Dothraki

The Dothraki people are a culture of nomadic warriors in Essos who range across the vast grasslands of the Dothraki sea in hordes known as *khalasars*. People of the Seven Kingdoms and the Free Cities also refer to the Dothraki as **horselords**.

## Appearance

Dothraki typically have copper-toned skin, black hair, and black, almond-shaped eyes. Dothraki men wear their hair in long braids, oiled or greased with fat from the rendering pits. Dothraki warriors carry small bells in their braids, which ring softly when they move. They are only allowed to braid their hair after they have won a victory. A bell is added to their braid after each victory; The braid is only cut when a Dothraki warrior is defeated in battle, an act through which he lets the world know his shame. Only few men die with their braids never having been cut off. Men further might wear metal rings bound in their mustachios.

Both men and women might wear painted leather vests over bare chests and horsehair leggings cinched by bronze medallion belts, although wealthier Dothraki might also have silver and golden medallions on their belts. Others might wear sandsilk trousers. For footwear Dothraki wear leather boots, leather sandals which lace up to the knee, or sandals of woven grass. However, when visiting the Free Cities, the Dothraki wear rich fabrics and sweet perfumes.

Being accustomed to riding horses every entire day, Dothraki warriors walk with a bowlegged swagger on the ground.

The Dothraki scrub themselves clean with sand.

## Culture and customs

### *Khalasars*

Dothraki live in hordes called *khalasars*. Their chieftains are called *khals*, while the wife of a *khal* is known as a *khaleesi*. The heir of a *khal* is named the *khalakka*. A *ko* is one of the *khal's* commanders within a horde. According to a semi-canon source, a *khas* consists of the personal guard of important individuals, such as a *khaleesi* or a *ko*.

Bloodriders fulfill the roles of guards, brothers, shadows, and friends to the *khal* in ways that run deeper than the oath of the Kingsguard to the king on the Iron Throne. The *khal* and his bloodriders commonly refer to each other as "blood of my blood".

The *jaqqa rhan* are mercy men who move among the corpses in battlefields, cutting off the heads of the dead and dying. When the *khalasar* is on the move, scouts range ahead while outriders guard the flanks.

*Khalasars* keep two sorts of healers. The first are barren women who practice their healing with herbs, potions, and spells. Eunuch slaves, on the other hand, use use knives, needles, and fire.

### Social status

The Dothraki consider riding a horse as a basic marker of social status. A *khal* who cannot ride cannot rule. Custom decrees that the *khaleesi* must ride a mount worthy of her place by the side of the *khal*. Pregnant women are expected to ride on horseback almost up to the moment of birth. Doing anything else might be considered weak. Some women giving birth ride on a cart. A cart is of less prestige, and is further meant for eunuchs, cripples, the very young, and the very old. A man who does not ride is considered the lowest of the low. He is not even seen as a man, and considered to be without honor or pride.

Although some are respected, women have a lower social status than men. For example, the bloodriders of a *khal* will not allow themselves to be commanded by his *khaleesi*. Nonetheless, even the mightiest *khal* will bow to the wisdom and authority of the *dosh khaleen*, the widowed *khaleesis* who reside at Vaes Dothrak.

Most of all, the Dothraki follow strength. Should a *khal* die without an adult heir, his *kos* might fight among themselves to take the place of the fallen *khal*. In the case that the *khal* has a *khalakka* who is still a child, this heir might be killed so as not to be a rival.

### Religion

The Dothraki worship a horse god. The Dothraki believe that when someone dies, the horse god parts the grass and claims the deceased for his starry *khalasar*, so the deceased can ride the nightlands. The Dothraki further believe that the moon is a goddess, and that she is the wife to the sun. In addition, they believe in hell.

Dothraki consider the earth to be their mother and think it sinful to cut her flesh with plows and spades and axes. This leads them to burn down fields, farms, and towns to return the grasslands to their wild state.

### Economy

Buying and selling is considered to be unmanly by the Dothraki, and they instead use giving and receiving gifts as a common way for doing trade. However, giving a gift in return might not always occur immediately upon receiving a gift. This is exemplified by the Dothraki "selling" their captives on occasion to the Slaver Cities. They call these slaves "gifts", and as payment receive gifts from the slavers.

Trade is allowed in the sacred city Vaes Dothrak, where, by the leave of the *dosh khaleen*, merchants and traders gather to exchange goods and gold, though they mostly trade with each other, and only little with the Dothraki themselves. In the Western Market merchants from the Free Cities come to trade, while in the Eastern Market traders from Yi Ti, Asshai, the Shadow Lands, and the lands from beside the Jade Sea place their caravans. The merchants are tolerated provided that they do not break the peace of the city, do not profane the Mother of Mountains or Womb of the World, and honor the *dosh khaleen* with the traditional gifts of salt, silver, and seed.

The Free Cities (like Myr, Pentos, and Norvos) and the slave cities in Slaver's Bay deal carefully with the Dothraki. The rulers of the cities give lavishly to every *khal* who passes with his *khalasar*, feasting them and giving them gifts, so the *khalasar* will pass on without sacking the city.

### Language

The Dothraki language is considered a rough, harsh language by Westerosi. They use descriptive names, e.g. *Rhaesh Andahli*, meaning "the land of the Andals", for Westeros, *shierak qiya*, literally "bleeding star", used to describe the red comet, or the term Milk Men for the Qartheen, pointing towards their paleness.

### Culinary customs

The Dothraki eat horseflesh, which they prefer to beef and pork. They believe horseflesh makes a man strong. They also have black sausages, blood pies, and sweetgrass stews. They drink a mildly alcoholic beverage derived from fermented mare's milk. They also drink pepper beer.

### Structures

The Dothraki do not build. A thousand years before, to build a house they would dig a hole in the earth and raise a grass roof over it. They can raise 'palaces' of woven grass. In Vaes Dothrak, all buildings have been made by the slaves serving there. Since the slaves all originate from different lands, they have built after the fashion of their own people. As a result, Vaes Dothrak consists of many different types of buildings, including carved stone pavilions, manses of woven grass as large as castles, rickety wooden towers, stepped pyramids faced with marble, and log halls open to the sky.

### Marriage, sexual relations, and childbirth

Among the Dothraki, weddings occur beneath the open sky. The ceremony might last the entire day, during which the guest's feast, drink, dance, and fight. The Dothraki mate like the animals in their heat. There is no privacy in the *khalasar*. During the wedding feast, women dance to drums, while warriors may take them before the watching *khalasar* freely. If two men take the same woman, they may fight to the death over her. During the feast, each dish is offered first to the newlywed pair; all food they refuse is offered to the rest of the participants at the wedding feast. Towards the end of the ceremony, the bride is presented with her bride gifts. As is tradition, a *khaleesi* is presented with an *arakh*, a bow, and a whip from her husband's bloodriders, although she is to decline the gifts and give them to her husband instead. Following the receiving of the gifts, the *khal* and *khaleesi* consummate their marriage. After the wedding, the *khal* is to present his new bride to the *dosh khaleen* at Vaes Dothrak.

Polygamy is practiced among the Dothraki; Jommo and Temmo are *khals* known to have had multiple wives. Other *khals* might decide to share their wife or wives with his bloodriders.

Pregnant women are expected to ride on horseback almost up to the moment of birth, although some women giving birth might ride on a cart. When children are born deformed they are left out for the feral dogs who run behind the *khalasar*.

A pregnant *khaleesi* might participate in the stallion heart ceremony, although it is unknown under what circumstances the ceremony occurs. During the ceremony, the *khaleesi* will attempt to consume the heart of a stallion under the supervision of the *dosh khaleen*. Due to the prohibition on bearing steel in Vaes Dothrak, the mother must tear apart the stallion's heart with her bare teeth and fingernails. If she eats the entire heart, she will bear a son who is strong and swift and fearless; if she chokes on the blood or retches up the flesh, the omens are less favorable — the child might be stillborn, weak, deformed or female.

### Death

The Dothraki believe that the stars in the sky are horses made of fire, and that the starry sky is a great herd of fiery horses racing across the sky. The Dothraki further believe that these horses of fire are ridden by deceased Dothraki, and that the more fiercely a person burned in life, the brighter said person’s star will be in death. This causes maesters to say that the Dothraki believe the stars are the spirits of the valiant dead. When a horselord dies, a horse is slain so he can mount it in death. The bodies of deceased Dothraki are next burned beneath the open sky. However, when a child dies at an age at which he is too young to ride, the child will not ride in the night lands but instead be reborn to begin life anew.

A *khal* is given a funeral pyre after he dies. A great square is made from wood, in the middle of which the *khal's* slain horse is positioned. Over the horse, the platform is constructed on which the *khal* will be placed. The wood of the platform is laid east to west, from sunrise to sunset. The platform consists of three levels. The wood of the third of these levels are positioned from north to south. On this level the body of the *khal* is placed. The *khal* is placed upon the pyre with his head in the direction of the Mother of Mountains and with his treasures positioned around him. The pyre is only lit after the first star has been seen in the sky.

Ancient traditions of the Dothraki demand that a *khal's* bloodriders die with him, riding the night lands by his side. When a *khal* is killed by an enemy, his bloodriders are to only live long enough to avenge him. The last duty the bloodriders owe their *khal* is taking his wife or wives to Vaes Dothrak to join the *dosh khaleen*. After their last duty has been completed, the bloodriders join their *khal* in death.

The Dothraki believe it is bad luck to touch the body of a dead man whom they have not personally killed themselves.

### Military

The Dothraki are nomadic warriors; they ride better than any Westerosi knight. The Dothraki fight from horseback, with warriors wielding *arakhs*, curved bows, and whips. The great bows the Dothraki use outrange the bows used in the Seven Kingdoms. According to Jorah Mormont, the Dothraki are utterly fearless.

The Dothraki ride on small, flat saddles with short stirrups.

### Other beliefs and superstitions

The Dothraki hate and fear the sea and the ships in it, as they mistrust all water their horses do not drink. They refer to the sea as “the poison water" and the “black salt sea”.

Dothraki believe that anything of importance in a man's life must take place beneath the open sky.

An ancient prophecy of the Dothraki predicts that one day the *khal* of all *khals* will rise. This stallion who mounts the world is prophesied to unite the Dothraki into a single *khalasar* and ride to the ends of the earth, making everyone in the world his herd.

The Dothraki believe that someday ghost grass will cover the world, and then all life will end.

The number thirteen is considered to be a bad number.

Bloodmagic is forbidden amongst the Dothraki. The Dothraki consider a *maegi* to be a woman who lays with demons and practices the blackest of sorceries. A *maegi* is considered to be a vile thing, evil and soulless.

When the gods are gone from a certain place, according to the Dothraki, evil ghosts feast by night. The Dothraki feel it best to shun such places.

## History

The ancestors of the Dothraki came from the lands beyond the Bone Mountains in the Further East of Essos, leaving behind the bones that give the mountains their name.

The nomadic Dothraki do not have a tradition of settlements. To make a house a thousand years ago, they dug a hole in the ground and covered it with a woven grass roof.

Four hundred years ago, the Dothraki rode toward the Free Cities out of the east, sacking and burning every town and city in their path, including the Kingdom of Sarnor, the Qaathi cities in the red waste, and the Ibbenese settlements in the Kingdom of the Ifequevron. Khal Temmo and his *khalasar* of at least fifty-thousand were stopped by the Three Thousand of Qohor. During the Century of Blood after the Doom of Valyria, the Dothraki drove smallfolk from their hovels and nobles from their estates, until only grass and ruins remained from the Forest of Qohor to the headwaters of the Selhoru.

Ruined cities and regions ring the vast plains of the Dothraki sea, including the Kingdom of Sarnor, the Kingdom of the Ifequevron, the upper Skahazadhan, and the red waste. The godsway in Vaes Dothrak contains monuments the Dothraki have taken from conquered people.

Terrio Erastes wrote *Fire Upon the Grass* about his time as a guest of Khal Dhako.