Rulmi

To the west of the Hasaap river lies the Great Steppes or the Great Plains. The terrain is mostly flat with a few large mountain ranges in between. The land is arid - and outside of a few river valleys and some coastal areas, it is largely unsuitable for intensive agriculture. The greatly eroded Jorti Mountains run down the middle of most of the Great Plains, and the forest on both sides of the mountains are settled by the Jorti people - A Qua, matrilineal ethnic group that live a peaceful existence trading with people on both side of the forest - though are often attacked, assimilated or enslaved by their neighbors.

On both end of the forest, the drier steppe are settled by the Rulmi people - who speak two related languages, and is divided into the Vipic and Sinic people.

The Rulmi

• Primary Faith: Monotheistic
• Language: Rulmish
• Locations: Western Great Steppes
• Clades: Centaur & Brayers.
• Inheritance Law: Equal Gender Preference Primogeniture
• Name Generation: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/turkish-names.php - Utilize names from any Turkic languages, avoiding any that is a direct reference to real life religion.
• Language: The Rulmi’s language is based on Turkish and Turkic names and naming tradition can be used for their land

Cultural Tenets

This section describes the major cultural tenets of Rulmi tribes on major cultural issues.

• Architecture and Settlements: The Rulmi is a nomadic society and has no generally well known architectural feats. They live in yurts. The most grandiose buildings constructed are often inconspicuous tombs for rulers with elaborate pottery, statues and imported grave goods for status symbols.
• Art & Culture: Rulmi produces a small amount of poetry - usually for domestic consumption, and literatures are rather uncommon due to low literacy rate. However, Rulmi weavers are famous and weave elaborate, beautiful labor-intensive colorful rugs, pillows and cloth that are often exported.
• Economy: The Rulmi mostly uses a barter and favor based system, especially in the steppes. Livestocks and food are traded like for like - currency is not very developed and there’s no central minting system, instead currencies of major partners are used for trade.
• Family & Kinship: Like nearly all nomadic society, the Rulmi heavily values kinship and familial ties. Families are organized alongside extended clan structure, where power tends to rest in a council of the eldest male and female member - or whomever is the most prominent smaller family within the clan. Leaders are usually elected amongst the eldest of the most powerful families within a clan as the clan head. Age is considered a sign of respect. Lineage - last names, goes along paternal line, unless a very powerful matriarch appears in which case a new clan is often founded under her names. Both the paternal and maternal clan tends to take care of children up to three generations away - great-grandchildren, before it is considered solely the paternal clan’s responsibilities. Maternal uncles and aunts often participate in their own nephews' caretaking.
• Gender Relationship: Rulmi are relatively gender-equal people. Male and female are expected to participate politically, militarily and economically in society - out on the steppe, there’s no room for any one of the family to slack. Both men and women are expected to participate in hard labor, setting up and breaking camps, and decisions are made collaboratively. Usually, the partner who is weaker with less magical or physical ability is expected to shoulder child-rearing responsibilities.
• Law & Order: Rulmi enforces law and order in their society without the expectations of jailing. Punishment tends to be physical - beating or paddling is the common punishment for petty crimes, alongside confiscation of livestocks or properties - like for like compensation. In case of murder that is done in a “hot-blooded” manner, blood money is often accepted as a form of compensation, with the formal forgiving of perpetrators given by the victim clan. Murder or harming done with the direct intent to harm a clan - however, warrant a much more harsh response, a crime that is often only only paid back by blood. Exile from a tribe is often meted out as an internal punishment for honor crimes - generally defined as crime against your own clan or undesired marriage with an inferior clan. Death is uncommon - only reserved for outsiders or traitors from outside clans.
• Religion & Spirituality: Though most of the Rulmi follow a monotheistic / monolatrinistic religion, the Rulmi are in fact a relatively secular culture, and practice a form of the religion that more fervent believers would find heretical. Across the board, Rulmi often believes that each great pasture or each great piece of land has an earth spirit, one which must be pleased with appropriate sacrifices, dances and responsible use of its resources.
• Power: Power flows from age, respect, physical power and magical prowess. While Rulmi society is not gerontocracy - there’s an expectation that before age 30 - 35 you simply cannot be trusted with much power - and that age often weighs heavily on whether your decisions are heavily respected. Physical and magical prowess can assist with gaining respect, but before you reach a proper age, ambition is often seen as a sign of rashness, and rebelling against the status quo can have dire consequences. Not that it has stopped many Rulmi from trying.
• Social Hierarchy: In most Rulmi land - there’s no significant caste system. There’s free men - there’s the more privileged mage, priest and warrior caste - who often “grant” mobility to other members by adopting them or taking them in when their children feel not up to scale, or adopt those who show great talents. Captives are often adopted and integrated into the tribe relatively quickly - provided they are willing, and treated as one of their own once they have demonstrated their own mettle.
• Slavery: Rulmi  is not unfamiliar with the idea of slavery. However, there is no widespread institutional slavery on the steppes outside of fertile agricultural land and coastal land the Rulmi  occupies. Instead, Rulmi mostly take captive members of other cultures and faith (Same-faith enslavement is very much frowned upon, but forced “absorption” of defeated tribes may occasionally occur in particularly violent intra-tribe conflict) and sell them as slaves to willing traders.

Subculture

The Rulmi are divided along Clade line into two major subculture - Vipic - Centaurid, and Sinic - Brayer. A notable subset of the Rulmi - East Rulmi, exists.

Vipic

The Vipic people are tribes predominantly composed of Centaurid - unlike the Brayer people there’s no tradition of mounting any animals due to the Centaur’s own body already satisfying the need for a horse. Their language differs very slightly from that of the Sinic people - mainly in the fact that their vocal range is entirely human-like in nature.

Sinic

Sinic people are tribes predominantly composed of Brayers. Brayers tribe often undertake their nomadic activities on foot - and often use slings (Which are nearly unused by Vipic people who can simply chase them down) to herd animals and repel predators - though bows are often the preferred weapon of war. War Ilhvet are often mounted for war, but not usually used as a daily mount due to their size.

East Rulmi

East Rulmi are Sinic Brayer that have migrated to the east in ancient time, before the founding of the Silnarian Empire, and settled in the fertile plains located west of the Silnarian Empire. Eventually settlers took over the reaches of the River Hasaap and established their own civilizations, cutting off the East Rulmi from contact to the west. Later on, the expanding Silnarian Empire would also conquer their land, obtaining the submissions of multiple Rulmi chieftain by bribery, force or simple diplomacy. The East Rulmi enjoyed relative autonomy within the Silnarian Empire - and provided a significant amount of foot troops. They eventually became sedentary or semi-nomadic under their influence.

The East Rulmi retained their own cultural identity and language despite attempts to Silnarinize them - but their language is no longer highly intelligible with the Rulmi to the west, retaining some Silnarian loanwords and influence.

The East Rulmi’s language is based on Bulgarian.

Food & Cuisine

Rulmi sometimes engage in slash and burn agriculture in more fertile land and trade with settled people for grains and cereals. Grain and cereal generally play a non-prominent role in their cuisine.

The most important animal for the Rulmi is the Illhvet - a creature that resembles an upsized cow twice with prominent and soft fur - a domesticated variant of the wild Ilhvet (which are very rare to find), and often require proper shearing and shaving before summer. Domesticated Illhvet appears to have been magically engineered, blessed or changed many many many generations ago to have a very tilted female to male ratio: Roughly 4 females are born for each male, which factors into the heavy importance of diet and dairy products in Rulmi diet.

Normal sheeps and goats make up the main type of small ruminants that Rulmi keep - supplementing the big Illvet.

Salt is the most common seasoning with garlic and onion occasionally utilized. Roasting, air-drying and boiling is the most common method of preparing meat. Meat is sometimes boiled to create stews which are a staple of their cuisine - and grilled meats like kebabs, is an essential part of its cuisine.

Warfare & Tactics

The Rulmi fighting style differs slightly between whether the tribe is a Centaurid or Rulmi tribe. There’s a massive preference for missiles in warfare - with Centaurid and Brayer both wielding powerful longbows or composite bows. Centaur uses themselves as their mount and carry longbow and lance, whereas Brayers often wield longbows on foot alongside a long spear, and if they are lucky enough to ride a War Ilhvet - they would use a large composite bow instead. The Illhvet themselves - sturdy creature faster than a walking brayer but slower than a horse, are often massed for brutal stampeding charge - unlike normal cavalry, Illhvet are more than willing to charge into a pike wall…provided they are sufficiently trained.

For melee weapons, the preferred melee weapons are generally speaking scimitars, lances and long spears, with axes used as a weapon of last resort - and purpose-made mace made for dealing with heavily armored opponents - often carried by noble warriors.

Due to lack of suitable plants, low-end armor tends to be based on thickly padded woolen cloth - which provides marginal protection against most weapons, only occasionally preventing a poorly glanced cut. Hardened leather is often used for armor because there’s no better choice available on the steppe. Iron and steel are often reserved for weapons - then helmets, and if there’s still spare, heavy lamellar armor are fashioned for the richest part of the tribes. Silk is a preferred import used for the best armor - but also expensive.