Kurgan Tribes

The Kurgan are the horse-lords of the boundless steppe that rolls eastward from the Worlds Edge Mountains toward the roof of the world, and they are the most numerous by far of all the northern peoples. Theirs is a life lived in the saddle, following the herds beneath a sky that offers neither shelter nor mercy, and it has bred them hard, proud, and endlessly warlike. A Kurgan learns the bow before he learns to walk, and learns that the gods of the north reward only strength.

Each tribe answers to its zar, a warlord who holds his throne only so long as he can defend it, counselled by shamans who read the will of the Dark Gods in storm-cloud and steaming entrail. The Kurgan dwell close enough to the Wastes that the gods' gifts fall on them thick and strange, and they need no missionaries: damnation is simply the weather of their homeland.

Once, the gods raised a Kurgan above all others. Asavar Kul, called the Anointed, bore their favour so plainly that tribe after tribe bent the knee, until the whole steppe rode behind a single banner. He led that host into the Great War Against Chaos and came within a hair of drowning the civilised world before it broke against the walls of Kislev. The Kurgan remember, and they wait.