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View Full Version : Slavery and Thirst for Vengeance



big teej
2019-08-20, 07:49 AM
Greetings playgrounders,

let's dive right in.

In The Days Of Antiquity, The High Elven empire spanned the entire prime material, successfully conquering and enslaving all other sentient races that existed at the time. The elves lived richly for centuries after, the combined populace of the rest of the world serving and attending to their every need.

However, as is perhaps inevitable, the enslaved sentient grew tired of the elven boot heel on their throats and rose up, dismantling the elven empire over the course of a generation. Eventually butchered and chased back into their original lands. The elves, in a last act of spite and desperation, performed a ritual cleansing the racial memory of all non elves. Leaving behind lies and legends of elfen make.

The remaining elves live on in relative prosperity in the heartland province of their once world spanning empire. The rest of the world, goblins and dwarves, men and dragons, illithid and gnoll, remember there was once a great Elven empire, ruled by the ancestors of the modern elves, paragons of virtue, righteousness, and virtuosos of any skill or craft they set their minds and hands to.

The world of non-elves believe that the empire was destroyed by some outside source, historical records and legends contradict, the most commonly held theories are an elven civil war or a daemonic incursion.

My Question is this: What do you believe would happen if people began to remember or discover the truth?

perhaps the spell simply fades and an ancient wyrm remembers the truth, perhaps dwarves break into an ancient underground vault that contains records of the elven conquest, whatever mechanism suits your imaginative spirit.

but here I am mostly concerned with 'what responses do you think various races/cultures/people groups would have to learning that they had been enslaved and then forced to forget it?'

redwizard007
2019-08-20, 08:15 AM
Individual results may vary.

Some would declare holy wars against the elves in retribution. Some would attack them to steal other "lost secrets." Some would support their exile. Other folks would serve the elves in hopes of learning some great power. Some folks wouldn't even care.

Draconi Redfir
2019-08-20, 08:28 AM
perhaps there has always been a few people who were accidentally protected from the spell, who just happened to be sleeping underneath an upturned lead-lined boat or something. and they and their descendants have been slowly building arms and forces for generations in preparation for a retaliation, and more people remembering is speeding up that timeline.

it's possible some may try to blackmail the elves, if some people begin to remember but others don't, then you may get cases of people approaching the elves and saying "give me everything i want or i tell the world", with various results depending on who's asked.


on the whole, assuming a vast majority of people remember or learn the truth almost simultaneously... i can't imagine much would change. people would probably grow to resent the elves, or start severely dis-trusting them. rumors that "Elves always lie" may start floating about. but i wouldn't see any major changes in the political climate anytime soon. People would still need or want the various things they've been importing from the Elves, and they'd still need to make the sales they've been exporting to them. A few relationships between elves and humans may break up, leaving perhaps a lot of lost and disposed half-elves wandering around, with their less-elven relatives rejecting their elven heritage, and their more elven relations either not caring, fearing, or being ashamed of them.

suppose that brings up an important question. will the Elve's veiws on the other races change at all now that they know? Will elves who have spent their entire lifetime loving and respecting humans start to despise humans just because humans know what their ancestors did? Or would Elves be more on the line of "it wasn't specifically me that did this to specifically you, this was done by and to our respective ancestors. we should put this behind us"?

Pauly
2019-08-20, 08:37 AM
It depends a lot on how long ago it was.

If you’re talking about more than 3 or 4 generations I don’t see it as changing much except that people will distrust elves more than they do now.

Also many people are more comfortable living with their established beliefs and habits than making an effort to remake their world view based on new information. There will be an awful lot of cognitive dissonance going on with many treating the newly revealed truth to be fabrications.

The big question is “So what? How does this new information change how I live now?”
Quite simply there is no threat to cause the main stream of people to take up arms against the elves. 75 years ago there was complete and total war between Germany/Japan and US/UK/USSR/China yet that conflict causes no feelings of enmity between the populations of those countries now. The cause of disagreements and enmities now is based on modern geopolitical concerns. Where there is resentment over historical acts it is because it serves the interests of the government involved to stir up those feelings for modern geopoliticking.

Lapak
2019-08-20, 10:00 AM
I largely agree with Pauly. Honestly, not everyone would even believe it regardless of the source - if an ancient dragon popped up claiming the ancient elves were monsters many would probably assume it was due to some plot or agenda against them.

The one possible caveat is if the elves in said setting have immortal lifespans. If there are living elves who were part of this empire and/or participated in the mind wipe, that changes the situation dramatically.

But if none of the living elves participated, it will be a hard sell to get people to believe it and even among those that do not everyone will care.

What WILL happen is that any nations or individuals who already had a reason to attack the elves will grab the news as a reason to do it, and any potential allies may be slower or more reluctant to support them in that case. As an elf I would worry less about world-wide condemnation and worry more about the threat next door who is suddenly way more free to invade.

Anymage
2019-08-20, 11:53 AM
Assuming that elven lifespans are similar to human lifespans, that would depend on how much was revealed and at what points. Knowing that someone's great-great-great grandparents were major douchebags doesn't mean that they're one too.

Differing lifespans are one of those things that would seriously affect fantasy settings but that most players can't really wrap their heads around. If this happened centuries ago then a dwarf might have been personally enslaved and the elves who enslaved and mindwiped the world are still walking around. People would most likely be a lot more upset when the offenders are still active.

Becca Stareyes
2019-08-20, 12:06 PM
I'd also add that if the circumstances around the memory-modification spell are thought to be reproducible, then suddenly there's people who would want that spell, and may well use the 'their ancestors enslaved my ancestors' as justification to gain support. A spell that can alter the memories of everyone (or enough that the resistant are thought delusional or the ones with altered memories and are ignored), is seriously epic magic. I can think of all sorts of unscrupulous uses for such a spell, even if the range can't be replicated.

(Not to mention if the elves are thought to still have this ability, even if it can't be used by others, that's scary enough that people probably don't want an elven nation at all.)

Like, I can imagine that unless the spell requires utterly unique circumstances that cannot be reproduced, and that is obvious to the top spellcasters of every country, that the fact such a thing exists paints a target on the elves' back. Less for what their ancestors did, but because everyone knows that someone would use that spell again if they got it (and it doesn't have to be the elves).

Tvtyrant
2019-08-20, 06:01 PM
Greetings playgrounders,

let's dive right in.

In The Days Of Antiquity, The High Elven empire spanned the entire prime material, successfully conquering and enslaving all other sentient races that existed at the time. The elves lived richly for centuries after, the combined populace of the rest of the world serving and attending to their every need.

However, as is perhaps inevitable, the enslaved sentient grew tired of the elven boot heel on their throats and rose up, dismantling the elven empire over the course of a generation. Eventually butchered and chased back into their original lands. The elves, in a last act of spite and desperation, performed a ritual cleansing the racial memory of all non elves. Leaving behind lies and legends of elfen make.

The remaining elves live on in relative prosperity in the heartland province of their once world spanning empire. The rest of the world, goblins and dwarves, men and dragons, illithid and gnoll, remember there was once a great Elven empire, ruled by the ancestors of the modern elves, paragons of virtue, righteousness, and virtuosos of any skill or craft they set their minds and hands to.

The world of non-elves believe that the empire was destroyed by some outside source, historical records and legends contradict, the most commonly held theories are an elven civil war or a daemonic incursion.

My Question is this: What do you believe would happen if people began to remember or discover the truth?

perhaps the spell simply fades and an ancient wyrm remembers the truth, perhaps dwarves break into an ancient underground vault that contains records of the elven conquest, whatever mechanism suits your imaginative spirit.

but here I am mostly concerned with 'what responses do you think various races/cultures/people groups would have to learning that they had been enslaved and then forced to forget it?'
I think they all want the mindwipe/mass brainwashing spell and that is what causes a continent wide war. The elves probably have to make gigantic concessions trying to get allies to protect them from mass invasions.

Kaptin Keen
2019-08-21, 11:25 AM
Well - for comparison, let's say you live in modern day Europe, and in ancient times, a great Empire spanned the continent. They were at the time the very high point of human virtue and achievement, but eventually just crumbled.

Let's then assume the world eventually found out they were really a bunch of primitive, late-bronze-slash-iron-age* bastards who trampled on everyone who got slightly later on the ball with the latest technologies. Which happened to be pretty much everyone.

Once the horrible truth was out, everyone would look at modern day Italy, draw a long, bored yawn, and go about their business as if nothing worth their notice had happened.

* They used bronze weapons and armor, and correct nomenclature be damned - this is about imaginary vengeance for ancient sins, not the ages of real world history =)

King of Nowhere
2019-08-22, 04:01 PM
put me also in the "stuff done long ago by people long dead would be no big deal" camp.

whether the elves actually still have the spelll may be another matter, though

Pauly
2019-08-22, 06:27 PM
Well - for comparison, let's say you live in modern day Europe, and in ancient times, a great Empire spanned the continent. They were at the time the very high point of human virtue and achievement, but eventually just crumbled.

Let's then assume the world eventually found out they were really a bunch of primitive, late-bronze-slash-iron-age* bastards who trampled on everyone who got slightly later on the ball with the latest technologies. Which happened to be pretty much everyone.

Once the horrible truth was out, everyone would look at modern day Italy, draw a long, bored yawn, and go about their business as if nothing worth their notice had happened.

* They used bronze weapons and armor, and correct nomenclature be damned - this is about imaginary vengeance for ancient sins, not the ages of real world history =)

Or if you lived in East Asia you would look at China nervously.

That is because Chinese history has repeatedly shown that Whenever China gets its stuff together that China is an expansionist power. Recent history has and current events indicate that Modern China is tending towards the expansion part of China’s expand-stabilize-decay-collapse cycle.

What makes China different from Italy are
1) It’s current size is big enough to be dangerous.
2) the history shows that China has gone through repeated cycles of unified expansion following a recovery from a collapse into warring states.
3) It has been actively expanding since WW2.

But for most people in East Asia, Chinese history is not their concern. Their concern is what the current regime is doing now.

Kaptin Keen
2019-08-23, 01:33 AM
Or if you lived in East Asia you would look at China nervously.

That is because Chinese history has repeatedly shown that Whenever China gets its stuff together that China is an expansionist power. Recent history has and current events indicate that Modern China is tending towards the expansion part of China’s expand-stabilize-decay-collapse cycle.

What makes China different from Italy are
1) It’s current size is big enough to be dangerous.
2) the history shows that China has gone through repeated cycles of unified expansion following a recovery from a collapse into warring states.
3) It has been actively expanding since WW2.

But for most people in East Asia, Chinese history is not their concern. Their concern is what the current regime is doing now.

And how is any of this relevant to the OP's question? He asked for a fallen empire, not a current contender for superpower.

Furthermore .... I'm not familiar with Asia, but I don't much get the impression that revenge against China is any commanding sentiment. No more than against the great khans.

Forum Explorer
2019-08-23, 01:49 AM
I think most people wouldn't care or wouldn't even believe the source. It may even be considered a conspiracy theory by most people.

However, for the longer lived races, like dragons? Well especially dragons. They would take it very personally, and would likely seek to slaughter (or enslave for the irony of it) the elves, because they themselves were almost certainly enslaved.

Basically, if you had a grandparent, parent, or sibling who was directly effected? You're going to want revenge. Any further back though, and it's too far in the past. There's just too much stuff going on in the present to worry about that.

Except for dwarves. They typically are all about grudges, so I can see them taking it personally no matter what, even if no one can remember it.

big teej
2019-08-23, 06:08 AM
Thanks for the input everybody, I personally kinda fell into the camp of either A) Massed extermination campaigns or B) "It's old news, today matters."

But it felt weird to just hand-waive a globe of people's opinions like that (even in a fictional world) when I normally take a much more individualistic approach to building societies and the like.

If it aids further discussion, I'll clarify a few points however.

1) This event took place several generations removed from living memory for all but the longest lived races (likely Dragons, sentient undead, and similarly long-lived creatures)

2) The elves cannot replicate the spell. They traded their near immortality and century-spanning lifespans for it. Modern Elves die of Natural Causes somewhere in their 130s...

Pauly
2019-08-23, 03:12 PM
And how is any of this relevant to the OP's question? He asked for a fallen empire, not a current contender for superpower.

Furthermore .... I'm not familiar with Asia, but I don't much get the impression that revenge against China is any commanding sentiment. No more than against the great khans.

I was simply pointing out that China is different to the other 2 historical seats of Empire (Europe and Persia). No one holds any real grudges against the historical Empire from before the late 1800s now. The difference between China and Italy (or Spain or Iraq or Turkey) is that China is a modern superpower and an immediate threat.

I live in east Asia and no one here is animated by revenge for past wrongs by the Chinese. Their concern is how China is acting now. Some are aware of how China’s current activities mirror those of China’s past.

Kaptin Keen
2019-08-25, 01:22 AM
I was simply pointing out that China is different to the other 2 historical seats of Empire (Europe and Persia). No one holds any real grudges against the historical Empire from before the late 1800s now. The difference between China and Italy (or Spain or Iraq or Turkey) is that China is a modern superpower and an immediate threat.

I live in east Asia and no one here is animated by revenge for past wrongs by the Chinese. Their concern is how China is acting now. Some are aware of how China’s current activities mirror those of China’s past.

Yes.

I ... still quite simply don't get why you're telling me this. It seems to have zero bearing on the thread, or the point I'm trying to make.

CombatBunny
2019-08-26, 09:17 AM
As a person that likes George Orwell’s “Animal farm” and LOTR very much, I would start something like this:

A beloved and respected elderly man is about to pass out and while on his bed, he speaks about everyone being unknowing slaves, but the spells that prevent them from rebelling and discovering the truth are slowly withering. The elves are aware of this and are working every moment to raise a second world slavery. Thankfully there is a secret group of resistance to which this elderly man belongs.

He won’t be able to stop the elves plans himself, but he can pass all that he knows and the items that can help to put and end to this, giving caution to the new heirs not to trust anyone, as the elves will destroy anyone who happens to own this knowledge or this items.