Northern Steppe Encounters

Fleshing out a region that is still weirdly un-fleshed-out. On the southern steppe you may encounter:Nomad HousesA 'house', 'family', or 'clan' - terms the nomads use interchangeably. Northern nomad houses are universally mobile horse riding pastoralists, and they ride in extended family groupings. The largest houses are very large, some up to ten or fifteen thousand, but they only very rarely ride together to preserve grazing land. More usually, a group of nomads will be between fifty and two hundred, made up of groups of close family, and presided over by an influential patriarch or matriarch. Every nomad rider has personal loyalty to their immediate kin group, and to their larger house, and warriors, traders, and diplomats will wear the flag-capes of both to signal their political and diplomatic positioning to others. Houses are known by the livestock that they keep; either cattle, dogs, or horses. All nomads ride horses, but not all are 'horse houses'. Nomad marriages are…