The Yalbini by @The-Wizard-of-Zaar (The Wizard Of Zaar)

The Yalbini are an ethnic group consisting of several nomadic tribes and clans. Typically they have varying tones of brown skin, dark eyes and brown or black hair.

They are a rugged, entrepreneurial people who value business savvy and skill in riding above all else. They love the outdoors, steadfast in enduring the elements and made anxious by being static for too long. They are often financially well to do, however are a people near always of low status and class, being categorized as peasants or foreigners and often face discrimination in the nations they travel through.

They are accomplished in riding the strange steeds native to the known world and hold them in incredibly high esteem. Many outsiders remark that they care for their steeds more than their own children.

Yalbini people staunchly cling to their nomadic tradition, preferring to live in tents or by campfires under the stars than to spend a night under the roof of a permanent structure. Their nomadic lifestyle and mercantile inclination obviously shoehorns them into making a living as travelling merchants and caravanners, but within nations where they enjoy a more amicable standing with the government, they often find work as messengers and army scouts.

The Yalbini are typically a tall, physically robust people and typically have a might makes right approach to disputes; resulting in many Yalbini engaging in banditry and the slave trade. This inclination in particular makes Yalbini widely despised, mistrusted and feared by common people across the nations they roam, and often targeted by local authorities and militaries.

Yalbini bandits, scouts and slavers typically employ weapons such as clubs, axes, bullwhips and daggers; however they are noted for their particular affinity with slings and darts.

Despite many Yalbini being very wealthy as a result of their entrepreneurial endeavors and willingness to break rules and norms in the pursuit of a pay day- They generally live modest lifestyles, though wine and beer are luxuries that Yalbini avidly enjoy and they have a well known reputation for being drunkards.

Laziness and complacency are scorned in Yalbini culture, those who among their people who are seen to have become softened by success or good fortune are quickly ostracized... They are a competitive people and even family members are expected to stay sharp and contribute to the collective welfare of the group.

Whilst the Yabini have little qualms about eating the cuisines of other cultures and regularly do so, in the very least they avidly buy produce and rations from locals when visiting villages, towns and cities... The traditional Yalbini cuisine is derived from foraging wild vegetation, frugal use of rations and animal product from animals such as the goats and cattle Yabini clans often herd as they travel, they are also frequent hunters of small game such as rabbits and fowl. They also avidly steal livestock from farms they pass by. Yalbini cuisine is often a heavy diet of meat and dairy, though they avoid slaughtering their own livestock unless necessary- As they prize their milk highly. Yalbini generally drink the milk as it is or use it to make a campfire porridge with oats or flour. The nomadic lifestyle of the Yalbini does not offer them the time or the means to cultivate their own cheese on a regular basis; however Yalbini love cheese and enthusiastically buy it from whomever they can. As they are often on the move and carrying grain and feed enough only for themselves and their steeds, their livestock often are fed solely from the grass they travel across. Though the Yalbini lifestyle is not suitable for keeping pigs, pork is considered a delicacy and welcome treat.

Yalbini culture has loose gender roles, as Yalbini women are expected to pull their weight in a similar capacity to their male counterparts. Ergo Yalbini women are generally also adept in business, husbandry, fighting and riding as the men are; though within the family unit- Wives are subservient to husbands, and sons inherit over daughters. The Yalbini family unit is also unusual in that Yalbini are opportunistic slavers and it is not uncommon for Yalbini to own slaves themselves - Particularly when they live in a nation where slavery is legal... This makes the Yalbini family unusual as their slaves are treated not just as captives and property, but many times grow to become family and for a Yalbini youth to choose a family slave as their spouse is not uncommon- This situation is one of the few examples where a Yalbini woman is dominant over her husband, as a captured or bought slave holds this status for the entirety of their lifetime in their culture- However the children born from the union of a Yalbini and their slave are considered to be free born Yalbini.