A detailed map of the expanses of the Eastern Steppes stretching from the Old World in the west to Grand Cathay in the Far East.
The Eastern Steppes, also known as the Great Steppes[2a] or the Endless Steppes, [3a] are a geographical region of the Known World located in the Far East that consists of a series of plateaus, rocky outcrops, ridges and plains covered in grassland and sparse forest and blessed with a cool climate.
The Eastern Steppes are described as being "covered in dry, cold forest" while also consisting of "miles upon miles of empty grasslands speckled with the occasional stubby tree or black monolith erected to commemorate the death of a great Champion of Chaos." The Eastern Steppes have cold winters, but are still warm enough for trees and grasses to grow. The Eastern Steppes are bounded in the north by the warped Chaos Wastes and to the south by a vast and inhospitable desert.[1a]
The Eastern Steppes are also bounded in the south-east by the Human empire of Grand Cathay and their Great Bastion which protects that realm from incursions by its inhabitants. The Eastern Steppes are a vast land filled with nothing but bloodshed, including constant running battles between thousands of horse-mounted nomadic tribesmen that regularly sweep across the region, staining the plains red with tribal feuds that have raged for countless generations. From the savage Human tribes of the Kurgan and the Hung, to the vast Hobgoblin Empire of the Hobgobla-Khan, not a single day goes by without the spilling of blood in this bleak, empty land.[2a]
History[]
The vast, empty expanse of the Eastern Steppes in the Far East of the Known World.
In past times, the Eastern Steppes were inhabited by a nomadic tribe of Men called the Scythians. The Scythians appear to have split into two peoples, the Kurgan, who worship the Chaos Gods, and the Gospodars who favour the bear god Ursun. In ca. 1500 IC, the Gospodars migrated westwards, possibly driven by conflict with their cousins the Kurgan, and colonised what is now the land of Kislev in the Old World.
In doing so, they violently displaced the Ungol people who had already been living in those lands for millennia. Having nowhere to go, the Ungols moved into what is now western Kislev and the Troll Country, displacing in their turn the related Roppsmenn people and nearly wiping them out.
Early records made by the Dwarf High King Nurn Shieldbreaker, long prior to the founding of the the Empire, tell of Men slowly migrating west to the Old World over hundreds of years. It is possible some of these Humans came from the Eastern Steppes, or other areas in the east.
Notable Inhabitants[]
A mercenary whose origin lies among the barbaric peoples of the Eastern Steppes.
Trivia[]
The Eastern Steppes of the Known World likely mirror the vast Eurasian steppes of the real world, which extend for thousands of kilometres from Eastern Europe (Hungary, southern Poland, northern Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine) into Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and northern China. The steppes are a vast expanse of primarily grassland marked by some trees. It is bound in the west by the Central European temperate forests, to the east by the forests of the Russian Far East, to the south by the cold deserts and mountains of Central Asia, and to the north by the taiga (boreal forest) biome of Siberia. The Eurasian steppes is known for its cold winters, especially in the east.
Historically the Eurasian steppes have been inhabited by many nomadic herder civilisations, including the Huns, Mongols, Turks and an ancient people also called the Scythians, who often made extensive use of horses as cavalry, pack animals and for food.
Many thousands of years ago, the western regions of the Eurasian steppes were inhabited by the Proto-Indo-European culture. These people spoke the Proto-Indo-European tongue for which they are named, which is believed by linguists to be the ancestral language of almost all present-day European, Persian and North Indian languages.