For some significant portion of your life, you have been someone else's property. This part of your life happened either by abduction, as punishment for a crime, sworn to a debt of life, or you were born into it. How did you become a slave? Are you a slave or a freeman? Who was your master and where are they? What were the conditions of your slavery? What did you do as a slave? Were you treated well, or were you abused? How much privilege or freedom did you experience, and was this granted to you, or taken by you? How would you treat your master after your servitude? Can you ever really leave your background behind you? Do you really even need to escape, or will you remain a slave for the rest of your journey? Do you have the willpower to create slavery-free actions, or has your background tainted your history and the actions that you can take later in your career? What would you do with your slaves?
- Skill Proficiencies: You where either a slave expected to been seen and not heard or a one expected to be unseen and productive. Choose from either Stealth or Performance. In either case you had to learn to read your master(s) intentions. You gain proficiency with Insight.
- Tool Proficiencies: You master(s) insisted you be skilled in at least one trade or musical instrument, Choose one of the following to what you where taught.
- Equipment: You have only access some basic necessities that you gather during or shortly after your escape.
A slave is set to a task by their master for a reason– their purpose for even being alive.
| d8 | Purpose |
|---|---|
| 1 | I existed to do hard labor, such as mining or construction. |
| 2 | I existed for someone else's amusement, entertainment, or recreation. |
| 3 | I existed to serve some dedicated menial task, such as cooking or cleaning. |
| 4 | I existed as the personal servant of a given person, family, or group. |
| 5 | I existed to fulfill the tasks of some professional assistant, such as a furnace operator for a smithy. |
| 6 | I existed to serve the function of an inanimate object, such as a signpost or furniture, or to operate such things, like opening and closing a specific door all day long. |
| 7 | I existed to fight and die in the place of someone else, as a soldier or bodyguard. |
| 8 | I existed to serve all, as an untouchable– a slave to even other slaves. |
Years toiling through agony and ill-health have granted you the endurance to survive a surprising amount of physical hardship and indignity. You have advantage on Survival checks when gathering food, and can gain the benefits of a full rest from only four hours of sleep.
Suggested Characteristics
Slaves belong to their masters and cannot openly make the decisions that they want to, their destiny is defined by the wills of their masters. You may be a "star" slave and actually make a statement to your master, or your life may be nothing more than serving a pointless end. If you are an unlucky slave, then your life will be for nothing more than fighting a lost campaign or treating a person with no power as an exemplar. If you are a lucky slave then maybe you can see escape without slaughter, or even talk to your clients and perform some subterfuge. Escaped slaves exist in an awkward situation where they are lost/stolen property which they are guilty of stealing/kidnapping themselves. Life as an escaped slave is extremely difficult, and hiding your past may require intuitively practicing skills you would normally never have learned as a slave.
A freeman is a person who was a slave but has been freed by legitimate means. Most freemen are actually convicts who were put to slave labor in a work prison as their punishment. Alternatively, some slaves escape via criminal means and become legitimate exiles in another land, where their former status of slave is meaningless. Many freemen rise from old servile rebellions, or from counter-slavery laws passed by gentler rulers. A rare few are granted their freedom willingly by their masters. This is so extremely uncommon, most people don't even imagine it as an option. Freemen face almost as many challenges as escaped slaves, but have no reason to hide their past, aside from personal shame.
Being a slave actually makes things harder for you. It is an impediment to be overcome.
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