Slavery in the Northern Empire

All people are born unequal in the Northern Empire. A few have more rights and duties than most, due to the privileges of an aristocratic title. Most are free men, from the hungry peasant to the merchant buying another ship. A lot has few rights and many duties: slaves. Slavery is more than a chain around your neck. It is the disdain from whoever passes by, the feeling of knowing exactly how much you are worth to others, the restrictions you follow on reflex. But controlling the body is easier than controlling the mind, and being a slave is a condition marked by punishments and curfews. Even so, the familiarity and possible secrets known by a slave may make an owner as fearful and hateful of a slave as the latter is of the former Not only individuals and families, but institutions and organizations such as temples, guilds, fiefs and the empire itself can own slaves. Among the few rights slaves have, are included: they can't be beat on public; the assassination of a slave is considered a crime of murder, and not destruction of propriety; and all slaves may even receive a monthly wage, accumulating and using it to buy their own freedom.

On average, slaves have difficult lives, often brutal and short. But like all averages, this represents a huge variety of situations. And like in every social class, there are subdivisions. A slave's condition reflects his or her job. A veterinary slave of the Northern Empire is much more important, respectable and expensive than a public slave ordered to clean the streets of the city which owns him. A physician slave has living quarters and social status far beyond an ordinary citizen, although the latter has a greater legal status. Loyalty and trust also make a difference: the newly grown up elf may give freedom to the dwarf nanny which took care of him in his childhood. Another important slave's jobs include treasurer, overseer, secretary, gladiator etc. In the other extreme, mine workers may have their lives counted in months.

Melucia's cult fights against the bad treatment common in the commerce and use of slaves, for they consider it contrary to the principles of love and pleasure of their goddess. Many of her temples don't accept faithful which own slaves, and petitions to close slave markets are common. They also finance several adventurers, know as "Lovers of Freedom", which fight against slavery. They usually board slave ships in the seas, and many don't limit themselves to illegal trafficking, freeing and helping slaves whose ownership is legal in the eyes of the Empire. The cleric of Melucia, the countess Eliseé Beminni, regularly buys slaves through third parties to then free and equip them, so that they may attack enslavers outside northern territory. Their favorite target is usually the city Numantia Berriak, a market in the Fiery River from which leave tens of thousands of slaves every year. Some years ago, the local chieftains wrote a letter to the emperor Basileus, asking for intervention, friendship and free trade. They were ignored.

Ourgos is also a god popular among slaves, for he represents hard work, and also why many artisans are or were slaves and acquired freedom through their craft. The slaves belonging to the cult of Ourgos are usually more valued, for manual work is a way to worship the God of Labour. Another god important to the slaves is Carnificius. In his role of divine punisher, he is worshipped by slaves which may pass through unfair punishments. Many of the servants of the God of Death, the maganchos, are slaves themselves, punishing owners and masters which abuse the people which belong to them.

Slave escapes can happen any time, anywhere. The problem is that this facilitates the existence of vampires, which can abduct a slave in the security that said slave is considered a runaway. Even great urban centers can house vampire covens due to this, and many regions have thorough slave censuses for this reason. However, there are rumors about the duchy of Chouette. This is one of most recent duchies, established in the northern shores of the Fiery River only seventy five years ago, thinly populated and very reliant on slaves for its economy. Carnificius' cult is specially strong here, not only due to the huge number of slaves, but also because they are the main opposing force to the vampires infiltrated in the aristocracy and administration. Here, many maganchos specialize in hunting vampires, undergoing a war hidden behind slave uprisings and class conflicts.

At the end, imperial slavery implies a bizarre kind of equality. Anyone in the Empire can become a slave if they have bad lucks such as debts, kidnapping, political intrigues, exile, crime, trickery, defeat in battle etc. And while imperial scholars debate the merits and problems of slavery, they leave out a common and meaningful effect: that anyone can look around and see someone in a situation so bad that one feels better in response. This is possible even for most slaves, and perhaps the best stimulus to please their owners and acquire their freedom.

Hope is the vice of the hopeless.
-Graffiti found at the back of the slave market at the city of Raeti.