This kind of thing happens every time slavery pops up in a historical quest, so I'm hardly surprised. Still, it'd be nice if our character had an attitude at least somewhat grounded in time, or at the very least not spontaneously buy every thrall she stumbles across out of pity.
Yeah, but as we discussed at the time, the plan is to free them as well. Either as a quid-pro-quo (which I have mixed feelings about due to the transactional nature) or immediately and then ask for lessons in exchange for wages/a trip home when we go to Wessex (which I'm more in favour of).
I am totaly in favor of the second idea. I am just pointing out that whatever we do in the context, it will be moraly dubious at best. Even asking for lessons after we free them will be manipulative at best and coercion at worst.
I am totaly in favor of the second idea. I am just pointing out that whatever we do in the context, it will be moraly dubious at best. Even asking for lessons after we free them will be manipulative at best and coercion at worst.
This is true, and it's something I feel slightly conflicted over also.
I think the best way to avoid this would be to immediately free them, and promise them passage to Wessex as soon as it is convenient for us to do so. That way there's no implication that they are effectively being held hostage in a hostile country where they would quite probably be immediately be enslaved again if they tried to travel home. Then we ask for Latin tutoring whilst they're living with us as a favour without any implicit threat, and offer fair wages.
This may come across better if we emphasise that we have written a book and might like to translate it ourselves, and also that we would like to tutor our children, whilst also mentioning or referencing that we have read the Bible. Then rather than "powerful pagan cultivator wants to learn Latin for XXX reasons" it's more a case of "potential convert and literate pagan is curious to learn more about Christian-Latin culture and wants to be able to read Latin texts".
However, this does remove some of our leverage here versus holding their trip home hostage, so I'm not sure everyone will be on board with this. It's my preferred option, and I'll advocate for it at the time assuming we get there, but we'll have to see how it pans out.
This kind of thing happens every time slavery pops up in a historical quest, so I'm hardly surprised. Still, it'd be nice if our character had an attitude at least somewhat grounded in time, or at the very least not spontaneously buy every thrall she stumbles across out of pity.
With respect, I'm not insensitive to the idea of wanting to play characters with a historically accurate attitude to slavery. If you see my posting in various iterations of Magna Graecia by @Cetashwayo for example, then I think you'll see that I had no problems doing so there, and I would recommend quests like that one or Res Publica by @Telamon for how these issues can be handled in a sensitive but also historically authentic way. Or @Imperial Fister's own handling of the subject, which I also think has been exemplary. Partly the difference here is that we ended up seeing these people quite close and personally, which I will freely admit tugged at my heartstrings more than a little and caused a strong reaction.
But I don't think it's entirely fair to say that the players here are simply importing modern attitudes and projecting them onto Halla. If you look at Halla's relationship with Gabriel as one of her closest friends, and seeing how much his experience of thralldom hurt him and left him with (quite possibly literal) demons, then I think she has a pretty unique perspective on the issue compared to most Norse landowners. The time she spent with Jerasmus hearing about Christian concepts like the duty to towards others and so on is also pretty unusual, and whilst she's still a devout follower of Odin and the gang, that does not mean she isn't a thoughtful person. She's notably curious about other cultures, wildly so by the standards of most Norse.
Ultimately it's up to the players to decide how Halla acts, and I completely respect if if you feel Halla should react differently here; I think it's a defensible case to make. But I also think there are valid in-character motivations why, as a mother and a friend to an enslaved person, she might have a different perspective than most Norse people.
Things like this are why I prefer to simply Not Interact with slavery in-character in a quest.
(It sucks that our best plan for learning Latin is literally hunting down a slave that knows how to read Latin.)
###
The longer reason is that slavery is generally feelsbad (whatever we do it's feelsbad in some way) and legitimately unfixable without long, involved and generally unfun efforts towards making slavery economically and socially unworkable. The sheer futility of pushing against it sucks.
I think the best way to avoid this would be to immediately free them, and promise them passage to Wessex as soon as it is convenient for us to do so. That way there's no implication that they are effectively being held hostage in a hostile country where they would quite probably be immediately be enslaved again if they tried to travel home. Then we ask for Latin tutoring whilst they're living with us as a favour without any implicit threat, and offer fair wages.
This may come across better if we emphasise that we have written a book and might like to translate it ourselves, and also that we would like to tutor our children, whilst also mentioning or referencing that we have read the Bible. Then rather than "powerful pagan cultivator wants to learn Latin for XXX reasons" it's more a case of "potential convert and literate pagan is curious to learn more about Christian-Latin culture and wants to be able to read Latin texts".
However, this does remove some of our leverage here versus holding their trip home hostage, so I'm not sure everyone will be on board with this. It's my preferred option, and I'll advocate for it at the time assuming we get there, but we'll have to see how it pans out.
of course it is.... it just won't be them, personally, paying the price
Personally, i think for any thrall we take/buy, we do make the offer to release them and give them a ride home after they do something for us, like the christian one teaching us Latin.... with, perhaps the caveat they help out on the farm until next summer, if we don't have a trading trip to go on or simply can't, due to winter.
We, obviously, would only take thralls if they are better of that way, what with us freeing them later, but there will be few if any cases they would have a worse fate otherwise or we tag along on someone else's raid and get a share of thralls.
For the Slavs ones we are buying... the nobles can give the most, i think, what with being raised in wealth means they got tutored more extensively. Weiter we can get some cultivation stuff out of them or not is currently up in the air, but they can definitely help us navigate the coast in Slavic lands at least, not to mention give us some social context.
the learned man is obviously gonna be brain drained, so to speak, for his ride, what with the relentless questions and love of learning Halla has.
The mother and her kids.... guess they can help around the house? at least, until next turn... and on the ship too.
Mystery girl though... if she is a magic user, note swapping, i guess? If not.... well, we will see, but worst case, she helps out around the house/ship as well.
The mother and her kids.... guess they can help around the house? at least, until next turn... and on the ship too.
Mystery girl though... if she is a magic user, note swapping, i guess? If not.... well, we will see, but worst case, she helps out around the house/ship as well.
You know, even after we free this ones. They might want to stay at our farm.
I mean, they were taken in a raid. Their families are probably dead and they have nothing to return. Working for us would probably be better than returning in Slavic lands unless they still have family or a support network there. Begin lowborn women without a community or family in the middle ages gives them very little chances to survive.
Of course it will be their choice in the end, but it will depend on if they have something to return to.
In addition to Skippy's point we also aren't buying that thrall, but taking them by violence, which is less of a moral issue since it's not supporting the slave trade...we're also getting Johannes money, but that's morally neutral IMO since it's moving money from one slaver to another.
This kind of thing happens every time slavery pops up in a historical quest, so I'm hardly surprised. Still, it'd be nice if our character had an attitude at least somewhat grounded in time, or at the very least not spontaneously buy every thrall she stumbles across out of pity.
I mean, we already aren't doing that (see our reaction to the people who attacked the Hading getting enthralled, or the fact that lots of people we know have thralls and Halla hasn't done anything about it). Halla vaguely disapproves of slavery, but she doesn't usually go around buying every thrall she sees...this specific scenario is a bit different for a few reasons involving them being 'fresh' thrall prisoners and in pretty bad positions even for those for the most part (all of these women in particular look to be in really bad spots), as well as them being immediately for sale, and there being practical reasons to want to buy at least some of them.
For OOC reasons, I'd prefer to generally not deal with slavery in future, but Halla's attitude seems grounded in her world and circumstances to me.
This kind of thing happens every time slavery pops up in a historical quest, so I'm hardly surprised. Still, it'd be nice if our character had an attitude at least somewhat grounded in time, or at the very least not spontaneously buy every thrall she stumbles across out of pity.
Blackhand, and by extension Halla, have no real problem with the existence of slavery as a concept or as an institution. Blackhand specifically has a problem with the idea of taking a once proud warrior and turning them into a thrall while Halla has extended that, at least subconsciously as a result of her upbringing, to cover most free individuals. However, neither of them have any issue with, say, Randi being a thrall as she was born into it.
Technically not, from what we got of her backstory, her family sold her. That said, she had also clearly been a thrall a long time and turned down us freeing her, and the general point is well taken.
Technically not, from what we got of her backstory, her family sold her. That said, she had also clearly been a thrall a long time and turned down us freeing her, and the general point is well taken.
Rome wasn't build in a day and exploiting people isn't going to stop until its not profitable anymore, which ya know it still is even in the modern day. So while this wont help much and certainly will not stop slavery even in the infinitesimally smallest way, it will immensely help these seven people, which is about as much as we can get done right this instant.
Yeah, but as we discussed at the time, the plan is to free them as well. Either as a quid-pro-quo (which I have mixed feelings about due to the transactional nature) or immediately and then ask for lessons in exchange for wages/a trip home when we go to Wessex (which I'm more in favour of).
What are your opinions/feelings when we inevitably find this slave, vote to free him, and he refuses to teach us just like Jerasmus did? Remember that in this equivalent time period, Latin was only taught to the Priesthood and even most nobles couldn't just Learn it easily, only those with permission from the church and pope in catholic lands could, and that translation of Latin words into non Latin tongues was still a young thing to be doing.
This isn't us learning English as a trade language. This is almost certainly us learning a secret cultivation language of power that is expressly not spread widely and that they want to keep a stranglehold on.
But I don't think it's entirely fair to say that the players here are simply importing modern attitudes and projecting them onto Halla. If you look at Halla's relationship with Gabriel as one of her closest friends, and seeing how much his experience of thralldom hurt him and left him with (quite possibly literal) demons, then I think she has a pretty unique perspective on the issue compared to most Norse landowners.
She also was literally raised by a Thrall who she never once questioned the Thralldom of, until she suddenly became a PC and met Gabriel and players started deciding she had these feelings about thralls. If you go back to Gabriel's arrival era, posters in the thread were extremely negative about Steinnar at points because he was willing to participate in slavery and how it was right to free them immrdiately and fight Steinnar. While other people had to go 'yes he participates in it because this is normal in setting and not notable'.
Yeah, players should be able to decide a quest protagonists course of action a bit, but having Halla act like you are pushing for her to is not 'she is enlightened for her era' it is 'my modern morality is more important than the historical nature of these things'.
I'll admit some part of me wants us to free all these slaves and ultimately gain absolutely nothing for it, besides more trips we have to take to drop them off places. Because I do feel like too many quests reward things like this and turn it into a feedback loop.
What are your opinions/feelings when we inevitably find this slave, vote to free him, and he refuses to teach us just like Jerasmus did? Remember that in this equivalent time period, Latin was only taught to the Priesthood and even most nobles couldn't just Learn it easily, only those with permission from the church and pope in catholic lands could, and that translation of Latin words into non Latin tongues was still a young thing to be doing.
Uh...no? This is flatly false? Lots of nobles learned Latin since so much scholarly work was written in it (in addition to Church-related stuff, of course). Now, whether an individual will teach us is another matter, but this is just not actually true at all.
I'll admit some part of me wants us to free all these slaves and ultimately gain absolutely nothing for it, besides more trips we have to take to drop them off places. Because I do feel like too many quests reward things like this and turn it into a feedback loop.
Uh...they all originate from right where we are already going, or thereabouts. There is almost literally no way for them to become more than a day or two's extra work to drop off (okay, maybe 3 or 4 days). I don't necessarily expect most of them to give us anything, though it'd be weird if the Nobles families weren't grateful or we couldn't get local information out of them (the latter being why we went to buy them in the first place).
What are your opinions/feelings when we inevitably find this slave, vote to free him, and he refuses to teach us just like Jerasmus did? Remember that in this equivalent time period, Latin was only taught to the Priesthood and even most nobles couldn't just Learn it easily, only those with permission from the church and pope in catholic lands could, and that translation of Latin words into non Latin tongues was still a young thing to be doing.
This isn't us learning English as a trade language. This is almost certainly us learning a secret cultivation language of power that is expressly not spread widely and that they want to keep a stranglehold on.
Then I would be sad, but (assuming the thread goes with my preference) ultimately still happy that we had not used the promise of freedom as a form of duress. Teaching us Latin may well be something he's hesitant to do as as a cultivator, given its importance in the various forms of Christian cultivation.
However, as a historical point of fact, this is simply not true. There were many practical hurdles to becoming literate if you lived in the Carolingian empire, and you would probably need the instruction of someone in religious orders or at least connected to the Churcch if you wanted to learn Latin as they were by far the largest group of Latin scholars around - but the language was not banned and did not require specific Church permission to learn. The whole idea is absurd; the Church would not have realistically been able to enforce such a policy even had it wanted to, and the nobility becoming literate in Latin was actively favourable to expanding the Church's sphere of influence and promoting religious teachings!
This is getting aside from what we really mean by "literate" . In the time period we're talking about, for example, reading was actually seen as a different skill than writing. Many more nobles would be able to read documents (obviously beneficial for administrative purposes and justifying dynastic claims etc.) than would be able to write or copy out a document, which was a more specialised skill. When you look at how involved and complex a process writing was using 8th-10th century century writing implements was, how expensive parchment was, and so on, it begins to make more sense that writing was seen as a highly specialised skill.
She also was literally raised by a Thrall who she never once questioned the Thralldom of, until she suddenly became a PC and met Gabriel and players started deciding she had these feelings about thralls. If you go back to Gabriel's arrival era, posters in the thread were extremely negative about Steinnar at points because he was willing to participate in slavery and how it was right to free them immrdiately and fight Steinnar. While other people had to go 'yes he participates in it because this is normal in setting and not notable'.
Yeah, players should be able to decide a quest protagonists course of action a bit, but having Halla act like you are pushing for her to is not 'she is enlightened for her era' it is 'my modern morality is more important than the historical nature of these things'.
Bluntly, this not true. It makes logical sense that Halla's attitude on slavery would have only begun to evolve when she met Gabriel, given that's when she met Gabriel. He was a prime example of the suffering that thralldom can cause, as well as the fact that many thralls are fundamentally people like her (i.e., capable of being warriors and partaking of "honour" as she would understand it) and not a totally different category of human altogether. Halla spent most of her young adult life growing up with him!
This sort of "Game of Thrones" view of pointing towards a historical justification for casual attitudes towards slavery and injustice is, fundamentally, illiterate and ahistorial. There are numerous historical writers we can point to as being highly critical of institutions like slavery within their own time periods. It is by no means a stretch to suppose that due to her own unique experiences, Halla may be such a person (whilst retaining a fundamentally premodern view of many other issues), and has in fact been explicitly stated as such by the GM. This would render her exceptional, to be sure, but not ahistorical.
The big bear of a thrall almost seems to bristle as he sees that you're a woman, which is a far departure from the wave of relief that seems to wash over the rest of your new purchases. Squashing down the sense of malaise at purchasing once-free-folk—now isn't the time for such things—you stiffen as the slight waif flings herself at you.
For the briefest of movements, you ready for battle before she wraps her arms around you like a child would her mother's skirts. She shivers as she clings to you, hoping desperately that you'll be able to provide her the slightest protection from this scary new world she's found herself in.
The beautiful princess scowls and aims a backhand at the girl clutching at your clothes, only to freeze at your glare. She flinches, stumbling back into her brother as the skies darken overhead and hints of rain splash against the ground.
"No." It doesn't take mastery of a tongue to know when you've angered someone, as the princess' trembling eyes stay locked to you. Her gaze fills with fear as her brother looks on you as if in a new light.
The slight girl quickly releases her hold on you as she scampers back with her trembling kicking up a notch. She accidentally backs into the mother guiding her children along, who merely sighs and takes the girl by the hand.
Your scowl lightens as a surge of guilt takes its place. Clenching your jaw, you stifle the sigh and, with a waved gesture, direct your thralls to follow you as you turn and head towards the beach—where the Wavedancer is setting ashore.
As you approach the ship, Stigmar looks up from where he's negotiating shoring rights with a rather disgruntled-looking Kyrsviking—a Stoneson assigned to an undesirable task. Stigmar's eyes travel from the clouds dissipating in the distance, to the thralls trailing in your wake, to your carefully-schooled face.
He arches a brow as the Kyrsviking weighs the silver against some weights, "Bought some thralls, eh?"
"They're Slavs, yeah," you shrug as the Kyrsviking nods and seals the agreement with a shake of Stigmar's hand, "Figured that they might know something about our quest, so I bought them."
"Makes sense to me, "Stigmar nods as he strokes his beard—which is starting to fill out nicely—and jerks a thumb over the shoulder. "Want me to see if Haggar can get anything out of them? He can speak Slavic, after all."
While normally you'd want to handle that yourself, you've got a meeting with the Jarl that you simply can't miss. Besides, Haggar is the only one here who can speak Slavic, which makes things a bit of a pain...
Well, there's really no choice you have here. Nodding, you wave for Stigmar to take the Thralls, "Make sure he's gentle with them, though, I don't want them making things up just to get away from him."
Stigmar nods and, with a sharp whistle, calls the Thralls' attention to himself as he leaves you to yourself.
Turning your gaze towards the Jarl's hall on a high hill, you take a deep breath.
0~0~0
Breathing out, you press the double-doors open and find yourself welcomed by the smell of lamb as you step inside the side hall.
Jarl Erikaer has a rather grumpy scowl on his face as he sits in the high seat and waves you inside. A thrall slowly roasts a lamb above the flickering hearth flames as you take a seat at the Jarl's side, his stare boring a hole through your soul.
"I had to cut my meeting short with the King for this," Erikaer sighs as he rubs at the bridge of his nose, "so you'd better have a good reason."
Swallowing the lump in your throat, you nod and hone your mind as you review your prepared words and remind yourself of the precautions you've taken.
Speaking of those precautions, what are they?
[ ] Write in what your privacy precautions are
And also, what words have you prepared?
[ ] Write in what you say
0~0~0
AN: Not much to say here
No moratorium. I'd like to get another few updates out today, but it may take some time to decide this one so we'll see.
Okay, so, basic idea. This is all the precautions I could think of and what I think we want to say?
[X] Plan Very Private Conversation
-[X] Ask that the thrall leave and put up a Privacy Ward (using Eyespeech to clarify why if needed) and any other useful wards we can think of, while doing so shift all shapeshifts into Sharpened Senses and scan for ants or other listeners and use Owl-Eye Pulse to check for the same, and make sure ants are dead and other listeners are no longer listening, subtly if possible. During discussion, use our social Tricks, including our new lie detection, to make sure Corpsemaker is on the up and up to the best of our ability and stay calm. Use Eyespeech as needed to avoid speaking specific things aloud like Drysalt and Dorri's names...if he has Eyespeech the whole conversation may transition to Eyespeech at some point.
-[X] Start by noting that we do actually have a business deal we want to do, which can be used as an excuse for the meeting if people ask about it, but the main thing we came to tell him is that our father's death was hired work, by someone in the vicinity of the Hading (who hired Alarik and his people). Explain that part of why we turned down his offer when last we talked was that we wanted to focus on figuring out who and dealing with them. At that point, with Eyespeech, tell him that we used divination and came up with two names on who hired it done - Dorri Rattlespear and Drysalt, as well as confirmation they were knowingly working together. Check to make sure he's aware of who Drysalt is and why that's so significant (though we'd assume he probably does). Make it very clear we have no proof of this beyond the divination...but that we intend to acquire it. Try and convince him that doing so might avoid civil war and would be very useful, though that shouldn't be hard. We want to keep this a secret for the most part until we have proof and can destroy Dorri with it utterly.
-[X] Before we leave, do actually negotiate a deal to sell him most of our Healing Clay and some Restful Clay, assuming his prices are reasonable, noting that we already have an ongoing deal with Dorri, so this just makes us look neutral. Maybe also buy some trade goods for our trip to Denmark, if he has them on offer.
The big bear of a thrall almost seems to bristle as he sees that you're a woman, which is a far departure from the wave of relief that seems to wash over the rest of your new purchases. Squashing down the sense of malaise at purchasing once-free-folk—now isn't the time for such things—you stiffen as the slight waif flings herself at you.
For the briefest of movements, you ready for battle before she wraps her arms around you like a child would her mother's skirts. She shivers as she clings to you, hoping desperately that you'll be able to provide her the slightest protection from this scary new world she's found herself in.
The beautiful princess scowls and aims a backhand at the girl clutching at your clothes, only to freeze at your glare. She flinches, stumbling back into her brother as the skies darken overhead and hints of rain splash against the ground.
"No." It doesn't take mastery of a tongue to know when you've angered someone, as the princess' trembling eyes stay locked to you. Her gaze fills with fear as her brother looks on you as if in a new light.
The slight girl quickly releases her hold on you as she scampers back with her trembling kicking up a notch. She accidentally backs into the mother guiding her children along, who merely sighs and takes the girl by the hand.
Your scowl lightens as a surge of guilt takes its place. Clenching your jaw, you stifle the sigh and, with a waved gesture, direct your thralls to follow you as you turn and head towards the beach—where the Wavedancer is setting ashore.
As you approach the ship, Stigmar looks up from where he's negotiating shoring rights with a rather disgruntled-looking Kyrsviking—a Stoneson assigned to an undesirable task. Stigmar's eyes travel from the clouds dissipating in the distance, to the thralls trailing in your wake, to your carefully-schooled face.
He arches a brow as the Kyrsviking weighs the silver against some weights, "Bought some thralls, eh?"
"They're Slavs, yeah," you shrug as the Kyrsviking nods and seals the agreement with a shake of Stigmar's hand, "Figured that they might know something about our quest, so I bought them."
"Makes sense to me, "Stigmar nods as he strokes his beard—which is starting to fill out nicely—and jerks a thumb over the shoulder. "Want me to see if Haggar can get anything out of them? He can speak Slavic, after all."
While normally you'd want to handle that yourself, you've got a meeting with the Jarl that you simply can't miss. Besides, Haggar is the only one here who can speak Slavic, which makes things a bit of a pain...
Well, there's really no choice you have here. Nodding, you wave for Stigmar to take the Thralls, "Make sure he's gentle with them, though, I don't want them making things up just to get away from him."
Stigmar nods and, with a sharp whistle, calls the Thralls' attention to himself as he leaves you to yourself.
Turning your gaze towards the Jarl's hall on a high hill, you take a deep breath.
Hmmm, I'd kind of wanted to handle this ourselves and free them either immediately, or at least promise to do so on arrival if the thread wasn't going to go for it. Still, this makes a degree of sense.
Breathing out, you press the double-doors open and find yourself welcomed by the smell of lamb as you step inside the side hall.
Jarl Erikaer has a rather grumpy scowl on his face as he sits in the high seat and waves you inside. A thrall slowly roasts a lamb above the flickering hearth flames as you take a seat at the Jarl's side, his stare boring a hole through your soul.
"I had to cut my meeting short with the King for this," Erikaer sighs as he rubs at the bridge of his nose, "so you'd better have a good reason."
Swallowing the lump in your throat, you nod and hone your mind as you review your prepared words and remind yourself of the precautions you've taken.
Speaking of those precautions, what are they?
[ ] Write in what your privacy precautions are
And also, what words have you prepared?
[ ] Write in what you say
[X] Plan A Super Secret Squirrel Conversation
-[X] First, use Eye-Talking to tell Erikaer that we know our enemy is using hidden spies, both spirits, hired men, and small creatures. With his permission we will ask the thrall to leave, and cast a Privacy Ward, Barricade Ward and Lock Seal over the room. Use Owl-Eye Pulse to check for tiny hidden spies or spirits. Cast Raven's Unriddling on both of us whilst telling him what it does, so he can trust what we say and vice-versa.
-[X] Using Eye-Talking, we will then tell Erikaer what we have learned from our divination, that Dorri was behind our father's assassination, that this assassination was organised in synchrony with the raid on the Hading and Dorri is thereby culpable to a some degree for that, and most important of all... that he has allied himself with Drysalt.
-[X] Propose an alliance to defeat this new threat, but ask for time to gather more information so that we can expose him at the Thing. Denying Dorri the support of the Hading's warriors will make the ensuing battle far less costly, which is important given the war is close, and is also important to us personally. We know that Jarl Erikaer does not want to rule over a ruin with no tax revenues or trade.
-[X] Whilst this is going on, keep on a verbal conversation about the clay, and also ask to buy some whetsones given we're going to be travelling to Heredby when we're back from our mission with the missing thrall. If Jarl Corpsemaker has Eye-Talking, then he can reply back to us, otherwise, he can give his responses to our proposal encoded so that it will sound like it is part of the trade conversation.
-[X] Use our Silver-Tongue, Facial Schooling, Cool Off, Goal-Tell and Lie Sense as appropriate.
