Name of Nation: Nýumash Hatai, the Last Horde
Government: Elective monarchy
Economy: Mostly pastoral

Military: The Nýumashen are, despite their perceived backwardness and barbarity, a highly disciplined fighting force. They are the finest horsemen in all the world, and their hosts are massive indeed. In earlier centuries, the Nýumashen conquered much of the Earth, and their riders made expeditions throughout the lands. The arrival of gunpowder on the battlefield nearly destroyed the Nýumashen. But what does not kill one makes one stronger.

Description of Culture: The endonym 'Nýumashen' refers to a confederation of steppe nomads living beyond the continent of Edoniras. The steppe is a hard place. To the [i]tukuren[/i] - outlanders - the steppe is a vast, barren realm of inconsistent rains. Sedentary agriculture is impossible here, and so the hardy inhabitants of this land earn their sustenance by means of herding sheep, horses, cattle, and camels. Cities in the traditional sense do not exist, but seasonal/permanent trade camps exist at oases and other landmarks.

History: The Nýumashen are known to Norian history as the last great barbarian uprising against civilized people. A thousand years ago, their horse warriors stormed across Edoniras, laying low a generation of kingdoms in a tide of cavalry. And as quickly as they came, the horse warriors returned to the steppes. This wave of unbridled devastation weakened established kingdoms, clearing the way for the upstart Norians in their own wave of conquest.

While the fledgling Norian Empire expanded across Edoniras, the Nýumashen diverted their attention in conquering a vast empire on the far side of the world. The hordes of the steppe devoted their full and undivided attention in bringing down this great and exotic civilization. This conquest lasted four hundred years, culminating in a century-long siege of the greatest city in the world at that time. The Nýumashen were victorious, but utterly spent.

And as generations of new warriors grew to replace those lost in the war on the far side of the world, a new weapon had been created that would put halt the horses warriors in their tracks: gunpowder firearms. At the beginning, cannons and bombs were too limited to be of much use against the massed cavalry charges of the Nýumashen. But massed fusillades of thunderous shot, paired with razor walls of pikes and halberds, were enough to inflict the first great defeats against the the steppe hordes.

From then on, the Dominion of the Horde withered, infighting within the previously united tribes allowed opportunists to whittle away at the lands of the horse people. Captured Nýumashen were always repaid for the butchery of their forefathers with slavery and death. With the confederation in tatters, and distant colonizers encroaching upon the steppes, the historical footnote that was the Nýumashen seemed set. But the people of the steppe are as hardy as they are adaptable. The horsemen have learned to hold their own against firearms, and in some cases, wield them with devastating effect.

Scholars today might shudder to wonder, upon reading the histories of the Nýumashen, what these warriors - armed with modern flintlocks and commanded by another generation of capable leaders - might accomplish. 

Territory: On the endless plains on the edge of Edoniras.