Horde

The Horde are an alien species in the Lost Regiment Universe and originate from the planet Valdennia.

Biology
The Horde are devish looking humanoids. Eight feet in height in average, some reaching ten feet. Their faces were sharp, cunning, near devil-like, covered entirely with a matting of hair, as were their bodies.

Ancient Past
An ancient species, the Horde once explored the stars; from their world of Valdennia, they created the Tunnels of Light, that were capable of opening portals to other worlds. However their civilization fell due to the Great War, ending their golden age and splintering their society.

The Horde on the homeworld regressed to hunter-gatherers, only dimly remembering of a time when their ancestors strode across the heavens like gods. The Tunnels of Lights however went unmonitored, bringing several alien cultures from other worlds sporadically throughout the ages.

Regression
One such race were the Yor, who possessed technology more advanced than the Horde at the time. They quickly enslaved the Horde, however their invaders fell to infighting and eventually the Horde rebelled wiping the Yor. The next race that was transported to Valdennia would have a profound impact on the cultural development of the Horde. A species from a small blue planet known as Earth: Humanity. It was humans that brought the Horde many of their technological achievements. Horses for transportation. Crafted goods. And most importantly meat.

The various human cultures that arrived on Valdennia revolutionized the Horde culture. The Horde developed into a nomadic society, organized into separate clans and united into various Hordes. The Hordes traveled the continent of Valdennia and used the scattered human settlements as feeding grounds. On occasion wars over territory between the Hordes would incite.

A challenge to the Hordes authority was non-existent for the most part. The nomadic species relied on their superior numbers and strength to cow their cattle into submission between feedings.

Age of the Horde
Around fifteen circlings or so the Tugar horde encountered cattle wielding firearms, who may have been 17th century English sailors brought from Earth through a tunnel of light. Though the cattle killed many Tugars, the latter was able overwhelm them and wipe most of the cattle out before they could threaten the Tugar’s rule. The surviving cattle fled in their sea vessels and became a culture of pirates raiding the other settlements of humans that dotted the coasts.

A circling prior to the coming of the Union army, the Tugar and Merki hordes were engaged in a war over the great northern steppes. It was said that the battle lasted three days and night. Victory was won by the Tugar’s confederation of fifty clans against the Merki’s twenty clans and the latter was banished from the northern steppe.

Tugar War
The time of the Horde would be challenged when the Yankee Regiment from the 1800s arrived and began introducing new weapons and techniques to the human descendants of from Russia (Rus). The Tugar ,a horde that claimed the northern land of Rus and Roum were attempting to outrace a plague that had been infecting their cattle. The plague not only caused sickness and death to their numbers but also reduced their food supply and were under threat of starvation. Little did they known that the plague was brought by human refugees, the Wandering People that were attempting to flee the Tugar. The Tugars need to outrace the plague caused them enter the lands of Rus prematurely before the scheduled season. However they found that the once docile cattle were armed with strange weapons from a new breed of humans, the Yankees, from their ancestor's tunnels of light. Though the humans possessed superior weaponry Tugars outnumbered them, and used their numbers to overwhelm bold cattle. Victory ultimately fell into the direction of the Yankees after they unleashed river that drowned the majority of the Horde. The Tugar finally agreed to a parley, allowing some of the humans healers to retrieve their dead. As part of the negotiations they were allowed the method to prevent further small poxe outbreaks to save the remaining humans.

Merki War
News of the Tugar's defeat spread across the human territories. Embolden by the Yankee's several communities drove the remaining Tugar from their lands. The Yankees and Rus gave birth to the human stated known as the Republic that aimed to stand against the Horde threat. The Tugars with little choice were forced to move south where their hated enemy the Merki Horde ruled. The Merki learning of the defeat of the Tugars were humored, however they decided to aid their old enemies to destroy the greater threat. To this end, they recruited the aid of a human turncoat from the Yankees' to craft muskets. In addition the Merki unearth several ancient flying vessels from their kind's burial tombs. The Merki Horde advanced upon the lands of the Cartha, Rus and Roum. The humans no longer having the advantage were slowly being driven to a corner. A war of attrition emerge, the humans only managing to slow the Merki advance thanks to their tactics. One of the most crucial blow they landed on the Merki was with the assassination of the Qan Qarth. According to Horde tradition a period of mourning was to take place which gave the humans enough time to regroup.

The Merki eventually managed to complete their funerary rites for their leader, however the ritual involved thousands of human sacrifices earning the Republic a loss allies from the Carthas. The Republic were at dire disadvantage against the aerial assaults by the Merki, however one of the engineers managed to create their own flying machines, though albeit slower were more maneuverable. The Merki faced some internal issues due the choice of succession as the young Zan Qarth was deemed by some of the more radical members to be young and inexperience. One of the loyal shieldbearers of the previous Qan Qarth decided to take matters into his own hands and committed regicide. His murder of the young Qarth was concealed by the shamans who wished to maintain their power. The Tugars, however suspected something and deemed this to be a dishonorable act. At the pivotal battle between the Merki and the Republic, the Tugars chose to turn on the Merki, seeing that their way of life was in question and also that their Qarth had respect for the Yankees and were tired of the rule of the Merki. The Merkinwere forced to surrender, and part of the Republic’s negotiations were to release all their human slaves. The Merki Horde fractured into many favtions, many were later absorbed into the Batang Horde.

Bantag War
The Bantag were another Horde that became opponents to the Republic. However unlike the previous Hordes, this Horde was ruled by a Horder Qarth that was from another world. More specifically a civilization that progressed to the 20th century level technology. He and his company of soldiers had been stranded upon Valdennia. Due to their weapons they possessed and knowledge they were seen as fulfilling the prophecy of the Kathul, a Horde member that would bring them to the stars. Equipped with modern military tactics and basic technological knowledge they set forth to bring their backward kinsmen up to speed to match the industrious humans. However even they could not break thousands of years of stagnant culture. The Bantag refused to build their own tools for their salvation to create weapons like firearms seeing it as beneath them. Thus they were forced to rely on human slaves captured from the Republic to achieve this. However the Horde lost the war due to failure of overcoming the traditional values.

Kanzan War
A generation after the Bantag War, many Horde were relegated to reservations where they could be left in peace by the Republic. Even though the agreement was that the Horde would no longer subsist on human flesh, the Horde on the reservations secretly broke the agreement, by conducting raids and capturing humans that strayed too close to the reservations.

By then a new threat emerged, this time in the form of the Kazan Empire, a more advance branch of the Horde species, that developed technology around the 20th century to face against the industrial civilization of the Republic. And even more worrying they had human thralls that worshipped the Kazan and were willing to die for them.

Even worse the son of a well respected Republic hero decided to willingly betray his nation, having grown tired of the Republic and sworn his allegiance to the Kanzan after falling for the charms of a Kanzan human thrall.

Culture & Society
Originally a proud people that mastered travel across the stars, the Horde have been reduced to a broken people, scattered across the universe. The few civilizations of the Horde that still persist are descendants of survivors from the Downfall.

The Horde on the Valdennia has regressed to a feudalistic society losing their technical knowledge and history. No longer interested in rediscovering their past or building, the Horde instead chose to glorify the past achievements of their ancestors. Through oral history of their shamans and chant-speakers they memorialize their ancestors of their golden age to be gods that created miracles.

Customs
The Horde on Valdennia have evolved into nomadic tribes of savage horsemen who for countless circlings have roamed the world of Valdenna. Horde society resembles that of the Mongols of Earth, living in yurts and followed a cycle of seasonal migration, circumnavigating the world.

They are consummate horsemen and archers, these disparate tribes frequently fought one another for control of ancestral cattle rights or the sheer joy of battle. The Horde are itinerant nomads, thus they possess no permanent settlements. Believing that way of life is sacred which they call the Path of the Everlasting Ride they refuse to acknowledge any life other than the path their ancestors left for them.

They have no understanding of agriculture and produce nothing of their own, focusing all their craft to the art of war, and riding. Deeming such menial labors to be unfitting for the Chosen Race, relegating all such other tasks, beside hunting and fighting to their enslaved cattle that they keep. On the Great Ride, all of the Horde’s goods and supplies are received from the tributes humans offer them as they pass through in their territory. Due to this narrowminded image of themselves, the Horde believe that the cattle were "freed" them of such labors to forever ride east towards the sun, which they view to be a right of their. The reality however makes them wholly dependent on their cattle not just for food, but clothing, tools, weapons and labor, relying on fear to ensure that they continue to receive such tributes..

Horses were received from their human cattle, which the Horde bred to create a breed that was strong enough for them to ride over the generations. The Horde revere their horses believing them to be soul-companions that even the mere thought of eating a horse is taboo. Oddly they view cannibalism to be repulsive, though noted a few cultures of their cattle such as the Maya to practice it.

Desecration of a human corpse is considered standard practice. A human skull in a more sicken sense of entertainment is used as a soccer ball by the young Horde members.

Though the Horde species inhabit various biospheres on Valdennia, they were culturally homogeneous possessing the same speech, customs, and dress.

Governance
The Horde govern their cattle through proxy leaders, usually the upper class of the variant cultures who they rely on the carry out their will in exchange for being exempt from the harvest.

The rule of the Horde over the humans is down through fear, threatening severe reprisal for rebellious acts. Should a member of the Horde die at the hands of their cattle, it invokes the Horde’s right of killing a thousand humans. Furthermore the Horde sends expeditions before the main horde gathers in an area to act as vanguards. Their purpose is to destroy cattle who would rather not submit but instead flee. The Horde make sport of them, hunting these refugees, as the see these cattle as bad examples and must be cleaned up on a regular basis.

These people known as the Wanderers of the World, usually appear before a horde has arrive, heralding their return. The Horde have laid down strict laws that if a person flees from their advance he may never return back to his home  after they have gone. If they discover that anyone has harbored then a thousand extra die at harvest. These refugees are therefore given no sanctuary or place to establish a bastion where they could potentially rebel against the hordes.

Pets
Horde as notorious for enslaving the humans as pets, that they spare from the moon feasts. These pet humans travel with the Hordes, as servants to repair the Horde equipment, craft new tools or serve as translators.

In order to break the humans, they force them to devour and commit cannibalism against their own kind. Once the act is done, the Horde feel it brands the human a pariah so that he or she can never return to their people. Thus total loyalty to their owners.

Diet
The Horde are omnivores, however they prefer to eat meat. Their reliance on humanity as a food source has resulted the being fond of manflesh and addicted to its taste. They especially favor the brain which is only reserved during the Moon Festival.

The Horde are sadistically cruel to their human livestock to a degree its customary to taunt them before butchering or cooking them alive.

Human intestines are used to make sausages, blood into soup, kidneys for pies, human milk for kumis, etc. The brain itself is a delicious delicacy to the aliens, and is only reserved for during the many moon feasts.

The eating of human flesh is so ingrained in their culture, they almost refuse to eat any other beast, as they feel humans are a superior breed of food which they derogatorily call cattle. They are wholly incapable of sympathy for their cattle and they saw no wrongness in their actions and were quite befuddled as why the humans were fighting back. They are blind to their own behavior and refuse to see humans as intelligent beings despite evidence to the contrary or even consider the idea that they have souls.

During the war against the Republic the acquisition of fresh meat caused the Horde to subsist on fresh graves of humans, as they saw it as a waste of meat.

Before the coming of the Yankees, it would take fifteen hundred cattle a day, along with other foodstuffs, just to feed a Horde host. When two out of ten had been consumed, the Horde host would be on the move to the next destination to repeat the process until they made a full circling of their route.

Social Organization
The Horde receives their name from its social organization, which is a confederation of clans that gather together in a massive clan known as a horde. The entire horde is ruled by the Qar Qarth with smaller ones that rule the individual clans.

Prior to their arrival of the Yankees and the rebellion of their cattle, the Hordes took pride in their interracial wars, believing it was honorable to fight and die at the hands of their own kind. The members of Horde took pride in their kills, believing it granted passage to the afterlife, but was only counted kills against other members of rivals Hordes, For cattle it was believe that’s there was no honor in killing such lowly creatures as the Horde were blind to their arrogance in that humans were not warriors. Due to this the initial wars that the Horde fought against the Republic resulted in half-hearted efforts as the Horde believed that their victory was assured and were not motivated to treat cattle seriously.

A totally barbarous people, the Horde are morally backwards and staunch conservatives toward change.

Military Organization
Horde military organization was based on the umen, which generally was organized from a given subclan within a horde and commanded by a subclan Qarth. Umens were divided into ten subunits, and the American concept of a regiment is most applicable to this formation and will thus be used, but it should be kept in mind that Horde regiments tended to have twice the numbers of a human regiment.

Ha'ark the Redeemer found that the umen organization was so ingrained into Horde society that it could not be changed, though he did move to create a corps system, with three umens to a corps and then three corps to an army.

Religion
The Horde despite their savagery are a spiritual people. They are polytheistic, believing in various gods. The Goddess of Death being a central figure in their culture. The Horde also practice a form of ancestor worship, chanting tales of past deeds by the fire.

Their shamans utilize ritual sacrifices of humans, where during the Moon Festival they cut open the brain of a human, whilst the subject is alive. By interpreting the discoloration and agonies of the human the shaman will attempt to foretell the future. They believe that the pain and screams are essential to divining thus make every effort to ensure that the human lasts through the ordeal, at least until the brain is consumed by the court present. Even their feasting of their victims are subject to portents as acolytes of the shamans claim to somehow interpret the long sonorous belches by diners which can reveal promises of more horses, and offspring.

Despite the importance of these rituals, it's an unspoken secret amongst the more veteran Qar Qarths that the shamans auguries are nonsense and have no concrete bearing of the future. But in fact more to boost the egos and pride of the warriors and leaders so they can maintain their positions. However due to the members of the Horde stringent need to follow tradition, the chiefs are forced to acknowledge the shaman's positions as they hold much power over the Horde. The shamans maintain their roles of mysticism, as their many years f experience in operating the human brain, make them all but crude neuro-surgeons, which allow them to manipulate their victims movements by applying pinpoint jabs in the brain matter to entertain and awe the court before the victim expires, feeding their hold over the Hordes.

Through the shamans the Horde have maintained various superstitions that have bonded them from changing. Among them are riding or fighting at night as they believe it causes a curse. And also forbidding if excavating the ruins of their forefathers.

Quotes

 * Vu Bac Nov domicak gloriang, nobis cu/ (Hear, ancestors, ride now the night sky).

Appearances

 * Rally Cry (1990)
 * Union Forever (1991)
 * Terrible Swift Sword (1992)
 * Fateful Lightning (1992)
 * Battle Hymn (1997)
 * Never Sound Retreat (1998)
 * A Band of Brothers (1999)
 * Men of War (1999)
 * Down to the Sea (2000)