A few notes on social classes in the Lunar Empire (with some specific notes on slavery in Dara Happa).
Dara Happa – that belt of intensive agriculture along the Oslira river – is the core of the Lunar Heartlands. Out of the 5.56 million humans in the Lunar Heartlands, there are some 3.9 million Dara Happans.
Now the key characteristics of Dara Happan identity are urbanity and social stratification. About a third of the population in Dara Happa are slaves, comparable to the percentage of slaves in Italy by the end of the first century BC. To put it another way, out of 3.9 million people in Dara Happa, about 1.4 million or so are slaves. Another 1.4 million are semi-free “workers”, bound to their farm or craft. The “free” and “noble” population is a little over 1 million. At the very top are the noble families, which maybe number 150k. Perhaps 20k claim descent from the Red Emperor.
The issue of slavery in the Lunar Empire is complex and troublesome. As in the ancient world, most slaves in the Lunar Empire come from defeated populations in war, those born into slavery, and from those who failed to pay their taxes or debts to the Red Emperor.
Somewhat surprisingly, relatively few came from the recent wars in Dragon Pass (where ransoming captives is more common than enslavement). Rather, most slaves are the result of the wars in Peloria, especially from 1400-1500. Huge numbers of defeated peoples were enslaved. When the Pentans were defeated, their slaves remained. Probably 66% of all the slaves in the Heartlands originated in the Heartlands. Most slaves in the Lunar Heartlands were born into that status, and their families have been property for generations.
This merits further contemplation – prior to the rise of the Empire of the Wyrms Friends, I suspect slavery was relatively minor in Dara Happa. But some six centuries of almost non-stop war in Peloria meant there were huge numbers of people captured in war. This was accelerated by the rise of the Lunar Empire, and again by the wars with Sheng Seleris.
Most slaves in the Lunar Empire work in agriculture, laboring on large farms owned by temples or rich nobles. A smaller number of skilled slaves work as crafters or in households. An even smaller number serve in administrative positions.
A slave can become an initiate of the Seven Mothers or other Lunar cult; many owners free slaves that become Lunar initiates (most become semi-free with continuing obligations to their former owners). A slave can even theoretically become a priestess of the Seven Mothers, although this will result in her manumission. Slaves can join any cult that will accept them – Lodril, the Lowfires, Grain Goddess, Oslira, Biselenslib, Surenslib, etc., although this typically requires approval from the owner (although on many estates, that is traditional).
The relationship between slaves and the equally large class of semifree workers in the Lunar Heartlands is complex. The semi-free are bound to the land or their workshop, but are not owned by another. They are mostly dependent tenants or sharecroppers, working the property of others, although many are soldiers. Many more of the semi-free are Lunar initiates. Some of the semi-free rise to great wealth and political power as clerks or functionaries, but the vast majority are impoverished peasants.
One way of thinking about this is that the Lunar Empire conquered the Lunar Heartlands three times. The first was between 1220 and 1247, with the rise of the Red Goddess and the defeat of the Carmanian Empire. The second was 1270-1350 with the Tripolis Revolt and the conquest of the Lunar Provinces. And the third was 1376 to 1506, with Sheng Seleris’ conquest of Peloria followed by the Lunar defeat of the Pentan nomads. Each time this happened, hundreds of thousands of people were captured in war – with the last being the most significant. And we can look at the White Moon Rebellion as a sort of a fourth internal conquest.
Think about the scale of the Lunar wars of conquest in Peloria (ignore the barbarians in the hills – that was always smaller scale and worked for ransom). The histories always presents the Zero Wane as liberation, but I expect for an awful lots of people it meant capture and enslavement in war. Then you get the Tripolis Revolt. But the worst is when Sheng Seleris comes in and conquers most of Peloria – what happens to the defeated?
And the wars with Sheng Seleris scaled far beyond anything any previous Pelorian regime dealt with – both in terms of the reversal of fortunes for the Lunar Empire AND the rapid collapse of Sheng Seleris’ empire – I imagine this really was the Zero Year for the modern Lunar Empire.
This does make the Arrolian Properties and West Reaches more interesting! The Lunar Heartlands were so transformed by the Fourth and Fifth Wanes that we have to look elsewhere to see the early wanes.
“A slave can become an initiate of the Seven Mothers or other Lunar cult” – Does this also apply to (sub)cults of military nature, such as Yanafal Tarnils and Yara Aranis? A bigger question: how much of the Lunar Cavalry Corps is recruited in the Redlands and Pent as slave-soldiers? Ghilman or Mamluks, or whatever.
Also remember this is about the Dara Happan part of the Lunar Heartlands. That’s about 70% of the population of the Heartlands, which is the overwhelming majority, but not all.
Is slavery more dominant in Dara Happa compared to the rest of the Lunar Heartlands? Yes.
Another way of thinking about this is that the huge slave farms of Dara Happa end up producing the surplus food necessary to feed the large urban populations of Glamour and Dara Happa. Rice, barley, fishing, fowl, and pigs.
And those wetlands between Glamour and Alkoth look like wild swamplands in the maps. But they are actually carefully cultivated agricultural areas – rice paddies, canals, rich in rice, fish, and waterfowl.
