Interesting Exchanges, Which Lead to Fleshing The World

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...

Oops. Missed that discussion.

Some common forms of slave in my world:

Raviien who have had their wings chained together or removed are often used as disposable troops by the Ork'Aaln and their allies (Elves, humans, dwarves).

Elves are used as concubines by many races. Usually this is to pay off debts.

The Asodel are now indentured servants, mostly to Calaris or those in her Abyss. Except for the mourners; those are still in the city.

12:22 PM

trollsmyth said...

Telecanter: My pleasure. I like including WTF cultural details in my games to remind the players that our games do not, in fact, take place in Kansas. ;)

1d30: Exactly what is, and isn't, slavery changes through the ages. "Indentured servants," "chain gangs," "conscripts," and "graduate students" could all be argued to have been synonyms for "slaves" at one time or another. ;p

C'nor: Sounds like a pretty brutal world you have there. Are elves chosen for concubines because of their beauty, or for other reasons?

9:03 PM
C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...

Partly beauty, partly the fact that about 65% of elves are infertile, and of the rest their children tend to be stillborn around 40% of the time. As they get to keep any money, jewelery, etc., that they are given, and may recieve a position within the house that offered or received them, some elves offer themselves to a noble house as bargaining pieces so that they have a better chance of making it past Mi'Naa (The age between 100 and 300, after which others must offer you food and shelter for three days).
The reason that the fertility problems of elves are important is that the standard contract for a concubine states that the term of service ends after anywhere from 1-5 years, or until the concubine successfully bears the child of the owner. Thus, if they used a race like the Dwarves (Also enslaved fairly often, but mostly because they're so miserly that they'd rather use themselves for collateral than anything they own), they'd not only have no concubines, they'd have a bunch of children that they then have to raise.

3:08 AM

trollsmyth said...

C'nor: Interesting. So it looks like most of the slavery is voluntary, then?

Concubinage isn't unheard of in the lands of Doom & Tea Parties, but it's rarely done with "short-term" slaves. It primarily exists to elevate some slaves and to legitimize the children an owner might have with them. In some places (among the efreet, for instance) there is no legal distinction between children born of a wife and those born of a concubine.

9:56 PM
C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...

"So it looks like most of the slavery is voluntary, then?"

Among the elves, yes, in some ways. There aren't that many slaves in the elven society itself, because they can't simply outlive the owner, but among the shorter-lived groups... Part of it is that the elves have pretty much mined out all of their natural resources, and the nobles are the only ones with any money. 10-20 gold is pretty good for an elven peasant.

The Raviien are mostly prisoners of war, though the best fighters, druids or mages can eventually earn a place among the Ork'Aaln.

The Asodel can't leave until they've paid off their debt to Calaris, but they ended up there accidentally. In fact, she tricked them into thinking they were going the opposite direction, then claimed a debt since she saved them from dying in the desert.

10:47 PM

This was on Trollsmyth's blog (trollsmyth.blogspot.com). I don't know how plain it is, but all of the stuff in my expansion postings was come up with on the fly. So thanks.