Editing Acrozatarim/Gazetteer (section)

=The Northern Lands of Huron=

The nascent power of the Huronese has taken root in the region that was once the northern province of the Drakkath Empire.  Now, centuries later, people who were once the vassals of the Drakkath now look to make themselves its new masters.  With a great swathe of land in its grasp, the Huron nation is one of master horsemen and proud warriors, their traditions rooted in their history as plains nomads.  That has, of course, been changing over the long years - in the present era, Huronese cities are amongst the largest in the Drakkath, maintained roads crosscross the rolling plains and bridge the rivers, and great fields of crops grow under the sun's gaze to feed the untold thousands of the land's people.

There are two main divisions Huronese culture.  The first of these are the 'Westerners' and the 'Easterners'; many families and clans still trace their lineages back to the era of the Dawn War, when the western Huronese horse-clans were forced east.  Westerners are the most ardent in calling for a Holy Pilgrimage to reclaim the Wasteland and restore it to its former glory as the Huronese heartland; they mockingly characterise easterners as softer and having lost touch with horse and steppe.  Easterners are those whose ancestors already dwelt in the Great Eastern Plains at the time of the Dawn War, and who are the keenest in seeking the mantle of the Drakkath Empire; in their crueller jests, they depict the westerners as less clever and more barbaric, or even as weaker immigrants who couldn't hold onto their own lands.  Of course, these are only broad generalisations and many bloodlines of both Plains have intermarried and blurred old boundaries.

The second division is that of the horse-clans.  These clans remain central to Huronese government and military hierarchy, as they are essentially military structures.  They are also foci of Huronese culture clashes, with different clans having their own traditions, rites and grudges, and much internal unrest and struggle is down to feuding clans.  However, the importance of the clans has been eroded over time as cities have grown and many Huronese become settled farmers and labourers, to the point that some clans are purely made up of a warrior-class, some are many thousands strong and others are mere hundreds.  The Lord Commander, supreme ruler of Huron, is ritually elected from amongst the Clan-Lords to serve until they retire or are removed by the Clan Council.