Do as your told.
Attrabutes: The slave is a represnation of those who are caged. It does not matter if it is willfully or not but they always have someone controlling them and are never free. They are the true represntation of dependance.
This archtype almost died out after the civil war but has recently been on a comeback thanks to the advent of BDSM.
Symbols: Whips, Chains and brands are good symbols for slaves. As are documents of ownership.
Taboos: A slave must have a master. They may be an actual master or a symbolic one but it must be someone who has control over them. Should they lose this person they will become severed from their archtype until they find a new one. They must also serve the commands of this master. It may be halfheartedly or in a way that harms said master but they cannot refuse a command from that person. Also property is a no-no.
Masks: Uncle Tom
Suspected Avatars in history: It’s always rather hard to peg these given the few roles slaves had that gave them any fame.
Channels:
1-50%: The slave is tied into its master’s wishes. On a succesful avatar roll it recives a shift equal to the tens digit of said roll for the next test relating to the command of its master.
51- 70%: The slave is now more under the ownership of their master then before. Anyone attempting to harm the slave without the masters consent must make a rank 6 self check. Note that while everyone must make this check regardless of their political views, someone completly opposed to slavery might have a somewhat lower check while someone for it would have a slightly higher one.
71-90%: The slave rarely has to make decisions for itself. Once every three days it may on a succesful check recieve a message about the correct course of action in an important event relating to it. However correct in this sense means whatever will be best for:1 their master, 2 other people.
91%+:
The slave is now completly objectified and valued. Its master may heal its wound points by burning a dollar(or a bill of similar value) for each wound point up to the maximum the slave has. They may also profit off their “investment” by causing damage and reciving said damage back as money.
So what do you think?
perhaps old fashioned ball-and-chain slavery became wage slavery? It’s essentially the same, economically, and just as demeaning.
Also, I and I thinks that it’s less about dependence and more about submission and relinquishing one’s self-determination. THe slave doesn’t NEED the master, but the master has power over the slave and the slave acknowledges this.
That said, i think the last channel is pretty sweet.
That last channel makes sense given the wage-slave idea… you get paid more to work in a cubicle with paper cuts, or get burned from the deep-fryer, etc…
I think the the Godwalker war between the Slaves took place during the American Civil War: You had the “Negro” Slave and the Indentured Servant in the South, and the Wage Slave working in the factories in the North.
The North won.
I don’t think that the Civil War could have been that much of a blow to the Slave archetype, considering that slavery was still practiced in many parts of the world after that conflict and still is a major illicit industry today. Unless the blow was a symbolic one, within the confines of the American psychic landscape.
An example of a possible Slave in history could be Clemens, the slave who attempted to save his master Agrippa Postumus from execution and then impersonated him. Spartacus could be an example of what happens when a Slave wanders into a House of Renunciation.
I’m tempted to say that they Slave would be a “dark aspect” of the Loyal Laborer (ala Devouring Mother). The thematic distinction from the Loyal Laborer (Break Today, pg 111) would be very subtle. The LL description includes the statement:
“His designated role is tireless, unceasing, obedient work.”
It occurs to me that the most common place to find real slavery in modern life is in forced prostitution, not the S&M scene. The scenesters are there of their own free will; the trafficked women are not. And that is the true distinction that sets the slave apart. Debt slavery is also possible, but not the kind that just affects your credit rating — the kind where your smugglers threaten to kill your family if you don’t pay.
I’d say that instead of the “you must choose a Master” line, I think a more appropriate taboo would be that someone must be forcing you into their service, that you cannot completely own yourself. Even if it’s just being subject to a minor case of blackmail, but being a slave can never be your own choice, period.
This status is often represented by the stealing your name from you. In the forced brothels of Europe, this symbolic act involves the “owner” taking the woman’s passport from her.
I like that thought, of the symbolic name change. Maybe the slave could never even remember his/her name, or if confronted with it, with proof of it, all avatar channels go away.
And I like the thought of “this can never be your own choice.” If you ever choose to be a slave, or you ever break free of your master, you lose all channels.
Could this maybe be a double archetype? Like, The Master and The Slave, both needing each other just to exist, but bound to each other. I dunno. Someone run with that.
I’d also shift the first channel to something involving the dehumanization of being enslaved. Something like this:
——–
Slaves are commonly subject to extreme abuse by their owners, and as they adjust to their new role, they learn to distance themselves form the horrors of their world. The “Avatar: Slave” functions as a universal paradigm skill for any Stress check brought about by their enslavement.
——-
I’d toss the second channel, replacing it with the first. Maybe it would allow the avatar to flip-flop rolls they are specifically instucted to do by their owner, so long as the result would be under their “Avatar: Slave” skill.
There might be a good place for the S&M crew as “The Willing Slave”…
I’m kicking around a version of the more traditional, and still very present, forms of slavery.