Nomadic Caravans

The Caravan

Out on the plains you may come across a nomad camp: a yurt for the leader, small tipis for the rest, a campfire, chests of a working camp's goods, and a fence post with the herd tied to it. Camps keep well clear of villages — these are not settled folk, and they do not overwinter beside those who are.

A camp is a household, and every member has a place in it:

The Caravan Leader

The caravan's merchant and its authority. He keeps the yurt, deals in the goods of the road, and holds the camp together — deciding when the tents come down and where the caravan walks next.

Trade with him for yak wool, salt, dried and cooked meat, hides, and nomad-made gear, including armour and the nomad bow.
Should he fall, the caravan does not scatter. The senior follower steps up and takes his place, inheriting the profession and the responsibility, and the camp carries on under a new leader.

Followers

The ordinary nomads of the household. They keep to the camp while it stands — tending it, sheltering in the tents — and take to the road behind the leader when the caravan moves.

Caravan Guards

Two armed nomads travel with every camp: an archer with the nomad bow, and a brute with the nomad sword and shield. Both wear the full set of nomad armour.

They watch the camp, not the horizon — a guard will not chase a threat far from its people, and it returns to the herd once the danger has passed.
They hunt hostile monsters that come near, and they answer for the whole household: harm any member of the caravan and every guard within earshot will come for you.
A guard's gear is issued, not owned, and rarely survives its death intact. Occasionally a battered piece of nomad kit can be taken from one that falls.

Camp Life

A caravan does not stay. It camps for a few days, then at first light the tents come down — packed whole, with everything inside them still in place — the post is pulled from the ground, the yaks are brought in on their leads, and the household walks. They travel until dusk, and wherever they have reached when the light goes, they pitch camp again: each tent finding its own footing on the ground it lands on, the post driven back in, the herd tethered anew.

The tents are theirs. A camp tent cannot be taken by a player — not broken down, not carried off.

Tents

Nomads sleep under two kinds of roof, both raised on a stripped oak frame:

The Yurt — The round steppe tent, roomy and low. The leader's tent.

The Tipi — Smaller and quicker to raise. What the followers sleep under.

Both are yours to purchase. Set one down and it unrolls into a full shelter you can walk into and furnish. Crouch and take it back and it packs up with its contents intact — the bed you laid, the chest you filled, the decorations you hung all travel with the bundle and reappear exactly as you left them when you pitch it somewhere new. A tent on your back is a home you have not lost.

Yaks

The animal the caravan is built around. Shaggy, sure-footed, and content on ground that would starve other herds.

A yak that knows you can be saddled and ridden, packed with a chest, and dressed in a coloured carpet, and ownership can be signed over to another with a written deed.
All of them can be sheared for wool — brown, grey, or white depending on the beast — and will grow their coat back after grazing. They breed with wheat.

The Caravan Yaks

The domesticated stock — the Brown yak that caravans have and the White yak that can appear with a wandering trader

You can purchase these from their owners.

The Captured Yak

Sometimes you may come across a Gray Yak captured by Bandits. Rescue it and it shall be yours.

Feed it a haybale after wiping out the capturers and he will trust you.

The Wild Herds

These are untameable stock: no hay bale will win them, no saddle will sit on them, and they carry nothing for anyone. They can still be sheared and they will still breed, but they answer to no one.

They are found as a mixed herd — a Gray yak at its head, with a few others and sometimes a calf at foot. And the Gray yak at the head of it is not a gentle animal. Provoke one and it will lower its horns, paw the ground, and charge, hitting harder than you expect and faster than you can outrun. Strike one and the whole herd remembers you for a good while afterwards.

There is one way to bring wild blood into your care: raise it yourself. A calf born of two wild parents, brought up by your hand, grows into a tame animal of its parents' breed — the only path from the mountain herds to a yak that will carry your chest.

Gear of the Nomad Guards

All of these a craftable and purchasable

Nomad / Bandit Armour — A full set of yak-hide gear, sturdier than expected.
Recurve Bow — The recurve bow the guards' archers carry.
Khukuri Sword and Wicker Shield

A Note on Their Lanterns

The white and gray yaks carry lit lanterns through the dark. If you run a dynamic lighting mod, they will cast real light as they walk — that is the intended sight, and Nomad Caravans stays out of its way. For anyone playing without one, there is an option to switch on a simpler light that follows the yak instead. It is off by default but can be toggled in the config.