The Origin of the Daizu

Of all the tribes of the humans across all of Erenth, those who would come to be called Daizu were the least likely to prosper. Nothing in their earliest existence would lead anyone to believe they could establish the most feared military presence in Eastrun, nor rule over the greatest geographical footprint in the world. 

Primitive even by Nandi standards, the Daizu were once culturally impoverished and militarily weak. They had no songs, nor legends; no artwork, nor ceremony. Their women did not weave baskets, nor make pottery. Their men did not raise monuments, nor memorialize heroes. 

They did not dig graves, paint caves, nor have anything  approaching a permanent habitation. For this reason, when the Vyrum looked for Nandi to use as servants, they avoided the Daizu as too bestial. The tribe might have disappeared quietly were it not for an accident of fate. 

In the Sixth Age, the mounted cavalier of the Vyrum bred horses. But those that did not take to the rider and saddle; and those which would not tilt with lance; and those who had any defect of appearance were turned loose from the Alds. 

In Eastrun, the horses ran free and without natural predators, they prospered. By the dissolution of the empire, there were vast herds breeding in the steppes of Eastrun. 

It is true that many of the Nandi tribes domesticated these horses, but most saw them as livestock. Those that didn't used them as transportation, or as beasts of burden. It was the Daizu alone who had the distinction of riding the beasts into battle. 

The rejected mounts of the Vyrum found their original purpose with the Daizu. Though it was not with lance or sword, but with javelins. From horseback the Daizu learned to raid and retreat, attack and flee. With such tactics, they were a match for more advanced tribes who boasted foot soldiers and archery. 

Because the Daizu could stretch their campaigns over hours, they never allowed their enemy to rest. Eventually, battlefield successes would win the tribe those tools which they could not make.

The Shen (elves) of Eastrun were the first to surrender before the Daizu. They became a vassal tribe which paid tribute by providing their masters with horn short bows. This proved to be the missing piece of the puzzle for the mounted warriors. When the Daizu broke out upon the plains as archer cavalry, they could not be seriously challenged. 

From one or two flung javelins at relatively close range; they graduated to delivering a withering hail of arrows at distance. When the horse and bow were combined with solid tactics, no tribe could withstand them and no others could lead them. 

At the dawn of the 7th Age, in many parts of Erenth, the humans who had once been captives of the Vyrum were accounted as nobility. These Meni were well-trained in administration and governance. They had weapons and language and books that their less civilized Nandi cousins lacked. But in Eastrun the Meni did not prosper for long. Like the Shen and the Korobokuru the civilized tribes of men fell to the Daizu. 

There are cities in Eastrun. They only survive because the tribute they pay the Daizu. Not one bolt of silk goes West and not one pound of iron goes East without the say so of the Daizu.