Gožyaries

The Gožyaries, formally the Confederation of the Gožyaries, is a located in East Alutra. It is bordered by Martland and Chijeragne to the south, Aquizireiki to the west, Ecoralia and Lathadu to the north and the Sedic Sea to the east, across which it shares a maritime border with Salia.

Etymology
The term Gožyar first appears as a demonym in the time of the Wizkanian Empire, in the form Goz̧ar, the Wizkanian rendering of the proto-Gožyar word for “horseman” from gož, meaning “horse” or “to ride” and -yar, an agent suffix. The term was initially used by the proto-Gožyars to refer to their auxiliary cavalry, the most respected military unit they contributed to the empire, and was adopted by the Wizkanians. Eventually, the term was broadened to include all proto-Gožyar soldiers fighting for Wizkania, and then it was extended to the proto-Gožyars as an ethnic group. The word Goz̧ar survives to this day as the Modern Vojanak demonym for a Gožyar, and another Modern Vojanak word, kăszar, meaning "cavalryman," also finds its origin in this ancient loan.

Pre-history
The origin of the Gožyar people is still a matter of debate among archaeologists and geneticists, however it has long been theorized that they may be the descendants of the first anatomically modern humans to inhabit Eastern Alutra. They do remain somewhat genetically distinct from all of their neighbors and they speak a language isolate. However, these differences are fairly muddled after thousands of years of intermingling with other peoples as they migrated into Eastern Alutra, and the vast majority of modern Gožyar people share a common ancestry with other Eastern Alutrans. Despite this, these trivial genetic distinctions and the traceable Paleolithic character of their language—such as the presence of the root word for “stone” in Gožyar words like “axe” and “knife”—and presence on the continent has led to the long-held misconception that the Gožyar people are “living fossils” of the earliest modern humans to settle Alutra—a misconception perpetuated by many Gožyar people as some kind of point of cultural pride.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the modern Gožyar people have some relation to other prehistoric peoples such as those of the Old Gundahar culture in what is now Ordrey and the Cayr, Marrinagh and Crayee cultures of what is now Lathadu. There are two predominant theories. The first is that the Gožyar people existed alongside these other peoples as part of an array of pre-Sedic cultures. The second is that the Gožyar people are part of a continuum of these cultures that evolved and intermingled after being driven south by the migrations of the Sedes and became what are now the Gožyar people.

Whatever their origins, archaeological discoveries of the last century have revealed what was long suspected: that the Gožyar people used to cover a significantly broader expanse of the region, particularly to the south and west, before the subsequent migrations of the Sedes and Aquizi by land and the Martes by sea. In fact, a substantial number of Martic, Aquizi, Chijerois and Izlegalian places derive their name from old Gožyar words.

Antiquity
What little is known about the people who would become the Gožyars in the time before the rise of the Wizkanian Empire comes from what of their myths and legendary accounts can be substantiated by archaeology or other primary sources. Many of these early proto-Gožyar narratives demonstrate the impact of the migrations of the other Alutran peoples into the region; invasion, distrust of outsiders, the search for a new home and the preservation of culture and religion are some common themes. Additionally, the old Gožyar gods often play an active and even central role in these narratives. Many of the tribes mentioned in these early writings also seem to appear in the records of the Wizkanian Empire.

The first instance of a large amount of proto-Gožyar tribes being united under one polity occurred in the Wizkanian Empire, which covered much of the proto-Gožyar territory in southeastern Alutra. Most of the tribes in what are now Izlegal, Aquizireiki and the western Gožyaries became client states of the Wizkanian Empire, and eventually the Wizkanian military would be composed mostly of troops from these disparate tribes. Their prominence in the military would ultimately lead to a surprising amount of authority in Wizkania being wielded de facto by Gožyar military officials and soldiers, despite them holding no real de jure legal power, and the Gožyars would be the only subject ethnic group to remain loyal en masse during the empire's collapse. Additionally, many Wizkanian Gožyar warlords would go on to carve out successor states in the aftermath, claiming to be defending and carrying on the legacy of the empire.

Around 74 BC, the first Aquizi emerged out of Ecoralia and migrated into the lands of the Gožyars. Infighting amongst themselves, as well as with Wizkanian and Međaczi polities claiming to be successors to the empire, led to a series of losses to the Aquizi, and eventually most Gožyar principalities in the inland river valleys of modern-day Aquizireiki and northern Chijeragne would be destroyed, leaving their populace to either migrate to the surviving Gožyaries in the mountains and along the coast or to assimilate with the invading populations. It is during this time that the first instances of Gožyar princes swearing fealty to the Sedic Confederacy occurred, and various principalities would continue to swear such nominal fealty to the Sedes in exchange for aid against the Aquizis until the confederacy's decline and eventual collapse.

Sometime during the decline of the confederacy, the semi-mythical king Eayalmad—the Gundiagh form of the reconstructed Ëyalumad, of unknown meaning—led a large Gožyar army on an extraordinary raiding campaign into the south of Sedic territory. For much of the confederacy’s decline, Gožyar chieftains focused on pilfering the dying polity, on whose former prosperity they grew quite fat. There were even brief periods in which Gožyar chieftains held power over some of the southernmost settlements of modern-day Lathadu. These successes, however minor, and the newfound absence of a large threat to the north allowed the many Gožyar tribes to be consolidated under only a few principalities.

In the early 9th century, Proto-Martic settlers from modern day Ventora arrived on the Serpentine coast, first establishing semi-permanent trade settlements. The Martes' primary intention was peaceful trade, and their relations with the Gožyars remained calm. When their settlements and trade routes expanded, they came under threat from Aquizi raids. This mutual enemy led to a further stabilization of the association between the Gožyar natives and the Martic settlers, with Gožyar tribes often entering into relationships somewhere between military alliance and mercenary army with the colonies. It did not take long for the Aquizi to adopt this pratice, and the employment of Gožyar cavalry by foreign polities soon became a common tradition throughout the Serpentines and even beyond. It was from this relationship that the use of the term 'Gožyar' to describe the ethnic group first arose, as it was initially simply the Gožyar name for a cavalryman. Because foreigners primarily interacted with Gožyars in this capacity, the term was soon extrapolated to refer to the whole of those disparate tribes, which previously had no single shared name, identifying primarily with individual tribe.