al Briena Kadire: The Lore of Alder

Erida

     The Erida are half horse, half Vangaryan. Erida are more closely related to the Vangaryan of the Vanguard forest than the Vangaryn of the Garya forest and have no knowledge of the Ashi, nor do the Ashi know of them. Only the Vangaryan, Shvartseyed, and possibly far-flying dragons know of them.

     It is said, long ago, that they were cursed by a powerful Vangaryan Mage. The exact reason why is unknown, but it is rumored that because they bore a greater love for horses and open prairie than the other Vangaryan, the Mage, enraged that his own kind would forsake the forest, bound them soul and body to the horses they loved and exiled them to the endless prairie. The Mage, already losing his grip on reality, was driven insane by his magic and perished after throwing himself into the Cursed Lake, named thus after he died. 

     The Erida, driven from their home and cursed with the body of a horse and Vangarya combined, they made their home among the plains. Thousands of years later, the Vangaryan Mage is only a whisper in the darkest night, a myth to tell naughty Vangaryan children, but deep inside every Erida, is an innate fear of magic and a strange kinship with the few tress that grow in their homeland. They have become wilder even than a blood-frenzied Banda'ata, and more dangerous than the Alariah Cat. Some two thousand years after their banishment, records say, a group of Vangaryan attempted to reunite the two very different peoples. All but one of the ambassadors was killed. No further attempts were made. 

     Little else is known of the Erida for there has been no communication for over six thousand years.