The Horde

**The Black Horde**, often shortened to simply **the Horde**, are the main antagonist of TLR. They are a unique organisation with characteristics of a federation of tribes and a living, moving army, led by a ruthless and determined leader known as the Black Khan.

## Homeland Combat

Initially, the Horde are busy fighting the rest of your tribe back in the homeland. They won't start coming after you until the defenders are destroyed.

The starting number of defenders is determined by your Game Length, ranging from 150 on "Shortest" to 350 on "Longer", and 500 on Extended Mode. The more defenders there are, the longer it will take for the homeland to fall.

Each night, a number is rolled between 1 and 13.

* Roll 1-6: *Stalemate* - 10-40 defenders killed, 5-12 Horde warriors killed.
* Roll 7-9: *Decisive Assault* - 30-90 defenders killed, 8-20 Horde warriors killed.
* Roll 10-12: *Counterattack* - 0-12 defenders killed, 20-40 Horde warriors killed.
* Roll 13: *Reinforcement* - 5-15 reinforcements join the defenders.

When fewer than 30 defenders remain, the homeland falls. The night the homeland falls is the same night the Horde begin their pursuit of you.

If not all the defenders were killed before the homeland's fall, the remining defenders will try to escape. They will have a 1 in 3 chance of escaping undetected and unscathed. Otherwise, the Horde will kill some or all of them. Any still left after that escape successfully.

Currently the escaped homeland survivors aren't part of the game, but they will be in the future.

## The Chase

Once the homeland has fallen, the Horde will start chasing you. They will travel a base of 100-200 distance units each night. Each distance unit you travel towards the Promised Land is also one you travel away from the Horde. As the average base travel speed is 50 distance units per travel action, you would need to travel 3 times a day to maintain your distance from the Horde. As this leaves little time for progressing in the game and gathering the resources you need, this means the Horde will slowly catch up to you.

Every 3 days, your tribe will piece together fragmentary evidence they've been gathering to determine the rough location and distance of the Horde. You will get an event that tells you whether they are close, less close, far or very far, but won't give you any numbers.

If the Horde close the distance and catch up to you, the game is over.

## Horde Scouts

Every so often on your travels, you may encounter Horde scouts. When you encounter them, you can choose to fight them or avoid them.

The chance to encounter Horde scouts depends on when you last encountered them:

* You will not encounter them in the first 3 days of the game, or for 3 days after last encountering them.
* The chance to encounter them 4 or 5 days after last encountering them is 1 in 30.
* The chance to encounter them 6 or 7 days after last encountering them is 1 in 20.
* The chance to encounter them 8 or 9 days after last encountering them is 1 in 10.
* The chance to encounter them 10+ days after last encountering them is 1 in 5.

If you fight and successfully defeat them, you will face more next time. At first you will face 2, and 1 will be added for each wave you defeat, up to a maximum of 5.

If you avoid them or flee from a fight with them, the Horde will get 15% faster (additive).