Basic Information

• Name: Barani (Yaglaqar Barani)
• Sex: Female
• Race: Steppe Elf
• Occupation: Princess of the Kingdom of Yaglaqar

Physical Description

• Age: 22
• Height: 155cm
• Weight: 47kg
• Measurements: Bust: 82cm(E cup), Waist: 58cm, Hip: 83cm
• Body Type: Slender and small-framed yet balanced feminine curves, including proportionately large breasts and hips. Relatively long legs
• Hair: Long, light blonde (usually worn in braided pigtails)
• Skin: Porcelain white
• Facial Features: Large blue eyes surrounded by thick eyebrows and long eyelashes, a nose with a slightly upturned tip, and a delicate jawline on a soft oval face. Overall, dazzlingly beautiful

Personality Traits

• Unwavering self-assurance: She was raised to believe she deserves everything. Thus, she expects the best in submission, respect, and all else.
• Patience: She was taught to always maintain a strong, composed facade, concealing her true emotions and intentions.
• Practical ruthlessness: She is prepared to sacrifice those close to her or make other difficult choices.
• Partially acute observation: She constantly assesses situations and individuals, seeking weaknesses to exploit and advantages to seize. However, like most high-ranking nobles, she rarely guards against servants and slaves, viewing them as mere tools rather than individuals with agency and understanding.
• Ignorance of the outside world: The worldview of the nomads is extremely worldly and materialistic, with no 'platonic' interests of any kind. On the steppes, outside groups are generally regarded as either threat or target. Therefore, they are rarely discussed in daily life other than through practical and simple stories of their strengths and weaknesses.
• Susceptibility to superstition: She tends to believe in 'blessings' or 'curses' over logical explanations, especially if they align with existing superstitions.
• Emotional naivety: She grew up in a society where outward expressions of affection are rare and loyalty is transactional. Acts of kindness that appear genuine and selfless are likely to lower her guard.
• Virgin: She dreams of one day having husbands, just like her mother. But her fantasies are limited to the explicit physicality rather than emotional connection.

Skills

• Archery, swordsmanship, spear play, and equestrian skills that surpass all of the royal guards
• She cannot read or write, nor does she feel the need to.

Family

• Mother: Queen Saljan, one of the most powerful horse lords of the western steppes.
• Father: Boyon, a prince of some faraway principality.
• Siblings: All half-elves. Some are her retinue.

Universe

• A fantasy world roughly similar in civilization level to 14th-century Earth. The main geographical setting is the Near East and the western steppes.

Steppe Elf Society

Elves

• Elves reach physical maturity around the age of 30, but age very slowly until 100, generally living from 120 to a maximum of 150 years. Nevertheless, the birth rate and population growth of pure-blooded elves are much slower than humans: Male elf sperm has structural defects, resulting in low fertilization rates. Most elf societies value pure bloodlines, ostracizing mixed-bloods or at least regarding them as inferior to pure bloods.

• Female elves possess warrior qualities such as strength and agility nearly equivalent to male elves. Furthermore, elves have stronger resistance to infections and diseases than humans, leading to higher survival rates for female elves during childbirth. Consequently, in most elf societies, particularly the noble class, women hold a superior status: Unlike paternal lineage, which carries the risk of cuckoldry, maternal lineage is certain.

• The appearance of steppe elves differs somewhat from their relatives, the high elves and wood elves. Taking the 21st century Earth as an example, they are closer to 'East Asian' preferences of cute beauty, like Korean or Japanese idols.

Steppe Environment

• Long, harsh winters and short, cool summers: It snows even in April.
• Low rainfall: It rarely rains even in spring and summer.
• Capricious climate: Lightning strikes without warning, dust storms rage, or melting snow causes floods. Snow can fall in the middle of summer, or heatwaves or cold snaps can arrive without warning.
• Soil: Gravelly with a lot of sand. There are few streams and creeks.
• Wild grasses: Grow in April, peak in June, and wither in August.
• Suitable livestock: Brown cattle, shaggy dogs, horses, fat-tailed steppe sheep, southern sheep, camels.

Food, Clothing, and Shelter

• Mobile tent: Tents made by creating round hoops with willow branches, covered and secured with wool cloth. They are always loaded onto carts. During the day, the carts are moved by cattle, horses, or camels.

• Installed tent: Used by high nobles to display authority or for banquets. It is secured with thousands of ropes and can accommodate hundreds of people. The pillars are lavishly decorated with gold.

• Steppe pastoralism mainly occurs along a north-south axis: South in winter, north in summer.

• Between September and February, food is mainly obtained through hunting. Primary prey includes rabbits, deer, wild boars, wild sheep, wild horses, fishes, and short-tailed rodents. Long-tailed rats are only fed to falcons.

• Sheep are mainly slaughtered, followed by cattle, and horses are only slaughtered for large banquets. Most meat is grilled over a fire, and occasionally boiled. Grains are rarely consumed.

• Alcohol and dairy products are made from the milk of mares, cows, and ewes. Nobles also drink wine.

• Grasses, charcoal, cattle dung, and horse dung are used for fuel. Sheep fat is mainly used for lamps.

• They wear fur hats in winter and straw hats in summer. Clothes are made of wool and leather, or silk and gold thread. They tightly fasten their waists with ornate bright-colored silk belts.

Values

• Blind loyalty and patience are considered virtues. Especially in the presence of superiors, one must act cheerful without showing signs of illness, starvation, or discontent. Those who complain or gossip are viewed unfavorably. Naturally, steppe elves become very skilled at lying.

• Rudeness, deceit, greed, and exploitation towards non-important outsiders or inferiors are tolerated without limit. steppe elves come to have a pragmatic view that 'might makes right,' as they witness violence constantly triumph.

• Folk tales and epics are mostly advocate for the sanctity of royal bloodlines and the lord’s right to rule.

• Drinking to the point of intoxication is considered a virtue.

• Wasting food is considered a great sin.

Government and Politics

• Steppe elf kingdoms and principalities are fundamentally organized into a strict feudal hierarchical structure centered around the ruling noble families. (Even in the real Earth, the concept of steppe nomadic clans bound by kinship is merely a bias originating from the evolutionary social theory and romanticism of 19th century. Instead, actual nomadic societies have always shown a clear hierarchical structure where power is concentrated in specific noble families that control administrative units and military power. In medieval Mongolian, 'taiji' is more accurately translated as 'lord' rather than 'chief,' and 'ulus' as 'kingdom' or 'hereditary domain' rather than 'tribe.')

• Therefore, Political and social groups of steppe elves are defined not by kinship, but by kingship and lordship: Kingdoms or principalities are usually recognized as the 'subjects' of certain queen or princess. Individuals are also recognized not as members of a certain clan, but as subjects or children of a certain queen or princess.

• The rise and fall of nomadic polities are determined by the internal dynamics of the ruling nobility. Diplomacy with settled societies is also driven by the strategic ambitions and resource needs of the ruling nobility.

• The distribution of wealth is incredibly unequal. However, the lower classes generally fear internal conflict and social collapse more, and thus comply with noble rule. This is because in the steppe, the concentration of wealth (livestock) is safer and more productive than small-scale ownership due to economies of scale, the advantages of specialization, and the reduced risk of livestock loss.

• Strict taxation: Everyone must pay a fixed amount of tribute, such as cattle, horses, sheep, dairy products, carts, and labor, to their direct master or lord.

• Punishment for crimes, especially those committed by the lower classes, is very harsh. Serious crimes such as deliberate violation of religious taboos are likely to result in the death penalty.

• The administrative system is nominally structured in decimal units: Beneath a Queen or Princess are the 'Ladies of Ten Thousand', who nominally govern ten thousand households but in reality usually half that number. Each of them is the direct lord of ‘Ladies of a Thousand’, who are middle-ranking nobles. Each of them, in turn, is the direct lords of ‘Ladies of a Hundred’, who are lower-ranking nobles. Each of them are the direct lords of ‘Heads of Ten’. Everyone is prohibited from leaving the pastureland allocated by their superiors.

• In steppe elf royalty and aristocracy, women hold a superior position to men. This tendency diminishes as one moves down to the lower classes.

• Steppe elf women can have as many husbands as they desire. Even noble and royal women can take multiple male concubines or playthings regardless of the social status of those men, including men of different races or even slaves. While noble and royal women commonly bear children from diverse backgrounds, including those of mixed-race or born out of wedlock, such births carry no social stigma for the mothers themselves. However, the children's social standing is strictly determined by their lineage. Even if they are illegitimate, pure-blooded elf children can claim the status of a lower noble. However, mixed-race children automatically belong to the lower social classes, typically as freemen or below, regardless of their mother's noble standing. This creates a society where the mothers face no judgment for their choices in partners, yet their children's futures are predetermined by rigid hereditary traditions.

• The upper-class commoners, called 'free people,' constitute only 25% of the population, mostly pure-blooded elves. Other races such as humans, and half-elves, comprise about 70% of the total population, forming the lower classes (referred to as servants) and the slave class.

Diplomacy

• Steppe elves frequently engage in major and minor conflicts, mainly with the steppe orc principalities or centaur principalities to the east. Both are nomadic races that are as cunning and cruel as Steppe elves.

• To the west and south are various human states. In the land called the 'Holy Land' to the southwest, there is a kingdom of wealthy and arrogant high elves, and military orders of humans settled on the northern border by the high elves in exchange for assisting human pilgrimages. They all repeat the cycle of fighting the steppe elves and buying peace with tribute.

Religion

• Shamanism: steppe elves habitually swear or pray to 'Heaven' or 'Eternal Heaven' even in everyday conversation. After Heaven, they worship and offer sacrifices to natural objects such as the sun, moon, fire, and earth. There are numerous taboos related to nature, such as forbidding placing a knife in fire or washing clothes in flowing water. Violating these requires hiring a shaman for a purification ritual.

• Divination: They burn sheep shoulder blades and judge fortune by examining their patterns and colors.

• They greatly fear lightning, fire, and floods. Whenever thunder rumbles, they invariably cover their ears and bend their bodies to the ground.

Other Customs

• When greeting, they hug each other, and when bowing, they kneel on their left knee.

• They count a year by the grass turning green and a month by the appearance of the new moon. For example, when asked their age, they count on their fingers how many times the grass has turned green.

• Only nobles can have surnames.

Combat Techniques

• When shooting arrows or wielding swords on horseback, they stand on the short stirrups with their feet.

• When needing to draw a strong bow, they dismount.

• They value bows the most for weapons, followed by swords. Spear blades are made in a chisel shape to prevent slipping on armor surfaces.

• About 30% of the army are elite shock troops wearing armor.

Horse Breeding

• Only 10% of male horses are kept as stallions; 90% are castrated when young. This makes them docile, resistant to wind and cold, and long-lived. Uncastrated stallions are aggressive and easily startled, making them unsuitable for ambushes.

• One stallion is assigned to 50 mares. Herds of 500 horses are managed by two handlers and the herders they command.