Vincent's Zamboula

[Supplement Four]

One problem I always had with the "Conan as a slave" plot that de Camp and other pastiche writers used is that no one in their right mind would enslave someone as strong and violent as Conan.

I can buy the he-was-taken-as-a-slave-when-he-was-young-and-that's-how-he-got-so-damn-tough-and-mean plot line seen in the Arnold movie and shadowed in some comics.

But, I was going to ask about this very point with regard to all Cimmerians. I mean, they're known as a tough, savage bunch, right? They hate the yoke of slavery.

Why is it then that Vanir slavers and Hyperborean slavers are always raiding into Cimmeria? From time-to-time, we hear about Border Kingdom slavers cross the border. And, then there's the Picts. I'm not so sure they're that interested in slaves as much as sacrifices for their devil gods.

But, still, wouldn't the slave hunting be easier accross different borders?

 

[Kev]

But, still, wouldn't the slave hunting be easier accross different borders?

Well, their options are kinda limited, yes? I mean, Vanaheim only borders on Asgard, Pictland and Cimmeria (oooh, wonderful choices there for potential slaves :lol: ); Asgard on Vanaheim and Hyperborea (same); Hyperborea on Asgard and Brythunia...sorta.

Maybe they're just hoping to grab 'em young so all they'll know is the life of a slave? Sure, it's a risky proposition raiding into Cimmeria (or Pictland for that matter) but where else're the slavers gonna go?

Just my opinion, of course.

 

[Supplement Four]

It seems like the Aesir would get the heck raided out of them, followed by those poor sops in the Border Kingdom. Picts would raid into Aquilonia for slaves and avoid the Cimmerians. Of course, maybe the Picts are too dumb to realize it.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Why is it then that Vanir slavers and Hyperborean slavers are always raiding into Cimmeria? From time-to-time, we hear about Border Kingdom slavers cross the border. And, then there's the Picts. I'm not so sure they're that interested in slaves as much as sacrifices for their devil gods.

They are after the women and children to take as slaves, not the men. Even in the Conan movie, they didn't enslave the adult males - they took the kids.

 

[tarkhan bey]

Thanks for the further input Vincent.I'm going to use MRQ2 for this so the levels are not so important. I also reckon that the Satrap's bodyguards would be around a hundred strong and be seasoned to veteran level with a veteran level Captain(Tarkhan Bey-would you ever believe it? )
I think I saw somewhere that they were unofficially known as the Khan's Thorns-can't remember where I read it though.
Criminals-good call. I reckon that a large number of galley slaves probably are criminals. I keep thinking of Spartacus(at least the Kubrick version) as a grown warrior when he was enslaved for the arena,though. I completely see the logic in your argument and there are half a hundred historical instances to back it.
I can still imagine instances where the surviving warriors of a defeated tribe might not be slaughtered out of hand.
Being old enough to remember a TV show called 'Roots' and having seen the movie 'Amistad', might even the Turanians see the value in large, muscular men to do the back breaking work?
Indentured servitude and transportation to the colonies was often meted out upon the various peoples of the UK, especially upon the Irish and the Scottish Highlanders. Captain Blood was sentenced to slavery in the West Indies for his part in the Monmouth Rebellion.Jeremy Thorpe(The Sea Hawk) was sentenced by the Inquisition to life as a galley slave. I realise that both are fictional characters but then we are also talking about a fictional milieu. As the saying goes,your game may differ.
It is a pity though, that you don't have a map of Zamboula. Mapmaking is not one of my strongpoints,perhaps I should apply for a job with Mongoose :wink: :lol:
I suppose the next thing would be to establish the types of goods and commerce that would come through Zamboula and how often. I reckon that some things are obvious.Slaves obviously travel up from the Black Kingdoms via Sukhmet. What else might?Spices, Ivory?
Apart from mercenaries, what else might travel back down the Road to Sukhmet? When Conan flees Zamboula at the end of Maneaters he heads west. Where exactly does that road go? I imagine that after some time it forks southwest to Stygia and northwest to the Meadow Cities of Shem. Which of the cities is most likely?
PS Vincent, thanks for your continuing input.
If anyone has any thoughts for persons , places or things that might be found in Zamboula, please post them.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Of course, Captain Blood was a doctor, not a warrior (one of my favourite movies of all time, of course) and even Capt. Thorpe was not a big hulking brute (and enslaving him really didn't work out for the slavers, id did it?)... and Africans were notoriously docile about being enslaved - it had been part of their culture for a long time.

Some cultures, however, just don't put up with it. Anyone who even puts up a token of resistance would be killed as being more trouble than they are worth.

 

[tarkhan bey]

Captain Blood is my all time favourite movie. My Zingaran Buccaneer captain (in Ronzo the Grim's Conan campaign) was based on Basil Rathbone as Levasseur. Have to say though, that having now seen the Solomon Kane movie, my character was not unlike the titular hero as an Elizabethan sea dog.
I accept your comment on Peter Blood being a doctor but I'm not sure that I can agree on your dismissal of Jeremy Thorpe. Errol Flynn was not a small man and not only was his character an excellent swordsman, he was a leader as well.

Spartacus still springs to mind as well. Would you concede that 'some' Darfari warrior males are transported to Aghrapur, destined for sale to the masters of Fighting Pits and arenas? Turanian officers and noblemen looking to make a load of gold out of their conquests for the King might save the best potential pit fighters and gladiators. They would, of course, be heavily manacled until sold.

I'm also working with the idea that Nafertari has exerted her influence upon the Satrap to the extent that the Stygian nobility have been allowed to retain small units of personal bodyguards. In exchange for being allowed to pursue their cannibalistic rites, unhindered,some act as slave guards(proto mamluks-the Pharaoh's guards from 'The Mummy'). They do not prey upon the Stygians(at least, not the noble ones) or the Turanians. There are quite a few of them now employed as slave bodyguards in the Noble District.
I think that I am implying that the high ranking Turanians and Stygians may be complicit in their activities as long as they, themselves, are not threatened.
What do you reckon?

 

[VincentDarlage]

I accept your comment on Peter Blood being a doctor but I'm not sure that I can agree on your dismissal of Jeremy Thorpe. Errol Flynn was not a small man and not only was his character an excellent swordsman, he was a leader as well.

Well, my point was, and still is, enslaving Jeremy Thorpe hardly worked out well for the villians. They would have been better off killing him in hindsight. That will almost always be the case with enslaving warriors. The slavers will wish they had just killed him.

Spartacus still springs to mind as well. Would you concede that 'some' Darfari warrior males are transported to Aghrapur, destined for sale to the masters of Fighting Pits and arenas?

Anything is possible, and as a psuedo-African culture, they may possibly be more accepting of enslavement than, say, Cimmerians or PCs (of any race).

Wasn't Spartacus a soldier in a Roman army who was condemned into slavery for some crime no one really recorded? I'll have to look him up, but I don't recall that he was a captured fighting-man, but a Roman auxiliary soldier. I think in the movie, he was already a slave and had to be trained as a gladiator. Either way, I don't think he was a captured warrior of an enemy.

I think most gladiators (who weren't former criminals) were trained to fight from non-fighting captives.

Turanian officers and noblemen looking to make a load of gold out of their conquests for the King might save the best potential pit fighters and gladiators. They would, of course, be heavily manacled until sold.

Sounds like the start of a bad situation for the Turanians. Eventually someone will make a mistake and... well, there will be a bunch of dead Turanians. Seriously, if I were a Turanian leader, my policy would be to NOT enslave anyone capable of resisting, especially if I have to transport them a long distance - too many things can go wrong and lead to my death at the now-escaped-and-pissed-off warrior. I think you will get more respect out of your players if you play your villians on the smart side.

Raise your slaves from childhood and train them to be big and powerful and fight in your gladiator games. Don't take existing adults who remember most of their life as free men.

Have you ever seen the HBO series, Rome? When Lucius Vorenus brings back slaves to Rome, you'll notice none of them are healthy adult males in their prime, but women and children (and possibly some elderly males). They didn't even try to enslave the Gaul chief, but simply imprisoned him and killed him later in a parade, completely bound so he had no chance. No enslavement for him, and no giving him a weapon and putting him in a gladiator fight.

 

[Spectator]

Vincent, you are right about Spartacus.
I think you also correct about the African condition.
Remember when the europeans went to africa to get slaves, they did not get off their boat and catch slaves, they used the coastal tribes to go inland and get the slaves for them. The Coastal tribes probably only brought back the most subdued blacks for slaves and presumbly would have have killed the rebellious ones, since they are always problematic.

The Roman condition was interesting, though, since they had a mechanism for dealing w/ uppity and rebellious slaves: it was the Gladitorial Arena.
Romans like their house slaves subdued, but they had the mechanism for their rebellious and weapon handy male slaves to be accomodated for a short time, in the Arena. Remember that Spartacus' 2nd in command was Crixus, a Gallic warrior.

I think Rome was the only culture to have needs for both subdued and rebellious slaves.

There's a lot of material in the Pastiches and movies about a "pitfighting" circuit that exists in the Thurian continent. Although not established and financed as a gladitorial Ludus, this could be a cause for societal needs of a few rebellious slaves.

 

[tarkhan bey]

Vincent, I am a little disappointed that you seem to be entrenched in this position of no male warrior prisoners under any circumstances.
I can totally see the logic in your arguments but it does grate a little that you don't seem to be able to accept that there are, quite often, exceptions to every rule.
To say with a broad sweep that enemy soldiers would never be enslaved is just not right. Try telling that to the British and Commonwealth POW's who died on the Burma railroad, the tens(if not hundreds) of thousands of Polish and Russian soldiers who were worked to death in labour camps by the Nazi's and possibly similar numbers of Germans who were worked to death as slaves in Stalin's Gulags.
Regarding Spartacus. I am fairly sure that that(at least in the movie) he was a Thracian POW sentenced to hard labour in a quarry and sent to the arena after killing a guard. I admit that I may be a little hazy on that one.I'm pretty certain that there is also conflicting evidence as to his actual historical origins.
Please accept my apologies if I have missed the part where you say that there are sometimes exceptions but it seems to me that you are simply saying to me to that a group of gold hungry Turanians(blinded by greed to the risks of their actions) could not happen.
I have been roleplaying for somewhere in the region of twenty five years and an avid fan of Howard for at least ten years more. I would not profess to have even an iota of the knowledge that you and Darkstorm have about the setting. If Howard wrote about it, I am fairly certain that you know it.This is one of the reasons that I occasionally ask for your opinion, I value it.
You are,however, the first person ever to berate me about how I play my villains. :shock: Not all villains are masterminds. Some are just the biggest guy with the biggest sword. A greedy bully with a lust for gold would actually make a refreshing change sometimes.
My guys have been playing as a group for nearly a decade, one of them for considerably longer. You clearly haven't met them if you think that I will ever get any respect out of them. :roll:

 

[kintire]

Spatacus' origins are not entirely clear. He was Thracian, but all other information is coloured by the fact that the histories are by Roman writers who were making one political point or another. He may have been descended from the Spartakid kings of Thrace (or just named after them), he may have been of the maedi tribe, and he may have been a Roman Auxiliary at some point in his career (or the Romans may have wished to believe that only someone they trained could defy them so effectively). he seems to have been captured fighting the Romans during their expeditions into Thrace in 85 and 76 BC.

The Romans, like several other cultures, took adult males as slaves extensively to labour, but most of these would not have been of the warrior elites. They did capture warriors for the arena.

Also bear in mind that "Slavery" is the blanket term for a large number of different systems. Not all cultures treated their slaves like the US south. Many used slaves to do exactly what they had been doing before, including going into battle, and in some cases "being enslaved" meant little more than "changing employers".

 

[VincentDarlage]

Vincent, I am a little disappointed that you seem to be entrenched in this position of no male warrior prisoners under any circumstances.
I can totally see the logic in your arguments but it does grate a little that you don't seem to be able to accept that there are, quite often, exceptions to every rule.

I am just saying I am tired of seeing it as a plot point in games/low-quality fantasy novels where the enslavers are always stupid and die for their stupidity, when if they had half a brain cell they would have killed the troublemakers before the trouble really got started. I can't tell you how many GMs have said they have started games or campaigns with the PCs getting enslaved in order to railroad them into the adventure, often with a gross misunderstanding of what slavery meant to that particular culture (it means something different to different cultures, so, yes, there are exceptions. Some cultures are accepting of it happening to them).

To say with a broad sweep that enemy soldiers would never be enslaved is just not right. Try telling that to the British and Commonwealth POW's who died on the Burma railroad, the tens(if not hundreds) of thousands of Polish and Russian soldiers who were worked to death in labour camps by the Nazi's and possibly similar numbers of Germans who were worked to death as slaves in Stalin's Gulags.

Nazis often killed troublemakers before trouble really got started - and killed potential troublemakers. I am also not talking about modern day stuff. Guns are the great equalizers. You can be as muscled as Schwartzenegger, and a gun will kill him as fast as it will kill me. If the Romans had guns, they wouldn't have to worry about it as much.

Please accept my apologies if I have missed the part where you say that there are sometimes exceptions but it seems to me that you are simply saying to me to that a group of gold hungry Turanians(blinded by greed to the risks of their actions) could not happen.

Certainly it can happen. The kozaki and the crimson brotherhood are largely formed from escaped criminals and slaves from Turan, but I suspect something else is going on there other than the old "Turanians are stupid" ploy.

Please, I really am not saying it can't happen. I am saying it is a hackneyed and cliched. I would be disappointed in a GM if he presented that plot to me. Perhaps I've just read too many badly-written novels and participated in too many badly-plotted games. Seriously, no one is going to enslave anyone and then allow to live someone who causes a lot of trouble. They are going to use the trouble-maker as an example to the others and kill him.

You are,however, the first person ever to berate me about how I play my villains. :shock: Not all villains are masterminds. Some are just the biggest guy with the biggest sword. A greedy bully with a lust for gold would actually make a refreshing change sometimes.

I don't mean to berate you. I am just saying, please understand the context of slavery for the cultures involved (the enslaved and the enslavers) and... for goodness sake... even greedy bullies try to make sure they are alive at the end of the day and don't make obviously stupid decisions. They don't have to be masterminds, but it doesn't take much in brains to realize that the trouble-maker is going to make trouble - and the trouble-maker needs to be dealt with brutally. Even the dullest Wal-Mart manager understands that the best way to deal with an uprising (a labour union) is to make sure turnover is high so no one can actually unite, and that potential leaders are terminated or sufficiently cowed.

To use an example of the poor plotting: It isn't quite slavery, but in "The Black Stones of Kovag-Re" (one of the worst plotted adventures I have ever seen), the characters are basically forced (enslaved) to do the noble's bidding (go on the adventure). When I playtested this adventure (I almost never use pre-made adventures, but I agreed to play test this one), my group left the city, pretended to go on the adventure, snuck back into the city and killed that noble for daring to force them to do something. Utterly ridiculous plot, held with contempt by my players. They never made it to the actual adventure. Instead, after killing the noble, they looted his home and had a grand ole party. My players never accept enslavement of their characters. Anyone stupid enough to try dies.

(Of course that adventure also has the noble sending out an army after the PCs to kill the PCs AND the people the PCs were going after. Makes one wonder why he sent the PCs at all - he could have just sent the army, and they would have had fewer people to kill. Utterly ridiculous plot.)

Yes, it can happen... and in a game, it will invariably lead to the villian's death... ho hum... *Vincent starts snoring as the plot puts him to sleep*

Still, it can happen... and if it does, at least make it happen for a GOOD reason, and I would suggest making it an intelligent diabolical reason, where some mastermind INTENDED the slaver to die at the hands of his former slaves, by forcing him (through magic or blackmail) to enslave people he otherwise wouldn't have - making the slaves the mastermind's unwitting weapon against his foe.

 

[Spectator]

Maybe I have some SLAVE BLOOD in me, because I followed the rail-roaded plot in Kavog-Re.
After hearing what your party did with the noble's house life, house, and loot, truly makes me feel like a dupe.

Oh woe is me.

What a funny story.

I guess they might lose their code of honor, though.

NO this is not an acceptable side-topic. :roll:

 

[Supplement Four]

(Of course that adventure also has the noble sending out an army after the PCs to kill the PCs AND the people the PCs were going after. Makes one wonder why he sent the PCs at all - he could have just sent the army, and they would have had fewer people to kill. Utterly ridiculous plot.)

I had one aborted attempt at the Conan RPG a while back, and we played Kovag-Re, or attempted to. I wondered why the PCs were needed, too. I had to make up something about covering his tracks and making it look a certain way--or some such.

My players rebelled at the plot, too, but they didn't break into the house and kill the noble. If they had gotten caught, I'd have them on the run, and they know that.

But, what they did do was ask for a lot of equipment that they couldn't afford. The guy is the highest ranking noble in the town--he can get a few men some armor and weapons.

I really didn't want to do that for 1st level characters, but I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the game, story-wise, if I wanted to be "fair".

So, my PCs were decked out in just about anything they wanted, going on the adventure.

I ended up tying the whole story into a political theme using an old D&D module, but we never got past session #2.

My new campaign is much, much better. To say my players are "engrossed" in it would be an understatement. They're eating up the Cimmerian thing. I think I've got a winner, there--something we're going to be playing for quite a while.

 

[VincentDarlage]

My players rebelled at the plot, too, but they didn't break into the house and kill the noble. If they had gotten caught, I'd have them on the run, and they know that.

I'd have done the same if they had gotten caught, but they didn't. It actually turned out to be quite the plan using an amazing bit of teamwork. It would have taken a post-modern CSI unit with all the best sci-fi equipment offered by today's television writers to have figured out who killed the noble.

However, they wouldn't have cared if they ended up on the run. They don't accept enslavement. At least one of Conan's greatest adventures started out with him on the run (Queen of the Black Coast, for example) after murding someone he shouldn't have.

 

[tarkhan bey]

Vincent, there was never a previous indication that we were differentiating between the modern world and the world of antiquity. Whether the oppressors are armed with guns or swords and bows doesn't really matter. History does have examples to back both of our positions.
As Kintire and Spectator have indicated, there is evidence that the Romans(at least) took warrior slaves for the arena.
I am glad to see that you have acccepted that there are exceptions to most rules in the same way that I accept the logic of your 'kill all troublemakers' approach.
I like to play my NPC's like my players play their Characters. They will make mistakes and do stupid things upon occasion in their quest for glory and riches. I feel that to not afford those same choices to the NPC's smacks of GM infallibility syndrome(GMIS-I think I just invented that :lol: ).
I understand , as well, what you are saying about even the big bully wanting to make sure that he lives to enjoy his ill gotten gains. That is fair enough, but what if he has been used to getting what he wants from the local community who are too weak to oppose him and his smirking cronies. The Characters then turn up in town and he completely underestimates their ability. No one has stood up to him before and even if he suspects that the PC's may be a difficult proposition, he cannot afford to lose face in front of his gang.
The point is that in real life people make choices that can come back to haunt them. People do so in my Hyborian age as well. Just because you and I are smart enough to realize the potential ramifications of a situation doesnt mean that the villain should(at least, not all the time).
Finally, I get what you say about Hacks, cliches and stereotypes. However, it could be argued that the Howard tales created a lot of what the Hacks would later cliche and stereotype. I have absolutely no problem with Stereotyping in the Hyborian age.
From Argossean pirates to Zingaran Buccaneers via Cimmerian Barbarians ands Stygian scholars, 'virtually' every player character is a stereotype of this setting. So I say, use them and have fun. If they were good enough for Howard then they are good enough for me.
Anyway, I don't think that we will ever reach a complete agreement on the subject of Slavery, so I'm going to let it drop. I hope that you might still be willing to offer your advice and opinions on the other aspects of life in Zamboula.

 

[tarkhan bey]

I do know of course that using your Fiercest,Finest, Fallen series of books that you tried to give people ideas to steer them away from stereotypical characters. I still submit that the vast majority of players still have the 'usual suspects' as characters. I also submit that the vast majority of GM's have been able to create very interesting NPC's using those books.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Vincent, there was never a previous indication that we were differentiating between the modern world and the world of antiquity. Whether the oppressors are armed with guns or swords and bows doesn't really matter. History does have examples to back both of our positions.

Oh, I presumed we were focusing more on cultures similar to those found in Zamboula. I didn't even think I needed to differentiate.

As Kintire and Spectator have indicated, there is evidence that the Romans(at least) took warrior slaves for the arena.

Unfortunately, I don't recall Zamboula having a Roman-like culture... and even Rome didn't enslave those they knew would cause problems - they might imprison them, though, such as the Gaul Chief in the TV show "Rome." Not enslaved, but imprisoned and executed. Anyway the Roman angle isn't all that applicable to Zamboula (or even Turan).

I like to play my NPC's like my players play their Characters. They will make mistakes and do stupid things upon occasion in their quest for glory and riches. I feel that to not afford those same choices to the NPC's smacks of GM infallibility syndrome(GMIS-I think I just invented that :lol: ).

Since I am fallable (even as a GM), I never intentionally make my NPCs do something stupid. I am pretty sure I can do that myself. They always seem to unintentionally do something that gives the PC the ability to bring them down without me intentionally setting up something.

I understand , as well, what you are saying about even the big bully wanting to make sure that he lives to enjoy his ill gotten gains. That is fair enough, but what if he has been used to getting what he wants from the local community who are too weak to oppose him and his smirking cronies. The Characters then turn up in town and he completely underestimates their ability. No one has stood up to him before and even if he suspects that the PC's may be a difficult proposition, he cannot afford to lose face in front of his gang.

My players would find that too obvious. Check out their response to the Kovag Re scenario. Anyone who tried to bully them too much without having actual power over them, is going to get killed. They either will find a way to escape and steal a weapon, or will start a fight and steal a weapon, or just fight until they are all killed and they get to start new not-enslaved characters.

The point is that in real life people make choices that can come back to haunt them. People do so in my Hyborian age as well. Just because you and I are smart enough to realize the potential ramifications of a situation doesnt mean that the villain should(at least, not all the time).

That happens in my Hyborian age as well, I just don't have to play them stupid to get it to happen. I'm not the brightest person out there, and my PCs often see gaps I didn't. I don't need to intentionally leave a gap for my players to find. They wouldn't even take an obvious gap (they'd figure it was a trap).

 

[tarkhan bey]

I never once suggested that Zamboula had a Roman like culture. I simply stated that in antiquity, as in the modern age, there were examples to back both our positions. Kintire and Spectator both (seem to)back the position that Rome sometimes did take enemy warriors prisoner for the arena but you seem to be simply dismissing that. I think its safe to say that Turan's culture was not like that of Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany either.I believe that you are being a little facetious there.
I really don't want to get into an "I'm right, your wrong" thing here. Its counterproductive and we are talking about a fictional setting, not real life.
Lets just agree to disagree on this.

Regarding NPC's,(as I am sure you are well aware) they are many and varied in character. Lifes rich tapestry has as many idiots as geniuses. Sometimes these idiots turn up in my games.
I think you have missed the point that I am making. The, suggested, Turanian Officers have been blinded to the risks of their venture by the promise of the wealth at its end. They do not recognize the dangers and are too confident(overconfident) in their own abilities and those of their minions to rationalize the situation in the way that we have.
You know what, on reading that last paragraph again, they sound exactly like player characters. Rolling the bones, seeing what life(and me) throws at them.Very Conanesque dont you think?

 

[tarkhan bey]

I am not sure that I get your point about my 'Big Bully Hook' and your experiences with the 'Black Stone of Kovag Re'. (I didn't rate that scenario very highly either.)
In 'Big Bully' my characters arrive at the village. The big bully makes the appropriate threatening noises to maintain his position and the characters either fall for his bluff or take him to task. Its pretty straightforward and it isnt going to win any awards but what exactly wouldn't your players accept as realistic?
Might it be the case that they now believe all of your characters will be Machiavelian and that the 'Big fish in a small pond' villain doesnt exist?
Please don't take this the wrong way Vincent, I like a well thought out master villain as well. In fact, my players expect there to be treachery and backstabbing in my campaigns as well as more than one 'wolf in sheeps clothing'. But,as I said before, a big dumb thug makes a pleasant change sometimes(especially if you need to come up with something on the fly).