Children of the Wandering Wind
The nomadic peoples of the steppes live on the edge of the Hanged Man Desert: they never cross it, but they know every breath of it. Their paths open and close following the seasons and the memory of the soil: in winter they descend to the coasts of the Glimmering Steppes, where the sea softens the cold and the halted marshes offer clearings and fish; in summer they rise again to the outer rim of the desert, seeking salt flats, temporary springs, and pastures made accessible by the long heat. They never venture toward the center of the desert: ancient wisdom holds that “there is something at the center” — a mute voice, a void that devours tracks — and the caravan respects that taboo as though it were law.
They travel on foot, in lines that move slowly like a prayer, pulling enormous wagons with colossal wheels: houses on wheels, family chests, water skins, portable altars, and beasts that know the rhythms of the road. The wagons are not just storage: they are carved maps — beams etched with marks that tell of passages, losses, and safe routes; every incision a story, every scar a memory. When a caravan halts, the tents unfold and a temporary village is born; the land is touched with care: fires are regulated so as not to consume the pasture, delicate roots are left unharmed, and the routes always return to a shared workshop of knowledge.
Their customs are rooted in observation and communion with the landscape, never slipping into the supernatural. They listen to the wind, for the wind carries news: it knows when the sand shifts, when the dust of salt approaches, which direction the rains will take. Elders teach the young to “read” the sand, as a science handed down: footprints that reveal the pace of animals, lines that show the last glimmers of underground moisture, the lay of the dunes that foretells storms. They sing the routes in verses called songlines: rhymes that mark stones, pools, and banks; a way to pass on memory without relying on fragile maps.
The sacred resource is water, and around it revolve the rules that bind the community together: the first sip of a new source is offered to elders and guests, then to children; each family keeps a waterskin tied with knots marking its level — the knots are untied in turn, as a sign of trust. The burial mounds of the caravans, the “marks,” are not only gravestones: they are buried reference points, signals for those who will return. Farewell rites are sober — a hand on the wheel, a handful of sand placed upon the heart of the dying — reflections of a culture that knows the earth keeps all that is entrusted to it.
Their bond with the desert is both practical and spiritual. The nomads care for the soil as one would care for a relative: they sow plants that hold back dust, dig and seal pools where water would otherwise vanish too quickly. They do not see themselves as masters but as temporary custodians: they pass through, take only what is needed, and leave traces that tell of their passage without consuming the land. When the caravan reaches the edge of a vast sandy expanse, the rite of “Return to Dust” is performed: personal amulets are rubbed with sand, and the cycle begins again.
Among their most intimate habits are the watches of the night: one lies down with face against the ground and listens to the night, learning to recognize the breathing of the earth; another checks the line of the stars already at dawn, for the direction of travel finds confirmation in the signs of the sky. Children learn to stitch tents, repair wheels, strengthen beams: nothing is seen as an aesthetic virtue, everything as a necessity of survival that becomes beauty. And when a life ends along the road, the rite is simple and communal: the caravan raises a small mound, places the amulet of the deceased within it, and carves the family mark into the wood of the nearest wagon — for the journey does not erase the dead, it delivers them to the road that keeps on singing.
Common saying of the nomads
“Those who do not listen to the sand are lost before nightfall.”
"Each soul finds its path. Some encounter calm, others chaos. Death comes, but how we face it is ours to choose."
Serath Eilun, chapter IX