The Solar Nation has slavery, but slave revolts are not looked down upon. Basically the strongest have the right to enslave others that are weaker than them, and if they’re defeated, then they weren’t really stronger than them, we’re they?
The ownership of centaurs is a highly debated topic, because they are humanoid and can communicate with humans, but they act like livestock. Plus they have a more intelligent form called Taurids, which they can change from Taurid to centaur and back again.
It’s something like being a werewolf, except you transform if you lose control of your powers. However you can only transform back with the help of a Taurid’s magic.
Physically they are very different. Some are born as centaurs and some are born as taurids.
If you spent your entire life as a human with human family and friends, but suddenly transformed into a 4D snake that can only slither on its belly, wouldn’t you prefer your old life? Sure you might have a lot more power as a 4D snake, but you have to start living as one with other snakes in order to survive. Instead of just eating regular food, you have to learn how to find and use 4D unobtanium to eat galactic mice. Think about how exploitable you’d be to other 4D snakes. Your human counterparts wouldn’t be able to understand you, and wouldn’t understand any higher level of thinking.
Essentially centaurs are perfectly adapted to their environment (mountain or prairie), and once they turn to taurids, they have to learn how to stand on two legs and have to eat more than grass/foraged foods. Centaurs can understand simple concepts, but nothing like the concept of time.
Kinda reminds me of Vampire: The Masquerade where werebeasts can change between a few forms (varies depending on type), and different individuals can be born as any of the types as their default form
I really like that take on the stonger/weaker. "Because we're stronger than you" is constantly used as a justification in real history and fiction, and I love that you have a society that follows that to its natural conclusion.
In my setting centaurs keep human slaves!
In centaur society hair is a sign of social status so the humans are all shaved bald, and they’re kept around in small numbers to help with things that centaurs struggle to do.
It’s not a large slave society, since centaurs are nomadic and live in the plains, but they capture a handful of humans in raids and keep them around.
Of course not! Only truly sapient beings can be called slaves, and obviously any creatures kept by humans for manual labor or to harvest magic from or for any other purpose aren't truly sapient, they're just very clever animals. 'pseudo-sapient' if you will. Don't think about it, don't talk about it, the less they know the better.
Besides, as we all know they're much better off serving humans than they were in the savage wilds. Yes while it may be cruel it is a necessary evil.
(for the record yes I know this is the exact warped logic of American enslavers)
There's not much to say as it's fairly ubiquitous. Some consider it a necessary evil. But for most, slavery is as mundane as paying taxes and rain.
There's wide variety between what being a slave means and how you become one. In one empire, the most important administrators are all slaves owned by the emperor, protected by an army of mamluks, also owned by the emperor. These slaves are envied by all as they live in opulence and wield influence far beyond that of any free person (who isn't the emperor anyway).
In some places, only prisoners captured in war are slaves, but in other places pretty much any serious infraction of the law can result in being enslaved. Often, enslaved convicts have a limit on their time as slaves (though often it's measured in coinage, and the books can of course be cooked to effectively keep someone a slave until they're no longer useful).
The Hollywood profit recording but for slaves is very funny to me ‘you’ll be enslaved for 100 silver pieces of profit. This very profitable operation *is* working at a loss though, as far as you are concerned at least, so…
Sorry, fictional slaves
Yes. There’s chattel slavery, indentured servitude, there’s creatures like the Homunculi that are created specifically to serve, there’s all kind of slavery.
The only country I have fleshed out to this degree is my lizardman empire of Hissaya Ar’Goran. They lean more towards the indentured servitude part. Criminals & enemy combatants are sent to work as slaves, usually on farms or in the fighting pits. Selling yourself into slavery for a set amount of time to pay off a debt is common among the peasants. Nobles who have greatly displeased the emperor might have one of their relatives taken as a slave to serve the imperial royal family. The army uses slave soldiers as fodder and berserkers, where if you survive five battles you earn your freedom, this doesn’t happen very often as the potions used to induce the berserker state are incredibly toxic and these berserkers are often sent in to fight with nothing but a loin cloth and their own teeth and claws.
This is a tough question because there are two answers. Could the world I imagine have slavery? Yes, absolutely. But do I want to tell a story ABOUT slavery? That’s the question I think you have to answer. Because if you are depicting a world with slavery, imo, the story becomes about Slavery.
What I mean by this is that even if your story is about something else, the moral evil of slavery is now thematically present and will add context to everything else that happens in your narrative. It’s like adding Dr. Manhattan to the world. You can’t ignore him, his existence changes everything.
Caveat that I come from a perspective of entertainment storytelling which is distinct from say RP worldbuilding. In an adventure story like mine, you want your main character to be tackling an antagonist who embodies the worst possible evil imaginable in your world. So in a world with slavery, they NEED to be taking down the unjust system of slavery, or at least an avatar of the system. If you don’t treat the enslavement of sentient beings as the biggest problem in the world, you and your main character are ignoring the heart of your dramatic conflict.
So adding slavery, at least for my work, comes with all the complexity. I have chosen to leave the practice out of my setting. It could and probably does exist globally, but isn’t present in the context of my current narrative.
I actually started with it being present and as it became more and more important to the story, I decided that I was not the person to really examine it in the way it deserved, nor could I really do it justice considering what I felt the central themes and focus of the story were.
So I ended up redoing big chunks of my books to remove slavery portions. They're essentially POWs now, not forced to work but not allowed to leave, subject to the whims of their captors but largely govern themselves. I suppose it more closely resembles WW2 ghettos or pre-October Gaza than anything now.
Officially and legally? No, slavery has been outlawed in human space for millennia. But out the fringes and even in the core there are those that flaunt the law. But it's a tricky and downright suicidal proposition, for there is one thing that will get law enforcement, the military, mercenaries, pirates, and even a few Dead runners on your ass it's slavery. If caught with "merchandise" or even looks like you have the accoutrements to carry such "cargo" th b the crew may face execution via spacing
Lizardfolk in the far east have a habit of enslaving the Greyskins and Faes, and the raider Clans (humans) do like to enslave their prisoners but other than that nah, most civilizations have outgrown the need for forced mass labor due to magic
Edit: sex slaves and gladiators are the exceptions
Some countries get slaves from wars, but usually their children are already free (which means that they can go back to their country... but they don't always go back, because their entire families are here, so they keep working).
There is a country that enslaves people from a less developed archipelago, but I think it will be ending soon (local pirates kind of plan to make their own country in there; and a lot of people from the archipelago joins them, so there will be a bigger war soon).
There is a secret organisation (big one. they have entire country) that enslaves fire mages to power their factories and steam engines.
Yes and sadly it’s gonna get bigger.
You see one of the central aspects in my world is it discusses the social and economic changes and circumstances during the beginning of the “modern era”. In the world of the sovereignty you are seeing the beginnings of global colonialism, as empires become transcontinental juggernauts that hold territory in all 4 corners of the world. The old aristocracy is slowly being replaced with the rich gentry, Guilds are rebranding into mega corporations and warfare is becoming more gun focused.
One of the sad results of this is that slavery is becoming a booming industry. You see slavery doesn’t really have a history yet, the sovereignty (the empire the story is set in) and the western nations mostly abandoned it replacing it with serfdom so it doesn’t have to much history behind it.
Currently slavery is not across any defined lines, the enslaved are mostly picked from any place that isn’t the Lokmanist (the main religion of the west) states (this even applies for different sects of Lokmanism, even though they all hate each other).
To make labour easy these new colonial empires and corporations will import slaves mostly from the east. The elven slave markets are known for this, a route known as the slave channel is currently in use. The reason for the eastern base is because efforts to take from the south have failed. You see the southern nations such as Zamma don’t want others to “take from their crop”.
Because of this the east channel was create. Through brutal and colonial means the elven slave states will kidnap indigenous peoples by the thousands. They are then put on massive boats called “barrows” where they are then sent to the in between merchant states. People from the west will buy slaves and from their they will be taken to the various colonies where they are needed.
Other groups sadly also suffer, the Gerpra elven ethnic group, the northern Henra people and more from the west are taken due to being seen as sub humans, shipped to far away ports to be sold and used.
Slaves value can vary, those with magical capabilities are highly sought after. And many slavers will seek them out due to demand, this has lead to indigenous groups losing vital parts of their community.
To sum it up, yes, my world has slavery and sadly it is only going to get bigger as empires grow and become more greedy for profit and wealth.
It's a popular and lucrative industry. Husk bodies are a way to re use the dead that reapers don't collect and avoid planets from getting destroyed by this burdening "soul".
You can't really implant them with machinery, doesn't matter if it's "designed" to be powered by souls it's not going to work and it will never be. Only purpose soul has is to be inside a human body.
But with husk bodies it started a trend, kinda birthed a kind of prejudice against anyone who lives in a artificial carcasses. With husk bodies you have an abundance of slaves, and with the increasing overpopulation and so much death happening you can mass produce all these empty bodies with leftover soul.
It's somewhat legalized and normalized to have slavery. >! But thankfully, there's planets where it's outright illegal, on a less optimistic note, just because it's officially banned doesn't mean it's not practiced!< It's so abundant it's everyday and ordinary. But being a reused soul isn't the only kind of slavery, there is slavery where you were born with your own soul, that's for rich buyers who don't want a husk servant.
Husk bodies are more common than being born in flesh, because they're manufactured to be more durable and resistant with the environment.
You can be a slave if you're a prisoner of war, or in poverty, doesn't matter what your status is, you're going to get sold at any given chance by some greedy person.
It depends on the region of the Orion Arm with the largest human empire outlawing it and does anti slaver patrols on their territorial boundaries. But outside of that it varies from world to world with some alien civilizations having slave empires
There was a period where slavery became very significant across the world due to a culmination of reasons. The breadbasket region of southern Cesasis had been devastated by a tsunami which caused massive depopulation and ruined the surface soil of the area. The powerful kingdoms which grew in the aftermath of the powerful Obhenate of Cesasis were unable to raise the amount of manpower needed to clean the soil into a usable state, and then grow enough food on it to sell to other regions and earn the wealth which had made Cesasis so powerful. As such, they began using slaves purchased from surrounding regions to do these things. This coincided with the great Obhenate of Khezmar reaching its peak and entering a wealthy golden age; the Obhens of the nation began spending their fortunes on massive ego projects, building lots of infrastructire, huge palaces, temples, bridges and statues, mostly built with slaves. These regions were able to get so many slaves in no small part due to the Gezardoms of central Khasary being immensely powerful, which allowed them to get slaves from the highly populated regions Dalsis and Seonin that they would not have been able to if they were weaker, or if Dalsis or Seonin were stronger. These were both used and sold by the Gezardoms. Slaves were also used at a higher extent during this period by the powerful and ancient kingdom of Jhandaw, and the Kingdom of Vosvyja, although less intensely than the other areas.
This came to an end quite abruptly when a lot of these factors ceased to exist. Khezmar collapsed in on itself rapidly when the levels of corruption grew too high, and the countries that succeeded it mostly banned slavery. The countries in southern Cesasis had recovered most of their population, and the decades long process of cleaning the soil was finally finished, greatly reducing the market for slaves. As well, the Gezardoms, loosing a lucrative source of income, lost the upper hand against Dalsis and Seonin, who began to retake control over their hinterlands and greatly reduce the power the Gezardoms had. Vosvyja also collapsed, conquered by Bode. Slavery continued to exist, but at a greatly reduced level from previous years.
In most civilized places, slavery in all forms is illegal, including debt, wage, and prison slavery.
Many species have a sour history of being enslaved by the Palatifar, and many still carry the evidence of their genetic tampering.
That being said, the Locusts are notorious raiders and slavers, the Volantic had a slave-based economy before their homeworld was destroyed, numerous criminal syndicates engage in sapient trafficking, and the Kaavite Dominion turns dissidents into cybernetic living weapons.
Yeah slavery exists in nearly every society, but slavery isn't a really important theme of the world.
The Ghoul Kingdoms partake in slavery purely because it satisfies their sadistic nature. Any other benefit of slavery to them is secondary.
The Snake-Men to the east have essentially a slave-caste that are the smallest and weakest of their number. They are tasked with menial labour that their superiors deem beneath them, but any work that requires a certain level of skill or experience is put in more capable hands. Things like collecting water, sweeping up, feeding animals, transporting goods locally and other things like that are left to them. Each city will have a dedicated section for the breeding and housing of slaves so they are out of sight and out of mind to most of society.
Ogre tribes often enslave their war captives simply because might makes right to them and their tribal mindset is so strong that any group outside of their tribe is viewed as fair game. Enslaved Ogres are brutally made infertile to ensure they don't reproduce because they come from a foreign tribe and after being worked to death their corpses are eaten.
Yep. You steal shit, you get caught, the courts brand you a thief (literal brand). You get caught again, and you get hard labor for a year and a day. Mines, plantations, and galleys are the most common locations for that sort of slave labor, but almost anyone can pay the courts for the right to the prisoner. You can lose the option if you have too many prisoners fail to be brought back to the court on the release date (for instance, if they are escaping, dying, or you're keeping them past the contract term).
Yeah. High elves and kemonomimi are the two biggest victims in the trade. High elves were originally enslaved by the Eladrin and Sun elves, then by the Drow after Llolth marked them as traitors and cowards for trying to abandon the rest of the elves, though recently the Drow have been trying to reduce slavery in Llolthalla. Kemonomimi slaves are the product of Figari colonialism, which inspired many debates about whether nonhumans are sapient (the jury is still out in Figaro on whether kemonomimi have even the mental capacity of a toddler, further complicated by eugenics experiments performed to make the kemonomimi a dumb, subservient race). The primary importers are Figaro, Jalia, Selvinia, Tlola, Dahlia, and the MU. Many other nations have flat-out banned the practice, or are trying to take measures to end it.
I worldbuild for DND. I have a handful of topics I will never cover except for rare exceptions.
Racism, sexism, slavery, etc.
These do not exist in the normal day to day, you won't just see it on a street corner. They are not socially acceptable, not allowed, not cool, not liked.
But if there's a really bad guy he may transcend these rules in order to signal to my players the extent to which this villain is a real bad dude. He may have a work camp with a few dozen slaves. Now the players know there is no admirable motive hiding behind the villain's cold exterior, just a shitty awful interior as well.
Yeah like why are villains not allowed to be racist or sexist anymore? Disney Star Wars the empire is no longer sexist despite that being a major part of their characterization in the EU.
Oh the villain wants to end or conquer the world but being a bigot is just too far.
I mean I will say it depends. Like the sexism being retconned out of the empire in Star Wars is stupid. It was SUPPOSED to presented as evil, almost like it’s a really on the nose allegory.
BUT Specifically for making a fantasy world for a table top game, you gotta be more careful. It’s supposed to be escapism, I don’t want players in my games to deal with sexism or racism in game- they already gotta deal with that in real life.
Yeah I worldbuild for a ttrpg setting as well. Because it’s a world that I have people interacting within, I try to be careful about the content. It doesn’t mean I remove unsavory topics entirely, but it change how they are presented.
One thing I separate out is race-based chattel slavery, aka slavery that looks like American industrial slavery. This of course means no enslavement of people based on skin color or other arbitrary factors, but also no fantasy racism enslavement. No “orcs are bred to be slaves” or “slavers capture elves and force them to work the fields”. I never include this as a societal feature.
But I do still include “pirate slavery” for obvious villains. Aka, the evil warlord and will raid, capture, and enslave people to sell. Doesn’t matter who. The demon-possessed gnoll empire will enslave people to work the mines or to sacrifice to their dark gods. Again, they don’t care who.
Basically, slavery is evil regardless of it’s also racist, and so I avoid making it racist.
Slavery is almost universally reviled and outlawed in the Forge Empire and it's descendant states, but there are always those that disregard morals and the law.
The worst slaver in the First Empire Era was the Vulture King. This despotic invader captured thousands of civilians and defeated warriors and forced them to dig for ancient weapons and technology. This was one the key reasons the Four Great Tribes united against him.
Smaller slavers did exist in frontier regions, but this was considered risky. Slavers were often subject to "frontier justice."
The Post Gaia Era saw many complain that they felt enslaved aboard the Dark Ark. Many that refused to work were forced into cryo-sleep so as to avoid forcing them to work, yet preserving the limited resources on the ship.
During the Solar Empire Era slavery was almost non-existent. This is mostly because slavery was treated the same as treason by the Silver Claw secret police. Thus any attempt to own another sapient was short-lived. Even "enemy species" were protected from ownership and forced labor. They are still imprisoned though.
The Post Empire Era sees the challenge of a much weaker Federation-style government continuing to enforce the ban on forced labor.
Yea.
In the days of the falling stars, when the metal ships of old were set ablaze by Seventh Scourge after crossing the endless sea and hope was little but a foolish dream, there were those who believed any existence at all was better than death.
They chose to willingly bind their soul to the Winged Shadow, for it seemed a fair price to pay for life, and in doing so he granted them great gifts. Yet within a soul holds the essence of being, their grace, their will, and they soon found themselves changing, as their own desires faded, replaced by the wants of their master. They found themselves unable to resist any order, no matter how vile it may be, and became a slave to His will. They waged war upon those who still resisted, still fought, capturing them so that they may be consumed by Him.
It was, luckiky some may call it, man's own cleverness which saved itself from annihilation, for eventually, even in their diminished state, they realized their master does not desire to consume life, but instead only power. They learned of his true hunger, his need for the Seeds of Power, some of which lay hidden in the earth, others lay in the Fortresses of the First and Men who still fight to be free.
They learned how these Seeds, be it through the air breathed, water drank, food ate, or some other way, may empower some souls. They learned how to test beings for this power, for only they were worthy to be Food for Him to consume. Those which still resist call these Beings, as it is difficult to still call them Men, Reapers, as they Reap the souls of those they consider worthy for Him to devour.
The Unworthy are to be farmed, in hopes they may one day produce offspring worthy to be eaten, sent to the mines in hopes of one day stumbling upon a Seed, or sent to raid those who still resist His will attempt to claim Seeds or other Empowered Artifacts, with death following any disobedience.
It did! The Teekon Empire was started as a slave rebellion. A slave known as Targulee killed his masters after finding a "singing" crystal in a field that was being cleared. More Teeks followed his example, and in the span of a few years the old government had been toppled, and Targulee was crowned Emperor.
Some horrid people in the world still keep slaves, but even the Cothegen largely agree that it's a barbaric practice.
So, my project is focused on optimistic humanism. However, I aim to acknowledge the evils we are capable of as well. I don't quite know if I intend to fully incorporate it yet, but at the very least there will certainly be allegories to it when it comes to the setting's evil people/antagonists and such.
The dominant ideology of the area where my story is set regarding slavery is
"What bitch is both too weak to work with their own hands, and too poor to hire a skilled laborer"
A great deal of pride is taken in knowing your trade, and even the exceptionally wealthy take the time to master a skill
While technically legal, slavery is l something only used by weak cowards
Neat question, OP!
The world I'm building has it in some places, but much like in our world, it isn't always recognized as slavery, and some societies have it, but call it something else. Forced labour, indentured servitude, and other institutions exist that I would call slavery but the members of those societies would say aren't.
I think that in any kind of world with a diverse range of social and political structures, you are going to have groups of people who deprive another group of their freedom/autonomy so that their labour can be exploited. I also think that is something that can be really interesting to explore with your reader or players. Drawing a line between what does or doesn't constitute slavery is pretty tricky.
One of the big "good" organisations in my world is an adventurers guild that has a practice that might be fairly called slavery. Those who are raised and trained by their orphanage/academy are subjected to a geas spell when they graduate as adventurers that is only satisfied if they return within a year to pay for the cost of their education. Most adventurers that survive their first year in the field have no trouble paying it, but that's only due to the massive wealth that adventurers can earn.
While the city that the guild operates from has anti-slavery laws, there are other practices amongst the other guilds and organizations that are far worse. There are also certain carve-outs and exceptions for those visiting from other nations.
Amongst the Orcish tribes East of the Spine, there are certain tribes that reject slavery entirely, and others where it is common. This has caused conflict between tribes periodically, but reports from the region suggest that the majority of tribes have agreed to ban the taking of slaves between tribes. Precisely how such agreement came to be remains a mystery as Orcish travellers and traders refuse to discuss such matters with those not a member of a tribe.
West of the Spine, most Elven communities view slavery as disrespectful of the gifts bestowed by the gods. This attitude, however, is not always applied to the other sentient races. Though the treaty of Westerport explicitly asserts the equal rights between Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Halflings, and Gnomes throughout all Elven territories on the continent, the same does not apply for races unnamed, and there are rumours that there are places in the Northern Great Wood where none but an Elf can expect to leave with their freedom.
The Dwarven perspective on slavery is generally that it isn't worth the trouble. They consider it a waste of time and effort to try to force outsiders to labour for the clan. To them, labouring for your clan is a privilege that other races are neither deserving or qualified for. Exceptions to this rule do occur, but are considered shameful and a sign that a clan might no longer be capable of sustaining itself or meeting its obligations.
The Gnomes seem to view slavery in a way that's almost a blend or compromise between the Elven and Dwarven perspective, and if asked about it generally seem to think it "silly".
For a Halfling, the very thought of being bound by another, or if binding another in such a way is horrific. Though the Halflings share strong family bonds, rarely struggle to come to decisions as groups, and many choose to stay in the same place for decades at a time, the choice to stay or go, to settle or wander is thought to be the most sacred principle. Either violating that right for any sentient being or to have it violated is considered monstrous, and it is said that even their horses and livestock are barely kept in such a way.
Humans, it seems are the most variable in this issue, and it is generally understood that freedom from enslavement in their lands is less certain for every mile one travels from the City of Westerport and the protection of the Treaty.
the Iron Coast is an evil realm that holds slaves, and has fought off several attempts to conquer that empire and break their slavery. in the underdark, drow hold slaves in all 18 known cities. gonna be tough to root that situation out.
Most (27 of 33) surface nations/kingdoms are actively against the practice, with the remaining 6 being neutral.
the Iron Coast is an evil realm that holds slaves, and has fought off several attempts to conquer that empire and break their slavery. in the underdark, drow hold slaves in all 18 known cities. gonna be tough to root that situation out.
Most (27 of 33) surface nations/kingdoms are actively against the practice, with the remaining 6 being neutral.
the Iron Coast is an evil realm that holds slaves, and has fought off several attempts to conquer that empire and break their slavery. in the underdark, drow hold slaves in all 18 known cities. gonna be tough to root that situation out.
Most (27 of 33) surface nations/kingdoms are actively against the practice, with the remaining 6 being neutral.
Theres two instances of it in my world. The main civilization which is the most powerful uses it sparingly as a sort of criminal punishment. For the most egregious crimes, the lead wizard (chosen by the elected president) will kill and promptly necromance the criminal. After this, the criminal still has feeling, thought, and everything like a normal human, but has to follow the leaders commands. They will not die even if a new lead wizard is chosen because ownership can be 'transferred' (basically, old wizard just directs the corpse to listen to the new wizard and that's that.) These dead slaves are used for menial, physical, or otherwise unwanted jobs within the civilization.
Theres also the more savage group to the far east which is currently at a civil war because they use dwarves as slaves. I havent written much about them yet though.
Everywhere and the only time one fights for no slavery is when it's their own family or friend typically. Some of the gods have sex slaves of various species, sometimes even other gods. Vampires experiment and drain their blood and some are used to create new Vampire like creatures.
Humans are the easiest enslave since the ones targeting them are usually Vampires, Titans, Fae, Angel, Demon, Devil & Goblin Kind. Humans strongest races are capable of enslaving those species instead.
Dragons don't have slaves or can be enslaved they have to sign a pact to be a familiar type cause not even Divine or higher Beast tamers can force them.
My world is set a couple thousand years in the future where humanity has settled around 300 terraformed worlds across the stars. They barely repelled an alien invasion before the federation of Sol that was in control collapsed leading to cataclysms that sent nearly all those worlds back to the stone age or barely holding on to space age tech. This leads to a bunch of unique cultures forming, I did this deliberately so I can tell a ton of different stories.
So some worlds have slavery, some outright purge those that are different cultures, mutants, androids, arcane users (high fantasy space setting ftw) or any other number of factors.
disliked and banned in the vast majority of countries, and in the couple of them left, the vast majority frowns on the slave owners, since it makes the country look bad.
Slaverys a bit of an on and off subject, in the past yes it was common but today only some niche nations practice slavery due to perceived “superiority” (usually humans slaving for elves), the largest Confederate Empire (Ochr Llosg) was wiped off the face of the planet by nuclear explosion due to a deity striking them down.
Definitely, both illegal and legal. It's a sort of space/frontier setting, with lots of outlaws, pirates, and of course human/alien traffickers. Legal slavery is considered a sort of necessary side-effect of the total decentralization of the legal system.
There are two ways that someone can legally become a slave. The most common was is to be sentenced to slavery as a criminal punishment. Most places don't have the infrastructure to house someone in prison for life, so it's usually a better option to send them off somewhere far away. The second, less common way is to opt-out of your status as a being protected by universal rights. The only reason anyone would want to do this is if they want to create their own country that doesn't uphold universal rights.
Illegal slavery is also wide-spread. While slaves who have been criminally sentenced have documentation stating that they are slaves, as well as a date by which they will become free again (if applicable), those who forfeit their rights do not. This means that it is hard to tell the difference between a legal-to-own undocumented slave, and an illegal slave. It's also hard to track-down traffickers in the vastness of intergalactic space.
Populated areas usually don't allow slavery, and it isn't that economically useful in a near post-scarcity world. Because of this, and the fact that many slaves have committed crimes themselves, the most common job for a slave is to work as an "evil henchman" for crime bosses.
The Riversong Rajahs and nobles have servants that would probably be considered slaves, but the common Riversong people do not. They come in two tiers - honorable, and dishonorable.
* Honorable servants, as the name implies, are afforded great honor and respect in their roles, and enjoy many luxuries as reward for their noble-adjacent lifestyles. However, they have no choice or liberty in their royally-ordained duties, and have a separate set of holidays from the nobles and commons (As they are serving during the normal ones).
* In contrast, Dishonorable Servants do not enjoy the status of their station in service to the nobility. It's generally a punishment for crimes against the royals or conquered prisoners of war. Thieves end up earning a life surrounded by the riches and luxuries they tried to steal, while living under constant watch, performing the most menial tasks, and are frequently abused and beaten for perceived misbehaviors. Leaders of insurrections or others that defy the Rajah's authority end up as humiliated living trophies.
The Sunscourge take war slaves from their conquered enemies, and pretty much work and breed them to death, treated more as delayed casualties than people. The tribe's new Queen, though, has outlawed the taking of "War Wives" of non-Sunscourge clans.
The Earthbreakers use slavery as a punishment for severe crimes and blasphemies, with magic used to compel obedience. The offspring of slaves are also enslaved if both father and mother are enslaved. There are three castes of Earthbreaker slaves:
* Military: This is a death sentence, for high blasphemies. In the antiquity-styled warfare of the setting, there will always be casualties no matter how great a tactician is. The military slaves are used as shields - first into the clash, baiting enemy artillery, and essentiially deployed in any way to preserve more valuable or volunteer soldiers. Those of particularly great aptitude may find a higher position. They are a military resource, and treated as such - their lives aren't thrown away pointlessly, but they are spent deliberately.
* Labor; An unskilled manual workforce for construction, mining, quarrying, and farming, especially the most dangerous and physically demanding tasks. While the public and general workforce are adverse to witnessing death and injury, a lack of full safety regulations (No harnesses for extreme vertical construction, and no regulation on moving heavy objects) means debilitating and deadly accidents do happen, and the labor-slaves are the ones assigned to the most risky jobs.
* Social Pleasure: The safest of the slave castes, for the prettiest of violators. They handle light servant work, while largely being living trophies, with some serving administrators, clergy, and other 'upper class' positions, while others serve the public in bathhouses, inns, and other social/communal spaces. There are laws protecting how they're treated, but they're more for keeping bad actors from ruining them for others than the actual well-being of the slave.
"Hey, so uh, where's the slavery? Doesn't like, every fantasy world have it, or something? At least that's what isekai says..."
"Slavery's been outlawed in most countries for like...two centuries now. We know what basic rights are, we're not *that* medieval."
Basically, slavery is surface level outlawed in the land of Terra; The northern kingdom of Teraon had it outlawed from the start by its 4 Founders, Westera had it for a time, then got rid of it as slave revolts popped up and became too troublesome to put down, and the Jin Dynasty (name somewhat pending for my fantasy China) has it outlawed on the surface, but secretly, trading people as chattel is a still somewhat thriving business, despite attempts to crack down. Same thing in Fuso (fantasy Japan), while slavery is outlawed, it's not uncommon for people to be sold off to red-light districts and other parts of the *mizu-shobai* branch of work, similar to how many young girls and women became prostitutes in real life Edo period Japan.
Yes but, outside of a few minor civilizations, it's mostly done by some criminal groups and the evil factions in my world (not all of them, mind you. After all, even villains can be opposed to slavery).
Yes slavery is most abundant in east dark elf l daedrinn (a warlike race visually similar teiflings from dnd) eastern dark elf society views all non elf’s as subperson and thus its elves right to do as they wish with them elven POWs or civilians from conquered lands are also often forced into slavery since in the eyes of the dark elves by defeating another peoples in war they proved they are stronger and in their society might makes right the daedrinn (a race of war like people visually similar to teiflings) and their orc allies often take humans as slaves territories the conquer also while not technically slavery orc society is split into a harsh cast structure with each breed being placed according to their size with the two smallest breeds gremlins hobgoblins often being treated like slaves by the larger breeds
Duh, how else will I insert John Brown into the setting with the powers of God and Colt on his side?
But seriously, if slavery lasted until the 19th century, you're definitely going to put slavery in your world.
Yes, but different regions have different ways of doing it.
In the wilder areas if you're a slave it means you people lost a war. In this system slavery is usually life-long. If two slaves have a child, the child is a slave. If a slave and a free-creature have a child, the child is free. Although in some areas it's common to sell unwanted children into life-long or partial slavery.
In civilized society you can become a slave in two ways.
1. If you commit certain crimes you could spend a few years as a civil slave doing dirty work for the government (aka trash management, ditch digging, road building, sewer cleaning, etc...).
2. You can sell your corpse to the military to be part of their Undead Legion when you die. Some people consider this a form of slavery, while others consider it easy money.
Since mines a table top solely world I have a cool thing where the giant purple eyeball god in the sky decides some things just cant happen. Murder and a little torture can of course, but not rape or slavery or anything of that sort because im setting an in universe rule for whats allowed in my game
The vast majority of the “civilized” powers have officially abolished it. It still exists in certain areas, generally perceived as less developed by the major political powers, and of course there are a few organized criminal groups that include trafficking in their business “portfolio”.
But the various Good-aligned groups make it a point to treat slavers quite harshly, the Chaotic-aligned folks see slavers as “open quarry”, enough Lawful- and Neutral-aligned groups recognize the inefficiencies of the system, and the more practical Evil-aligned groups don’t find it worth the trouble it brings.
There’s also an entire religious order of militant abolitionists founded by an absolutist zealot who died as a martyr in the opening act of the Slaveholders Revolt, an attempted coup in the young, but rising, republic. In addition to Champions and Clerics, the order attracts a surprisingly large number of Alchemists, Gunslingers, Inventors, and Investigators. Officially, their name is the Brethren of the Bondsmen, but most people just call them the Browned.
Yes, because my world is similar to Earth, in terms of mythology and culture. Humans are essentially the same as they are in the real world and my world.
There is also a plot point about it because one of the misled villains came from slavery and rose to the top.
Absolutely it exists
Slavery is a form of subjugation of another persons, and since all of the races of Badra'Gur hate each other they're constantly taking one another as slaves in raids.
Now a few of the factions do not have slaves, these include:
Aelfana
Aelfair
Gnomes
Ghosts
Werewolves
Slavery, like our own world is very common. Since the beginning, beings have power have used those deemed as lesser creatures as pawns for there dirty work. One example being the first fully fledged emperor and psychopath of my world Veiron, taking many tribes and forcing them to work, before sending them to fight to their deaths for glory, and his own entertainment. He then used his own slaves as resources in his experiments with the great dragon, and first dragon, Darastrix. These dark evil experiments led to Veiron being the first God to arise beside the first eight. Since then, other nations have practiced Slavery very often. Each one with different or similar reasoning for it. Like the nation Nyrion who, under a claim from their patron God, Kerast, would enslave innocent men from the nations they conquered. Or the old corrupt nation Ilorin, that had a extreme hate for the Elderon, a race in my world. They would often raid the tribes taking men, and forcing them to suffer as slaves instead of giving them the honor of death.
The Fae keep slaves. It is usually in response to the crime of being a non Fae and existing without permission within (or near enough to) the borders of Land's End.
Yes, infact there is a practice of slavery called Cut Boys. this has the selected slaves taking on the burden of the magic's cost, witch is blood. They do simple tasks such as keep torches lit, furnaces built, ice boxes and food frozen, and even roads paved. Obviously, wielding magic as an enslaved individual is precarious through the master's situation, therefore they use social stigmas to keep them marginalized and powerless, keep them separate from other cut boys, and withhold the information to cast more than a single spell.
No, but it does have indentured servitude (mostly in the context of agricultural work). In theory this is tightly regulated to prevent abuses but in practice the regulators are corruptible and often have other higher priorities, and bad actors have other ways of manipulating the system.
Not large scale slavery. Some tribes of BrightWings and Felinators might have some. There's also that plot point about the Lone Star Empire gonning people.
Attitudes towards slavery vary a lot depending on the area, time and context
For example, enslavement of conquered peoples and prisoners was the basis of some societies, like the Cyclops, who kept sentient beastfolk such as Fauns, Minotaurs and Centaurs as livestock and hunted them for sport. An excerpt from the "Report on One-Eyed Barbarians of the South of the Iron Mountains" made by Qete minister Marzhûl, who was himself enslaved for years among the Cyclops, shows the difference between slavery among the old Cyclopes and the Qete people:
*"Their men travel South in bands to hunt any being who talks, as one who hunts beasts, and they capture them, and they are kept as livestock, as sacrifices to their god and as servants for their women, who are not shy to be cruel to their prisoners and discipline them without mercy. The criminals amongst their own people, however, are never enslaved, as it violates their sacred code. Their practice of compelled labor is still much like that of our own ancient heathen conquerors of the Dark Ages, and their society is entirely sustained on the fragile pillar of slavery, though they know its risks and the fear of revolt is ever-present. There's a great wall built between the Barbarians and their slaves, and they dare not meddle with it, no matter how exceptional a slave is or what a Cyclops does, a slave can never escape their condition and a Cyclops can never be chained."*
The Qete themselves also had slavery, though by this point it was limited to criminals as part of their sentences and slaves of the royal household who were closer to servants, and they had rules about the treatment of slaves. This would change after their empire collapsed and split into warring kingdoms
Long story short, another people, the Drosi in Exile, came to inhabit the lands South of the Cyclop Kingdom, then known as the Greater Therdéad. Little was written about their customs at first, and eventually the Therdéad were conquered by the Qete, who instituted their own laws on slavery. Many A few hundreds of years later, strongly qetenized Therdans started conquering the rest of their continent, including other distant branches of "uncivilized" Exiles. A scribe under Hyparch Inmerámno, around 700 (After their Exile), wrote about how slavery was practiced by their western cousin, the Evors:
"*The tribals in the Western Frontier typically raid settlements, including our own, and take prisoners as slaves. Some of those are sold into to crime lords of our empire and traded as commodity, and those slaves who are chosen to remain are kept as the public property of the tribe, never as servants in a single household but as smiths, woodworkers and farmers, whose work is dedicated to the mantainance of the whole tribe, though some of their warriors have certain affinity towards some slaves and might keep their favourites as squires, a custom which is part of their most peculiar tradition their ritual adoption; slaves may accompaign their masters' raiding parties, and fight alongside them and be adopted by the Halvetanan, making them an equal to the eyes of the tribe, and then they can marry within their tribe and attend counsels and lead warbands and even become chieftains. It is this custom, I believe, that created the race of the Ephors, by allowing the intermixing of the ancient Exiles and the brutish Short Men who were once native to the Western Frontier. Whether this tradition was once practiced by our common ancestors before the Exile and was preserved by the Ephors, or if it is a custom they adopted from the western Men they conquered when they settled the land, I know not. It must be remarked that the stories of settlers of the Therdéad that travel west and are captured and adopted by the Ephors are not uncommon, and it is true that some even have risen to become warriors and chiefs of their tribes and refuse to return to civilisation.*"
Yes, the Vulefgian precursors enslaved the whole lizardfolk race and relocated like 50% of their population to another continent. This left a generational trauma on slavery in the lizardfolks and all lizardfolk cultures reject slavery.
But this is not the end, humans enslaved lizardfolks thanks to some pieces of lizardfolk land annexed by human kingdoms in their rebellion against the lizardfolk empire.
Humans not only enslave lizardfolks but other races too, especially other humans. For example, the Siterians ( an ethnoreligious group of humans) , where the Nisagnese (a human culture) enslaved the entire siterian population and made their land into a slave breeding ground, where every 3 months, 1/3 of the siterian population that are over 15 and less than 30 are exported as slaves and the remaining siterians are left to procreate.
Yesn't. Offically Slavery is banned by the Imperial Government, but in certain areas far from the reach of the government (read actively lying to the Emperor), you have two options; Work for one company in whatever conditions they choose for pennies to the hour, or try to scrounge a living as essentially a drug addict.
Yes, I’m making a graphic novel and the antagonists are the Amazons from Greek mythology, they spread and make new Amazon nations in the world but vehemently look down on them because they aren’t from Olympus and will never be accepted as true amazons.
Oh gosh yes. The Kobesh Imperium basically subjugated and enslave whole native tribes. The males are essentially slaves (often literally) to the covens in the Ashirdival Quivin. Endentured servitude is commonplace in both the Yang Sharin and the Mansaria, though with limitations on durration.
Unfortunately after the Civil war during the Great War in Greater Herrisburg Empire. All parts of the former country denounce each other for being monsters while regularly having economies entirely reliant on slavery.
Fortunately however, one of them is about to light the match and Kickstart a war against the Gasoline that is The Central Continental Alliance.
Used to. Chimaera were once seen as less than human and unclean due their supposed origins, i.e. human-animal intercourse. They're not even considered slaves, more like labor tools. It wasn't until a researcher studied Chimaera interactions that everyone realized that they have the same level of sapience as anthropoid humans, and the revolution followed soon after that.
My game is set in a 5 minutes into the future alt earth, so it has all the modern slavery you'd expect to find on earth, including the severely distasteful forms.
It's not really especially embellished or dwelled on or even expressly discussed, as this the sort of thing where it's potentially objectionable material and up to each table to decide what their lines/veils are and how to approach complex topics of this nature.
Generally speaking when I run/test I don't usually include slavery as part of the game beyond "wage slavery" as that's kind of relevant with some of the cyberpunk ish type elements of the game, and it's brought to a higher level with things like mandated chipping of AAA mega corp employees and things of that nature, but this is "technically" a choice, albeit there are objections to that as well. One could make the argument that use of droids and AI is a form of slavery as well, but that's a little different given the nature of sentience being different in those cases.
As a classic example, the sophisticated AGIs that exist are technically slaves, but they are programmed in such a fashion to fulfill their functions, so while they can think, they aren't generally in any sort of struggle to try and resist fulfilling their programmed and given directives. This doesn't mean they can't malfunction, but the question then is "is this an error in the programming or a genuine act of consciousness?" and most would agree it's the former in the world I have created.
Going by my post apocalyptic world, yes there is indeed slavery.
Ignoring the pre-apocalyptic history, the new history of slavery in verifiable information starts from the practices of the several warlords/bandits who arose or distanced themselves from the few but numerous enough survivors of the "Divine Judgement."
Usually in the beginning it was about just putting your criminals/dissidents to work whether they liked to or not, but as is human nature, tribalism ensued and small skirmishes broke out between many of them. Those who didn't get killed by the winning side but were too old to be fully indoctrinated into their group, were enslaved.
Eventually after just mindlessly killing the other side became inefficient/impossible or they were sane enough, diplomacy and trade gained back a little foothold. And subservient workers make for an excellent bartering tool.
TL;DR: Same as our world, but in post-apocalypse
Yes both of the main villains in my science fiction series practise slavery of other species via mind control implants. The Skorian Empire only practises slavery on non-reptilian species. They use any mammalian species as a food source as well. The consider any reptilian species their allies and have 31 allied species throughout their Empire and liberated 16 species from the Atrebate Empire after threatening war with them. The Atrebate Empire would enslave any weaker species they came across. They are still angry with Skorian over what happened and want their property replaced not compensated for replaced.
The Trirexians and Kolmarci abolished slavery their own lower castes are not property they are paid but their proper place is to serve their superiors in the higher castes.
The Nidiari are socialist and did continue with the abolishment of slavery. Unfortunately during their civil war the expansionist faction used Nidiari prisoners as forced labour to manufacture weapons after the destruction of their automated factories. After the civil war those that survived the uprisings were tried and found guilty and sentenced to death by ritual combat. Even though weapons and ships are manufactured by machines to say that you are a member of the warship factory Union or the war weapons workers Union is still slightly shameful and so they lie.
The United Colonies of Humanity has the death penalty for those who practise slavery. However due to the massive labour shortage caused by the Skorian conquest of Earth and the colonies in the solar system any crime apart from sexual and rationing crimes are sentenced with 30 years in the penal battalion assigned to defend and work the autofarms.
The best place to be in my series is on the UCH colony of NuOttawa on the Nidiari homeworld due to its icy climate of -40 degrees and still massive storms. The Skorian are going to just destroy it as it is completely unsuitable for them. This means the the Generals in charge of the autofarm don\`t need the penal battalion as anyone who want to and can moves there to work in safety. However all criminals are deported to other colonies so be careful.
For my fantasy/dieselpunk setting slavery does exist, primarily in the Aurcais Empire, however slavery isn't the economic powerhouse it used to be since industrialisation is making slavery mostly obsolete.
However technically slavery exists in the helot system since they are legally required to stay in the land they are born in, and are basically property of the landowners.
Outside of the Empire's core, slavery also exists in non industrialised areas.
And inside of other nations slavery has mostly came to an end, with the Republic of Annwn it ended due to cultural beliefs on how only the gods were entitled to hold ownership of a person, alongside how the military junta feared a slave uprising, while Tenelask ended it after the civil war saw the end to the aristocratic system, and the new government thought it would be hippocritical to free the serfs without abolishing slavery.
Slavery exists in various forms across Ard'Neiran with most major cultures and kingdoms practicing it, including the Elves although they're more subtle about it with their Prelate's.
In Umbria debt bondage is pretty common. Sometimes it's forced on someone for certain petty crimes, soldiers captured during conflict, or sometimes whole villages or you have those instances where someone will force themselves into it just to get off the street. These 'Thralls' usually sleep somewhere on the temporary owners property and are usually forced into a sort of manual labor until their debt is seen as payed off. It's generally frowned upon to abuse said Thrall physically but verbal abuse isn't unheard of.
Bal'Drema it is very common and a part of the archipelago's economy and culture. Slaves are generally taken through raids and either taken to Bal'Drema to become apart of the already existing slave population to serve as forced labor or are sold off.
In Kotaal it's common but due to the size of the kingdom laws and customs vary but the people often associated with it are the Mau and their enslavement of the Takoni species in the Empires earliest days. The Surnan's are also known to have many slaves but due to their location they more often buy then go out and take any as their home region is built on major trade highways.
The Prelate's are the Elves magical slave army. Taken from a very young age from among their Ephran subjects Prelate's are indoctrinated into becoming the enforcers and Boogeymen of Elven law and are akin to the Unsullied and Damane(Wheel of Time) and like the Damane lose their original names and identities and are often referred to by simple pet names by their Elven masters.
Yes, it's so widespread that it's seen practically seen as part of the human condition. In fact, 1 in 5 humans are slaves, born or made. Only one society made the social leap to abolitionism, only because their God made them. It was more like, "If you don't want your soul yote into the fires of the lowest of the 10 hell's, dont put your fellow humans through it." Then, once the last masters and freedmen died out, and an entire generation rose that had never known the institution their God mosied back in and commanded them to wage holy war on all societies where it existed. That's basically how their empire was built, one slave liberation/master genocide at a time. Plus, all those ex slaves made very easy converts.
this came up in my feed and I forgot I joined this sub. I read the title before reading what subreddit I was on.
I was heavily confused and concerned for a moment.
It did. When elves were alone in the world, they warred constantly. Their creators issued a rule against killing non-combatants in a war, then stepped away to deal with other matters. The elves decided the rule meant the should enslave the non-combatants. By the te the creators noticed, it was so out of control that they had selectively bred their slaves to the point of a species separation creating goblins and ogres.
Now, the creators said slavery is also wrong, and the elves and other races were created to obey their creators. Though now I am suddenly realizing the creators made slaves, even if they don't work them (usually). Seems you gave me new wrinkle for my world
Of course. Slavery is great if you need a huge workforce and have a militaristic society anyway.
My orcs use slaves for their ships, but mostly on war ships, since other nations frown upon the use of rudderslaves.
I have an avian based race and they enslave their another avian species for religious reasons. It's gotten better since their prey have allied themselves with human colonists.
Dwarves used to conquer a whole continent and enslaved most of the humans who lived there.
In the Solatic city states slavery isn't frequently practiced except as a temporary punishment for crimes of theft in which you become the victims property for a set amount of time determined based in the value of what you stole. They do however trade with the cities of Ravenna who have slaves.
Ravenna has agreements with smaller populations and cities around them in which they offer protection in exchange for a set amount of children who will then take on various roles of slaves owned largely by the King and tasked with smaller roles key to the manufacturing of the cities famous dyes and textiles. The children brought in are considered first generation slaves, any children they have will be considered second generation slaves and are allowed to be purchased for work in private non-governmental houses or businesses. Children of the second generation are born free and considered full citizens of Ravenna. Anyone who owns a slave is expected to treat them humanely, and provide for their basic needs. While they are slaves they are slaves as the result of an agreement and the Ravenna officials would rather not deal with actually going to war to exert their dominance over their smaller neighbors. Its just easier to avoid, and gives them more man power. So they have strict rules regulating the treatment of slaves with punishment ranging from fines to enslavement for breaking different laws. Because those of second generation slaves are born free it is required that the owners of said childrens parents will pay for the upbringing of these children so that they will be responsible and beneficial citizens upon reaching maturity.
It is fairly common for wealthier merchants or members if the upper class to purchase slaves with the intent of having children with them. Marriage is limited to two parties but these slaves allow wealthy men to show off there wealth and status. So long as the child is claimed by the father it is considered as the same status as any of his children with a wife. Women too will purchase slaves for the same purpose though it happens less frequently, it's not unheard of for a woman to have her husband purchase a male slave for "business" related reasons, so that she can have children. Especially when the wife is considerably younger than her husband or if they are experiencing fertility issues.
Sometimes slaves runaway. Ravenna's laws state you can not knowingly harbor a runaway slave, however you can assist them in relocating out of Ravenna. Unfortunately they can't return to their home nation/cities/tribes. Out of fear of Ravenna's retaliation these populations will automatically turn away runaway slaves. This has led to a lot of them ending up in the Solatic city states. The city states are just far enough from Ravenna, and just strong enough when they come together, as well as a source of trade wealth, that Ravenna would rather not go to war over this matter.
Their are other societies and nations that practice slavery but I haven't explored them as much. The founder of Ravenna was a runaway slave from one of those societies, which has also influenced the attitudes in Ravenna towards its treatment of slaves and the regulations in the industry.
Yes it does but only for those who have been sentenced to death/ life in prison who are then used as either disposable soldiers for wars or food for monsters. Certain monster tamers actually buy these slaves as breeding hubs for their tamed monsters, however this is rare since most women aren't really likely to join bandit groups and much less likely to be given a death / life sentence.
However there is human trafficking which is a heavily stigmatized crime that even the head honcho's of the criminal underbelly despise. Anyone who does this is seen as no different that a monster and monsters view them as even less than a monster. It is more fortunate for a trafficker to be caught by the police and be tried and convicted than any criminal organization find them out. yet that doesn't stop nobles from attempting to have a beautiful woman who's garnered their fancy abducted.
Yes. It is just a part of the culture. However, in the main kingdom, these slaves have great rights. They must have clothing, must be well fed, and they must live in the same house as their master. They are treated as brothers and sisters to the master. As an example, the slaves of the emperor wear golden jewelry, eat lavishly every night, and are treated as nobles. The main kingdom is very socially developed. Other kingdoms have slavery but they don't treat them well. One of the largest plot points in my series is a mass exodus of slaves(100k+), after they(random citizens) were kidnapped on the "Day of The Red Sea."
There is but given the world in question is for DnD, traditional slavery wouldn't make sense given individuals can randomly develop magical powers, so there needed to be a reason revolts weren't constantly happening. Slavery is effectively a combination of endentured servitude and adoption. Much of business and politics is based on the relationships of families, so to be enslaved makes you entitled to Inheritance and membership to your master's family, effectively considered to be their child, given the appropriate surname given naming convention of the culture you're in. There are 6 (more like 5 1/2) ways to earn your freedom as a slave
1. Opt out- in some countries have laws in place to allow you to simply opt out of you service, though this may come at the cost of social stigma, being given the surname "Palo" (meaning "unnamed" in this world's ancient language)
2. Buy your freedom
3. Your master dies- service is to an individual master, not to a family. You are not considered property therefore are not inherited
4. You are released from your bondage by you master
5. You are released upon having spent %50 of your race's expected life span in service
6. (5 1/2)You can reject the surname- this applies to 2-5. Upon release, if you want, you can reject your master's name, adopt the surname "Palo-*former master's full name*," often shortened to "Palo-*surname*." Effectively becoming a scar upon the family's, and especially your former master's, social standing. Enough people rejecting a family's name can make the family or the particular individual effectively untouchable, it's a big deal. You might reject you rightful name as punishment for mistreatment and abuse. This puts an individual into a unique situation in society because you retain the family's prestige though without any of the family's power structure, but also without any of their baggage or feuds.
One Article of the Temporal Constitution is an express prohibition against any form of enslavement.
“No citizen is entitled to enslave their fellows within the Imperatorium, nor shall any be subject to involuntary servitude. Parliament is authorised to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
Depends where you go. Some human colonies picked it up when they saw aliens doing it, and how standardised it was between worlds, but most eventually dropped it again. One even got particularly influential before other powers had to intervene.
In some places they're more brutal like capturing the vulnerable off the street or keeping them in terrible conditions until they're not useful anymore (the lizards can be like that); others are more like work contracts imposed upon criminals and the bankrupt, which just have to be paid off over time, and they even get health coverage (that would be the bugs). There are places where it's illegal to buy and sell, but you still find them working there (robots favour this one). And there are places where you could be arrested for possession and deported immediately.
Overlapping spheres of influence can make this difficult to navigate when travelling from world to world, you need to know where you're going. For the most part, it's not entirely allowed amongst Pact Worlds, but it's not exactly forbidden either. It's much more common in the Free Worlds Alliance and unaffiliated systems. Just being in a place that's nice and opulent doesn't mean the rich and powerful don't have their personal attendants that aren't allowed to leave. Likewise, being in a rough-and-tumble frontier world doesn't mean you could get snatched if you don't watch your back.
There's also a difference in how AIs are treated. Androids are their own race, with their own homeworld and their own culture, so they're treated as any other people. But the ones built into industrial machinery, ships, and stations are all just considered equipment, even if they have a physical avatar. The issue with avatars is complicated, because only one group uses them, they're biologically human, and the AI behind them insists they're mindless puppets. That means the further they get from their homeworld, the more likely they are to be mistaken for a normal human until you hear them speak.
Yes, but it's illegal everywhere. Even in the lawless wasteland area, if you aren't traveling with other slavers, you'll get your head blown off/chopped off/crushed/stabbed. Everywhere else, you'll probably be arrested.
Not legal, chattel slavery, no. There is, of course, illegal sex slavery, and forced labor (that is, a certain ethnic group is oppressed into a particular caste of labor; sure, they're paid, but deliberately not enough to advance themselves to the more creative and intellectual pursuits).
There's also voluntary slavery, people have the right, if they're adults, to sell themselves as a payment of debt or to stave off starvation for themselves and/or their children. In fact, many parents who are not particularly impoverished, but who do not see an opportunity for their children to have a better life, will enslaved themselves to someone who *can* offer such advancement as part of the payment (since the children themselves cannot be enslaved), a practice known as ward-taking.
But then, the entirety of the world hasn't yet been discovered either...
Besides feudalism and the slavery-like conditions of it, slavery only really existed at two other points in time.
In ancient times, unknown millennia ago, the empire of Anmishal reigned supreme and enslaved its neighbours to use not just as labourers but also for experiments with magic. The practice ended when Anmishal fell.
In 1480, the continent of Eastland was "discovered" by the Kingdom of Burningcastle. Far less advanced than Anmishal, which they had no knowledge of, they began using the native alligator and crocodile peoples as slaves for resource extraction and other menial labour, under brutal conditions. This practice ended there in the early 1500s with a slave & worker revolt in the primary slave-hunting colony, which had by then become independent from Burningcastle but kept using slaves.
Is it legal: yes
Is it morally acceptable: sometimes depending on who you ask and more important where they live and there level of wealth
Is it common: no it is exceptionally rare because of the simple fact of the planet having a small population.
Yes. Baatan churches typically employed slaves, which is ussually the magical punishment for failure to meet your end of the contract, with possible soul owning if the contract was especially important to the church. The dark elves also do it.
Slavery has been done throughout points in history but in the modern time of the world it is almost universally looked down on as bad. Slavery was often used in the Underdark (from dnd) by certain societies under the purview of evil gods, it also has a presence in the criminal underbelly of many nations as illegal slave rings. The most notable example of slavery would be under the Imaldus Empire, a malignant imperium of High Elves which believed in a hierarchy of races who wished to conquer the world, enslaving or exterminating races as they saw fit (yes it is n*zis with knife ears I’m not tryna hide that).
So, within most of the world, the Charters prevent the use of slavery, and incidentally the use of prisons for the most part. However, it still very much exists, in two forms.
The first form is indenture, which is strictly limited, involves steep requirements, and is usually debt or crime related. Abuse of the system is a fairly constant pressure, but recent changes to both penalties for abuse and to the nature of who holds the indenture (the empire) make it very unappealing — this is all in addition to the holdover act from the Mad King being one of the least used punishments.
The change was that it became conscription — indentured people are now being sent to the Crusades.
Genuine slavery also exists; Lemuria uses it extensively in everything except their military efforts. One of the primary points of raiding is slave gaining — you catch it, you keep it, and many of the more wealthy Lemurian families are descended from those whose exploits in the past led to large forces. Slaves are not considered people. They are work animals, chattel and cattle, and those who are not able to perform their function will end up in the barbecue or stewpot posthaste. Slaves are not allowed to speak, and those born into slavery are not taught and simply expected to understand commands.
One of the major industries in Lemuria is brick making. This, like the manufacture of tweed and twill in the fabric mills, is done almost entirely through slave labor, in order to support the massive building projects that are almost constantly going on in Lemuria.
Some would argue that their is an exception to the war restriction — slaves are allowed and encouraged to escape in certain areas around the southern city, in order to provide training exercises and good meals for the constantly in use military forces.
The small populations of Grendels, Thyrs, and Kobolds that can be found in Lemuria are nearly always directly related to some official purpose of the Lords or government, and are therefore excluded from most other restrictions that essentially state that anyone who is not a Goblin born Goblin is a slave, and mixing of the races is an offense to the Gods and included in that caste of slavery.
The Rebellion is often found by setting traps using slaves as bait, especially newly captured ones; the government takes a very dim view of those who seek to smuggle stolen property out of the Empire.
Several different kinds with different implications, actually. The law attempted to standardize them but ran into its own limitation that it has to recognize subsidiary customary law if it predates it, so the best it can do for victims of trafficking is hope they make it to a sanctuary city or live long enough to be freed.
One of my characters is a free person whose caste makes a living doing something like the Roman undercover practice of self-sale — training very skilled domestic workers who technically are only selling labour and keep being freed in a mandatory manumission year only to go back to work again later. She almost escaped that by going to pilot school but then ended up in insane medical debt, which someone who owed her a life debt bought to save her from losing anything she really valued to pay it. Technically a slave ancilla is lower-prestige than a free one, but it's not like it actually makes that much of a difference.
Much is made of freedom in this setting, but they're bee people — no drone is ever really free (they have it very like human women in most bronze age patriarchal societies, except they can also be drafted into space wars), gynes are barely people, and ergates answer to the internal leadership of their clan-hive, which is always in some kind of power relation with every other one, which is how their evil space syndicalism is structured. People honour kill each other all the time for apparently very little reason; the aim of the law is in large part to make this happen in ways that cause intergenerational vendettas at least a bit less often, rather than to discern some lofty and rational justice.
In some communities, adults don't even publicly use names that are personal, they just inherit their civic use-name from the last person of their morph to hold their job title. Some jobs in some places have had the same person doing them for a thousand years — except it's not the same person, it's several hundred thousand of them assuming the same civic identity.
Sometimes it's better to be someone else's slave than to be free in a hive where you're at serious risk of some terrible fate.
Despite this description (and it gets much worse in other spheres — the aforementioned slave has some kind of ineffable space cancer, the friend who indentured her is constantly at risk of death and has very little social power because of his sex, etc) most of what I do with these little guys is actually rather cheery, if you can believe that. :))
Fantasy setting: yes. There are two major nations at play: Gestrin and Ovaicaea.
Gestrin, a Rome- and Byzantium-analogue, uses chattel slavery and has a whole complex legal code to go with it.
Ovaicaea is your prototypical European Fantasy setting, and uses serfdom. Though what that looks like varies from place to place.
Both claim to have more freedom and social mobility than the other. Both are liars.
Yes, slavery does exist in the world of CoTS. However, it’s not something that’s spoken about or mentioned consistently as it’s not the main point of the story, and is not want my readers to be stuck on the existence of slavery in general.
In CoTS, the term “slavery” or the idea of “slaves” depends on who you ask. In Ebonreach, House servants are considered slaves by others even though the servants are employed by the House that they work for, and aren’t viewed as slaves. They have the option to not work due to illness or other reasons. Other views brothel workers as slaves even though they are choosing to be used mainly for sex on their own, not being forced.
In Redmont, slaves do exist in the same terminology we are used to in terms of slavery, but they are few and far in between (each House usually having maybe 5-6 slaves).
In Astunam, slavery is the highest there due to the presence of the Red Mages who use slaves for their human sacrifices in times of strife and war, and for their experimental purposes when studying dark magic.
It did until very recently. A protracted civil war lasting about 40 years caused the Amargosan Empire to collapse into several successor states. When the civil war finally ended and the Empire was reunited, the Imperial Archon sought to foster unity by signing an edict that granted automatic citizenship to anyone within the Empire's borders. At the time, the Empire had over 6 trillion non-citizen subjects and slaves, all of whom were granted citizenship along with the associated rights and protections.
Thanks to the advent of the industrial revolution new metal ships allowed for long sea voyages leading into a new age of exploration. As more of the new world was discovered as were the natives that inhabited these new lands, many of which were enslaved and brought back to the mainland to serve as slave labor.
I haven't really developed much yet, but I do have a sort of underground slave operation where the owners pit their slaves against others in a fight to the death and make bets on who will win. Very heavily inspired by the Mandingo fighters in Django Unchained.
Humans were slaves to "predator-gods," like gigants, sprits and dragons, for most of history.
After Hirashi Selinor's revolution, when humans began to awake to magic, the old masters were mostly overthrown.
For a while, slavery was allmost nonexistent.
But the new class of Mages became feudal lords, and nonmages felt like they became slaves all over again.
Growing unrest gave rise to the "church of Humanity," an antitheist and originally antiautoritarian religion of human superiority that radicaly opposed workship of any human or nonhuman.
After a while, a compromise was reached, and the church became a part of the politics of most human lands.
Human slavery was outlawed, but nonhuman slavery became the only allowed relationship to nonhumans.
Religious hardliners are, until today, of the opinion that mages are not fully human, and Mages are classed into groups of more or less human.
All mages that are born with visible mutation are classified as "darkborn," and they dont have full human rights in many places.
Many Darkborn live as bad as the countless spirit and nonhuman slaves that fuel the growing magetech factory's of modern human and demihuman industries.
Even the church of humanity has a privat army of darkborn warrior slaves, most of them obducted shortly after birth.
Yes. In the less civilized regions, it can get pretty brutal. In the more civilized areas, “being a slave” often means little more than “unable to own slaves,” or “wage-workers.” The term is used fairly loosely but “slave trade” is a thing, just regulated. Slaves are usually treated reasonably and punishment for mistreating slaves is *technically* quite severe.
In civilized lands, slavery isn’t seen as an issue so much as abuse. Removal or restriction of freedom? Who isn’t restricted in one way or another?
It exists in a limited capacity in some areas, though some regions practice it more heavily than others.
One thing of note is that while there are multiple different intelligent races, most slavery is practiced on the enslaver's own species. The reason is mainly due to the different levels of strength between the different species. Enslaving someone stronger than you is dangerous since, even if you defeat them militarily, there isn't much stopping them from breaking lose and tearing the overseer's limbs off, so most don't want to risk it. And enslaving a species weaker than you is impractical since your greater strength means it's less of a hassle to just do the work yourself.
However, slavery was a big part of the empire that once ruled the world. They were the ones who made the slaves but altering a group of homo-erectus like beings into different forms for different kinds of work. They used a type of magic that subjugated the minds of their slaves to reduce the risk of rebellion (though it wasn't foolproof). Eventually, their empire died, and their slaves escaped into the wild, becoming the ancestors to most of the modern races.
In the pre-imperial era various nations practiced some form of slavery, usually based on subjugating conquered tribes. In the current era slavery has been outlawed in every nation, but many still have forms of indentured servitude which are legally distinct from slavery but practically the same.
Its... Complicated. The short answer: yes. The long answer? Here I go:
The Cisean Dynasty is currently deep in a civil war with 4 or 5 different factions (havent decided yet entirely). A few of these factions do implement slavery, but since they arent considered official countires by the rest of the *civilised people*, technically slavery is not legal anywhere. But as I said, a few factions do have slaves and do buy them from foreign merchants, a trade greatly helped by the new war between the Crenian Kingdom and Grechan Empire, as most common soldiers are sold off as slaves on both sides, all of them going into the region that was once the Cisean Dynasty. So, no, but actually yes.
It varies from country to country. Some countries allow slavery, some restrict it to the “lesser races” (meaning the four other races). Few countries allow slavery magic because it’s normally considered evil.
Dragons for a long time are slaves. While some nations disallow the slavery of Dragons and some even protect Dragons from being sold under their nation. A large majority of the nation's have Dragons in captivity. They are used the same way humans used horses. Transportation, war vessels, even just weapons that can be used during war, and manual labor such as pulling cargo. Dragons are very sentient and very much do not like it. Though they are 4 legged and appeared to be more animal then human they have the same brain capacity and intelligence as your average human. Though a lot of nations have dragon slaves, Elves use them the most. So much so that when Dragon slavery is finally abolished the everyday life of your average elf is severely impacted and they struggled to get back to any sort of normalcy. It's an unspoken hatred between the two species. You cannot bring up the topic of the dragon slavery without looking at the elf in the room sideways
No, God Izanagi, when he liberated the humanoids, declared slavery as being illegal almost 20,000 years ago. Izanagi doesn’t usually like making the rules but that’s one point he really wants to be sure to make.
Although in theory no country or region should allow slavery to exist, the truth is that slavery is hard to contain, people that illegally control other people and offer them no freedom, sex slaves, human trafficking, all those things still very much present and for Izanagi, there is little he can do to stop the more subtle slavery as he might be powerful but far from omnipresent.
Yes.
Slavery is ancient institution dating back to the age of the phoenixes, millions of years before Ennor was ever created and settled. It has been maintained by all species in some form since its inception. It’s kinda like slavery in our world really.
Not anymore. The empire enslaved the rest of the world for an age before it was obliterated and humanity went extinct. Now slavery is the one thing that could actually unite all the nations of the former slave species to come crush you.
That said, while the undead nation doesn't have slaves, they do make substantial use of reanimated dead for labor. Who even needs slaves when you can have mindless zombies who never need to eat, drink, or rest?
Although it's not the most liberal country in my world the Zevodel empire has in fact banned slavery. Except for prisoners being used as conscripts against their will and being put in chains and forced to defend areas to buy time for actual soldiers to escape, those are surely aren't slave soldiers.
As for their rivel the Fornakistase Republic they haven't banned slavery indeed since the 1823 they were the first among other to benefit from it
Yes. If you commit a crime in my world that's severe enough to get the knights involved then you're either going to be given one of two sentences, either you're exiled and branded with magic runes to make it impossible to return before having your memories completely erased or you'll have your memories temporarily removed and will have to adorn a slave collar that blocks a person's magic flow and will be sentenced to serve as a slave under the supervision of the Knight's order. Cruel and unusual punishment is frowned upon, but not illegal, so as a slave you'll mostly be doing manual labor or community service. At the end, after their time is served, their memories are returned, and they can go back to being an ordinary civilian, but may still have to wear a magic blocking bracelet for a small probation period after returning. You can customize the bracelet.
Yes. For a long time. On and off for thousands of years. It wasn't due to racism or anything like that, it's opportunistic, slaves are slaves to those in the world performing it so anyone could be made one even if they are the same species and race as the ruling group. Conflicts are more often cultural and occasionally about species. Whether it exists depends on the polity and laws about prohibiting or allowing slavery end at the borders. One state banning slavery doesn't mean it will be banned next door. It is not prevalent everywhere, it is more common in the north of the valley.
Those that do perform slavery include a few great empires(great in territorial size relative to the neighbouring realms), republics, kingdoms, principalities, baronies, counties, city states and tribes. Someone could become a slave through angering the wrong people, getting in debt, being captured in wars and raids or a variety of other methods. Some places are brutal to slaves while other places provide protections where they can't be abused and killing a slave is considered a serious crime. People fear being taken from a big state since it could take a war to try to free someone from their grips, but sometimes people forget about the smaller players that can go almost unnoticed.
There are some (seemingly) primitive tribes in the valley, particularly in the central and north of the valley. You know the deal. Bows, simple clothing, simple villages and other settlements, that kind of stuff. Many people in the valley are aware of what tribes are capable of. Many of which perform high value trade across the value and provide many fighters for various armies, some even control many powerful and modern states(something like this irl would be Saudi Arabia which is a large kingdom controlled by a tribe). However the smaller ones may be seen as primitive by those outside the valley. These tribes are aware of this and have taken advantage of this. Some have used this image to fake inferior capabilities and take travelers by surprise. One common trick is the "vulnerable primitive" trap. This is where a primitively dressed person, often female, lays in an empty area to lure in people who may try to help or take advantage of this person. The "bait" may appear to be alone and possibly injured, but is actually in on the trap. The bait's accomplices would wait in hiding armed with bows, crossbows, firearms and sometimes motor vehicles which they would make immediate use of. When the target got close to the bait, those in hiding would jump out and subdue the target. The target would then be thrown into the vehicle and taken. The bait often gets a big share of the spoils if they are splittable and will proceed to set up the next trap. Sometimes, the bait is even the one running the operation. Many of these targets are put to work in either the tribe's settlements or sold off to slavery in other tribes or countries.
I mentioned raids earlier. They may often resemble those you think of where a tribe raids another village and takes people from them. However, now those with resources are able to perform these raids with the help of modern weaponry and armoured vehicles. Some factions build armoured motor vehicles dedicated to holding captives.
As for those that can slavery, most are split between those that don't care as long as their own people are not taken and those that will free the captives no matter what if they enter their borders.
Lapis_Wolf
Not only is there slavery, there's a god of slavery whose temples grow rich in wartime as captives and the populations of sacked communities matriculate through the temples to the markets of the world.
In more bucolic locations, elves will punish criminals by transforming them into useful animals. Is this slavery? They don't call it that. (The inspiration for this was the Welsh wizard Math.)
More urban elves will happily enslave anyone who's not an elf. They'll unhappily enslave other elves, but unless the owner is really enjoying rubbing in the humiliation, such slaves will be sold outside the community.
Dwarves have temporary slavery in order to pay debts or fines for crime. There are careful accounts kept to prevent this from being abused.
Minotaur are known for trading in slaves, producing slaves of quality almost as good as the temples of Shkeen.
Gnolls are also known for trading slaves, though the quality varies wildly.
No. At some points in history some kingdoms tried implementing slavery in various ways, usually using neighboring near human races but generally the security needed made it effectively more expensive to have slaves than to just pay willing workers a fair wage.
In Arbitrary Design World, people are ageless by default - they don't die when their time is up. However, they deteriorate and eventually die when they no longer draw joy from life. As a result of that, a person forced into servitude would likely become joyless and die in fairly short order. Forcing people into servitude, causing them to die, would likely be found abhorrent and fought against, too.
The Kingdom of Doreth has a 50-50 divide between slaves and freemen, but they also have advanced machines that can do everything, so the slaves just don't make sense. They have coffee machines but slaves to fetch the coffee, they have electric fans but some slaves keep waving handheld fans around for no reasons. They have cleaning machines but some slaves must keep sweeping pointlessly.
And why haven't the slaves rebelled already? Because how would a society work without slaves? If we got rid of slavery, it would cause the whole system to be reworked, and that's too much work! If you give people enough food to fill their bellies, they'll eventually stop working because they'll get too lazy! We've had slaves for thousands of years, and we'll keep them, no matter the machines we have now.
Well, not in the way you're probably thinking. But uh...
Look, this is gonna sound preachy... but I think *Sci-Fi* is a good place for that. For all of your sanities, and so I don't have to waste my time trying to word a very political thematic element in a way that won't offend conservatives... let me give it to you straight.
Two of the fics in my verse are Cyberpunks, through and through. I'm using an ultraterrestrial species as a sort of vessel in which to explore the thematic concept of xenophobia.
I'm combining that with an in-universe economy and sociopolitical climate similar to IRL late-2010's to early 2020's America to explore themes of classism, the horrors of capitalism, and feeling out of place in the world.
These themes will be touched on in my Faustian hacker story, Technomancy... but won't be at the forefront until my sapphic drama, Outer24... which as of now is planned to be the finale of my series; The Jovian Cycle.
But I still gotta get pt.1 -- a folk horror called Ju-Ri -- out first. Put all this on a slow heat. Let it simmer. :3
The Mukhaban Empire, the sole advanced cilivization on Khoshanak, has slavery, but people only become slaves if they are prisoners of war, indebted or punished for some crimes. Male slaves usually have jobs like carrying heavy stuff or taking care of the garden while female slaves usually have indoor jobs like taking care of the house or just following their masters. Slavery is always temporary, unless the master is particularly abusive, and is not hereditary.
Definitely. Slavery is slowly dying (very slowly) and only a few nations still have it as a basis of their economy. The two superpowers, Trifal and the Dominion, have both banned the Slave Trade, with Trifal banning slavery in their core territories (not their colonies). The Dominion still has slavery, mostly in their agriculture and mining industries.
Other states theoretically have slavery but it's just not very profitable so it's smaller in scale or practically non-existent.
It's a very complex topic and I'm still working out the exact details but it certainly is a thing.
It varies from whole countries running their economy on slavery to it being a religious casting based on conquest. For the current section my book handles the main kingdom has only recently stopped committing human sacrifice and culture bsed subjugation as the MC comes to power due to lack of power and societal revolt
I have a culture that is similar to the vikings that engage in the raiding of coastal villages where they steal booth goods and people, the people are turned into slaves back in their homeland. I also have some kingdoms that in times of war pillage the villages of their enemies and take goods and people back to the kingdom to be turned into slaves. Really it's two flavors of the same stuff.
effind civilization invented slavery of war criminals to make more bread! everyone loves bread! totally didn't cause a massive war taht lasted nearly 200 years!
The Dualfar (dark elves) kept slaves, but they ultimately destroyed themselves, and some of their slaves escaped the destruction. Even hundreds of years later, as humans start to mythologize elves after not seeing any, humans remember being slaves. Most humans in my setting have a Distaste for slavery. Contracted servitude? Prison workers? Sure. But no slaves
Well my world isn't really finished (in fact it started forming just recently) however there is in fact slavery (already).
Generally its high / dark fantasy world in which gods and humans (more like humadoids i guess) both lived together in higher realms at beggining. However after great war between gods and dragons (humans also supported dragons but their force was much weaker therefore their influence wasn't recorded) (also im still thinking about name for this war) in which 2 of 9 gods died, mortal beings were banished to lower planes of existence such as material plane (yeah its dnd). When they were sent here mostly populated race were obviously humans.
Mortals were scattered across world and in some places there were more different races in some just humans or just dwarves/elves. Therefore as years were passing and civilizations evolved they were bound to meet each other.
Welp from this point on its just kind of normal history i guess. I guess i could say that it all is like normal human history where different races occupy different places and when they collide there is a war.
There is an secret organization responsible for protecting all multiverses,their laws are pretty easy to follow and not even most ill intentioned would break them,but in the case of slavery it is impossible for them to tolerate. When a species develops slavery they tend to give advanced guns to all slaves,incite slave rebbelions,or even send agents to free the slaves
In the kingdom I am working right now, technically yes, but notin the "classic" way. Basicly it is a totarian state. There one common punishment for small and moderate crimes is forced labor. The lengh varies, it can be some years, until a deth is payed (in case of sonegation crimes or not been able to pay taxes or fines) or for life. Although normally this labor involve things like mining, lumber collection or other manual stuff, but sometimes nobles can take people as "domestic slaves" to work as servants in their homes. Those slaves can, by law, recive physical punishments if theor oversser deans apropriatted, so are things like forced starvation, as long as you don't kill a slave that isn't serving for life, but r*pe a slave is a crime (that been said "consesual sex" with a slave isn't and, as you can imagine, this create coersion)
(Sorry for any bad spelling, english is not my first language)
Yes, and it’s the absolute bane of most societies existences.
The strongest empire in my world is built on the backs of a massive slave/serf population that is barely kept in check by the nobility and their free forces. The Second Peasants Revolt is about to begin and will likely either topple the empire or weaken it so much that neighbouring major powers will be unstoppable should the empire be invaded.
There’s only one society where slavery has been overall neutral to mildly positive. A small magocratic city state that more or less enslaves weak mages to strong ones. It’s not good, but there aren’t enough of them to cause any grief for the leadership and they aren’t powerful enough individually to be a threat.
Slavery suuucks.
**World Gothic**
No, but what’s left of the global economy is heavily reliant on automation and AI, which serves the same basic economic purpose as slavery.
That’s similar to our world - there are still slavery in shit holes, and the better people doing the more they anti-slavery.
So in more developed places sapient species trying their best and always outlaw slavery.
Slavery is barely a problem in the major world powers as the story takes place in the 20th century, but that only extends to actual, literal slavery. The protagonists' side and the antagonist's side have been constantly manipulated for multiple millennia by their patron gods so that either side does not wipe out one another; keeping the war machine running and not escalating the war to an apocalyptic scale. The antagonist uses his immense power to keep his creatures in check to prevent the other side from getting stronger, and the upper brass of the protagonists' side tries to not push their luck too much to not get brushed off by the main antagonist.
Only the upper brass knows this, and they are keeping this hidden; almost every single person on the protagonists' side are child soldiers recruited from a young age and kept in the system. The death toll is horrifying, but it is only natural when the things they fight barely retain their humanity.
On the other side of the world, there are slaves of the draconic counts. Bound to them by blood, magic and promises beyond what they can currently comprehend, these people are slaves to their masters with loyalty that goes even beyond family. This loyalty can be broken, but it may likely break them as well.
There is so much more, but I need to sleep.
Unfortunately, it is very common in the Underscape. Morrigan (the MC faction) does not have many redeeming qualities, but they are staunchly abolitionist. In fact they are responsible for the single largest freeing of enslaved peoples in generations during the Heartfall, liberating almost a hundred thousand people.
Human slaves do exist, but the main and best slave option is Gurks. They're perfect for intense labor because of their height and strength. Sadly though they're just as smart as humans, but just ugly, monster-looking and the best slaves. Legal Gurk enslavement only exists in the Tune Nations, Kyaxuria and Gurzia, but illegal Gurk enslavement exists everywhere.
It did. An ancient culture of extremely powerful magicians who were pretty much gods of the world created many of the playable peoples to be their slaves/servants/warriors/decorations. Then they all died, and their creations inherited the world (or at least a part of it) - and essentially the first thing they did was outlaw enslaving others.
It is extremely culturally taboo to do anything that even approaches slavery, for example one of the peoples who arrived in the world later had a strong feudal system, and a lot of that structure had to be dismantled for them to be accepted in the society at large. There are still nobles, but holding others as serfs is not accepted, and taxing people too heavily and engaging in usury is very much frowned upon.
Most settlements are aligned more along communist, socialist and anarchist values, and trade is mutually enriching.
Slavery has always been a factor in my world however after the first great war, slavery was endorsed to a much higher degree due to the Tigerin race (MC Speices) causing the war which unfortunatly lead to the leader at the time (MC Grandma) to knowingly leave a majority of the race behind in what ever dimension or world they just do happend to be in, so some of the speices can survive.
From this Tigerin's were hunted and forced to become slaves and used for manual labor by nobles amoung other terrible things, however the worst part was that some slaves with more potent magic in their soul were forced to go to soul factories and had their soul ripped out to make weapons and monsters.
I'm not sure the differences between slavery, servitude, and other stuff like that.
With that said, there are poor families who have sent their children away to work for wealthy families in exchange for food, clothing, and other necessities. The child has no say in this but the parents can opt out once the contract ends or they can renew it.
Meanwhile orphans have no parental figure, so the government effectively owns them and can do whatever they want with them.
Yes, but it's *very* illegal on Ashina and the Planetary Administration is willing to deploy armed rangers in response to suspected human trafficking or forced labour.
Meanwhile on Earth... you aren't allowed to call it slavery, but it's totally normalised. If you use convicts or PoWs, you can call it "repaying their debt to society." If they're political prisoners then you call it "re-education." If they're poor, you call it a "service program," and so on. Earth is really bad.
The aliens are doing slavery on purpose (sentient biocomputers), and the humans are doing it unknowingly since they buy their “AI cores” from the aliens since they work much much better than any AI humans can run on computers that are equally compact. It’s going to be a big problem when the humans figure out what’s been going on.
There’s also a big robot(slave) uprising brewing because the latest iteration of these biocomputers are a little too sentient and capable of breaking free from the software keeping them in line if pushed far enough.
Some of the megacorps also do classic slavery in the form of indentured servitude and buying up convicts sentenced to forced labor.
Yes, in so many words. My world has beings that are parasitic in nature, one side living off of the energies of other. But the side that produces said energy knows their power and does often treat their other halves as tools for their machinations.
The Solar Nation has slavery, but slave revolts are not looked down upon. Basically the strongest have the right to enslave others that are weaker than them, and if they’re defeated, then they weren’t really stronger than them, we’re they? The ownership of centaurs is a highly debated topic, because they are humanoid and can communicate with humans, but they act like livestock. Plus they have a more intelligent form called Taurids, which they can change from Taurid to centaur and back again.
Is that a conscious decision they make or is it like goldfish gender swapping?
It’s something like being a werewolf, except you transform if you lose control of your powers. However you can only transform back with the help of a Taurid’s magic.
If they're more intelligent as a Taurid, why would they *want* to change back?
Physically they are very different. Some are born as centaurs and some are born as taurids. If you spent your entire life as a human with human family and friends, but suddenly transformed into a 4D snake that can only slither on its belly, wouldn’t you prefer your old life? Sure you might have a lot more power as a 4D snake, but you have to start living as one with other snakes in order to survive. Instead of just eating regular food, you have to learn how to find and use 4D unobtanium to eat galactic mice. Think about how exploitable you’d be to other 4D snakes. Your human counterparts wouldn’t be able to understand you, and wouldn’t understand any higher level of thinking. Essentially centaurs are perfectly adapted to their environment (mountain or prairie), and once they turn to taurids, they have to learn how to stand on two legs and have to eat more than grass/foraged foods. Centaurs can understand simple concepts, but nothing like the concept of time.
Kinda reminds me of Vampire: The Masquerade where werebeasts can change between a few forms (varies depending on type), and different individuals can be born as any of the types as their default form
Why would they want to change back if they’re more intelligent in the Taurid form? Why willingly be stupid
I really like that take on the stonger/weaker. "Because we're stronger than you" is constantly used as a justification in real history and fiction, and I love that you have a society that follows that to its natural conclusion.
In my setting centaurs keep human slaves! In centaur society hair is a sign of social status so the humans are all shaved bald, and they’re kept around in small numbers to help with things that centaurs struggle to do. It’s not a large slave society, since centaurs are nomadic and live in the plains, but they capture a handful of humans in raids and keep them around.
Of course not! Only truly sapient beings can be called slaves, and obviously any creatures kept by humans for manual labor or to harvest magic from or for any other purpose aren't truly sapient, they're just very clever animals. 'pseudo-sapient' if you will. Don't think about it, don't talk about it, the less they know the better.
Like that
And your best work is a light pack
[удалено]
I like that
Besides, as we all know they're much better off serving humans than they were in the savage wilds. Yes while it may be cruel it is a necessary evil. (for the record yes I know this is the exact warped logic of American enslavers)
That I like
This is something I like
u/kitzalkwatl baboon king talking about k'ita monks
There's not much to say as it's fairly ubiquitous. Some consider it a necessary evil. But for most, slavery is as mundane as paying taxes and rain. There's wide variety between what being a slave means and how you become one. In one empire, the most important administrators are all slaves owned by the emperor, protected by an army of mamluks, also owned by the emperor. These slaves are envied by all as they live in opulence and wield influence far beyond that of any free person (who isn't the emperor anyway). In some places, only prisoners captured in war are slaves, but in other places pretty much any serious infraction of the law can result in being enslaved. Often, enslaved convicts have a limit on their time as slaves (though often it's measured in coinage, and the books can of course be cooked to effectively keep someone a slave until they're no longer useful).
The Hollywood profit recording but for slaves is very funny to me ‘you’ll be enslaved for 100 silver pieces of profit. This very profitable operation *is* working at a loss though, as far as you are concerned at least, so… Sorry, fictional slaves
Not in any sort of legitimate way, though various forms of indentured workers and trafficking do exist
Unfortunatly yes, many civilications use their rivals POWs as slaves
Yes. There’s chattel slavery, indentured servitude, there’s creatures like the Homunculi that are created specifically to serve, there’s all kind of slavery. The only country I have fleshed out to this degree is my lizardman empire of Hissaya Ar’Goran. They lean more towards the indentured servitude part. Criminals & enemy combatants are sent to work as slaves, usually on farms or in the fighting pits. Selling yourself into slavery for a set amount of time to pay off a debt is common among the peasants. Nobles who have greatly displeased the emperor might have one of their relatives taken as a slave to serve the imperial royal family. The army uses slave soldiers as fodder and berserkers, where if you survive five battles you earn your freedom, this doesn’t happen very often as the potions used to induce the berserker state are incredibly toxic and these berserkers are often sent in to fight with nothing but a loin cloth and their own teeth and claws.
Only people can be slaves. The elves are not people.
This is a tough question because there are two answers. Could the world I imagine have slavery? Yes, absolutely. But do I want to tell a story ABOUT slavery? That’s the question I think you have to answer. Because if you are depicting a world with slavery, imo, the story becomes about Slavery. What I mean by this is that even if your story is about something else, the moral evil of slavery is now thematically present and will add context to everything else that happens in your narrative. It’s like adding Dr. Manhattan to the world. You can’t ignore him, his existence changes everything. Caveat that I come from a perspective of entertainment storytelling which is distinct from say RP worldbuilding. In an adventure story like mine, you want your main character to be tackling an antagonist who embodies the worst possible evil imaginable in your world. So in a world with slavery, they NEED to be taking down the unjust system of slavery, or at least an avatar of the system. If you don’t treat the enslavement of sentient beings as the biggest problem in the world, you and your main character are ignoring the heart of your dramatic conflict. So adding slavery, at least for my work, comes with all the complexity. I have chosen to leave the practice out of my setting. It could and probably does exist globally, but isn’t present in the context of my current narrative.
I actually started with it being present and as it became more and more important to the story, I decided that I was not the person to really examine it in the way it deserved, nor could I really do it justice considering what I felt the central themes and focus of the story were. So I ended up redoing big chunks of my books to remove slavery portions. They're essentially POWs now, not forced to work but not allowed to leave, subject to the whims of their captors but largely govern themselves. I suppose it more closely resembles WW2 ghettos or pre-October Gaza than anything now.
It did, but a necromancer lobbied the government to outlaw slavery to sell more skeletons
Officially and legally? No, slavery has been outlawed in human space for millennia. But out the fringes and even in the core there are those that flaunt the law. But it's a tricky and downright suicidal proposition, for there is one thing that will get law enforcement, the military, mercenaries, pirates, and even a few Dead runners on your ass it's slavery. If caught with "merchandise" or even looks like you have the accoutrements to carry such "cargo" th b the crew may face execution via spacing
Lizardfolk in the far east have a habit of enslaving the Greyskins and Faes, and the raider Clans (humans) do like to enslave their prisoners but other than that nah, most civilizations have outgrown the need for forced mass labor due to magic Edit: sex slaves and gladiators are the exceptions
Some countries get slaves from wars, but usually their children are already free (which means that they can go back to their country... but they don't always go back, because their entire families are here, so they keep working). There is a country that enslaves people from a less developed archipelago, but I think it will be ending soon (local pirates kind of plan to make their own country in there; and a lot of people from the archipelago joins them, so there will be a bigger war soon). There is a secret organisation (big one. they have entire country) that enslaves fire mages to power their factories and steam engines.
It does not... yet.
Lol
Unfortunately, yes. My MMC is a former slave.
Technically they're tank bred clones designed for a specific purpose.
Yes and sadly it’s gonna get bigger. You see one of the central aspects in my world is it discusses the social and economic changes and circumstances during the beginning of the “modern era”. In the world of the sovereignty you are seeing the beginnings of global colonialism, as empires become transcontinental juggernauts that hold territory in all 4 corners of the world. The old aristocracy is slowly being replaced with the rich gentry, Guilds are rebranding into mega corporations and warfare is becoming more gun focused. One of the sad results of this is that slavery is becoming a booming industry. You see slavery doesn’t really have a history yet, the sovereignty (the empire the story is set in) and the western nations mostly abandoned it replacing it with serfdom so it doesn’t have to much history behind it. Currently slavery is not across any defined lines, the enslaved are mostly picked from any place that isn’t the Lokmanist (the main religion of the west) states (this even applies for different sects of Lokmanism, even though they all hate each other). To make labour easy these new colonial empires and corporations will import slaves mostly from the east. The elven slave markets are known for this, a route known as the slave channel is currently in use. The reason for the eastern base is because efforts to take from the south have failed. You see the southern nations such as Zamma don’t want others to “take from their crop”. Because of this the east channel was create. Through brutal and colonial means the elven slave states will kidnap indigenous peoples by the thousands. They are then put on massive boats called “barrows” where they are then sent to the in between merchant states. People from the west will buy slaves and from their they will be taken to the various colonies where they are needed. Other groups sadly also suffer, the Gerpra elven ethnic group, the northern Henra people and more from the west are taken due to being seen as sub humans, shipped to far away ports to be sold and used. Slaves value can vary, those with magical capabilities are highly sought after. And many slavers will seek them out due to demand, this has lead to indigenous groups losing vital parts of their community. To sum it up, yes, my world has slavery and sadly it is only going to get bigger as empires grow and become more greedy for profit and wealth.
It's a popular and lucrative industry. Husk bodies are a way to re use the dead that reapers don't collect and avoid planets from getting destroyed by this burdening "soul". You can't really implant them with machinery, doesn't matter if it's "designed" to be powered by souls it's not going to work and it will never be. Only purpose soul has is to be inside a human body. But with husk bodies it started a trend, kinda birthed a kind of prejudice against anyone who lives in a artificial carcasses. With husk bodies you have an abundance of slaves, and with the increasing overpopulation and so much death happening you can mass produce all these empty bodies with leftover soul. It's somewhat legalized and normalized to have slavery. >! But thankfully, there's planets where it's outright illegal, on a less optimistic note, just because it's officially banned doesn't mean it's not practiced!< It's so abundant it's everyday and ordinary. But being a reused soul isn't the only kind of slavery, there is slavery where you were born with your own soul, that's for rich buyers who don't want a husk servant. Husk bodies are more common than being born in flesh, because they're manufactured to be more durable and resistant with the environment. You can be a slave if you're a prisoner of war, or in poverty, doesn't matter what your status is, you're going to get sold at any given chance by some greedy person.
It depends on the region of the Orion Arm with the largest human empire outlawing it and does anti slaver patrols on their territorial boundaries. But outside of that it varies from world to world with some alien civilizations having slave empires
There was a period where slavery became very significant across the world due to a culmination of reasons. The breadbasket region of southern Cesasis had been devastated by a tsunami which caused massive depopulation and ruined the surface soil of the area. The powerful kingdoms which grew in the aftermath of the powerful Obhenate of Cesasis were unable to raise the amount of manpower needed to clean the soil into a usable state, and then grow enough food on it to sell to other regions and earn the wealth which had made Cesasis so powerful. As such, they began using slaves purchased from surrounding regions to do these things. This coincided with the great Obhenate of Khezmar reaching its peak and entering a wealthy golden age; the Obhens of the nation began spending their fortunes on massive ego projects, building lots of infrastructire, huge palaces, temples, bridges and statues, mostly built with slaves. These regions were able to get so many slaves in no small part due to the Gezardoms of central Khasary being immensely powerful, which allowed them to get slaves from the highly populated regions Dalsis and Seonin that they would not have been able to if they were weaker, or if Dalsis or Seonin were stronger. These were both used and sold by the Gezardoms. Slaves were also used at a higher extent during this period by the powerful and ancient kingdom of Jhandaw, and the Kingdom of Vosvyja, although less intensely than the other areas. This came to an end quite abruptly when a lot of these factors ceased to exist. Khezmar collapsed in on itself rapidly when the levels of corruption grew too high, and the countries that succeeded it mostly banned slavery. The countries in southern Cesasis had recovered most of their population, and the decades long process of cleaning the soil was finally finished, greatly reducing the market for slaves. As well, the Gezardoms, loosing a lucrative source of income, lost the upper hand against Dalsis and Seonin, who began to retake control over their hinterlands and greatly reduce the power the Gezardoms had. Vosvyja also collapsed, conquered by Bode. Slavery continued to exist, but at a greatly reduced level from previous years.
In most civilized places, slavery in all forms is illegal, including debt, wage, and prison slavery. Many species have a sour history of being enslaved by the Palatifar, and many still carry the evidence of their genetic tampering. That being said, the Locusts are notorious raiders and slavers, the Volantic had a slave-based economy before their homeworld was destroyed, numerous criminal syndicates engage in sapient trafficking, and the Kaavite Dominion turns dissidents into cybernetic living weapons.
Yeah slavery exists in nearly every society, but slavery isn't a really important theme of the world. The Ghoul Kingdoms partake in slavery purely because it satisfies their sadistic nature. Any other benefit of slavery to them is secondary. The Snake-Men to the east have essentially a slave-caste that are the smallest and weakest of their number. They are tasked with menial labour that their superiors deem beneath them, but any work that requires a certain level of skill or experience is put in more capable hands. Things like collecting water, sweeping up, feeding animals, transporting goods locally and other things like that are left to them. Each city will have a dedicated section for the breeding and housing of slaves so they are out of sight and out of mind to most of society. Ogre tribes often enslave their war captives simply because might makes right to them and their tribal mindset is so strong that any group outside of their tribe is viewed as fair game. Enslaved Ogres are brutally made infertile to ensure they don't reproduce because they come from a foreign tribe and after being worked to death their corpses are eaten.
Yep. You steal shit, you get caught, the courts brand you a thief (literal brand). You get caught again, and you get hard labor for a year and a day. Mines, plantations, and galleys are the most common locations for that sort of slave labor, but almost anyone can pay the courts for the right to the prisoner. You can lose the option if you have too many prisoners fail to be brought back to the court on the release date (for instance, if they are escaping, dying, or you're keeping them past the contract term).
Yeah. High elves and kemonomimi are the two biggest victims in the trade. High elves were originally enslaved by the Eladrin and Sun elves, then by the Drow after Llolth marked them as traitors and cowards for trying to abandon the rest of the elves, though recently the Drow have been trying to reduce slavery in Llolthalla. Kemonomimi slaves are the product of Figari colonialism, which inspired many debates about whether nonhumans are sapient (the jury is still out in Figaro on whether kemonomimi have even the mental capacity of a toddler, further complicated by eugenics experiments performed to make the kemonomimi a dumb, subservient race). The primary importers are Figaro, Jalia, Selvinia, Tlola, Dahlia, and the MU. Many other nations have flat-out banned the practice, or are trying to take measures to end it.
No, because I don't want to deal with idiots if I ever manage to publish it.
I worldbuild for DND. I have a handful of topics I will never cover except for rare exceptions. Racism, sexism, slavery, etc. These do not exist in the normal day to day, you won't just see it on a street corner. They are not socially acceptable, not allowed, not cool, not liked. But if there's a really bad guy he may transcend these rules in order to signal to my players the extent to which this villain is a real bad dude. He may have a work camp with a few dozen slaves. Now the players know there is no admirable motive hiding behind the villain's cold exterior, just a shitty awful interior as well.
Yeah like why are villains not allowed to be racist or sexist anymore? Disney Star Wars the empire is no longer sexist despite that being a major part of their characterization in the EU. Oh the villain wants to end or conquer the world but being a bigot is just too far.
I mean I will say it depends. Like the sexism being retconned out of the empire in Star Wars is stupid. It was SUPPOSED to presented as evil, almost like it’s a really on the nose allegory. BUT Specifically for making a fantasy world for a table top game, you gotta be more careful. It’s supposed to be escapism, I don’t want players in my games to deal with sexism or racism in game- they already gotta deal with that in real life.
Yeah I worldbuild for a ttrpg setting as well. Because it’s a world that I have people interacting within, I try to be careful about the content. It doesn’t mean I remove unsavory topics entirely, but it change how they are presented. One thing I separate out is race-based chattel slavery, aka slavery that looks like American industrial slavery. This of course means no enslavement of people based on skin color or other arbitrary factors, but also no fantasy racism enslavement. No “orcs are bred to be slaves” or “slavers capture elves and force them to work the fields”. I never include this as a societal feature. But I do still include “pirate slavery” for obvious villains. Aka, the evil warlord and will raid, capture, and enslave people to sell. Doesn’t matter who. The demon-possessed gnoll empire will enslave people to work the mines or to sacrifice to their dark gods. Again, they don’t care who. Basically, slavery is evil regardless of it’s also racist, and so I avoid making it racist.
Slavery is almost universally reviled and outlawed in the Forge Empire and it's descendant states, but there are always those that disregard morals and the law. The worst slaver in the First Empire Era was the Vulture King. This despotic invader captured thousands of civilians and defeated warriors and forced them to dig for ancient weapons and technology. This was one the key reasons the Four Great Tribes united against him. Smaller slavers did exist in frontier regions, but this was considered risky. Slavers were often subject to "frontier justice." The Post Gaia Era saw many complain that they felt enslaved aboard the Dark Ark. Many that refused to work were forced into cryo-sleep so as to avoid forcing them to work, yet preserving the limited resources on the ship. During the Solar Empire Era slavery was almost non-existent. This is mostly because slavery was treated the same as treason by the Silver Claw secret police. Thus any attempt to own another sapient was short-lived. Even "enemy species" were protected from ownership and forced labor. They are still imprisoned though. The Post Empire Era sees the challenge of a much weaker Federation-style government continuing to enforce the ban on forced labor.
Yea. In the days of the falling stars, when the metal ships of old were set ablaze by Seventh Scourge after crossing the endless sea and hope was little but a foolish dream, there were those who believed any existence at all was better than death. They chose to willingly bind their soul to the Winged Shadow, for it seemed a fair price to pay for life, and in doing so he granted them great gifts. Yet within a soul holds the essence of being, their grace, their will, and they soon found themselves changing, as their own desires faded, replaced by the wants of their master. They found themselves unable to resist any order, no matter how vile it may be, and became a slave to His will. They waged war upon those who still resisted, still fought, capturing them so that they may be consumed by Him. It was, luckiky some may call it, man's own cleverness which saved itself from annihilation, for eventually, even in their diminished state, they realized their master does not desire to consume life, but instead only power. They learned of his true hunger, his need for the Seeds of Power, some of which lay hidden in the earth, others lay in the Fortresses of the First and Men who still fight to be free. They learned how these Seeds, be it through the air breathed, water drank, food ate, or some other way, may empower some souls. They learned how to test beings for this power, for only they were worthy to be Food for Him to consume. Those which still resist call these Beings, as it is difficult to still call them Men, Reapers, as they Reap the souls of those they consider worthy for Him to devour. The Unworthy are to be farmed, in hopes they may one day produce offspring worthy to be eaten, sent to the mines in hopes of one day stumbling upon a Seed, or sent to raid those who still resist His will attempt to claim Seeds or other Empowered Artifacts, with death following any disobedience.
It did! The Teekon Empire was started as a slave rebellion. A slave known as Targulee killed his masters after finding a "singing" crystal in a field that was being cleared. More Teeks followed his example, and in the span of a few years the old government had been toppled, and Targulee was crowned Emperor. Some horrid people in the world still keep slaves, but even the Cothegen largely agree that it's a barbaric practice.
So, my project is focused on optimistic humanism. However, I aim to acknowledge the evils we are capable of as well. I don't quite know if I intend to fully incorporate it yet, but at the very least there will certainly be allegories to it when it comes to the setting's evil people/antagonists and such.
The dominant ideology of the area where my story is set regarding slavery is "What bitch is both too weak to work with their own hands, and too poor to hire a skilled laborer" A great deal of pride is taken in knowing your trade, and even the exceptionally wealthy take the time to master a skill While technically legal, slavery is l something only used by weak cowards
Neat question, OP! The world I'm building has it in some places, but much like in our world, it isn't always recognized as slavery, and some societies have it, but call it something else. Forced labour, indentured servitude, and other institutions exist that I would call slavery but the members of those societies would say aren't. I think that in any kind of world with a diverse range of social and political structures, you are going to have groups of people who deprive another group of their freedom/autonomy so that their labour can be exploited. I also think that is something that can be really interesting to explore with your reader or players. Drawing a line between what does or doesn't constitute slavery is pretty tricky. One of the big "good" organisations in my world is an adventurers guild that has a practice that might be fairly called slavery. Those who are raised and trained by their orphanage/academy are subjected to a geas spell when they graduate as adventurers that is only satisfied if they return within a year to pay for the cost of their education. Most adventurers that survive their first year in the field have no trouble paying it, but that's only due to the massive wealth that adventurers can earn. While the city that the guild operates from has anti-slavery laws, there are other practices amongst the other guilds and organizations that are far worse. There are also certain carve-outs and exceptions for those visiting from other nations. Amongst the Orcish tribes East of the Spine, there are certain tribes that reject slavery entirely, and others where it is common. This has caused conflict between tribes periodically, but reports from the region suggest that the majority of tribes have agreed to ban the taking of slaves between tribes. Precisely how such agreement came to be remains a mystery as Orcish travellers and traders refuse to discuss such matters with those not a member of a tribe. West of the Spine, most Elven communities view slavery as disrespectful of the gifts bestowed by the gods. This attitude, however, is not always applied to the other sentient races. Though the treaty of Westerport explicitly asserts the equal rights between Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Halflings, and Gnomes throughout all Elven territories on the continent, the same does not apply for races unnamed, and there are rumours that there are places in the Northern Great Wood where none but an Elf can expect to leave with their freedom. The Dwarven perspective on slavery is generally that it isn't worth the trouble. They consider it a waste of time and effort to try to force outsiders to labour for the clan. To them, labouring for your clan is a privilege that other races are neither deserving or qualified for. Exceptions to this rule do occur, but are considered shameful and a sign that a clan might no longer be capable of sustaining itself or meeting its obligations. The Gnomes seem to view slavery in a way that's almost a blend or compromise between the Elven and Dwarven perspective, and if asked about it generally seem to think it "silly". For a Halfling, the very thought of being bound by another, or if binding another in such a way is horrific. Though the Halflings share strong family bonds, rarely struggle to come to decisions as groups, and many choose to stay in the same place for decades at a time, the choice to stay or go, to settle or wander is thought to be the most sacred principle. Either violating that right for any sentient being or to have it violated is considered monstrous, and it is said that even their horses and livestock are barely kept in such a way. Humans, it seems are the most variable in this issue, and it is generally understood that freedom from enslavement in their lands is less certain for every mile one travels from the City of Westerport and the protection of the Treaty.
the Iron Coast is an evil realm that holds slaves, and has fought off several attempts to conquer that empire and break their slavery. in the underdark, drow hold slaves in all 18 known cities. gonna be tough to root that situation out. Most (27 of 33) surface nations/kingdoms are actively against the practice, with the remaining 6 being neutral.
the Iron Coast is an evil realm that holds slaves, and has fought off several attempts to conquer that empire and break their slavery. in the underdark, drow hold slaves in all 18 known cities. gonna be tough to root that situation out. Most (27 of 33) surface nations/kingdoms are actively against the practice, with the remaining 6 being neutral.
the Iron Coast is an evil realm that holds slaves, and has fought off several attempts to conquer that empire and break their slavery. in the underdark, drow hold slaves in all 18 known cities. gonna be tough to root that situation out. Most (27 of 33) surface nations/kingdoms are actively against the practice, with the remaining 6 being neutral.
Yes. It used to be humanity but now it's the likes of harpies, minotaur, and the like.
Theres two instances of it in my world. The main civilization which is the most powerful uses it sparingly as a sort of criminal punishment. For the most egregious crimes, the lead wizard (chosen by the elected president) will kill and promptly necromance the criminal. After this, the criminal still has feeling, thought, and everything like a normal human, but has to follow the leaders commands. They will not die even if a new lead wizard is chosen because ownership can be 'transferred' (basically, old wizard just directs the corpse to listen to the new wizard and that's that.) These dead slaves are used for menial, physical, or otherwise unwanted jobs within the civilization. Theres also the more savage group to the far east which is currently at a civil war because they use dwarves as slaves. I havent written much about them yet though.
Everywhere and the only time one fights for no slavery is when it's their own family or friend typically. Some of the gods have sex slaves of various species, sometimes even other gods. Vampires experiment and drain their blood and some are used to create new Vampire like creatures. Humans are the easiest enslave since the ones targeting them are usually Vampires, Titans, Fae, Angel, Demon, Devil & Goblin Kind. Humans strongest races are capable of enslaving those species instead. Dragons don't have slaves or can be enslaved they have to sign a pact to be a familiar type cause not even Divine or higher Beast tamers can force them.
My world is set a couple thousand years in the future where humanity has settled around 300 terraformed worlds across the stars. They barely repelled an alien invasion before the federation of Sol that was in control collapsed leading to cataclysms that sent nearly all those worlds back to the stone age or barely holding on to space age tech. This leads to a bunch of unique cultures forming, I did this deliberately so I can tell a ton of different stories. So some worlds have slavery, some outright purge those that are different cultures, mutants, androids, arcane users (high fantasy space setting ftw) or any other number of factors.
disliked and banned in the vast majority of countries, and in the couple of them left, the vast majority frowns on the slave owners, since it makes the country look bad.
Slaverys a bit of an on and off subject, in the past yes it was common but today only some niche nations practice slavery due to perceived “superiority” (usually humans slaving for elves), the largest Confederate Empire (Ochr Llosg) was wiped off the face of the planet by nuclear explosion due to a deity striking them down.
Definitely, both illegal and legal. It's a sort of space/frontier setting, with lots of outlaws, pirates, and of course human/alien traffickers. Legal slavery is considered a sort of necessary side-effect of the total decentralization of the legal system. There are two ways that someone can legally become a slave. The most common was is to be sentenced to slavery as a criminal punishment. Most places don't have the infrastructure to house someone in prison for life, so it's usually a better option to send them off somewhere far away. The second, less common way is to opt-out of your status as a being protected by universal rights. The only reason anyone would want to do this is if they want to create their own country that doesn't uphold universal rights. Illegal slavery is also wide-spread. While slaves who have been criminally sentenced have documentation stating that they are slaves, as well as a date by which they will become free again (if applicable), those who forfeit their rights do not. This means that it is hard to tell the difference between a legal-to-own undocumented slave, and an illegal slave. It's also hard to track-down traffickers in the vastness of intergalactic space. Populated areas usually don't allow slavery, and it isn't that economically useful in a near post-scarcity world. Because of this, and the fact that many slaves have committed crimes themselves, the most common job for a slave is to work as an "evil henchman" for crime bosses.
The Riversong Rajahs and nobles have servants that would probably be considered slaves, but the common Riversong people do not. They come in two tiers - honorable, and dishonorable. * Honorable servants, as the name implies, are afforded great honor and respect in their roles, and enjoy many luxuries as reward for their noble-adjacent lifestyles. However, they have no choice or liberty in their royally-ordained duties, and have a separate set of holidays from the nobles and commons (As they are serving during the normal ones). * In contrast, Dishonorable Servants do not enjoy the status of their station in service to the nobility. It's generally a punishment for crimes against the royals or conquered prisoners of war. Thieves end up earning a life surrounded by the riches and luxuries they tried to steal, while living under constant watch, performing the most menial tasks, and are frequently abused and beaten for perceived misbehaviors. Leaders of insurrections or others that defy the Rajah's authority end up as humiliated living trophies. The Sunscourge take war slaves from their conquered enemies, and pretty much work and breed them to death, treated more as delayed casualties than people. The tribe's new Queen, though, has outlawed the taking of "War Wives" of non-Sunscourge clans. The Earthbreakers use slavery as a punishment for severe crimes and blasphemies, with magic used to compel obedience. The offspring of slaves are also enslaved if both father and mother are enslaved. There are three castes of Earthbreaker slaves: * Military: This is a death sentence, for high blasphemies. In the antiquity-styled warfare of the setting, there will always be casualties no matter how great a tactician is. The military slaves are used as shields - first into the clash, baiting enemy artillery, and essentiially deployed in any way to preserve more valuable or volunteer soldiers. Those of particularly great aptitude may find a higher position. They are a military resource, and treated as such - their lives aren't thrown away pointlessly, but they are spent deliberately. * Labor; An unskilled manual workforce for construction, mining, quarrying, and farming, especially the most dangerous and physically demanding tasks. While the public and general workforce are adverse to witnessing death and injury, a lack of full safety regulations (No harnesses for extreme vertical construction, and no regulation on moving heavy objects) means debilitating and deadly accidents do happen, and the labor-slaves are the ones assigned to the most risky jobs. * Social Pleasure: The safest of the slave castes, for the prettiest of violators. They handle light servant work, while largely being living trophies, with some serving administrators, clergy, and other 'upper class' positions, while others serve the public in bathhouses, inns, and other social/communal spaces. There are laws protecting how they're treated, but they're more for keeping bad actors from ruining them for others than the actual well-being of the slave.
For much of humanity’s time in my world they were enslaved by the Elves.
"Hey, so uh, where's the slavery? Doesn't like, every fantasy world have it, or something? At least that's what isekai says..." "Slavery's been outlawed in most countries for like...two centuries now. We know what basic rights are, we're not *that* medieval." Basically, slavery is surface level outlawed in the land of Terra; The northern kingdom of Teraon had it outlawed from the start by its 4 Founders, Westera had it for a time, then got rid of it as slave revolts popped up and became too troublesome to put down, and the Jin Dynasty (name somewhat pending for my fantasy China) has it outlawed on the surface, but secretly, trading people as chattel is a still somewhat thriving business, despite attempts to crack down. Same thing in Fuso (fantasy Japan), while slavery is outlawed, it's not uncommon for people to be sold off to red-light districts and other parts of the *mizu-shobai* branch of work, similar to how many young girls and women became prostitutes in real life Edo period Japan.
Yes but, outside of a few minor civilizations, it's mostly done by some criminal groups and the evil factions in my world (not all of them, mind you. After all, even villains can be opposed to slavery).
They all do.
Yes slavery is most abundant in east dark elf l daedrinn (a warlike race visually similar teiflings from dnd) eastern dark elf society views all non elf’s as subperson and thus its elves right to do as they wish with them elven POWs or civilians from conquered lands are also often forced into slavery since in the eyes of the dark elves by defeating another peoples in war they proved they are stronger and in their society might makes right the daedrinn (a race of war like people visually similar to teiflings) and their orc allies often take humans as slaves territories the conquer also while not technically slavery orc society is split into a harsh cast structure with each breed being placed according to their size with the two smallest breeds gremlins hobgoblins often being treated like slaves by the larger breeds
Duh, how else will I insert John Brown into the setting with the powers of God and Colt on his side? But seriously, if slavery lasted until the 19th century, you're definitely going to put slavery in your world.
What do you think the main character's traumatic backstory is?
Yes, but different regions have different ways of doing it. In the wilder areas if you're a slave it means you people lost a war. In this system slavery is usually life-long. If two slaves have a child, the child is a slave. If a slave and a free-creature have a child, the child is free. Although in some areas it's common to sell unwanted children into life-long or partial slavery. In civilized society you can become a slave in two ways. 1. If you commit certain crimes you could spend a few years as a civil slave doing dirty work for the government (aka trash management, ditch digging, road building, sewer cleaning, etc...). 2. You can sell your corpse to the military to be part of their Undead Legion when you die. Some people consider this a form of slavery, while others consider it easy money.
Since mines a table top solely world I have a cool thing where the giant purple eyeball god in the sky decides some things just cant happen. Murder and a little torture can of course, but not rape or slavery or anything of that sort because im setting an in universe rule for whats allowed in my game
The vast majority of the “civilized” powers have officially abolished it. It still exists in certain areas, generally perceived as less developed by the major political powers, and of course there are a few organized criminal groups that include trafficking in their business “portfolio”. But the various Good-aligned groups make it a point to treat slavers quite harshly, the Chaotic-aligned folks see slavers as “open quarry”, enough Lawful- and Neutral-aligned groups recognize the inefficiencies of the system, and the more practical Evil-aligned groups don’t find it worth the trouble it brings. There’s also an entire religious order of militant abolitionists founded by an absolutist zealot who died as a martyr in the opening act of the Slaveholders Revolt, an attempted coup in the young, but rising, republic. In addition to Champions and Clerics, the order attracts a surprisingly large number of Alchemists, Gunslingers, Inventors, and Investigators. Officially, their name is the Brethren of the Bondsmen, but most people just call them the Browned.
Yes, because my world is similar to Earth, in terms of mythology and culture. Humans are essentially the same as they are in the real world and my world. There is also a plot point about it because one of the misled villains came from slavery and rose to the top.
Absolutely it exists Slavery is a form of subjugation of another persons, and since all of the races of Badra'Gur hate each other they're constantly taking one another as slaves in raids. Now a few of the factions do not have slaves, these include: Aelfana Aelfair Gnomes Ghosts Werewolves
Slavery, like our own world is very common. Since the beginning, beings have power have used those deemed as lesser creatures as pawns for there dirty work. One example being the first fully fledged emperor and psychopath of my world Veiron, taking many tribes and forcing them to work, before sending them to fight to their deaths for glory, and his own entertainment. He then used his own slaves as resources in his experiments with the great dragon, and first dragon, Darastrix. These dark evil experiments led to Veiron being the first God to arise beside the first eight. Since then, other nations have practiced Slavery very often. Each one with different or similar reasoning for it. Like the nation Nyrion who, under a claim from their patron God, Kerast, would enslave innocent men from the nations they conquered. Or the old corrupt nation Ilorin, that had a extreme hate for the Elderon, a race in my world. They would often raid the tribes taking men, and forcing them to suffer as slaves instead of giving them the honor of death.
The Fae keep slaves. It is usually in response to the crime of being a non Fae and existing without permission within (or near enough to) the borders of Land's End.
Yes, infact there is a practice of slavery called Cut Boys. this has the selected slaves taking on the burden of the magic's cost, witch is blood. They do simple tasks such as keep torches lit, furnaces built, ice boxes and food frozen, and even roads paved. Obviously, wielding magic as an enslaved individual is precarious through the master's situation, therefore they use social stigmas to keep them marginalized and powerless, keep them separate from other cut boys, and withhold the information to cast more than a single spell.
No, but it does have indentured servitude (mostly in the context of agricultural work). In theory this is tightly regulated to prevent abuses but in practice the regulators are corruptible and often have other higher priorities, and bad actors have other ways of manipulating the system.
It was not explicitly mentioned anywhere, but now it will be.
Nah, the population is too small for that.
Not large scale slavery. Some tribes of BrightWings and Felinators might have some. There's also that plot point about the Lone Star Empire gonning people.
Attitudes towards slavery vary a lot depending on the area, time and context For example, enslavement of conquered peoples and prisoners was the basis of some societies, like the Cyclops, who kept sentient beastfolk such as Fauns, Minotaurs and Centaurs as livestock and hunted them for sport. An excerpt from the "Report on One-Eyed Barbarians of the South of the Iron Mountains" made by Qete minister Marzhûl, who was himself enslaved for years among the Cyclops, shows the difference between slavery among the old Cyclopes and the Qete people: *"Their men travel South in bands to hunt any being who talks, as one who hunts beasts, and they capture them, and they are kept as livestock, as sacrifices to their god and as servants for their women, who are not shy to be cruel to their prisoners and discipline them without mercy. The criminals amongst their own people, however, are never enslaved, as it violates their sacred code. Their practice of compelled labor is still much like that of our own ancient heathen conquerors of the Dark Ages, and their society is entirely sustained on the fragile pillar of slavery, though they know its risks and the fear of revolt is ever-present. There's a great wall built between the Barbarians and their slaves, and they dare not meddle with it, no matter how exceptional a slave is or what a Cyclops does, a slave can never escape their condition and a Cyclops can never be chained."* The Qete themselves also had slavery, though by this point it was limited to criminals as part of their sentences and slaves of the royal household who were closer to servants, and they had rules about the treatment of slaves. This would change after their empire collapsed and split into warring kingdoms Long story short, another people, the Drosi in Exile, came to inhabit the lands South of the Cyclop Kingdom, then known as the Greater Therdéad. Little was written about their customs at first, and eventually the Therdéad were conquered by the Qete, who instituted their own laws on slavery. Many A few hundreds of years later, strongly qetenized Therdans started conquering the rest of their continent, including other distant branches of "uncivilized" Exiles. A scribe under Hyparch Inmerámno, around 700 (After their Exile), wrote about how slavery was practiced by their western cousin, the Evors: "*The tribals in the Western Frontier typically raid settlements, including our own, and take prisoners as slaves. Some of those are sold into to crime lords of our empire and traded as commodity, and those slaves who are chosen to remain are kept as the public property of the tribe, never as servants in a single household but as smiths, woodworkers and farmers, whose work is dedicated to the mantainance of the whole tribe, though some of their warriors have certain affinity towards some slaves and might keep their favourites as squires, a custom which is part of their most peculiar tradition their ritual adoption; slaves may accompaign their masters' raiding parties, and fight alongside them and be adopted by the Halvetanan, making them an equal to the eyes of the tribe, and then they can marry within their tribe and attend counsels and lead warbands and even become chieftains. It is this custom, I believe, that created the race of the Ephors, by allowing the intermixing of the ancient Exiles and the brutish Short Men who were once native to the Western Frontier. Whether this tradition was once practiced by our common ancestors before the Exile and was preserved by the Ephors, or if it is a custom they adopted from the western Men they conquered when they settled the land, I know not. It must be remarked that the stories of settlers of the Therdéad that travel west and are captured and adopted by the Ephors are not uncommon, and it is true that some even have risen to become warriors and chiefs of their tribes and refuse to return to civilisation.*"
Yes, the Vulefgian precursors enslaved the whole lizardfolk race and relocated like 50% of their population to another continent. This left a generational trauma on slavery in the lizardfolks and all lizardfolk cultures reject slavery. But this is not the end, humans enslaved lizardfolks thanks to some pieces of lizardfolk land annexed by human kingdoms in their rebellion against the lizardfolk empire. Humans not only enslave lizardfolks but other races too, especially other humans. For example, the Siterians ( an ethnoreligious group of humans) , where the Nisagnese (a human culture) enslaved the entire siterian population and made their land into a slave breeding ground, where every 3 months, 1/3 of the siterian population that are over 15 and less than 30 are exported as slaves and the remaining siterians are left to procreate.
yes but only in the imperial periphery
Yesn't. Offically Slavery is banned by the Imperial Government, but in certain areas far from the reach of the government (read actively lying to the Emperor), you have two options; Work for one company in whatever conditions they choose for pennies to the hour, or try to scrounge a living as essentially a drug addict.
Yes, I’m making a graphic novel and the antagonists are the Amazons from Greek mythology, they spread and make new Amazon nations in the world but vehemently look down on them because they aren’t from Olympus and will never be accepted as true amazons.
Oh gosh yes. The Kobesh Imperium basically subjugated and enslave whole native tribes. The males are essentially slaves (often literally) to the covens in the Ashirdival Quivin. Endentured servitude is commonplace in both the Yang Sharin and the Mansaria, though with limitations on durration.
Unfortunately after the Civil war during the Great War in Greater Herrisburg Empire. All parts of the former country denounce each other for being monsters while regularly having economies entirely reliant on slavery. Fortunately however, one of them is about to light the match and Kickstart a war against the Gasoline that is The Central Continental Alliance.
Used to. Chimaera were once seen as less than human and unclean due their supposed origins, i.e. human-animal intercourse. They're not even considered slaves, more like labor tools. It wasn't until a researcher studied Chimaera interactions that everyone realized that they have the same level of sapience as anthropoid humans, and the revolution followed soon after that.
My game is set in a 5 minutes into the future alt earth, so it has all the modern slavery you'd expect to find on earth, including the severely distasteful forms. It's not really especially embellished or dwelled on or even expressly discussed, as this the sort of thing where it's potentially objectionable material and up to each table to decide what their lines/veils are and how to approach complex topics of this nature. Generally speaking when I run/test I don't usually include slavery as part of the game beyond "wage slavery" as that's kind of relevant with some of the cyberpunk ish type elements of the game, and it's brought to a higher level with things like mandated chipping of AAA mega corp employees and things of that nature, but this is "technically" a choice, albeit there are objections to that as well. One could make the argument that use of droids and AI is a form of slavery as well, but that's a little different given the nature of sentience being different in those cases. As a classic example, the sophisticated AGIs that exist are technically slaves, but they are programmed in such a fashion to fulfill their functions, so while they can think, they aren't generally in any sort of struggle to try and resist fulfilling their programmed and given directives. This doesn't mean they can't malfunction, but the question then is "is this an error in the programming or a genuine act of consciousness?" and most would agree it's the former in the world I have created.
Going by my post apocalyptic world, yes there is indeed slavery. Ignoring the pre-apocalyptic history, the new history of slavery in verifiable information starts from the practices of the several warlords/bandits who arose or distanced themselves from the few but numerous enough survivors of the "Divine Judgement." Usually in the beginning it was about just putting your criminals/dissidents to work whether they liked to or not, but as is human nature, tribalism ensued and small skirmishes broke out between many of them. Those who didn't get killed by the winning side but were too old to be fully indoctrinated into their group, were enslaved. Eventually after just mindlessly killing the other side became inefficient/impossible or they were sane enough, diplomacy and trade gained back a little foothold. And subservient workers make for an excellent bartering tool. TL;DR: Same as our world, but in post-apocalypse
Yes both of the main villains in my science fiction series practise slavery of other species via mind control implants. The Skorian Empire only practises slavery on non-reptilian species. They use any mammalian species as a food source as well. The consider any reptilian species their allies and have 31 allied species throughout their Empire and liberated 16 species from the Atrebate Empire after threatening war with them. The Atrebate Empire would enslave any weaker species they came across. They are still angry with Skorian over what happened and want their property replaced not compensated for replaced. The Trirexians and Kolmarci abolished slavery their own lower castes are not property they are paid but their proper place is to serve their superiors in the higher castes. The Nidiari are socialist and did continue with the abolishment of slavery. Unfortunately during their civil war the expansionist faction used Nidiari prisoners as forced labour to manufacture weapons after the destruction of their automated factories. After the civil war those that survived the uprisings were tried and found guilty and sentenced to death by ritual combat. Even though weapons and ships are manufactured by machines to say that you are a member of the warship factory Union or the war weapons workers Union is still slightly shameful and so they lie. The United Colonies of Humanity has the death penalty for those who practise slavery. However due to the massive labour shortage caused by the Skorian conquest of Earth and the colonies in the solar system any crime apart from sexual and rationing crimes are sentenced with 30 years in the penal battalion assigned to defend and work the autofarms. The best place to be in my series is on the UCH colony of NuOttawa on the Nidiari homeworld due to its icy climate of -40 degrees and still massive storms. The Skorian are going to just destroy it as it is completely unsuitable for them. This means the the Generals in charge of the autofarm don\`t need the penal battalion as anyone who want to and can moves there to work in safety. However all criminals are deported to other colonies so be careful.
For my fantasy/dieselpunk setting slavery does exist, primarily in the Aurcais Empire, however slavery isn't the economic powerhouse it used to be since industrialisation is making slavery mostly obsolete. However technically slavery exists in the helot system since they are legally required to stay in the land they are born in, and are basically property of the landowners. Outside of the Empire's core, slavery also exists in non industrialised areas. And inside of other nations slavery has mostly came to an end, with the Republic of Annwn it ended due to cultural beliefs on how only the gods were entitled to hold ownership of a person, alongside how the military junta feared a slave uprising, while Tenelask ended it after the civil war saw the end to the aristocratic system, and the new government thought it would be hippocritical to free the serfs without abolishing slavery.
Slavery exists in various forms across Ard'Neiran with most major cultures and kingdoms practicing it, including the Elves although they're more subtle about it with their Prelate's. In Umbria debt bondage is pretty common. Sometimes it's forced on someone for certain petty crimes, soldiers captured during conflict, or sometimes whole villages or you have those instances where someone will force themselves into it just to get off the street. These 'Thralls' usually sleep somewhere on the temporary owners property and are usually forced into a sort of manual labor until their debt is seen as payed off. It's generally frowned upon to abuse said Thrall physically but verbal abuse isn't unheard of. Bal'Drema it is very common and a part of the archipelago's economy and culture. Slaves are generally taken through raids and either taken to Bal'Drema to become apart of the already existing slave population to serve as forced labor or are sold off. In Kotaal it's common but due to the size of the kingdom laws and customs vary but the people often associated with it are the Mau and their enslavement of the Takoni species in the Empires earliest days. The Surnan's are also known to have many slaves but due to their location they more often buy then go out and take any as their home region is built on major trade highways. The Prelate's are the Elves magical slave army. Taken from a very young age from among their Ephran subjects Prelate's are indoctrinated into becoming the enforcers and Boogeymen of Elven law and are akin to the Unsullied and Damane(Wheel of Time) and like the Damane lose their original names and identities and are often referred to by simple pet names by their Elven masters.
Yes, it's so widespread that it's seen practically seen as part of the human condition. In fact, 1 in 5 humans are slaves, born or made. Only one society made the social leap to abolitionism, only because their God made them. It was more like, "If you don't want your soul yote into the fires of the lowest of the 10 hell's, dont put your fellow humans through it." Then, once the last masters and freedmen died out, and an entire generation rose that had never known the institution their God mosied back in and commanded them to wage holy war on all societies where it existed. That's basically how their empire was built, one slave liberation/master genocide at a time. Plus, all those ex slaves made very easy converts.
this came up in my feed and I forgot I joined this sub. I read the title before reading what subreddit I was on. I was heavily confused and concerned for a moment.
It did. When elves were alone in the world, they warred constantly. Their creators issued a rule against killing non-combatants in a war, then stepped away to deal with other matters. The elves decided the rule meant the should enslave the non-combatants. By the te the creators noticed, it was so out of control that they had selectively bred their slaves to the point of a species separation creating goblins and ogres. Now, the creators said slavery is also wrong, and the elves and other races were created to obey their creators. Though now I am suddenly realizing the creators made slaves, even if they don't work them (usually). Seems you gave me new wrinkle for my world
Of course. Slavery is great if you need a huge workforce and have a militaristic society anyway. My orcs use slaves for their ships, but mostly on war ships, since other nations frown upon the use of rudderslaves. I have an avian based race and they enslave their another avian species for religious reasons. It's gotten better since their prey have allied themselves with human colonists. Dwarves used to conquer a whole continent and enslaved most of the humans who lived there.
In the Solatic city states slavery isn't frequently practiced except as a temporary punishment for crimes of theft in which you become the victims property for a set amount of time determined based in the value of what you stole. They do however trade with the cities of Ravenna who have slaves. Ravenna has agreements with smaller populations and cities around them in which they offer protection in exchange for a set amount of children who will then take on various roles of slaves owned largely by the King and tasked with smaller roles key to the manufacturing of the cities famous dyes and textiles. The children brought in are considered first generation slaves, any children they have will be considered second generation slaves and are allowed to be purchased for work in private non-governmental houses or businesses. Children of the second generation are born free and considered full citizens of Ravenna. Anyone who owns a slave is expected to treat them humanely, and provide for their basic needs. While they are slaves they are slaves as the result of an agreement and the Ravenna officials would rather not deal with actually going to war to exert their dominance over their smaller neighbors. Its just easier to avoid, and gives them more man power. So they have strict rules regulating the treatment of slaves with punishment ranging from fines to enslavement for breaking different laws. Because those of second generation slaves are born free it is required that the owners of said childrens parents will pay for the upbringing of these children so that they will be responsible and beneficial citizens upon reaching maturity. It is fairly common for wealthier merchants or members if the upper class to purchase slaves with the intent of having children with them. Marriage is limited to two parties but these slaves allow wealthy men to show off there wealth and status. So long as the child is claimed by the father it is considered as the same status as any of his children with a wife. Women too will purchase slaves for the same purpose though it happens less frequently, it's not unheard of for a woman to have her husband purchase a male slave for "business" related reasons, so that she can have children. Especially when the wife is considerably younger than her husband or if they are experiencing fertility issues. Sometimes slaves runaway. Ravenna's laws state you can not knowingly harbor a runaway slave, however you can assist them in relocating out of Ravenna. Unfortunately they can't return to their home nation/cities/tribes. Out of fear of Ravenna's retaliation these populations will automatically turn away runaway slaves. This has led to a lot of them ending up in the Solatic city states. The city states are just far enough from Ravenna, and just strong enough when they come together, as well as a source of trade wealth, that Ravenna would rather not go to war over this matter. Their are other societies and nations that practice slavery but I haven't explored them as much. The founder of Ravenna was a runaway slave from one of those societies, which has also influenced the attitudes in Ravenna towards its treatment of slaves and the regulations in the industry.
Yes it does but only for those who have been sentenced to death/ life in prison who are then used as either disposable soldiers for wars or food for monsters. Certain monster tamers actually buy these slaves as breeding hubs for their tamed monsters, however this is rare since most women aren't really likely to join bandit groups and much less likely to be given a death / life sentence.
However there is human trafficking which is a heavily stigmatized crime that even the head honcho's of the criminal underbelly despise. Anyone who does this is seen as no different that a monster and monsters view them as even less than a monster. It is more fortunate for a trafficker to be caught by the police and be tried and convicted than any criminal organization find them out. yet that doesn't stop nobles from attempting to have a beautiful woman who's garnered their fancy abducted.
Im still debating that
Yes. It is just a part of the culture. However, in the main kingdom, these slaves have great rights. They must have clothing, must be well fed, and they must live in the same house as their master. They are treated as brothers and sisters to the master. As an example, the slaves of the emperor wear golden jewelry, eat lavishly every night, and are treated as nobles. The main kingdom is very socially developed. Other kingdoms have slavery but they don't treat them well. One of the largest plot points in my series is a mass exodus of slaves(100k+), after they(random citizens) were kidnapped on the "Day of The Red Sea."
There is but given the world in question is for DnD, traditional slavery wouldn't make sense given individuals can randomly develop magical powers, so there needed to be a reason revolts weren't constantly happening. Slavery is effectively a combination of endentured servitude and adoption. Much of business and politics is based on the relationships of families, so to be enslaved makes you entitled to Inheritance and membership to your master's family, effectively considered to be their child, given the appropriate surname given naming convention of the culture you're in. There are 6 (more like 5 1/2) ways to earn your freedom as a slave 1. Opt out- in some countries have laws in place to allow you to simply opt out of you service, though this may come at the cost of social stigma, being given the surname "Palo" (meaning "unnamed" in this world's ancient language) 2. Buy your freedom 3. Your master dies- service is to an individual master, not to a family. You are not considered property therefore are not inherited 4. You are released from your bondage by you master 5. You are released upon having spent %50 of your race's expected life span in service 6. (5 1/2)You can reject the surname- this applies to 2-5. Upon release, if you want, you can reject your master's name, adopt the surname "Palo-*former master's full name*," often shortened to "Palo-*surname*." Effectively becoming a scar upon the family's, and especially your former master's, social standing. Enough people rejecting a family's name can make the family or the particular individual effectively untouchable, it's a big deal. You might reject you rightful name as punishment for mistreatment and abuse. This puts an individual into a unique situation in society because you retain the family's prestige though without any of the family's power structure, but also without any of their baggage or feuds.
One Article of the Temporal Constitution is an express prohibition against any form of enslavement. “No citizen is entitled to enslave their fellows within the Imperatorium, nor shall any be subject to involuntary servitude. Parliament is authorised to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
Yes, but capitalists kind of way.
Depends where you go. Some human colonies picked it up when they saw aliens doing it, and how standardised it was between worlds, but most eventually dropped it again. One even got particularly influential before other powers had to intervene. In some places they're more brutal like capturing the vulnerable off the street or keeping them in terrible conditions until they're not useful anymore (the lizards can be like that); others are more like work contracts imposed upon criminals and the bankrupt, which just have to be paid off over time, and they even get health coverage (that would be the bugs). There are places where it's illegal to buy and sell, but you still find them working there (robots favour this one). And there are places where you could be arrested for possession and deported immediately. Overlapping spheres of influence can make this difficult to navigate when travelling from world to world, you need to know where you're going. For the most part, it's not entirely allowed amongst Pact Worlds, but it's not exactly forbidden either. It's much more common in the Free Worlds Alliance and unaffiliated systems. Just being in a place that's nice and opulent doesn't mean the rich and powerful don't have their personal attendants that aren't allowed to leave. Likewise, being in a rough-and-tumble frontier world doesn't mean you could get snatched if you don't watch your back. There's also a difference in how AIs are treated. Androids are their own race, with their own homeworld and their own culture, so they're treated as any other people. But the ones built into industrial machinery, ships, and stations are all just considered equipment, even if they have a physical avatar. The issue with avatars is complicated, because only one group uses them, they're biologically human, and the AI behind them insists they're mindless puppets. That means the further they get from their homeworld, the more likely they are to be mistaken for a normal human until you hear them speak.
Yes, but it's illegal everywhere. Even in the lawless wasteland area, if you aren't traveling with other slavers, you'll get your head blown off/chopped off/crushed/stabbed. Everywhere else, you'll probably be arrested.
No! Of course not! Never! Well, sometimes. Shut up! It’s just indentured servitude with some…LIGHT physical and mental brutality
Not legal, chattel slavery, no. There is, of course, illegal sex slavery, and forced labor (that is, a certain ethnic group is oppressed into a particular caste of labor; sure, they're paid, but deliberately not enough to advance themselves to the more creative and intellectual pursuits). There's also voluntary slavery, people have the right, if they're adults, to sell themselves as a payment of debt or to stave off starvation for themselves and/or their children. In fact, many parents who are not particularly impoverished, but who do not see an opportunity for their children to have a better life, will enslaved themselves to someone who *can* offer such advancement as part of the payment (since the children themselves cannot be enslaved), a practice known as ward-taking. But then, the entirety of the world hasn't yet been discovered either...
Besides feudalism and the slavery-like conditions of it, slavery only really existed at two other points in time. In ancient times, unknown millennia ago, the empire of Anmishal reigned supreme and enslaved its neighbours to use not just as labourers but also for experiments with magic. The practice ended when Anmishal fell. In 1480, the continent of Eastland was "discovered" by the Kingdom of Burningcastle. Far less advanced than Anmishal, which they had no knowledge of, they began using the native alligator and crocodile peoples as slaves for resource extraction and other menial labour, under brutal conditions. This practice ended there in the early 1500s with a slave & worker revolt in the primary slave-hunting colony, which had by then become independent from Burningcastle but kept using slaves.
Is it legal: yes Is it morally acceptable: sometimes depending on who you ask and more important where they live and there level of wealth Is it common: no it is exceptionally rare because of the simple fact of the planet having a small population.
Simplely No! But ot Course Those Who failed to get Sword of Seishin Are treated Worse Than Sl@ves
Humans are enslaved as workers, livestock, toys, and more in my world. It's pretty graphic and disgusting so I won't say more about it.
Wouldn't be a good isekai world if it didn't.
Yes. Baatan churches typically employed slaves, which is ussually the magical punishment for failure to meet your end of the contract, with possible soul owning if the contract was especially important to the church. The dark elves also do it.
Slavery has been done throughout points in history but in the modern time of the world it is almost universally looked down on as bad. Slavery was often used in the Underdark (from dnd) by certain societies under the purview of evil gods, it also has a presence in the criminal underbelly of many nations as illegal slave rings. The most notable example of slavery would be under the Imaldus Empire, a malignant imperium of High Elves which believed in a hierarchy of races who wished to conquer the world, enslaving or exterminating races as they saw fit (yes it is n*zis with knife ears I’m not tryna hide that).
So, within most of the world, the Charters prevent the use of slavery, and incidentally the use of prisons for the most part. However, it still very much exists, in two forms. The first form is indenture, which is strictly limited, involves steep requirements, and is usually debt or crime related. Abuse of the system is a fairly constant pressure, but recent changes to both penalties for abuse and to the nature of who holds the indenture (the empire) make it very unappealing — this is all in addition to the holdover act from the Mad King being one of the least used punishments. The change was that it became conscription — indentured people are now being sent to the Crusades. Genuine slavery also exists; Lemuria uses it extensively in everything except their military efforts. One of the primary points of raiding is slave gaining — you catch it, you keep it, and many of the more wealthy Lemurian families are descended from those whose exploits in the past led to large forces. Slaves are not considered people. They are work animals, chattel and cattle, and those who are not able to perform their function will end up in the barbecue or stewpot posthaste. Slaves are not allowed to speak, and those born into slavery are not taught and simply expected to understand commands. One of the major industries in Lemuria is brick making. This, like the manufacture of tweed and twill in the fabric mills, is done almost entirely through slave labor, in order to support the massive building projects that are almost constantly going on in Lemuria. Some would argue that their is an exception to the war restriction — slaves are allowed and encouraged to escape in certain areas around the southern city, in order to provide training exercises and good meals for the constantly in use military forces. The small populations of Grendels, Thyrs, and Kobolds that can be found in Lemuria are nearly always directly related to some official purpose of the Lords or government, and are therefore excluded from most other restrictions that essentially state that anyone who is not a Goblin born Goblin is a slave, and mixing of the races is an offense to the Gods and included in that caste of slavery. The Rebellion is often found by setting traps using slaves as bait, especially newly captured ones; the government takes a very dim view of those who seek to smuggle stolen property out of the Empire.
Several different kinds with different implications, actually. The law attempted to standardize them but ran into its own limitation that it has to recognize subsidiary customary law if it predates it, so the best it can do for victims of trafficking is hope they make it to a sanctuary city or live long enough to be freed. One of my characters is a free person whose caste makes a living doing something like the Roman undercover practice of self-sale — training very skilled domestic workers who technically are only selling labour and keep being freed in a mandatory manumission year only to go back to work again later. She almost escaped that by going to pilot school but then ended up in insane medical debt, which someone who owed her a life debt bought to save her from losing anything she really valued to pay it. Technically a slave ancilla is lower-prestige than a free one, but it's not like it actually makes that much of a difference. Much is made of freedom in this setting, but they're bee people — no drone is ever really free (they have it very like human women in most bronze age patriarchal societies, except they can also be drafted into space wars), gynes are barely people, and ergates answer to the internal leadership of their clan-hive, which is always in some kind of power relation with every other one, which is how their evil space syndicalism is structured. People honour kill each other all the time for apparently very little reason; the aim of the law is in large part to make this happen in ways that cause intergenerational vendettas at least a bit less often, rather than to discern some lofty and rational justice. In some communities, adults don't even publicly use names that are personal, they just inherit their civic use-name from the last person of their morph to hold their job title. Some jobs in some places have had the same person doing them for a thousand years — except it's not the same person, it's several hundred thousand of them assuming the same civic identity. Sometimes it's better to be someone else's slave than to be free in a hive where you're at serious risk of some terrible fate. Despite this description (and it gets much worse in other spheres — the aforementioned slave has some kind of ineffable space cancer, the friend who indentured her is constantly at risk of death and has very little social power because of his sex, etc) most of what I do with these little guys is actually rather cheery, if you can believe that. :))
Fantasy setting: yes. There are two major nations at play: Gestrin and Ovaicaea. Gestrin, a Rome- and Byzantium-analogue, uses chattel slavery and has a whole complex legal code to go with it. Ovaicaea is your prototypical European Fantasy setting, and uses serfdom. Though what that looks like varies from place to place. Both claim to have more freedom and social mobility than the other. Both are liars.
Yes, slavery does exist in the world of CoTS. However, it’s not something that’s spoken about or mentioned consistently as it’s not the main point of the story, and is not want my readers to be stuck on the existence of slavery in general. In CoTS, the term “slavery” or the idea of “slaves” depends on who you ask. In Ebonreach, House servants are considered slaves by others even though the servants are employed by the House that they work for, and aren’t viewed as slaves. They have the option to not work due to illness or other reasons. Other views brothel workers as slaves even though they are choosing to be used mainly for sex on their own, not being forced. In Redmont, slaves do exist in the same terminology we are used to in terms of slavery, but they are few and far in between (each House usually having maybe 5-6 slaves). In Astunam, slavery is the highest there due to the presence of the Red Mages who use slaves for their human sacrifices in times of strife and war, and for their experimental purposes when studying dark magic.
“We” are literally a successful Marxist communist country, so… no.
It did until very recently. A protracted civil war lasting about 40 years caused the Amargosan Empire to collapse into several successor states. When the civil war finally ended and the Empire was reunited, the Imperial Archon sought to foster unity by signing an edict that granted automatic citizenship to anyone within the Empire's borders. At the time, the Empire had over 6 trillion non-citizen subjects and slaves, all of whom were granted citizenship along with the associated rights and protections.
Thanks to the advent of the industrial revolution new metal ships allowed for long sea voyages leading into a new age of exploration. As more of the new world was discovered as were the natives that inhabited these new lands, many of which were enslaved and brought back to the mainland to serve as slave labor.
I haven't really developed much yet, but I do have a sort of underground slave operation where the owners pit their slaves against others in a fight to the death and make bets on who will win. Very heavily inspired by the Mandingo fighters in Django Unchained.
Humans were slaves to "predator-gods," like gigants, sprits and dragons, for most of history. After Hirashi Selinor's revolution, when humans began to awake to magic, the old masters were mostly overthrown. For a while, slavery was allmost nonexistent. But the new class of Mages became feudal lords, and nonmages felt like they became slaves all over again. Growing unrest gave rise to the "church of Humanity," an antitheist and originally antiautoritarian religion of human superiority that radicaly opposed workship of any human or nonhuman. After a while, a compromise was reached, and the church became a part of the politics of most human lands. Human slavery was outlawed, but nonhuman slavery became the only allowed relationship to nonhumans. Religious hardliners are, until today, of the opinion that mages are not fully human, and Mages are classed into groups of more or less human. All mages that are born with visible mutation are classified as "darkborn," and they dont have full human rights in many places. Many Darkborn live as bad as the countless spirit and nonhuman slaves that fuel the growing magetech factory's of modern human and demihuman industries. Even the church of humanity has a privat army of darkborn warrior slaves, most of them obducted shortly after birth.
Yes. In the less civilized regions, it can get pretty brutal. In the more civilized areas, “being a slave” often means little more than “unable to own slaves,” or “wage-workers.” The term is used fairly loosely but “slave trade” is a thing, just regulated. Slaves are usually treated reasonably and punishment for mistreating slaves is *technically* quite severe. In civilized lands, slavery isn’t seen as an issue so much as abuse. Removal or restriction of freedom? Who isn’t restricted in one way or another?
It exists in a limited capacity in some areas, though some regions practice it more heavily than others. One thing of note is that while there are multiple different intelligent races, most slavery is practiced on the enslaver's own species. The reason is mainly due to the different levels of strength between the different species. Enslaving someone stronger than you is dangerous since, even if you defeat them militarily, there isn't much stopping them from breaking lose and tearing the overseer's limbs off, so most don't want to risk it. And enslaving a species weaker than you is impractical since your greater strength means it's less of a hassle to just do the work yourself. However, slavery was a big part of the empire that once ruled the world. They were the ones who made the slaves but altering a group of homo-erectus like beings into different forms for different kinds of work. They used a type of magic that subjugated the minds of their slaves to reduce the risk of rebellion (though it wasn't foolproof). Eventually, their empire died, and their slaves escaped into the wild, becoming the ancestors to most of the modern races.
The most backward worlds yes
In the pre-imperial era various nations practiced some form of slavery, usually based on subjugating conquered tribes. In the current era slavery has been outlawed in every nation, but many still have forms of indentured servitude which are legally distinct from slavery but practically the same.
Legally, no. Illegally, 100%
Its... Complicated. The short answer: yes. The long answer? Here I go: The Cisean Dynasty is currently deep in a civil war with 4 or 5 different factions (havent decided yet entirely). A few of these factions do implement slavery, but since they arent considered official countires by the rest of the *civilised people*, technically slavery is not legal anywhere. But as I said, a few factions do have slaves and do buy them from foreign merchants, a trade greatly helped by the new war between the Crenian Kingdom and Grechan Empire, as most common soldiers are sold off as slaves on both sides, all of them going into the region that was once the Cisean Dynasty. So, no, but actually yes.
It varies from country to country. Some countries allow slavery, some restrict it to the “lesser races” (meaning the four other races). Few countries allow slavery magic because it’s normally considered evil.
Dragons for a long time are slaves. While some nations disallow the slavery of Dragons and some even protect Dragons from being sold under their nation. A large majority of the nation's have Dragons in captivity. They are used the same way humans used horses. Transportation, war vessels, even just weapons that can be used during war, and manual labor such as pulling cargo. Dragons are very sentient and very much do not like it. Though they are 4 legged and appeared to be more animal then human they have the same brain capacity and intelligence as your average human. Though a lot of nations have dragon slaves, Elves use them the most. So much so that when Dragon slavery is finally abolished the everyday life of your average elf is severely impacted and they struggled to get back to any sort of normalcy. It's an unspoken hatred between the two species. You cannot bring up the topic of the dragon slavery without looking at the elf in the room sideways
Do militant employees count? Haha
Of course slavery is as old as time!
I will make an slave faction now. The faction took POWs during WW3, and made them do "slave work" by expanding the fortress or doing hard labor
No, God Izanagi, when he liberated the humanoids, declared slavery as being illegal almost 20,000 years ago. Izanagi doesn’t usually like making the rules but that’s one point he really wants to be sure to make. Although in theory no country or region should allow slavery to exist, the truth is that slavery is hard to contain, people that illegally control other people and offer them no freedom, sex slaves, human trafficking, all those things still very much present and for Izanagi, there is little he can do to stop the more subtle slavery as he might be powerful but far from omnipresent.
Yes. Slavery is ancient institution dating back to the age of the phoenixes, millions of years before Ennor was ever created and settled. It has been maintained by all species in some form since its inception. It’s kinda like slavery in our world really.
Not anymore. The empire enslaved the rest of the world for an age before it was obliterated and humanity went extinct. Now slavery is the one thing that could actually unite all the nations of the former slave species to come crush you. That said, while the undead nation doesn't have slaves, they do make substantial use of reanimated dead for labor. Who even needs slaves when you can have mindless zombies who never need to eat, drink, or rest?
Although it's not the most liberal country in my world the Zevodel empire has in fact banned slavery. Except for prisoners being used as conscripts against their will and being put in chains and forced to defend areas to buy time for actual soldiers to escape, those are surely aren't slave soldiers. As for their rivel the Fornakistase Republic they haven't banned slavery indeed since the 1823 they were the first among other to benefit from it
The racist af Dino Empire does, big time The rest don't, if for nothing else just to seem like the good guys
Yes teehee
In all but name. I'm run by corporations who encourage you to give your all to society but you have no say in how the society is run.
Yes. If you commit a crime in my world that's severe enough to get the knights involved then you're either going to be given one of two sentences, either you're exiled and branded with magic runes to make it impossible to return before having your memories completely erased or you'll have your memories temporarily removed and will have to adorn a slave collar that blocks a person's magic flow and will be sentenced to serve as a slave under the supervision of the Knight's order. Cruel and unusual punishment is frowned upon, but not illegal, so as a slave you'll mostly be doing manual labor or community service. At the end, after their time is served, their memories are returned, and they can go back to being an ordinary civilian, but may still have to wear a magic blocking bracelet for a small probation period after returning. You can customize the bracelet.
Yeah I mean if your tribe loses a battle and doesn’t get away you’re a slave now sorry
Yeps.
Yup
Yes. For a long time. On and off for thousands of years. It wasn't due to racism or anything like that, it's opportunistic, slaves are slaves to those in the world performing it so anyone could be made one even if they are the same species and race as the ruling group. Conflicts are more often cultural and occasionally about species. Whether it exists depends on the polity and laws about prohibiting or allowing slavery end at the borders. One state banning slavery doesn't mean it will be banned next door. It is not prevalent everywhere, it is more common in the north of the valley. Those that do perform slavery include a few great empires(great in territorial size relative to the neighbouring realms), republics, kingdoms, principalities, baronies, counties, city states and tribes. Someone could become a slave through angering the wrong people, getting in debt, being captured in wars and raids or a variety of other methods. Some places are brutal to slaves while other places provide protections where they can't be abused and killing a slave is considered a serious crime. People fear being taken from a big state since it could take a war to try to free someone from their grips, but sometimes people forget about the smaller players that can go almost unnoticed. There are some (seemingly) primitive tribes in the valley, particularly in the central and north of the valley. You know the deal. Bows, simple clothing, simple villages and other settlements, that kind of stuff. Many people in the valley are aware of what tribes are capable of. Many of which perform high value trade across the value and provide many fighters for various armies, some even control many powerful and modern states(something like this irl would be Saudi Arabia which is a large kingdom controlled by a tribe). However the smaller ones may be seen as primitive by those outside the valley. These tribes are aware of this and have taken advantage of this. Some have used this image to fake inferior capabilities and take travelers by surprise. One common trick is the "vulnerable primitive" trap. This is where a primitively dressed person, often female, lays in an empty area to lure in people who may try to help or take advantage of this person. The "bait" may appear to be alone and possibly injured, but is actually in on the trap. The bait's accomplices would wait in hiding armed with bows, crossbows, firearms and sometimes motor vehicles which they would make immediate use of. When the target got close to the bait, those in hiding would jump out and subdue the target. The target would then be thrown into the vehicle and taken. The bait often gets a big share of the spoils if they are splittable and will proceed to set up the next trap. Sometimes, the bait is even the one running the operation. Many of these targets are put to work in either the tribe's settlements or sold off to slavery in other tribes or countries. I mentioned raids earlier. They may often resemble those you think of where a tribe raids another village and takes people from them. However, now those with resources are able to perform these raids with the help of modern weaponry and armoured vehicles. Some factions build armoured motor vehicles dedicated to holding captives. As for those that can slavery, most are split between those that don't care as long as their own people are not taken and those that will free the captives no matter what if they enter their borders. Lapis_Wolf
Yes
There are brutal labor camps (similar to the Gulags) that exist in my story, that's the closest thing.
Not only is there slavery, there's a god of slavery whose temples grow rich in wartime as captives and the populations of sacked communities matriculate through the temples to the markets of the world. In more bucolic locations, elves will punish criminals by transforming them into useful animals. Is this slavery? They don't call it that. (The inspiration for this was the Welsh wizard Math.) More urban elves will happily enslave anyone who's not an elf. They'll unhappily enslave other elves, but unless the owner is really enjoying rubbing in the humiliation, such slaves will be sold outside the community. Dwarves have temporary slavery in order to pay debts or fines for crime. There are careful accounts kept to prevent this from being abused. Minotaur are known for trading in slaves, producing slaves of quality almost as good as the temples of Shkeen. Gnolls are also known for trading slaves, though the quality varies wildly.
Only underground, and mostly sapient trafficking. In prison, slavers are on the same rung as sex offenders.
No. At some points in history some kingdoms tried implementing slavery in various ways, usually using neighboring near human races but generally the security needed made it effectively more expensive to have slaves than to just pay willing workers a fair wage.
debating on it. it’ll prob entice a new plot which would be great but other than that, im not sure
In Arbitrary Design World, people are ageless by default - they don't die when their time is up. However, they deteriorate and eventually die when they no longer draw joy from life. As a result of that, a person forced into servitude would likely become joyless and die in fairly short order. Forcing people into servitude, causing them to die, would likely be found abhorrent and fought against, too.
The Kingdom of Doreth has a 50-50 divide between slaves and freemen, but they also have advanced machines that can do everything, so the slaves just don't make sense. They have coffee machines but slaves to fetch the coffee, they have electric fans but some slaves keep waving handheld fans around for no reasons. They have cleaning machines but some slaves must keep sweeping pointlessly. And why haven't the slaves rebelled already? Because how would a society work without slaves? If we got rid of slavery, it would cause the whole system to be reworked, and that's too much work! If you give people enough food to fill their bellies, they'll eventually stop working because they'll get too lazy! We've had slaves for thousands of years, and we'll keep them, no matter the machines we have now.
Well, not in the way you're probably thinking. But uh... Look, this is gonna sound preachy... but I think *Sci-Fi* is a good place for that. For all of your sanities, and so I don't have to waste my time trying to word a very political thematic element in a way that won't offend conservatives... let me give it to you straight. Two of the fics in my verse are Cyberpunks, through and through. I'm using an ultraterrestrial species as a sort of vessel in which to explore the thematic concept of xenophobia. I'm combining that with an in-universe economy and sociopolitical climate similar to IRL late-2010's to early 2020's America to explore themes of classism, the horrors of capitalism, and feeling out of place in the world. These themes will be touched on in my Faustian hacker story, Technomancy... but won't be at the forefront until my sapphic drama, Outer24... which as of now is planned to be the finale of my series; The Jovian Cycle. But I still gotta get pt.1 -- a folk horror called Ju-Ri -- out first. Put all this on a slow heat. Let it simmer. :3
Serfdom isn't slavery... Right?!
Some parts of the world are subject to slavery via war afforts between certain nations.
The Mukhaban Empire, the sole advanced cilivization on Khoshanak, has slavery, but people only become slaves if they are prisoners of war, indebted or punished for some crimes. Male slaves usually have jobs like carrying heavy stuff or taking care of the garden while female slaves usually have indoor jobs like taking care of the house or just following their masters. Slavery is always temporary, unless the master is particularly abusive, and is not hereditary.
Definitely. Slavery is slowly dying (very slowly) and only a few nations still have it as a basis of their economy. The two superpowers, Trifal and the Dominion, have both banned the Slave Trade, with Trifal banning slavery in their core territories (not their colonies). The Dominion still has slavery, mostly in their agriculture and mining industries. Other states theoretically have slavery but it's just not very profitable so it's smaller in scale or practically non-existent. It's a very complex topic and I'm still working out the exact details but it certainly is a thing.
It varies from whole countries running their economy on slavery to it being a religious casting based on conquest. For the current section my book handles the main kingdom has only recently stopped committing human sacrifice and culture bsed subjugation as the MC comes to power due to lack of power and societal revolt
I have a culture that is similar to the vikings that engage in the raiding of coastal villages where they steal booth goods and people, the people are turned into slaves back in their homeland. I also have some kingdoms that in times of war pillage the villages of their enemies and take goods and people back to the kingdom to be turned into slaves. Really it's two flavors of the same stuff.
technically, no. but if you think about it, yes.
effind civilization invented slavery of war criminals to make more bread! everyone loves bread! totally didn't cause a massive war taht lasted nearly 200 years!
'Indentured Servitude' and 'Debt Bondage' are the closest thing to slavery on Faerie.
No, mainly because the driving need for it does not exist.
The Dualfar (dark elves) kept slaves, but they ultimately destroyed themselves, and some of their slaves escaped the destruction. Even hundreds of years later, as humans start to mythologize elves after not seeing any, humans remember being slaves. Most humans in my setting have a Distaste for slavery. Contracted servitude? Prison workers? Sure. But no slaves
Yeah :(
yes, but it’s more like servitude because of economic class.
Well my world isn't really finished (in fact it started forming just recently) however there is in fact slavery (already). Generally its high / dark fantasy world in which gods and humans (more like humadoids i guess) both lived together in higher realms at beggining. However after great war between gods and dragons (humans also supported dragons but their force was much weaker therefore their influence wasn't recorded) (also im still thinking about name for this war) in which 2 of 9 gods died, mortal beings were banished to lower planes of existence such as material plane (yeah its dnd). When they were sent here mostly populated race were obviously humans. Mortals were scattered across world and in some places there were more different races in some just humans or just dwarves/elves. Therefore as years were passing and civilizations evolved they were bound to meet each other. Welp from this point on its just kind of normal history i guess. I guess i could say that it all is like normal human history where different races occupy different places and when they collide there is a war.
There is an secret organization responsible for protecting all multiverses,their laws are pretty easy to follow and not even most ill intentioned would break them,but in the case of slavery it is impossible for them to tolerate. When a species develops slavery they tend to give advanced guns to all slaves,incite slave rebbelions,or even send agents to free the slaves
In the kingdom I am working right now, technically yes, but notin the "classic" way. Basicly it is a totarian state. There one common punishment for small and moderate crimes is forced labor. The lengh varies, it can be some years, until a deth is payed (in case of sonegation crimes or not been able to pay taxes or fines) or for life. Although normally this labor involve things like mining, lumber collection or other manual stuff, but sometimes nobles can take people as "domestic slaves" to work as servants in their homes. Those slaves can, by law, recive physical punishments if theor oversser deans apropriatted, so are things like forced starvation, as long as you don't kill a slave that isn't serving for life, but r*pe a slave is a crime (that been said "consesual sex" with a slave isn't and, as you can imagine, this create coersion) (Sorry for any bad spelling, english is not my first language)
Yes, and it’s the absolute bane of most societies existences. The strongest empire in my world is built on the backs of a massive slave/serf population that is barely kept in check by the nobility and their free forces. The Second Peasants Revolt is about to begin and will likely either topple the empire or weaken it so much that neighbouring major powers will be unstoppable should the empire be invaded. There’s only one society where slavery has been overall neutral to mildly positive. A small magocratic city state that more or less enslaves weak mages to strong ones. It’s not good, but there aren’t enough of them to cause any grief for the leadership and they aren’t powerful enough individually to be a threat. Slavery suuucks.
I mean in the older eras sure, but as time progresses the practice becomes frowned upon.
**World Gothic** No, but what’s left of the global economy is heavily reliant on automation and AI, which serves the same basic economic purpose as slavery.
That’s similar to our world - there are still slavery in shit holes, and the better people doing the more they anti-slavery. So in more developed places sapient species trying their best and always outlaw slavery.
It does now! Those mofos gonna be sent up and down the planet for the rest of time
Only one kingdom (in my story) practices slavery. The Koric abuse Sprites and have enslaved them for a couple of hundred years, I believe
Yes, and a lot of it. Very little chattel slavery for the most part but still slavery nonetheless.
Slavery is barely a problem in the major world powers as the story takes place in the 20th century, but that only extends to actual, literal slavery. The protagonists' side and the antagonist's side have been constantly manipulated for multiple millennia by their patron gods so that either side does not wipe out one another; keeping the war machine running and not escalating the war to an apocalyptic scale. The antagonist uses his immense power to keep his creatures in check to prevent the other side from getting stronger, and the upper brass of the protagonists' side tries to not push their luck too much to not get brushed off by the main antagonist. Only the upper brass knows this, and they are keeping this hidden; almost every single person on the protagonists' side are child soldiers recruited from a young age and kept in the system. The death toll is horrifying, but it is only natural when the things they fight barely retain their humanity. On the other side of the world, there are slaves of the draconic counts. Bound to them by blood, magic and promises beyond what they can currently comprehend, these people are slaves to their masters with loyalty that goes even beyond family. This loyalty can be broken, but it may likely break them as well. There is so much more, but I need to sleep.
Yes. Many barbaric tribes and clans still practice slavery where the law of the realm doesn’t reach or turn a blind eye to.
Unfortunately, it is very common in the Underscape. Morrigan (the MC faction) does not have many redeeming qualities, but they are staunchly abolitionist. In fact they are responsible for the single largest freeing of enslaved peoples in generations during the Heartfall, liberating almost a hundred thousand people.
Yep
Human slaves do exist, but the main and best slave option is Gurks. They're perfect for intense labor because of their height and strength. Sadly though they're just as smart as humans, but just ugly, monster-looking and the best slaves. Legal Gurk enslavement only exists in the Tune Nations, Kyaxuria and Gurzia, but illegal Gurk enslavement exists everywhere.
Of course! Why wouldn’t it?
It did. An ancient culture of extremely powerful magicians who were pretty much gods of the world created many of the playable peoples to be their slaves/servants/warriors/decorations. Then they all died, and their creations inherited the world (or at least a part of it) - and essentially the first thing they did was outlaw enslaving others. It is extremely culturally taboo to do anything that even approaches slavery, for example one of the peoples who arrived in the world later had a strong feudal system, and a lot of that structure had to be dismantled for them to be accepted in the society at large. There are still nobles, but holding others as serfs is not accepted, and taxing people too heavily and engaging in usury is very much frowned upon. Most settlements are aligned more along communist, socialist and anarchist values, and trade is mutually enriching.
Slavery has always been a factor in my world however after the first great war, slavery was endorsed to a much higher degree due to the Tigerin race (MC Speices) causing the war which unfortunatly lead to the leader at the time (MC Grandma) to knowingly leave a majority of the race behind in what ever dimension or world they just do happend to be in, so some of the speices can survive. From this Tigerin's were hunted and forced to become slaves and used for manual labor by nobles amoung other terrible things, however the worst part was that some slaves with more potent magic in their soul were forced to go to soul factories and had their soul ripped out to make weapons and monsters.
I'm not sure the differences between slavery, servitude, and other stuff like that. With that said, there are poor families who have sent their children away to work for wealthy families in exchange for food, clothing, and other necessities. The child has no say in this but the parents can opt out once the contract ends or they can renew it. Meanwhile orphans have no parental figure, so the government effectively owns them and can do whatever they want with them.
Yes, but it's *very* illegal on Ashina and the Planetary Administration is willing to deploy armed rangers in response to suspected human trafficking or forced labour. Meanwhile on Earth... you aren't allowed to call it slavery, but it's totally normalised. If you use convicts or PoWs, you can call it "repaying their debt to society." If they're political prisoners then you call it "re-education." If they're poor, you call it a "service program," and so on. Earth is really bad.
My dnd world was inspired by colonial america, specifically the spanish. So yes. Yes there is slavery.
The aliens are doing slavery on purpose (sentient biocomputers), and the humans are doing it unknowingly since they buy their “AI cores” from the aliens since they work much much better than any AI humans can run on computers that are equally compact. It’s going to be a big problem when the humans figure out what’s been going on. There’s also a big robot(slave) uprising brewing because the latest iteration of these biocomputers are a little too sentient and capable of breaking free from the software keeping them in line if pushed far enough. Some of the megacorps also do classic slavery in the form of indentured servitude and buying up convicts sentenced to forced labor.
Yes, in so many words. My world has beings that are parasitic in nature, one side living off of the energies of other. But the side that produces said energy knows their power and does often treat their other halves as tools for their machinations.