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Speaking more generally:
It seems to me that the kind of slavery is very important in any discussion about good/evil, etc.
Golarion slavery seems much more akin to ancient world slavery than new world colonial slavery.
In the old world just about every country and culture practiced slavery in one form or another. Slaves were usually defeated enemies, however, they could also be debtor slaves (those who were enslaved because they owed money, or even children sold into slavery by parents who had more children than they needed/could support. These slaves were often educated, treated well, sometime paid, and could earn important positions in government and the military. They were just as likely to be tutors or teachers or govt officials or house servants as field workers.
This view of ancient slavery is flawed but still common. I think it would be difficult to become intimately familiar with, say, ancient Roman or Greek slavery as an institution, and still argue that it was institutionally any more humane than more recent African slavery. In some ways it was less so, such as in the aspect of open, institutionalized, mass sexual slavery.
More or less every slave system in the history of the world has been rife with abusive treatment. If there are any generalizations that could be made, it would be that small-scale (small household/individual, specialized, etc) slavery was pretty varied and arbitrary in its conditions under all systems(depending on the individuals involved), whereas in large-scale commercial slavery under all systems - whether Italian mega-latifundia, the Deep South's large plantations, the Roman brothel slave trade, the Athenian silver mines at Laurion - conditions tended strongly to the awful side of the scale. The only large scale institutional slavery I can think of that doesn't necessarily have this property is military slavery along the Middle Eastern model - and that is basically it's own peculiar system that lacks many other characteristics of typical slavery as well.
The funny thing about large scale vs small scale is that most slaves would have ended up in the former, by definition. The South had its privileged household slaves and such, the Romans had their Greek tutor slaves and such, in both cases these were privileged minorities while many more slaves ended up under the lash in the mines or the fields, or in the ancient case, ended up under someone else in the whorehouses.
And now that I've waxed on about ancient and modern slavery as systems, to bring it back to the actual topic of the thread:
I am more interested in characters on the other side of the coin; slave owners, Slavers, middlemen in the slave trade and others involved in the institution of slavery in a very pro-slavery way. I would like to know how characters that fall into any of those archtypes are handled and just what character concepts are and are not considered acceptable at a table, especially in the realm of Pathfinder Society.
Could you, for example, make a PFS character who is involved in the slave trade either as a slaver, slave merchant, middleman in the trade or similar position? Are slaves even legal for purchase in PF society and if so, how do your tables handle the sensitive issues a PC owning a slave would touch upon? Dose owning a slave automatically shift your alignment to evil or can you maintain at least a neutral alignment so long as you don't go out of your way to abuse your slaves and are a generally fair/kind master? Likewise, could a slave owner ever have a "good" alignment if they had the requite kindness and concern for their slaves or is the mere act of owning a slave heinous enough to prevent you from ever having a good alignment even if you treat your slaves like the human beings and are an all around good person beyond the fact you own some slaves?
Finally, if you have ever had issues come up at your table s a result of the existence of slavery in pathfinder how did you resolve them? If anybody has comments on any or all of these topics feel free to post here!
I have played slaver characters in past and present. Both characters I'm currently playing have a history with the slave trade.
A CN Viking type in the Savage Tide AP, from the vicinity of the Linnorm Kingdoms - took slaves on raids, sold them rather than keeping them, and at first never thought too hard about it. Raiding captives become slaves in the same way that the sun is hot and wounds bring pain - that's the way it goes. Over the course of time he began to think about it harder and take a harder look at what was actually happening, and became pretty repelled. Now a CN who pretty strongly opposes slavery, not really on Law/Chaos grounds but rather moral ones.
No table issues, and indeed, this is mostly a backstory series of events.
And, an LE witch in Way of the Wicked. She - as the alignment might suggest - is in it at the deep end. No table issues there, either - evil is expected in Way of the Wicked.
I suspect though that there might be some issues around active slaving in a nonevil game. At best, that's something I'd expect the other player to engage in some serious roleplaying around, and I wouldn't be surprised at IC conflicts between players. Lacking a serious roleplaying approach, I could see that causing OOC tensions as well.
As far as alignment goes, I don't think you go automatically evil for ever owning a single slave, but I do think that slavery as a system almost always tends towards evil and exercises a corrosive influence on the morals of those who accept it, especially over the long term. Engaging in slavery and not being evil is, IMO, like swimming against the current. You may be able to accomplish it, but it will always take a lot of effort and there's always this force pushing you the other way, so if you stop actively working to stay neutral, you're going to lose ground. Being good is harder than being neutral.
Engaging in the slave trade and being good? That would be like swimming against the riptide. You'd better have some seriously awesome reasons that you're still good. Being kind of nice to your goods isn't going to cut it.
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What is slavery? Seems to me it would only be evil you had individuals trading in slave. If you have a government managing slaves even if said government called slavery by different name, you know like the work force. Then if that government dangled the carrot by saying you could work you way out of the workforce by letting your money do the work for you and some people manage to achieve that so we all believe it. Are we any not slaves? They just do really good job of distracting us so we don't think too long on that. Probably more close to serfdom but instead of working for Lords we work for corporations. Is that really evil to keep slaves if you run a business? Are you not a slave yourself to the government?
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Serfs and indentured servitude are types of slaves as well. Serfs are tied to land and generally aren't sold but they don't have the freedom to leave their land either. Both Serfs and Indentured Servants can buy their way to freedom if they save their pay. But a particularly evil lord could pay them so little that they would forever be owned by them.
Also about the Paladin paradox. I always took them as being holy warriors that upheald their god's teaching and laws not every law that they come across. They would have to be lawyers to know every law of every land and that is not their function. If they run into Chellix and suddenly be okay with slavery, demon worship and selling your soul for a good bargain...after all it's legal. I honestly think when they say lawful I take it to mean they follow the laws they where taught in their church. After all they are the shining example of their church not of the government the church lies in. So It is quite possible that a Paladin would break unjust laws.
A paladin isn't an universal cop who magically absorbs the law of the land then tries to uphold it. They uphold their beliefs against all comers and all obstacles. He would have more in common with Martin Luther who got nailed to the church door for translating the bible so everyone could read it or Nelson Mandela who fought apartide, or Gandhi who fought the british.
I also think it is possible for two lawful good nations to go to war and it would be a bloody vicious affair because they both believe their laws are just and fair.
For instance; If one society is about bettering yourself and getting recognition for your work by awards, money what ever. And another society thought everyone should share equally for the good of all they would have a terrible time dealing with each other. Hell they both would think the other society was full of thieves. With both being lawful I could see agents slipping over the boarder trying to show the other kingdom's people how much better it is their way. It will lead eventually to hostility if not open war.
So in such a case I wouldn't see a paladin adapting the law of the land every where he went. He might respect it where it meshes with his belief, but when it doesn't he'll be the guy on the soapbox preaching about a better way. In all case his dietie's laws trump national laws.
That said I am sure guards and nobles really don't like paladins because they are likely to be trouble makers depending on who they follow and what mischief the local noble has gotten into. And I'm sure they all have.
Hell if the paladins followed every law the first thing I would do as a noble is pass laws that Paladins in my kingdom MUST server me 4 years. A holy warrior that can heal troops and fight supernatural beasts. Hell every kingdom will be passing laws forcing them into conscription. And now every paladin becomes a slave of the law.
Just to bring it back to slavery topic.
Oh as for slaves in pathfinder I just have them in Chellix and otherwise ignore serfs since they can get out of their situation. And when it isn't fair, why there are a bunch of adventurers who might lend a hand.
Bring your own personal lens and look through it... It is very easy to stand on the pedestal of our federally-mandated-minimum-wage-occupational-safety-health-standards-child- labor-prevention-disabilities-protection-etc. world, and say "EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THIS IS EVIL!"
"Slavery as a moral issue" vs. "Slavery as an economic issue"
In an economy that incorporates slavery it is not realistic to believe that people would simply divorce themselves from the institution. You cannot pay wage earners without selling goods at prices that cover the costs of labor and sales and leaves at least enough to support yourself. If those prices are higher than your neighbor's, then neither you, nor your wage-desiring staff eats tonight. Faced with that very real possibility, you are not going to pay wages.
The institution protects itself by its very existence. It doesn't matter whether you are the slave or the master. You have to participate or you don't eat. Period.
Everyone likes to eat.
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Slavery is economically unviable without some form of victim culture from which the slaves are obtained. Usually this was through warfare or the exploitation of much less developed countries. Any form of slavery that draws from the slaver's own population causes wealth to disproportionately enter the hands of the wealthy and effectively become locked out of circulation, harming the involved economy. War for the purpose of obtaining slaves is about the most evil thing I can think of. Also any appeal to subjective morality doesn't work because in Golarion alignments and thus morality are objective forces that can be quantified.
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A paladin isn't an universal cop who magically absorbs the law of the land then tries to uphold it. They uphold their beliefs against all comers and all obstacles. He would have more in common with Martin Luther who got nailed to the church door for translating the bible so everyone could read it or Nelson Mandela who fought apartide, or Gandhi who fought the british.You got your history a bit mixed up. Luther was not nailed to a door. He himself nailed a copy of his "95 Theses". (incidentally the world's first printed protest) to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517, the act which kicked off the Reformation.
At the time he was not seeking to split up the Church but to protest what he considered aspects of corruption in the Church such as the sale of indulgences.
yeah sorry I am running on no sleep so my history is way off, I looked up the name and forgot to actually read the article on him. Thanks for the insight. This actually works better as an example of someone fighting the law because it was unlawful in his eyes.
non-subjective standards of good and evil...
...do not exist.
Look, slavery is evil. I'm not trying to argue that point. What I am saying is that contextually, in a time, in a place, in a situation... a person that participates as part of the institution is not automatically evil. If the choice is watch your goods rot on the vine or in the silos, or participate...
Like I said, everyone likes to eat.
Edit: Please keep in mind the framework of characters in a narrative story. I am not arguing justification for the institution of slavery of real people.
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non-subjective standards of good and evil......do not exist.
Erm...except in Golarion, where several characters have the equivalent of a Geiger counter of evil - point it at someone and it pings. Good and Evil are objective forces with physical manifestations. It's one of the great challenges of the modern D&D/PF game writer: Lots of them believe in subjective morality, but the game quite explicitly does not.
It throws all sorts of monkey wrenches into efforts to write nuanced stories, but also opens up weird and interesting possibilities.
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One issue here is that the term "slavery" gets attached to a diverse group of institutions in human history, some of which have been, arguably, less monstrous than others. For instance, in the last couple centuries of of the Western Roman Empire slaves were commonly allowed the right to complain of cruel or unfair treatment by their masters, and masters who abused or killed their slaves could be prosecuted under the law. Islamic law likewise established standards for the treatment of slaves, though mostly in the form of recommendations to slaveowners, rather than enforceable requirements.
I don't have too much of a problem with a slave-owning society being Neutral in alignment. In such a society, cruelty toward slaves would certainly be a reality, but would probably be discouraged, socially if not legally. Slavery and the slave trade would be regulated to curb the worst abuses of the system, and there would probably be opportunities for at least some slaves to eventually become free.
After all, Golarion is a historically-inspired premodern world. Floggings and other physical abuse are probably used as punishments in many militaries and other discipline-oriented organizations across the planet. Common punishments for criminals probably include things like branding and maiming that would be considered cruel and unusual today. Apprentices probably have few rights while serving their masters, and the lower classes in most countries are extremely poor, with little to no opportunity for social mobility. In a place like Taldor, being a slave probably isn't all that different from being a peasant or poor city-dweller, and might, in some cases, be a more comfortable position.
Imagine a country that punishes criminals by putting them to work in mines or such. Is that Evil? Is it Good?
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Which brings up another catch 22. Good is not more important than law for a paladin. Shifting either of your alignment categories will count as a fall, and acrue all the associated penalties thereof. Doesn't matter if you ceased being good or ceased being lawful; the severity is just the same. Paladins are required to uphold both the law AND their own tenets.Say for example a chaotic evil monarch allows slavery in his realm. There, he IS the law. Regardless of how he got into power, he is in fact the legal authority. Defeating his subjects so as to send legally purchased slaves back from whence they came is an unlawful act. Attempting to overthrow someone whose authority is recognized to end the entire ordeal (assuming you don't already have some other, legitimate reason to take them down) would also be an unlawful act despite them being of evil alignment.
You will forgive me, The Beard, but unless you were writing this tongue-in-cheek, that is probably the most narrow reading of "lawful" behavior that I have seen.
Nowhere in the description of the Paladin Class does it say anything remotely along the lines that "A Paladin obeys and upholds all laws, no matter how cruel, iniquitous, or capricious."
The code of the Paladin mandates that they "respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents."
Few Paladins would consider an authority figure "legitimate" and worthy of respect if they use their power to harm and threaten innocent lives through bondage and slavery, even if it is under the aegis of the law.
Because if a Paladin was simply required to uphold all laws, no matter their content at risk losing their powers, all a tyrant would have to do is pass a law stating "By royal decree, all paladins in my realm are to commit ritual suicide." According to your reading, those Paladins sensible enough to disobey that insane and evil law would lose their divine powers.
I do not think that is what the creators of the game intended when they created the Paladin Player Class.
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Personally, deliberate values dissonance is much more a feature of the setting than a flaw. I fall in line with some of the others that have said they can see some slave owners as being neutral or even good*, but the practice of slavery itself would generally be evil(with the chattel slavery of early America serving as an example of the "holy @#$% evil" end of that spectrum), and only neutral at the very best in certain forms.(thralldom as an alternative to execution for example)
*The earlier comparison to swimming against the stream was pretty apt.
The value of having such contradictions in ingame societies isn't to spring absolutist "gotchas" on players, but to let them explore those themes and find their own way through that territory.
Those that would enter into such arrangements of their own free will either out of true devotion and/or as a sort of "freedom from choice" might find some interpretations that fall under good, but I'd have a hard time calling that actual slavery and it feels like its inclusion would mostly muddle the issue.
A priest/monk of Irori came up with a way to rescue these people from their eternal condemnation. He established a monastic order called the Khivatri that would pull in members of that caste during childhood and reshape them in Irori's image.
The idea is this: People are born to the lowest caste because of their personal weaknesses, mostly their selfishness to some degree or another. The only way to rise above the sins of your past lives and to cleanse your karma is to abandon the self and the needs of the self. You give up your freedom(and the lowest castes barely even really have that as it is) and personal desires for the sake of self-improvement, and only through service to another can you transcend to higher level in Vudra's religious/caste system.
Untouchables who are brought into the Khivatri order are no longer considered untouchables, but instead are Khivatri. It's a higher mini-caste than the untouchables, but they're still at the bottom of Vudran society and are still considered by many to not be people.
Khivatri train until early adulthood under the monasteries' harsh tutelage. They're are trained in the martial arts, to serve without question, to supress all personal desires, and to protect their future owners. After their training is over, they are sold off into Vudran society(at very cheap rates).
According to their code, Khivatri must serve and obey their owners, no matter their orders. If a khivatri's owner tells him to jump off a cliff, he will jump off the cliff. And a Khivatri must have a master. If a Khivatri's owner passes away without selling or giving him or her to another, the Khivatri must take their own life(the traditional way is to break one's own neck). This has also caused trouble for a lot of good people who came into possession of a Khivatri; as soon as they told the slave that they were free and refused to take them as a slave, the Khivatri will kill themselves.
Some Khivatri serve one owner their entire lives. Some serve a succession of many owners. They can be sold or given away, and as soon as the transaction is done the Khivatri must serve their new owner with absolute loyalty.
Most Khivatri serve primarily as bodyguards, as that is the primary training for all of them. But some serve their masters in other ways, as entertainment(often fighting, multiple owners arranging Khivatri duels aren't uncommon) and menial labor. An odd few are even kept in harems or even taken into marraige by their owners(though this is extremely rare and nearly unheard of in Vudra itself).
There is no stigma in Vudran society against selling or giving a Khivatri to non-Vudrans, for a few reasons: Khivatri "aren't really Vudrani", and the unshakable loyalty they display serves only to impress upon other cultures the strength of Vudran society(after all, if these are the lowest of their castes, then how great must the higher castes be?)
A Khivatri has no possessions except what their owner chooses to give them and let them keep.
Khivatri remember their given birth names, but always refer to themselves with the humble "this one" unless ordered to do otherwise by their owners. And even then, they will call themselves whatever their owner wishes.
In the monastery and when not told to do otherwise, Khivatri are dressed simply. And in another demonstration of emulating Irori and giving up their previous selves, they all go hairless save for a single braid of hair at the back of their skulls. Again, they will dress however their masters demand. A number of Khivatri have died in the past due to their owners dressing them in showy, impractical attire or even ornamental armor.
While a Khivatri told that he is free will try to take his own life, they can be ordered to "act free" to whatever degree their owner wishes. In countries where slavery is illegal, this is how Khivatri owners keep their property without drawing suspicion. This is also how kind and good owners often treat a Khivatri under their care. Their behavior is still highly ordered, and their greatest responsibility is still to ensure the safety of their owner, but a Khivatri can eventually "come out of their shell" when treated this way. It can be frightening and even traumatic for many Khivatri to suddenly have so much leeway in their lives, however.
A Khivatri who betrays the code and does not kill himself will usually be hunted down by the training monks of the order, but traitorous monks are exceedingly rare as they understand that the way of the Khivatri is the only path to transcendance available to them.
Khivatri can turn up almost anywhere, having been sold in the slave markets or changing from hand to hand elsewhere. The majority of them are owned by merchants or spellcasters, and the adventurous examples of the latter cover a lot of ground.
A Khivatri can be given to another in exchange for other goods or as a gift, and it is acceptable to pass ownership of one to another after death in accordance to one's will.
The Crimson Throne players found their own way to deal with a set of individuals from that culture. The Shattered Star groups are going to see how their actions have both made that situation better and worse. And even with those folks, there are still going to be slavers that really do need to get stabbed in the face immediately. It's just that you can have nuanced approaches right alongside the black and white takes.
To slightly rephrase some thoughts that have already been made: I think a lot of this also ties in with whether progressivism and regressivism, from a societal perspective, can be attached to the alignment system. This is really something to be left up to the GM, because there are mixed messages in the game itself as to this sort of thing. Erastil is portrayed as, to some extent, sexist in his pursuit of traditionalism, and while he's certainly good DESPITE that (I've gathered that whether his sexism makes him inherently evil is something a base breaker, but let's not get into that and assume that Erastil is still deserving of the LG alignment for the sake of this post)--and it doesn't factor into his goodness--it could be argued that his regressive beliefs tie into his lawfulness. The same goes for other cultural artifacts like slavery. Is Asmodeus' support of slavery a component of his evil? A component of his lawfulness? It's implied to be both, but it's up to your GM to determine the actual ratio.j
The way I've always handled it is that progressivism and regressivism fall more into the Lawful-Chaotic axis than the Good-Evil axis, and it's responses to those cultural practices that color the latter more. In a society where slaveholding is absolutely the norm, not owning slaves could be considered a good action with context, but it's almost certainly a chaotic action. However, that doesn't make a chaotic action necessarily good, either. Cayden Cailean's brand of rebellion may be copacetic with our uniquely American view of "liberation," but Lamashtu or Rovagug would just as soon see a slaveholding society destroyed for the fact that it's a society at all, not that it's slaveholding.
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I think also one thing that gets overlooked on the slave owner side of things is if the slave owner it treating the slave well, and presenting it with a way to gain freedom, and standing as a "citizen" then that person is not evil. They have found a way to work around the evil of oppressive slavery. The institution of slavery is by its definition the owning of people as property, which leans more towards oppression etc, and many of the things considered evil. Once you take the argument down to the "well what if this person does x, y or z?" then you are not arguing whether the institution is evil or good, but that person themselves. Which is a totally different argument.
As far as the paladin debate? Why are we arguing what a paladin in Cheliax would do with the law? First, if a Paladin were in Cheliax, I'm fairly certain that they wouldn't be there to uphold the laws of Cheliax, they'd be there fight against it. Cheliax is put there to be the demon worshipping, evil rite casting entity that it is to give Golarion an easy villain. The whole purpose is so PCs and GMs have a clear cut case of "Yep, that's evil." If Paladins existed there, they'd be a VAST minority, and unless they worked in a resistance type role, would most likely be shunned, if not outright killed (or offered up as sacrifice in a demon worshipping rite). Paladins exist as the holy crusaders of Lawful Good dieties to uphold that diety's dogma. And even then, loopholes are found.
Take the 12 Paladins of Charlemagne in The Song of Roland. Before battle with the "infidels', the Priest comes out before them and basically (and yeah, this is paraphrasing) says that one of the 10 commandments is "Thou shalt not kill" and therefor all the paladins are damned because they are going to go kill. BUT, if they kill only 'infidels' then there place in heaven is assured. That's some loophole.
I think also one thing that gets overlooked on the slave owner side of things is if the slave owner it treating the slave well, and presenting it with a way to gain freedom, and standing as a "citizen" then that person is not evil. .
Upthread, I mention that you can contrive scenarios where non-evil ownership can exist... but this is not quite there.
If you own a slave and you are legally allowed to free that slave, then not freeing the slave immediately is an evil act. You need to muddy the waters quite a bit for the situation to be otherwise.
If you own a slave and you are NOT legally allowed to free that slave (which would be a weird law, but hey fantasy) then you should still free the slave if you were chaotic. Maybe if you were Neutral on the L-C axis.
What you describe in the above quote is more likely neutral on the G-E.
Owning another person is an evil act. A lot goes into slavery besides the legal contract of ownership, and all aspects of that are evil. However, even a good character can commit an evil act and still be good. Much philosophical/theological ink has been spilled to explain this.
Kinda feels like it was the wrong Lincoln saying that. ;)
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In a situation where you would be releasing a slave into a population where they would be worse off, say uneducated about local laws and customs, without understanding of the language, etc, and were protecting them as a means to better prepare them, or if your owning the slave would protect them from another owner with more prurient designs, until the slave could become a citizen with means to support themselves, then yeah, I'd give the person a pass for the more good side of things. If that person is owning the slave with the intention of freeing them to better conditions. You can keep adding in qualifiers. The example above was just meant to be quick, and not an in depth look at it.
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Why do I keep throwing in on alignment discussions.
I must be a masochist.
Alright.
Firstly, we need to address an issue (Define your terms!) regarding what we mean when we say slavery.
There's varieties of it. Indentured labor, vassalage, serfdom, and chattle slavery.
The American South practiced chattle slavery. You reduced the people under your control to essentially talking reasoning livestock. It was horrible and evil because it represented an assault on the fundemental value of a human being.
Loss of Agency is not an intrinsic evil. Having to answer to someone isn't an intrinsic evil. The idea of a king, or monarch does not represent some vile destructive force on your soul. If he's a tyrant, thats where the issue comes from, and his tyranny likely arises from his refusal to acknowledge the fundemental rights you have as a human being.
The Jewish slavery laws differ from the slavery of the American South in terms of: Jewish slaves could own things, had to be treated justly, and generally in their case slavery had a limited time span.
Roman slavery is more akin to chattle slavery, where the pater familias had the right of life and death over his household, of which his slaves were considered part.
Viking Thralls were similar.
Cheliax's slave system treats slaves like animals. Who you breed with, love, associate with, talk to, whether you wear clothes, and so on, are all at the command of your owner. Its not a 'loss of agency' its a loss of personhood. You get treated as an object as opposed to a person who's services are being commanded.
This is a murky place, obviously.
From my perspective, a Paladin is not required to go John Brown on a slave practicing state, not unless the slaves are 1.) Not treated as humans, 2.) Have their intrinsic human rights quashed. He's not under any obligation however to return them. Slaves are people, and not property.
The paladin might indicate the slave should return, and complete whatever lawfully demanded service he might have (on the logic that everyone, including him has a master), but if the slave starts listing off thigns such regular beatings, being used for sexual purposes outside of their will, being forced to follow other religions, having to undertake evil activities, or having their children sold off like livestock, then the paladin might find himself taking more direct action.
An important watchphrase for a paladin is 'There is a Higher Law.'
If a country starts saying that murdering redheaded orphans is hunky-dory, the paladin stands up, says its not, and then deals with any imbecile attempting to carry out his 'lawful right' to murder the redheaded based on his own lawful right to amend the gene-pool of evil murderous bastards engaged in evil murderous bastardry.
Paladins, and the alignment system, don't work when you start trying to play the 'well one culture says' game. Just because a culture says it, doesn't mean its right.
To use an old statement from the British in control of India. There was a discussion of the Indian practice of suttee, or burning the wife on the husband's funeral pyre.
When confronted on this act's barbarity, a proponent stated that it was the custom of his country.
The englishman who had the conversation with him then informed him that his cultural custom was to hang people who'd force a woman to do that.
The latter is more paladinlike then the former.
Yes, this means you start saying one's culture's practices are evil. Yes this might appear 'intolerant.' Tolerance, as a wise man once said, is the virtue of a man without convictions.
Paladins have conviction in spades.
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Kinda feels like it was the wrong Lincoln saying that. ;)
** spoiler omitted **
My evil alignment is constantly jeopardized by my posts here on the forum.
Luckily, the source of my alignment is a cursed top hat.
Contributor
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I think also one thing that gets overlooked on the slave owner side of things is if the slave owner it treating the slave well, and presenting it with a way to gain freedom, and standing as a "citizen" then that person is not evil. They have found a way to work around the evil of oppressive slavery. The institution of slavery is by its definition the owning of people as property, which leans more towards oppression etc, and many of the things considered evil. Once you take the argument down to the "well what if this person does x, y or z?" then you are not arguing whether the institution is evil or good, but that person themselves. Which is a totally different argument.
As far as the paladin debate? Why are we arguing what a paladin in Cheliax would do with the law? First, if a Paladin were in Cheliax, I'm fairly certain that they wouldn't be there to uphold the laws of Cheliax, they'd be there fight against it. Cheliax is put there to be the demon worshipping, evil rite casting entity that it is to give Golarion an easy villain. The whole purpose is so PCs and GMs have a clear cut case of "Yep, that's evil." If Paladins existed there, they'd be a VAST minority, and unless they worked in a resistance type role, would most likely be shunned, if not outright killed (or offered up as sacrifice in a demon worshipping rite). Paladins exist as the holy crusaders of Lawful Good dieties to uphold that diety's dogma. And even then, loopholes are found.
Take the 12 Paladins of Charlemagne in The Song of Roland. Before battle with the "infidels', the Priest comes out before them and basically (and yeah, this is paraphrasing) says that one of the 10 commandments is "Thou shalt not kill" and therefor all the paladins are damned because they are going to go kill. BUT, if they kill only 'infidels' then there place in heaven is assured. That's some loophole.
Medieval knights were very conscious of their damnation as professional murderers, trained since childhood to commit a mortal sin; religious faith and notions of damnation were on everyone's minds. That's why the Crusades and the Reconquista were popular with them - it gave them religious sanction to do their jobs. Prior to the invention of the concept (in the 1080s with the Crusade of Barbastro), the traditional end of life activity (like that of a warrior in India becoming an ascetic) was becoming a hermit or monk. The innovation of the Templars (and the warrior Yogis in India) was in combining asceticism with violence.
Interestingly, one of the consequences of the Crusade of Barbastro was the enslavement of that city's Muslim and Mozarabic population, which led to slave-musicians, scholars, doctors, and poets being common among the courts of southern France, which led to the Twelfth-century Renaissance. These "unfree" courtiers, however, had certainly much better than chattel status.The "Crusade of Barbastro" is a direct precursor to the depiction of Holy War in the Chanson de Roland.
In some ways, the channeled violence of the Crusades thus reduced elite violence and tyranny in Western Europe, by giving the brutality of the knight caste something else to do besides raiding their neighbors. I imagine jihad sometimes worked the same way in Muslim lands.
I'm just gonna go ahead and throw the Mameluks into this discussion as well.
Some societies have really unconventional takes on slavery if you take American-African slavery as the standard.
You can and should read about it on wikipedia.
Leaving aside the moral arguments in this thread, warrior-slaves of rank are just too cool to be left out of a fantasy setting!
In the case of something like Mameluks, I'd say that lawful neutral fits the bill. From there it becomes much easier to find corner cases where good would be appropriate.
One interesting thing to consider is someone who believes chattel slavery is not in fact evil, and how that would relate to their alignment, deities etc.
We know that Pathfinder deities are not perfectly forthcoming with their worshipers despite magical abilities to contact the divine, hence we have factions and schisms in various religions.
We also know that in our own history many people, apparently honestly, felt that chattel slavery was righteous and part of the divine order of things. Our culture now finds this difficult to believe, but it does seem clear that some people at least held this view sincerely.
In such a situation, typically a 'good' person would feel it incumbent to treat slaves well and care for them but the idea of owning a slave being evil would be entirely foreign.
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Just so we are clear on this, Classical Romans did discuss the ethics of slavery. Some, like the Stoic Epictetus, denounced it. He viewed it as man-made and contrary to the divine nature, which is of equality of all humans (as "sons of Zeus").
"Zeus has set me free. Or do you really think that he was likely to let his own son be made a slave? You are, however, master of my dead body, take it."
Moreover, as discussed in this article, the slavery practiced in Rome involved the sexual subjugation of other humans (as in the South), which was part of the Christian criticism of Roman sexual mores, in that it was promiscuous and based on power over others.
My own take on this is that it is impossible for someone to be good and be a chattel slave owner, because even paragons of ethics and lawfulness like Cato the Elder find it impossible to treat slaves as anything but possessions, to be used and discarded. I also would nod to the Stoics as possible LG figures in a corrupt society.
Many of my characters have owned and captured slaves and sold them on for profit. Sometimes I like to keep one to carry stuff for me if I have dumped STR.
This is part of the fun of RPG`s. You can play a role completely different from the real world.
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One interesting thing to consider is someone who believes chattel slavery is not in fact evil, and how that would relate to their alignment, deities etc.
We know that Pathfinder deities are not perfectly forthcoming with their worshipers despite magical abilities to contact the divine, hence we have factions and schisms in various religions.
We also know that in our own history many people, apparently honestly, felt that chattel slavery was righteous and part of the divine order of things. Our culture now finds this difficult to believe, but it does seem clear that some people at least held this view sincerely.
In such a situation, typically a 'good' person would feel it incumbent to treat slaves well and care for them but the idea of owning a slave being evil would be entirely foreign.
As I stated earlier, this doesn't mean its right. And even at its earliest, there were abolitionists.
For good or ill, playing a paladin or acknowledging the alignment system means throwing all of this 'but their culture said it was ok' stuff to the curb. Even if society tells a paladin that something is a-ok from top to bottom, he shouldn't go along with it if its evil.
This is why acquiring a phylactery of faithfulness should rank above a +1 sword for a paladin.
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One interesting thing to consider is someone who believes chattel slavery is not in fact evil, and how that would relate to their alignment, deities etc.
We know that Pathfinder deities are not perfectly forthcoming with their worshipers despite magical abilities to contact the divine, hence we have factions and schisms in various religions.
We also know that in our own history many people, apparently honestly, felt that chattel slavery was righteous and part of the divine order of things. Our culture now finds this difficult to believe, but it does seem clear that some people at least held this view sincerely.
In such a situation, typically a 'good' person would feel it incumbent to treat slaves well and care for them but the idea of owning a slave being evil would be entirely foreign.
But Pathfinder morality is not subjective like that.
I mean, I appreciate the attempt to find nuance here, but breaking the will of another human being (a prerequisite to chattel slavery) is pretty much as good a definition of Evil as you're going to get in the system.
Followers of Norgorber believe secrets and lies are good, but that doesn't mean that a follower of Norgorber is Good.
Following that logic, you could have a follower of Asmodeus who behaved in an objectively Good manner, and you would call that subjectively Evil?
Pathfinder morality does still have significant wiggle room. Just compare the three major Lawful Good deities to each other, and you have three very different world views.
House Tilernos is one of the 12 ruling houses of Westcrown, Cheliax. It's patriarch is a paladin of Iomedae, according to the Westcrown gazetteer. Cheliax enthusiastically embraces slavery. How participatory House Tilernos is in the practice... who knows? But, they are obviously not revolutionaries, and they are participants in the governance of the city.
I'm certainly not saying slavery is good. Or even that good deities of Golarion would find slavery to be good. The question would be, would societies believe it to be proper, and still be good enough societies for the good gods to grant them divine blessings.
We know that the gods don't stop providing divine magic just because a society isn't perfect, or the followers aren't perfect, because perfection is impossible and divine magic exists.
Our culture tells us that slavery is an obvious and absolute evil. Other cultures have viewed it as a lesser evil, or even the proper way the universe should be ordered. Their are other things that we probably don't consider that bad, or even good, that one can imagine a good diety being opposed to. Wars of liberation, income tax, and the right to bear arms are all all contentious topics today where both sides truly believe they are on the side of 'good.'
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I'm certainly not saying slavery is good. Or even that good deities of Golarion would find slavery to be good. The question would be, would societies believe it to be proper, and still be good enough societies for the good gods to grant them divine blessings.
We know that the gods don't stop providing divine magic just because a society isn't perfect, or the followers aren't perfect, because perfection is impossible and divine magic exists.
Our culture tells us that slavery is an obvious and absolute evil. Other cultures have viewed it as a lesser evil, or even the proper way the universe should be ordered. Their are other things that we probably don't consider that bad, or even good, that one can imagine a good diety being opposed to. Wars of liberation, income tax, and the right to bear arms are all all contentious topics today where both sides truly believe they are on the side of 'good.'
Your statements basically argue that slavery is a lawful/chaos issue. That is, a society that permits or encourages it does so in the name of order (law), not goodness. I doubt any Roman would argue that slavery is "good," but they might argue it was a natural order or just. That has nothing to do with the way PF defines "Good" which essentially revolves around empathy, not justice, order, or laws. Most people include aspects of what PF calls "Law" (or "Chaos") in their definition of what is good to them, but the game does not.
The contentious issues you describe come under Law and Chaos (or Order vrs. Liberty) for the most part.
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You can certainly find people who might argue that slavery is good, but those are not good people.
The moral ambiguity in this thread is great fodder for some Asmodean priest NPCs.
I DM a game set in Golarion, but all my players are neutral. As to their opinions regarding slavery, they've only freed one slave so far, and only for the purpose of helping them (they murdered the other slave when he tried to flee, thinking he would alert the rest of the guards). On the flip side, they knocked out a gang of goblins and sold them at a market in Molthune because they were getting low on cash. My players seem not to have a problem with slavery, just sort of accepting that it exists and either working with it or against it as the situation warrants. So I believe its merely a matter of the group playing that affects how slavery is portrayed.
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I'm certainly not saying slavery is good. Or even that good deities of Golarion would find slavery to be good. The question would be, would societies believe it to be proper, and still be good enough societies for the good gods to grant them divine blessings.
We know that the gods don't stop providing divine magic just because a society isn't perfect, or the followers aren't perfect, because perfection is impossible and divine magic exists.
Our culture tells us that slavery is an obvious and absolute evil. Other cultures have viewed it as a lesser evil, or even the proper way the universe should be ordered. Their are other things that we probably don't consider that bad, or even good, that one can imagine a good diety being opposed to. Wars of liberation, income tax, and the right to bear arms are all all contentious topics today where both sides truly believe they are on the side of 'good.'
Your statements basically argue that slavery is a lawful/chaos issue. That is, a society that permits or encourages it does so in the name of order (law), not goodness. I doubt any Roman would argue that slavery is "good," but they might argue it was a natural order or just. That has nothing to do with the way PF defines "Good" which essentially revolves around empathy, not justice, order, or laws. Most people include aspects of what PF calls "Law" (or "Chaos") in their definition of what is good to them, but the game does not.
The contentious issues you describe come under Law and Chaos (or Order vrs. Liberty) for the most part.
I don't know enough about Rome to judge, but plenty of people argued American slavery was good. "They're naturally savages", "They need to be controlled for their own good", etc.
It's all self-justifying crap, but plenty of people argued it. Some of them probably even believed it.
Savagery and control are law versus chaos judgments, not good versus evil at least in the alignment paradigm.
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Warning, this post is mostly about Romans, not Pathfinder, if you don't care, then skip.
Just so we are clear on this, Classical Romans did discuss the ethics of slavery. Some, like the Stoic Epictetus, denounced it. He viewed it as man-made and contrary to the divine nature, which is of equality of all humans (as "sons of Zeus").
"Zeus has set me free. Or do you really think that he was likely to let his own son be made a slave? You are, however, master of my dead body, take it."
As I stated earlier, this doesn't mean its right. And even at its earliest, there were abolitionists.
I think the first call in the literary record for the abolition of Greco-Roman slavery is traditionally ascribed to Gregory of Nyssa in the late fourth century, on Christian religious grounds ("at how many obols did you reckon the price of the image of God?"). That comes actually pretty surprisingly late in the literary tradition, not far from the ends of the period of classical antiquity overall. Looking at the broader vista of classical history, Gregory is pretty lonely.
The linked essay doesn't seem to conclude that Epictetus or the Stoics did so. Indeed, the general conclusion of that article with regard to Stoicism and actual chattel slavery seems to be that Stoics partly served to provide a philosophical cover for actual slavery by dismissing it as morally irrelevant in favor of focusing on metaphorical slavery, i.e. becoming "enslaved" to pursuit of wealth, power, pleasure... worldly concerns in general.
The complex nature of Stoic philosophy comes through in the tension of Epictetus’ moral teachings. Epictetus distracts attention from actual slavery by focusing on moral slavery, in which he minimizes the importance of social rankings. By placing a heavier emphasis on moral slavery, he seems more critical of slaves who desire freedom. Epictetus criticizes a slave’s desire for manumission by stating that the slaves do not understand the true meaning of freedom
The Zeus quote would seem open to such a parsing as well: allowing for the acceptance of chattel slavery ("You are, however, master of my dead body, take it.") by implying chattel slavery not to be "real" slavery. It's along a similar line to Gregory's (or to 19th century abolitionists, for that matter) - a religious argument against slavery -but unlike Gregory, it softens the message considerably by sidestepping a denunciation of actual slavery and rejecting only slavery of the soul.
That said, it is fair to say that the Stoics did advocate for less harsh treatment of slaves on a practical level, believing that the pervasive violence and fear in the Roman system was a bad influence on both masters and slaves. Although the article you linked states that there is no evidence they succeeded in effecting any sort of significant improvement on that count.
My own take on this is that it is impossible for someone to be good and be a chattel slave owner, because even paragons of ethics and lawfulness like Cato the Elder find it impossible to treat slaves as anything but possessions, to be used and discarded. I also would nod to the Stoics as possible LG figures in a corrupt society.
Heh, yeah. Cato didn't care much for humane treatment of slaves. Too old to work? Sell them or kick them out of doors to starve. Get sick? Stop feeding them, why am I spending food on a slave who can't work?
Within the literary record, Pliny might be a better example of a sympathetic slave-owner, although, I think, still not actually rising to Pathfinder Good in that respect, but rather only to a level of mildly benign, neutralish oppression.
Speaking more broadly - the idea that the Imperial government gradually worked to improve the conditions of slaves and implement more humane laws relating to slavery is an older orthodox historical view, but has come under a lot of question in more recent studies that compare the laws to other historical sources and look more closely at the nature of the laws themselves. There are strong arguments that have been made to the effect that many of the Imperial period laws restricting treatment of slaves were more about asserting Imperial jurisdiction at the expense of rival social authority sources (chiefly the old-style paterfamilias) than they were about actually attempting to improve the lot of slaves. E.g. in a close reading of the Lex Petronia de servis, which used to be cited as a measure against the practice of sending slaves to the gladiatorial arena, you see the practice not being abolished, but rather removed from arbitrary control of the owner and placed under jurisdiction of the Imperial courts. There's little evidence that this actually led to any reduction in slave vs beast spectacles, which suggests that it may have been merely an episode in the gradual process of increasing the power of the Imperial state by undercutting/absorbing the traditional roles of rival political actors.
In essence, what was once viewed as the state reducing the punishments dealt out to slaves is now often being re-evaluated as the state muscling in to take the authority of the punisher for itself, without actually softening the overall repression of Rome's slave system.
The second thing to note is that many of the most iconically barbaric episodes of the Roman slave system occurred under Imperial rule. In particular, the infamous senatus consultum Silanianum (the law which prescribed the collective torture and execution of all slaves in the household where a master was murdered) was instituted in the early Imperial, not Republican, period, and generally expanded in scope over the course of the Empire. Roman state efforts to restrict manumission also are typical of the Imperial, not Republican, era, and the proliferation of laws designed to prevent miscegenation between slaves or freedmen and free-born citizens is a middle to late Imperial political development.
The Imperial government actually consistently enforced the S.C. even when the family of the dead owner pled for the slaves to be spared. There's one particularly well-known case (recorded in Tacitus) in the middle Principate in which not just the slaves' owners, but the ordinary Roman mob rose up against the Imperial government out of pity, in an unsuccessful attempt to save a particularly large number of manifestly innocent slaves (women, children, etc) from said torture and execution:
No single person dared to go against the opinion of Cassius, but there were cries of protest from people showing compassion for the number of slaves involved or their age or sex, and the undoubted innocence of the majority. Nevertheless the group which was demanding execution prevailed. But the sentence could not be carried out, since a huge, menacing crowd gathered with rocks and firebrands. Then the Emperor rebuked the people in an edict and had the whole route, along which the condemned were to be dragged off to execution, hemmed in with detachments of soldiers.
That's a pretty dark scene for the period where Imperial power is presumed to be directed at achieving improvement of the lot of slaves.
I think it would probably be fair to conclude overall that the Roman state did not achieve much in the way of system-wide improvement in the treatment of slaves until Christian ethics began to demand such from the bottom up, and that there are serious doubts as to whether it ever even made a genuine and sustained effort to do so.
...it's late, I'm having way too much fun getting back into some of these texts (and kind of derailing this thread, sorry) but I need to go to bed.
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I've been digging into the various types of slavery and you could put different kinds into alignment context. Here is a really rough attempt at it.
I of course left my notes but will try to put what i could remember into this list.
LG would only have bondage. That is you sell yourself into bondage in order to pay a debt or are forced into bondage to pay off a loan or other debt, such as a criminal activity. Basically you have a choice to enter such a situation. You have various rights for proper treatment
LN would be serfdom/Thrall. You and your family are born into it and are tied by location or work until such time as you can buy or freedom. If you want to change jobs or leave family to become a soldier then someone has to buy your obligation. It is almost like a work contract. you stay until you pay it off or someone else does. You have some rights against being mistreated but not many.
LE would be chattel slavery. You were forced into bondage and have no rights. Your owner has rights over you as if you where their property. There is little way for you to escape this situation. There is no way to buy your freedom since you are considered a thing not a being. You have no rights at all.
NG would be a type of bondage but a gentleman's agreement. no formal rules exist but the word of your master and you and the agreement both of you struck up. There are no formal rules just your master's compassion in how you are treated and it will be good. Pure business with workers over profit.
N, True Neutral would be serfdom/thrall. Maybe you where taken in battle or you where born into it. You don't have a formal way of getting out of this situation but you could in time convince your master to free you. either by deed or money. You would find you are treated based on how the master can get the most out of you. So treatment will be even handed and not harsh unless necessary. The only rule is what the master wants. Pure business with profit and sustaining the workers.
NE. Chattel slavery. This is a pretty bad situation. You are worked to get the most the master can get out of you. There are no rules but what the master wants and he doesn't care how he gets the work he wants. Pure drudgery. There is no way to escape this situation by legal means other than by being purchased by someone else. Pure business with profit over all.
CG Pet. Yup you are a pet. The master loves you and wants the best for you but you are a pet. no there is no getting away silly thing. Chaos is pure emotion so on a whim you will be captured or purchased and given a golden collar and a nice soft bed but you are at the whims of your master. There is not likely to be a way out without some deed or lots of convincing to make them realize you don't like it. But it will be tough to sell your misery being more important than their love of you. Yeah try to buy a dog from owner that loves him...yeah good luck. not a hard life but it is a gilded cage. There are no rights and no law but what the master makes up that moment. But overall the master will try to take care of you.
CN Pet. You are a pet they may want you to do something for them but it is pure whim. pit Gladiator fighting where it is no holds bar, dirty fighting till you are shattered and broken. He might heal you after or just toss you away. it is completely at the master's whim. No laws no options but what the master feels. It could be to work for profit but most likely they just like to have you around to remind them how powerful they are or just to have someone to kick when they are having a bad day at the office.
CE. Nothing. Worse than slave. Forced Labor under threat of violence. you are something they torment or torture for their amusement or out of some hatred. Slaves die constantly, there is no care given to slaves. you last as long as you can or till they get a new one. You are made to crawl through red ants and carry them on your back or are worked till you die in your chains. It doesn't matter to them. They have no compassion and will use you up and leave you to die although they may torture you for not lasting longer. Who knows. The only way out is to escape or fight your way free.
I think that breaks it down better. give some feedback and suggestions. The main thing I used was Lawful will be based on rules. Neutral is self serving and Chaotic is raw emotion. Good having compassion and evil lacking compassion.
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I've been digging into the various types of slavery and you could put different kinds into alignment context. Here is a really rough attempt at it.
I of course left my notes but will try to put what i could remember into this list.
LG would only have bondage. That is you sell yourself into bondage in order to pay a debt or are forced into bondage to pay off a loan or other debt, such as a criminal activity. Basically you have a choice to enter such a situation. You have various rights for proper treatment
LN would be serfdom/Thrall. You and your family are born into it and are tied by location or work until such time as you can buy or freedom. If you want to change jobs or leave family to become a soldier then someone has to buy your obligation. It is almost like a work contract. you stay until you pay it off or someone else does. You have some rights against being mistreated but not many.
LE would be chattel slavery. You were forced into bondage and have no rights. Your owner has rights over you as if you where their property. There is little way for you to escape this situation. There is no way to buy your freedom since you are considered a thing not a being. You have no rights at all.
NG would be a type of bondage but a gentleman's agreement. no formal rules exist but the word of your master and you and the agreement both of you struck up. There are no formal rules just your master's compassion in how you are treated and it will be good. Pure business with workers over profit.
N, True Neutral would be serfdom/thrall. Maybe you where taken in battle or you where born into it. You don't have a formal way of getting out of this situation but you could in time convince your master to free you. either by deed or money. You would find you are treated based on how the master can get the most out of you. So treatment will be even handed and not harsh unless necessary. The only rule is what the master wants. Pure business with profit and sustaining the workers.
NE. Chattel slavery. This is...
I agree with pretty much every assessment, except the CG one. CG people wouldn't keep slaves, chaos=freedom, good=empathy, and that is incompatible with slavery.
As a DM,I would never put my paladin in a situation where he could fall.
If he is in a country that has slavery, I would make it so the slaves were protected from mistreatment. And the trade regulated to protect the slaves.
That way the paladin is morally and legally clear to act in cases of abuse, and misconduct.
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...I've been digging into the various types of slavery and you could put different kinds into alignment context. Here is a really rough attempt at it.
I of course left my notes but will try to put what i could remember into this list.
LG would only have bondage. That is you sell yourself into bondage in order to pay a debt or are forced into bondage to pay off a loan or other debt, such as a criminal activity. Basically you have a choice to enter such a situation. You have various rights for proper treatment
LN would be serfdom/Thrall. You and your family are born into it and are tied by location or work until such time as you can buy or freedom. If you want to change jobs or leave family to become a soldier then someone has to buy your obligation. It is almost like a work contract. you stay until you pay it off or someone else does. You have some rights against being mistreated but not many.
LE would be chattel slavery. You were forced into bondage and have no rights. Your owner has rights over you as if you where their property. There is little way for you to escape this situation. There is no way to buy your freedom since you are considered a thing not a being. You have no rights at all.
NG would be a type of bondage but a gentleman's agreement. no formal rules exist but the word of your master and you and the agreement both of you struck up. There are no formal rules just your master's compassion in how you are treated and it will be good. Pure business with workers over profit.
N, True Neutral would be serfdom/thrall. Maybe you where taken in battle or you where born into it. You don't have a formal way of getting out of this situation but you could in time convince your master to free you. either by deed or money. You would find you are treated based on how the master can get the most out of you. So treatment will be even handed and not harsh unless necessary. The only rule is what the master wants. Pure business with profit and sustaining the workers.
NE.
With the vague suggestions included here vis-a-vis Chaotic Good, I'm sort of half inclined to understand where the Pet thing comes from. I don't agree with it, but I think chailboy might have been thinking of something along the lines of like Prospero and Ariel, or Prospero and Caliban.
Or even Alice in Wonderland, with slaves who profess complete loyalty but in reality can just walk away in a second without anyone caring. Its got that 'fey' vibe to me.
Can be a prisioner be considered a slave ? The only difference from slavery because of punishment is that a slave has to work.
That's not nearly the only difference.
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With the vague suggestions included here vis-a-vis Chaotic Good, I'm sort of half inclined to understand where the Pet thing comes from. I don't agree with it, but I think chailboy might have been thinking of something along the lines of like Prospero and Ariel, or Prospero and Caliban.
Or even Alice in Wonderland, with slaves who profess complete loyalty but in reality can just walk away in a second without anyone caring. Its got that 'fey' vibe to me.
I have a hard time reconciling it with CG as well, but it really does seem to line up with the sort of things we take for granted from dryads, nymphs, etc...
I play in settings very much like antiquity to the classical era. Anywhere from 2000 BC to 50 BC with smitherings of things around 200-300 AD and some idea's from earlier than 4000 BC. So, in my setting slavery is very much real and accepted. No one really gives it a second thought. Different nations have different laws on slavery, some the slave can buy their freedom, some not. I have hardly no nation on my planet that does not have slavery, except a few primitive tribes here and there (not most of them) and a few backwoods or isolated regions.
Stealing someones slave is a crime. Many philosphers write amazing works on freedom and still own slaves and don't make the connection because it is so ingrained in their society. Some nations only take slaves of foreigners, POW's, or criminals. I like to keep it varied. I have religions that tell how to treat slaves. Some nations give slaves certain rights others do not.
I even have nations where women are the property of their husbands or fathers. And yet have very prominent influential women who technically have no political rights. I love irony. And a Paladin in my world would generally accept benevolent slavery and shun the mistreatment of slaves.
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As a DM,I would never put my paladin in a situation where he could fall.
I get what you're saying, but...
You SHOULD put the paladin in positions where they *could* fall. That's kind of the point.
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As a DM,I would never put my paladin in a situation where he could fall.I get what you're saying, but...
You SHOULD put the paladin in positions where they *could* fall. That's kind of the point.
I think he means 'don't put them in catch-22 gotcha situations where they have to determine with game guide like precision precisely which option I want them to choose or else.'
This thread did kind of spawn from concerns about the 'slavery is bad, but paladin must enforce laws! Muahahahaha.' thing.
Slavery of a good alignment is better called indentured survitude. But the reason why slavery in ancient history was more acceptable was because anyone could end up a slave, captured in war, by debt, commited a crime, or even volunteering in order to not starve was something anyone could end up with. (Ex. Ben-Hur)
The reason why people began to reject slavery was when only one ethnicity was being placed alone in slavery (Africans). And when you focus something bad like slavery onto one group of people, prejudice and racism begin to grow and spiral out of control.
While in Golarian many groups of humans are placed under chains, the thing that tips slavery into an evil vs. A grey neutral is the fact that the halfling race has been slaves for most of their history. In fact if you look at most halfling backgrounds if they are not in nations that outlaw slavery, they started out their life as slaves.
Slavery in general is bad, but it only tips into a real evil when one group alone are forced to become slaves to the point where the stereotype begins to happen to everyone of the same identified group.