Njeperz, who are they and why?

[Aerotinge]

Njeperz the red is a common topic for UrW players.
When it comes to Njeperz, people oftens mapping them to east slavic people.
I have a question that UrW is base on the iron age in Finland(Sápmi, in precisely), which is C1st~C5th. AD.(From C4th BC., If we count in Findless Age)
But east slavic people (Ilmen tribes then) was not waging war against Sápmi people until High Middle Ages IIRC.
However, germanic tribes like Saxon did lots "migration". It can be inferred migration not only happen in western Europe but north Scandinavia.
(Even in Findless Age, there was warlike Jastorf culture in C6th~C3th BC. in southern Scandinavia & north Germany.)

In Finnish, "Sima"(mead) is from Proto-Germanic *saima-.
"raha"(money) is from early Proto-Germanic "*skrahā"(squirrel skin).
In UrW timeframe we're all witness of this loanword adopted from Proto-Germanic.
Moreover, in-game item "Njerpeziläis Scimitar" have a *-äis word-final, which is similar to German word. (probably)

If he looks red, swims like a robber, and quacks from east, shall it be communist slav?
BTW Polish "Niemiec"(German;foreigner, literally "one who mute(won't speak our language)")
make me think of Nje-perz.

[PALU]

- Red is a commonly used "danger" and "enemy" color. There definitely shouldn't be any Communist association, given that this is a much much later "invention".
- The Njerps are loosely based on various slavic peoples east/southeast of Finland. The game needs an enemy to spice things up, and the choices would basically have been people from the east or people from the west. The choice fell on the eastern ones, with the traders coming from Scandinavia (despite their Gothic, rather than Scandinavian, sounding names).
- The UrW time frame is loosely during the 800-1200 era.
- The peoples of UrW are the peoples of Finland, not merely the Saami: those are represented by the norther tribes. The UrW map is sort of a map of Finland, with the southern coastline matching the coastline in the south, the western and northern shorelines corresponds to the western coastline (the northern waters does not represent the arctic sea), while the land connection to Scandinavia is absent. You could also consider it a map projection artifact, with the land bridge connecting to the "eastern" side of the map.

[caius]

I don't mean to beat a long-dead horse (or hijack the thread) with this question.

Is there any interest (in the players or developers) in making the Njerpez a playable culture?  That would turn this post on its head and make the western cultures the "bad guys".

[Aerotinge]

...
Is there any interest (in the players or developers) in making the Njerpez a playable culture?  That would turn this post on its head and make the western cultures the "bad guys".

swapping npc-nj*.png with pc-(fe)male.png and npc-(culture*).png, that's what you can do.
Or, you can try hex save edit anyway, trying find where culture data structures store.

Didn't know UrW time frame is Corresponding to Medieval Age, and everything make sense now.
I was though the map is base on mirrored Peninsula Kola. It seems that I was wrong.
Thanks PALU.

[Erkka]

Didn't know UrW time frame is Corresponding to Medieval Age,

Yes, that is because while most of the Europe was living High Middle Ages marked by influence of The Church, cultures in Finland and Scandinavia were still pagan. So, in the history of Finland "Middle Age" only begins after the King of Sweden had converted to Christianity and launched a series of crusades to Finland, eventually conquering the territory. (that happens gradually during 1150 - 1250 AD. UnReal World is not stricty based on exact timeline, we are using some artistic freedom to imagine a world where those crusades either started a bit later, or didn't happen at all.)

So, before those events Sweden, Norway and Denmark were living their Viking Era, the rest of the Europe was Middle Ages, and in Finland it was the Viking period of Iron Age. (The philosophical point; History often operates on broad general terms which apply to central areas. When speaking about the history of Europe we conveniently use terms like 'Antiquity', 'Middle Ages' and 'Modern Times', but it should be noted that those broad terms don't apply uniformly to all of what is now Europe. The details and local variations are always a lot more diverse than the convenient simplicity offered by the general broad descriptions.)