|
None of that chelaxian fast talk out of you hornhead. Your options aren't enslave the body or raise the dead. You could just PAY your people you know, and maybe live with one solid gold gem encrusted black velvet painting.Caydens skunked tankard, We are NOT enslaving souls to free bodies!Why not? Didn't you want to change the laws? Is your soul more important than the freedom of slaves? Are you just a being that is for rights and freedoms because it is convienent? Show me the depths of hour convictions, and demonstrate what you will do to help the cause.
Chelaxian? Good Sir, do not mistake me for a weak willed politician who seeks thier own advancement over the tenants of Holy Asmodeus. I offer a simple exchange, do not seek to insult me.
|
"Well, how exactly are you defining "a slave"? Human slaves? Humanoid? Sentient? What about servitor undead? bound outsiders? summoned beings? simulacra?
One might argue that a horse is a slave, or a chair. It all depends on how liberally you define the institution of slavery.
And who's "we"? We, talking here now? The Pathfinder Society, as an official mandate? And why stop at Absalom? why not Oppara? or Korvosa? Many of us have no special attachment to Absalom, outside of a place we visit because our employer is headquartered here.
As for the economics of slavery or of ending slavery being very complicated, I'll say "duh", but I'll also say that virtual impossibility has been overcome on many occasions. It's what "magic" is, after all.
But all that aside, I'll agree that I find the institution odious in the extreme. I've never owned a slave, and I never will... though I usually have bound outsiders at my service at all times. Hence my interest in clarification of the topic. I don't see why we need to render the institution illegal, though... it's best for the slaves if they free themselves. That way, they earn the respect and fear of their former masters, assuming they allow their former masters to survive. So, really, a slave revolt is a better path to a slavery-free Absalom, and maybe eventually a slavery-free world.
There's your "liberty's edge": the willingness to rebel against tyranny!"
|
|
"Organized military might is about as organized as its chain-of-command. It's remarkable what a few well-placed assassinations can accomplish. I wonder how many military commanders serve their own food?
The risk of revolt is great, but what's to lose, really? Slavery skews risk-benefit quite rapidly towards risk, given a charismatic focus... some covertly-placed people persons like, say, a few talented bards or sorcerers. Maybe they're even sent by Liberty's Edge?
I'm not even affiliated with the faction, but I'd happily polymorph a few slaves into, say, dragons, or huge giants... if nothing else, the expressions on their "master's" faces would be priceless."
|
"Corvus, she is right though, freedom should be gained, not given. Freedom given is going from one slave owner to another.
And that is why there is us. We are here to coordinate, we are here to dislocate the organized military opposition.
On the other hand ,the debate around making slavery illegal should not be silenced. Those in power with slaves should know the opposition is growing. They should know that, in the long run, slave ownership will have a negative impact on their carriers. Slave ownership should become a taboo for them. When we then liberate slaves, the counter should not be as violent as you might expect now. The goal of this petition should no be to illegalize slavery overnight, the goal should be to allow us to start a successful revolt overnight."
"Corvus, she is right though, freedom should be gained, not given. Freedom given is going from one slave owner to another.
.... In what world does that pap and malarky even make any sense? I feather some slaver and cut the halfling out of his chains he's just as free as if he slit the slavers throat himself. Sounds like an excuse to be lazy and get nothing done.
|
|
"You know you really should check the room properly before divulging an in-depth view of your sociopolitical beliefs," says a corner of the wall before a humanoid figure pulls itself from the plaster, removing an outer layer of expertly positioned papier mache and revealing a half-elven woman in a trench coat.
"While it is true that a person in shackles holds little hope for growth and improvement as The Master of Masters would wish to see of all of us, nor share the joys of the erected temple that is their body as The Savored Sting encourages, I think we are all forgetting something important. Are we not all Pathfinders? Seekers of secrets and information and treasure? Our Reaper of Reputation knows for a fact that slaves hold many secrets which makes our line of work, as with many things, run smoothly."
The half-elf walks to a high-backed lounge chair and seats herself. "Surely it has happened to all of you that a slave has perchance seen something on the property that led to the capture of a monster or criminal? That they told you about the master's numerous visits to a particular address of ill repute? Sark is right, slaves are not mindless, and that is the fact we must use against their owners! For surely the embarrassment of owning a slave will always be outstripped by the embarrassment that can be wrought from what a slave knows! The chronic canker sores in unpleasant places, the deviant lurid imagery kept in under the floorboards of the parlor, the weekly deliveries of that medicine for a condition people dread even speak of in polite company... It is unceasingly uncomfortable to know that all the tasks one puts one's slaves to provides yet another chink in the armor of one's social credit. This is how we must end such things, if we are ever succeed in a permanent fashion."
|
|
".... In what world does that pap and malarky even make any sense? I feather some slaver and cut the halfling out of his chains he's just as free as if he slit the slavers throat himself. Sounds like an excuse to be lazy and get nothing done. "
I think you misunderstood me, while what you say is true on an individual basis, I don't think it is on a larger scale. Say you've freed all the slaves, to do what? Most of them don't have the education to seek solutions to the problems they will face. One of the things that happen during slavery, is the breaking of the will and the habit of master-slave relationships. If they cannot break that circle they will just become new slaves, although perhaps with a different name. That also means that slitting the slavers throat and handing the keys to the slave to get him out his chains often isn't enough. You have to make sure they find a purpose and a way of life outside service. I think that's possible on an individual basis, but I don't really see an easy solution on the larger scale. You can phase out, as some other's proposed, but in the meantime I will not stop helping those that want out.
Mr Pleiases, there is little a slave can tell you that a paid worker cannot.
|
|
A mild mannered, and heavily armored pathfinder stops. His glowing blue eyes and pointed ears depict an Azata heritage. A Taldan crown adorns his baldric, while a phoenix rising from a burning tankard lies emblazoned on his shield.
I tend to help out my Pathfinder comrades although I don't share Liberty's Edge penchant to violence, mayhem, and murder. I had the pleasure of assisting a group of Andoran .. Edgers? .. recently and found their goals not far apart from my own.
In reference to your discussion
The cost of slave ownership is higher than paying wages, it also entails risk of loss wherein rent of skill yields no similar risk. The aquisition of slaves generally involves less than legal operations which are not in line with Absolom's national interests. Finally capital investment in slave ownership is by far higher than simple rent, whereas the training fee is the same. You may also find methods of motivation far easier and less burdensome (morally, spiritually, and economically). This logical approach may yield more support among the merchantile nature of this city rather than emotional pleas or wanton threats.
|
|
"Sejuki, you forget that a paid worker who talks stands to lose a job, while a slave stands to lose nothing but their chains, or their life, should their master be inclined to such cruelty, but at that point then the master has opened himself to a litany of legal liabilities for which they might hang. Furthermore, you obsess on the large scale to the neglect of the individual scale, when indeed such large changes have first been wrought on the individual scale. I feel that you are, to quote one of my instructors, 'sending the cart before the horse'."
|
|
"Of course an employee is more costly than a slave. Slavery exists because, um, free labor of any degree of intensity you can imagine. I've even heard of slaves magically warded to preserve their lives - resistance against elements, infernal healing, immunity to poison, and so on - so that their masters might exact greater labors from them. With food conjured from thin air, clerics always being on hand to keep a slave team going, they're even free to feed.
It's an abomination of the material world.
In fact, I shall slay the next slaver I meet, simply out of principle. A kind of winnowing, like fishing a bit of dead leaf from a basin of clean water.
Or maybe a casting of dazing hungry darkness in the Absalom auction yard, and then telekinetically pluck slavers from the ground as they try to flee, depositing them in the darkness to be chewed apart by force-fangs.
Their slaves can gather their baubles from the remains after the darkness fades; there's your post-bondage "economics".
Anyone up for an outing, later?"
|
|
Stuff.
The half-elf brings out a chain holding what appears to be three holy symbols: one a ring with three daggers, one a mask with a single opening for the left eye, and the last a token with a miniaturized imprint of a hand upon it. She thumbs the last token pensively for several moments before pocketing the entire set and nodding.
"I see no issue that demands we remain couped up here. Perhaps a visit to the market is warranted. I'm in need of supplies, and have already scouted out the Puddles this week."
|
|
"Slavery completely makes economic sense! From a profit perspective, it's amazing, a no-brainer. There are whole cities and nations whose grandeur only exists because of slavery.
Since it's so amazing, the only way to curb it is to add extreme risk to involvement in the practice, like certain death for a slaver and his whole family, or just things far worse than death, like being made into a corporeal, sentient undead and sealed in a concrete block forever, or some other fate which precludes passage to the next world.
Transmute Flesh to Ooze comes to find as an apropos fate.
You just need to make everyone who owns a slave feel never quite safe; that starts eroding the institution."
|
|
"If my mother, maternal grandparents, and several of my cousins are to be believed about Hermea and the city of Promise, slavery is barely worthy of mention as requisite to grandeur. Sabotage should be aimed at showing the vulnerabilities of their system in outstanding color, rather than through sheer randomness of violence."
|
|
"I confess to a greater talent for random violence than for sabotage.
Hermea is an interesting place, but it's not strictly natural; it's also ruled by a moral autocrat, which is hardly common.
The thing is, slavery is a state of nature. It's natural for the strong to dominate the weak; any departure from this requires application of power. It's akin to digging a canal to redirect a river. If a slave economy has a "vulnerability", it's in the possibility that the slaves might somehow coordinate an uprising... there are good reasons slave masters like to deprive their slaves of literacy and other forms of communication.
The best way to exploit such vulnerabilities is either to make possible an organized resistance within a slave community, granting them a mode of strength, OR to weaken the slave masters themselves (my suggested terror and violence), or, perhaps ideally, an intersection of the two approaches."
|
"We Halflings have always been the favorite targets of the Big Folk. And why not? We are smaller. We are industrious. We are excellent cooks and farmers. Just don't forget that we are also stealthy and observant. If we are mistreated, a slave owner may not wake up to find that their family has been quietly murdered and that they are next. Or that the 'slip' that is serving drinks during that important business meeting is more than willing to inform your business rivals of your plans while we are doing your shopping."
"Slavery will eventually be made illegal in Absolom. Whether or not that freedom is granted before a bloodbath would be up to Lord Gyr."
|
"Blockade? Violence? The river's full.
Get contraptions sold profitably to do slaves' work, and demand goes away as the practice gets obsolete.
What about using some of those Numerian artifacts we're finding? Self-driving field plowers and crop pickers can't be more complicated than golems, aye? And we already got those. Coin talks."
Politely tips his tricorn hat and swigs a flask.
|
|
"I would remind you, Mr. Harrington, of the nigh exorbitant costs of even the most rudimentary of golems, let alone their tendency to be remarkably unreceptive to any attempts of corrective instruction. There's more than a few tales of golems taking their orders in a far too exacting manner, only to do something even worse when told to stop."
|
|
The halfling who started this political debate busts through the doors, sporting much finer clothing and a better head space than he had when he left. He is no longer riding a wolf, dog, or dinosaur, but a baby mammoth.
"I see some good conversation has been happenin' since I left you all. At this point, I can see why the most of ya don't approve of liberation of Absalom, but I continue to put faith in it."
His mammoth pulls up to the table where the argu- I mean... negotiations have been taking place, and he kicks back, lighting a pipe of what smells like rose incense.
"I think that what I have proposed is a su'prisingly large task to ove'come. I propose that we instead sta't by making slavery illegal among the Pathfinde's, and hopefully, we can set a good example among the lowe' class who allegedly have slaves. If we can lead by example, the people of Absalom might not see slaves as a badge of status anymo'e."
He leans forward.
"I say we do this fi'st, and THEN try to illegilize slavery in Absalom as a city. Afte' all, it's much easie' to eat a whole cow when she's cut up into steaks."
"At the very least, we should prohibit the utilization of slaves while on Society business. We've seen how disruptive just the conversation has been, now imagine a group of Pathfinders who are losing their religion because things have gotten tough. Keep them out of harm's way by not allowing them on Society business, and the allure of having them will diminish, as well, I'm sure."
|
|
"At the very least, we should prohibit the utilization of slaves while on Society business. We've seen how disruptive just the conversation has been, now imagine a group of Pathfinders who are losing their religion because things have gotten tough. Keep them out of harm's way by not allowing them on Society business, and the allure of having them will diminish, as well, I'm sure."
Wait, you want to ban taking slaves out of the reach of the city guard, out of sight of witnesses and the system that keeps them oppressed into areas where there mere act of setting foot on free soil grants them their freedom? What for.
By all means, I wish every pathfinder slave owner would take their slaves out into the middle of nowhere...
"If you manumit someone who is in bondage by a member of the Society you are going against the core tenets of 'Explore, Report, Cooperate' and run the risk of removing yourself from Society ranks, protections, etc. Unless you're attempting to go down the Galtian slippery slope of freedom, of course."
Wei ponders for a moment, rubbing under his beak.
"Thought I was having was if someone has to pay all sorts of money for the upkeep -- required by most laws in lands that allow this horrific practice -- they get absolutely no benefit from that, it completely destroys any economic incentive to keep someone in chains, right?"
|
|
Given the choice between galt and cheliax?
Besides, we all know how harmful slave ownership is to character and soul of the slave owner. You're doing them a favor.
And if all else fails..." the crow takes a napkin out of his pocket with the words "field commission" scrawled into it and hands it to a halfling
"CAW! A pathfinder in bondage! Free them!"
"It's the difference between wanting a thing done right away and poorly, or done well over time. I suspect we could go around this wheel many times hitting various points but still missing the underlying crux." Wei pauses.
"I'd submit that we both agree the abominable practice needs to be gone. We just have different ideas on how to make that happen."
|
|
A horribly scarred Ekujae druid walks in, trailed by a massive boa constrictor. He rubs at several bite marks on his shoulder, stacked atop one another, and more than an unusual amount of them looking as though they came from a human. The man grimaces before looking at the two conversing Tengu.
"While I once had lofty goals of freedom coming about peacefully, I would be inclined to quote my elder in saying that I have since 'smartened up', and can only imagine myself making a world where oppressors simply cannot sleep peacefully knowing that more and more of the world turn against them."
Aldrid steps to a common house plant in the corner of the room and caresses it, leaving the touched stem with a dozen thorns that weren't there before.
"And I do mean the world itself."
Grunting in discomfort and once again clutching at one of his scars, Aldrid takes an armchair beside Ms. Pleiades.
|
|
Given the choice between galt and cheliax?
Besides, we all know how harmful slave ownership is to character and soul of the slave owner. You're doing them a favor.
And if all else fails..." the crow takes a napkin out of his pocket with the words "field commission" scrawled into it and hands it to a halfling
"CAW! A pathfinder in bondage! Free them!"
LOOK! It finally worked!