The Khurites are an ancient people that has spread far and wide throughout the history of Nave, and they now consist of several different tribes on many continents. They don't regard themselves as “one people” in the nationalistic or political sense however, and conflicts are common, although they do recognize their common ethnicity and ancestry.

One way to describe this mindset is that the Khurites see themselves as a collection of different autonomous peoples and wills that are divergent from other races.

To an outsider, their various languages, customs, and lifestyles may give the impression that the cultures are more different than they are alike. However, they share deep-running traditions that have integrated and bridged the tribes over the ages despite geographic distances.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

There are at least four large and relatively distinct Khurite cultures, each with its local customs and language, which in-turn have various tribal dialects.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Gákti are arguably the largest and most widespread of the Khurite cultures. They are most common in Nordveld and western/southern Myrland and speak Inari in a number of dialects. Historically, Gákti in Nordveld have had good relations with the Kallardian settlements including Varborg.

Gákti on Myrland conversely hand have never seen eye to eye with the Tindremic Empire, but have great relations with the Alvarin. Both Nordveldian Norn and Alvarin Shi’an seem to have influenced the Inari language and personal names. The Gákti in Myrland have three permanent settlements—Vadda, Bakti, and Moh-Ki—although the tribes in these villages often rotate, even between Gákti and Khurs.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Khurs are found in eastern Myrland and speak Serbi. Although most Khur tribes are nomads or seasonal nomads like other Khurites, they stand out with their large permanent settlements of Morin Khur and Toxai. Their long-standing relationship with the Alvarin can be noticed in both the Serbi language and their personal names.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Bediai live among the dunes and cliffs of Sarducaa. They speak Oğuz, a language that has many words in common with Sarducaan Ana’dil which is mostly spoken in the Beth Jedda region.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Yuits are a scattered collection of small tribes living in the arctic regions of Nordveld and above. They are known to trade with Branth and smaller settlements in the north, but tend to keep to themselves. Encounters are scarce and as a result so too is common knowledge about them. Their language is Yuit which seems to have few other influences besides Urag.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

At least three other Khurite cultures are believed to have existed, or may still exist, although of unknown size and extension.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The sea-faring Dalai of the southern oceans periodically visited Toxai to trade before The Irruption but haven’t been seen since.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Te’el are only known through legends and stories and their fate is unknown.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Chandrû are only known through legends and stories and their fate is unknown.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Scholars often find etymological studies of the Khurite languages impossible due to cross-pollination, especially as there are very few textual sources to come by.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

One ancient Khurite tradition is the adherence to their common language, Urag, also known simply as “Khurite”, although outsiders frequently group all Khurite languages within that term, without distinction. The majority of Khurites are mostly nomadic societies and travel the lands over time, which also includes taking part in meetings with other tribes according to an enigmatic calendar.

Furthermore, emissaries are sent out over great distances to communicate with other tribes, and shamanic rituals hint at other types of physical or spiritual journeys.

During these meetings, legends, stories, and news are shared by recitation, dialogue, and singing in Urag. At the same time, the local languages are allowed to influence the ancient Urag itself. This means Urag constantly grows and evolves—and in turn, may affect the local languages of tribes in completely different locations.

Máttârää’jj mis lie tuu’l
Vuäitám verrušeijee badjel
Vuástálistup, viiljah, miige
Siđhesvuođáin suäʹrddeejeem

Our forefathers withstood
Unjust assailants of yore
Brothers, let us likewise fight
Stalwartly against the tyranny

- Excerpt from Bakti dialect Magtaal "Khurs Laull" – "Khurite people's song", author unknown

Several word examples are:

Siebri/Sierve - union/alliance/guild
Leamoste - "boil power out of" or "alchemy"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Spoken by the Gákti in a number of different dialects, Inari has been noticeably influenced by Nordveldian Norn and Alvarin Shi'an.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Spoken by the Khurs, Serbi is closely related to Oğuz which points to a relatively late split of the Khur and Bediai cultures, and is also said to have some Alvarin influence as well.

Known words include:

Urlan - guild/craft/workspace
Khand - most everything that has to do with extract, infusion, potion, tonic, liquor etc.
Id shidiin - something miraculous, extraordinary, "magical" in the real-world sense

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Spoken by the Bediai, Oğuz is a language that has many words in common with Sarducaan Ana’dil which is mostly spoken in the Beth Jedda region. Oğuz also has many similarities to Aurish which is the local language of the Sarducaan-Kallardian village of Aur.

Known words include:

Yarasi - Bats (the animal)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Spoken by the Yuits, Yuit is a language with few influences outside of Urag.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Most Khurite tribes assign unique names to newborns in the current generation and the use of surnames is rare. However, if a name is currently in use by someone very old or it was recently in use by someone who died, it can often be given in honor, although usually with the addition “the younger”. Assigning the names of rulers, alive or deceased, is normally completely taboo unless there’s a clear blood lineage.

When different tribes meet they often need to add surnames to avoid confusion, and in those cases they vary between using patronyms, matronyms, paedonyms (teknonyms), and/or the tribe name as they see fit. Thus a traveling Khurite may introduce himself as Gangiir Chono (Chono, son of Gan), Chono Sohviin Etseg (Chono, father of Sohvi), Garras Chono (Chono of the Garras tribe), and so on, which can lead to confusion for non-Khurites.

A given name isn’t regarded as sacred or of particular spiritual significance. Longer names and combinations are often permanently shortened during an individual’s lifetime or may be completely replaced with an epithet or moniker.

Tribe members who are considered to clearly show traits of their personal spirit animal—Miigi—often get the animal name as an epithet, usually with an added adjective such as “fast” or “red” to make them more unique and personal.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

The Khurites view most birds (especially birds of prey) as sacred beings. It is allowed to kill them for resources, however they are always treated with the utmost respect. They are seen as messengers or avatars of The Sky Father Jumal.

Most snakes and reptiles on the other hand are considered evil; manifestations of the spirits of Tark, The Darkness. The Khurites find symbolic meaning in the natural struggle between the two animal groups, both in legends and in the observable present. Khurite songs also tell about ancient battles between the Khurites and the Cold Broods, where birds play important roles as allies to the tribes.

Tark and/or Tjaka Baarve are the entities below the world, with belief in either or both varying from tribe to tribe. In cases where Tark is acknowledged, she is the literal underworld or “below life/soil”, but also acts as the arbiter of the metaphysical Etherworld.

A Khurite may say the soil, earth, and/or dirt is the living tissue of the Earth Mother Akana: where vegetation grows and water is stored—whereas the bedrock and everything beneath it is cold and inhospitable. And there, below, is Tark, who sometimes infects the living soil with her coldness such as through frost or permafrost.

There are a number of legendary bird-creatures, and Geeredh is one of them. Statues in Morin Khur depict the defeat of the evil serpent—a well-known legend and concept among the tribes—but also act as a historic symbol of the Khurite opposition against the Tindremic Empire, the Dragon.

Geeredh also stands for justice, which is why elite Khurite guards have historically worn his mask.

An ancient Khurite prophecy involving Geeredh was once spoken:

It was the strangest dream
The vague premonitions
suddenly became enhanced
...as if seen in a new light

The sky father will take wing again
in yoni shape
what tidings will she bring

The man beasts, despoilers
will trample our lands
seeking the unperceived

The warriors of old
called to arms
in this new world

There might yet be time
for mankind
in Nave

Another legendary bird-creature in Khurite mythology is Tjaka Baarve, a giant vulture-like creature and the envious sister of Akana the Earth Mother that is said to reside in the Ether. She is responsible for the “cleaning wind” that sweeps the earth, the force that enables new life albeit not by seeding it directly, and is also the devourer of corpses.

Although not necessarily considered evil, her connection to the Tark makes her rather ominous. She is associated with vultures, which are avoided by Khurites, and is sometimes portrayed as Geeredh's lover who ended up in the Ether after killing herself. In that version of the story their children are the mortal Śyenah.

Dialectal variants of these entities are:

• Urag (with Inari roots): Tark, Tjaka Baarve, Śyenah, Jumal, Akana/Ahkkana
• Serbi: Tarch, Tas Araat'n, Tengǒu, Tenger, Ankha/Umai
• Oğuz: Tarğ, Kerkes, Semruk, Deywos, Anğa/Ankah/Degōm

Terror Birds are seen as the guardians of the border between the jungle and the plains. According to the Khurites, they are reason the Cold Broods seldom venture up to the plains. Unbeknownst to many, the tribes closest to the jungle sacrifice food down the cliffs to the violent birds deep below.

The Angaq, Khurite shamans, are often “selected” by birds for their personal Miigi, totem. Furthermore it is said that tribe members with a strong connection to their bird totem not only use tamed birds as trained messengers, scouts or hunting companions—they can even perform rituals where they actually see what their birds see.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

The ancient Khurites of Myrland have long endured as nomadic hunters and herdsmen. Living closely with their herds, they are among the best horsemen in the world. These fierce people identify themselves by tribe rather than race, and tribal wars are common.

Adapted to survival on the steppes, Khurites of Myrland are small, lean, muscular people with almond eyes and ruddy skin. Acclimated to life in harsh environments, they have been known to lead their herds where even Kallards refuse to venture.

Prior to The Irruption, Morin Khur was the only permanent Khurite settlement on Myrland, and acted the only place of peace between the tribes. During this period, each fourth year, the tribes converged there to exchange goods, perform wedding vows & ceremonies, engage in competitions, and tell stories.

Despite the fact that the Tindremic Empire was considered an ally by Morin Khur at this time, some rumors told of Tindremic emissaries spotted among tribes which later began to wage war with each other. A few men of power in Morin Khur suspected this to be a tactical scheme by the Tindremenes to keep the Khurites from growing too strong.

In the wake of The Irruption, growing tensions between the recovering Tindremenes and the newly-formed Khurite Allied Tribes would culminate in the annexation of Morin Khur by the Tindremic Empire, with the city still under occupation to this day.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Myrland steppe is a vast area in the heart of Myrland that borders to the cold Talus Mountains to the north and to the tropical March Jungles in the south. They are barren lands where it hardly ever rains, with a very poor soil and on occasions a high salinity level where only very resistant vegetation can survive.

Besides, they are generally lands where salty lagoons form because the accumulated water cannot drain into the sea. Traveling across Myrland on foot is not an option due to the vast distances and scarce civilization. Also, the predators are in general fast and adapted to stalk their prey to exhaustion. Among others a number of wolf species, giant wolverines, terror birds and the occasional sabertooth are constantly on the watch for a suitable prey.

Though most of the animals on the steppe are mammals or invertebrates, a great number of birds frequent the environment. Of the former, the most abundantly present are rodents, foxes, deer, horses, Wisent and mammoths. The animals that inhabit the salty bodies of water are amphibious such as frogs, lizards and salamanders, which feed off the large variety of insects that are found in surrounding areas.

Life on the Myrland steppe also affects its Human children, the Khurites. The Khurites are among the best riders in the world, and the horse and mammoth play important roles in their culture and society. The Khurites don’t regard themselves as one people instead the difference between the various tribes and one’s ancestry is important. They all live on or in connection to the steppe, however the steppe has no set of firm borders.

The tribes have no name for their land, only for smaller regions and territories. Their villages consist of gers, which are tent-like living quarters that are more or less transportable, and by making camp in a specific area the tribe claims it and the surrounding environment as well. There are a great number of different tribes and areas which they occupy and the name of a tribe is often related to its totem animal, while the regions often are named after an important landmark in the surroundings.

The Khurite tribes have a long history of civil war and conflicts, and prior to The Irruption a united Khurite nation had never existed outside of legends.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Every tribe is ruled by a Mogul, which can only be male, and the title is usually passed on to the Mogul’s sons if they can prove themselves in hunting and battle. A Mogul often has several wives but his first wife, Hatun, or queen is always the one who enjoys a large amount of respect from the tribe. She is also seen as capable of leading the tribe until a new Mogul is chosen, should the Mogul pass away before choosing a new heir.

The spiritual leaders or shamans of the Khurites are called Angaq and possess a major influence on the tribe and its Mogul through predictions, enchantments and music. The Angaq in a tribe is responsible for communicating with the tribe's totem animal, Miigi, which is seen as a powerful spiritual ally. The Miigi is said to sometimes incarnate in or possess a corresponding animal on the steppe, and therefore all animals of that totem is regarded as sacred by the tribe.

A settlement of the Khurites is a Khuren, which means circle and refers to the shape that is formed by the gers. In the center of the circle the ger of the Mogul is placed. The Khuren is often built against a cliff formation and then minor bone and stone palisades are raised as a defense, surrounding the camp.

Prior to The Irruption and the establishment of more permanent settlements, wood was a scarce commodity for the majority of the Khurites who spent their lives wandering the steppe, therefore stone was used as a base and low walls to the gers, and they were then constructed with supporting bones from large animals and covered with large tent canvases of leather.

The ground on which the camp is built upon is carefully chosen by the tribe's Mogul and later blessed by the Angaq, making the water drinkable and the pasture for the sheep and goats remain rich until the time had come to move on once more.

The tribes often construct watchtowers, outposts and monuments located on the highest hills in the surroundings, which acts as signal beacons for the villagers, sometimes offering a limited range of food and water supplies for travelers.

Day to day life in a Khuren is fairly peaceful but is still characterized by constant expeditions to the outskirts of the territory to track game or to scout for anything that might threaten the tribe. In addition to the steppe horses, birds and wolves are caught and tamed to be used for scouting and hunting. The wild animals are caught young since their connection to Akana, the Earth Mother, is said to be stronger than in their already domesticated cousins.

Although the horses on the steppe are considerably smaller than many of their relatives they possess great stamina. These reliable animals constitute the back bone of the Khurite tribes, and a popular saying is that a true Khurite learns how to ride before learning how to walk. Men and woman alike are taught to fight equally well from the saddle as on foot, and a selection of traditional scimitars and polearms are used in close combat while the asymmetrical Khurite horse bow is used for archery.

Crimes are very rare in a Khuren since the majority of the Khurite tribes are relatively small and their survival depends upon their ability to cooperate. Traditional rules and resolute leadership handle most of the quarrel which may arise in the close knit community of a Khuren. Additional to this, most of the Khurites possess a strong social sense of honor.

Theft is unusual and jealousy is regarded as nonexistent. A Khurite husband or spouse may share their bed with whomever they desire in the tribe, and are expected to do so with a willing visitor since sexual activities are regarded as a natural part of the social trade exchanges, or as a Khurite would put it: “It keeps the blood of the tribe from getting too thick”.

In the few cases when a dispute proves to be impossible to resolve, the Mogul can decide to expel an individual or a family from the tribe which is considered the harshest punishment possible. The tribes very rarely accept a drifter and an individual or family often face an early death on their own.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The most apparent characteristics of the Khurite race are their almond-shaped eyes and their skin tone, which ranges from a deep brown to a reddish color. Beard growth is only observed in Khurites of old age, and even then many stay beardless.

The native Myrland Khurites have good physique with trimmed and hardy muscles and are accustomed to a life on the steppe, where the temperature changes can be dramatic and drinking water is scarce. To further cope with the changes in weather they use different pastes of animal grease mixed with herbs on their exposed body parts, which has given them a reputation of being “smelly and unclean” in other societies.

Contrary to the popular belief that the Khurites are unclean, tribe members often swim in the salty lakes and streams near their Khuren and use vapour baths, or sweat gers, in the winter. Swimming is learned at a very early age by both sexes, and sweat ger competitions are a common way of settling arguments.

Most Khurites have sacred tattoos, Tamko, that is carved into the skin rather than punctured, leaving grooves and dents. The first Tamko marks the important transition between childhood and adulthood, and future tattoos mark status, rank and achievements in the tribe. Men and women have different parts of their bodies tattooed, most often faces, buttocks and arms for men—lips, chins and stomachs for women, but this varies from tribe to tribe.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Khurites live a nomadic life on the steppe, and their inter-social advances and organization may be hard to detect for the uninitiated who can only observe their primitive resources and tools. The Khurites do not use or forge that many metals, but they master those which are used to perfection.

The composite Khurite horse bow, Ikil, may look strange and rough at first sight, but the making of a bow of that kind can take up to a year and involves soaking and drying processes in several layers and a material composition which has taken several centuries to develop.

The largest of the bows, Mor-Ikil, are used for hunting mammoth and are surrounded by a number of traditions and rituals. They are exceptionally tall, often surpassing the height of the archer, and the draw force is comparable to lifting a fully grown man by two fingers.

Neither do the clothes of the Khurites reveal the measure of care used in their manufacturing, but the typical Khurite leather armor is extremely flexible and durable, useful in heat and cold alike and it has metal plates sown into it to better withstand arrows.

Life on the steppe usually requires practical craftsmanship and reliable tools, and it’s first when you come to see the ritual dresses or the musical instruments of the Khurites when you are able to truly appreciate the level of craftsmanship involved in their making.

Music is an essential part of the Khurite culture with both shamanistic and social value, and have unique features not found anywhere else in the world. Among the most known are the Urtunye, Everlasting Songs, where each syllable of text is extended for very long periods. The spiritual “throat singing” known as Oomii is another example of specialized vocals, where the greatest performers can produce up to three distinctively audible pitches at the same time.

Instruments range from drums and tambourines to flutes, and the Mornur—a mammoth-tusk horn believed to have superior magical powers. Notably, the Khurites have an aversion to at least some metallic instruments, possibly owing to the Tindremic Ophis, a Messing horn itself potentially inspired by the horn-like calls of Sator and Dragons.

At important occasions the tribe gathers in dancing rituals, Yange, through which they enter a trance with the help of music and Yage, an herb extract which grants contact with the spirit realm.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

The Tagmaton assault—although seemingly chaotic—involved several waves. The fleshbiters ate everything in their way—affecting all living things—but the actual Tagmaton hordes apparently missed or passed certain settlements for reasons unknown.

To the east, some Khurites found shelter in Morin Khur, but many fled to the Sheevra caves in Toxai, which seem to have been impregnable. Where the western Khurites found shelter is undocumented, but there are rumors of caves being involved as well.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

After The Irruption, what remained of the Myrland Khurite tribes was supposed to meet on the steppe for a traditional quadrennial gathering. As with the Tindremenes, this involved some confusion at first as each tribe apparently had a different concept of what year it was. However, after riders had been dispatched to summon the stragglers, the gathering took place with what would become a pivotal meeting among the Moguls.

As all tribes were heavily decimated and struggled with propagation and resources, it was decided that an interim confederation would be set up to better aid all Khurens until the world was back to normal. The coalition was to be ruled by a Tribunal consisting of the tribe Moguls, in turn led by a provisional chief of state, the Deed Mogul, with a permanent head office in Morin Khur.

This unorthodox arrangement was met with surprisingly few protests, even among the most backwoods and freethinking tribesfolk, but times were desperate and the extant stockpiles of Morin Khur enticing. Thus the first Deed Mogul, Ulagan khy Ulagan, took command of the new alliance.

Part of the Tribunal were also the Sheevran and Veelan emissaries from Toxai, where both races have small colonies. When the caches of Morin Khur started to dwindle, Alvarin shipments with supplies started to arrive from their home continent Urmothâr, which didn't seem to have been as grievously afflicted by The Irruption as Myrland.

It didn't take many years for the tribes to grow strong again, but the confederation stayed. In true Khurite spirit the tribe gatherings were still held on the steppe and the Tribunal stayed away from bureaucracy and interfering with the individual Khurens, mostly handling communications and making sure the common stockpiles were properly supplied and distributed.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Tribunal rallied a few warriors from time to time to scare off the occasional Tindremic poachers, but for the Khurens and the individual Khurites the sense of autonomy hadn't been affected. Although being part of a confederation the concept of belonging to a “nation” was still a remote notion for most.

Not long after the Tindremic poachers soon grew to bands of plunderers, which upon investigation revealed their true nature to be imperial soldiers on "hunting missions". It didn’t take long until the raiders came undisguised in contubers and full centurias, and for a few years the tension between the two nations escalated.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Everything culminated in 9 AD when a small group of what were allegedly Tindremic Draconigena Knights managed to skulk their way into Morin Khur and massacre the entire Khurite Tribunal, who were all heavily drunk on airag and bathing in a sweat ger. After this exemplary Tindremic stratagemma the gates to the capital were swung open, letting in a cohort led by a triumphant Emperor Livi Avitus Decollator himself.

This so-called battle went down in the Tindremic history books as the Heroic Conquest of Morin Khur, and to this day the city has been occupied, currently under the Procurator Gnaeus Avitus Tesqua. Khurites still living in the city are allegedly treated with partial respect, although control is strict and there is much suspicion from the Tindremenes in regards to outsiders.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Contrary to disrupting the Khurite tribes, the taking of Morin Khur united them and cemented their alliance, commonly known as the Khurite United Tribes or Khurite Allied Tribes. For the past 30 years the new Tribunal, currently led by Toroi Bandi—“Toroi the Outlaw”—has waged guerrilla warfare against anything Tindremic on the steppes with the ultimate goal of recapturing the former capital.

Rumor has it that this rebellion has ties reaching as far as Kranesh, although this may just be Tindremic propaganda as the village remains a thorn in Tindrem's side for its continued refusal to rejoin the Provinces.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

In 11 AD, the conflict between the Empire and the Khurite Allied Tribes would take another turn when two Alvarin assassins allegedly took the life of Imperator Livi Avitus Decollator. From the Anam Sith perspective, the death of their Tribune was properly avenged and afterwards the nation withdrew from the conflict entirely.

Myrlandic Alvarin emissaries from the Veela and Sheevra are still part of the Tribunal, though the Anam Sith—the “Alvarin Nation” or “Alvarin People”—is not participating in the war.

The Alvarin colonies in Toxai remain but have seen a dwindling population for the last few decades due to the Myrlandic conflict and unrest.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

The Khurites do not have a common flag as they are separated into individual tribes, however the concept of Feng—a bird embracing or constituting both the Earth Mother and the Sky Father—are recognized by all tribes.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════