Servus

Servus are slaves in Ordona. A slave may be one who sold oneself to slavery to settle some debt or may be captured in military campaigns. Ordonan citizens and plebeians may not be captured as slaves, only foreigners may.

They don't have control of their own lives or freedom. A servus master may order their death without consequence. They are expected to obey or be punished.

Not all masters are cruel however and some slaves are highly valued, sometimes even living a pampered life.

In most of Ordona, the fields are toiled by slaves, they carry litters, they work the mines, they work the kitchens of Patrician houses and large inns, work as valets and even serve as bodyguards or house guards, so loyal that they are trusted with weapons. Some of them have special skills for which they are valued, such as physicians, masseurs, teachers of languages or other knowledges, dancers, singers or other entertainers.

Usually, captured foreigners are not thought any magic they don't know and may be fettered with blood-mana manacles, but members of the Empire usually have a decent level of skill in one or more Arcana before selling themselves.

A servus has no rights those beyond settled in their contract  if any was signed as they sold themselves. Captured barbarians are enslaved for life, but their offspring are born free. Many Ordonan slavery contracts stipulate conditions under which the debt is settled and special conditions for the servus' treatment. A servus may also win freedom through specially dedicated service, such as saving a master's life, producing a specially impressive work of art or at a young master's graduation. Some of those former slaves don't know how to live any other way anymore when freed and beg their former masters to take them back.

Escaped slaves are treated harshly by the law, but their are some secret partisan movements that help escapees throughout the Empire, especially in very large cities and in secluded places.