Gur

The Gurs, also known as Selûne's Children or the people of the highway, were a nomadic human people.

Description
Like their Rashemi kin, Gurs were typically a stout, strong, and sturdy people, with thick black hair, dark eyes, and dusky skin.

Society & Culture
By the 14 century DR, the Gurs were divided into two distinct cultures, those who traveled throughout the Western Heartlands and those living in the Endless Wastes. A few settled in some of the poorer sections of cities such as Baldur's Gate, Elturel, and Iriaebor.

The Gurs of the Western Heartlands were arranged by large extended families. A nomadic people, they traveled from settlement to settlement in assorted caravans, picking up random jobs and selling or trading any unwanted goods. Some found work as soothsayers and diviners. Those few who settled in cities struggled to survive in their poorer quarters. They had a knack for finding their way in and out of such cities, and were always ready to leave in short order. Gur culture placed a high value on honor, but they suffered long-standing prejudices from other folk. "Moon-man" was a particularly offensive slur to a Gur. For fighting, these Gur favored the skene, long, slender type of dirk.

The Gur of the Endless Wastes were on friendly terms with the Oigur and the Tuigan tribes. Their lands bordered those of the Fankiang and Zamogedi tribes.

Religion & Magic
The Gurs of the Heartlands mainly followed Selûne the Moonmaiden, goddess of wanderers and navigation. They thought of themselves as "children of Selûne". However, some Gurs of prophetic bent were also known to worship Savras, Lord of Divination, with a faith secretive to outsiders. This likely explained the survival of his faith during his long period of imprisonment. Thus, Gurs were often gifted oracles and known for their talent in soothsaying and divining.

Like their Rashemi kin, some Gurs possessed "the Sight", an unreliable gift for glimpses of the past and snatches of history.

Languages
Within their own tribes, the Gurs of the Heartlands spoke Gurri, a patois or creole tongue with roots in the Imaskari languages, but with influence from many other tongues, many thought long-dead—in particular, Halardrim, an ancient dialect of the Rashemi language. The Gurs used the Thorass alphabet. They were also proficient in Chondathan, which they used when communicating with those outside their culture.

Typical names for these Gurs included:
 * Masculine: Boriv, Gardar, Madevik, Vlad
 * Feminine: Varra, Ulmarra, Imza, Navarra, Yuldra
 * Family: Chergoba, Drazlad, Tazyara, Vargoba, Stayankina

The Gurs of the Hordelands continued to speak a related dialect of the Imaskari language.

Population
Gurs made up only about 1% of the human population of the Western Heartlands, but this was perhaps their greatest population in Faerûn.

History
The Gurs were believed by scholars to be mainly of Rashemi descent, owing to their strong similarity with the natives of Rashemen. They were also likely to have acquired ancestry among other ethnicities on their travels. Fragments of lore originating from the period around the first-century Dale Reckoning could be found that described the Gurs as a group of nomads. What was known of the early Gurs suggested that they were refugees fleeing the long-ago war between Raumathar and Narfell.

In the, a group of Gurs attacked the high elf magistrate Astarion Ancunín, though he was rescued by Cazador Szarr.

In the Hordelands, when Yamun Khahan came to power in the 1350s DR, the Gurs there joined with his Grand Army of the Tuigan against the Zamogedi, hoping to improve their standing among the tribes of the Endless Wastes. Because the Oigur were afraid of the anger of the Yamun Khahan, they allied themselves with the Gur in supporting the Tuigan.

The Gurs were well known in the Western Heartlands of Faerûn in the 14 century and late 15th century DR.

In the late 1400s DR, a large Gur community made ruined Harpshield Castle their winter meeting place. They constructed new wooden structures and a palisade, but departed the place circa 1475 DR and did not return.

Circa 1490 DR, a Gur family, the Rasias—Hricu, Kehkim, Ozzcar, Rilynin, and Sybil—stayed at the Crossing Inn outside Phlan. Initially well-behaved and well-liked, they later committed a series of thefts and druggings, angering many. But this was in an effort to seek powerful allies in the form of Jeny Greenteeth and others for protection before Sybil, the boy Quiver Plumm, and some adventurers were spirited into the Domains of Dread.

In the early 1490s DR, vampire spawn in the service of Cazador Szarr, a vampire lord in Baldur's Gate, were attacking a local Gur community, killing their adults and kidnapping their children to turn into vampires. The Gur monster hunter Gandrel sought out the vampires, and in the, the Gur woman Ulma enlisted the aid of adventurers.

Notable Gurs

 * Therin, a thief and strongman of Pinch's gang in the mid-to-late 1300s DR.
 * Sybil Rasia, a fortune teller who became trapped in Barovia in the Domains of Dread in 1490 DR.
 * Gandrel, a monster hunter who traveled the Sword Coast in the 1490s DR.
 * Ulma, a leader of a Gur community near Baldur's Gate in the 1490s DR.

Background
Described as "gypsylike", the Gurs are said to be similar to the Roma people during Europe's Middle Ages when they were called Gypsies, which is a contraction of "Egyptian". However, this application is now considered by some to be derogatory, though it and other meanings remain common in the English language and in popular culture.

It appears to originally be a coincidence that the Hordelands Gur mentioned in The Horde and the Heartlands Gur introduced in King Pinch share a name, despite both books beings written by David Cook, as there is nothing to suggest a link. They were first connected linguistically in "Speaking in Tongues" in Dragon Magazine Annual 1999; author Thomas M. Costa later confirmed they were related.