Haramín

Old Romanian term for “bad person” (“om rău”). Alternative definitions are “forest thief,” “robber,” and “haiduc.” In Masks of God the term Qırım Haramín refers to a loose guild of Crimean Tatar slavers, operating under the aegis of the Golden Horde. Such gangs were usually made up of former Horde fighters or their descendants, swept to the shores of the Black Sea by previous Mongol incursions. Well-organized and ruthless, the ex-veterans thrived handsomely from the slave trade and hostage taking, and above all from sex-slavery, for which they were notorious.