Culture

The Urdrevan People, without a central government that decides national viewpoints for them, place a lot of emphasis on individual values along a broadly understood series of ethical standpoints:

Cosmopolitanism strongly over Nationalism, trade strongly over industry, experience strongly over education, Tradition strongly over Innovation.
Responsibility over adventure, chosen family over blood family, collectivism over individualism, charity over mercantilism, fame over fortune, honour over flexibility. 
Freedom balanced with duty, might balanced with magic, practicality balanced with splendor.

Each individual is expected to come to their own ethical decisions in situations, with the understanding that the views of their Elders and bandmates may be different. Open discussion and changing their mind are encouraged, if another is able to show a different point of view – being adaptable is part of the way of life for Urdrevan people, moving as they do with the seasons and the livestock. If an Urdrevan person is grappling with a particularly difficult situation, they are often encouraged to see it from further away – “you cannot see the tracks forward with your nose on the ground” – by getting a point of view from those who have more experience in the matter. This can be another Urdrevan citizen, such as an elder or specialist in a particular area, or even someone beyond their nation, with the idea of providing context and helping reframe the problem in ways that they may not initially think of.

Inspirational beasts

The Urdrevan live in bands of one kind or another, united either by kinship or common purpose, each band following the emblem of a single Inspirational Beast. For a beast to be Inspirational it must meet four key criteria:

1. An Inspirational Beast must be a large and impressive animal, most are in fact megafauna of some kind. A great quality of impressiveness can make up for some lack in size, so the wolf or mountain lion with their terrifying howls and long history of clashes with humans are acceptable Inspirations despite each being smaller than a human. Despite its impressiveness, a Honey Badger is simply too small.
2. An Inspirational Beast must be native to the lands in which the band roams. The Urdrevan are aware of the chaos that can come from artificially introducing foreign species into new environments, and likewise would not travel with creatures unsuited to the terrain.
3. It must be possible to tame or domesticate an Inspirational Beast to the extent that the band may travel and live alongside it. Most Inspirational Beasts are pack hunters or herd animals since they already have natural social structures that trainers can use to make them safe around the Urdrevan and their livestock. There are some bands Inspired by lone predators, which are much harder to train. The practice in such bands is to hand rear individual beasts from infancy bonded to one trainer, who will stay with the creature day and night as its guide and guard. Such is the loyalty inherent in such bonds that it is very rare for bonded trainers to perish without their animal first laying down its life in their defence. While there have been legendary champions said to have tamed creatures as mighty as Carnosaurs or Dire-Tigers, the very greatest of predators are often unsuitable to be Inspirational Beasts due to their aggression or sheer appetite making them unable to live alongside people and livestock.
4. Finally the nature and behaviour of an Inspirational Beast must relate to the band’s ethos and way of life. The style and conduct of individual members may reflect their dedication to their emblem’s example – but the inspiration is about what the humans believe is the proper way to live their lives, rather than how they dress or act day-to-day.

Some Inspirational Beasts have names that are different and representative of the physical characteristics they display e.g Sickle-claw for a Utahraptor or Three-horn for a Triceratops. This is because of certain animals having real world names that are not appropriate as they reference real world locations, ideas or latin naming. Some ideas for renaming have been included on other wiki pages and we encourage players to follow the same pattern with their Inspirational Beasts where appropriate. 

Inspirational Beasts are often honoured in a band’s name and insignia, and when such beasts are felled and divided by the band then items fashioned from their materials form the most treasured of gifts. A typical Urdrevan band will live alongside a variety of domesticated animals and livestock suitable to their nomadic way of life; horses, dogs, and hawks being ubiquitous. Bands are typically either fully pastoral and travel with herds of livestock that can meet their need for fibres, milk, and meat or are hunter-gatherers following migratory herds of wild animals.

Rites of passage

Bands meeting on their routes can be occasions of mingling and the joyful reunion of old friends, they can also be fraught confrontations between desperate competitors or bitter rivals. The Urdrevan have a ceremony of Band-meeting to mark such events, involving formalised caution where unarmed representatives meet and exchange oaths of peace while the bands themselves keep a safe distance.

There are many journeys an Urdrevan may begin that take them away from their band, and many paths that can lead them to new associations. The Urdrevan marks a person Joining a band with a ceremony in which they are greeted by each member of the band and presented with small gifts of food and trinkets. A similar ceremony marks an Urdrevan Leaving a band whereby they say their farewells to each of the folk they have travelled with and present them with small gifts.

The harvesting of mighty beasts is celebrated with a Slaughtermoot. A single creature such as a Great Sloth (Megatherium), a Spike-back (Stegosaurus), or a Horn-crest (Olorotitan) can give tons of meat and fat that all needs to be eaten or preserved before it spoils. The participants join in the labor and share in the resulting bounty of food.

Among mercenary bands the Urdrevan will celebrate a warrior’s first kill as a member of the band with a Blooding ceremony, whereby the warrior’s sword hand or face are marked with the blood of the slain. A warrior is paid a double share on the occasion of their Blooding, and it is after this they are treated as a true member of the band. 

Cultural Values

The Urdrevan primarily pass on knowledge via an oral tradition due to how their nation works. A lot of the understanding of how and why their culture works is passed on through song, fable, proverb and verse. Quotes from these have formed part of the language, with aphorisms and mantra-like sayings part of everyday speech, originating in much longer stories, songs and other oral tradition. These are vast in number and change from band to band, but some of the most common include:

• “The possessions of a settled life are the bait in a trap designed to steal your freedom and make you reliant on people who will exploit you.”
• “He tills the earth and sows a crop but alongside he plants his fears. Fear of frost, or hail, or drought, or flood, or pests, or fire, or blight, or pillagers. Before his fields give him even an ear of corn he will reap ten harvests of fear. Better to live freely under canvas than to tremble within a stone house.”
• “A dead person is cremated and scattered to the wind, so they may travel freely forever. They did not stoop to break the earth in life, so we do not dishonour them with burial.”
• “Burying people with their valuables is the folly of the settled, the dead can’t own anything, a dead person’s effects belong to the band and are shared out equally.”
• “The idea that someone can own the land is an absurd nonsense that most of the world believes, the Gods may own their temples – but that is as much as we shall concede.”
• “We are part of the land, we belong here just as much as the birds and the beasts.”
• “Our way of life is harder than yours, and we are more free than you are.”
• “I have seen the world, you are not wise until you are well travelled.”
• “I have lived my life experience, you are a bookish fool.”
• “I may be overwhelmed and confused in your crowded smelly city, but you would be dead in a week if you tried to survive in my wild home.”
• “My dog doesn’t like you, you have to leave.”
• “These mighty beasts live alongside us on our endless journey, they are not pets or entertainments, we will not sell them to live in cages or drag stones for the rest of their lives.”
• “Your status doesn’t mean anything if you can’t do something for me today.”
• “You have given me a worthy gift, I will hear you out even if your words sound like folly.”
• “Mother, this one has given me a kingly gift, and I shall have few friends if the first one to give me such a treasure gets nothing from it. Let us join their part in this war and see where it takes us.”

The Urdrevan have a strong cultural aversion to tilling the earth in order to grow things, considering it to be the act most symbolic of being one of the settled folk who have given up their freedom. This aversion is not a moral one, the Urdrevan understand that farming is the only means of survival for a lot of people, they understand that not everyone was made strong enough for roaming.

When the need arises for an Urdrevan band to administer justice within its own ranks the first resort is usually to fine the offender or assign them some onerous chore for a period of time. For more serious offences the culprit will be exiled from the band for a time, often being attached to a trader outbound to a far destination. As an alternative to capital punishment the Urdrevan have been known to practice permanent exile along with facial branding, so as to prevent the strife and stigma that would come from kinslaying. No band will openly give support to a branded Urdrevan, doing so is grounds for great dishonour and is likely to give rise to violent reprisal.

Food

The diet of a typical Urdrevan band varies greatly depending on the lands in which they travel. It is a misconception that the bands are constantly on the move every day, most bands in fact only move as a whole twice a year between a summer camp and a winter camp. Individuals may be part of smaller hunting or gathering groups that will range out from the main camp to exploit seasonal food resources, but the overall lifestyle is more like a village of shepherds that moves twice a year than it is an army marching on campaign.

Still, Urdrevan cuisine does make plenty of concessions to the practicalities of cooking on the move. The cuisine as a whole favours dishes that can be prepared from dried or otherwise preserved ingredients – such as porridges, soups, and stews. Urdrevan bread is typically made without an oven, in a pan-bread or stick bread style, and often has yogurt or milk added to the ingredients. The Urdrevan diet includes more meat than that of most settled folk – hadrosaurs and mammoths providing several tons of usable meat, fat, and marrow from each animal harvested. What meat is not consumed in celebration of the hunt is preserved through a variety of means that include drying, smoking, and salting as well as preparation into sausages and pemmican. The Urdrevan who shepherd flocks of livestock tend to consume a large amount of fresh milk and short term milk products like soft cheese and yogurt, preserving the surpluses as butter and hard cheese. Hunter-gatherer Urdrevan tend to consume more fresh fruit and foraged vegetables as well as wild honey and the occasional feast of pilfered eggs.

Urdrevan Traveller’s Porridge – Serves 6, suitable for campfire cooking

Ingredients

• Durum Wheat 600g 
• Butter 50g
• Two apples (sweeter the better)
• Smoked lamb rashers 200g (or smoked pancetta cubes, bacon lardons, tofu, etc)
• 1 chicken stock cube
• Grated Mozzarella (or cheese of choice) 200g
• A handful of blueberries or similar fruit.
• Seasoning to taste
• A sieve or cheesecloth

Recipe

• Finely dice the apples and the meat.
• Bring a large pot of water to the boil and add the stock cube and the wheat. Boil the wheat for ten minutes until it has absorbed water and has a texture like cooked pasta. Use the sieve/cloth to pour away the water and put the cooked wheat aside, be careful not to scald any little folk with the discarded water.
• Dry the pot on the fire and add the butter so that it melts. Fry the meat and the diced apple together until the meat is done. Then add the seasoning and the cooked wheat and stir together well.
• Once the ingredients are well mixed and heated up, add most of the cheese and the fruit, and stir through until the cheese melts.
• Serve with additional cheese.
• The resultant dish is a hearty meal and has the texture of paella or fried rice.

Festivals

The lands where the Urdrevan roam are those unsuitable for the settled folk to farm, usually by virtue of having at least one season in which crops cannot survive long enough to produce a harvest. These are bitter ice-locked winters in the north, fire-prone high summers on the grasslands, or the soaking muddy monsoon season in the tropics. These are not easy seasons for the Urdrevan either, but their way of life allows them to survive past the hard times. To mark the beginning of a wretched season the affected Urdrevan will hold a Seasonmoot whereby bands will gather their camps in a place of shelter, and use the enforced immobility as an opportunity to socialise and make plans for the coming year. This festival is marked by the giving of gifts between bands, feasting, and folk beginning courtships.

An Urdrevan’s life can be described as a series of journeys, and arriving at a long planned destination is an occasion for celebration. These Arrivings are occasions for the fulfillment of promises, the payment of debts, the airing of grievances, the planning of future endeavors, and the swearing of oaths.

News and tales must be carried between the bands as they travel their routes, and since information is the lifeblood of trade it is considered unwise to leave such exchanges to chance meetings. The Urdrevan hold Storymoots for their bards and messengers to gather, so that tales may be carried far and wide. These occasions are marked by competitions of wit, poetry, and boasting, as well as youthful impertinence.

Realm Festival

Unlike the Crownlands and Sanctuaries, whose member nations are separated by fixed borders and ancient settlements, the Commonwealth is more itinerant in nature. When the Realm comes together to celebrate its bonds, it is usually Hammerstadt who plays host, and this is shown in particular colour by Commonwealth Night. It is not known how it first started in its current form, but there is clearly no coincidence that the date is not set beyond taking place in autumn, at the point when the Autumn storms have set in. At this time of year many Portavian ships dock in the Corvolis port and Urdrevan bands make use of temporary stables in the Klarasburg city walls, and the whole Realm is brought together to sell curios in the street. Bartering is as common as coin being exchanged here, as all the nations have a keen eye for a bargain and go home with items from all sorts of far-flung places. When the sun sets, stalls are packed away and, with a few extra coins in their pocket, tourists and locals alike flock to see plays, singers, storytellers and entertainers of all kinds from across the Commonwealth perform on street-corner stages and tavern taprooms.