and neighbouring communes can be pretty isolated so maybe consider trying to work something else in there too. Maybe Enthyos is a scout or a wildcrafter or something that takes them off their clan's territory so they frequently encounter other clans, communes and villages?