✅ This article contains no significant spoilers for Book 1. Minor Snow March references are historical background.
“Once you fight for us, you are one of us.”
— Galenus the First, founder of the Midland Empire; quoted by Empress Maren De Valoren before the Warden Council
Type: Imperial ally; semi-autonomous eastern vassal
Region: The Expanse — vast open steppe east of the Empire’s border
Climate: Continental; harsh winters, hot summers, relentless wind
People: Steppe riders; light-eyed, weathered; long drooping moustaches, shaved beards
Religion: The War Faith (Kheera cult) alongside Wind-Caller shamanism
Military: Horseback archers and cavalry; formidable; employ Wind-Callers in the field
Status: Full internal autonomy; reduced tax obligation; Creed exemption by Imperial decree
Notable: Vanguard of Empress Maren’s Snow March; regarded by northern baronies as the Empire’s most scandalous alliance
The Rulen live in the Expanse — the great sweep of open steppe that lies east of the Empire’s borders, where the horizon is a permanent and serious fact and the sky seems larger than it has any business being. The landscape is grassland and wind and, in winter, snow and wind. The summers run hot and dry. The winters are violent. Between the two, there is riding, and fighting, and the Kheera’s business, which amounts to much the same thing.
There are no cities in the Rulen sense of the word. Settlements exist — the largest of which the Empire’s cartographers have labelled in a series of increasingly uncertain approximations — but the Rulen relationship with fixed geography is casual at best. They follow the season, the herd, and the campaign. The idea of a wall built to keep you in one place strikes most Rulen as a reasonable definition of imprisonment, which is perhaps why they have never built one.
The Rulen joined the Midland Empire as vassals approximately ninety years before the reign of Empress Maren — which is to say, they were incorporated by an emperor who was reasonably energetic about expansion and less energetic about the question of what incorporation meant in practice. The Rulen accepted the arrangement because the trade access was worth having and because the emperor did not push further than trade access required. They considered the terms provisional. Several subsequent emperors attempted to clarify this.
The attempts at clarification ranged from neglect to active management. The neglectful emperors were forgiven quickly. The active ones were forgiven more slowly. The Creed sent preachers to explain the Sovereign’s order to people who already had a goddess they found perfectly satisfactory. The Order of Confessors followed, because the Creed’s preachers had reported back with an accurate account of how well the conversion effort was proceeding. Neither institution made progress that a fair observer would call progress.
The reign of Emperor Marius — genuinely poor by any honest measure — gave the Rulen reason to do what they had been considering. They rebelled. It was suppressed, eventually, at a cost on both sides that made the Imperial court reluctant to document the full accounting. A pro-Imperial chieftain — a ride-lord, in Rulen terms — was established in authority. The situation returned to its previous state of managed unease.
What changed it was the Snow March.
When Empress Maren rode north through the passes in the dead of winter to break the Mountain Confederation — an operation her advisors considered somewhere between desperate and impossible, and which her opponents had relied upon being considered exactly that — she took Rulen riders in her vanguard.
They were not ordered to the front. They were given the hard position and the hard weather and the hard task, and they took all three without complaint. Maren noted, and has not forgotten, that where Imperial regular cavalry grumbled at the conditions and Imperial foot soldiers cursed the snow, the Rulen were satisfied. A winter campaign through killing cold with the Empress at its head was, to the War Faith’s understanding of a good life, something close to a gift. Some of them died of the cold in front of her. None of them asked to be relieved.
The Snow March succeeded. The Rulen vanguard’s contribution was a material reason why.
What followed victory was not the return to managed unease. Maren negotiated the current terms personally and made them clear.
Full internal autonomy: the Empire does not govern what happens in the Expanse. Rulen law, Rulen custom, Rulen faith — Imperial jurisdiction stops at the border. Tax obligations were reduced to a rate the Rulen consider reasonable and the Imperial treasury considers the cost of reliable cavalry. Military participation continues by mutual interest rather than coercion, which has produced considerably better military participation than coercion ever managed.
The Creed was told to leave them alone. This last provision was not included in the official documentation and did not require documentation; Maren communicated it to the Warden Council in terms that did not invite dispute.
The Warden Council, for its part, was not satisfied.
The exchange between Maren and the High Warden of the Creed on the subject of the War Faith has not been published. It is nonetheless known, in the way that things said in the highest rooms of power are always eventually known, to those who pay attention to such things.
“Your Majesty.” The High Warden’s tone was that of a man who had prepared carefully and intended to be heard. “This is unacceptable. The Order has laboured for nearly a century toward the salvation of these people from their horrid beliefs. To abandon that mission now — to place it under Imperial restriction — it is contrary to everything the Creed stands for.”
“Did you succeed?” Maren asked. “In the century.”
A pause. “Such things take time, Majesty. The conversion of deeply embedded traditions —”
“Did you succeed much?”
“No. But we could not lower our hands from a task of such spiritual urgency. The War Faith is not merely a primitive religion, Majesty. It is an abomination. Kheera — their goddess of war and death, mark that, death — teaches that a man should die only in battle. They celebrate killing. And when there is no war conveniently to hand, do you know what they do? They hold tournaments. Combat festivals. They murder each other, publicly, in her service.” He let the silence work. “The Empire outlaws brutal sacrifice and unlawful magical practice. And yet this is permitted?”
“I agree with you,” Maren said.
The Warden blinked.
“Personally,” she continued. “This religion is, without doubt, wholly beneath the Imperial Creed. Nothing like the spiritual depth of your theology. Your latest treatise on the balance of order and mercy that the Divine Sovereign demands of us — I read it. Considerable work.” She paused one beat. “But personal faith, however deep, is not an Imperial matter.”
“We are the Imperial Creed, Majesty.”
“Exactly.” She glanced toward the window, where the crimson banner caught the afternoon light. “And please remember what is written on that banner.”
He was silent. He remembered, of course. He simply preferred not to say it aloud.
“Loyalty above differences.” She turned back to him. “That is what the Empire stands on. And in terms of loyalty — the Rulen have proven theirs to the utmost degree. When I marched through the killing cold of the mountain passes, it was death-worshipping Rulen who rode beside me in the vanguard. Not simply obeying orders. Glad of the posting. Proud to be given a task that hard and that glorious. None of them complained. Though some died of the cold in front of me.” She held his gaze. “So I will remind you once more of our Imperial motto, Lord Warden. Or, as my ancestor Galenus the First put it: once you fight for us, you are one of us. And the Rulen fight for us better than anyone. As long as the line of De Valoren holds this throne, that will be remembered.”
The Warden said nothing. His expression was not warm.
“We will ensure,” Maren continued, “that the War Cult does not spread into the wider Imperial population. You have the Confessors for exactly that task. My officials will support and fund the effort fully. But the Rulen — their faith, however strange, is under my protection. Any action against that war goddess of theirs — whatever her name — is an action against me. I would ask you to be clear on that point.”
The audience was concluded.
The Creed has been clear on that point ever since.
Kheera is red-haired, beautiful, and joyful, and she wears a necklace of skulls. She is not a grim death deity in the mould of the cold figures Imperial theology fears; she is a warrior’s dream made divine — radiant, dangerous, and entirely without sorrow about the fact that death in combat is the finest end a person can reach. Her worshippers do not dread her. They aspire to her notice.
The War Faith holds that a warrior’s death in honourable combat is the highest completion of a life, the moment at which Kheera herself receives a soul as a gift fit for a goddess. A natural death — age, illness, accident — is mourned as waste rather than sorrow. Death in battle is celebrated as arrival. This theology produces people who approach combat with an enthusiasm that opponents find profoundly difficult to account for.
What the Creed’s description of Kheera’s cult omits is its moral content. The War Faith is not a license for violence. It is a framework for violence with strict conditions. Kheera demands honourable enemies and honourable conduct. She does not receive the slaughter of the helpless. To harm an unarmed person, a child, a prisoner who has yielded — this is not violence, in the War Faith’s terms; it is impurity, an offence against the goddess, a disqualification from her favour. A Rulen warrior who kills without honour has not served Kheera. He has simply killed, which is the act of an animal.
This produces a paradox that Imperial visitors to the Expanse tend to notice without being able to fully explain: a people whose religion centres on killing are, in their treatment of the weak, considerably more restrained than many cultures whose religion prohibits it. The Rulen do not prey on the defenceless. It is beneath them. It is also below the goddess’s threshold of interest.
The tournament combat — those public displays that scandalise the Creed most reliably — follow strict rules. Participants are willing. The outcome is accepted. When a Rulen warrior defeats an unworthy opponent, he will often decline the kill: “You do not yet deserve Kheera’s touch. Recover. Train. Come fight me properly.” This is not mercy in the Imperial sense of the word. It is a higher standard, delivered without softness.
An especially beautiful or hard-fought duel is called a Kheera’s dance.
Alongside the War Faith, the Rulen maintain the practice of Wind-Callers: shamanic practitioners who commune with spirits of nature — wind, stone, water, the life of the open steppe — through ecstatic ritual and the deep knowledge of the Expanse’s spiritual geography.
The Wind-Callers hold that Kheera herself is the greatest of the nature spirits — the chief and sovereign among them — which makes the two traditions compatible in a way that has never required formal resolution. The goddess and the spirits share a world. The shamans who speak to the spirits speak, ultimately, toward Kheera.
In practice, Wind-Callers accompany Rulen warbands and are among the most formidable field shamans in the known world. Their powers are imprecise by Conclave standards, erratic by Conclave assessment, and extremely effective by the assessment of anyone who has fought against them. Storm callers, terrain readers, wind-riders who give horseback archers advantages no formation is trained to account for. The Conclave classifies them technically as shamans — which carries relatively mild prohibitions under the Codex — while quietly acknowledging that a Wind-Caller at the head of a cavalry charge is not the same problem as a hill-village herbalist.
Their legal status within the Empire is genuinely unusual. They are not classified as magical practitioners under the Codex, by virtue of a legal argument accepted under political pressure and maintained with mutual discomfort by both parties.
The Rulen fighter is a horseback fighter, full stop. On foot, they are formidable enough. On horseback, in the formations they have spent generations developing, they are something an opposing general sees once and does not approach lightly the second time.
The standard arms: a curved sabre and a short pike for close work; a short recurved bow for the approach. Their horseback archers can loose accurate shots at full gallop and at ranges that give infantry no useful response. A large company of Rulen horse archers advancing on an open field is, by experienced military assessment, unstoppable by almost any conventional response. The exception is battle mages — and even mages require positioning, protection, and time, none of which are abundant when mounted archers have chosen their moment.
They are recognisable at distance before they reach it. The men shave their beards and leave long, drooping moustaches — the moustache reaching in some veterans past the jawline entirely. Round caps, short cloaks edged with fur, practical clothes built for long time in the saddle across cold steppe. Nothing decorative beyond the moustache, which is decoration enough.
The current Rulen attitude toward the Midland Empire can be described simply: the Empire is the world’s largest warband, and Maren De Valoren is the most powerful warchief alive. It is, therefore, an honour and a sensible occupation to fight for her.
The War Faith’s theology maps naturally onto this view. A great chieftain worth following is a blessing. A hard campaign in deadly conditions is a blessing. An empress who remembers what you did and rewards it accordingly is something close to extraordinary — proof that the world is, occasionally, fair.
After the Snow March and the settlement that followed, Maren’s status among the Rulen shifted into something the Empire’s administrative language has no precise term for. The word the northern baronies use — scandalised, delivered as an accusation — is that some Rulen believe she is an avatar of Kheera. Whether this is theological seriousness or affectionate hyperbole is not easily determined from outside. The Rulen themselves seem unbothered by the ambiguity.
The Widow Empress’s friendship with the Easterlings is, and remains, one of the primary counts against her in the north. The northern Wild Baronies — Harenmark, Lagergart, and their neighbours — consider the alliance evidence of southern corruption and cultural collapse. That Maren would take horse-riding Easterlings as allies is, in their view, exactly the kind of thing that happens when a dark-haired southerner sits the throne.
The Rulen are informed of this view and consider the source.
🔒 INTERNAL NOTES (Remove before publishing)
Real-world inspirations: Mongol / Steppe confederation model for structure and military character. War Faith draws on: Warhammer 40K’s Khorne cult (warrior honour code, but explicitly not evil), Viking death ethos (dying in battle as best death), Kali/Durga cult from Hinduism (fierce goddess, skulls, but protective and principled). The moral content — no violence against the weak — is crucial for making the War Faith sympathetic rather than cartoonishly savage. Preserve this in any scene involving Rulen characters.
Kheera’s appearance: red-haired, beautiful, joyful, necklace of skulls. She is not depicted as grim or sinister. The skull necklace is trophy and honour marker, not horror. Her aesthetics should be warm and martial, not dark.
The tournament combat: Rulen periodically hold fighting tournaments if there’s insufficient actual combat. This is what the High Warden specifically calls out as “murder in service to a horrible deity.” From the War Faith’s internal perspective it is a structured, consenting, religiously meaningful practice. Both characterisations are accurate. The wiki presents both without resolving which is more correct.
The bishop dialogue: used as the source for the Maren/Warden section. Dramatised slightly for prose. Key lines preserved verbatim in spirit: the motto quote, the “some of them died of cold in front of me” detail, the protection declaration. Maren’s voice should read as it does in the novel — precise, cold, decisive, not cruel.
Wind-Callers legal status: unique case in the Conclave / non-Conclave magic legal framework. They avoid classification as magical practitioners through a legal fiction both sides maintain for political reasons. The Conclave knows perfectly well what they are. They have decided not to say so formally. This tension could be useful in future plots involving Conclave / Rulen conflict.
Maren as Kheera avatar: this belief exists among some Rulen. It is in-world fact that some believe this. It is not confirmed or denied in the wiki. Leave open.
Northern barony contempt: “the Widow is friends with the Easterlings” is a live complaint in Harenmark, Lagergart, and the northern baronies. The Rulen are aware they are considered the Empire’s most scandalous alliance. They have opinions about the north that they express through the medium of being able to ride a horse very fast.
Military note: “unstoppable by almost anything except battle mages” — confirmed. A large company of Rulen horse archers on open ground requires magical counter. This is significant for B2+ military scenes.
Cross-references: → non-conclave-magic.md (Wind-Callers), imperial-creed.md (War Faith legal status), maren.md (Snow March), harenmark.md, lagergart.md, wild-baron-lands.md
Your content here
This article is about a People / Faction
| World Overview | World Index |
| Peoples | Human / Empire · The Three Races |