Vherokior
The Vherokior are another splinter tribe from the great Starkmanir. Several thousand years ago, so the legend goes, a particularly brutal Starkmanir clan chief was exiled from the tribe. This chief took his clan into the Sobaki Desert, a belt of inhospitable lands beyond the Eyniletti Plains, and was never seen again. After the passage of many centuries, the descendants of this clan returned to the plains much changed in appearance and manners. The Vherokior, as they called themselves, chose not to reveal the cause of these changes and took to a nomadic lifestyle. The new Vherokior tribe traveled between the settlements of the other tribes in large caravans, living as merchants, healers, scholars, and fortunetellers. The emergence of the Vherokior shamans and their importance to many other Minmatar can be traced to this early period of the nomadic Vherokior.
The Vherokior mystics were a particular target for Amarrian inquisitors during the occupation of Matar. The Amarr had quite correctly identified the Vherokior and their shamans as playing a crucial role in the belief system of the Minmatar and sought to eliminate this challenge to the Amarr religion. While the Vherokior suffered greatly as a result, they succeeded in preserving much of their spiritual knowledge, and the secrets of the Voluval ritual were preserved by those shamans who survived in hiding. During the Great Rebellion, the Vherokior shamans did much to bolster the morale of the Minmatar, serving as a symbol to many of the tribal culture that the Amarr had tried to destroy.
When the Minmatar Republic was formed, the Vherokior enthusiastically joined the Brutor, Krusual, and Sebiestor in their efforts to establish security for all the Minmatar. The old nomadic lifestyle of the Vherokior was put aside in favor of establishing a more permanent presence wherever Minmatar lived in freedom. As a result, there are very few Minmatar settlements lacking a diner, hotel, or small shop run by a Vherokior family. While the nomadic life has been put aside by most, the Vherokior very much retain their liking for business, at least on a small scale. Some Vherokior still feel the tug of the itinerant life and it is quite common for youngsters to venture out on the road or the sea, or even into space. The Vherokior mystics are perhaps the one group that can consistently be found traveling between Minmatar settlements.