Slaves

[sjard]

<Moderator>
Not a warning, but simply a data point notice.

This thread had not been posted to in 14 years prior to today's posts. Additionally, the person originally quoted in the first of today's posts has not posted to these boards in roughly four years.

Just something to be aware of.

Thank you.
</Moderator>

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Arawaen

Slavery is going to be present in my fantasy campaign.

I was assuming that the default disadvantages for a slave would be:

Status/-4 [-20 pts]
Social Stigma (Valuable Property) [-10 pts]
Poverty (Dead Broke) [-25 pts]

but would they have a duty?

How would an indebtured servant differ?

How would slaves under say the Vikings, Roman or Greeks differ from each other and from that of the early Americans?

Slaves aren't always low status. The slave of a sultan or emperor could have a higher status than a duke and more wealth too. The Social Stigma would almost always apply.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Historical slavery could certainly be weird - in Imperial Rome, for example, a slave of the Imperial Household could find himself in significant luxury and ordering senators about ... whilst a slave on one of the latifundii or in the mines could be treated worse than an animal.
As I understand it, slaves in Saxon England actually had property rights and specific days on which they could work for pay on their own account.
IIRC there was at least on culture in the ancient near East where all slaves belonged to the king and were leased to other people.
Slavery has also served as a form of bankruptcy relief, a penal system and many other things ... and GURPS has the tools to let you model any of them, once you know what you want to depict.

African slaves within African societies often had rights much like Anglo-Saxon slaves. I stress the word "often" as African slavery in Africa was a fairly complex and plastic status. The meaning of the word "slave" gets stretched to its limits by the sheer number and varieties of African Slave systems.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by sjard

<Moderator>
Not a warning, but simply a data point notice.

This thread had not been posted to in 14 years prior to today's posts. Additionally, the person originally quoted in the first of today's posts has not posted to these boards in roughly four years.

Just something to be aware of.

Thank you.
</Moderator>

Sorry, I didn't know that.

[Purple Haze]

In the Islamic world a Ghulam (plural Ghilman) was a slave soldier. They were elite, well payed, often rich and slave owning themselves.

Ghulam literally means boy, and is used in the Koran to refer to servants in Paradise. Eventually it was felt that it had pejorative, homoerotic connotations and was replaced by Mamluk. Mamluk means the owned.

The Mamluks became sufficiently powerful as to found no less than seven dynasties.

Then there are the Janissaries. They differ from Ghilman only in that they were Christian slaves before converting to Islam.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

In the Islamic world a Ghulam (plural Ghilman) was a slave soldier. They were elite, well payed, often rich and slave owning themselves.

Ghulam literally means boy, and is used in the Koran to refer to servants in Paradise. Eventually it was felt that it had pejorative, homoerotic connotations and was replaced by Mamluk. Mamluk means the owned.

The Mamluks became sufficiently powerful as to found no less than seven dynasties.

Then there are the Janissaries. They differ from Ghilman only in that they were Christian slaves before converting to Islam.

If I recall Janissaries had an obscure form of Sufism peculiar to them that they kept secret from everyone else. At the least if you have slave soldiers they could have something similar in a speculative universe.

[Verjigorm]

Bektashi? Janisarries made up most Bakteshi, but the order was neither exclusive, not completely secret: there are Bektashis in Detroit.

But the idea of an elite closed society of "slaves" with their own peculiar rituals is a fun one.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Except that it has fairly extensive rules covering slavery - cost of slaves, loyalty of slaves, et cetera - in book 2. It seems pretty clear to me that Status is generally expected to bottom out at -2; if Fantasy talks about it regularly hitting -4, I can only assume that's an unfortunate legacy from 3e thinking.

I think that's pretty much what happened. Fantasy was originally written for 3e and then got revised when the 4e revolution took place. These days, at any rate, I would make a slave any Status from -2 up to maybe +5 (the Multimillionaire slave general of a slave army could be +5) and give them one of Valuable Property or Subjugated to mark their special legal status.

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by Arawaen

Slavery is going to be present in my fantasy campaign.

I was assuming that the default disadvantages for a slave would be:

Status/-4 [-20 pts]
Social Stigma (Valuable Property) [-10 pts]
Poverty (Dead Broke) [-25 pts]

but would they have a duty?

How would an indebtured servant differ?

How would slaves under say the Vikings, Roman or Greeks differ from each other and from that of the early Americans?

In many cultures, slaves were allowed to own possessions, Dead Broke isnt necessarily a good assumption. Also, Status only goes down to -2 and that level is specifically called out as the one for slaves.

Duty is iffy. Slaves were generally expected to spend a portion of their time performing a job for their owner. The rest of their time was their own. That said, they didnt get a choice in the matter. Also, in many cultures, owners were expected to treat their slaves well - animal abuse is still abuse - and how well slaves were treated affected ones own Status - sort of like how some people today lavish their purserats with designer label clothing and spa treatments. So the social pressures to treat slaves well could soften that duty to being treated as a job that is paid in food and shelter. Want food? Do your job. Don't do your job, maybe you don't get fed until you do.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by Arawaen

Slavery is going to be present in my fantasy campaign.

I was assuming that the default disadvantages for a slave would be:

Status/-4 [-20 pts]
Social Stigma (Valuable Property) [-10 pts]
Poverty (Dead Broke) [-25 pts]

but would they have a duty?

How would an indebtured servant differ?

How would slaves under say the Vikings, Roman or Greeks differ from each other and from that of the early Americans?

Originally Posted by sjard

<Moderator>
Not a warning, but simply a data point notice.

This thread had not been posted to in 14 years prior to today's posts. Additionally, the person originally quoted in the first of today's posts has not posted to these boards in roughly four years.

Just something to be aware of.

Thank you.
</Moderator>

Just a pointer. The original question was based on the differences between Antiquity and the building of modernity.

From my research was that Slaves in Antiquity were not commodities but the form of production. Slaves were treated fairly well because that's what helped to fund wars. Many Roman and Greek armies had freed slaves (ie a tribute from the land owners to gain more slaves from the conquest).