Life in Tomarr is a journey from past to present and on into the future. The Tomarrans’ ancestors worked and fought and bled so that the present generation might live and prosper, and the Tomarrans of today will work and fight and bleed to ensure that their descendants will be able to do the same. To understand the people of the Steppe, one must first understand the all-encompassing perspective they hold — that everything is part of the Great Balance; that each individual is but a speck of dust in the great cycle of Creation; and that if an individual wishes to make a difference upon that vast tapestry, they must do all in their power to ensure that their kith and kin are able to prosper well after they are gone*.*
The concept of the Great Balance plays a fundamental role in Tomarran culture and thought — that every force must be balanced by an opposite one, and that it is the interplay and continual balancing between these forces that keep the world working as it is. Tomarrans believe that mortals can only hope to harness these cycles, never to control or arrest them, and that only devastation and misery will result should any of these cycles of balance be disrupted. Because of all this, Tomarrans focus heavily on maintaining balance in their lives and actions. They strive to be peaceful, but are ruthlessly effective when they go to war. They are orderly and believe deeply in the value of tradition, but always seek to maintain an attitude of spontaneity and open-mindedness. They cling tightly to life and seek to achieve as much as they can in what little time they have, but view their own lives as but one note in the song that begun with their oldest ancestors. To outsiders, Tomarrans seem like a contradiction; to the Tomarrans, this focus on balance is the only way they could imagine living.
Tradition defines life in the Steppe and the Tomarrans who live there. Tomarrans treasure the wisdom of the past, believing that what has worked for previous generations is likely to work for them, as well. The traditions passed down by a Tomarran’s Kith and by the elders who teach them their Calling are held as sacred, and changing them requires serious thought and very good reason. Similarly, ancestry and family are a crucial part of a Tomarran’s identity, providing both a foundation on which to create their own identity and a vital support structure that helps them figure out what Calling they wish to pursue in life. A Tomarran’s ancestors are worshipped with similar fervency as the Saints of the Gods, and every Kith has a shrine to its ancestors, for its members to pay homage to them and ask for advice and inner strength. The elders of their Kith and Calling are respected as being closest to the revered ancestors, and their voices hold great sway amongst the younger members of the community, regardless of what official positions an elder might hold.
Tomarrans are a peaceful folk, by and large; while they may bicker loudly and passionately, few are the Tomarrans who will turn an argument into a brawl or duel. Tomarrans seek to ensure that conflict is actually necessary, that no peaceful solutions will work, before they resort to violence. When that line is crossed, though, they seek to ensure that they win, regardless of what they must do to achieve victory. Honor is an important value in peaceful society, and something that Tomarrans seek to maintain even in times of war or conflict. However, in the eyes of a Tomarran, the death of their Kith or suffering of their people is a worse outcome than any kind of personal dishonor; this has led to their saying “Honor makes no difference to the dead,” implying that any measures are allowed if they are necessary to ensure your people’s survival, no matter how dishonorable they might be.
This perspective, that the survival and prosperity of the many far outweighs the honor and lives of the few, also plays into the Tomarran view of life and death. The Great Balance teaches that death is just a part of life, and should be valued for its role in keeping the world moving forward. In the Tomarran view, death is something that will inevitably come, and that should be accepted and even welcomed when it does. It is the end, just as birth is the beginning, and everything that is part of the Great Balance must have its beginning and ending no matter how great or small it is. This philosophy, taught to every Tomarran child, is part of what drives them to treasure and protect their Kith and Clan as they do — death may claim them, but their family will live on and remember them for centuries after they are gone. Their ancestors live on through them, and they will live on through the descendants of their Kith, until the end of the Great Balance itself.
However, this focus on the future is no excuse for slacking off in the present. Tomarrans have a keen interest in proving what they are capable of and doing what they can to make their own personal mark upon the world before they leave it. Even if someone has no interest in making a mark on history, Tomarrans see it as a personal failing if they don’t keep working to improve their own lot and that of their Kith and Clan, no matter how incrementally they do so; stagnation is the worst form of surrender to Order, and should never be tolerated. This drive to excel, to prove themselves able to contribute and worthy of recognition by their Kith and Clan, is a thread that runs throughout Tomarran life; it may not be the defining part of every person or decision, but it’s always there, quietly nudging them to never rest upon their laurels.
What do the Tomarrans value in people?
The bonds they make matter to the Tomarrans. Freedom is not found in having no bonds to anything else — it lies in choosing the things that bind you. Your Kith and Clan of birth can be changed, if you believe that you cannot fit with their traditions, but the bonds you choose to make with others should be honored above all else besides the Clan. The Tomarrans hold fast to the relationships they make, swearing oaths (of friendship, alliance, enmity, and more) to cement them, and view betrayal of those bonds as being just as much of a sacrilege as betrayal of the Clan.
To protect your loved ones, your people, your way of life, you must be willing to face the threats against them. It’s this kind of bone-deep courage that sees someone pick up a kitchen knife to gut an intruder in their home, or take up an old and rusty spear and ride off to join a warband when their Hipparch calls for aid. The Tomarrans don’t favor performative courage or wasteful risks, but there’s a deep-seated unwillingness to turn away or run from threats to that which they hold dear that runs through their entire culture.
In the eyes of Tomarrans, wisdom is an understanding of your place in the world, in the movement of the Clans and the peoples of the Steppe, and within the Great Balance as a whole. It is a knowledge of the Clans’ histories, of the why and when and how of the traditions that have been followed since days immemorial. It is an unbroken chain of lore and perspective that has held the Kith and Clans together and kept them strong, even in the worst times of the Age of Thunder or the Vauldan Empire’s occupation of the Steppe. Most importantly, wisdom lies in knowing when to hold fast to that tradition, and when it is right and necessary to change a tradition to guide the Clans into the future.
The Steppe is not a place where the weak survive for long. Worse yet, weakness brings down those around you, as you take up resources that could have gone to making the Clan stronger. In the early days of the Clans, physical might and prowess were what determined whether a Clan could survive a winter, whether through raiding or hunting. In modern times, however, this has shifted to one of general capability — the Tomarrans consider someone’s ability to contribute as the key factor in how “strong” or “weak” they are, not simply their physical fitness. Failure or unwillingness to help the Clan is seen as weakness, and viewed as a hollowing out of your worth as a person.
There is not enough of anything except for empty space on the Steppe. The Tomarrans have long since adopted a stance of never letting any resource go to waste, husbanding and tending to whatever renewable resources they have with near-fanatical care, and carefully conserving any finite resources they have in their possession. They are careful shepherds of their herds and the hunting grounds across the Steppe, and religiously maintain and repair their equipment and buildings. They view garments, tools, and weapons that have been repurposed from their original form as being of higher inherent value than something freshly-crafted, seeing the wear and tear on something that is still useful as making it more beautiful, rather than less.
Risks are only worth taking if you have a plan to deal with their failure. Tomarrans aren’t risk-averse, per se, but they view casual recklessness such as the Jadefang corsairs often engage in as rank foolishness that puts not just the person engaging in it at risk but also those closest to them. Even the calculated gambles of the Skaldings and Sundalfolk are viewed with skepticism — the Tomarrans see that kind of risk-taking as unnecessary except in the direst of circumstances, vastly preferring to find means to an end that are more assured, rather than risking failure with no plan to deal with the consequences.
Tomarran names take the form of a personal first name, a matronymic middle name, and a familial last name that is identical to the name of their Kith. Their names have a Slavic feel to them, and can be adapted from any Slavic-sounding name generator. There is also a sizable Dwarven population amongst the Clans, and so Dwarven first and middle names are fairly common as well.
There are three rules for creating a Tomarran name:
So, for example, Iryna, daughter of Hana, of the Karpenke Kith, would be named Iryna Hanavna Karpenke; Damir, son of Zlata, of the Rashozve Kith, would be named Damir Zlatavich Rashozve.
Many Tomarrans leave off their middle names when doing business or introducing themselves; those names tend to be used only when reciting someone’s full name for formal or familial occasions or for telling apart two people from the same Kith who have the same first name.
The Dwarven Clans are a major political power in Tomarr, functioning as massive Kiths of their own. As such, many Dwarven Tomarrans who choose to work primarily for their Dwarven Clan rather than a mixed-Lineage Kith frequently use their Clan’s name (with the usual “do’” prefix) as their last name in place of their Kith name.
Orphans and children who for whatever reason do not know their mother's name are usually given the matronymic “Levovych” or “Levivna,” from the Skytongue word for “lion.”