Zalanthan "tribal" tattoos?

[Fnord]

When people see the saying "tribal tattoo" in game, do you think of like earthly tribal tattoos, e.g. flowing black lines that often end in angular points, or do you think of tattoos specific to a certain tribal group?

[Anonymous]

um. the former? I'd rather see more ritualized scars than tattoos on the tribes, personally. Where the hell are all these desert elves getting ink?

[Cale_Knight]

Where the hell are all these desert elves getting ink?

From insects, plants, and ground up rocks. The same place folks have been getting inks in real life for thousands and thousands of years.

[Mekeda]

Look at some of the inovative ways convicts come up with to make ink for prison tattoos and you can see where the ability to make ink is something that seems to be ingrained into almost all societies in one form or another. Be it textiles, cloth, tattoos... most cultures are known in one way or another for the particular use of color and styles they have.

Mekeda

[Anonymous]

Oh, I know.  I was mostly being facetious.  However, going futher to acknowedge the role of a scar as something that is more than incurred from battle would still be interesting.

You don't need 'ink' to make tattoos.

In Russian prisons inmates scrape, and then burn, the soles of their shoes to get a nice dark ash.  This is then mixed with urine (because it is sterile).  At this point anything sharp, such as bits of glass, are dipped into it before being stabbed into the person getting the tattoo.

[Vanth]

Don't ask how he knows that.  :shock:

[Malifaxis]

He watches the Discovery channel, the special on the people who look at the lineage of language tattoos.

Definitions for ink:
1 A pigmented liquid or paste used especially for writing or printing.
2 A dark liquid ejected for protection by most cephalopods, including the octopus and squid.

Explained thusly, the Soviet convicts do need and utilize ink.  The fact that it is not taken from a growing plant, herb, or flower changes nothing.

That's why I put ink in quotes.  It isn't as though someone is smuggling tattoo ink, or pen ink, or xerox ink into the prison for them.