Nomads

The Nomads, commonly referred to as cowboys, were the tribes of horse people who roamed the seas of grass that made up the High Plains. They were born, lived, and died on the saddle, and the horse played a hugely important role in their culture. They moved from pasture to pasture in their convoys of covered wagons, which served as their shelters wherever they stopped. They were feared by all civilized peoples of the known world, as their raids were particular vicious and fast. They looked down upon settled agriculturists and referred to them as "Grass Eaters".

The Nomads lived in mobile tribes led by warlords known as Sharfs, there were many tribes, but the largest were those of the Hellriders, Buckskins, Sasketch, and D'Kota. The tribes frequently warred with one another over grazing lands, but sometimes they would form alliances for major raids, or a great Sharf would force the others into submission. A few of the tribes such as the Kanzuns and Nebraskites came under the rule of the Chikago Empire, which forced the tribes to adopt a sedentary lifestyle and abandon their nomadic ways, but they still managed to maintain their identities under imperial rule.

The people of the plains had a very shamanistic religion that worshiped the blue sky that paralleled their yellow grasslands. Many nomads followed the cult of the wild horse, the deity of horses. The Buckskins worshiped the Thunderbird as a sky god, while the Hellriders worshiped the Firebird, whom told them to set fire to the civilized world so that they may create the "Eternal Pasture", which would stretch the entire world.

The Nomads spoke three different languages, Northern Nomadic, Southern Nomadic, and Prairie Nomadic. Northern being spoken by the northern plains tribes of the Hellriders and Sasketch. Southern was spoken by the D'Kota and Buckskins, while the Nomads under Chikagoan rule in the Prairie Provinces spoke Prairie Nomadic.

## Culture

### **Government**

Nomads lived in tribes known as Hordes. Each Horde was ruled by a Sharff who was elected by the council of Depyitees, or the most honored warriors of the tribe. Hordes often banded together under a Great Sharf, who would lead them on more extended campaigns into enemy territory to collect plunder and slaves from their civilized enemies, whom they referred to as "City-Slickers".

### **Society**

The Nomad tribes were generally ruled by a warlord known as a Sharff, a Sharff himself would have a retinue of enforcers made up of his best warriors known as his Depyitees. The tribes were generally parts of confederations known as Hordes. Hordes would seasonally travel between different pastures and grazing lands with their large flocks of cattle and Bison. The majority of the tribes was made up of freeman known simply as "riders". The only requirement of being a Rider meant owning at least one horse. Riders were the bulk of the horde and made up the ranks of warriors and commoners of the Horde. At the bottom were the slaves, either taken from neighboring civilized regions of other tribes.

Women had large amounts of authority in the Nomadic tribes, especially the southern Buckskin Hordes, where the Sharffs were often women. All nomadic shamans were women and were highly respected in their communities for their communication with the spirits of the sky. The tribes traveled in large convoys of covered wagons, within which they slept and ate, as well as carried their supplies. Alongside the convoys would ride the warriors of the tribal horsemen, who protected their families flocks and treasure in the convoy.

The Nomads barely had any sort of towns or even farm land. However, there were some more established tribal meeting places along some of the major rivers or in sacred areas like the Black Hills. Some slaves were forced to cultivate small plots of land along rivers by their Nomadic overlords.