Gary Holian was holding forth on the CanonFire Discord with thoughts about the Oerids and the Great Migrations, and per the Zavoda Principle it shall not be left to disappear off the top off the screen:
The Prophet was Johydee, a follower of Sol, who over 1200 years ago proclaimed the destiny of the Oerid (led by the Aerdi) lay to the far east, which she called the birthplace of the Sun. Not all Oerid tribes heeded this call. While some remained in place, others preferred to find a way west (forefathers of the "Celestial" Imperium?), or even north to Telchuria (the still nomadic and wild Symeri). But that proclamation is the start of O.R. or Oerid Reckoning, the calendar they used before the declaration of Universal Peace.
So began a centuries long, multigenerational journey across the northern hinterlands of the Baklunish Empire and into the Flanaess by tens of thousands of Oerid. The journey included many fits and starts, featuring a long stint among the Baklunish in which many Oerids nearly gave up the journey. This quest included numerous instances of infighting and kinslaying that have long been buried into the past and cleansed by the official histories.
So, was it is all just a quasi-religious quest for a new homeland? Maybe in part, but the reality is that the Oerids were already being hard-pressed in their homelands, by fiend-worshipping, rapacious humanoids who offered them no quarter. Heroes like Arnd of Tdon, could only do so much. Bereft of magic, except of the clerical kind, the nomadic horseman were wise to depart these lands for they were soon to fall regardless. Erythnul is a boogeyman god that represents the danger of humanoids, their hunger for manflesh, the peril of miscegenation with them, and the extinguishment of human bloodlines into barbarism.
Perhaps the gods of the Oerids knew the danger was too great for them in Central Oerik and nudged them east through prophecy, who knows. As Woesinger says, the Yorodhi never crossed into the Flanaess, preferring to either melt into the Paynims or hold out in their small enclaves around Ull. Other tribes moved, only rushing when the dangers became too imminent and when the Baklunish Empire fell overnight to the Invoked Devastation.
As among the last to cross the Fals Gap, the Keogh were less worldly than their brethren and did not benefit from interaction with the Baklunish except as competition and conflict with the survivors. Only the fall of Vecna at the hands of Kas, finally opened the way south, into the Sheldomar Valley.
Note: The Oerids were also largely bereft of psionics, the ability manifested only 1/100th as frequently as among the Suel and Baklunish (in particular).
In my own historical musings, I liken the Oeridians to the Sarmatians (though travelling eastward vice westward). I see their steady eastward migration as being driven in part by the natural geography of the Central Oerik step, and their (thousand year plus) temporary settlement around Ull as a respite or possibly even the promised land they thought they were seeking. There they fought humanoids, each other, and frequently entered into service as the equivalent of foederati for either the Baklunish or Suel empire, depending on given circumstances, but they are essentially people living in a hilly margin who are able to maintain a warrior culture that has a small core of heavy cavalry, a larger group of light horse archers, and finally the ability to raise a fryd of infantry to anchor it. Eventually, the empires see some potential and tutor some of the youth of the oeridians in magic for their political or personal ends, but the Oeridians are always outsiders and treated at best as a necessary evil and like hill\billies.
In my mind, the Oeridians worship their pantheon as a whole in a civic religion style similar to the Romans and Greeks. The deities clearly have an interest in preserving their worshippers, which forces them to work together, and provide warning of the Cataclysm to come (or just get them to more favorable lands at the right moment). By this point the Oeridians are more developed, and over a thousand years have become numerous, military and magically capable as well, and when they move into the Flanaess, they strike like a thunderbolt with iron weapons, comparable arcane magic, the encouragement of their gods, competition between tribes, and in my mind, having a vanguard of mounted archers. Plus, they have access to the latest military techniques for reducing fortresses and campaigning having served as mercenaries for two great empires.
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