Nomads

Where did they come from and where do they go? Nobody quite knows. They are excellent in making really catchy songs though.   Nomads is a simple collective term for anyone who does not have a permanent home, but prefers to travel from place to place along with all of their belongings. This way of life is very common for the tribes and nations of the northern plains as the terrain and weather patterns require them to move from place to place in search of better warmer pastures as the year progresses so their herd of cattle prospers.   When nomad tribes get desperate for food and other resources they might resort to raiding nearby villages. Some clans even decided to fully abandon cattle raising and rely solely on their military exploits to fund their lives. And since nobody likes being raided, armies have been raised over the centuries to crush the threat that the nomad northern tribes pose in general, not really distinguishing among the peaceful and the aggresive. All of them had to fall in line, or fall for good.   Therefore, even though they were forced to abandon their traditional ways of life and settle somewhere in the empire, some nomads do not really feel like they belong and still favour somewhat free spirited way of life, traveling as merchants or skilled craftsmen from village to village to perform necessary task and earn their living that way. Some still long to return to the plains, but doing so is very difficult and it means that you will either always be seen as danger or will succumb to the many dangers lurking there.   Nomads do not really fit into the orderly life of the empire but some people romanticise the idea of not being tied to a single place or household, but instead being able to freely choose where one may end up.