Toor (political entity)

A toor /tʊər/ was a nomadic political entity in the second revolution in Tarnaria, sometimes referred to as a "traveling kingdom". The name originates from a Jabi word "toor" which means "warrant granted through vision". One of the Five Kings, Gened, referred to the nomadic kingdom he founded as "the true toor", after he and others upended Toor, an early Tarnarian civilization that put high emphasis on the religious justification of power. After the establishment of Stogen in the 2nd CSR, with its strong basis in the Mōroh philosophy, nomadic kingdoms of Tarnaria began to refer to their kingdoms as toors, each claiming a warrant to lead through vision or being able to read the right path (Xaewoon) in the skies.

Traveling kingdoms vs nomadic kingdoms

A common misconception of toors is to view all of them as nomadic peoples, with all the economic and political implications of that. However, in some sense it is more accurate to view them as traveling kingdoms or non-sedentary kingdoms. The difference being that the economies of many toors were actually non-nomadic.

For instance, many toors had permanent encampments and even cities established. Toor's population would be constantly moving between these cities. Such cities forbade owning a house and instead operated as inns of sorts, but inns that would be open only to the citizens of a given toor. A foreigner would require an invitation or a document to stay or pass through. Usually, a citizen of toor would be allowed to live in a city permanently if they are part of a given Murdoh's court. Murdon generally would be permitted to lead a sedentary life in order to run cities and camps. The Gole's army and court would also periodically stay in a city, but Mōroh principles would not allow the court to stay in the city for too long. It was customary for the court to simply establish a pattern and travel between cities of the kingdom all year round.

The "Toor Economic Cycle"

Toor economies tended to cycle through the reliance on their network of sedentary populations to a purely nomadic extortion-style lifestyle.

Initially, economies of many of the toors relied on their packets of sedentary population, as goles wanted real and stable kingdoms. Slavery was also a prominent part of toors' economies, with slaves working in cities, camps and farmlands.

But a more nomadic-based modus operandi also developed. Some toors began to adopt aggressive military tactics in order to extort money and resources from wealthy countries, city states and even other toors. Toor armies would raid cities and immediately retreat, making them pretty much invincible. This forced city states to strike deals with many of the toors and send them payments in order to secure their borders. When such relationships would stabilize, many toors would become invested in the stability of the city states that are sending them payments, which would in turn influence their own politics. Toors acting in the interest of the city states that they raided in the past was common.

However, as toors would become wealthier, many of them would begin to develop from nomadic kingdoms into traveling kingdoms, building permanent encampments and cities. This would lead smaller and more nomadic toors to raid them and eventually upend them, either taking their place or forcing them back into a more nomadic lifestyle.

By the middle of the second revolution many toors would successfully adopt a hybrid approach, by having a strictly nomadic military that would operate separately from the traveling kingdom, to the point that many armies' allegiance would be kept secret, so as to not implicate the more visible kingdom in extortion.

Military

The military was frequently operated separately from the toor by a Bortoh. The role of Bortoh is the invention of Stogen that over the years became transformed into an army counterpart to Murdoh, someone who would be the the army administrator. Jeenor would be reporting directly to Bortoh, while Bortoh would receive orders either from Murdoh or, more commonly, from the gole.

Religion

Adherents of the Mōroh philosophy are following the Xaewoon Green. Xaewoon Blue followers tend to lead a sedentary lifestyle. Thus, the majority of city states of the second revolution were Xaewoon Blue cities and were in a state of constant conflict with toors. This partially prevented large Xaewoon Blue states, since establishing an infrastructure would be difficult. Qep and Mantar were the first regions that managed some sort of autonomy in the second half of the second revolution, with Mantareia becoming the first state proper in Tarnaria after Stogen's destruction of Barud.

Toors tended to claim large territories, although exact borders were vague and usually unenforceable, so travel through toors was largely unrestricted and even relatively safe, especially for smaller parties. A border might be watched with more rigor if there was an ongoing dispute or conflict with a neighboring toor. For example, Darfe Goldoor concentrated a lot of his forces at his northern border due to the feud with Kievan.

However, some toors' economies relied on creating trade routes