The Nomads of Sarayne
The nomadic people of Sarayne are a distinct ethnic group of humans who live as hunter gatherers and herders on the plains and grasslands of the continent, and are only nominally citizens of Sarayne, as they do not engage with wider society or government except in rare and specific circumstances. While their membership of the race 'human' is unquestioned, it is clear they have very rarely intermixed with other ethnic groups for many millenia.
Structure
The Nomads of Sarayne are a loose coalition of many separate tribes which sometimes form together for important ceremonies or (rarely) for protection in times of danger. For the most part however, they live in small groups each of which is headed by a patriarch or matriarch, who is chosen based on a combination of age, skill and number of children. When the family groups band together in a tribe the patriarchs and matriarchs form a council, which chooses a leader from amongst themselves based on the same criteria. This process is replicated once more on the rare occasions where the Nomads all band together, with the result that the leader of any group of Saraynese nomads, no matter what the size, will be the elder who is considered the best present combination of age, talent and family size. For example, the current patriarch of the largest tribe is 73, a highly skilled healer and has 11 children.
Culture
The people of this culture group are a very literal people, with almost no tradition of imagination, exaggeration or fiction. They do have music, but it is simplistic in composition and used as a memory aid for their many oral histories rather than as artistic endeavor. Their names for geographic locations are likewise extremely literal, with common sites for visiting or making camp having names such as 'Hunting', 'Water' or 'Bad Grass'. They do not have a written language, but use their songs as their way of recording knowledge, although some can read and write Common and even in some cases Elvish.
The nomads are not by nature a warrior people, and as such most members of this culture have little experience with weaponry except those used in hunting game. A few members of each group, about ten percent of the total number, are selected upon reaching puberty to become the defenders of their group, and these receive further training. The nomads almost never fight amongst themselves, so these defenders are most often occupied in fighting off wild beasts, or the occasional criminal attempting to steal from them.
History
The nomadic peoples have no written history, but their oral histories are generally considered unusually reliable by scholars owing to their well-known literalistic culture. It is considered highly unlikely that they would be inclined to exaggerate or fictionalise. Therefore there is likely to be some truth in their belief that they were born from dragons taking human form and intermarrying with human women. They display none of the normal traits such dragonborn usually posses, but then again they claim this happened many thousands of years ago. Since then all the new blood entering the tribes will have been entirely human, therefore their account remains eminently plausible.
It appears from their histories that the nomads have lived much the same hunter-gatherer lifestyle as their ancient ancestors for the entirety of their cultural existence, and therefore their most notable stories are from occasions when an outsider upset the normal balance of their routine. The most famous examples are their beliefs surrounding King Gabraeil, who would become the legendary first King of Nerevarn; the tales of Raad of the Mountains who forged the Kingdom of Sarayne, and the decision of the nomadic peoples to join him; and most recently their story of the Lich King that fled through their lands, flying battered and newly undead into the mountains in the North, and who sometimes to this day emerges from his lair to visit wherever he came from. This last also serves as a bogeyman of sorts to keep the more defiant of their young children in line.
Type
Geopolitical, Nomadic tribe
Demonym
Nomadic
Location
Notable Members
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