Birth of Vahamil Imperialism
The tribes of Çürüyen has been split apart for a long time rarely crossing path except for rare occasions. The Çürüyen did not have any perception of warfare and at most it boiled down to minor raids or conflicts between the tribes or the outlying cities along the waste. However everything changed with the Vahamil who was in the middle of their migrational period in what the settled societies refer to as the First Harvest in Year 1001.
The Vahamil tribe of this time was predominately led by Baba the father of Kılıç who is the current leader of the tribe and all the other tribes today. They were herding their Bisons from south to north as the warmth was returning to the northern lands that were more fertile than the southern deserts. The closest to a homeland the tribe has is the Vahamil Steppe which includes both flat grasslands in the north and desert in the south. Within it is also a temple that is highly regarded by the easterners as the
"Light Basin". The Çürüyen could see in the distance of the west a massive army of pure darkness and corruption approaching their direction, this lone small tribe of only a few thousands would be no match for the Dark ones armies marching towards the Light Basin. They just did their best to stay out of the way and changed direction to eastward direction instead.
Being quick movers because of their nomadic life style they made head gain quite quickly. However as they started to make distance from the horde of the West they started approaching the twice in size army of the East marching to face the dark threat to their realm. The Çürüyen tribe of Vahamil was confused as they had no concept of warfare or armies and as such these enormous masses of people and monsters heading in the direction against each other was a mystery. The tribe moved miles away to the north where they would be safe. But the smoke and sound of terror that came from the battlefield did not escape them. This becomes known as the battle of the Vahamil Steppe's.
Chief Baba and the Elders do however learn from the experience, feeling they need to be prepared to avoid dangers the tribe starts to cycle scouts that run a distance away from the main group of the people in the tribe. The Çürüyen people were known of their running abilities and stamina, with the scouting network created by Baba could cover all of the Vahamil Steppe and even as far out as into the settled territories of Hroniden and Karmoth. A scout could stay away from the tribe for several months at a time and kept in touch with the main body through the use of their hunting ravens carrying messages. This actually gave the Vahamil an unexpected advantage against the other tribes giving them the ability to knowing where they were and were they would possibly be both protecting them from potential raids and also as we'll see later, giving them the opportunity of conquest. Now the Vahamil still have no concept of war or conquest for that matter and this doesn't change until the Battle of Azure's Ridge.
The Western armies and Eastern armies are fighting in the desert again but the Vahamil are not caught unaware of it this time and have moved away long before the forces close in to the battle. The difference however this time was that Chief Baba and a few males of the tribe stayed to observe the massacre that would commence in-front of their eyes. They saw terror of the Dark magic and thousand upon thousands of people dying as they fought it off. Baba is remembered to have described as he saw the extinction of several tribes, hordes of raiders lashing out at each other in a fit of rage. The view scared Baba and his closest men and it changed his and the tribes view on the entire world in a matter of hours. He saw how the Eastern army was at an imminent loss but how a part of their army stayed put as the rest routed and would eventually be destroyed, or so he thought. The closest concept the Çürüyen had to all of this was raiding, and when you met too tough resistance or inevitable defeat you would flee to avoid the loss. But before his eyes he saw warriors who defied all logic and fought against this much larger and much more terrifying enemy and eventually winning the entire battle.
After this observation the Vahamil tribe went through a vast amount of reformations. Baba adopted a symbol to represent his tribe inspired by the banners he had seen the armies wear with pride and he made every man of the tribe required to be a permanent
"raider" of the tribe which meant besides their everyday duties of herding, production, foraging, hunting and reproduction they also had to train and refine skills related to combat. Even so he realized that the numbers of his tribe alone was not enough to mimic the enormous armies he had seen in the battle of Azure's Ridge. Using the previously established scout network Baba quickly found a rivaling tribe and tried to integrate it by force. This is the first occurrence and the first attempt of conquest by a nomadic tribe so far known and the rivaling tribe was not prepared for so many raiders to hit them at ounce and as such it was fairly bloodless. But when it became clear that Baba was not there with his raiders to just take loot, slaves and women but to actually subjugate the entire tribe a lot of blood was spilled. Luckily though it was only what could be seen as leading figures of the tribe that protested violently against the subjugation and they got executed for it. Baba and his men quickly discovered that the general populace was just happy that they would not lose their lives, be raped or made into slaves as such didn't complain in any aggressive manner when their leadership was killed off and swapped by men loyal to Baba.
However some did run off to other tribes and warned them and the news spread quickly of the Vahamil tribes outrages absorption of another tribe. It isn't until the second tribe is absorbed that a confederacy of all the Çürüyen tribes are formed to combat the growing and imperialistic Vahamil tribe. The numbers aren't really known but there were several dozens of tribes in this confederacy trying to somehow organize themselves to fight the growing power of the Vahamil tribe. But with Vahamil's way to integrate their conquered tribes the fighting force of the Vahamil grew with every victory and their fighting techniques became more and more honed as the years passed and with being a organized fighting force while the other tribes still relied on the old system of raiders they didn't have to utilize their entire tribe to conquer new tribes and as such they could split into several forces striking on several points all across the wastes and this is where we see the entry of the current leader of the tribes into the history, Kılıç. As the years has passed he has grown and it is guessed that he was about 16-17 years when he leads the first splinter party to forage resources for the main force but accidentally is caught by a united confederate force which he manages to defeat. It is with this victory he is deemed to be the only valid successor as leader of all the Çürüyen tribes years later.
It is also at this point that the Vahamil cruelty towards their perceived enemies starts to take form. Kılıç splinter force had captured several raiders from the confederate tribes in the previous engagement whom some of them were sons of the
"nobility". With now what starts to look like two armies staring down at each other in the desert, Baba and Kılıç brings forth the prisoners in-front of the Vahamil soldiers with their limbs tied and completely naked, many of their fathers standing on the other side of the soon-to-be battlefield. A horrible show of rape ensues where some Vahamil soldiers, including Baba and Kılıç, starts to rape the prisoners before slitting their throat and then continuing to desecrate their lifeless bodies. This display of cruelty becomes the trade mark display of the tribe and several tribes exits the confederacy not wanting to risk the same faith.
However in the ensuing battle of that first act of cruelty sees Baba killed and Kılıç takes over his fathers role.
