Enigmatik — Roleplayer Guild

The Great Khaganate of Tengri

To Forge a Planet, First Forge Yourself

Various horse-hair banners wielded by Khaganate Representatives

(Note: The Khaganate uses a wide variety of different flags and symbols depending on location, primary allegiance, noble family and other factors. The closest to a single unifying 'flag' they have is the banner of the Golden Horde:)

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Government Form:
Neo-Feudal Absolute Monarchy. All power is held by the Great Khagan himself, who delegates powers to various nobles such as the Khaantus of Itügen, military Boyans and Khan Kuus of other Hordes.

Population:
Around 1.2 billion souls swear fealty to the Great Khagan.

What Is Humanity?:
The cradle of sapience, but one cannot eternally live in a cradle.

Planet Name and Description:
The Tengri system and its primary settlement target of Itügen (or ‘the Steppe,’) was marked as a potentially habitable exoplanet by early colonial charters, although eventually found itself at the bottom of the list as better prospects surfaced. During Earth’s death throes it had been left unclaimed, allowing a rag-tag collection of planet-born refugees and space colonists from the inner asteroid belt to flee there, hoping to find a warm and welcoming planet perfectly inside the goldilocks zone of a main sequence yellow dwarf star... 

What they found was anything but. Even the best of telescopes can be tricked by hundreds of lightyears, and when the fleet arrived what they actually found was a blasted, ravaged and desertified rock, barely capable of sustaining a little hardy life. The atmosphere was severely damaged, water was scarce and everywhere the colonists turned there was another issue, from heavy metals polluting natural reservoirs to areas of unusually incongruent radiation levels. Its wide, flat landscape makes it susceptible to terrible sandstorms, dust devils and droughts and worst of all, a disastrous weather cycle that has come to be called the Huiten Dzhut - Cold Death. The result is that permanent habitation can only occur in small oases of comparative life, forcing the majority of the Steppe's population into a nomadic lifestyle.

There was some succor for the colonists however, because while the Itügen was harsh and unforgiving, the system was rich in other ways. Tengri is rather crowded for a solar system, with a wide variety of terrestrial planets, three dense asteroid belts and a chain of gas giants at the outer reaches, all of which could theoretically be exploited and colonised to give humanity a fighting chance. The modern Khaganate has taken to this concept with gusto, and takes advantage of as much of the system’s bounty as they can, leading to human settlements springing up all but the very furthest reaches of Tengri’s gravity well.

One planet drew attention like no other: Erleg, named for Turko-Mongolic god of Death. It is most remarkable because it is shattered, the very core of the planet itself exposed to the void, and has already taken the first steps along an inexorable process that will eventually see the remnants ripped apart and scattered into one of Tengri’s asteroid fields. Such things do not happen naturally, and it was in the depths of Itügen, buried beneath sand and crushed beneath mountains that answers to the mysteries the system held began to emerge.

The planet is littered with archeotech, fragments of technology from an extremely advanced precursor civilisation that once lived in the system. Vaults of archeotech can still be found deep in Itügen’s strata, and their discovery and exploration is one of the primary drivers behind the continued exploration of the Steppe. 

As of yet, no physical remnants of the precursor have been recovered, but each new Vault both answers old questions while bringing forth a dozen new ones, and those with the know-how and tools are able to dredge long-forgotten technology up and breathe fresh life into it. 

Demographics:
The Khaganate would classify themselves as a wholly human nation, and could even put forth some very persuasive arguments as to why this is biologically, semantically or technically true… But if one was to stand the various groups that made the Khaganate next to one another in a line, it would be difficult to believe that they truly are all human. 

While yes, they all share the same four-limbed bipedal body plan, and yes most are sexually compatible with one another and baseline humanity… Lanky, pale-skinned Dwellers cast polarised eyes out over the stars while shimmering, muscled Steppe-Riders use pheromones to communicate with their steeds. Imperial Soyulani gleam like living Gods, while thick-browed Zuraqchi workers sweat and toil in interplanetary forges. They may all think of themselves as ‘humans…’ But are they truly?

Centuries of genetic engineering built on a bedrock of recovered alien archeotechnology has seen massive overhauls to the building blocks of life itself in order to better adapt humanity for their new environment. Over time, the most successful of these adaptations have been templated, recreated and become genetically stable sub-species known as lineages, with the most impactful as follows:

"Baseline Human." Although Basers may look functionally unchanged from those that left Earth so long ago, and indeed are treated as the control group by which all other strands of humanity that live within the Tengri system are measured... They are not truly unmodified, as widespread genetic engineering is a foundational part of Khaganate culture and society.

Although lacking the extreme specialisation to either the void of space or Itügen’s danger, Basers remain the most versatile and adaptable of any lineage and find success in every part of Tengri. Basers form the majority of the population on planet-based örtöös, and their ability to easily move between environments makes them excellent administrators, officials and archeologists. Thus, they've become a common sight in the Steppe’s few permanent cities.

"Void-Dwellers." Humans that have been specifically modified to sustain the rigours of spaceflight. Dwellers are obvious from their great height, lithe, flexible bodies and lack of much hair at all - no Dweller can ever grow a beard, although a few are blessed with something approximating a full head of hair.

Dwellers are extremely well adapted for their new ecological niche. They are better able to resist the effects of radiation and their bones, joints and muscles degrade much slower in microgravity. Their inner ear is unidentifiable to those of Basers in order to prevent motion sickness and allow for rapid movement about a vessel. Their overall quality of vision has degraded somewhat, as they overwhelmingly live under purely artificial lights, however in exchange do feature a secondary polarising eyelid able to filter out harsh light, be it originating from screens or stars, and are able to focus without the assistance of a horizon line. 

Dwellers have also benefited from numerous 'auxiliary' modifications over time, including elongated, hyperflexible fingers better for working in cramped spaces and the isolated genetic code for familial natural short sleep meaning they require a mere 4 hours of sleep each cycle. No editing is without consequence however, and Dwellers are prone to hypomania, neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD, communication disorders and other 'low scale' complications not regarded as meaningfully detrimental to Dweller life.

These modifications continue, and indeed are so extensive that forming an exhaustive list would likely drive one to insanity, however attention must be drawn to one last set of adaptations: Their so called 'spacing countermeasures.' While most humans would simply perish in the event of an environmental breach, Dwellers are specifically designed to maximise their odds of short-term survival and allow them to be rescued. When experiencing the sudden shock of spacing without sufficient survival equipment, the following protective instincts activate:

- The Dweller's barotrauma reflex kicks in and they instinctively exhale, preventing overpressure buildup while minimising air waste. Once the lungs have equalised, valves seal off airways and trap the remaining air inside a dweller's body. This barotrauma response also triggers a controlled release of high-stress hormones, heightening awareness and physical capabilities without triggering flight-or-fight instincts.
- Liquids boiling-off the skin cause bioluminescent proteins to activate, and distinctive glowing red patterns form across a Dweller’s body to highlight them to rescue teams. These patterns are as unique as a fingerprint, and it’s not uncommon for shamans to tattoo or scarify the areas surrounding them to highlight their presence even in-atmosphere.
- Internal reserves of myoglobins flood the body, maximising the amount of time the Dweller can hold their breath. Simultaneously, the body enters an emergency anaerobic state, breaking down bicarbonate stores to increase blood PH and counteract acidosis, while enzymes convert nitrogen in the blood to harmless compounds and thus negate the risk of 'the bends.' 
- Finally, if applicable, the body will begin rapidly regenerating itself using a set of adaptations taken from reptiles, which aims to repair any critical damage caused by the spacing incident. 

These adaptations provide a Dweller with a crucial 15-25 minute window of survival with which they can usually be recovered safely, although undergoing this process is extremely traumatic and will almost always result in the buildup of highly negative metabolic waste that must be safely purged. Because of this, Dwellers have highly specialised rescue and treatment protocols to maximise the chance of a full recovery. 

All of these enhancements come at a cost: The greatest anathema to Dweller life is not being in the environment they've been carefully adapted to. Their limbs and joints struggle to maintain their own weight above 0.8Gs of force, requiring a g-suit should they ever descend to the Steppe's surface and its 1.3Gs. Their respiratory system, unused to dealing with unfiltered air, struggles with the sand, grit and pollution across Itügen causing asthma-like symptoms, while their short sleep schedule is filled with unexplainable nightmares and parasomnias that render them near-useless long-term when on the planet’s surface. Because of this, the overwhelming majority of Dwellers will never leave the confines of space habitats, rarely venturing into spin-gravity zones when necessary.

"Steppe-Riders." Humans that have been modified to better withstand the dangerous and violent world of Itügen are perhaps the polar opposite of Dwellers, although they share a similar level of aggressive genetic engineering to better adapt them for their new environment. 

Physically, Riders are sturdy and sinewy, with muscles much more densely packed with both slow and fast-twitch fibers to vastly improve athletic performance. Their skin is tougher, thicker, and filled with glossy melanins that provide a shimmering, near-metallic look. During peak UV exposure, Riders will exude a natural sunblock that quickly dries to provide a physical shield against harmful rays. Their respiratory system has been hardened, with many auxiliary air filters to neutralise and remove air contaminants, while a secondary, redundant heart and modifications taken from high-altitude Earth populations allow them to transport blood much more efficiently across their body. This is especially needed as Riders have super-coagulating blood in order to maximise their chance of traumatic injury survival.

Their digestive and renal systems have received significant overhauls in order to extract and retain much more water, while simultaneously reducing the risk of food poisoning despite contaminants. Riders also produce an excess of metallothioneins which bind to and neutralise the heavy metals that commonly pollute Itügen. Amusingly, a side effect of their specialised gut flora and digestive enzymes is the ability for Riders to safely metabolise and process methanol as if it was ethanol, a quirk that has proven extremely useful given that the majority of alcohol produced on the Steppe would be otherwise undrinkable by humans. 

All of these modifications are but peanuts compared to the dramatic and widespread changes made to a Rider’s mind and endocrine system. Riders are able to produce and receive pheromones that can cover surprising distances on the Steppe. These pheromones have also been engineered into their khulgars, or steeds, allowing an unparalleled level of non-verbal communication both between Riders and between them and their horses. Key pheromones can broadcast a Rider’s presence over long distances, signal when a Rider is under threat, when a group should press the attack or fall back and retreat, and much more besides. Riders have learnt to produce and deploy pheromone traps to warn of dangerous locations, assert territorial control and even be used as biological weapons during tribal conflict. 

Finally, Riders are born with survival skills already integrated into their minds, with a greater range of more deeply developed muscle memories. These are accompanied by prion-derived proteins that can effectively encode and reproduce sophisticated information - providing Riders with a well of ‘genetic memories’ designed to improve their survival instincts. Rider culture is heavily influenced by these genetic memories, and children recalling them form key developmental markers. Some Riders will also express a smaller range of highly specialised memories, making them prenaturally good at specific skills such as medical care, mechanical engineering and even storytelling. 

Of course, just like Dwellers, Riders are hyper specialised for life on Itügen’s surface and suffer greatly when removed from their natural environment. Their dense, tough muscles and sturdy bones atrophy quickly and more deleteriously without gravity and their balance is completely thrown off by weightlessness, making them much more susceptible to space-sickness. They lack the same level of natural radiation resistance that Dwellers have, and their respiratory systems massively overperform in carefully controlled void-habitats, causing them unnecessary fatigue and strain. Dweller food is also both safer and simpler than what can be found on the Steppe, and a rapid dietary change can lead to significant gastrointestinal distress while their bodies try to adapt. 

Pheromone-based communications are almost entirely neutralised by Dweller air filtration systems leading to a form of sensory deprivation colloquially known as ‘space silence,’ while Riders removed from their natural environment can miss out on important contextual prompts that would usually trigger genetic memory recall, severely stunting their development. Because of this, despite the obvious utility Riders would have in combat situations, they are rarely taken from Itügen’s surface, except for the most promising of candidates that are earmarked for transformation into…

"War-Lords." The ultimate synthesis of the best portions of both Rider and Dweller lineages, whose blending has been made possible and further augmented thanks to the inclusion of entirely alien xenogenetic material recovered from archeotechnology. Unlike other lineages, War-Lords are completely sterile and must be made, not born, using the best possible Riders as a baseline to further enhance. The city of Aurag hosts festivals and competitions designed to find those most suitable for implantation among Itügen’s inhabitants, and being selected as a War-Lord aspirant is considered a great honour among most Steppe tribes. 

The War-Lord transformation process starts at the physical level, as Lords need to be able to efficiently function both in space and on planetary surfaces. Muscle and bone weave themselves into a mutually beneficial lattice that regenerates quickly and withstands microgravity well, while Dweller anaerobic adaptations combined with the stronger twitch-muscle fibers of Riders allow for terrifyingly quick and powerful movement in even the most confined of spaces. The vestibular system of Lords is highly adaptable, making them at home both when moving through microgravity environments and while tearing across the Steppe, while a fresh influx of memory-bearing proteins provides an instinctive understanding of both tactical and strategic decision making that others would have to rigorously learn in a military school. Although a Lord’s pheromone system is weakened by the transformation process, they remain sensitive enough to be able to pick up on signallers emitted by Riders, and some limited level of pheromonal communication still occurs between Lords, used primarily to enforce strict military hierarchy between each other.

Upon this chassis are built even more modifications to better develop them for war. The usually dormant regenerative abilities of Dwellers are permanently active in Lords, leading to aggressive cellular regeneration, with wounds repairing themselves in mere hours and even terrible amounts of tissue being mended in days, albeit with dramatic scarring accompanying the process. A War-Lord’s synaptic processes are vastly improved, and they feature a secondary neural cluster located in a protective organ attached to their spine, which both relieves the brain of the need to carry out many autonomous processes and allows a Lord to continue fighting through even severe brain damage.

It is within these brains that the best and worst parts of the extensive modifications a War-Lord undergoes come home to roost. War-Lords were initially engineered specifically to resist the sort of mental trauma and behavioural disorders that develop under repeated and intense periods of stress, with enhanced neuroplasticity, self-regulating sleep patterns, improved emotional regulation and even modifications to memory consolidation… But in doing so, the groundwork was laid for a condition known as Uzay’s Rage.

When a War-Lord is pushed enough, their greatly enhanced sympathetic nervous system triggers an acute stress response marked by repression of both the prefrontal cortex and short-to-long-term memory conversion, along with massive spikes in cortisol and overstimulation of the amygdala. Their overcharged pituitary system greatly increases the impact of this reaction, and emits a powerful rage pheromone that can trigger sympathetic reactions in nearby War-Lords, causing a domino effect throughout a squad. In other words, when finally pushed into a fight-or-flight situation a War-Lord will not only always choose ‘fight,’ but will do so in an extremely exaggerated way. This trance-like berserker rage is incredibly dangerous for anyone in the area not capable of emitting bonding pheromones - i.e other War-Lords and select members of nobility who have them specifically to protect against exactly this eventuality. 

This is not the only significant downside to being a War-Lord however. Their overactive regenerative abilities put them at high risk of cancer, while misfolds in the prion-like genetic memory markers can turn them into actual prions, leading to TSEs similar to Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and fatal insomnia. Their hyperactive metabolism requires a vastly increased caloric intake to sustain itself, and hormonal issues like hyperthyroidism are also common.

Because of this, War-Lords have a greatly reduced natural life expectancy when compared to any other lineage and Meta gene-lines even when accounting for those fallen in battle. Combined with the already dangerous and invasive implantation procedure required to become one and the result is that without the constant production of fresh War-Lords the lineage would quickly become extinct. Thanks to their difficulty in production, maintenance and the extreme risk a War-Lord poses to other members of the Khaganate, their creation is only permitted on the Bai-Ülgen itself. Thus, this lineage is only seen among the elite Kheshigs charged with carrying out the Khagan’s will across Tengri.

“Meta-Lines.” These three lineages of Dweller, Rider and Lord are the most common, well-understood and best established lineages within the Khaganate, but they are not the only ones. Because of how common genetic modification is, the extreme environments that the Khaganate routinely explores and colonises and the desire to create better and more adaptable people, many splinter lineages also exist.

Meta-lines run the gamut from stable sub-populations of the chief lineages to experimental procedures enacted on only a handful of individuals. In time, some Metas will become fully-fledged lineages of their own, while others may have their most beneficial traits isolated and merged into already existing ones. Some too will die out entirely, proving too troublesome, difficult to produce or dangerous without enough upside to counteract these disadvantages.

Some of the more well known Metas include the royal Soyunli line, the Baser-derived Zuraqchi, suited for manufactory work on planet-based örtöös, and the Dweller-derived Shinjar line, which forms the backbone of the Khaganate’s archeologists and archeo-tech specialists.

History:
Much of the early days of the Khaganate's history has been lost to time and poor record keeping, but what few facts are known about the brave souls to foray out in hopes of settling the Steppe paint a bleak picture. The dregs of the Cataclysm - the desperate, the mad and the left-behind fled a dying world in the hopes that a distant star might be the key to their survival.

They were joined by flocks of ‘belters:’ exoplanetary colonists with established settlements in the main asteroid belt who saw no hope of life in Sol without Earth to support them. Perhaps a more formal colonisation effort would have seen these two groups come into conflict, but desperation makes compatriots out of even the oddest of strangers, and so together these groups stepped through the Gateway and out into the system of Tengri.

Although they quickly realised that the situation was far worse than initial reports could ever have expected, it was too late to turn back and secure another system. The loose flotilla had lost all cohesion, and before an attempt could be made to voyage back, the Gateway sealed shut. The rag-tag group of settlers were left to try and forge a path in a system almost more uninhabitable than the one they had just left. 

Itügen’s biosphere was poor, its atmosphere breathable, yes, but insufficient protection against harsh UV rays and other stellar phenomena. Unimaginably powerful tornadoes, sandstorms and so-called ‘brightstorms’ tore across the planet's surface, making long-term stationary settlement unviable in all but the most protected of alcoves. Worst of all, the planet was captured in the vice of the Huiten Dzhut or Cold Death, - when the planet’s damaged atmosphere was further struck by one of Tengri’s solar storms, the result were brutal snap-freezes that killed off vast swathes of what hardy life was able to survive the perilous planet and quickly devastated any group unprepared for its fury. Once it passed however, the Cold Death offered some consolation- the massive snowstorms spreading much-needed meltwater across the planet’s surface for a brief but vital season of blooming. 

Offworld settlement fared little better despite the knowledge and expertise of the Belters among them. Many of the ships that had formed the initial flotilla were already old, badly maintained or damaged in some way, and even those in good condition still required complex electronics and machinery they couldn’t hope to manufacture themselves. Despite their best efforts and surprisingly swift adaptation to the conditions they faced, the simple fact of the matter was that the refugees were not prepared for Tengri’s brutality, and one by one, vessels, habs, cities and fleets all began to fail, and for a time it seemed that all was lost.

But the night is darkest before the dawn, and the struggle and suffering of those early colonists laid a beachhead for the next generation to storm onwards from. Those born into Tengri had survival practically hard-coded into them, and in some ways the smaller population helped the survivors - there was, for the first time since the Gateway had winked out of existence, enough resources for those that were left.

One step at a time the societies of Tengri began to find their niches. Habs once fit only for survival grew into towns, then cities. In space, the fires of industry were relit and new vessels voyaged forth, greeting each other as fellow survivors. Trade routes meant more complex industries could be constructed and sustained more easily, and although it took nearly a century to do so, humanity began to become masters of their environment once more.

On Itügen itself, the people learned quickly to always stay on the move. The Steppe could provide, but its resources were quickly exhausted and had to be treated with great respect. The Dzhut still stalked nomadic communities, but more and more emerged from the snow each time one passed, as shelters became stronger and survival skills improved.

When the specter of extinction no longer loomed large over Tengri’s population though, mankind’s usual foibles crashed back into the picture. Without desperation to bind them together, communities were now free to pursue less enlightened methods of survival.

As civilisation bloomed once more, conflict quickly followed. The Steppe became home to constant skirmishes, as nomads jockeyed for more land, more power and more resources, while those lucky enough to have permanent homes soon found themselves needing soldiers and fortifications to keep what they had safe. Tengri’s void soon became home to violence too, as wannabe warlords and aspiring space raiders began plying their bloody trade. 

Only some of this conflict could be attributed to Tengri itself though - the truth was that the game had been rigged from the start; the ad-hoc nature of the ‘colony’ left it without any central authority to attempt to force the disparate factions to play nice. Such a state of affairs could easily have become the eternal norm- further development of the system stagnated as effort was redirected towards an endless struggle for more, but two events came together to place society on a very different course.

The first was the revelation of Itügen’s archeotech. Although it had been known for some time that Tengri had been home to a precursor race (their incredible feats were writ on the very planets themselves,) firm evidence surrounding them was difficult to come by and stymied by the much more pressing needs of immediate survival. With this specter lifted from the Steppefolk, the first precursor vaults began to be discovered and plundered by treasure hunters and explorers. 

This technology would slowly make its way from the hands of tribes into the cities, and from the cities to the proto-Hordes, where technological progress and intellectual advances had survived better than on the Steppe’s surface. Although cracking these ancient secrets was no easy feat, it soon became clear that the precursor technology could be deciphered and understood - at least to some small extent. The earliest technologies developed using archeotech allowed for genetic engineering techniques light years ahead of what even Earth was capable of, allowing for aggressive, precise and intentionally directed modifications to the human form.

The potential of this technology, along with others slowly filtering out of the newly-plundered vaults was quickly realised. Contained within the secrets of archeotech was the key to adapting humanity to their new home, and shifting from survival and slow growth to a true explosion across Tengri. The first Meta-lines sprung up almost immediately afterwards, proving their success and versatility and leading to further refinement of the process and the creation of very early proto Dwellers and Riders.

The second event to shake the system was the ascension of the self-titled warlord 'Chinggis Khan,' the son of a moderately successful war captain. Charismatic, intelligent and fiercely ambitious, when his father was ousted by mutineers he managed to flee his home-ship and find sanctuary among a different fleet, where he would rapidly ascend to captain of his own vessel. 

Leading his forces back to his former home, he seized his father’s vessel by force and spaced those who had once exiled him so many years before. Two vessels then became three, and as his reputation and fleet grew, more and more disparate warriors, raiders and traders began to flock to him, enamoured by his meteoric rise. Assembling the greatest fleet that Tengri had ever seen, he cemented his rise to power with the capture of a series of manufactories in the second asteroid belt and the construction of a massive and imposing flagship: the Bai-Ülgen, designed to house absolutely everything this aspiring ‘ruler of the universe’ would require in his campaigns. 

When the great vessel was complete, Chinggis summoned his armada and proclaimed the establishment of the Golden Horde, a system that he would refine and expand upon throughout his life before offering the other early spacer societies, fleets and confederacies a simple choice: Assimilate peacefully, or die.

Chinggis' persona was not chosen idly however. Having recognised the desperation of humanity’s situation in Tengri, and already seeing what the future might bring for a divided system, he had looked back into his species' past in the hopes of finding a key to unite the system and focus their energies on better pursuits than endless violence. The Mongol Empire was the largest single contiguous polity in Earth's history, swallowing up disunited foes before forging them, if only for a century, into a single, powerful polity. The First Khagan knew that attempting to walk the same path as Genghis would be a challenge, yet with each day that passed, each group that bowed to or was destroyed by him, it seemed more and more as if he just may be made of the right stuff to recreate this greatest of Empires in the harsh vacuum of space.

Unifying the central core of the system over the course of some 20 years, his greatest success was when his fleet sieged and capitulated the largest and best-developed stationary settlement on Itügen, a city he renamed Aurag in honour of the place his medieval namesake had once held court. From this base and with its new Khaan loyal to him, he was able to expand his influence across the surface of Itügen, although never lived to see the whole planet brought under the Khaganate’s rule. 

Elsewhere, his burgeoning empire founded dozens of new örtöö across the system, forging and incorporating new fleets along the way. To better manage these new fleets, they were organised into their own Hordes and placed underneath the command of loyal lieutenants and the best suited of his children. He laid out the foundations for the Yam, and set forth a series of decrees to form the basis of a new Yassa,or code of law for his Khaganate.

When finally age came for him, as it does even the greatest of men, he lay back on his deathbed and smiled. His war-path had lasted more than fifty years and carved out an empire that stretched across vast swathes of Tengri, and despite the violence and brutality that it had taken to found, the people living within the Khaganate were united, prosperous, and increasingly more and more specialised to the system in which they lived in. When he gave his last breath and his body was cast into the sun of Tengri, it is said that for a moment even the Steppe quietened in remembrance.

Following the First Genghis’ passing, his second son - Möngke, ascended to the throne of the Bai-Ülgen. Where his father was a superlative admiral, general and unifying figure, Möngke was instead far less bombastic, his greatest skills lying in management, administration and diplomacy. Relying on his brothers and his father’s loyal boyans to expand the Khaganate’s reach, the new Khagan set about expanding upon and codifying the commandments of his father into proper laws and governmental structures. Already an early example of the Soyunli line, he encouraged further genetic modification, using the research and development facilities aboard his flagship to create ‘definitive’ templates for the Dweller and Rider lineages and began experiments that would eventually lead to the War-Lords. 

Möngke restructured the Hordes and the Yam, set in place proper procedures for the succession of noble titles, including that of the Khagan itself, formalised the duties and privilages of the nobility and smoothed the many ruffled feathers left in the wake of his father’s great war-path. If Chinggis had won the Khaganate through war, it was Möngke who cemented its existence in peace. His final touch when it came to the new government was to take the regnal title of Genghis, after his father, a habit which all future Khagans have emulated him in.

Of course, even a successor like Möngke could not succeed in every field. Despite decades of attempted pacification efforts the disparate Steppefolk of Itügen proved impossible to tame. Even with the technological and military advantages of the Hordes, the hostile environment and nomadic lifestyle the planet enforced had created a society seemingly perfectly designed to resist top-down rule. Instead, he was forced to settle for mutual cooperation, with any tribe that wished to trade with and benefit from the Khaganate and its cities needing to swear oaths of fealty and provide tribute. In exchange, the Khagans have left the people of the Steppe mostly to their own devices, with only the boldest and most foolhardy of Khagans seeking to disrupt this equilibrium.

Finally, Chinggis’ grand empire had inadvertently laid the groundwork for something quite unexpected to emerge. The survivors of the collapse had been an eccentric bunch that included new religious movements along with Muslims, Tengriists and Buddhists. Having suffered the cultural trauma of the loss of Earth and the Days of Cold and Hunger, these beliefs began to shift and change, melding with the traditions and superstitions that Belters had brought in to produce a syncretic mess that came to be called Uzayism. 

The unification of the Khaganate allowed for cultural and religious exchanges that had never before been seen in Tengri. While Chinggis had considered the matter of religion rather beneath him, content to let his subjects practice however they pleased, Möngke was somewhat more attentive to these sorts of things. He encouraged Uzayism's development through the organisation of debates and forums between shamans, mystics and other spiritual leaders, eventually accepting an Uzayist shaman as a permanent member of his court. Where the Khagan trailblazed his Khaganate followed, and soon Uzayism had established itself across all of Tengri as a ‘big tent’ faith in which almost anyone could find a part to believe in. With his empire secure and running smoothly, Möngke too could breathe his last, content and satisfied that he had been a worthy successor to his father in every way that mattered.

Encompassing the great majority of the Khaganate’s history, the Days of Birth and Death are remarkable perhaps mostly for their unremarkableness. It has seen many different Khagans rise and fall in their attempts to maintain and expand the empire, although few have been as truly great as Chinggis and Möngke. Some of these rulers were successful - expanding the control of the empire to new asteroids, moons or reaches of the Steppe, others have failed, pulled down into a maelstrom of intrigue and infighting, but the Khaganate has persisted and thrived throughout it. 

The Days of Birth and Death have seen wide advancements across the entirety of Tengri’s society - from Uzayism’s continuing spread and evolution to the recovery and understanding of new archeotech, including the means with which to build Aurag’s spectacular space elevator along with the perfection of Dwellers and Riders for the roles in which they now find themselves. Despite the waxing and waning fortunes of the Khaganate, the past two rulers - Temüjin III and Ögedei II, have proven themselves to be competent stewards of the realm, managing and maintaining the Khaganate at the height of its influence and expansion across the system. 

Were no outside force to act upon the Khaganate, it is quite likely that the Days of Birth and Death would have continued for centuries more, but as the five hundredth anniversary of humanity’s arrival to Tengri came and went, all changed in the blink of an eye with the re-opening of old Earth’s greatest project - the Gateways.

Now is no longer the Days of Birth and Death. Now come the Days of Infinite Potential, and only time will tell what will come of the Khaganate.

Culture and Society:
The Khaganate's society has a distinct divide between those who live in space - live they in nomadic, free-ranging space fleets (the hordes themselves,) or in permanent habitats on and off-world known as örtöös and those who live on the Steppe's surface. For obvious reasons, these are known as Hordepeople, who overwhelmingly consist of Dwellers, and Steppefolk who similarly overwhelmingly consist of Riders, respectively. Thanks to their different lifestyles, living conditions and even physiologies, overlap between the two are rare.

Most Hordepeople are born and will live their entire lives within the confines of an artificial habitat, maintaining their craft, harvesting asteroids, moons and other planetary bodies. Those who are permanently settled into örtöös form a chain of stations and planet bases that stretch out to the edge of the system- the Yam. The Yam forms the industrial backbone of the Khaganate, with foundries, factories, refineries and mines working constantly to provide the equipment required not just by the Hordes, but also to shuttle across to the Steppe, where it's exchanged with the cities and nomadic Steppefolk in compensation for the tribute and trade goods they provide.

Horde life is odd - simultaneously atomised and collectivist, high tech and primitive. A ship must be able to survive adrift for years if required, yet simultaneously remain deeply rooted into the Horde which it flies under. Medicinally valid herbs are dried and prepared into teas to cure the side effects of keyhole surgeries done by medical robots. Natural substances like wood and leather from Itügen are highly prized, while platinum and gold are reduced to excellent industrial materials, suitable to be made into common trinkets and jewellery. 

Horde diets must be practical for the confines of zero-gravity above all else, with the most common form of food being nutrient dense ‘shakes’ using insect proteins and hydroponically grown food to ensure a Dweller has everything they need to be healthy. More sophisticated and varied meals are an opportunity for whole clans to come together, sharing stories and experiences, meeting old friends and squabbling with long-term rivals. 

Perhaps the custom that those outside the Khaganate would take the most umbrage with is the use of humans themselves as a resource. In the hordes, human milk is often the only source of dairy, while terramation, better known as human composting, produces high-quality mulch that can provide vital fertiliser to a ship. Those especially respected will instead be cast out into Uzay’s embrace upon death, either into deep space to prevent them from coming into contact with any man-made object, or directly fired at planetary bodies, with the sun of Tengri itself being the final resting place for all of the empire’s late Khagans.

Individual ships are operated by small clans with tight social bonds to one another, and each ship must be able to maintain itself while providing space for viable economic activity. Stations and habitats offer a rare chance to spread one’s wings, meet, chat and exchange goods and stories with strangers, while ship-to-ship contact is also fairly common - if nothing else, providing a way for fresh blood and viable marriage partners to be injected into an otherwise closed system.

Common Horde memes place great emphasis on collective solidarity and sharing. All are united in the Khaganate’s wide embrace, and have their specific role in the pyramid topped by the Khagan. The simplest of these rituals is the exchange of air, a custom which quite intentionally allows diseases to spread across space and thus ensures the Khaganate’s population has a shared herd immunity. Of course more serious outbreaks of sickness may require a vessel to be isolated or even entirely destroyed in order to prevent the spread of truly dangerous cross-system pandemics, but such harsh measures are rare to see and certainly aren’t done for every new variant of the common cold.

As could be expected however, down on Itügen things are very different indeed; any place that can be permanently settled has been, and a series of complex city-states dot the planet’s surface. These cities and the nobility that rule them fall under the purview of the Khaan (or less commonly Khaatun) - the Khagan's formal representative and administrator, granted near-unlimited power to manage things as they see fit. Of particular importance on the Steppe is its capital of Aurag, whose equatorial placement made it perfect for the establishment of an archeotech-supported space elevator and has thus centered the city as the beating heart of the planet’s administration and military presence, while also being a vital connection for trade and commerce between the planet and the wider system.

The cities are also key productive areas, with vertical farms providing surplus food while their industrial quarters are home to manufacturing complexes independent of the Yam’s vast foundries. This makes them natural melting pots, where disparate peoples can come together for mutual benefit as well as ceremony and celebration. Those fortunate enough to live within the cities are the beating heart of complex society on Itügen, and are best-situated to survive the many trials the planet throws at its inhabitants.

For the nomadic Steppefolk outside these cities, life is extremely harsh. These communities must always be on the move, for being stationary out on the Steppe is to be dead, and so life is quite literally lived at a breakneck pace. Everything, from sleeping to cooking to giving birth is done while at motion, usually in mobile caravans that share striking visual similarities to gers. The most common method of locomotion comes in the form of khulgars, once simple horses and ponies, now elevated to a highly symbiotic partner-species. Khulgars are obligate omnivores, practically extremophiles, capable of moving at great speeds for long periods of time while also being much sturdier and less prone to injury than their forebears ever were. To be a Rider is to share an inimitable bond with the tribe’s khulgars, and the success of each species is directly tied to the other. 

Mounted Riders, when detached from their wider communities can move as quickly as eighty kilometres a day and spread out across colossal areas, coordinating themselves via pheromones, radios, signalling flares and any other tool available to them. They scout out the vast distances of the steppe to guide their people to grazing areas or sources of water, and are relied upon to ensure their tribe has the best chance of survival. Their slower-moving but by no means slow villages are mounted on the back of a wide variety of vehicles that drive, crawl, skim fly or hover across the boundless wastes that smother the Steppe. In normal conditions, tribes can usually sustain themselves nutritionally by the herding of animals almost as heavily modified as the people that tend to them, alongside limited foraging, but complex machinery and advanced goods are impossible to manufacture among the tribes and instead must be exchanged for either in cities or with Hordepeople willing to directly descend to the planet’s surface in massive single-stage ‘barges’ that burn unimaginable quantities of highly pressurised methane to make it from orbit to surface.

This trade is a privilege, not a right, and a privilege that is used by the Khagans to maintain some vague approximation of control over the wide-ranging tribes. In order to be permitted to trade with the wider Khaganate, tribes must swear oaths to the stars and its ruler, with such oaths further enforced by regular tribute payments. The most common form of tribute is archeotechnology, but ultimately anything of value can be given as a sign of loyalty, ranging from skins and felt to the heads of oathbreakers and rebels.

Thus, while intra-tribal cooperation is a necessity, inter-tribal conflict is incredibly common. Loose confederacies may form and even persist for long periods, but ultimately each tribe can only truly trust and rely on itself in an endless Darwinian struggle for survival, for which the only reward is more of the same. The only potential respite a Steppefolk can have from this life is to move to one of the city states, or prove themselves strong enough in body and soul to be selected as aspirants worthy of being forged into one of the Khagan’s mighty War-Lords.

The worst of all the struggles on Itügen come when meteorological outposts and monitoring satellites send down their warning: The Huiten Dzhut is coming. Solar activity from Tengri causes the already fragile atmosphere of the Steppe to break down, sucking warm air up and into space. The air that descends from these pockets is freezing cold and saturated with water, causing it to condense into snow and hail to crash back down onto the planet’s surface. 

Areas struck by the Dzhut are buried beneath snow and ice and are subject to temperatures anywhere from sixty to eighty degrees colder than they usually are. Even Itügen’s polar life can struggle in these times, while the life so carefully adapted to the usual heat and dryness perishes en-masse. Cities grind to a halt with only the most essential services still running, the Khagan’s subjects going to ground to weather the storm. 

Out on the barren wilds of the Steppe however, there are no homes or city-wide infrastructure to turn to. Instead, as the signs of the Dzhut become clear to scouts and shamans, tribes race to make it to traditional overwintering grounds before they’re caught out in the freeze. These places are deeply rooted into the Steppefolk, their positions encoded into genetic memories and the navigational senses of their khulgars. When the storms finally arrive, disparate tribes, some of whom may have been warring mere days before, are once again bound by the same need to survive as their ancestors did back in the days of Cold and Hunger. 

Thus, despite the harshness, these wintering grounds become the temporary homes of great gatherings of communities from across Itügen. Rivalries are reaffirmed, alliances and confederacies are brokered, tribe-members share and bicker over their customs, and for a time the all-encompassing cold manages to freeze even the Steppefolk’s violent ways.

When the solar disruption ends and the atmosphere re-stabilises, the planet has a chance to recover. Cold and ice melt in the rapidly warming environment, causing meltwater to soak into the parched ground, replenishing both surface reservoirs and the underground water table. Animals leave their burrows and dens, the hardiest flora blooms and spreads seeds and the city’s forges roar back to life while nomads pack up their winter camps. With the end of the extreme danger, the tribes go their separate ways across rejuvenated ground, to resume the cycle of conflict and struggle that has characterised them for so many centuries.

The last element to Khaganate society is their faith. In the over three hundred years since it coalesced into a fully-fledged religion, Uzayism has spread to every corner of the Khaganate, and thus is one of the largest unifying factors, transcending the petty differences of noble and pauper or Rider and Dweller:

Tengri is nothing if not a melting pot, and this extends out to its religion. Early colonists drew from a wide mixture of traditional and new faiths from Earth, which shared room among the initial fleet with the Belters and their own superstitions from decades living among the stars. After the founding of the Golden Horde and the unifying of much of Tengri under a single polity, cultural exchange flourished enough to allow for these disparate threads to weave themselves together, giving birth to early Uzayism.

Because of the inherently disparate nature of the Khaganate, maintaining a strict orthodoxy would be a losing battle and be likely to completely shatter the religion as every Horde and örtöö argued over which version of the faith should be considered the authoritative one. Uzayism thus lacks a single creed or religious dogma, and instead is more the tapestry upon which both common and varying experiences are woven onto, binding the Khaganate together with orthopraxis. 

The true core of Uzayist belief is the all-encompassing deity named Uzay. Uzay is the universe - a pantheistic God that dwells in every atom, whose power is witnessed in the forces of light, gravity and magnetism, and who has granted intelligent life the rare opportunity to marvel at the universe that Uzay is responsible for. Uzay is creation and the created, and in turn both are a form of Uzay, the two impossible to separate from each other. 

Beneath Uzay lie a truly endless parade of lesser gods, spirits and essences, that depending on which believer you ask may dwell within planets, people and even mechanical creations. Practically, this manifests as a form of mystic shamanism, where communion with Uzay and its lesser spiritual creations is not only possible but indeed highly encouraged, although in practical terms such explorations of the human psyche and the universe’s wonder tend to be limited to dedicated shamans able to dedicate their lives to such feats. 

A consistent throughline through Uzayist belief is a special veneration of the void of space itself, whose emptiness provides the thinnest barrier between the transcendental nature of the God and its creations. Even just dwelling in space can portend great personal transformation (sometimes attributed merely to the overview effect,) while directly entering Uzay and ‘embracing the void,’ is to experience a minor form of transcendence. Hordepeople shamans are usually inducted into their role by being exposed to the vacuum of space with only a small rebreather and a tether to pull them back into their vessel. The experience - usually involving a mixture of copious quantities of entheogens, physical exertion and a weaker triggering of their hab-breach reflexes is guaranteed to cause a powerful altered state of consciousness and commonly results in a shaman’s first ego death.

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Governance and Politics:
While all in Tengri are under the direct control of the Khagan in name, the sheer size of the realm requires local administration, particularly in the case of the larger Hordes. This has resulted in a neo-feudal clan emerging both in space and on the surface of Itügen, although traditionally Hordepeople are considered to operate in clans while Steppefolk communities are named tribes. Hordes and areas of the Yam fall under the administration of various Khans (equivalent to kings or princes, with those directly related to the current Khagan known as Khan Khuus,) and Boyans (once specifically referring to military governors and generals, but now in practice used for powerful nobles equivalent to dukes.) The Khagan’s nominated successor is given the title Jinong, although until they ascend to the throne this offers no additional privileges over the titles which they already hold, typically being Khan Khuus. 

These nobles are expected to competently and effectively manage their people, but in practice, the appointment of Boyans and the stripping of privileges from Khans has varied wildly between Khagans, some purely promoting based on merit, while others allow nepotism to run rampant, often with disastrous consequences when ill-suited leaders take power. 

Beneath Boyans and Khans exist the usual expanding strata of a feudal system: Noyans, Nokuds and finally at the very bottom Baygs, who despite not being nobles themselves are nonetheless vital as they represent one or more clans or tribes to those above them. At lower levels of the pyramid roles tend to be more flexible, with some level of democracy and collective organisation very common. Clans and noble houses give rise to internal power jockeying, with particularly wealthy, productive or fertile families seeing their power grow, and other families or even ships absorbed into their orbit. In this way, nobles up to and including the Khans themselves cannot rest on their laurels and must always play a careful balancing act, lest they be deposed and their overlord or even the Great Khagan award their favour to the up-and-coming usurpers.

Beneath the Great Black Sky on Itügen itself, Khaganate culture becomes even more dizzyingly varied. So long as the tribes are loyal, strange governing customs are permitted, which has led to a true flourishing of both traditional and unusual systems of organisation. A tribe may rule itself through anything from 'might makes right' warbands lead by the strongest warriors to those who follow the cryptic commands of salvaged AIs or operate under a loosely democratic council. 

Technology Overview:
The Khaganate has a complex relationship with technology. On the one hand, much of what they excel in would be considered sensible extensions of tech from old Earth; they are excellent engineers and aeronautics specialists, masters of not only living in, but even colonising some of the harshest reaches of the Tengri system. The Khaganate can manufacture vast quantities of sophisticated yet rugged ships, crack down deep into the deadened crusts of uninhabitable planets to carve out oases of life and set up vast stations producing their own gravity through centripetal force…

But none of these advancements would have flourished and spread across the system nearly as quickly without a foundation entirely outside of humanity: the precursor’s archeotech. Such relics run the gamut from relatively understandable and simple, if extremely advanced, to obscure and dangerous artifacts that violate preconceived notions about how the universe functions (an issue which causes the more esoteric devices to have a hostile relationship with Uzayist fanatics.) 

Early on in Khaganate history, archeotech diffused out slowly from the Steppe up to the stars, where that which was able to be deciphered then, in turn, spread out across the disunited communities. Nowadays, archeotech recovered by the tribes is usually traded or gifted as tribute to the cities, where it is carefully catalogued and transferred to orbital research stations. The best, safest and least replaceable relics are transported to the Bai-Ülgen, while those that have the potential for widespread use will be reproduced and dispatched out to the various hordes for further experimentation and research.

The Khaganate’s most important and dedicated research facilities are maintained on the other two planets within Itügen’s ‘band’ of the system. These well-trod worlds provide an important home for R&D of all kinds, both that involve archeotechnology and those that the Khaganate explores without ancient assistance. While innovation does occur across the entire system, these are the beating heart of their academia.

Military Overview:
Although certainly a warlike and quarrelsome people, the actual military capacity of the Khaganate against another spacefaring nation would be surprisingly limited… At first. Historically Khagans have been very against the mass-production of ship-to-ship weaponry, leaving the majority of actual warships isolated to the Golden and Silver Horde. However, nothing is stopping the manufactories of the Yam from changing production lines to churn out missiles, cannons, and even wholly new vessels, ready and able to defend the Khaganate against aggression.

Similarly, while its ground-based forces are limited to a small minority of dedicated city guards on Itügen and the Kheshigs, it would not be impossible to sweep up tribes of Steppefolk, press them into service and transport them to a warzone, although their difficulties in space would certainly stymie this process. Should they arrive safely though, these warriors would be a fearsome foe indeed, each one raised on a world that seems to spite humanity with its inhospitality, born to fight and armed to the teeth with tech both arcane and understood. Although they would look like a rag-tag bunch compared to a formal army with standardised training and equipment, centuries of constant conflict have left them hardened and battle-ready.

Where the Khaganate would immediately shine is in boarding actions and direct conflict between the crews of vessels. All noble houses maintain standing forces of house guards, and while lesser nobles might content themselves with a small corp of bodyguards, Khans and Boyans will maintain several ships worth of professionally drilled and equipped soldiers, typically drawn from a small number of supplicant Meta-families who have produced generations of soldiers who are understandably proud of this long history of service. Although the Khaganate's equipment might seem unusual to more ground-dwelling nations because they aim to minimise the damage inflicted upon the vessels that they fight within, they are no less effective for that.

The best soldiers are of course under the direct command of the Great Khagan, and to a lesser extent the Khaan. These forces include a great number of traditional houseguards, along with the War-Lords produced to serve in the Kheshigs. Originally envisioned as the personal bodyguards of the Khagan, time, archeotech and the increasing wealth of the Genghises maintaining them has resulted in the Kheshigs growing to the size of a true standing army, serving to defend cities on the Steppe and protect the Bai-Ülgen itself. It is the Kheshigs that are deployed to break the back of mutinying hordes or tribes grown too powerful or too proud to control properly. 

On the Steppe, Kheshigs are viewed as terrible agents of the Khagan's fury. Clad in power armour, armed with terrible weapons, they are to a fault faceless and seemingly silent in battle, executing their liege’s commands without question, hesitation or deviation. Should it be required, they would die for their liege in their droves, and yet more would be drawn to replace them.

If all this fails however, the Khaganate has one last trick up its sleeve. The most awesome power the Khaganate has been able to consistently utilise comes not from archeotech, but from weapons programs tirelessly working under the utmost secrecy in the far ring. Should the Khagan will it, his enemies will find themselves pitted against utter annihilation. 

Ögedei II Khagan, Ruler of the Universe:
The Genghis or High Khagan of the entire Khaganate, Ögedei is the (mostly) unquestioned ruler of the billion-and-some souls who live and die in the system the Khaganate has called home for centuries. Young for a Genghis at only 31, he has nonetheless secured the support of the Khan Khuus after his father's death and proven himself to be a competent and effective ruler in all the ways that are required for a feudal liege. With the Gateways opening, he and his Golden Horde have seized the opportunity to migrate to the Sol system, and his flagship of the Bai-Ülgen now looms large in Mars' orbit.

Orda Khan, Admiral of the White Horde:
Elder brother to Genghis and foremost of the Khan-Kuus, Orda Khan shares some traits with his brother, but diverges in just as many. Canny, cunning and power hungry, he seeks to, if not subvert the Genghis' rule over the Khaganate entirely, at least establish the White Horde as a truly semi-autonomous entity, over which he can reign in peace. Such a dream long seemed impossible... Until the Gateways opened, and a galaxy of potential with them.

Boraqchin Khaantus, Governor of the Steppe:
It is uncommon within the Hordes for women to reach the upper echelons, but not impossible, and none demonstrate this better than Boraqchin Khaantus, the current ruler of the Steppe in the Khagan's absence. Formerly the first wife of a Golden Horde Boyan, her unusually quick mind and excellent grasp of practical rule led to the previous Genghis taking notice of her, and when her husband passed away, she was appointed as Gonji of the Steppe, ascending to the position half a decade prior to Ögedei's ascension from Jinong to Great Khagan.

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