Nation Overview

A people who have barely needed to change their way of life in a thousand years, The Urdrevan are nomads, and the central force of trade in the Commonwealth between the city of Hammerplatz and the seas voyaged by Portavas. They live by the road, and alongside the gigantic beasts they tame and herd there.

The Urdrevan are a people often on the move, so practicality goes hand in hand with style for them. They value well-made items and take good care of them, as materials can sometimes be scarce.

Inspiration has been taken from real-world sources such as Ancient Scythians, the Mongol Empire, Rus warriors, and media inspired by them, especially the fantasy Barbarian trope. Clothing is often made from materials they have to hand – leather and fur from their pack animals or their prey, with feathers, antler and other tokens used as decoration¹. Other fabrics are often undyed or in natural colours – browns, beiges, soft greens and blues, and decorated with painted motifs. 

Most often these motifs are images of the animals that are most important to their group in a celtic knotwork style, and a key element is the constellations that they navigate by – the stars in a particular location on a day of importance are recorded and painted onto clothing as a remembrance and celebration of the travel they have taken part in.

The Urdrevan prefer clothing that is well-fitted and gives them some flair – personal reputation is important, and some of the finest tailors in the world travel with Urdrevan convoys. Mongolian style wrap-coats and doublets, and jerkins with a more historical European flavour work well, and elements like chunky ‘hero belts’ or layered ‘war skirts’ often used in orc costuming from other larps can pull together a Urdrevan outfit.

Colour Palette

Natural colours; browns, beiges, greens, ochres, misty blues, russets.

Sturdy leathers, suedes, canvas, calico, furs and feathers.

Themes And Key Words

“Travelling traders”, “strongholds and settlements”, “Beast-herders”, “Beast-riders”, Megafauna, Nomads, This nation is heavily inspired by Barbarian fantasy tropes.

The Urdrevan people’s clothing is almost entirely created from the world within which they survive – using what they can to craft beautiful items for themselves and their kin. Most of the nation follows the migration patterns of a particular animal, from dire-ostriches to ankylosaurs, mountain lions to aurochs, and only rarely gets to see the sights of a settlement larger than a Hostelry. They are not wild or feral, however – their society is complex and most Bands spend a week in Hammerstadt as part of their annual Ranging, having their animals sheared or tended, selling reagents harvested from their vast lands, and picking up items that are more difficult to find or fix on the rolling plains.

Clothing is practical but characterful – layers that can be built up to deal with varying weather conditions and climates. Many layers are made from the materials that can be harnessed from the natural world around them: leathers, feathers, chitin, claws, shed scales; as well as wool, cotton and flax collected as a band travels though the landscapes that can be processed and turned into basic cloth.

Bands decorate their clothing, with both the images of the particular kind of beast that they travel alongside, and constellations that represent the routes they travel and the locations of important moments in their lives. Fur mantles, often made from furs harvested from the beasts they tend or those beasts’ prey, are a common item, worn both for warmth and to create an imposing figure that speaks to the skills of the wearer.

Fantasy Inspiration

• Fantasy media with Megafauna as part of the setting.
• “Barbarians” from tabletop settings and fantasy realms.
• Free folk and wild people living alongside more “civilised” cultures in fantasy settings, who utilise the natural world and survive in a magical landscape.
• “Orc” style costuming, without the orc masks. Layered organic materials, pieces of antler, feathers, fur, lamellar, chainmail or scalemail used in scraps, War Skirts and mantles.

Historical Inspiration

Base layers are based on Anglo-Saxon cuts; tunics, wrap coats, long dresses and cloaks cloaks.

Some Rus elements, such as lamellar armour, baggy “rus” pants, legwraps and warm layers.

Scythians, the likely origin of the Amazon of Ancient Greek mythology, also have some elements we can use such as artistic motifs.

Some historical Mongolian depictions may also offer some inspiration into tailoring and layering materials within a nomadic animal-focused culture but please ensure that culturally important elements are not used such as traditional Mongolian hats.

Headwear In Urdrevan

Headwear is more rough and ready than most nations, with hairbands and hair decorations common, especially made from leather and materials that reflect the animals a band work with².

Fantasy variants like headdresses made from the beasts encountered on the road may also be appropriate.

Simple cloth hats are also worn, and scarfs that can be utilised to cover the head in bad weather.

Simple fur-trimmed hoods may also work, but take care to make sure they are not decorated with dagging, which is a key costume item in Valdraeth, or ending in a V-shaped point in the front, which is a key costume item in The Wonder.

Key Costume Items for Urdrevan

Key Costume Items are elements of the Look and Feel of each nation that are a cultural part of what makes up that nation, informed by their history and societal norms. Ideally, an outfit for any nation should aim to incorporate at least one of the Key Costume Items to ensure that characters are recognisably from their nation at a distance!

Key Costume Item – Animal and Constellation Artwork

Urdrevan Bands use a group animal emblem to symbolise the animal tamed and looked after by the Band in question.
NOTE: Celtic Knotwork, la Tene artwork, Insular Artwork, Anglo-Saxon art and similar European styles are best used for this to avoid Native American “totems” and “spirit animals”.

Constellations are also a common motif, used throughout their clothing as a wearable map – for a nomadic nation, using the stars to navigate, and making maps thereof, is an essential part of their culture.
Maps could be painted onto fabric, with memorable locations noted on them too – places of births, marriages, deaths, along with the migrations of animals.

Key Costume Item – Warskirts

Another item of clothing that is worn throughout Urdrevan is the warskirt. These are heavy, practical items, part apron, part battledress, part armour.

These are usually made from leather or thick canvas, and whatever other materials are at hand. They protect the wearer when sitting (or falling) on damp ground, can provide a portion of armour, and are a canvas onto which Band symbols of constellation and animal art can be painted.

These are often made from scraps, built up over time, with the ragged edges of the materials used left unhemmed and asymmetrical. Usually when a much-loved piece of armour or clothing reaches the end of its useful life, parts of it are incorporated into the warskirt of the original wearer or made up into a new one to be passed on to someone else.

Armour For Urdrevan

Armour amongst the Urdrevan people is piecemeal, usually collected over time and homemade. A wide variety of fantasy styles are appropriate, especially ones that use polyurethane and stamped leather or faux-leather to mimic the hides of extinct animals that are among those megafauna that roam the lands.

Light and Medium Armour

• Padded armour layers such as gamesons, aketons and arming jackets work best in neutral colours rather than black.
• Leathers are worn extensively as clothing and armour, and a mixture of the two.

Heavy Armour

• Chainmail of all kinds is worn by the Urdrevan people, and scraps of chainmail from broken or worn-out mail hauberks are often added to warskirts to reinforce them and repurpose them.
• Lamellar, made from metal or from the chitin and scales of great beasts.
• Brass and bronze plates built into other armour to add decoration and reinforcement.

Helmets

• Rus-style helmets, with or without plumes.
• Rohirrim-style helmets.
• Spangenhelms.
• Spectacle helms.
• Round helms.
• Styles that look like they could be made from the carapace and other harvested materials of giant beasts.

Weapons In Urdrevan

• Two-handed weapons are common – greataxes, greatswords and warhammers.
• Ambidextrous fighting – paired axes, swords or paired mage weapons.
• Cavalry sabre-style curved swords and fantasy/ancient versions of the same such as khopesh.
• Hunting spears and glaives that can be used when riding or on foot.
• Shields, when used are not uniform; they tend to be asymmetrical, homemade or bodged together from other materials. Some are visibly second-hand, traded from other nations and painted over with Urdrevan motifs.
• Compound bows and short bows are most common as they can be most easily used around animals and while riding, however some prefer crossbows.
• Weapons made with bone, horn, scale and tooth elements.

Archetypes In Urdrevan

Archetypes are particular types of character in each nation, which offer a framework of the default types of mage, priest, warrior, artisan etc within that culture, and a way to think about designing a character who fits into the nation as a starting point, in order to encourage a cohesive nation that can make choices about individuality from that point.

These are by no means exhaustive, but the examples below depict some flavours of common character types and the costume elements that are often worn by them.

Star Seers

Star Seers are to Urdrevan bands what Navigators are to Portavan ships, utilising the stars to navigate the vast plains and ensuring their bands don’t get lost along the way. Most are weavers, using Earth and Air magic to guide their band, both literally and figuratively using Oracle weavings to divine possible outcomes and interpret omens pertaining to their bands.

Star Seers spend time thinking and divining, sitting still while others may be active around them. They often wear large coats, embroidered or painted with constellations, usually with a motif of the ones they meditate on most.

Shepherds

Shepherds protect the flock – both animal and human – as fighters and scouts connected to bands. For most Urdrevan, it is a Shepherd who first teaches them to use a bow or weird a sword, training in the long evenings after making camp. They are usually versatile in the arms they can wield, although some of the most sought after Shepherds have specialised in one weapon to the exclusion of all others and travel from band to band on the most dangerous routes through Urdrevan.

Shepherds are usually lightly armoured, ready to take action in defence of their people.

They are the most likely to wear mantles that blend them in with the beasts they protect, giving them some camouflage from those watching from afar.

Drevan

Professional mercenaries, known as Drevan, have plenty of dealings with folk from other nations, and are often obliged to pick a side in their disputes if they want to earn coin. In centuries past, these warriors were once all that was known of the Urdrevan people to outsiders, raiding nearby nations on the backs of their beasts.

While they rarely attack their allies in this age, Drevan are nonetheless a fearsome force to come up against in battle, fighting in bands for money or under contract for more long-term jobs.

The Drevan are usually heavy fighters, they celebrate surviving each day, and honour fallen comrades by incorporating pieces of their warskirts and trinkets into their own, building up over time a tapestry of victories and losses that tell their story.

How To Put Together an Urdrevan Outfit

• An emphasis on homemade, animal-derived items, layered and asymmetrical in styling.
• Neutral-coloured base layers, cream or brown cotton tunic or dress, with or without sleeves
• Simple baggy trousers or leggings in a neutral colour
• Leg wraps or fur-trimmed boots
• A mid-layer, perhaps sturdy linen, canvas or calico, perhaps faux suede or repurposed sheepskin coat, painted with constellations and the animal sigil of the group they belong to.
• A “War Skirt”, of the type often seen in Orc costuming, made up of a patchwork of materials and able to be homemade from second hand items.
• A fur or feather mantle, using materials sourced from the beasts tamed by the group (or their prey).

1. The ethical implications should always be considered when using animal derived materials, and synthetic alternatives such as faux leather and faux fur can be used instead. ↩︎
2. Feather headdresses are actively not a part of this brief, either War Bonnets or more generic styles, due to their importance in various cultures worldwide. ↩︎