Thrallery was a major component of the Goladroe social system.

Economic Role

Thralls were an essential component of agricultural production, housekeeping, and limited craftsmanship. Regular peasant households owned between 2-6 thralls, which they used both for labor in the fields, particularly the most physically grueling tasks (typically the role of male and orc/ogre individuals), as well as cooking and textile production and other household tasks (mostly the role of women). Independent craftsmen in larger cities owned few but well-trained thralls of their own to support their work, in addition to regular house attendants; while craftsmen working for magnates or guilds used assigned capable thralls (usually who already had the skills before being enslaved, as few thralls were given costly training) to complement their regular handiworkers.

Thralls were not really used for any other roles, especially not in military mobilization, as they were considered incapable of fighting, and this would be dangerous in any way (given the potential of mutiny, or flight, or rebellion afterwards back home). In later centuries, thralls were sometimes deployed on warships as rowers.

Slave Trading

To provide the great number of necessary thralls - over half the population - a sizeable slave trade was needed, as the thrall population rarely self-replicated, because pregnant and child-raising slaves were economic liabilities (and there were cheap sources of bodies available).

Slaves were excellent trade goods: they were worth a good amount and they were always in high demand. They were usually transported to the homeland, or to one of the many small trade posts along waterways or overland trails, and there bartered for other goods. The classic trade post consisted of a small encampment of wooden houses, where warriors on expedition stayed for a while to recuperate, having with them the gaggle of slaves they had acquired. These slaves served them until a suitable buyer presented himself.

The primary source of thralls was warfare; especially intra-Goladroe warfare. Captives of war were regularly taken, and this was often an explicit aim of raids against other clans. There was also some fighting against or raiding of other peoples, which also resulted in slaves of many other races, which were often prized for their unique abilities or also their exoticness. Another source were criminals: transgressions like murder or desertion were punished with thralldom, and a woman who stole could be enslaved by the victim.

Clerics of the Destructivist sect forbade the taking of slaves from one's own people starting in the early 200s b. OW, resulting in a sizeable shortage of sources. This heralded the heyday of piracy and foreign raiding for slave captures, going so far as invasions of non-orcish or faithless territory partly motivated by thrall-capturing.

Rights and Freedom

Thralls had no rights as individuals whatsoever; they were wholly the property of their owners (i.e. the household head; sometimes also individual dumtargs as part of their limited private possessions, or as "borrowed property"). In groups, they were referred to using the neutral-gender plural (rather than the default male). In the average farmer's house, they were kept in the dark far end, together with the animals; they were in fact seen as little more than useful cattle. They were could be beaten at the owner's leisure, and were also available for sexual exploitation. Serving girls and young boys had dual use as workers and sexual objects, while magnates sometimes kept dedicated mistress-slaves - often of exotic races - for themselves and their close friends. There was no taboo on abusing slaves; in fact, punishing or exploiting them was often even a public display and local attraction.

Prisoners of war of a high status, useful skilled workers, and attractive female prisoners could live in good conditions and even achieve some respect as individuals.

It was possible for a thrall to be given freedom; notionally, this was the case if they had given their masters long and exceptional service, or even saved their life. In practice, ageing and "used up" or wounded thralls were given the "thrall's doom": the choice of freedom but almost certainly misery and an untimely death or perhaps long exploitation as an indentured worker, or of a quick execution.