Short slavery ring module?

[PiperThePaladin]

My players are currently adventuring in a large, corrupt city where it is legal and common to sell yourself into slavery to pay off a debt. You theoretically get to walk free once your debt is paid, but the people who buy the debt labor set up the wages and cost of living so that you are never able to buy your way out.

The party has been hired by a young nobleman to bring back his younger brother. The brother, a sheltered paladin in training, found himself in one of these debt markets and, with not enough cash on him and more empathy than sense, pulled a TAKE ME INSTEAD!! Cue paladin being shaved, branded, and shipped on a boat up north by that evening. The paladin's brother found out and paid off the debt, and has tasked the party with taking the "you're free now" paperwork to the remote worksite, bribing whoever needs to be bribed to get the paladin out, and bringing him back.

The story point of this whole chain of events, which I anticipate taking 2-3 sessions, is to get the party to realize, "Wow, preying on poor people for chattel slavery is pretty bad! We should empathize with these slaves, and if we're ever given the opportunity to do something about it, we should!"* The gang members in charge of the laborers at the remote work site (illegal logging) will not let the paladin go easily. It may come to blows, it may not.

Where I'm coming up short is some structure for this encounter with the people out in the woods. I'd like something more interesting than walk in, hand over bribe and paperwork, and walk out. Does anyone know of any bite-sized modules around the slavery theme that I could cannibalize for ideas?

The game is D&D 5e, but I can swap versions pretty easily. I have a gigantic party of 7 players, all 4th level.

*They will be.

[Berenger]

Adventurer #1: "Paladin Ryan, good news, we're here to get you out of this hell hole-"
Paladin Ryan: "I can't leave."
Adventurer #2: "What."
Paladin Ryan: "These slaves are the only brothers I have left."
Adventurer #1: "Are you daft? Your brother sent us here in the first place-"
Paladin Ryan: "In a spiritual sense, these slaves are the only brothers I have left and I won't let them die."

[Nifft]

Adventurer #1: "Paladin Ryan, good news, we're here to get you out of this hell hole-"
Paladin Ryan: "I can't leave."
Adventurer #2: "What."
Paladin Ryan: "These slaves are the only brothers I have left."
Adventurer #1: "Are you daft? Your brother sent us here in the first place-"
Paladin Ryan: "In a spiritual sense, these slaves are the only brothers I have left and I won't let them die."

Saving Private Property Ryan.

[PiperThePaladin]

Saving Private Property Ryan.

Ok that got a legit laugh out of me xD

[The Jack]

My players are currently adventuring in a large, corrupt city where it is legal and common to sell yourself into slavery to pay off a debt. You theoretically get to walk free once your debt is paid, but the people who buy the debt labor set up the wages and cost of living so that you are never able to buy your way out.


Premise sounds kind of whack. Why would anyone sell themselves willingly if the system screwed them so? How can either of them be common if the other is?

[LibraryOgre]

Premise sounds kind of whack. Why would anyone sell themselves willingly if the system screwed them so? How can either of them be common if the other is?

It may not be entirely willingly... it may be a matter of last resort.

I owe 500 gp to someone. He sues me, I have to pay, and so I sell myself into slavery for 600gp, hoping to save the other 400gp from my wages. But I can't, because the bosses keep me too poor, and soon I have to dip into my savings for emergencies, and I'm back in debt to my owners, and I'm going to be stuck there until I die.

Caiden Cailien don't you call me
'Cause I can't go
I sold my soul to the company store

[PersonMan]

Premise sounds kind of whack. Why would anyone sell themselves willingly if the system screwed them so? How can either of them be common if the other is?

In addition to what Mark Hall said, there's also the matter of information. Sure, we know that the people selling themselves into slavery are pretty much screwed over entirely, but we know tons of things because of our out-of-setting position. In-world, you may have it be a commonly-known "fact" that only people who mismanage their money while enslaved slide further into debt. You'll have people point to a slave enjoying a hot meal instead of eating bread and saying - well, if he eats like that all the time, no wonder he can't save up to buy himself out - and so on.

Combine this with desperation and the idea of being the exception to the rule (sure, they got screwed over, but I won't let myself be screwed over!)...and you get a system, of sorts, where those who gain from keeping people enslaved, getting people to sell themselves into slavery, and so forth being all to eager to spread these false ideas (and potentially believing them as well) while those who aren't enslaved buy in for various reasons - these "facts" are presented well, they're everywhere in their society, and they allow the free to convince themselves that everything is fine with their society because the only people who are enslaved deserve it, and could get out of it if they really wanted to...

EDIT: So with all of these together, you can end up with a situation where of the three main groups involved - the slavers, the free, the enslaved - both of the ones with the power to change things are to some degree incentivized to keep them the same. The slavers obviously benefit from slavery, the free can ease their conscience by buying into the narrative spun by the slavers and the enslaved aren't exactly going to be able to run a media campaign to explain how things actually work.

[Berenger]

Why would anyone sell themselves willingly if the system screwed them so?

Why would anyone in a modern society with presumably better access to information and more civil rights willingly sign a contract to work for minimum wage in a dangerous job with horrible working conditions and little social recognition?

[Johel]

Premise sounds kind of whack. Why would anyone sell themselves willingly if the system screwed them so? How can either of them be common if the other is?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indenture

It did exist and it was (and still is) abused frequently enough that most countries tried to do away with it.
Still, before anything was done against it, it existed for centuries, undisturbed.

[Nifft]

Why would anyone in a modern society with presumably better access to information and more civil rights willingly sign a contract to work for minimum wage in a dangerous job with horrible working conditions and little social recognition?

I couldn't tell you why, but it's a fact that college loans are still big business.

[Satinavian]

If you want it more believable, you would have a system where people occassionally do buy themself back and where slavers don't really have that much of a problem with it as they get a lot of money back and have made a lot of profit in the mean time and have had a particularly eager slave.

It is enough if the system is so unfair that most don't achieve that and eventually resign themself into life as slave.

[Koo Rehtorb]

It should also probably avoid excessive cruelty. That's bad business and bad advertising.

[PiperThePaladin]

I'm glad people are finding so much to engage with in the way slavery is set up in this city - I wanted something thought provoking. More under the cut.

I'm still looking for small modules that I could draw inspiration from for this encounter with the slavers. Any ideas?

I think it's against TOS to go into real world examples too much, but this breed of slavery is appallingly common. Part of the reason I put it in my game is so more people would know about it. If you're curious, check out the links Johel posted, or look up Syeda Ghulam Fatima.

The wealth income disparity in this city is really bad, and a huge part of the population lives in poverty. While I am more interested in verisimilitude than recreating a working earth economy in miniature, when your children are dying of smallpox and a Cure Disease from the temple costs 200gp, there isn't much people won't do for money.

People do buy themselves out occasionally, usually because someone in their family is able to get enough money together to pay them out, like is being done with Private Property Ryan. There are also some "good" debt lenders who will legitimately let you work your way out. At the rate of 1cp a week, but after 20 years you can probably walk free.

[Arutema]

It might take some adaptation to convert it to 5e and whatever campaign setting you're using, but check out the Pathfinder module Broken Chains.

It involves the cult of Lamashtu acquiring slaves, subjecting them to dark rituals (which bypass the usual gender limitations), then selling them off pregnant with monstrous spawn to unwitting buyers.

[S@tanicoaldo]

I like slavery as a theme in my games.

https://1d4chan.org/images/thumb/e/e0/Dark_Eldar_Slaves.jpg/500px-Dark_Eldar_Slaves.jpg
https://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/thumb/a/aa/Marc_Simonetti_Old_Ghis_slaves.jpg/550px-Marc_Simonetti_Old_Ghis_slaves.jpg
Seven players and slavery? Hummmm.... Maybe the classic "Slavers pits from the udnercity" can help?

Here this link (https://78.media.tumblr.com/f187357afd457dbea2db8058d48fcba8/tumblr_nnunfg1tuU1rnnsbeo1_1280.jpg) may help ilustrate the module.

[denthor]

Male sure your group has an extra armor and maybe a weapon for the paladin.

He can smite evil and fulfill his class description. Make him 1st level "fighter" . Let the party know logging is illegal if they tell the paladin that his lawful nature will kick in and let him go on to help stop the camp . Thereby freeing the brothers of slavery. At the end of the fight a cleric bless him in a ceremony for his Devine paladin hood. All he does not have is the resist to fear that extends 10 feet it is a personal resistance only.

[Ixtellor]

Quick thought.

The paladin is way more in debt now. As fellow slaves got injured while logging, the paladin went further into debt to pay their medical expenses.
Or he sells servitude to provide blankets, better food, take on a crippled kids debt, etc.

So the party shows up and are told "sure he can go just as soon as he pays off his additional 2800gp worth of debt"

If your looking for adventure opportunities, they party could work off his debt by fulfilling a task.
A monster that prevents them from logging a certain part of the forest, etc.