I've got to thinking - is there any info about the actual number of people in each city? I can't remember seeing any, and just when and how does Borys collect those thousand people?*
How does each city sustain the loss of a thousand of its slaves each time? If the population is too small, does it have enough time to recover?
Questions like that... Anyone got any theories, answers, etc?
*I have an image in my head of the Dragon coming along with a trawler net and scooping everyone up, whistling to himself...
A small citystate like Gulg would have a hard time meeting the levy each year out of it's own population, so I'd imagine they would conduct slaving raids on villages, caravans, elf tribes, you name it. There's a lot of humanoids wandering around the desert.
165th King's Age (-1,925 from Kalak's death)
-Wind's Defiance
Borys emerges from his insanity and learns Rajaat's prison is on the verge of collapse. Soon after he collects a levy of 1,000 slaves from each sorcerer-king, using their lifeforce to reseal the First Sorcerer's prison on a yearly basis.
So that's about 19 centuries of rounding up 1,000 slaves a year for perhaps 12 cities.
The SKs would develop laws that allowed slaves, so cities could enslave part of its population for legitimate reasons each year and the same for client villages (total of a few thousand people living in them).
The cities' economic and social structures would have long adapted to such a drain on lives. Some time ago I even theorized that under the SKs' rule, their cities had become, in a sense, huge slave-producing machines.
When Sadira & Co took over Tyr and freed the slaves, Tithian found himself having to scrunge-up the levy without dipping into the former slave population: he raided small communities around Tyr and rounded-up all its inhabitants so as to get a 1,000 people.
That Tyr didn't need to do those raids before Sadira's interference shows how a city's slave-producing machine is well oiled and fed from within.
Because Sadira later denied the Dragon's levy, Balic had to pay double, and Andropinis knew such a task would put his economic situation in jeopardy, or at least set his city back a few years. He had to dip into his freeman and army to get the supplementary 1,000. So I think that SK cities are made to produce 1,000 people a year, no more, that are then sent away never to return.
Nets aside, the remains of the levy after the Dragon's passage is dessicated corpses drained of their life-energy. So we can hypothesize that the Dragon has a way of storing the collected energy, either in his body or in a construct like an obsidian orb (Brax had that idea already). When he has toured the land and gotten his levy, he returns to do his duty. ;)
I too reckoned he must drain everyone 'on the spot' and store it somehow, so nice to hear someone on the same lines... Still like the idea of him flying off with a big net though:D
City-states as slave factories - cool and creepy, no wonder slavery is the dominant feature of Tablelands life. Millions suffer so that they aren't annihilated by a genocidal maniac breaking loose.
Athas rocks! Well, I wouldn't like to live there, but you know what I mean...
The PCs, having watched over this, decide to take advantage and spring them. Right as they're getting ready to drop down into the canyon, Borys shows up and Slurp! they all turn to ash. The PCs watched on in horror and tried to make themselves look as much like part of the surrounding scenery as possible.
Truly one of my happiest moments as a GM.
Oh, and The Dragon might not kill all his slaves though. I'd think he might select part of the levy in order to bring new slaves to Ur Draxa
Originally posted by Dawnstealer
I remember taking a few DS newbies through a long campaign. Like a previous group, I had them all believing the Dragon was a myth or a legend (thankfully, none of them bought the books, or read at all, now that I think about it). Then they come on this canyon where a lot of slaves have been dumped. Templars are watching over it and suddenly withdraw.
The PCs, having watched over this, decide to take advantage and spring them. Right as they're getting ready to drop down into the canyon, Borys shows up and Slurp! they all turn to ash. The PCs watched on in horror and tried to make themselves look as much like part of the surrounding scenery as possible.
Truly one of my happiest moments as a GM.
Mine was fairly similar. It was about a year before the Ziggarut of Tyr was going to be finished, and so many slaves were needed for it that Tyr picked a fight with Balic to capture slaves. The PCs were in the area, and saw 3,000 or so slaves being taken away. But all the public announcements mentioned 2,000 slaves. Where were the rest?
So they find them, in a natural depression, just outside Tyr, guarded. One of the group sneaks up to have a look around, and does so successfully, until he asks what the ground is like.
"Ash. And bone."
At which point he just legs it out :D And later that night, they watched from far away, as the Dragon swooped in from the Deep Desert...
The best bit was when they suddenly decided to do the maths... "A thousand lives a year... seven cities... and this has been going on for at least two thousand years"
Originally posted by Dawnstealer
Good point. And my understanding was that Borys only needed 1,000 slaves a year and that the cities rotated the duty.
Hmm... I would think that it was 1000 per city, and not for all of them...
Timeline:
With the loss of Kalidnay, the levy to keep Rajaat imprisoned becomes a firm 1,000 slaves from the seven remaining sorcerer-kings.
If the levy was a total, then it wouldn't really matter to Borys to change the levy, since the other city-states would simply have to increase their contribution from 1/8 to 1/7. It sounds more to me that with the loss of that city-state to contribute (and after loosing Kurn and Eldaarich) Borys upped each city-state's contribution to 1000 each.
Also, when Tyr fails to pay the Dragon's Levy and Balic has to make up for it, it seems to cause big pains for Balic. Now, if the city-states shared the 1000 slave levy, that would simply mean that Balic would have to come up with around 140 slaves for the dragon (Tyr's share). However, if it was 1000 each, then an additional 1000 was necessary. Seems far worse.
Then again, as you suggested, perhaps the cities alternate, and when it came to Tyr's turn, Balic got to pay without a chance to prepare. That could explain it. Yet:
Timeline:
For the next several years King Tithian of Tyr secretly supplies the Dragon with a levy of 1,000 slaves captured from outlying villages.
Now this seems to show that Tyr had to pay the 1000 slave levy each year, by itself.
Hmm...
Originally posted by Dawnstealer
I think it's mentioned somewhere, but, after the day I had, I'm way to lazy to go and look for it. It seemed like Balic had to pick up the slack because the Dragon was forced to skip Tyr that time. Skipped Tyr and moved right on to Balic, before Andy was ready for it.
I think in the PP. However, my impression was that Andropinis was forced to pay not only Balic's but also Tyr's part. so instead of 1,000 slaves, he had to produce 2,000 slaves that year.
The search function on the boards is disabled for the next 24 hours, so I can't search for it, but I'd swear I read somewhere that the ring of mountains next to Makla, the Smocking Crown, is full of ash and bones since it was where the Dragon brought the collected slaves to be drained or its where Tyr (?) brought theres.
Anyone remember something on that?
The Revised Setting has a yellow dot in the middle of the mountain ring called Dragon's Nest.
Now that statement is incorrect, even if the speaker believes it to be true. It would probably be the place where Urik's levy is given to the dragon. The Dragon's Nest is most likely an invention of Urikites, or perhaps Hamanu himself, to disguise the Dragon's true reason to be there.
I'd imagine they'd keep some criminals longer than others...jailing those they really want to get rid of until the time of the levy, while the rest happen to be just unlucky enough to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time of year.
So, if you're a pickpocket, don't get caught around the time of the levy...and if you're an honest freeman, make sure you bribe your templars, or you could easily end up part of the levy as well (charged with crimes you never committed...an undoubtedly common event in Athasian society).
The novels said the levies are not all at the same time in every city for a given year, that the Dragon needs to cross the distance to each city, taking days or weeks to do that.
Do you mean that if there are discripancies between distances and time taken to cross them we can gather there is another stop out there, between two levies?
1- The Dragon collect his levy each year.
2- The levy is collected from all city-states each year.
3- The levy is a fixed 1000 slaves.
4- The agent believes the Dragon comes to Nibenay first, then Gulg, and then either Balic or Urik before going to Tyr. He believes that there might be 4 months between the the Dragon's passage in Nibenay and in Tyr.
Point four is interesting though:
1- The dragon's levy is not really an event that happens at a fixed moment of the year for all cities, but throughout the year. Each city might be collected once a year, and probably around the same dates, but the collection happens on very seperate dates throughout the year. The Dragon could actually travel back and forth from Ur Draxa to the city-states, bringing the slaves he spared to his city.
2- Since Balic got selected for the remplacement of slaves from Tyr's levy, I doubt it comes before Tyr in the levy collection. Borys probably went to the next city in line and asked for double the levy there. Poor Andy!
I'll have to read more though...1- The Dragon takes the slaves back to Ur-Draxa until he's got them all and then casts the spell to keep Rajaat imprisonned.
2- Like Brax and Xlor (I think) wrote, the Dragon has a way to store the energy and drains the slaves on location. Energy collected, he goes back to Ur-Draxa.
Point two I think is more sensible: imagining Borys moving all those slaves is silly, IMO. Better off devising a storage unit and moving that around...
Thoughts?
In any case, Borys clearly transports some number of slaves to Ur Draxa. Now, as you said, I doubt he carries them around trhough the Tyr region. that said, he could go back and forth form his city to the other city-states, which would also be supported by the Pentad.
Taking on that material, and this hypothesis, the levy could work this way:
1- Borys comes to Nibenay first and recieves his levy. These slaves are probably all slain by the Dragon's need for energy.
2- Then, he moves to Gulg, which is fairly close. There he recieves another number of slaves, but takes most of those back to his city.
3- Leaving Ur Draxa, Borys heads to Urik, to recieve a levy which he consumes in the ''Dragon's Nest''.
4- He then travels southwards to Tyr, to recieve his levy, which is also consumed. When the Heroes of Tyr denied his levy, he travelled back to nearby Kled, and was denied again.
5- Frustrated, the Dragon went on to Balic, as supposed, but asked double the levy, which caused some problems. He consumes most on the spot, in Balic's slave population, and takes the rest back to Ur Draxa.
6- Then, Borys returns to Draj, where slaves are sacrificed to the dragon.
7- He ends his journey in Raam, where he collects his last slaves to bring back to his city.
That's a possible scenario. In any case, Borys probably doesn't bring back the full thousand of slaves each time to his city. The means by which he does so are also up for grabs to determine. Psionics would probably be the best guess.
Part of the order is also suggested. After the northern City-States, you get Nibenay, Gulg, Tyr and Balic. With many weeks seperating them too.
Interesting... Perhaps Urik is the first stop, and then it moves on eastwards to Raam and Draj, and then to southern City-States. Sort of like a big inverted "S".
Originally posted by Shei-Nad
Ok, after further reading in the Amber Enchanteress, it seems that Nibenay's veiled alliance has reason to believe that the levy is collected first from the northern cities, then going southwards.
Part of the order is also suggested. After the northern City-States, you get Nibenay, Gulg, Tyr and Balic. With many weeks seperating them too.
Interesting... Perhaps Urik is the first stop, and then it moves on eastwards to Raam and Draj, and then to southern City-States. Sort of like a big inverted "S".
Perhaps Draj is where it starts, as he leaves Ur Draxa, starts at the north, gets Draj, Raam, Urik, then the rest in the order you listed. It makes sort of a sideways "M":, but I'm just thinking logisticaly