Nomad

It was difficult to pin down the origins of anything throughout history. Plenty of ideas and methods were known to crop up simultaneously among completely isolated groups by simple happenstance. However, it was largely accepted that the idea of modern cavalry began with the arrival of nomadic human tribes from the north east of Lyr. Masters of their stocky, resilient horses, they migrated south west out of the tundra and steppe due to extremely harsh seasons and famine. Forced to avoid the forests of Easter to the south and pushed away from the budding kingdoms in Northi to the west, the nomadic humans settled in the lush plains of Axia and Nuren. Their art of mounted archery gave them unparalleled hunting abilities and made them maddeningly difficult to chase down, even from the fleet footed catfolk and rabbitfolk.

For a time, the Nomads roamed plains, breeding ever stronger horses and leading a relatively simple life. They didn’t know that their presence forced the kingdoms of Northi to push their influence west into Susururu Forest, displacing wolf-folk and lamiafolk, and to the selkies of Houkaina on the coast. But eventually, with nowhere to continue expanding aside from the frigid north, Northi returned its attention to the plains. Utilizing enslaved centaurs as mounts, the catfolk hoped to narrow the mobility gap and to be able to finally hunt down the annoying humans. But without any static settlements and their mastery of the plains, the Nomads were still able to control the pace of any battles or hunts.

Simultaneous to the more concentrated efforts from Northi, humans from Westria began to treat with the nomadic tribes of the Nuren Plains. They traded for horses, for trainers, and offered riches beyond the nomadic tribes’ wildest dreams for empty land. Northi wasn’t alone in dreaming of securing the plains for their potential wealth of farmland, but the humans from the south recognized that the Nomads had completely stalled chimeran expansion with their mastery of horses and Westria had long been praying for something that would let them protect themselves from the chimera and fae. Humans had a long history of domesticating animals to help balance the strengths of their neighbors: dogs for hunting, oxen for burden…the introduction of horses was simply another method to overcome their weaknesses.

With a combination of various deals with the nomads and utilizing their own methods against them, Westria was finally able to push its borders to the edge of the forest and the Nuren River. Their actions unfortunately displaced or eradicated tribes of nomads that resisted the territorial grab. Some historians believe that ancient, bad blood was one of the larger factors for the rise of independent nations along Westria’s north eastern border. Many humans from the plains regions could still claim ancestors from those nomadic tribes and while there was no official animosity, some were convinced there was an overarching reason they had carved out their independence from both Northi and Westria.