Dwarven Slaves? Unlikely!

[In Dreams]

So I read some demographic on these boards recently that said the majority of dwarves in Allanak (also maybe Tuluk too?) were slaves.

This immediately made no sense to me, at least based on the documentation that I read. Why? Because dwarves, with their narrow-minded foci, seem like they would be the absolute worst slaves imaginable unless you happened to find one whose focus centered upon doing what you wanted them to do. Then of course they'd be the perfect slaves! But with all the possible objects of dwarven attention in the world, how rare would this really be? Out of every fifty I would guess you might find a dwarf with a useful focus. Like, if you wanted a sculptor and this dwarf was focused on creating the perfect sculpture.

But even then, what if this dwarf really wanted to make the perfect sculpture of... an elf juggling baby mekillots? All of her sculptures would somehow, some way probably have an elven or baby-mekillot slant because at the very least they'd be subtly taking the opportunity to practice. She'd be sneaking away in the night to stare at mekillots or elves and capture their every movement, curve and feature. Anything not related to elves and mekillots would probably come off subpar except in small, elf-or-baby-mekillot-related details.

This is just one example. Dwarves might make fine labor slaves, with their muscle and short stature, but how many of them are really going to have manual-labor-related foci? Very, very, very few. Most would RELENTLESSLY scheme to escape or find some way to achieve their own ends. Dwarves would be terrible slaves and I disagree with that demographic number in particular, because no one in their right mind would want any but the most select and rare dwarven slave. Even then, I would bet that it would often go terribly wrong.

[LauraMars]

The act of having a focus is an inborn genetic trait, but the choosing of a focus is something a dwarf has control over. Logically then, dwarven slaves can be conditioned from birth to accept foci that are useful for their masters. (Which would make them very good slaves indeed.)

[manipura]

I've often thought the same thing.

It seems though that they tend to have a focus that is something along the lines of "be the most badass fighting dorf in the Known!" (PCs) or "run a shop in the city where I never really have coins to buy anything!" (NPCs).

Slavery does seem like it's a stretch, as most would be protesting the whole time.

[Patuk]

So I read some demographic on these boards recently that said the majority of dwarves in Allanak (also maybe Tuluk too?) were slaves.

This immediately made no sense to me, at least based on the documentation that I read. Why? Because dwarves, with their narrow-minded foci, seem like they would be the absolute worst slaves imaginable unless you happened to find one whose focus centered upon doing what you wanted them to do. Then of course they'd be the perfect slaves! But with all the possible objects of dwarven attention in the world, how rare would this really be? Out of every fifty I would guess you might find a dwarf with a useful focus. Like, if you wanted a sculptor and this dwarf was focused on creating the perfect sculpture.

But even then, what if this dwarf really wanted to make the perfect sculpture of... an elf juggling baby mekillots? All of her sculptures would somehow, some way probably have an elven or baby-mekillot slant because at the very least they'd be subtly taking the opportunity to practice. She'd be sneaking away in the night to stare at mekillots or elves and capture their every movement, curve and feature. Anything not related to elves and mekillots would probably come off subpar except in small, elf-or-baby-mekillot-related details.

This is just one example. Dwarves might make fine labor slaves, with their muscle and short stature, but how many of them are really going to have manual-labor-related foci? Very, very, very few. Most would RELENTLESSLY scheme to escape or find some way to achieve their own ends. Dwarves would be terrible slaves and I disagree with that demographic number in particular, because no one in their right mind would want any but the most select and rare dwarven slave. Even then, I would bet that it would often go terribly wrong.

Mm. I can see where you're coming from, but I think a strong case for this situation making sense does exist.

It's not just the boards, it comes from staff. Dwarves being mostly slaves is very much a part of Zalanthas, so this definetly isn't something the gdb just came up with once.

Moving on from there, you can start to consider how it makes sense that dwarves are mostly slaves. I'm not sure this is ever elaborated upon, but I imagine it goes something like this:

Urist the dwarf is born with Borsail. Borsail makes sure not to treat Urist completely terribly. Borsail has Urist fed with actual meat and ale on days the kid does physical work. Borsail makes sure to treat him very harshly if/when he ever shows an inclination to do anything else. Since Borsail has been at this for some centuries, it knows dwarves very well: if Urist appears to have a 'find freedom' focus, Borsail kills Urist. The PC population is immense, but there aren't very many dwarves, so presumably the latter happens a lot. Once Urist is twenty years of age or so and Borsail feels confident he is a docile dwarf, Borsail employs him on real work or sells him off to a willing buyer. When Urist gets a kid, or any other slave dwarf in Allanak does, Borsail might even buy them from the owner: a dwarf child is trouble waiting to happen, where for Borsail they mean revenue.

You're probably correct to say that dwarves who are enslaved while already adults probably make bad slaves, but this is only a minority of dwarves we're talking about. Most are born into slavehood, and I assume that Borsail knows what it is doing very, very well.

[Miradus]

That's some fair points.

Depends on what your definition of a slave is.

There's the "put em in the mines and beat them daily" slave, and I imagine dwarves suck at that. You hit a stump with a whip you're going to get the stump stare.

But a lot of people in the western world are slaves and they don't even know it.

40 hours a week, here's your pay which will just about keep you alive and buy a few frills. Just enough to get you back at your desk on Monday morning.

[Armaddict]

You're probably correct to say that dwarves who are enslaved while already adults probably make bad slaves, but this is only a minority of dwarves we're talking about. Most are born into slavehood, and I assume that Borsail knows what it is doing very, very well.

Pretty much exactly as I was going to say.  Dwarven slavery and how -awesome- it works out was also a little more visible when players of dwarves could opt to be slaves (i.e. Put it in background, enter game, find noble/templar, ooc 'I designed this character as a slave, wanna play it out?').  Dwarven slaves are some dedicated servants, who could serve the same noble for decades and become the single most trustworthy person in the world to a human aristocrat; he knew that this brawny little man was unquestionably his.

[Marauder Moe]

A dwarf's focus does not come at random.  It comes from what they know in life, and from their previous focus.  A dwarf who knows a life of nothing but servitude will probably have a focus related to service.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

A dwarf's focus does not come at random.  It comes from what they know in life, and from their previous focus.  A dwarf who knows a life of nothing but servitude will probably have a focus related to service.

Gospel.

[bcw81]

With how many dwarven foci are 'Be the best warrior', you'd imagine a lot of houses would use them as slave guards.

Now being non-sarcastic, basically what Laura and Moe said. Dwarven foci can be shaped from an early age, they aren't -born- wanting to be the best sculptor, they're born with a desire to come up with something to focus on - and if they're presented with only that one thing that their owner wants them to focus on, their focus will be that.

[Reiloth]

I don't think it's that linear, though to a non-dwarf, it may appear to be that linear.

I think one dwarf born into slavery may accept and use their slavery to drive a focus to destroy their slavers.

Another dwarf might be born into slavery and become obsessed with the way manacles are made, and decide they want to destroy all manacles in order to replace them with their own.

Yet another might find that slavery is their focus. Or that by pleasing their master, they might achieve their focus of being loved by all humans.

The dwarven mind is a bizarre one, alien in comparison to the human mind, and i've found that it is subjective and also completely non-predictive. Dwarves have propensities when they are born and apply what they are good at to the situation that is presented to them -- This, to me, is what brings a Focus into being, and what also makes them possible to achieve (to a dwarf mind, at least), and replaceable (when achieved or the perception of achievement is present).

For example -- A Human might be born with a preternatural ability to play an instrument. Exposing them to musical training shows that they succeed at a much greater rate than another child who has the same musical 'drive', but no natural talent.

This 'natural talent' in a Dwarf (IMHO) shapes their focus. So two dwarves are not alike, and their foci will not be exactly the same, even given the same environmental conditions.

[In Dreams]

Some good perspectives here! Thank you for sharing them! That said, I'm... still mostly skeptical.

At a minimum I would think dwarves could be incredibly costly prospects when their foci doesn't go how it might've been planned because they can't really be deterred from it, and I honestly can't imagine these occurrences would be uncommon.

Dwarves just don't strike me to be very suggestible. No matter what method you use, there are regular people in real life that are really just that stubborn. The documentation, at least to me, suggests that dwarves are much moreso.

[Synthesis]

I'd argue that a dwarf's choice of focus isn't so much a choice as it is a random selection from among a constellation of available inputs and outlets in the young dwarf's environment.

So if a dwarf is born into slavery, its focus 9 times out of 10 is going to be something that is both informed by and constrained by the context of being a slave.  In other words, dwarf slave foci are USUALLY going to be either maintenance foci related to their work, or achievement foci that will rarely be predicated on escape.

[In Dreams]

I'd respectfully disagree. Look at the sample foci:

Examples of a Good Focus:
Eliminate all slaving Houses from the Known World
Create a mercenary guild more powerful than the T'zai Byn
Kill one of every animal species in the Known World
Become completely fluent in sirihish, allundean, cavilish, bendune, and tatlum.
Make a million 'sids.
Become the most famous bard in the world.
Become the most infamous raider in the world.
Become the personal chef of your city-state's sorceror-king.
Turn the Labyrinth into a safe place.
Establish your own Merchant House.
Learn the true history of the world.
Establish your own Bardic Circle.
Learn to predict the weather.
Become a noble.
Kill a templar.
Seduce a templar.
Build a dwarven tribe.
Build a dwarven village.
Become a dwarven sorceror-king and found a dwarven city-state.
Design and manufacture the most sought after ___ in the known world.
Perfect the art of lovemaking.
Parent the perfect dwarf.
Figure out how to breed muls that aren't sterile.
Become recognized as the world's greatest Kruth player.
Collect one of every gemstone in existence.
Become an honorary member of a desert elf tribe.
Make magick legal in Tuluk.
Make spice legal in Allanak.
Conquer Luir's Outpost.
Do your part to populate the world with dwarves by having 20 children.
Insult everyone in the Known World, individually and in person.

Most of these are very much beyond the realm of realistic possibility. I'd say they aren't so constrained by their environment or realistic achievement at all.

[Armaddict]

Most of these are very much beyond the realm of realistic possibility. I'd say they aren't so constrained by their environment or realistic achievement at all.

I think those are more geared towards playing an interesting dwarf character than one of the virtuals, and is also an outline of good examples of specificity and a strong thing to orient themselves towards more than saying those are commonplace goals of the dwarven populace.

[a french mans shirt]

I've actually heard that dwarves really were conditioned to chose goals which were beneficial to their particular slave work. Maybe not conditioned; maybe the culture of that era, or dwarf psychology in general; their choosing to make the most beautiful jewelry in the world, when they are a slave jeweler, should make as much sense to us as choosing a technology degree in order to get into game design. I think.

My theory is that dwarves make good slaves in the same way that elves do not; its just the way their minds work which allow them to continue doing that day by day, and it would be all too logical for them to choose a focus based on what they do every day, or for whom they do it.

If ALL dwarves were slaves back then then it makes much more sense. The life of a free mul is hard. The life of a free dwarf back then should have been just as hard, perhaps harder depending on whether there were 'dwarf-safe' settlements they could bed down in. What dwarf would want to be free, in that case? I would think most of them would choose slavery-compatible foci.

[Akaramu]

Perfect the art of lovemaking.

Haha! Maybe that's why there was a time (don't know about now) where so many male stumps hit on human women. Not enough she-dorfs around.

[Patuk]

Remember, there aren't very many dwarves at all. If a dwarf gets as focus which doesn't relate to being a good slave at all, Borsail can just as easily kill them, which may contribute to there not being many dwarves. These people have had some centuries to get good at what they do, and they'll know a rebellious dwarf when they see one.

[Lutagar]

Playing a dwarf with the focus of "keep all the floors in the borsail estate clean" or "dig more clay than any other living person" isn't going to be very fun.

I'd pitch that PC dorfs tend to have much (MUCH) more grandiose focus than their NPC counterparts because fun.

[Raptor_Dan]

Being a slave is NOT a negative in Zalanthas. If you're a slave, you have a multitude of things going for you.

A group of people you belong to.
Daily food, water, and shelter.
Constant help in achieving your goals (not focus, necessarily).
Training and protection.
Powerful people who value you more than Commoners are ever valued.

Anti-slavery is a very modern, RL concept. There is a Sorcerer-King who can turn into a Dragon and peer into your dreams, and sink cities into the sand. When little dwarf toddlers express the interest to form an underground railroad to 'save' other dwarfs or even themselves from all these 'horrible benefits' of being valuable property, even the other dwarves grunt and say "whafuck, mate, are ya daft?"

If a common person's desire is to survive, slaves have it made. If a common person's desire it to eat, slaves have it made. If a common person's desire is to procreate and watch their children grow up, slaves have it made.



Omg, please open slaves back up.

[Miradus]

Being a slave is NOT a negative in Zalanthas. If you're a slave, you have a multitude of things going for you.
...
Anti-slavery is a very modern, RL concept. There is a Sorcerer-King who can turn into a Dragon and peer into your dreams, and sink cities into the sand. When little dwarf toddlers express the interest to form an underground railroad to 'save' other dwarfs or even themselves from all these 'horrible benefits' of being valuable property, even the other dwarves grunt and say "whafuck, mate, are ya daft?"

Have you ever read or listened to the Slave Narratives? Around the turn of the 20th century, the Library of Congress sponsored a project to send people out to record and document the life experiences of former slaves, knowing that they were dying off and that those memories would be lost forever.

It was extremely eye opening to me. In school in America, we're taught that slaves picked cotton, lived in squalor, and were beaten for the slightest transgression. But the reality was that there were many levels of slavery. There were even riverboat captains who were slaves but yet handled the boat, made money for their owner, and carried firearms. A lot of slaves were craftsmen and while you can beat a man to pick more cotton, you can't beat a man to make a better shoe and you certainly should not beat your cook or your child's nanny.

One particular narrative that comes to mind was a married slave couple. The husband belonged to one owner and the wife belonged to another. They lived on different estates down the road from each other. When the husband learned of the proclamation that set all slaves free, he ran down the road to his wife and announced that they were free.

She angrily asked, "Free to do what? STARVE?"

[Rathustra]

Dwarves make excellent slaves and the slaving houses that breed dwarven slaves are excellent at what they do.

People are correct in pointing out that dwarven foci are not random and dwarves don't have a predisposition towards frivolous or whimsical foci - the long list of examples are just evocative examples for PC dwarves. Something to compete with the classic 'be the greatest warrior' focus.

A dwarf's focus is an intense interest and focus that emerges out of their natural day to day life. It isn't something they explicitly decide upon, but something their mind naturally zeroes in on and latches to. It is a /focus/ - something they are driven do pursue and experience entirely until satisfied and able to segue into their next obsession.

In the hands of well trained slave masters, this focus of mind and amazing endurance produces slaves that can work tirelessly and ceaselessly on projects that would break humans.

There's an NPC biography I've always loved as being the best example of a dwarf focus I've found in game. I've encountered great dwarf PCs over the years too of course, but I love this biography because it's so simple and straight-forward:

This is a generic dwarf laborer, he works for the ministry of the city
His focus is to take part in a great construction.  He is no architect
but longs to be part of some grand venture.  He willingly takes part
in any building project the city forces upon him, and strives to make
himself invaluable in knowledge of the stone.  He will partake of the
lowliest of jobs, just to be on the site.

[Jingo]

We do at least have one dwarf whose focus was to be free. And then to free all the slaves.

So sometimes maybe it all just goes horribly wrong?

[Kalden]

If nothing else, this does seem like a weakness in how the world is presented. The help article on dwarf says nothing about a pattern of slavery, nor does the help article on dwarven roleplay. I don't know much about the original Dark Sun world.

Where are these demographics published officially?

[bardlyone]

If nothing else, this does seem like a weakness in how the world is presented. The help article on dwarf says nothing about a pattern of slavery, nor does the help article on dwarven roleplay. I don't know much about the original Dark Sun world.

Where are these demographics published officially?

Since its in 'Ask the Staff' I can't link/quote like with other forums. Post is here: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,38969.msg535915.html#msg535915

Allanak (481,880)
310,000 humans (50% are slaves) (150,000 free) (64.3% of total)
150,000 elves (10% are slaves) (135,500 free) (31.1% of total)
7,500 dwarves (65% are slaves) (2,600 free) (1.8% of total)
3,800 half-giants (20% are slaves) (3,150 free) (0.8% of total)
5,800 half-elves (40% are slaves) (3,400 free) (1.3% of total)
1980 muls (99% are slaves) (18 free) (0.4% of total)
2,800 unknown/other/mutant (40% are slaves) (1,400 free) (~0.6% of total)

[Raptor_Dan]

Given the above, (which I was too lazy to find, kudos Bardlyone), I'm not sure the race docs should mention anything about slavery. There are no more PC slaves, and slavery is a condition every race deals with.