The Steppe is vast beyond easy reckoning, and over centuries—indeed, eons—the Hugond have come to loosely regionalise. Though their nomadic nature remains strong, each tribe adheres to traditional hunting grounds and migratory paths, territories remembered not by borders, but by story, season, and ancestral claim.
At times, these invisible boundaries have given rise to conflict. Disputes over grazing routes, water sources, or sacred lands have, in ages past, escalated into inter-tribal wars. Yet such large-scale strife has not been seen for many generations. The last great conflicts between Hugond tribes are said to have occurred before the Blood Isler wars—events which, in their devastation, ultimately served to unify the Hugond more than divide them.
Across all tribes, the core customs of the Hugond remain intact. Rituals of migration, reverence for the land, and the authority of elders are recognised throughout, though each region shapes these traditions in its own way—subtle variations in rite, language, and belief that reflect the lands they traverse. In this balance between unity and distinction, the Hugond endure as one people, even as they walk many different paths.
The Drovak - Implied meaning strong, mobile, with a sense of riders and warbands.
The Western Hugond are perhaps the most embattled of all the tribes, having borne the brunt of two devastating Blood Isler wars. Though reinforced at times by riders and warbands from the Central Steppe, it was their lands that were scarred, their herds scattered, and their traditions tested against foreign incursion. The memory of these conflicts is not distant history but a living weight, carried in story, song, and silence alike.
Of all the Hugond, the western tribes have had the greatest exposure to the peoples of the Crimson Coast. Trade routes cut through their territories, and uneasy exchanges—of goods, customs, and beliefs—have shaped a more divided outlook than is found elsewhere among their kin. Some clans have come to accept these outsiders with cautious pragmatism, forging bonds through trade agreements, shared hardships, and rare but meaningful acts of good faith. In these places, markets rise where once only camps stood, and foreign coin carries a certain, if begrudging, legitimacy.
Yet this openness is far from universal. Other western tribes hold fast to older grievances, their distrust hardened into something deeper and more enduring. To them, the Crimson Coasters are not traders, but invaders—those who defiled sacred ground and pressed into lands that were never theirs to claim. Among these groups, even the hint of cooperation is seen as weakness, and the scars of past wars are kept deliberately unhealed, a reminder of what was lost and what must never be conceded again.
Thus, the Western Hugond stand divided—not fractured, but balanced uneasily between adaptation and resistance, their future shaped as much by memory as by necessity.
At the heart of all tensions lies the Hugond holy site of Kruan—a place older than any tribe’s memory, and sacred beyond dispute. It was the desecration of Kruan by the Crimson Coasters that first ignited the Blood Isler wars, an act not merely of trespass, but of profound spiritual violation. Even now, the echo of that moment lingers, carried in every telling, every warning, every silence that follows its name.
Since those wars, an uneasy accord has formed around the site. Kruan has been left—whether out of wisdom or fear—in the sole care of the Hugond elders. At the turning of the solstices, they gather to enact rites whose full meanings are known only to them. These rituals are not performed for spectacle or diplomacy, but for something far older and more necessary.
It is widely believed that the power of Kruan is tied to the land itself—that without the elders’ rites, the great ice belt to the south would begin its slow, relentless advance northward. Some claim this is superstition, a story shaped to preserve control. Others, especially among those who have seen the subtle shifts in frost and season, speak of it as quiet truth.
The Avaruun – Implied meaning wide and rolling in sound, like the open plains; suggests “those who follow the horizon.”
The Central Steppe stretches vast and unbroken, a rolling sea of grass and wind where the horizon never settles. It is home to the most purely nomadic of the Hugond tribes, whose lives are bound to the rhythm of migration, the turning of seasons, and the health of their herds. Horses are their pride and legacy—bred not only for strength and speed, but for temperament and endurance, each bloodline carefully remembered in long oral traditions. Alongside them, yaks provide sustenance and shelter, while llamas—leaner and sure-footed—carry trade goods across distances few others would dare.
Life here is measured in movement. Camps rise and vanish with little trace, marked only by trampled grass and the faint echo of smoke. Storytelling, song, and carved bone tokens preserve history, while shamans read the wind and stars to guide entire tribes across the shifting expanse.
At the great seasonal horse gatherings, the steppe transforms. What is usually a land of solitude becomes a convergence of colour, noise, and rivalry. Traders, warriors, and elders from across Hugond lands arrive in numbers, their tents forming temporary cities beneath open skies. Deals are struck through ritual as much as coin—races are run, endurance tested, and lineage recited before a horse is ever exchanged. To own a mount from the Central Steppe is to carry a piece of its vastness and prestige, and such animals often become the centrepieces of wealth, status, and legend.
Despite their openness to trade, the steppe tribes remain wary of outsiders. Trust is earned slowly, often over shared journeys or seasons spent proving one’s worth. To them, the land cannot be owned—only travelled—and those who fail to respect its harsh beauty rarely survive long enough to understand it.
The Veyrath - implied meaning “those who speak with the deep earth.”
The Southern Hugond are spoken of in quieter tones, regarded as those who walk closest to the older gods and the deep-rooted will of the Mother Earth. Their lands are heavier with life—dense grasses, dark soils, and ancient groves where the wind seems to carry voices older than memory. Among them, the Yasips are strongest: spirit-bound seers and druids who do not merely interpret the land, but commune with it. Their rituals are slower, deeper things—drawn in circles of stone and root, marked by ash, bone, and the turning of the seasons.
During the Blood Isle wars, it was the Southern tribes who called upon these powers most openly. Storms were said to gather at their summons, earth to tremble beneath marching enemies, and roots to choke supply lines where no roots should grow. Whether truth or embellishment, even their rivals speak cautiously of what the Southern Yasips can awaken when pressed.
There are older stories still, half-whispered among elders and rarely shared with outsiders. It is said that the Southern and Eastern Hugond were once a single people, bound not just by kinship but by a shared spiritual tradition that bridged land and sky. That unity ended when the mountains rose—whether by the will of forgotten gods or some buried force beneath the world. The earth itself is believed to have split in grief or fury, thrusting up an impassable barrier that sundered the tribes and reshaped their paths forever.
Even now, some Southern shamans claim the mountains are not silent—that deep beneath their roots, something still stirs, waiting for the old bonds to be remembered… or broken completely.
The Rhaekun - implied meaning ancient-sounding, could tie into old lineages and oral traditions.
The Eastern Hugond are widely believed to be the oldest of all the tribes, though certainty is elusive—by their own design. They are the most isolationist of the Hugond peoples, dwelling beyond lands seldom travelled and rarely mapped with any accuracy. What is known of them comes second-hand, filtered through traders, envoys, and the rare few who have claimed to glimpse their distant encampments before being quietly turned away.
They do, however, maintain a presence at the neutral ground of Dokhtar, though even there their representatives are reserved, speaking little and revealing less. Their purpose is not participation, but observation. Many believe they attend not to engage in the affairs of others, but to measure them.
Their attention in recent years appears fixed upon the northern shores of Kylma, where the new settlements of Kaegor have begun to take root. The Eastern Hugond have made no overt move—no hostility, no alliance—only a stillness that feels deliberate. Among the Hugond, patience is not simply a virtue but a defining trait. They are not bound to the urgency of a single lifetime; their sense of time stretches across generations, even epochs.
Where others react, the Eastern Hugond endure. They watch the slow turning of power, the rise and fall of faiths, the reshaping of borders and beliefs. To them, these are not events, but patterns—currents in a greater flow. And when they finally act, it is said, it is never without reason… nor without consequence long in the making.
The Vaerakim Belief
In ages long before the Kaegorian wars of men and the ancient races, Hugond myth speaks of the coming of the Vaerakim (“the one who binds the tribes.”) - a figure not quite god, nor wholly mortal. It is said that in a time of great unravelling, when the boundaries of the known world begin to fray, the Vaerakim will rise to unite all Hugond tribes as one.
Under this figure, the long-divided peoples—western, southern, eastern, and steppe—will set aside grievance and memory, bound instead by a purpose older than any single tribe. Together, they will wage a great war not against any kingdom or people, but against a force they name only as chaos—an encroaching, formless threat from beyond the edges of understanding.
Curiously, the myths speak of this war as one fought in defence of mankind. Yet the tone of these tellings is often ambiguous. Some believe the Hugond will act to protect humanity from a danger it cannot perceive; others suggest something more troubling—that mankind itself, through ignorance or ambition, plays a role in awakening or inviting this threat.
Thus, the coming of the Vaerakim is not a promise of salvation, but of convergence—of destiny, conflict, and consequence. Among the Hugond, it is rarely spoken aloud, but never forgotten. For a people who measure time in ages, such a future is not distant… only inevitable.
The Hugond