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Ujik in the Battle of Broken Hooves
The Ujik were a nomadic people who lived on expansive, grassy plains sprawling north and west of Rokugan. [1] These warrior horsemen [2] of the Western Wastes were kin of the Moto. [3] The Ujik would become nominal vassals to the Moto, although in the free-spirited Unicorn Clan, such bonds of vassalage were mainly theoretical. [4]
Details[]
The term Ujik encompassed a wide and diverse array of cultures, religious beliefs, and even ethnicities. The common factor uniting them was their penchant for living a primarily nomadic lifestyle in which horses played a central role. Organized mainly into family groups, the Ujik had a history of frequent infightingt. During recurring events such as the changing of seasons and various celestial phenomena, the Ujik gathered into larger assemblies, and these sometimes warred with one another. [5]
Religion[]
Several Ujik worshipped the Lords of Death, a religion rooted in the cycle of birth-life-death that permeated the natural world. Others held different beliefs, such as reverence for the earth and sky. Many groups revered multiple sets of deities along with ancestors. [1]
Horsemen[]
One thing that united the Ujik was the central role that horses played in their lives. The Ujik claimed that a child could be born, raised, and lived out their life on horseback, their feet never touching the ground. The Ujik mastery of horses was unsurpassed, allowing the tribes to move great distances while scouting, tracking, hunting, and fighting from horseback as easily as other cultures do on foot. [1] Ujik were superlative riders, using horses not only for transport, but also in war—to the extent that the concept of fighting on foot, as infantry, was essentially foreign to them. [6]
Tradition[]
The Ujik were a proud—even stubborn—people, generally stoic, but fierce in battle and given to boisterous outbursts of humor. Their most basic social unit, the family or ordu, could include multiple spouses and span several generations. Families lived and roamed independently, each led by a family head chosen by criteria unique to that family. At certain times of year, or in response to certain events families joined with others from their tribe. These gatherings could eventually include an entire tribe, or even several tribes. Such a massed assembly of Ujik was a raucous event. [1] One of their customs was shaking hands. [7] The Tribe of the Woolen Hooves were their enemies, and they clashed frequently. [8]
Language[]
The Ujik peoples spoke a wide variety of different languages, each with its own name. As these languages descend from a common linguistic root, a character conversant in one could generally make themselves understood to those who speak other languages within this family. They existed in written, spoken, and signed forms. [9]
History[]
Invasion of Rokugan[]
In the year 376 a particularly charismatic leader known as the Lord of Grass invaded the Emerald Empire, with little resistance in the first encounters with the Rokugani defenders. Eventually the Lion Clan developed tactics which defeated the Ujik maneouvers of cavalry archers, in the Battle of Broken Hooves, on the plains north of Kyūden Ikoma. [10]
Contact with the Ki-Rin[]
The Ujik used to roam the desolate Plains of Wind and Stone, and when they found a foreign people, the Ki-Rin Clan, they Ujik soon attacked them. The Rokugani captured some of the Ujik horses, and began to use the tactics of the horseback-riding nomads. The Ujik were so impressed that they halted their raids and both groups began to trade. In time, many of the Ujik joined the clan, now called the Moto. The frienship of the Ki-Rin allowed the Ujik to press back against their traditional enemies at the limits of their territory. [11]
Contact with the Qamarist Caliphate[]
Time later the word of the Nameless Prophet was spread across the Burning Sands and beyond, and some members of the Ujik embraced this faith. In the 12th century one ordu of the Ujik was Qamari. [11]
Known Words in Ujik Tongue[]
- Altani - little eagle
- Altansarnai - golden rose
Known Schools[]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Path of Waves, p. 39
- ↑ Legend of the Five Rings - Roleplaying, p. 121
- ↑ Emerald Empire: The Essential Guide to Rokugan, p. 18
- ↑ Rule from Horseback, by Daniel Lovat Clark
- ↑ Fields of Victory, pp. 29-30
- ↑ Fields of Victory, p. 29
- ↑ Path of Waves, p. 193
- ↑ Writ of the Wilds, p. 41
- ↑ Adventures in Rokugan, p. 126
- ↑ Fields of Victory, pp. 30-31
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Across the Burning Sands, by Daniel Lovat Clark
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