Tag Archives: Fluff/Inspiration

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Campaign Design

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Back in mid-March +Sophia Brandt posted a query [on a now nonexistent G+ page] seeking advice on tools for beginner DM resources for hexcrawls and building your own campaign.

I recommend reading the full comment thread, but I liked what I wrote, as it is a nice summary of what I have used in my efforts in recent years. I have added other links and information that I could not recall off the top of my head, mostly for my future reference.

+Joe Johnston recently published a free PDF, How to Hexcrawl.

Bat in the Attic, The Alexandrian, Ars Ludi, and  The Welsh Piper all have a series on sandboxes and hexcrawls.There’s another blogger who did something on hexcrawls that I am not recalling.

Bat in the Attic- Hexcrawl Series            The Alexandrian Hexcrawl Series               Ars Ludi: West Marches            The Welsh Piper on Hexcrawls

For building a world, the hexcrawl is generally a bottom up way to do it. Pick a starting town and generate a few hexes around town with various terrain, and objects and places of interests and dungeons and monsters. The world is built as the player’s explore it.

One can also do the top down approach, plan out a world, cosmology, mythos, nations, peoples, cities, etc. and pick a certain spot for the players to start, and use a hexcrawl to detain a smaller area.

For me, designing a detailed mythology of divinities is a challenge, so I use either Greyhawk dieties, or something from Dieties & Demigods.

It is easy to get lost in the details, so I think the DSR episode about world building sufficiency, is right on point. Some of us, like me, can easily get lost in details that will never come into play. Build enough to give color and flavor to your world.

My quick suggestions:

  • Decide which monsters definitely will or won’t be used.
  • Generate a ridiculous amount of names for streets, places, businesses, taverns, and NPCs . (You will be asked for what is the name of this or that all the time!)
  • Stay just enough ahead of the players that you can roll with their sudden course changes. At the end of a session ask if they will continue in their current situation, or go somewhere else, to give you time to prepare for a course change.
  • Make index cards with pre-generated random encounters of the creatures they are likely to encounter, so you can just grab it and go. Just make packs based on your encounter tables, whether it is the default tables in the rules, those by others, or your own. I put stats, treasure, etc. on them so I don’t have to slow play to figure it out. Some monsters I use all the time, I can easily wing them. But I like the cards to make sure that every group of goblins is not the same 10 goblins with spears.
  • Once you get a few sessions under your belt, and you and the players get attuned to this world, it will start to make sense how to proceed.
  • If this is your first campaign, there is no right or wrong way to do it. Everything you do, even if it is never used in play will help you figure out what style of world building works for you.
  • Tables – Tables can help give ideas. The OSR is full of new ideas for tables to flesh out or fill in perceived gaps for different tables. You don’t have to roll on tables or accept the results, but they can give a LOT of ideas you might not come up with on your own.
  • Maps – There is a plethora of online maps for RPGs for dungeons, cities, ruins, and other settings. If you play using theater of the mind, then the maps may only help you to solidify your ideas for a location and its layout.
  • d30 Sandbox Companion – New Big Dragon Games game aid for generating all kinds of things for a sandbox setting.
  • d30 DM Companion – New Big Dragon Games game aid for ideas for fleshing out dungeons, not limited to the dungeon.
  • Weather  – Have a quick and easy method to generate weather.
  • Rumors – Have a few rumors to start and come up with new rumors all the time.
  • Events – Use something like the yearly and monthly events in Oriental Adventures.
  • Festivals & Celebrations – What kinds of parties will be going on?

Another person pointed out a couple of resources that I also turn to:

Jeff Rients’ twenty quick questions for your campaign setting has some interesting ideas to define certain elements of your campaign that your players may ask about, or for some reason tends to come out in game play.

One Page Dungeon Contest (OPDC) Maps to quickly generate where a treasure or other found map leads, or for a quick adventure idea when you are running dry.

I find that as I place monster lairs and determine what is in them, that it is easy to make up a story to explain how they all fit together. Are certain groups of humanoids working together? Is there a big bad who is trying to get them to work for him? Are there monsters that can’t be reasoned with or controlled and the big bad leaves them to guard his flanks, and his minions fear them. For example, a group of owlbears in an abandoned mine?

There are all kinds of ways to determine what the various lairs and ruins are. Place them underground in caves, tombs, dungeons, ruins, mines, quarries, etc. Hills, towers, and other prominent features above ground.

Use the lairs closest to the starting village/town/city as sources to begin interacting with your world. Have a known area of fairly picked over tombs in the hills near town, but with the possibility that there are still tombs that haven’t been found, or that have become the home of something else with treasure.

Plan NPCs for all the PCs to interact with, that have the same classes your PCs will use. If you allow paladins and rangers in your game, plan some low and mid-level NPCs so that your players have someone of their class to turn to for advice, training, support, etc. Having a reason for these NPCs to be in and out of town and sometimes inconvenient for the players to interact with makes them a bit more real. Paladins and rangers tend to be out doing good in dangerous places, or on quests and secret missions. Wizards and illusionists and sages tend to get busy doing their research. If the players can’t afford to pay for information or magical aid, perhaps they can pay in favors.

Then there need to be the other NPCs, tavern keepers, bar maids, street vendors, and other types of vendors that your players will tend to seek out. How many from the starting location will be available for hirelings and mercenaries? Is the supply never ending, or will you define how many are available? Will the players have a hard time finding help if they get a reputation for getting their men killed?

As you get to know your developing setting and your chosen rules, you may find that you are comfortable winging various aspects of play. Perhaps all you need is a list of names or a simple name generator, and some generic stats of hirelings. I have found that I can make up all kinds of stuff on the fly. I am amazed at some of the stuff that I come up with and how the players never know I made it up on the spot. However, the players can be quite inventive and always manage to find some avenue in the course of play that I had not anticipated.

If you tell the players that there is someone in town who sells maps, for example, you better know about the maps. Are they all forgeries made by the map maker, or are they the real deal. Where do they go and do any forged maps actually lead to something, or is the loot still there if the map is genuine?

Whatever you mention, be prepared for the players to run with it, so keep some basic notes of what you have told them, and pay attention to them showing interest in certain things.

I have a few background plots running in my campaign that are affecting their immediate area, the kingdom, and the greater region. The players are seeing a pattern to some events that are just random encounters, but I am able to retcon a story that makes it work, because I built my own encounter tables to fit the lairs I randomly placed and populated. The players are able to influence events through dumb luck, or by choosing to follow or ignore hints of something else going on. Players will start connecting dots from what they see, but these connections are tenuous, coincidental, or circumstantial. It is fun to have your narrative as the DM about what all this means, and see how the players actually interact with it.

With a hexcrawl, you can put as much or as little detail and effort into it as you need to make it work. You can do the just in time generation a few hours before the session, or do it as you play and both DM and players figure out the world at the same time. You can obsess over planning your world and generate tons of information that will never enter into play. Whichever way you prepare, make sure it is focused on preparations that leads to play first, and explanatory, fill in the blanks later. As I mentioned above, as you follow this process, you will discover the style that works for you. If you and the players are having fun, then you are doing it right.

RPGs

Genetic Map of the British Isles

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My interest in genealogy and RPG’s cross pollinate ideas, like any other interest or experience in life, many things influence our creative ideas.

In late March, there were several articles about a new genetic map of Britain and how it shows that much of the regional populations there is very similar to what it has been for 1,400 years!

I am of Scottish, English, and Irish ancestry, so this resonates with me. It shows that even with the sweep of mass migrations, war, famine, and plague, that populations are resilient. Without massive slaughter, populations may only be pushed out of their exiting area. This would show just how hard it is to wipe out all the humanoids, for example. They might be driven out of the area, but not eradicated without a lot of effort.

Three articles with a bit of different information in each can be found at Medievalist.net, The Independent, and The Telegraph.

Genealogical Map of British Isles
Genealogical Map of British Isles

 

RPGs

Arbalest vs. Heavy Crossbow

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I did not make note of the article I read this on, but I wanted to get this scrawled note from an index card recorded so I can ditch the index card. I believe this is the article, but there’s no date on it, so I’m not sure.

It discussed the arbalest, a heavy crossbow, that used spring steel arms for the bow and had a range of about 300 meters, longer than 3 American football fields! It also had a fire rate of 2/minute.

They could shoot bolts or stones or shot. I’ll have to dig up the article, but it would be a heavy+ crossbow in D&D terms. Since a longbow is often credited as 12 aimed shots a minute and that is translated to 2 shots per round in AD&D, it makes sense that one shot per round for an arbalest. The heavy crossbow has a more complex cocking procedure, so one shot every other round.

Or is an arbalest just one expression of what the heavy crossbow in AD&D represents?

I mentioned in two past articles (one, two) about my brother, Robert, allowing a Chinese style self loading crossbow that could fire 10 shots a round, and our foolish characters ended up as orc food because we elected to fight with swords instead of our cool crossbows.

Finding the proper scale so that one isn’t dropping a combat changer into the midst of the game is the only part of balance I am concerned with.

RPGs

Earthquake!

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I live in Southwest Michigan, about 15 miles south of Kalamazoo. Today, we had an earthquake of magnitude 4.2.

I live across the street from the houses next to the train tracks. It is an active freight line and big, heavy trains can shake the house. This shaking was much different. We have 5 crossings through town and federal law requires them to blow the horn at each crossing. The Wednesday night, AD&D campaign I play in can hear the whistles if I forget to mute my microphone until they pass. If the windows are open in warm weather, I have people in phone calls ask me if I am standing on the tracks.

I was in my house, built about 1920 on sandy soil. The shaking was slightly similar to a big, heavy train going by, but it felt deeper and more powerful, and lasted just a few seconds.

I swore I heard a boom/roar/loud noise that preceded/coincided/followed the shaking. I can’t explain that. It was over so quickly that I didn’t have time to make sense of it. My thoughts were, there is no train, did a tanker truck explode? That has to be an earthquake.

About ten or fifteen minutes later, there was a very brief aftershock.

This is the first earthquake that I know I’ve experienced. My recollection is that an earthquake needs to be a 2.5 to 3.0 for most people to feel it and know it’s an earthquake. What I found using my google-fu is that it has to be a 3.0 to notice it.

A 4.2 was interesting. Since the scale increases an order of magnitude, a 5 would be impressive! A 6, 7 or more would be mind blowing.

My son took his girlfriend and their daughter to a neighborhood garage sale and met up with some friends. He said that he was sitting on the ground and that the ground beneath him felt hollow. His girlfriend said that she was standing up and that her feet were vibrating and she noticed that the trees were moving one direction and the houses another. Their daughter is 3 1/2 months old and she did not seem to have any reaction.

In addition to an interesting experience, I have a better understanding and thus more able to describe an earthquake in my writing and DMing.

RPGs

Kingdom of the Dwarfs

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I bought the book, Kingdom of the Dwarfs [Amazon Affiliate link], by Robb Walsh [Now a food writer and critic in Texas. Made me hungry for some good BBQ….] and illustrated by David Wenzel, back in the 1980’s. The copyright date is 1980, so I’m not sure what year I bought it. I know it was before I graduated high school, so sometime between 1980 and 1983.

I keep it with my RPG materials. I was trying to think of something to post about, and I remembered this book. I have not read it probably since I first read it after I got it home three plus decades ago.

I have looked at the art since then, and marveled at the skill of the artist, and wished I could do the same. Perhaps with intentional practice and some art classes I might do better than my present attempts.

I strongly identify with dwarves for some reason. I really liked the dwarf character from The Sword of Shannara  [Amazon Affiliate link].

Oddly enough, my favorite character is a half-elf. Although I play a dwarf in my Wednesday night online AD&D game.

The Wikipedia article about David Wenzel calls this a children’s book. As I recall, it was in the fantasy/science fiction section of the bookstore, so it was not marketed or sold in that store like a children’s book. I don’t think the theme is of a children’s book.

I remembered the basic story, but of course, the details eluded me. So I read it again.

It is a fast read. The text is mostly a set up of the book and then brief blurbs to set the scene for the art. The art tells a very detailed story.

Now I’m in the mood to detail the dwarven realms in my campaign. There’s never enough time to do it all!

If you want to build a dwarven kingdom or lost kingdom, this is a great source book!

RPGs

2015 One Page Dungeon Contest – My Revised Submission

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I re-did the map for my OPDC submission, The Dire Druids of Delver’s Deep. I did the new map by hand and scanned it. The only thing I put on the image with a program, are the numbers for the rooms/areas.

Doing my map old school, i.e. like I did when I was a teenager and before we had our first computer, microwave, or cable TV.

I’m not that good at getting the result I want out of a graphic’s program, so hand drawn it is. Being out of practice with the details on hand drawn maps doesn’t seem to be a problem for this small one. If I had time before the deadline to fiddle with it and get a cutaway effect of The Deep and the cavern, I would.

 

RPGs

2015 One Page Dungeon Contest – My Submission

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I said that I was going to submit something to the One Page Dungeon Contest (OPDC) this year, and I was beginning to wonder if I would make it happen.

Last weekend, the title I had for the dungeon finally gelled and the idea for it came together much more smoothly than I had hoped.

I wanted it to be about Druids, since I got on a kick and had a few articles about druids a few weeks ago.

Druids and Alignment

Druids and Their Environment

Druids and Undead

I also ordered Roberts Kunt’s module Dark Druids and when it came a week ago, I realized that I didn’t want to read it until I put together my idea for the OPDC.

I had determined that I would consolidate my notes and make this one page dungeon this weekend no matter what. I had to further get it nearly 100% today, since +Roy Snyder’s DCC game picks up after a hiatus of a few weeks, and I made a commitment to be there.

So without further ado, I present my submission to the OPDC – The Dark Druids of Delver’s Deep. I went “old school” on the OPDC and used the one page dungeon template by +Michael Shorten, AKS Chgowiz. He has links to his dungeon and wilderness templates on his old blog.

There are 36 listed submitted dungeons/adventures so far – at the time of this writing, minus my submission.

RPGs

Types of Currency

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The article on Rai Stones over on Sea of Stars for the 2015 A to Z Challenge, got me to thinking about various forms of currency. The aforementioned article, talks about them as involving magic, which is cool.

There are many different types of money:

Commodity money – Something that has a value and is used in trade for other things. It is a “step up” from the barter system.

Fiat money is money that has value because everyone agrees it has value, like most modern currencies, such as the American dollar.

If money is tied to the value of something else, it is representative money. Strangely, this can include both commodity and fiat money.

Types of Currency

  • Paper/cloth – Fiat money if it has a specified value, representative money if it is used in lieu of something else, or commodity money if bundles of paper or cloth are used in exchange.
  • Coins – Originally the coins were a commodity of precious metals, that in the modern world have become mostly base metals and fiat money.
  • Rai Stones – The linked article is on the actual rai stones used in Yap.
  • Beaver and other pelts
  • Salt
  • Tobbacco
  • Gold bars (or bars of other precious metals.)
  • Gold Dust
  • Iron Bars
  • Gems
  • Jewelry
  • Barter/Trade
  • Shells
  • Cows/other herd animals
  • Favors – Back in November, 2014, I wrote about how favors can be used as currency.

Nearly anything can be used as a currency, like this article about some ancient forms of currency.

In areas where coin is in short supply, barter or another commodities will become money. In areas where the wealth of the adventurers inflates prices, other things with a more stable value might rise to the level of money.

What kinds of unique or interesting things have you used or encountered as money/currency/barter in the RPG’s you have played?

RPGs

Vikings Season 3 Finale

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I just watched the Vikings season 3 finale. I like how they pack so much into seasons of just a few episodes.

It is interesting how they take historical and semi-historical figures and weave a story among known historical events.

I won’t post any spoilers here, but I will say there are multiple surprises of how they wrapped up a few loose ends, but left a twisted trail of many more things to come in the next season.

I wonder how many years they will skip when it comes to the next season.

I like how they have portrayed vikings as more than bloodthirsty plunderers. They show social divisions among the vikings and what we know about them from their own stories, first hand accounts, and archaeological finds. Of course, with fiction, they take many liberties and insert things the writers made up that are very fantastic.

There seems to have been a revival of interest in vikings in various RPGs or RPG add ons, like adventures and campaign settings, in recent years.

This is a big change to how vikings influenced my original experience of their influence on AD&D. That is, the berserker, under Men in the Monster Manual. This single narrow aspect of some viking warriors is all that some knew of them, beyond their raiding coastal towns and villages.

The vikings were great explorers, who sought new lands and new goods for trade. Their influence via trade was perhaps greater than that of their raids. However, it is the dreaded viking raid that made the biggest impression on most of Western Europe. Of course, the survivors of many of these raids were the monks who were able to write about their experiences and preserve their side of these encounters. I am not aware of any direct connections to the viking side of these raids. Do the sagas that we have today hold such information?

What I do know is that a population growth lead to seeking new lands and new wealth. When money is based on gold and silver, of which there is a finite supply, one has to find it through either mining or taking it from someone else. Thus, a common motivation throughout history. This same motivation will exist in RPG’s, like D&D, whose economies are based on coins of precious metals. Land and certain other items that don’t decay will also hold value.

So as the vikings were motivated by an expanding population and so forth, other groups of men and humanoids will have similar motivations for their raids and efforts at expansion. Other motivations might be doing the bidding of their deity or being manipulated by someone on a quest for power, whether it is political or magical. A shortage of females might prompt gathering brides, or for a female dominated society, it might prompt gathering grooms.

Concentrations of wealth, such as cities will be attractive. Only walls that are well defended will provide the most protection. Even that might not be enough for a determined and motivated force. Caravans or convoys of merchant ships might also be targets.

Bribes, threats, tricks, and other things might be used to get inside the walls of a city to allow a large force of raiders inside to get what they are after.

Some ruler or other type of power broker or power seeker might seek to manipulate a viking like group into going after his enemy or some other target to facilitate his own plans. A powerful wizard seeking a specific item, might use a raid to distract all the guards to defend the walls, to make it easier to pop in and take what she is after. An evil cleric might do something similar to gain an item, desecrate a good temple, of establish a foothold of evil in a city.

Related to my A to Z series on cities, this fits in nicely as a second article on V. Who wants what is in the city? Who are the enemies of the city? Who or what is the reason the city has walls and gates? As with anything, there are two types of threats to a city, known and unknown.

Obviously, it is much easier to plan for known threats. Unknown threats can only be guarded against based on how similar they are to known threats. For example, in a world without known magic, how would one guard against it? In a fantasy setting with magic, one can only guard against the types of magic one knows about. Invisibility, illusions, and disguises are all general categories, but some specific magic items, or unique spells would present a threat to undermine all defenses.

For physical threats that are unknown, it can be a new tribe or group of humans or a resurgence of humanoids whose population has recovered after their last beat down.

Vigilance against a threat is hard to maintain all the time without discipline and a very regimented dedication. It always happens that in time, people tend to forget the bad times, and don’t see the connections in events that lead to some “sudden” occurrence that in hindsight was building towards its outcome.

 

RPGs

Slavery In RPGs

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Slavery is often referred to in fantasy role playing games, FRPG’s, as evil. However, the scale of good/evil and how each game nation or culture views slavery would vary, as it did from ancient to modern times. Usually, on nine point alignment systems, chaotic good is viewed as opposed to slavery, while lawful good might be accepting of it, provided the methods of slavery and treatment of slaves falls within what is culturally and legally acceptable. This topic is touchy and some people see the word and might choose to think I am saying that I am in favor of slavery. I am merely discussing it from a gaming perspective. It is generally understood that the bad guys, such as orcs, keep slaves. Some human groups might keep slaves. I begin with some questions,  a brief historical and cultural review, and conclude with some thoughts for informing slavery. This article was spurred by the directions of my thoughts on this post. This is not a high scholarly article, only the briefest of overviews that touches on some general ideas. [For the record, in the real world, I think slavery is an evil, nasty practice, that should end. Many think that slavery ended over a century ago, but there are still people suffering in slavery today. If you have a problem with simulated slavery in the imagination, and don’t have a problem with all the imaginary killing, you have a logical disconnect. If you want to end slavery, go track down the jerks who BUY the slaves, thus making a market for the product. If there is no demand for slaves, it will end.]

Does or did slavery exist in your world? Is slavery more akin to some aspects of antiquity, where some or all slaves had certain rights and could somehow expect to return to or gain their freedom? Or is it more like more recent examples of slavery, where slaves are absolutely property to the point that their descendants are slaves, and their treatment varies by who their masters and overseers are? Would there be state slaves doing the work projects of the state? Would slaves be limited to conquered peoples, i.e. war prisoners, or criminals? What kinds of crimes would relegate one to slavery? Would all nations keep slaves, or only the most “primitive”, “evil”, or some such? Would slavery be such that even predominately good nations have slaves?

In the Bible, the Old Testament version of slavery was a form debt relief, or could be voluntary. Slavery was to be limited to six years, and then they were to be free, unless the master provided a wife during that time, then the male slave could opt to stay with his family and become a slave forever. The slave then was to have his ear pierced with an awl as a mark of his status. Women were not able to become free after six years, like men. Fathers could sell their daughters, but the master had to deal fairly with her. The only exception to this, was the year of Jubilee, every 50 years all slaves were to be set free and all debts forgiven. That was the law, but so far as we know, the ancient Israelites never did this. Those who were not Hebrews, however, were treated as we usually understand slaves. One can see how this informed the English concept of indentured servitude in colonial America.

Debt slavery is a way for one to get out of a hole by giving their labor for a set term in exchange for the master paying off their debts. This is related to voluntary slavery where someone becomes a slave so that someone else has to worry about where their food, clothing, and shelter comes from. This might be common in times of Indentured servitude, like was used by many young men from England and the German states to pay for passage to the English colonies in North America. It is estimated that between one third and one half of white males who came to the American colonies between about 1630 and the American Revolution were indentured servants. Indentured servants and their bond holders each had responsibilities to uphold. If an indentured servant ran off, they were found and sent back to finish out their term. Some bonds were re-sold, mid term, and the servant was stuck in perpetual indenturement, thus becoming a slave for life. Colonial apprenticeship programs where a master craftsman took on someone as an apprentice was much like indentured servitude, and could be initiated to bring the person to the colonies or for someone already in the colonies to get into a trade. This system could, of course, be abused, and apprentices ran away, much like other indentured servants. I did not find information on this with a quick google search, just going from memory from past history classes.

The first Africans brought to the American colonies in 1619 were indentured servants, because they had been baptized and were Christian, English law forbade enslaving Christians. So until 1640, African brought to the British Colonies were indentured servants, and not chattel slaves. Early on, slaves in North America could save up and buy their freedom, but that soon changed.

In antiquity, there was all variation of slavery. Slaves could be very well educated and entrusted with the education of the master’s children. Slaves could also be the ones doing dangerous and difficult jobs, such as mining underground.

Often, the largest supplies of slaves in antiquity were prisoners of war, that is, soldiers captured in battle after their defeat by the Roman Legions. At times, the Romans enslaved entire populations. Such slaves were sold to bring money into the state coffers. The needs of the state were maintained by keeping a portion of the slaves for government jobs. Famous examples of roman slaves are gladiators, who could win their freedom, such as Spartacus, famous for leading a slave revolt. See the movie with Kirk Douglas, or if you have cable, the TV series Spartacus.

In feudal Europe, there were varying levels or grades of serfs. In England, for example, there were four types of serfs, the lowest of which were actually slaves. Serfdom faded in Western Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries, and lasted in the Russian Empire until 1866.

The behavior and attitude of slaves is dependent upon their treatment. Underfed, poorly clothed and sheltered slaves who are mistreated become a powder keg and are ripe for revolt against their masters at the provocation that becomes the last straw. Some slave revolts, like that of Spartacus, come very near to reaching their goal of freedom, but usually, they end in a lot of death for the slaves, and sever punishments for those left behind to knock them back into compliance.

In my the online AD&D game I play in on Wednesday nights, the players discovered a conspiracy between powerful factions in two cities on the island, and we managed to expose it and end it, or at least drive off the slavers or send them underground. Obviously, this means in this case, that slavery is a no no. This need not be the default case in all games.

In my AD&D campaign, slavery only exists among the bad guys, however, I can see that it could be a normal part of life in another part of my world, if it even got developed.

If you have slavery in your world, here are some things to consider. NOTE: This assumes a human-centric world and a human government, from my interpretation. If you have a game where another race is in charge, the same questions need to be considered.

How does one become a slave?

  1. Losing side of battle or war
  2. Born into slavery
  3. Debt/Indentured/Voluntary
  4. Punishment for Crime(s)

Who can own slaves?

  1. King/State/Government
  2. Approved groups, like temples, military, certain types of industry, etc.
  3. Anyone who can afford it?

What form does slavery take?

  1. Temporary/Indentured for a set time.
  2. Permanent, but with possibility to save up and buy freedom, AKA redemption.
  3. Permanent, for life and descendants are born into slavery.
    1. This can take the form of no one can free a slave.
    2. A master can free, manumit, a slave.
    3. A slave can do something heroic and earn freedom.
    4. Perhaps a ruler or a deity could decree that it ends.

Who can become a slave?

  1. Anyone
  2. Only those born to a lowly caste/social class.
  3. Only prisoners of war.
  4. Criminals (types of crimes eligible would vary from any crime, to only the most severe, like murder)
  5. Only non humans
  6. Only those who don’t worship deity X

Who/What can end the institution of slavery?

  1. Nothing – That’s just the way it is
  2. Decree by ruler or representative of the main deity of the area.
  3. War
  4. Divine intervention – not likely, put possible.

Questions to consider:

Who is going to pay for this? Owners of slaves don’t want to just give up their property rights and inherent economic power, capital, tied up in their slaves.

Can the ones making the decree back it up with enforcement?

What jobs do slaves perform?

  1. Any job
  2. Any job designated as a slave job – Varies by nation/culture
    1. Skilled craftsmen
    2. Soldiers (sailors)
    3. Teachers of children
    4. Entertainers
  3. Only manual/menial labor
    1. Mining
    2. Galley Slaves (rowers)
    3. Farming
    4. Working with dangerous substances (poisonous, explosive, corrosive, etc.)

Social Strata

  1. Social Class, Loose – Possibility of moving up or down the ladder: money, valor, honor, connections, etc.
  2. Social Class, Rigid – Remote possibility of moving up or down the ladder: something exceptional, saving the king, defeating a powerful enemy, etc.
  3. Caste System – One is born into one’s station and there is no chance of movement, barring overthrow of that system. Becoming a slave in this system is a big deal, you upset the apple cart.
    1. If one does something to become a slave, they are the lowest of the low.
    2. OR, slaves stay in their caste, but no longer have the same rights and freedoms of others.

How does a slave become free?

  1. Never, or completion of contract if indentured.
  2. Manumission by master.
  3. Save up and buy freedom – Redemption.
  4. Earn it by deed(s).
  5. Freed by victorious army, ruler, etc.
  6. Run away and get clear of the slave chasers.
  7. Slave revolt

 Trivia: I came across a term in the Midkemia Press, Cities book, “coffle” – a line of slaves or animals fastened together. This gives me the image of old pictures and movies about processions through the jungle. Coffle is from the Arabic word for caravan.