Faction overview: The Herd – guardians of Galahir's borders

On the edge of the forest of Galahir, the tribes of the Herd often lift their heads and patiently watch the sky. They're following a dance that never ends, by day or by night – the Great Hunt. Up there among the stars, their saviour, the god Brave Kyron, chases his dark half for all eternity.

The Herd remember exactly where they came from, and that's why the sight means so much to them.

Part one: born from scraps

Garkan's forge

Of all the tragedies of the God War, the birth of the Herd is one of the saddest. The war began when the Fenulian Mirror shattered: many gods split in two, into a shining and a dark aspect, and the dark halves turned against the world.

Garkan the Black, the dark half of Belkon of the Forge, was forging his twisted creations, the orcs, and he had help from Dark Kyron – the dark half of Kyron, a god who was once friend to every beast of land, air and sea. Together they tore apart the very essences of thinking beings and animals to feed Garkan's furnace. Once the orcs had been assembled and spewed out into the world, Dark Kyron took what Garkan had thrown aside, fired up the soul forges and made creations of his own, purely on a whim. What came out were unfortunate creatures, part noble being and part beast. Their maker shoved them into the world and left them there, unloved.

Brave Kyron

Brave Kyron, Kyron's shining aspect, saw what had happened and set out to help. But the work of the forges couldn't be undone. No magic he had could separate beings so utterly different once they'd been fused together. So he did what he could to spare them the orcs' fate: he healed the damage in their souls and hearts as best he could, gave them comfort, and opened their eyes to the chance of a better life than the one they'd been made for.

Not all of them could be saved this way. Some were too far gone in their agony, and Dark Kyron, furious at his brother's meddling, fanned their rage and pain and drove them into the dark, more fodder for the mad crusade of Oskan, the Father of Lies, who had set the war in motion. Those who could be saved saw their place in the world for the first time and retreated into the depths of Galahir, where the Green Lady, the goddess whose stronghold that forest is, took pity on them. The Herd declared her their Mother, the embodiment of the whole world, and gave themselves to worshipping her and serving her realm.

Brave Kyron didn't only save creatures of the land. Dark Kyron had turned his cruelty on the beasts of the sea as well, and when Brave Kyron rescued the Lost – as these unfortunate creatures are called – he sent those of the sea away into the dark depths to escape his brother's curse. From them came the fishmen of the Trident Realm, a union of three undersea kingdoms – and to this day, of all the peoples of the land, they feel closest to the beastmen of the Herd.

Part two: shunned

Dark Kyron's whispers

Dark Kyron wasn't finished. He whispered into the ears and hearts of men until they came to see the Herd as abominations against nature, to be feared as they feared the orcs. So while the Green Lady rode to the rescue of humans across Pannithor as the God War raged, her new children were shunned, reviled and even attacked as enemies. Not even the Lady's own blessing could quiet those fears. The dwarfs soon followed the humans' lead, distrustful by nature of anything that smacked of the hybrid or the mutant. The elves tolerated the Herd – but the longer the war went on, the more of a liability they became to the Lady's armies, stirring up distrust among the very people she was trying to save at a time when she could afford no weakness.

Watch on the border

In the end the Lady asked them to stay within her realm and guard the outer borders of Galahir, watching for enemy war bands that might try to slip in while her attention was elsewhere.

Proud as they were, the Herd saw exactly what lay behind the request – that they had become a burden to her. They didn't care. The opinions of men, who in their eyes were far too easily swayed anyway, meant little to them. Guarding the borders gave them a chance to repay the Mother's kindness and to fight those who would despoil her realm – orcs, other foul things, and their own wayward kin. It's a duty they still carry today, in Galahir and beyond, set apart even from their allies in the Mother's domain and far removed from all the noble peoples – elves, humans and dwarfs.

Part three: a people who know who they are

A brotherhood

Herd culture is far more sophisticated than their strange language and stranger looks suggest. They are a brotherhood bound by shared experience, with one of the sharpest collective memories of any race on Pannithor. They know exactly where they came from, what they were made for, and what part their benefactors played in shaping who they are now.

Away from the arrogance of elves, the pride of dwarfs and the endless human search for meaning, the Herd are simply content. Other races see them as superstitious savages. In truth they're at peace with their surroundings, their existence and their purpose. When they don't have to fight, they drift naturally towards a quiet life: tending crops, hunting, looking after their own.

And they watch the sky. Where others see stars, the Herd see a chase that never ends – Brave Kyron hunting his evil twin. It's a shame that hardly anyone outside their tribes remembers Brave Kyron, for in saving the Herd he saved the rest of the world too. If the Herd were more warlike, or less devoted to their duty, they could very quickly overrun the lands of other peoples.

Serving the Mother

The Herd are an invaluable tool in the Green Lady's constant struggle for balance in the world. Orcs and other evil things reserve a special hatred for them. But even the noble peoples aren't always content with what they have, so the Herd must defend the Mother-world against plunder from every quarter.

The tribal druids, sometimes called shamans, share the deepest bond with both the Mother and the Father – a second deity they pray to – and advise the chieftains on everything. In times of dire need the shamans of many tribes gather and combine their powers to beseech the Father for strength and guidance to lead their warriors to victory. The lifeblood and spirit of Brave Kyron run through the Herd's veins, and when they stampede to war, the thunder of blood in their ears is matched by the trembling of the earth beneath them.

Their allies are few but loyal. Closest of all are the fishmen of the Trident Realm, with whom they share a common history and a natural understanding. The Salamanders, a reptilian people from the isles of the Three Kings, are keen to fight beside them too: their mature warriors, the Primes, join the Forces of Nature – the Lady's armies – and find easy companionship among the creatures of the Herd, whom they understand well.

Part four: the tribes at war

Tribal warriors

In battle the Herd are a motley force, but a deadly one. Alongside the Lady's forces their ranks are swelled by fauns and satyrs, hulking lycans, brutal centaurs and flying harpies, and when the creatures of the forest and the great Tree Herders march with them, all that variety becomes a lethal weapon.

Fauns, satyrs and their like fight in light armour with hand weapons and shields. The tribal warriors are mighty and brave, though given the choice they'd rather live at peace with everything around them. Not every tribesman is made for the front line, but all are bound to protect their tribes, their families and their world. The Herd know only too well how a humble spear can kill the momentum of a charge, and they use it both to hold and to strike back.

The biggest and heaviest of the infantry are the Longhorns, hard-hitting beastmen with a wealth of battle experience. Before the Longhorns lead the Herd into battle, the druids bless their arms and armour in solemn, ancient rites. Tribal Spirit Walkers spend much of their time with the druids, exploring together the meaning of nature, the world and the Herd itself. Fuelled by sacred potions, not quite in control of their own actions, they have forged a spiritual bond with honoured ancestors who fell defending the land. They no longer care for their own lives and will gladly give them for the Herd. The chieftains also prize the Trappers – lightly armoured hunters who glide silently through the land, stalk unsuspecting prey and bring it down with thrown weapons or bows.

The lycans

Behind the tribal warriors stand beastmen who tower even over the Longhorns.

Garkan also experimented with merging man and wolf. Those of his victims whom Brave Kyron managed to save are today's lycans. Those he couldn't save – the werewolves – were lost to darkness and became twisted things cut off from the Mother; their alphas, the Lykanis, lead packs in the armies of the dead. Lycans, by contrast, are at one with nature. Their very life force is sustained by the Mother, and nothing short of death can keep them down for long. Their leaders, the Lycan Alphas, are noble and brave, fast and immensely powerful, and their feral eyes glitter with surprising intelligence.

The lycan known as Moonfang was first encountered ten years ago, as war engulfed the world – fighting for the undead. It was deadlier than most of its kind, and killed more than a score of tribal warriors before it could be subdued. After the battle the beast was brought before the tribal druid, who freed it from its torment. Today Moonfang is a noble soldier in the ranks of the Herd.

The Guardians

In peacetime the Guardians live alone. Each watches over a patch of land it knows by instinct. When the threat is great, or the Herd must gather for war, they all come together – minotaurs, owlbears and stranger things still – and form blocks of massive shock troops in the front line. To their natural savagery they add brutal weapons and huge wooden shields, while those blessed with armoured hides, razor claws or powerful beaks tear into the enemy with what nature gave them.

The Guardian Brutes don't know fear or defeat. Where others would bow their heads, they bellow their defiance and smash their way back into the fight. The same recklessness shows in the thundering charge of the Minotaur Chariots – great war engines hauled by snarling, bloodthirsty bull-men and driven by highly skilled and perhaps slightly unhinged Longhorns.

The chieftains

Tribal chieftains are raised from the ranks of the Longhorns. They are wise and mighty, listen closely to their shamans, and lead the tribes to war when the Lady, the Mother-earth, calls. Most prefer to fight on foot, close to their warriors and to the earth, but sometimes they ride into battle on a minotaur chariot, where they can better follow the ebb and flow of the fight.

Epilogue: the children nobody wanted

The Herd were made from what was left over when the orcs were done. Dark Kyron made them on a whim, men decided they were monsters, the dwarfs followed suit, and the elves barely put up with them. They had every reason to become exactly what they looked like.

Instead, they stand on the border of the forest that took them in and make sure nobody defiles it. They till the soil, hunt and care for their own, and at night they watch their saviour chase his dark half across the sky. The world has all but forgotten Brave Kyron. The Herd never will.