"You know, you should really learn how to ride more proficiently. Sure, you can keep the horse trotting under ideal conditions, but what happens when its raining, when its muddy? What about when thunder booms in the distance, or when wild animals attack? What about the heat of battle, with screams and cries and a thousand agonies? Your horse will leave you on your ass in the mud, that is what will happen. I don't mean to insult you, only offer you lessons, should you be so inclined. I could ride as well as you when I was three years old."

-The Barbarian, Sularak the Horselord

Steppe Culture

The Great Khaganate

The Wild Steppe has always been a tumultuous realm. It spreads over thousands of miles, almost all untamed plains and grasslands, with rolling rocky hills, and sparse of any water or forests. As such, bad weather ravages the land, with tornadoes being a uniquely Wild Steppe experience. The ground is dry and rocky, making it poor for any growth of crops. Instead, the people living on it have tended to turn to mass animal husbandry, raising cattle and horses to graze on the grasses. A nomad tribe would consume the majority of grass in one section of the steppe, and then move on. The next year, that grass would regrow, and be ready to graze on again. There were many tribes that expanded over the steppes, but there was far more land, and so it became a sustainable system; for the most part. These nomads lacked much of the items needed for a flourishing civilization; craft goods were hard to come by, forgecraft was difficult or impossible, and disease could ravage a tribe's cattle easily, destroying their food source. Furthermore, they still had to deal with the risk of drought that settled civilizations had to, because if drought wiped out the grasslands, the cattle would starve. Therefore, their food sources were constantly at risk, their equipment was unreliable, and their position was unstable in general. This led to a culture of violence among the steppe tribes. If your tribe was starving, or badly needed a good, you would lead your warriors to raid another tribe. Tribes raided each other constantly, warring for dominance of the steppe, and control of resources. However, in aggregate, this lead to a strangely stable system, a sort of sharing-through-theft, in which every tribe stole from every other. It became as much a part of life as lending sugar to your neighbor. However, with the expansion and growth of wealthy civilizations to the south, these nomads no-longer had to play a zero-sum-gain game of musical chairs. Instead, they could raid the produce and wealth of settled societies. And to these nomads, it hardly seemed like a terrible crime. To a people who have everything they own on their backs and saddle packs, the wealth of the Arissian Empire and other settled societies seemed incalculable. Surely they could share. These nomads met fierce resistance against the Arissians, and with each successive war, banded together in larger raiding parties to pierce farther into imperial territory. Eventually, a great Khagan, a leader of all the tribes of the Wild Steppe, united the tribes and led massive armies into the Arissian Empire. His name was Uktra Tangon, and he is revered as the father of all Steppe people. His army resulted in the final collapse of the larger Arissian Empire, and for well over two-hundred years, nomadic troops invaded deep into Arissium, burning and pillaging nearly unchallenged. Towns were left independent, and the Great Khaganate swelled with wealth. The current Arissian dynasty finally restored some semblance of order, pressing the nomads out of their territory and restoring order. However, the nomads will forever have the taste of Arissian riches, and they could invade there again, or any civilization that is unlucky enough to border them.

          Life on the Steppe is a hard life indeed. You have to constantly push yourself, waking up at the crack of dawn each day, getting dressed and ready, cooking, eating, drinking, packing up your shelter, your equipment, saddling your horse, and driving your cattle into line, as you march with your tribe for at least 20 miles before you rest and begin it all over again. It is very similar to a life on the campaign trail for a soldier, but with no pay and it is all the time, no breaks. As such, the steppe nomads are resilient, perhaps tougher and more resilient than any other culture in Adra. They make incredible riders, trained to ride a horse as soon as they can walk; they eat on their horse, sleep on their horse, love on their horse, die on their horse. It also, unlike many would imagine, takes great care and patience to be a steppe nomad. You cannot simply plant your maize and walk away for 6 months, checking up every so often. You must spend every waking hour with your cattle, tending them, protecting them, and herding them. They are your wealth and your food source, so you treat them kindly, with care, with respect, you are more likely to kill your friends than your oxen. And yet, while there is much to admire about the steppe lifestyle, it breads brutality on a magnificent scale. Steppe warriors are pushed constantly to the limit of their survival, unthinking about the lives or livelihoods of those outside of their family and tribe. If they need to raid a village, they will raid a village. Burn down a church? Sure. Enslave a family that passes through your territory on their way to a holy site? Better them than you. Morality doesn't work the same way in the steppes, and no attempt to make sense of these actions through the lens of a settled culture will work. They are a civilization unto their own. Steppe riders are feared and reviled everywhere for their skill in battle, and their ability to pester a foe incessantly and prey on their every weakness. Steppe mercenaries are prized, though many view the prospect of hiring them with caution, because hiring them involves taking them into your territory without any pushback, and if you don't pay up on time, then they have the perfect opportunity to raid their former masters. To the most educated and enlightened societies, the steppe lifestyle and way of life seems like the height of barbarity, but barbarity or not, it produces one of the finest armies in the world. Steppe peoples are brutal in everyway one could imagine, and yet, they are also incredibly vulnerable. Often, especially when on the defense, steppe warriors travel with their families and cattle, so losing a fight can feel like losing your very home and livelihood. To the outside world, steppe nomads look like violent thugs of the highest order, and while this is probably true, they don't always realize that life on the steppes a fight for survival every single day.

          The Steppe people are most highly concentrated in the Wild Steppes. They are sometimes found in other nations as mercenaries, or semi-settled tribes. For example, there are some allied Steppe Tribes that live in grasslands within the Arissian Empire, and even a tribe living in Serpentinium, allied with the snake lords. The races of the Steppe peoples are most predominately human, orc, half-orc, lizardfolk, centaur, goblinoid, and yuan-ti pureblood, though it is important to note that there are many other non-playable races that make up their ranks as well, such as giants and gnolls. Many of these forces filled the ranks of the Khaganate after the fall of Drumshiel, with an army that had nothing left to conquer. The most popular gods among Steppe peoples are Amarok, Mirkatakatar, Sorthal, and Faetari, with some sects that follow Marzedon and the Demon Marius. Steppe peoples tend to be resilient, patient, and kind to animals. They also tend to be violent, treacherous, and unrelenting. The Steppe is a mishmash of languages, with every tribe having a preferred one, and even within tribes there exist dialectical differences. The most common languages, in descending order of common usage, in the Wild Steppes are Saravoan, Orcish, Giant, Goblin, Oberen, Gnoll, Sylvan, Boggart, Serpentine, and even Abyssal. It is the most lingually diverse region in the world.

If you choose the Steppe Culture, you gain the following:

~Either a +1 to your Dexterity score or a +1 to your Constitution score~

~A -1 to your Charisma score~

~As a known language, either Saravoan Common, Orcish, Giant, Goblin, Oberen Common, Gnoll, Sylvan, Boggart Draconic, Serpentine, or Abyssal~

~A Sub-Discipline in every knowledge skill on checks relating to Steppe Culture~

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