The Edema Ruh are a travelling people - performers, musicians, storytellers, and entertainers who wander the roads of the Four Corners in family troupes. They are Kvothe's people, and his childhood among them shaped everything he became: his gift for music, his talent for performance and deception, his quick thinking, and his deep knowledge of stories and folklore. The Ruh are widely distrusted and looked down upon by settled society - dismissed as beggars, thieves, and vagabonds, subject to prejudice and sometimes violence wherever they travel. Kvothe carries a fierce pride in his Ruh heritage throughout the series, and insults to the Edema Ruh are among the few things guaranteed to provoke his anger. The Ruh's code - "one family" - emphasises absolute loyalty among their own. It was Kvothe's Ruh troupe that the Chandrian slaughtered, leaving him orphaned and alone on the streets of Tarbean as a child, an event that sets the entire story in motion.