Yentish

The Yentish are a Human culture that dominates on Yent.

History
The Yentish came to Yent about 350 years ago

The proto-Yentish were Tobb-fearing, sheep-herding, head-binding nomads in a vast grassland far to the southwest. Their stable cultural rut was disrupted when a community of Elves, fleeing the destruction of their homeland, settled with them. Initially they welcomed the Elves, but after a few generations of men had died, the long-lived Elves came to see themselves as de facto leaders, and took it upon themselves to ‘reform’ certain cultural practices. Sharp cultural divisions emerged between those who wanted to embrace the ways of the elves and those who wished to keep to the old ways.

The traditionalist faction grew increasingly insular, superstitious, and rabid, developing myths about being Tobb’s chosen people and having a sacred mission to rid themselves of the outsiders. Civil war broke out when one clan, blaming their failing magic on the spiritual corruption of the Elves, massacred a group of them.

After years of fierce fighting, the traditionalists were beaten by the pro-Elf faction. A group of hard-liners fled to the coast, captured some ships, and tried to sail them north to settled lands. Terrible sailors, they instead drifted west, eventually arriving at Yent. Spiritual leaders declared their arrival on the island fated, and they vowed to settle this land. Later they sent ships back and were joined by other, less extreme traditionalists, but Yentish culture was strongly influenced by that first group of fanatics.

They named the island Yent and themselves the Yentish, and it became taboo to name their homeland directly - it's generally only referred to with euphemisms like "the old country" except when speaking very gravely or angrily. Their old name for themselves has also been mostly forgotten.

For 250 years, they warred with the island's original inhabitants, a culture of necromantic wizard-priests.

Their culture and economy became centred on raiding and extorting the necromancers, but after a few centuries of this they essentially raided their prey to extinction and no longer have anyone to pillage. Since conquering the entire island, they've been in a long decline. Forests have reclaimed a lot of the land and the brigands and beasts they host ensure that no one’s real authority extends far beyond a settlement’s walls.

Superstitions
The Yentish fear and detest arcane magic, but are also fascinated by it. Nobles will often take a magic-user into their counsel, then exile them when they need a quick scapegoat. Some non-magical grifters make good livings convincing gullible aristocrats that they can read their fortunes/curse their enemies.

They're also generally contemptuous of Elves, both because of their memory of the old country and because Yent's Elves were generally politically aligned with the necromancers while they were still a political force. Also, most of Yent's elves are old enough to remember how much better the island was before the Yentish came.

Apart from that, they're a pretty tolerant and welcoming people - they just really hate arcane magic and creatures they feel have sort of a magic-y feel. These judgements can be pretty arbitrary; they hate Elves but like the equally magical Gnomes, because they think they're cute and love to "look at the little guys go"

Religion
Yentish nobility and warrior groups generally worship Tobb near-exclusively. Since Tobb is said to hate demands being made on him, they show devotion by not worshiping other gods more than devoting themselves to Tobb in any particular way. Common people, though fearful and reverent of Tobb, tend to quietly worship gods who they think will actually give them stuff (gods of fertility, nature, wealth, etc). Foreign gods like Helm have lately been growing in popularity, too.