Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-101.164.138.244-20161228100622/@comment-25841881-20161229171342

The Easterlings, as described by the Facebook page: " So, having revealed that the next update will be an Easterling Update, I am sure you're all eagerly awaiting more information.

The faction we will be adding currently goes under the name "Khaganate of Rhûn". They are inspired by the Easterlings who appear in "The Two Towers" film adaptation, also widely known as the 'Golden Easterlings'. These Easterlings are Men of Darkness, in service to Sauron.

(Why add them, you might ask, when the mod is mostly based on the books? Well, they're popular within the fan base, and recognisable, and with Rhûn being as enormous as it is and the books being relatively silent on the matter, there's no reason not to use this opportunity to inspire a faction.)

They are loosely based on real-world Turkic cultures. Their homeland is the area around the Sea of Rhûn, and they have an organised civilisation in the fertile lands close to the shore. Further out in the wide steppes, sparsely populated with villages, they maintain a ranging military presence.

In some sense these Easterlings can be seen as the evil analogue to Dorwinion, though they are not openly hostile to the wine-merchants - at least, not yet. Their enemies are Gondor, Dale, and the other Free Peoples.

The Wainriders (no, we haven't forgotten them) are kin to these Easterlings, but while the Golden Easterling civilisation is settled around the shore-lands, the Wainriders are nomadic steppe-dwellers.

In another update, the Wainriders will be added as a complete faction in their own right, but we have chosen to add the Golden-Easterlings first, because it makes sense geographically, and because they are more popular.

As for the Balchoth, since they're described so similarly to the Wainriders, we are presuming that they were absorbed into the Wainriders - or were simply the same people all along - so they will not be a separate faction.



Now, onto names.

The name "Khaganate of Rhûn" is not canonical (indeed, these Easterlings themselves are not). A Khaganate is the Turkic or Mongolian term for an empire.

Some of us in the mod team like this name. But some of us don't, because we think doesn't sound very 'Tolkienish'.

The people themselves are simply called "Easterlings". (Easterling Warrior, Easterling Archer, etc.)

The land in which they dwell has been given the name Rhúdel. This was taken from a suggestion post on the wiki, because we liked the sound of it. However, it has no definite meaning, despite the 'Rhûn' connection. Edit: A person pointed out in the comments that the name could be taken to mean 'eastern horror.'

Various other names we considered were:

Rhúnaerim (People of the Sea of Rhûn) Rhúmal, Rhúmaldor, Dor Rhúmal (Golden East Land) Malrim, Malwaith, Malhoth, etc. (Golden People) which all sound pretty awful, if you ask me."