Every War Cycle it started and ended the same.
The Old Families Rose Up.
They called the meetings.
They lit the fires.
They colored the smoke.
They sat and waited in the Rings, waited for their Brethren to Return to Them.
Clasping forearms and hands, and now bumping fists, the Clans embraced each other.
It was a Meeting Through Time, where Time Itself was paused by their shared bonds of Kindred.
They hailed from every Nation on Earth, and all understood the Old Ways.
They could smell War on the Air, where their Circle was Masked.
Everyone once in a while a scream accompanied the waft of blood and iron.
Everyone would still, and then everyone would continue, with renewed vigor, understanding of their Cause reignited by the fervor outside the Rings.
They would talk of Time Past, of what Helped them Survive the Last War Cycle.
Of what new inventions they and their progeny had created in in the Time Spanning Each Cycle and Distance from War.
And every Nation gathered had its own version of a TimeCapsule, a Collapsation Clause.
Guarded secrets past down by Kinsmen and Tradesmen, and often through Marriage Bonds, of what each clan would hide and save.
Should one clan or Nation die, the rest of the ideas would be scooped up equally by a kinsman, who would hand out the Value in equal parts to his own kin, and the others gathered.
It was this Method of sharing that kept them alive for longer than most Evolutions of Humanity.
Without each other, without each and every one of them, all would have perished long ago.