Guntartars

### **Average appearance**

Their skin tone is a very grayish brown, their hair is dark brown, their noses are bent and relatively big, and they aren't particularly tall. They usually have green or brown eyes, and their hair is a bit wavy.

### **Native region**

The North Yamuhi steppe. A flat-ish grassy region with few trees and less rain than you would expect. All the moisture from the Yamuhi gets blown east because of a cold air current coming from the Saniri mountains. The moist air hits Lake Rhuli and goes north until it reaches the Suelian Sea where it gets blown west until it reaches the Zama Jungle and gets halted by the Mankan Mountains. Thus, the north Yamuhi Steppe doesn't get enough moisture to become a forest and the Zama Jungle still exists north to it in the middle of nowhere.

## History:

### **The Fifth Khaganate**

#### **The Fifth Khaganate's structure:**

The Great Khan is the ruler of the Khaganate. The khaganate was originally divided into four khanates. The Western Horde, the Great khanate, the Right Khanate and the East Frontier. The Guntartars don't usually live in cities because of their nomadic lifestyle and culture, a very small amount of them live in the cities in the empire. They mainly use the cities for trade, administration and storing vast amounts of wealth. They have been known to turn small towns into large trading hubs where they can make a lot of money off of taxation and tolls. The administrative capital of the Western Horde is Yunar, for the Great Khaganate it is the ancient city of Sun-Ra which was built the first ever great khan Sun-Ra I who founded the First Khaganate in 800 B.B to store his accumilated wealth and to bring traders who will trade them luxuries. The Administrative capital of the Right Khanate is Saloo which was a small small town in the middle of nowhere into a trading hub. It is located 600 kilometers away from Sun-Ra and it is around 75 kilometers from the administrative border with the Great Khanate. The administrative capital of the East Frontier is Rhudai which was a small fishing and trading center on the coast of the Rhuli lake which is used by the Rhuli tribes. The Guntartars turned it into a large trading hub as well. The Great Khan's brothers rule the other sectors of the empire, and when he dies, he passes the role of Great Khan to his son. The son's brothers replace their uncles in their roles as khans. The Fifth Khaganate operates in what they "sway or slay". Meaning, if you don't surrender to them immediately and agree to pay taxes, tribute and needed resources and soldiers, they will go to war with you and they will loot your cities and villages and farms, kill a large amount of the population, rape all the women, burn the cities and villages to ground, and enslave the survivors. However, if you surrender at the start and do as you are told, they won't try to cause you any real harm.Culture

## Life and culture

### **Lifestyle**

They are a semi-nomadic people. They usually live an nomadic lifestyle as horse riding cattle, horse, sheep or goat herders. They are amazing horse riders because they start learning how to ride horses on their at the age of 6 years. They are also the best horse archers around because they start learning professional archery at the age of 14, and they start learning horse archery at the age of 16. They are made into warriors at the age of 20 and are tasked with protecting their clan/family/tribe. Every Guntartar boy gets this education regardless of wealth or stature. According to Guntartar religion, one can only become a khan if he is a man who is capable of shooting arrows off horseback from a bow, because otherwise he will anger the spirits and they will cripple all his men so they can't become horse archers. Women are not taught horse archery.

#### **Fashion**

Men have long beards with colored beads which are usually made of bone or horn. They tend to wear their hair in braids with beads.

#### **Horses**

Horses are the central part of Guntartar culture and warfare. Guntartar horses are small, but they are incredibly fast, very strong for horses their size, and they have a lot of endurance. They tend to have piebald coats with white, brown and black, their legs are longer they can live off of a grass only diet (a lot of horses can't). When traveling, a tribesman usually brings along some 2 extra horses, but a warrior travels with about 6 horses in total and he changes horses during battle to avoid riding a tired horse.

#### **The uncatchable philosophy**

The Guntatars believe that when they got the horse, the godess Hunae gave them a natural gift and connection to horses, but she gave it on a condition. They must do their best to be uncatchable horsemen in battle so not to lose their gift. Therefore, they came to favor the bow over the spear as a basic weapon because it allowed to shoot from a distance and become uncatchable in battle.

## Advancements and inventions

### **The stirrup**

In the 15th realm of secrets the Guntartars are the ones who invent the stirrup. They invent it at around 500 B.B. Because they they start riding at a young age and because they have to be able to move around quickly which is done best using horse, they invented the stirrup to aid people who had trouble mounting horses and allow them to mount their horses on their own. This invention was quickly spread and wound up becoming very popular. They later figured out that if you use two of them, one on each side,it really helps with mounted combat by providing more stability than just a saddle and reins.

### **Trade**

Guntartars are materialistic people. they hate staying put, but they love getting a touch at everything. By encouraging the development of trade and striving to control and maintain trade routes helps them satisfy this want.

## War

### **Usual weapons**

The main weapons Guntartars use are the following: The horse, the recurve bow and a LOT of arrows. This is a direct result of their training and their culture. However, many Khans and khagans realized that you sometimes need a bit of shock cavalry and infantry as well. But Guntartars make horrible infantry and their small skittish horse don't make good shock cavalry partly because they cant be properly armored to be cataphracts without losing the needed shock momentum. However, their bowmaking technology is relatively advanced and with a large assorted of arrows they are tough to catch (according to their philosophy a Guntartar must do his best to be uncatahable).

### **Usual battlefield tacticts**

The Guntartars travel around with their horses outnumbering them at two horses per man at the very minimum (they prefer traveling with three to four horses per warrior) and this allows them to switch horses to make sure that their best horses aren't tired at decisive battle points.

- The wolfpack tactic: They separate into many small bands 5-11 warriors that constantly rotate around their enemy from approximately 200-300 meters away and each time a different band charges in, shoots a few arrows and dashes away. While one band pulls back, there is also another one charging at the same time from a different direction. If there are enough warriors, you can have a lot of bands constantly attacking at the same time from differnt fronts.

### **The sway or slay conquering strategy**

When a army of Guntartars wants to take your city, they give a one and only chance to surrender without a fight and become a tributary and you won't be harmed. If you don't, they will beseige your city and do whatever they want with it. That means loads of killing, raping, looting, enslaving and sometimes raising the city to the ground. A result of this is massive depopulation in certain areas and peoples and nationalities who live in places that fought a lot of Guntartar waves and lost and had been there for many generations have a large Guntartar "genetic influence".