R.e. terrain, what evidence do you have for that? The site of the southern coastal settlement is hilly, but we have no reason to expect it to be "very rocky with waterfalls." The only two places that are very hilly with waterfalls are places that a river runs through.
One of the earlier updates. Downriver of Lower Valleyhome is impassable hills and cataracts, which is why we go through the badlands rather than just going downriver.
Admittedly, I'm not actually sure whether the settlement's site "below the cataracts" is still in the badlands or not. I'd assumed that it was - and that the lowland settlement is thus on the small section of the lowland terrain that's below the mountain sigil and to the west of the river, and thus a straight shot from the southern coastal settlement site - but if it's not it's likely that there would be rocky terrain with waterfalls.
Regardless, this still means that the material from the coastal settlement has to go up the river, up the canal, down another river, and then down the cataract and rocky terrain with waterfalls. This is overall a larger distance and a path more likely to run into waterfalls, as it would be traveling parallel rather than perpendicular to the river.
Below the Cataracts is in the lowland proper, just past the impassable hill terrain. The badlands are semi-arid desert, which is why they're 'bad' in that you need to bring your own food to cross, while the ground itself isn't hard to travel across, which is why they're the favored route to get to the STs.
Here, I'll throw a map:
Ah, it's just that you'd said they did -or at least I'd read it as such- immediately after the post describing gelded slaves.
I agree that you don't waste quality slaves by infection, but there's probably a fair number of slaves who aren't quality. And even if the generative organs are a theoretically potent sacrifice, they probably don't bother to process that many slaves unless it's been made a requirement for ownership.
As an aside: If it's been made a requirement for ownership we could maybe extend that to the temple proper owning all slaves, because the slaves are all sacrifices to the gods. One could also sacrifice things like vanity (slashes across the face), the ability to run (rings through the feet running around the achilles tendon, linked by rope), the ability to "talk" by puncturing rings between their lips and tying them together, etc. (Rings can be metal, stone, bone, or a very hard and well polished wood.) These could be in addition to or in place of sacrificing the generative ability. Possibly, only one form of sacrifice is required. This would perhaps result in a distribution of sacrifice type among the different classes. Because all of these types have a risk of infection, limiting medical knowledge means that the caring for these types of infections would to some degree further bind the populace to the priesthood.
No declarative on the proportions, but we know the following:
-The Western Confederacy had found that most of the slaves they freed were 'maimed and incapable of fighting', despite these slaves being taken from areas where most of the male population are at least part time warriors(ref. Early lowlands culture, where the Freeman caste were militia led by Warrior caste). However, most of these were field slaves, so:
--Vanity - Unlikely to be significant to combat ability. May be done regardless.
--Ears - No loss in working power. No loss to fighting power. May be done regardless
--
Legs - Major reduction in working power. A hobbled slave would have to be one who doesn't need to stand or walk to work. Would definitely hurt ability to fight, but no longer valuable as a field slave.
--Arms or arm - Major reduction in working power. A slave missing an arm or hand can still do work(if much less effectively), but would no longer fight well. Unlikely(since such a slave is food-inefficient), but possible.
--
Eye(single) - Minor reduction in working power. Major reduction in fighting ability with loss of stereoscopic vision. Probable.
--
Genitals - Minor reduction in working power. Moderate reduction in fighting ability.
Hmm...actually put in that light, the geldings are probably a "fuck you" tactic devised after we hit them with the Western Confederacy to free their slaves. It's strategically a way to make sure that the Western Confederacy gains as little as possible from freeing them, while costing the DPs little.
So you would have the following categories of slaves:
-War-slaves/Crime-slaves - Taken in raids or demoted to slavery as punishments, they get maimed in as dramatic a way as possible to break their spirit and to maximize intimidation, and then assigned to settlements as far away from their homeland as possible(this was a roman strategy used for slave management, as they're less able to revolt when transported to foreign lands). They're considered expendable.
-Tribute-slaves - Sent to the Dead Priests in tribute by their subordinate states. They're likely kept as slaves near their home regions as a show of power, and also the carrot to the stick. Makes tribute states more willing to send their kin over to be enslaved than to resist and be enslaved AND maimed.
-Bred-slaves - Recall the lowland culture thing where a warrior caste's children on a slave caste are counted as the same caste as their parent
only if acknowledged, but otherwise Freemen? This might have changed to default to making the children of slaves, slaves, especially given the PoV switch which made a clear distinction between wives and pleasure slaves. These would probably be the house slaves, those you can actually trust to keep in the house because they grew up in your culture, or possibly literally your bastards.
