Yakmen
The Yakmen, who call themselves Yikarians, are a minotaur-like race of humanoid yaks native to the lands of Al-Qadim and characterized by their high intelligence, their natural affinity for magic, their ability to possess the bodies of others, and being one of the few "always evil, kill on sight" races in the Al-Qadim setting. They also have a vaguely Himalayan theme, as shown by the chap on the right, which is fairly unique for D&D.
Culture[edit | edit source]
The culture of the yakmen is a weird mixture of a malign theocracy and a malevolent magocracy. All yakmen have some level of affinity for sorcery, mostly manifesting in their innate ability to use magic items back in AD&D, and their leaders are always spellcasters with access to both arcane and divine magic. They also have (in AD&D) the innate ability to command dao, having somehow enslaved the entire race of earth genies to obey them without question. It's implied that this is due to their dickass god either conquering or allying with the dao leadership, and while they resent this the dao are forbidden to retaliate and must settle for taking their resentment out on the yakmen's enemies.
They live in the highest mountain ranges, building their cities from a strange gray stone that they import from the Elemental Plane of Earth. They dominate the people of the surrounding valleys from small outposts manned by a small number of yakmen and bands of slave-soldiers; considering a good number of those are dao, this is more than enough. The yakmen demand tribute in the form of slaves; those who resist are destroyed and their lands given to more compliant slaves.
The entire yakmen society exists in the worship of their evil, mysterious god. This asshole is known as the Forgotten God by the rest of Al-Qadim, and if the yakmen have another name for him they aren't telling. The Forgotten God teaches that all other races are inferior to the yakmen and demands regular sacrifices, and this as much as their hunger for power is why they take so many slaves. The Forgotten God is depicted as a yakman whose face is worn smooth into a featureless mask, giving them the race something of a cyclopean quality.
When the yakmen venture out into civilized lands in search of slaves, knowledge or new sources of power, they usually send either small parties accompanied by dao or a single scout. Scouts are convicted criminals sent out with the promise of a pardon if they bring back something awesome enough, or just a shitton of slaves; these guys are intended to be the bosses after an adventure spent fighting whatever evil humanoids the scout has managed to con into working for him. Larger parties are usually sent to use their innate access to Magic Jar and infiltrate the local ruling class as spies or saboteurs, then use their unwitting victims to run amok as "shore leave."
For most of the setting's history (read: until the DM builds a campaign around them) the yakmen have been content to hide in their mountains and kill or enslave anything that comes too close, making them the boogeymen that keep sultans awake at night, ruthless and powerful savages that threaten every other intelligent race.
Print History[edit | edit source]
The Yakmen debuted in the original Land of Fate boxed set for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition. They then reappeared in the Monster Manual II for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, and in the adventure Storm King's Thunder for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. The latter renamed them "Yak Folk" for PC reasons, but 5e is A Gay so ruining such an awesome name as YAKMEN is par for the course.
