Plataforma

The north coast of the Inland Sea is sometimes called the Deshan. It holds a multitude of little kingdoms and city-states, all more or less influenced by the Realm. Aside from Cherak (which effectively is part of the Realm), the largest and richest of these provinces are four satrapies of the Realm—though they remain small and poor compared to most prefectures on the Blessed Isle. Dynastic families own

two of these satrapies, a coalition of patrician families owns a third, and the Thousand Scales owns the fourth. And, “owns” is the correct word—not “administers,” “exploits” or even “rules”—for virtually everyone in these four satrapies is a slave. In the four Deshan satrapies, slaves even own other slaves… but a tiny class of people from the Realm owns them all. Although they cover only small portions of the Deshan, they give the region its other name among Realm inhabitants: the Slave Coast.

The Realm values the Deshan satrapies quite highly. They are not the richest of the Realm’s possessions in the Threshold. They do not produce the jade of Harborhead or the silk of An-Teng, while the little province of the Lap surpasses the agricultural output of all four satrapies put together. Nevertheless, the Deshan’s vegetables, grain and meat help to feed the Realm and keep food prices low, and the Realm will not give them up lightly. The Realm might not have much choice, though, for all four satrapies currently move toward rebellion.

HISTORY

The Deshan satrapies’ unusual form of government be- gan about 300 years ago, in the aftermath of the Unbroken Rushes Rebellion. A director of the All-Seeing Eye, working with three senior officials of the Thousand Scales, devised a radical plan. To prevent future disturbances, these officials recommended enslaving virtually the entire population of the Realm and making them all property of the Great Houses and the patricians.

The Scarlet Empress thought the idea might work, but she also saw the difficulties of controlling such a great number of slaves. In fact, she thought it likely that enslav- ing the Realm’s entire population overnight would bring a rebellion that would dwarf every previous revolt. To test this idea and to avoid worrying the Blessed Isle’s inhabitants that they might soon become slaves, the Empress ordered the ministers to implement their plan in four newly pacified Northern provinces.

The experiment did not occur peacefully. Three of the four capitals of the coastal satrapies rose up in rebellion against the enslavement decrees, as did a substantial portion of the rural population. The military campaign to suppress the revolt, known as the Enslavement War, lasted for almost 25 years. The conflict ended only when the Scarlet Empire’s overseers found that they could pacify the populace through drugs.

The Thousand Scales and many of the Realm’s generals deemed the campaign a success. The slave system continues there to this day. Yet, the Scarlet Empress considered the magnitude of the revolts that could erupt on the Blessed Isle if she tried to import the system. She also recognized that, while the Deshan satrapies became docile, they never would reach their full potential for profit. The Empress understood that even the most well-fed and seemingly contented slaves do not excel as much in commerce and invention as the free— especially when the slaves must live on the edge of stupor or the edge of withdrawal. A few patricians still wish they could rule entire provinces of slaves, but most of the Realm’s political and economic theorists think the Deshan experiment hasn’t gone terribly well. Even with omnipresent drugs and continued military occupation, slave revolts still occur regularly.

GEOGRAPHY

The four satrapies are scattered across the length of the Deshan, with sizeable gaps between them. No province ex- tends more than 200 miles along the coast. A cadet branch of House Ledaal owns the westernmost satrapy, Dehenna. The satrapy lodges between the Dehennen Mountains and the Inland Sea. It leads the satrapies in mining. East of Dehenna lies Inahjal, ruled by the Ambrim, Jesk and Therusa families— the descendants of the three Thousand Scales officials who implemented the enslavement plan and received Inahjal as

a reward. Immediately east of Wallport, the satrapy of Serrat functions under the direct administration of the Thousand Scales but also has strong loyalty to House Ragara. House Peleps owns and rules Amber River, the largest and most prosperous of the four states, not far from Cherak.

Huge commercial farms called latifundiae cover most of the four satrapies. A latifundia has a population ranging between 300 and 3,000. Each province also has a capital city that shares its name, with a population of 60,000 to 100,000, and one to three lesser cities with populations of 10,000 to 30,000. There are no towns, villages or small farms, for the provincial overlords fear that rebellious slaves could too easily overwhelm such settlements.

NATIONSOF SLAVES

Although hundreds of miles separate the Deshan provinces, all four resemble each other a great deal. In each satrapy, only a few thousand inhabitants are free. Within their number, a few dozen free and exceptionally wealthy citizens—mostly Realm patricians, with a few Dynasts and Dragon-Blooded “lost eggs” from the North—own the rest of the population. Slaves work the fields of the latifundiae. More than that, though, all the scribes and clerks, merchants, artisans and managers are slaves too. A single Dynast or patrician might own an entire town, from the wealthiest merchant to the lowliest kitchen cleaner.

In these lands, slaves can own other slaves. A Dynast or patrician can own thousands of agricultural slaves directly, as well as latifundia managers, senior merchants and artisans. In turn, the shopkeepers and artisans own their apprentices, assistants and servants, while estate managers own their over- seers. Apart from the agricultural slaves, the higher a slave’s status is, the fewer owners he has. In the provincial cities, skilled and educated slaves are generally owned directly. In contrast, the poorest and least skilled servants might have three or even four owners. For instance, a kitchen slave might belong to an apprentice clerk in a business, who belongs to a senior accountant, who belongs to a merchant factor, who is owned directly by a Dynast or patrician overlord.

In some ways, universal slavery makes management of the satrapies exceptionally simple because the actual citizenry numbers just a few thousand. The Realm’s satrap rules directly, rather than through a native figurehead. She governs the free populace. The slaves merely obey orders. A slave can request things of his master but has no rights and no power at all.

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ATRAPS

The four provinces are also unusual in that the Empress pledged the post of satrap to particular groups. The satrap of Dehenna always comes from the Pechenga household of the Great House of Ledaal. That lineage owns Dehenna. House Peleps owns Amber River, and while it does not get to choose the satraps, the Empress would appoint a satrap only from that House. Inahjal has a collective satrapy, a

triumvirate representing the Ambrim, Jesk and Therusa families descended from the three ministers. No triumvir serves for more than 10 years, though, so no family has a chance to dominate through the longevity of a Dragon- Blooded representative. The Empress gave the Thousand Scales the privilege of appointing its own satrap to Serrat… except the political infighting among the various bureau chiefs meant they always needed her to break their deadlocks when choosing one.

A DRUGGED POPULACE

Legally defining everyone as property does not itself suffice to render hundreds of thousands of people powerless. The “Deshan System” would not function without the fact that opium and marijuana can grow in the coastal North. The quality is not high, but the consumers do not care. The provinces also pay the Guild to import prodigious quantities of qat, cocaine and other drugs.

In the hundreds of latifundiae, the landowners (or more likely, their slave estate managers) issue the field hands a daily ration of opium. The slave-owners also reward especially diligent slaves with cocaine, hashish or qat.

The Slave Coast overlords see the problems caused by drug use on such a massive scale. Scholars associated with the Thousand Scales calculate that agricultural production would rise significantly if the labor force were not drugged. Yet, they also calculate that slave revolts would counter any profits from removing the drugs. As it stands, most of the slaves become docile laborers who eagerly await their daily drug ration and work to earn extra intoxicants. Slave revolts still occur, but they rarely spread beyond a single latifundia or a single district of a city. Most of the slaves are simply too apathetic to pick up arms against their masters. Most of the field hands and urban laborers happily spend their meager free time in a drug-induced stupor. Few have the energy or desire to plot against their masters. At least, that’s what the owners hope.

Of course, owners can also discipline their slaves through their control of the drug supply. If productivity drops, they end the drug ration and let withdrawal provide the incentive to work harder. Cutting the drug supply doesn’t always end a slave revolt, but the owners know where the slaves will go: to the warehouses filled with crates of the drugs they crave.

The aspect of the Deshan System the Realm’s lead- ers most dislike, indeed, is the influence it confers on the Guild. In return for not contesting the Realm’s control of what drugs it permits on the Blessed Isle, House Cynis and House Peleps both granted the Guild a monopoly on foreign drug supplies to the Slave Coast. The two Dynastic Houses make certain that the Deshan overlords do not buy their drugs from anyone else.

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GRICULTURAL

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LAVESAND

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RBAN

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ABOR

Every morning, half-drugged slaves shuffle out of dor- mitories that are locked and guarded at night. These slaves

spend their days growing barley, rye, oats, potatoes, cabbages, turnips and other cold-tolerant grains and vegetables for the Realm. They also tend chickens, goats, pigs, sheep and cattle. If they produce too little, their own rations of food and drugs suffer. Most slaves fear losing the drugs more than they fear losing a meal.

The cities of Dehenna, Amber River, Inahjal and Serrat hold thousands of unskilled workers whose lives are nearly as hard as that of a field hand. They dig, carry, load and unload, sweep, pump bellows and do all the other dull, hard work needed to maintain a city. They, too, receive drug rations as long as they work hard enough. Dehenna also sends thousands of slaves to toil in its mines for iron, copper, gold and marble.

About eight in 10 of the Deshan slaves do hard, unskilled labor in the firms, mines and cities. Another one in 10 are guards and overseers who keep them in line. The remaining tenth do everything else.

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LAVES

Overseers and administrators keep an eye out for young slaves who seem cleverer than the rest. They train these slaves for skilled work in the cities or as personal servants. Most house slaves and urban slaves descend from other slaves who work in these positions, but a steady trickle of Deshanites leaves the fields for less strenuous labor. Conversely, if a young slave proves too dull or disobedient, his masters force-feed him opium until he becomes both addicted and docile. Then, out to the fields he goes.

Personal servants such as cooks or valets, as well as slaves who work skilled jobs—scribes, physicians, potters and the other occupations found in every town—cannot do their jobs in an opium stupor. Instead, they receive other rewards and privileges. They can own slaves and property. They can earn money. They can even become wealthy.

Yet, they are not in any way free. They must still petition their masters to change jobs or cities, just as they must give a portion of all monies they make to their masters. For no reason, their master can order them to a new city or a new job—or permanently maim them.

When they have the chance, some of these comparatively privileged slaves drug themselves as heavily as the lowliest agricultural thrall. Others take out their fear and frustration on the flesh of their own slaves. A well known maxim of the Slave Coast is that having a master who is free is always better than a master who is a slave, because a master who is free does not try to prove she is better than her slaves; she simply knows this is true.

A SEMBLANCEOF LAW

Dynasts, soldiers and other émigrés to the Deshan sa- trapies officially live under Realm law. In practice, they can do whatever they want as long as agricultural quotas are met and no other residents of the Realm suffer harm. Meanwhile, slaves are all property. Even wealthy slaves who own a dozen or more slaves have few rights.

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RIMES

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LAVES

The provincial overlords do not much care what happens between slaves. When two slaves quarrel and neither slave owns the other, the only question is whether either one of them caused significant property damage. If they didn’t, the masters let them work it out themselves. If they did, then it becomes a matter for their owners to work out—one master paying the other for the destruction of her property. The slave who caused the damage is flogged at the very least. Killing another slave, except in obvious self-defense, counts as property destruction.

Since slaves have no real property of their own, theft from a slave is theft from his owner, and receives as much attention as that owner cares to bestow. A Dynast doesn’t care if one clerk steals another clerk’s life savings. There is no real system of slave courts, since slaves lack the freedom and the free time to create anything like this. Instead, there are slaves whom other slaves go to as mediators, but none of their rulings carry any force of law.

Of course, a slave can go to his owner and ask for her help. Yet, “going to master” for anything less than grand theft, rape or major assault earns the hatred and contempt of the other slaves. Slaves cannot protect their friends against abuse by their owner, or any free citizen, but they beat other slaves. A slave who wrongs someone with especially skilled and loyal friends might vanish entirely, with the other slaves planting evidence that the offender escaped.

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Owners can do nearly anything to their slaves, short of killing them. Anything a slave owns, her master can take. An owner can beat his slaves at will. Owners must petition their satrap for permission to execute slaves in the higher grades without cause, however. A consistent pattern of disobedience, openly talking about rebellion and any sort of violence against a slave owner or overseer all provide grounds for execution without appeal—and if a free owner says that a dead slave committed such offenses, the satrap probably won’t bother to investigate.

The knottiest problems arise between free folk and slaves they do not own. While killing, crippling or seri- ously injuring another citizen’s slave is a crime, stealing from a slave or roughing one up only becomes a crime if a free owner complains to the satrap. As a result, slaves often suffer minor beatings, petty theft and rape from free folk.

Many assaults upon slaves come from the local legion- naires. Soldiers often see wealthy slaves who have far more than they do, and they see the possibility of stealing some of that wealth with little fear of punishment. A slave has the right to defend himself against a free citizen who tries to kill him, but not to inflict any harm in return. If a slave kills or seriously injures any free citizen—no matter what the provocation—then the satrap orders the slave to be maimed if not executed. After all, letting a slave get away with

harming a member of the ruling and owning class would set a bad precedent. It might give other slaves ideas…

RAW FORCE

The Deshan overlords do not rely only on drugs to keep their slave nations in line. The Eighth Legion of the Scarlet Empire garrisons all four provinces. Each satrap can call on at least one dragon of troops in the province’s capital city, while each latifundia hosts at least one scale of troops. These well-armed and well-trained soldiers prevent most slaves from open revolt through their mere presence. On seasonal holidays, the local troops assemble and parade through the streets to reassure the masters and to intimidate the slaves.

Every city also has a native militia of slave-soldiers, called mamluks. The mamluks do not receive the high-quality arms and training of Realm legionnaires. They train to massacre rioters, not to fight battles against other soldiers. When a slave state faces attack from outside its borders, though, the Eighth drafts the mamluks as arrow fodder to throw at the enemy while the legionnaires maneuver to strike a decisive blow. Satraps also find the mamluks useful when they want to stun enemies through horrors, such as by impaling everyone in a village, right down to the children. Given the right doses of the right drugs, mamluks will commit any atrocity—and enjoy it.

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ACKALS

Specially trained slave hunters, colloquially called jackals, help keep slaves in line. Of all the slaves in the Deshan, the jackals hold the highest rank. They are also the most hated people in the satrapies. They take the job in full knowledge that every other slave would kill them if they had the chance.

They are also the only slaves who can legally earn their freedom. (Masters can free any slaves they choose, but no law obligates them to do so no matter what a slave’s achieve- ments.) Slave hunters earn their freedom after they work at the job for at least 15 years and capture a sufficient number of slaves. While a handful of slave hunters occasionally let a small number of slaves who touch their hearts go free, most jackals are grim, merciless and indeed sadistic pursuers. Jackals readily track escaped slaves to the ends of Creation, in the knowledge that the more slaves they capture, the sooner they go free.

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MMACULATE

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The Wyld Hunt remains strong in the four slave prov- inces. Immaculate leaders fear that a slave will draw a foul Second Breath as one of the Anathema, or that one of the

In document MODELO DE PLAN DE SEGURIDAD Y SALUD (página 116-121)