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Sahha was an athletic game or sport derived from handball that first emerged in the late 15th century DR among the prestigious and wealthy of Amn before spreading to wider society.[1]

Sahha is a game of fierce competition. One ball. Two teams of five. An all-out battle to dominate the competition. The objective is simple, score by knocking the ball into the other team's goal as many times as you can.
— Tche Bessail, selling the sport[1]

Rules[]

Ornate sahha ball

A typical ball.

A sahha match was played on a large square pitch by two teams of five players. Players could set, spike, check, or volley the ball across the pitch, with points scored by moving the ball into the opposing team's goal. The two traditional teams were the shark and the nautilus.[1]

Sahha balls were often very well decorated, and included designs such as beholders, red dragons, and miniature giant space hamsters.[1]

History[]

Sometime around the 1470s DR, House Bessail of Amn was in its death-throes after years of mismanagement by its financially challenged patriarch. Upon his death, the heir Valenti took drastic and risky steps to save the family business, inspired by his sister Tche's favorite game, handball. Valenti tasked his most trusted sailmaker Rhaal Voleau with creating a tough yet beautifully decorated game ball using canvas sailcloth, lighter than the traditional heavy leather balls inflated with bladders used in handball.[1]

The summer after the creation of the new balls, Valenti and Tche went to a family friend's estate on Lake Esmel, and showed them off with a variation of handball gameplay while all the other richest families of the Merchant's Domain took their Midsummer holidays there on the lake. The ploy worked, and the upper classes of Amn became obsessed with the light, ornate, and above all novel balls. The fashionable and avant-garde trend-chasers couldn't resist investing in his product, and practically every wealthy family in Amn competed to obtain their own sets of lavishly decorated game balls. Within a few years, the new game, now dubbed sahha, was a mainstay of summer fun among the vacationers of Lake Esmel, with merchant houses sponsoring professional teams and high-stakes bets being placed on the outcomes. Casual play also spread amongst the whole society of Amn, partially due to imitation of the upper classes, but also due to Valenti and his sisters advertising it heavily as they sold their sahha balls.[1]

A few years later, Tche traveled up the Sword Coast with Rhaal to spread their merchandise, eventually coming to Neverwinter. She advertised the game there with the approval of the Sunite Midsummer Festival coordinator Yina Morradi, including handing out and selling pamphlets describing the rules and techniques of the game. These one-page pamphlets were written by her younger sister and given oddly gravitas-heavy names like Codex of the Check, Compendium of the Set, Enchiridion of the Volley, and Fundamentals of the Spike. The game proved quite popular in Neverwinter as well, with even uncivilized Sword Coasters appreciating a good ball game.[1]

The game also spread to Chult through Amn's colony of Port Nyanzaru, with confused explorers finding sahha balls left lying in the jungle.[1]

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