Rashemaar

The Rashemi, also known as the Rashemaar, were a human ethnic group native to Rashemen and Thay.

Description
Most Rashemi were short and muscular, with a hardy physique. They commonly had dusky skin, dark eyes, and thick black hair. Men were especially hairy and might maintain a thick dark beard; baldness was virtually unknown in their culture. Women often wore their hair long and elaborately plaited.

Culture
Elders were respected for their wisdom and mental strength while children were expected to earn their place in the world, rather than having it handed to them. Most young adult Rashemi traveled extensively for a year as part of a coming-of-age ritual called dajemma, resulting in a population with considerable worldly knowledge. While formal schooling was not emphasized among the Rashemaar due to their strong warrior culture, along with and the subjugation as the lower class in Thay, many of them were still literate.

The Rashemaar placed little value in the accumulation of wealth, and expressed no shame for their bodies.

The Rashemaar people tended to be quite superstitious. For example, it was considered bad luck to seek knowledge of one's own fortune. In order for someone to ward off bad luck, they spat on the fingers, made a fist, and then flicked the fingers three times.

Rashemi thought of themselves as inhabitants of a harsh and beautiful land ruled by spirits and rarely displayed the arrogance of other human ethnic groups. They viewed life as a series of challenges to face and defeat and placed a high value on individual accomplishment and strength. They tended to focus on physical feats in Rashemen and magical displays in Thay.

Many young Rashemaar men embarked on a dajemma (also spelled darjemma), a traditional coming-of-age journey that saw them traveling to foreign lands to see and understand more of the world. A young man sometimes traveled with a younger member of the Wychlaran known as a hathran.

A recreational sport for young people in Rashemen was a snowshoe-running competition involving only snowshoes and traditional doe-skin loincloths.

Languages
Rashemi usually spoke Common and their national language. Within the borders of Rashemen, the national language was Rashemi, which used the Thorass alphabet.

Common sayings among the Rashemaar included:
 * "What good can come of alliance with evil?"
 * "A wolf will always be a wolf."
 * "There are those who think and those who dream."

Religions
The Rashemi commonly prayed to "the Three"―Chauntea, Mielikki, and the Hidden One, Mystra. They also venerated many local spirits, unknown elsewhere in Faerûn. Other Rashemi might pray to the Mulhorandi pantheon or the four elemental deities, particularly Kossuth.

History
The Rashemi were descendants of the nomadic tribes that were employed as mercenaries by Mulhorand and helped win the Orcgate Wars of to. They then forged the empire of Raumathar, which rivaled the Mulhorand and Unther empires in its day. In the centuries after, they fought many battles against the Narfell empire over the contested Rashemi tribal lands on the Priador plateau. Finally in, the empires suffered a mutual defeat in a massive fiery clash involving an avatar of Kossuth and an army of fiends led by the demon lord Eltab. The armies of the Mulhorand empire quickly swept in and reoccupied the Priador plateau, and their descendants continue to subjugate the Rashemi of Thay today. For a time, Eltab ruled the lands of Rashemen, but the Witches of Rashemen aligned with the native Rashemi and the warrior Yvengi in and forced the demon to flee. In the centuries since, Thay attempted to take Rashemen from the Rashemi many times, but were always repelled. By the late 14 century DR, the Rashemi were the most numerous human ethnic group on the Priador plateau of Thay and in Rashemen. Minority groups could be found throughout the surrounding regions as well.