Choice of Rebels: Stormwright (XoR2 WIP)

That was many lifetimes ago now. A dominant social class is never going to agree to liquidating a massive amount of their wealth (even if it’s other people). The value of helots probably exceeds all other forms of personal property combined. You’d need to have a non-slave holding class in the elite to have a constituency to push for emancipation by reform. You’ll have to choose nobles or helots I think.

The most the nobles as a class woud go for would be converting the helots from chattels into serfs.

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i think you can even get better then serfdom but even serfdom will be missive improvement compared to being helot. especially if you push for abolishment of harrowing.

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What would you be giving the nobles that you think they’d willingly go along with this?

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it most likely will be mix of very different things. some will agree for moral reasons, some will agree because it will give sharayd better chance to fight against enemy , some will agree because of fear of helot uprising, some will be convinced by charismatic mc, some because clergy may start saying different things and at the end of day they wont be losing to much power and will be getting free from foreign occupation.

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Odd definition of consensual. The baby is not agreeing to this. I get what you mean but still.

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One option might be something along the lines of how the Old South handled it. “You’re free! Now get back to work!” That is, “freeing the helots” without any kind of land reform and thus forcing them to work as sharecroppers, charging them draconian fees for agricultural Theurgy and either making bankruptcy a capital crime, selling infants to the Harrower or Harrowing the refugees who’ll be pouring into Shayard to fuel the farms.

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You’re right “consensual” isn’t correct. I meant no one would choose to give up their child once there was sufficient food to feed them and the rest of the family

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Protection from and promotion along the helot and yeoman masses that by far all want to kill them, in my case, like when you recruit Bleys and edge the band into believing that he’s a repentant former servant to the Karagond who we will definitely need. It’s gonna be brutal and a lot of hardliners like Hector will never accept it but I’m fine with letting them die or languish in poverty and/or exile

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I mean, I’m sure there are some women who, if the money was right and the obsetrics were good enough, would make a profession out of fetus farming. I’m sure that’s a thing in Halassur already.

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What now?

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Ya you’re also right, guess I need to work on my Choice of Words :joy:

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I feel like serfdom WITH harrowing is just Helotry, except you can’t sell people between households I guess.

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How would other factions and our followers react to an Mc that defends the Karagond population from oppression after the fall of Aekos and during the famine?

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More importantly, what are you giving the helots that they’re gonna go along with “no dont worry you’re still property bc if we free you the rich people will be sad, but they pinky swear to treat you nicer!” Any Noble/Helot compromise is going to have to be predicated on both sides getting a worthwhile settlement, you can’t just put men who’ve freed themselves back into bondage and expect them to take it without issue.

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And one wonders why Alya doesn’t want to free the helots as a whole.

Of course, if she’s consistently maintaining her cred_h, she might be able to pull the “oppress them slightly less and be thanked for it” trick.

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Caroline only actively recruits yeomen.

My helot wouldn’t trust any noble as far as they could thrown them.

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If splitting up noble estates and giving the land to helots alienates a majority of the nobility, could we instead seize the land for the central government and allot it out to families to farm?

That way we aren’t directly giving noble land to helots and seem somewhat more palatable to moderate nobles. and it gives us greater control over the land with administrators/reeves that answer to the government instead of their own whims, reducing the amount of violence inflicted on the helots compared to just pulling a US reconstruction and putting people back into debt bondage.

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Doubtful that the nobles would accept their land being seized, plus there’s severe state capacity issues with replacing nobles with government administrators. It’s not impossible, but you’d likely just end up with new nobles, because you can’t maintain easy communication with your stewards.

Seizing the land of opposing nobles and distributing it to your side’s nobles’ younger children is obviously going to be quite palatable to the nobility, but selling it to the helotry will require some fast talking.

I mean, that proposal can already be made if you invent your own sacrament.

“To the nobles?”
“Vengeance – but to those who stood firm, the rule that is their birthright.”

Your cred_a eats that right up.

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Yeah join or die was going to be my opening proposal to the nobility. “You’re going to want to get in on this deal early. Early adopters get to keep most of their land and not get eaten by the poor.”

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Other factions in Shayard will make much better offers, so you will need to be very powerful for this to be tolerable

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