Kuan Empire

The Kuan are a nomadic people who rule over the triple kingdom and comprise about half the army that defends the Spiral Empire. Though they fought Seprum during the First Spiral War, they are now strong alies. Their society is split into tribes, each led by a rai, with a great leader, called the saj. The current leader is Tsenbai Saj.

## History

### Unification of the Tribes

What outsiders call "the Kuan" are actually three separate ethnic groups—Kuan, Hsia, and Akkan—with their own languages, cultures, and lifestyles. Before unification, they often fought amongst one another and against neighboring Diao and Ju. In 57 PS, Diao declared its intention to no longer consider the Ju people barbarians and instead treat them as a semi-independent vassal state. Tsasi Rai, a leader of one of the larger Kuan clans, recognized the threat this posed to the Kuan way of life. If Diao and Ju no longer fought one another, they would either turn on the isolated and geographically defended Dhi or on the Kuan clans. Unification was no longer a matter of territory or pride, but one of life and death.

In 57 PS, Tsasi Rai arranged a marriage between his child and the rai of a nearby clan, then quickly orchestrated a power grab, doubling the size of his herds and army by 55 PS. Using a network of spies and scouts, Tsasi Rai sowed dissent amongst his rivals and sprung upon them unawares. In a stunning three years, he had united all but the most distant and stubborn clans. He declared himself Tsasi Kuan Saj, or the great leader of all the Kuan people, in 52 PS.

### Triple Kingdom

Typically, after a successful battle, all loot, including prisoners and livestock, went to the saj, who distributed them equitably to his people. This appeased the more powerful rais and maras beneath the saj and created an incentive to continue fighting. With all the clans united, Tsasi Saj needed a new way to provide for his people and he turned his attention to Diao and Ju.

Unable to defend against the might of the Kuan army, Diao fell quickly. However, Tsasi Saj opted to grant it semi-autonomy so he could focus his attention on taking Ju, which he did, in 43 PS. Because a mountain range separated Dhi from the rest of the island, the campaign there took longer but eventually resulted in an unconditional surrender in 31 PS. Tsasi Saj had a sub-force of his army sweep through the northern Ma'hea people at the same time and suddenly, the island was his.

Encouraged by his subjects' ability to self-govern, and ready to retire to his homeland, in 30 PS, Tsasi Saj declared the island a triple kingdom: Diao, Ju, and Dhi, with the benevolent Kuan people to rule over them all. After his retirement in 29 PS, his daughter, Ossei Saj, inherited his position and set her sight on securing Kuan borders and taking control of Mauzji, and the trade empire that came with it. Unfortunately, much of her reign was occupied with Diao and Dhi rebellions and an attack from the distant Ma'hea. In 28 PS, Ossei Saj expelled the last Ma'hea soldiers from the island. Her successor, Jamlyn Saj, rose to the position in 25 PS and led the Kuan through the First Spiral War.

### Spiral Wars

When a Seprum army moved to the central island, Jamlyn Saj realized they intended to attack Mauzji and take control of its wealth and trade network. Jamlyn Saj surprised the Seprum army with a two-pronged attack, one on the central island and one on Seprum's island, which forced the Seprum army into a retreat. However, they regrouped quickly and their discipline and study of Kuan tactics made them less willing to surrender or crumple against Kuan charges. The war might have lasted until both armies destroyed themselves if not for the appearance of Solas, who would become the Spiral Emperor.

Solas suggested that, rather than fight one another, they join forces and take Mauzji together for the Spiral Empire. When Kuan spiromancers realized they could no longer access the spiral on the central island, they saw the power Solas offered them and agreed. Before they could take Mauzji's three islands, however, they needed to regroup and re-conquer sections of their own island, taking complete control of Diao to prevent future rebellions in 11 SE. As a sign of respect to Ju (taken 12 SE) and Dhi (taken 17 SE), they changed the conception of the triple kingdom to include the Kuan people as well. Now, the three kingdoms are Ju, Dhi, and Kuan, which includes Kuan-occupied Diao.

Mauzji fell to the combined might of the Kuan-Seprum army soon after they arrived on the main island in 25 SE. They placed Bari edj-Makkar on the throne as sultan and plundered much of the wealth from the sultanate before returning to their own island. A small segment of the Kuan-Seprum army remained behind to ensure the sultan was safe and maintain the spiral tower.

The current Kuan ruler, Tsenbai Saj, is more focused on administration than conquering, which has caused some unrest amongst his people. To appease them, he has launched a series of attacks on the Ma'hea, though Kuan tactics in the Forest are less effective than their terrestrial ones.

## Military

The Kuan military is the most effective in the Spiral Empire. The vast majority of its soldiers are light or heavy cavalry, now aided by Seprum infantry. Their superior tactics allowed them to claim an entire island in a little over a decade. By contrast, it took Seprum more than fifty years to accomplish the same task.

### Organization

The Kuan military is divided into units of ten (arbans), 100 (jaguns), 1,000 (hazaras) and 10,000 (tümens). This means an order needs to be given at most to ten people to spread to the entire army. Once assigned, individuals cannot be transferred to new arbans, but entire arbans can shift around within jaguns and tümens. This mirrors the structure of non-military Kuan society, where individuals always serve under the same mara, but the mara's rai can change through marriage or war.

Each base camp was organized identically, so any soldier could arrive at any base camp and know exactly where to find the armory, doctor, leader, etc. Because Kuan are traditionally nomadic, it is not difficult for spouses, livestock, and shelter to travel with the army, a little ways back to keep it safe from flanking or ambushes. This makes setting up and stocking base camps simple.

Additionally, the saj keeps an imperial guard, recruited from the aristocracy in the other kingdoms. Members of the imperial guard outrank commanders in the regular military and are well-supplied. Their role is to protect the capital, the spiral tower, and the saj from attack and a position in the guard is considered an honor. The practice replaces an older tradition of taking eldest children hostage in order to ensure compliance from potential threats with a similar effect: the children of important people are kept in the castle, where they can be used as leverage as needed, but now their presence there is considered an honor.

### Equipment

Each soldier in the army and imperial guard is responsible for their own equipment, which includes:

* Needle and thread
* Lasso
* File
* Iron cooking pot
* Two leather bottles
* Whet stone
* Dried meat
* Curd
* Leather saddle bag for equipment when crossing rivers—floats when inflated

Tents, which are big enough for ten, are broken into parts and carried by separate people.

If a soldiers loses something, their commanding officer is punished for the mistake, and even during battle, if a soldier drops something, the person behind him in the line is expected to pick it up. Unlike Seprum legionnaires, however, who are expected to be able to survive fifteen days in the Forest alone, Kuan soldiers do not carry more than a day or two of food on their persons, relying instead on mobile supply chains that follow behind the army.

#### Armor

Light and heavy cavalry wear a heavy coat secured at the waist and below the right armpit with a lighter shirt underneath, woven with both silk and metallic thread and lined with fur, generally dog, goat, fox, or wolf, and silk. Boots are made of felt and leather and laced over the trousers. Heavy cavalry wear either scales of iron or leather sewn together with leather thongs or, more recently, chain mail. All soldiers wear helmets with earmuffs to keep warm.

Horses are kept as well-armored as soldiers with lamellar armor, separated into five parts to maximize protection without hindering movement. Kuan horses are smaller than those bred in Seprum but Kuan learn to ride them during infancy—often, a Kuan soldier appears like an extension of his horse, not like a separate being. Horses are not ridden until age three and, once broken in, they can find their rider by call alone, even in the midst of a herd and army.

The death of a soldier's horse is often treated as the death of a comrade at arms and even off the battlefield, a soldier and his herd, which is generally five or six horses big, are inseparable. It is a Seprum myth that Kuan soldiers recklessly slaughter and eat their horses during long marches. Only old, injured, or lame horses are killed, and only when necessary.

#### Weapons

Of course, Kuan fight with the infamous Kuan longbow. A common myth is that the longbow itself is what gives the Kuan army their edge. This is not so. While the bows are well made, of bamboo, sinew, and yak horn, with a pull of around 170 pounds and effective range of 300 yards, the true advantage comes from the Kuan ability to shoot accurately while riding. Even the greenest Kuan soldier can hit a target at 200 yards at full gallop. They time the loose of an arrow with the moment all four hooves of their horse are off the ground to improve accuracy.

Kuan soldiers carry sixty arrows in a quiver, fletched to either fly silently or make a whistling noise if the intent is to frighten an enemy. Arrowheads are metal, cooled in brine instead of water, which makes them tough enough to pierce leather and metal armor. Pointers etched into the shaft or head allow them to break through magical barriers or kill upon skin contact, even if the wound itself is non-lethal.

When forced to fight at melee range, or during a rout, Kuan use short swords and lances, hooked at the end to catch fleeing soldiers or yank them off horses. Heavy cavalry carry javelins and may replace the short sword with a scimitar or mace. However, melee combat is not where the Kuan army excels. During the First Spiral War, if the Seprum infantry could force close-range combat, they also forced the Kuan into a retreat.

### Tactics

A shrewd tactician, Tsasi Saj had three key principles when approaching a battle:

1. The cause must be just.
2. The army must have the resources necessary not only to start the war, but to end it as well.
3. The enemy's strength must be understood.

Though he had a way with words, especially before a battle, it is his tactical choices that allow the Kuan to dominate on the battlefield.

#### Breaking up the Clan Structure

Tsasi Saj broke up the natural clan structure when designing his units. Instead of fighting near kin and comrades, as was common, Kuan soldiers built new relationships with unknown unit mates. This forced soldiers to learn all three major Kuan languages and replaced bonds Tsasi Sai did not control—those of kin and clan-mate—with bonds he could control—those of the military. This stopped countless revolts before they began.

#### Scouting

Before Ossei Saj, women, and sometimes wifere, fought alongside men, on horses and with longbows. If they were spiromancers, they used their magic before a battle began but not after it commenced. Ossei Saj changed that, instituting a separate role for spiromancers in combat. Perhaps the most effective was the use of spiromancers for scouting. Kuan mages use hedge magic almost exclusively while on the move, scouting simultaneously in the spiral for when enemy mages begin planting runes, either of protection or attack. This hides the movements of the Kuan army.

When an enemy line is spotted, strike teams composed of generally female spiromancers, protected by male soldiers, approach the future battlefield. Separate scouting parties have already mapped out the geography, reporting the best place for the Kuan to make their stand. Kuan spiromancers plant all the spells necessary for a fight a little behind where the Kuan line will eventually form. Meanwhile, the army splits, sending an advanced force to slow the enemy down ahead of the chosen battlefield and giving the rest of the army time to flank. By the time the enemy realizes the Kuan army is ahead, and knows where they are, they are generally already surrounded. If they flee, they will be picked apart by horse archers and if they continue forwards, they walk into a trap.

#### Cymancy

The Kuan horse archers are deadly at most ranges. Combined with spiromancers, integrated into the army ever since the reign of Ossei Saj, they are all but unstoppable. Before Makkadi mages broke Kuan encryption, the precise nature of the spells they cast on their arrows was unknown. Against the Ju, who relied on dodos to waste Kuan runes during the course of the battle, the Kuan used death runes, pointers carved into the arrowheads, that killed everyone wounded by an arrow when cast. The effect on morale was devastating. Kuan mages also use spells to increase arrow range, make them pierce shields, and disguise their flight. By the end of the Second Spiral War, Kuan battle mages were so specialized, they earned their own name: cymancers.

#### Feigned Retreat

The Kuan used their infamous feigned retreat to great effect against Diao, Ju, Dhi, and Makkadi forces. Their reliance on mounted archers gave them a ranged advantage but their soldiers could not fight tightly packed lines of infantry well. Once they plowed through the first line or so of the infantry, they slowed to a walk and Kuan soldiers were dragged off their horses. However, against loose lines of infantry or, better yet, against broken lines, their small horses and high level of grace and control made them brutally effective at decimating the enemy.

Once their enemies realized the key to stopping the Kuan advance was tight lines of infantry, they all adopted that strategy and the Kuan needed a way to break the lines. Their strategy was two-fold. First, Kuan light cavalry organized in diamond-shaped units. The first rode at the enemy at full gallop, firing arrows as they went. Often, this was enough to cause a line to break, at which point, the light cavalry allowed the heavy cavalry to commence a rout. While the light cavalry charge and retreat silently, the heavy cavalry charges to a cacophony of war crimes and drums. This does nothing for the enemy's morale.

If the enemy is disciplined enough not to break as a line of horses rides at them, and as their brethren are picked off one by one by arrows, the light cavalry turns around and gallops back to the main army at a forty-five degree angle, able to turn on a dime in their diamond shapes. Most infantry interpret this as a retreat and break line to run after the fleeing Kuan, at which point the heavy cavalry is once again free to flank and kill as they see fit.

If the infantry doesn't break at the first charge and feigned retreat, the second line of light cavalry charges through the gaps in the first, loosing arrows all the while. Even if the infantry never breaks, they will eventually be worn down by the relentless onslaught of arrows.

## Life in the Steppes

The Kuan have a nomadic lifestyle. Generally, each clan controls two separate stretches of land for grazing: one for summer and one for winter. To the Kuan, ownership of land means little more than grazing rights. If someone chooses to farm on that land, they are free to collect all the fruits of their labor, so long as they do not interfere with grazing, which allows the Kuan and Seprum army to split the loot after a battle with few arguments.

The Kuan steppes are relatively flat and unsuited for agriculture. They are home to wild horses, asses, antelope, gazelle, bears, wolves, foxes, bears, and snow leopards, as well as a variety of birds and some species of freshwater fish.

### Social Structure

Kuan are split in to two social classes: nobles and commoners. Nobles control herds and groups of commoners, though commoners may leave a noble who doesn't serve them well and find another. Each clan has a single elected rai, or chief, who rules over groups the nobles, and larger clans have maras, who are a rank below the rai. After the unification, the rais swore allegiance to the saj.

Shamans, who are generally hedge witches or spiromancers, fit outside the hierarchical social structure. Shamans advise the rai and use their magic to see the future, predicting auspicious days for holidays, battles, elections, and marriages. They also heal the sick and conduct exorcisms, when necessary. In the early days before unification, shamans were women or wifere. When traders to Diao brought back news of the spiral, an all-woman group of shamans traveled to Diao to learn how to access the spiral. They trained their mostly female apprentices in the practice, spread the knowledge through generally all-female networks, and formed woman-only shaman guilds. In this way, they locked wifere out of powerful magic and the status of wifere fell. Today, most shamans are women. Because they are seen as unable to fight and unsuited for magic, wifere are delegated to lower work, including trade, diplomacy, and administration.

### Clothes

It is almost always cold on the steppes and the clothing reflects that. Most Kuan wear robes, cut from a single piece of cloth, worn with loose pants for ease of riding. Because wifere are discouraged from riding, they generally wear skirts or nothing at all beneath their robes. Robes are fastened with a belt and additional capes, fur hoods, and felt boots are added if necessary to remain warm. Rai or others who prove themselves on the battlefield receive robes of honor, which are layered, dyed, and woven with jewels and precious metals. Richer Kuan also use rarer furs, such as fox, lynx, or leopard, instead of the more common dog and goat.

Married wifere wear headdresses, which can be as big as two feet tall, made with a wooden scaffold, covered with felt, wool, or silk, and decorated with pearls, jewels, and feathers. They must be held up with straps around the chin and throat. Wifere are generally quite proud of their headdresses and may wear them even at inconvenient times.

Although Kuan eschew expressions vanity, they have a soft spot for fine clothing. Diplomatic liaisons to Kuan always bring clothes and non-native furs as a gift to the saj, who distributes them to his favored officials and soldiers.

### Dwellings

Though some Kuan no longer travel to better pastures throughout the year, they have not left their love for tents behind. The Kuan tent, or yurt, is circular with a stove in the center for cooking and heating—smoke is released from a central roof vent. Tables and chairs cluster around the stove and beds are pushed to the edges of the tent. The floor is covered in a variety of overlapping rugs. The back of the yurt, directly across from the door, is dedicated to the family altar and honored guests.

Kuan carry their yurts around on carts, pulled by oxen. Taking down a yurt is typically a male task and reconstructing it is a stereotypically feminine task. During reconstruction, the wooden floor is placed on the ground first, followed by the wood or steel lattice walls. The door is placed in its position (always facing south) and two wooden posts are placed in the center. A wooden wheel for smoke is balanced on top and roof poles are inserted into slots around it like spokes in a wheel. The other sides of the poles attack to the walls via leather loops and they are all moved upwards at the same time, as if inflating the yurt all at once. Canvas is stretched over the roof to make it water proof and, optionally, curtains or tapestries are hung from the walls. The floors are covered in layers and layers of felt to keep it warm. All told, it takes about an hour to construct, and the materials without furniture weigh 600 pounds.

#### Felt

Felt, rarely used elsewhere in the Empire, is vital to the Kuan way of life. It is turned into rugs and saddle bags, covers yurts, and lines boots, hoods, and gloves. Making felt is a yearly activity and every gathers together to help.

First, sheep's wool is beaten by the entire clan to loosen the fibers. Larger pieces are laid down as the base and wetted. Three more layers are spread on top, then drenched with water. The felt is covered with grass to keep it from sticking and wrapped around a pole before it is drenched again and wrapped in leather. Riders roll the bundle back and forth until the wool fibers interlock and felt forms. It is watered again upon unfurling.

### Infrastructure

Most Kuan cities are transient and even permanent settlements expand and contract with the seasons as travelers arrive with yurts for celebrations or holidays and leave at the end to find more fertile pastures. Because Kuan do not rely on agriculture, fertilization and irrigation are unnecessary. Without a writing system, they have no need for libraries. Permanent settlements have dedicated buildings or yurts for the dull work of administrating a government and museums to store the vast riches of the Kuan Empire, some plundered, some made on the steppe.

The most impressive piece of Kuan infrastructure is their postal and communication system. Messengers can travel 250 miles each day, pausing at yams to replace their horses. In this way, news crosses the steppe at high speeds.

### Cuisine

Upon visiting the Kuan capital, Maxima Qualia declared that their natural state was drunkenness, interspersed with short periods of sobriety. While this is perhaps an exaggeration, men, women, and wifere in Kuan drink heavily and make no attempt to hide their drunkenness, singing and shouting well into the night during holidays.

Kuan enjoy three meals a day and drink tea almost constantly. Generally, a pot of milk tea is kept ready in the yurt. While breakfast and lunch may not include dairy and meat, dinner always does, and requires the whole nuclear family to be gathered before it is eaten.

Meat comes from lamb and horses and is used to make dumplings, fried pancakes, barbecues, sausages, and stews. Dairy is almost as important as meat. Women are responsible for milking animals and boiling it. The fat is skimmed to make pancakes or spread on pastries. Some is saved to churn into butter or ferment into alcohol. The rest is drunk. Vegetables are difficult to come by on the steppe and make only rare appearances. Spices from Makkada are a delicacy, difficult to come by, and generally, the only seasoning is salt. Noodles are eaten with chopsticks, soup with spoons, and meat with knives.

Imported food is a luxury, especially seafood from Seprum. By treaty, Ju, Dhi, and Makkada provide quotas of food to the saj each year, and the saj distributes them to the people. Kuan tourists often bring back foreign delicacies for their families and friends.

### Leisure

In their leisure time, Kuan enjoy wrestling, boxing, racing, and archery. Races are open to all age groups and sorted by the age of the horse. It is not unusual for teenagers to compete against seasoned soldiers. One race, held in the capital each year, is dedicated to children only and lasts only about ten miles. The winners bow before the saj and offer the prize—horse beer and fruit—to their horse. Those who return last parade through the city while onlookers yell encouragement and advice.

Kuan also play a game that requires a board and pieces called the saj, boy, horse, cart, camel, and dog, competing to take control of all the squares of a certain color, or a similar game with bones, where one side plays as goats, the other as a hunter. In the evenings, they gather around fires and tell folktales or important stories from history.

#### The Hunt

Once each year during the winter, every soldier and many civilians participate in the hunt, which occurs in a large track of uninhabited land. They split into two lines, which could stretch as long as 80 miles, each 100 miles apart. Then, they move forwards, trapping all fleeing animals as they go. Soldiers sleep in uniform and the punishment for letting an animal escape is a beating. Anyone who kills game before the allotted time can be put to death, depending on the judgment of the saj.

The saj waits between the lines so he can make the first kill. Then, the other soldiers join in, showing off unarmed combat, their sword and knife skills, and ability on horseback and on foot, trying to impress the commanders. Most animals are symbolically released after older soldiers plea for their lives in front of the saj and they are granted clemency, though the hunt is followed by days of feasting.

Even in times of peace, the hunt allows Kuan soldiers to practice together and work on long distance communication through lanterns and flags. It provides civilians with a holiday during the darkest, coldest time of the year.

## Culture

### Religion

The Kuan are very respectful of religious leaders who belong to other faiths, going so far as to allow them to escape cities before a siege commences. A variety of religions exist in Kuan; including Sudhaism; deities from the Ju, Dhi, Seprum, Lykos, and Henesian Theist pantheons; Paraism; and Yanism. The different Kuan ethnic groups also have their own spiritual beliefs and practices.

In general, the Kuan recognize three significant gods: mother earth, father sky, and their child, the moon. Individual Kuan may worship, celebrate, and pay respect to the earth, sky, and moon as they see fit and without need for a shaman. Shamans act as spiritual leaders, not religious ones, and handle more concrete problems, such as demons, injuries, and warfare.

### Education

Children with a wifere parent are expected to receive their rote education from them. In most cases, this involves simple facts of government and geography. Children learn concrete skills by watching and mimicking their parents, family members, and other people in the town and receive religious education from local leaders. In Yanist areas, this may involve a few trips to a monastery.

Noble Kuan learn to read and write in Diao and Makkadi and sometimes Seprum. Kuan itself has no formalized writing system and is sometimes transcribed in Diao characters, generally unsuccessfully. Tsenbai Saj has a team of Makkadi advisors who are creating a simple writing system that can be taught to most Kuan people, increasing literacy.

### Marriage

A Kuan marriage is between a woman (earth) and man (sky). Marriages may optionally include wifere, and rai often add a wifere to their marriage after the fact when they are elected to the position as it is seen as more balanced. Unlike men and women, wifere have no power to ask for a divorce. Though men are permitted to have partners after marriage, it is generally unacceptable for a woman or wifere to do so.

It can be beneficial to marry a wifere because they generally come with dowries of clothing, silk, jewelry, and livestock. Marriages may also include bride prices, paid to the family of the bride, and groom prices, paid to the family of the groom. Offers are almost always made through matchmakers, who tend to be women or unwed wifere, and a shaman, elai, or honja offers an auspicious date for the wedding.

In most cases, the groom takes the bride from her family yurt to a new spot of land, where they work together to construct a new yurt. If a wifere is involved, they both travel together to their family yurt as well. The bride makes tea for the wedding guests and an afternoon of celebration commences.

Another popular style of wedding involves a staged kidnapping. The groom's friends—or the bride's, if she is a spiromancer—pretend to kidnap the bride and whisk her out of the town. The groom must then track her down and 'fight' for her safety, carrying her away to a new yurt, which they build together. In some modern weddings, the bride and groom work together to rescue a kidnapped wifere spouse.

### Music

Songs are separated into three types: short, long, and instrumental. Short songs deal with everyday activities and feature lively beats. Long songs are more existential and handle heavier topics. They are generally performed only at important functions and can last hours. Instrumental songs tend to be short and esoteric, written to explore a combination of instruments, motif, or chord.

Most Kuan can throat sing, a unique form of singing that uses the throat to sound like a variety of musical instruments. Other instruments available include two-stringed fiddles, often carved to look like a horse's head; three-stringed lutes; flutes; and zithers. Songs are accompanied by specific, traditional dances that may feature just one dancer or require an entire clan.