Rodnoy

When Garrond Lesnik, Kaldari Founding Father lead his followers east across Alwaus, The Known World and into the unknown wilderness of [The Kaldari Highlands, he found the lands he wished to settle and conquer were already occupied by various groups of sentient species. The humans in the east were a motley collection of various tribal cultures, each with their own unique customs and traditions. They had persisted in the wildest corner of Altwaus despite brutal competition amongst the various tribes by the various "kings" that ruled over these tribes. While the differences between these tribal nations lead to vendettas and rivalries that prevented any real chance of peace between them, from the perspective of Garrond and his followers the people appeared backward, savage, and similar enough to warrant a blanket term to describe the lot of them. The early Kaldari called these tribal people "Rodnoy", the Kaldari Vulgar term for "native people". Over the next decades Garrond and his descendants would stake a bloody war of conquest and assimilation that ended in the cultural eradication of the Rodnoy people, with the only remaining essence of their various traditions, language, and values being seen in various aspects of Kaldari culture today.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

The tribal nations spoke an unknown amount of languages, nearly all of which are now lost due to the brutal efficiency of Kaldari cultural conversion following Garrond's arrival in the highlands. While the tribes often shared a common "trade tongue" with their neighbors, each tribe would typically have its own language, with some of the larger tribes having multiple languages developing over the region their tribe contested. In the century or so after the Kaldari conquest of the highlands, the languages of these myriad cultures shifted and morphed together to create what is now known as "Kaldari Vulgar", a language still spoken in many parts of the highlands today.

Shared customary codes and values

Tribal societies that had migrated east at various points through human history in Altwaus, the various tribal of Rodnoy had a varied mix of codes, values, and traditions. Despite their differences, the necessity of survival meant a trade of both goods and ideas fostered an early economy of culture that developed a shared sense of duty, pride, and rugged survivalist tendencies that helped ensure the Rodnoy all scored a degree of success in their survival.