Fotmans
The Fotmans (from corrupted fotmän, footmen) were elite units in service of the heads of state of the Herdite merchant republic from the 12th to the 16th centuries. They were composed primarily of Imerians and other Scanderan peoples. These well-paid soldiers provided security for Herdite leadership, participated in land warfare as heavy infantry as well as naval privateering missions, and were noted in contemporary sources for their bravery and loyalty. The service of a fotman in the Herdite court was so lucrative it attracted the immigration of thousands of Imerians every year, to the point where the Imerian crown was forced to introduce increasingly restrictive laws against fotman service. Due to this as well as other factors the institution of fotmans died out by the early 16th century.
History
The institution of fotmanry began in 1145 when the Herdite Doge Blackstar Grimhoof visited Scandera on a large trading trip. There he purchased the services of a local mercenary company in order to support his cloak-and-dagger rule. The mercenaries were promised grand pay and a permanent place at the court if they were to swear unbreakable loyalty to Grimhoof and prove their skills. Shortly those fotmän have proved themselves as fiercely loyal bodyguards and fearsome warriors in local feudal conflicts back in the Greater Pony Herd. This has earned them some fame and after Grimhoof's death in 1161 they quickly became a status symbol for Herdite Doges (Alphas), and the tradition of Scanderan warriors serving the Herdite leadership would continue for almost three more centuries.
Fotmans would go on to protect the Alpha, carry out various household warrior duties, search and rescue missions. They fought in feudal conflicts at the Herd and broader wars abroad. At times they even set out on privateering missions at sea on their fast and stable longships to disrupt trade operations of the Herd's regional commercial rivals. They typically served as elite frontline heavy infantry armed with axes, polearms, spears, swords and throwing darts, typically using the famed Imerian shield wall tactic while covered by exhaustive volleys of Herdite crossbowponies what made for a devastating combination. The armored, bearded giants chewing on their shields in battle-rage while charging into combat also had a terrifying moral effect on the Herd's opposition, what was also mostly comprised of small ponies.
Those men were noted for their loyalty; when an Alpha would die or become deposed in some way or the other, they were the first to swear fealty to the new Alpha; a source even tells of a time when the fotmans of one of the Herdite Alphas found him assassinated and immediately sweared fealty to the assassin, bloody dagger still in his hoof, who would go on to be elected and become the new Alpha. Their religious loyalties were disputable; though by and large the fotmans followed the Chronical faith, there are sources where they have ridden to battle with banners depicting both Chronical and Harmonist holy symbols.
The pay of a fotman was astronomical, a pound of pure gold a month not including any share of loot and booty they received and the income from their landed holdings, which some of them have owned. The lucrative service began to attract the migration of thousands of Imerians and other Scanderans to the Greater Pony Herd to try their luck and skill in joining the fotman corps. By the mid-13th century the Herdite Alpha was said to have some 20,000 fotmans in his service. The prospect of losing so many able young warriors to emigration worried generations of Scanderan kings, and at some point the fotmans were prohibited from inheriting when in the Herd in order to stimy the migration. This hasn't done much to that effect though; it even had an adverse effect in making some of fotmans to settle in the Herd for good, purchasing land, adopting children and marrying the rare local human (or in some rare documented cases even ponies) in order to entrench themselves in the local social order.
So more laws was introduced in Scandera against fotmans. In 1444 the Imerian High King Leiksten rex Stjärnkhrone I released a new edict that made migrating to the Herd to participate in fotmanry an offence against the crown and even rallied the Chronical religious leaders to declare utblot (excommunicate) fotmans who migrated to the Herd. This step was probably motivated by the King's dire need in more young recruits for the Imerian Two Hundred Years' War. It was more effective in stimying the tide of migrants, and soon the Herdite Alpha's cadre of fotmans was reduced to mere several hundred daring souls who didn't fear excommunication and even execution on their return home. The loss of such a valuable possession enraged the Herdite Alphas and the edict has directly led to greatly worsened relations between the Herd and Imeriata and some decrease in mutual trade.
Still, fotmans in Herdite service survived until the early 16th century when the tide of Scanderan migrants naturally (and under the effect of royal edicts) petered out and the institution was eventually abolished by Alpha Meadowlark the Meek (possibly due to the pressure from Herdite condotierro companies, who have long seen fotmans as dangerous competition). Some fotmans have settled down and created lasting dynasties, but due to the relative lack of intermarriage options only a few human families in the Herd trace Scanderan fotman heritage today.
Legacy in Scandera
While being somewhat frowned upon by religious and royal authorities in Scandera so were the practice of serving in the herd or "Hjordetjanst" also known as taking "Hjordegeld" or "Herd gold" from the Imerian name "Hjordengard" highly popular among noblemen and commoners alike. This means that there are several old Scanderan legends about heroes traveling west to earn fame and glory abroad. The most lasting remnants of these heroes are several noble houses that proudly counts ancestors that served as Fotmans, and of course what is today called "Hjordirsteinir" or "The herd stones" that are a loose term referring to several runestones dotting the Scanderan countryside telling about heroes that either won fame and glory serving the herd or not returned home at all.
Even today is it a common trope to write tales about daring heroes that set of in search of glory to the west and a small subset of literature called "hjordirsagor" exists today to tell the tale of these great men. However it would be noteworthy that these often have the tendency to portray the Scanderans as great paragons of virtue serving Alphas of great stature for their kind but portraying all other ponies as weak or backstabbing scoundrels. Some very recent attempts have been made to change this but more modern stories are still plagued of these tropes that oddly enough the older ones misses entirely, seemingly as the historical Scanderans figuring that anyone wanting to praise their fighting ability and shower them with gold must have been decent enough chaps.