The Horses
Bonuses : First Bonus – Cooperation (Bonus to Observation and KAG (Horses)). Second bonus – Strength (Bonus to Strength).
Language - Equine Capital – Harris
Horses are tall, powerful, fast, and athletic.
Horses tend to prefer being in the company of others, especially their own kind. They are very family- and society-focused. They live in a rigid hierarchical system and hold their elders and leaders in high regard. Unlike the Rabbits who also tend to live in large familial groups, horses living in different situations are not uncommon, especially in the south.
The Equines hold most of the large island of Sutherland, owning the plains and rolling hills to the northwest of the mountains. The Horses have avoided the mountains and swamps, preferring to focus their attention on lands they like.
The Horse territory is mostly composed of seasonally-dry grasslands and is drier than most other countries. There are pockets of forest here and there, mostly adjacent to the mountains. There is a fairly large lake mostly surrounded by mountains. The far south of Horse lands is subtropical and is suitable for such agriculture now that the horses have been clearcutting the forest.
On the other side of the mountains live the cats, with whom they share no delimited border except in the passes due to the mountains. To the north they share a small border with Ashstone, which is heavily guarded on both sides of their border.
Horses are lovers of open plains. They have a mainly agrarian economy and their cities are highly urbanised and developed. Some speculate Harris will overtake Ashstone someday as the most important city in the known lands. The Horses have the most productive farmland in the region and export agricultural produce to neighbouring realms. Seaweed is farmed along the coast.
The Horses have recently been developing a small flotilla of military ships. Their ability to build and maintain ships is hindered considerably due to the lack of suitable harbours along their coastline. The Horse nation has recently expanded to include territory in the south that has a long bay, but this is as of yet too distant to be useful. Horse settlements have been popping up here and there in the known lands as they are starting to expand their colonial holdings, most notably a midsized island off the east coast of Mainland.
Horses like to live in large, sturdy houses and they are built with stone lower floors and nearer to the mountains and of brick further from them. The upper floors are usually made of wood.
The Horse nation is a kingdom. They greatly prefer to hire non-horses to do menial tasks and prefer the smaller species for these positions, especially in institutions and wealthy homes. These employees are paid appropriately and are usually treated fairly, if not exactly friendlily.
Due to a superficial similarity in head shape and due to their size, Horses are derogatorily compared to the tamaraw, the preferred beast of burden. They get angry if you compare them to tamaraws.
The horses tend to leave their homelands less frequently than the others apart from the badgers. Horse lands are considered neither safe nor unsafe. They do not welcome other taxa and can be cold toward other Horses from far-off parts of their own lands. Generally, the closer two Horses live to each other the more they'll respect each other, all other things being equal.
Horses have at various times been at war with nearly everyone else, especially their closest neighbours. The South Peninsula of Ashstone was lost to Ashstone after the Horses failed to invade the Isle and were forced to give land to the Ashstonians. Although currently at peace they are always suspicious. The Horses hate the Weasels and have fought several wars with them as well as have had to endure their frequent raids on land and by sea. Eventually the Horses won a decisive victory through a scorched-earth policy where they so thoroughly destroyed the natural environment there that to this day it remains uninhabited. The Weasels relocated across the sea. The Weasels still do raid them from across the sea on occasion, but the Horses' shipbuilding skills have greatly surpassed the Weasels'. The Horses have had several civil wars and have both a north-central-south divide and a coastal-inland-lake area cultural divide.
Horses like names that indicate speed and strength, as well as landforms in their territory.
Horses prefer careers that do not involve menial tasks such as cleaning, mining, serving, and such. They also are frequently found as mercenaries, guards, bakers, and merchants. Horses are adept smiths and work in gold, silver, and base metals.
The main exports from the Horse Kingdom are agricultural produce (especially grain), gemstones, and subtropical fruit. The Horses supply most of the grain used by Ashstone. They are renowned bakers and confectioners.
In Ashstone, Horses make excellent messengers outside urban areas and good couriers in them. They make good guards, dockworkers, wagon drivers, etc. At home they are good with agriculture and are often seen selling in markets.