Belariath

So can I just ask a quick question, just sum up some stuff for me? Concubines would be like Mistresses? That hasn't been said but "kept woman" has and I wanted to just ask real quick...Thanks my tli buds!

As I was reading through this, I was very... this: and then I was getting closer to this:
Let me add my own two cents in. I am very... hesitant to have this added It seems almost superflorous. Seriously, tagging and marking a concubine? That's not ISA duties. Heck, I'm not even sure why the person cannot be bonded in a normal ceremony as they would be considered (lower-class) mates. To take up an equipment slot for a mate? That's just silly. They become property? That's what the slave roll is all about. I could talk about the actual history of the concubine, but this idea seems to be of the idealized/popularized view of the harem, so it's probably moot.

Those who become a slave and then complain about how restrictive the position is completely miss the point. Slaves ARE property. They may be precious and valuable to the owner, but at the end of the day, they are nonetheless items to be used. They can be cared for and nurtured, or they can be ordered by their masters to be a doorstop. Owners and slaves current and to be need to recognise and remember this fact. If those restrictions are not your cup of tea, then make the slave a secondary character and create a free person.

The idea that concubines are property as well seems moot. That they would have more rights even as property seems to defeat the purpose of them being property in the first place.

On the bonding, well, It could be summed up as follows: Hahahahahahahahaha! No. Seriosly? There are hundreds of characters in the game, and not even a handful of churches established here. Not everybody follows them, but their own personal gods of their homelands, or no gods at all. By saying that in order to marry, you MUST marry in by at least one of the pair being part of that religion, that means that say, those who don't must convert or not be recognised. Eff. That.

Additionally, this one bonding rule seems to be in order to shoehorn in concubines just so that it can be a viable option. That is poor planning. First off, some of the races practice multi-bondings, either out of necessity (catfolks' lopsided gender births), tradition (torians' life style), or personal culture (humans in various locations (RL evidence)) as examples. Personally, I would see RP limitations itself would control this naturally--we would only bond with those we were extremely close to and spend most of our time with; the more mates, the less time you would have for each and the more stressed the bonding becomes. Besides, as I once joked in the game, "Having two wives just means getting told, 'not tonight; I have a headache' twice as often."

Dalahlaleeah wrote:Perhaps I am looking at this too much like what history has depicted of concubines/harem living - but I do not think concubines should be allowed to work. That was not what they were for. I also have to say if concubines are being considered in the sense of a harem.. those women had no freedom of movement outside of the harem itself unless guarded (usually by eunuchs). I understand fantasy adds a twist that real life would not have - but the kept women (and men in this setting) should at least adhere to the general idea of them being kept.. ie no working. It is an interesting dilemma to try to work out and fit in without demolishing the bonded mate or the slave.

I understand what you're saying but the traditional meaning of harem would not just apply to concubines, it would apply to all women of the household. So by that, bonded mates and co-habiting partners would also be prevented from taking jobs or walking around unescorted.

This is a fantasy setting yes and we apply definitions to words that suit our purposes whilst retaining a degree of familiarity. Slaves in TLI are not completely in line with their traditional role either and would you really expect to see a Viceroy / Baron selling erotic underwear in a bazaar? I could have defined a new class of owned characters called Bogglewoggles and no one would be applying the preconceptions I've seen throughout these replies to them. But as with slave, noble, necromancer, paladin and everything else, I chose a term which is familiar and then adapted it to Belariath.

Tawny wrote:As far as behavior outside of the home, since they are not governed by the rules of slavey it then falls to the desires and wants of the owner. How does the owner wish for their house to be represented by the concubine while in public? They will be marked so all would know who the concubine belonged too and in such their behavior would reflect upon the owner and the owners house and name much like a slaves behavior does I would think.

Ref the first part of your post, see my reply to Dalah.

And yes, definitely a concubine's behavior would reflect upon their owner and that is an intended flexibility of the relationship as well as being a major reason to introduce this concept. Not every slave owner wants his slave to be governed by the external rules of this society in exactly the same way as every other. The limitations on slave behavior are as restricting to owner as they are to slave.

Would you like to own a slave of thief class who you can send out to burgle shops? You can't do that without the ISA getting involved on top of the IG. Would you like a level 99 slave that only acts submissively towards her owner, while metaphorically spitting in the eye of any arrogant level one free person who tried to order them around? You can't have that either. The list goes on, yet how many here are looking at the increased opportunities to roleplay this will create?

RazyCal wrote:So can I just ask a quick question, just sum up some stuff for me? Concubines would be like Mistresses? That hasn't been said but "kept woman" has and I wanted to just ask real quick...Thanks my tli buds!

The concubine is a very flexible pseudo-class so they can be played as a mistress in the sense they are a woman kept outside of marriage for largely sexual purposes and supported by their owner. They can be played in lots of other ways too. The essential difference between concubine and mistress is that a mistress is a free person who can terminate their relationship at any time. A concubine cannot.

Freelance wrote:As I was reading through this, I was very... this: and then I was getting closer to this:
Let me add my own two cents in. I am very... hesitant to have this added It seems almost superflorous. Seriously, tagging and marking a concubine? That's not ISA duties. Heck, I'm not even sure why the person cannot be bonded in a normal ceremony as they would be considered (lower-class) mates. To take up an equipment slot for a mate? That's just silly. They become property? That's what the slave roll is all about. I could talk about the actual history of the concubine, but this idea seems to be of the idealized/popularized view of the harem, so it's probably moot.

Those who become a slave and then complain about how restrictive the position is completely miss the point. Slaves ARE property. They may be precious and valuable to the owner, but at the end of the day, they are nonetheless items to be used. They can be cared for and nurtured, or they can be ordered by their masters to be a doorstop. Owners and slaves current and to be need to recognise and remember this fact. If those restrictions are not your cup of tea, then make the slave a secondary character and create a free person.

The idea that concubines are property as well seems moot. That they would have more rights even as property seems to defeat the purpose of them being property in the first place.

On the bonding, well, It could be summed up as follows: Hahahahahahahahaha! No. Seriosly? There are hundreds of characters in the game, and not even a handful of churches established here. Not everybody follows them, but their own personal gods of their homelands, or no gods at all. By saying that in order to marry, you MUST marry in by at least one of the pair being part of that religion, that means that say, those who don't must convert or not be recognised. Eff. That.

Additionally, this one bonding rule seems to be in order to shoehorn in concubines just so that it can be a viable option. That is poor planning. First off, some of the races practice multi-bondings, either out of necessity (catfolks' lopsided gender births), tradition (torians' life style), or personal culture (humans in various locations (RL evidence)) as examples. Personally, I would see RP limitations itself would control this naturally--we would only bond with those we were extremely close to and spend most of our time with; the more mates, the less time you would have for each and the more stressed the bonding becomes. Besides, as I once joked in the game, "Having two wives just means getting told, 'not tonight; I have a headache' twice as often."

I was tempted to just ignore this post as you could just have said it didn't fit your own particular views of how the game should be run and bugger everyone else who doesn't agree with you. Most of the points you raised have already been answered with variations on 'not everyone wants to play the game how you do'. Or how I do. Or how Fred and Jane do. That doesn't invalidate any part of it if it serves a wider purpose and you are quite free to never play or play owner of a concubine. There is already enough support for the concept that it could be justified without further discussion.

So let's stick to answering this since it's the only argument not previously answered....

Additionally, this one bonding rule seems to be in order to shoehorn in concubines just so that it can be a viable option. That is poor planning.

If you actually followed game development you would know that the section on bonding is practically word for word taken from my posts on the subject weeks ago, before the concubine option even occurred to me, as well as following the way in which bonding had been played in TLI since it was introduced about four years ago. So your statement that I am making that up to justify concubines is not only ignorant but personally offensive.

If I become a Cockubine can I still get pussy too?

K2

(said in the spirit that like you said SB past ironing out fine details this seems to be a widely liked and accepted proposal)

Maybe we should have Cockubine and Cuntubine to differentiate the sexes?

RazyCal wrote:So can I just ask a quick question, just sum up some stuff for me? Concubines would be like Mistresses? That hasn't been said but "kept woman" has and I wanted to just ask real quick...Thanks my tli buds!

Sort of. I picture this much in the way of a 'kept woman'. The 'Master' is responsible for housing and safety of the concubine, in return the concubine gives up a bit of their own freedom to recieve this priveledge; they provide service perhaps much the same as a slave would. They are in a sense 'owned' but they are not governed by the rule of slaves to defer to free people who are not their Master. They are lovers, yes, but they are not provided the same freedom within the relationship a normal lover would have. They can not just leave on a whim, (well they can run away), they do not get say-so when it comes to their own wishes or needs. Those rights are deferred to their Master, and them alone. I'd agree that this should include whether they can work, or keep their mehrial; however, such restriction might be best left in the relationship to decide and not Imperial law.

Now IC, I can see this giving a new dimension, a concubine may not need to defer to free people who are not their Master, but that doesn't mean everyone else won't treat them like chattel. They almost become half- a citizen, or second-class. Slaves are hardly counted as a citizen at all, if at that, they are akin to work mules and the cart which that mule pulls.

I can only repeat that I'm very much in favor of this new 'redefining' of sorts. If for no other reason than to set down, once and for all, just what is expected of a 'slave' in public. We've always been very lenient and vague in the past, to allow for player creativity, but I think it'd do a world of good to set down just how the 'world' in general looks upon slaves and sets up a standard of expected behavior...

Really, no different than what we already have for the races and classes. True, if you go outside of the expected norms and standards of your race, you don't get reprimanded for it, but that goes along with the territory of being property in the eyes of the Empire and the world at large.

I look forward to seeing what these new public expectations might be...


~I~

A question has come up for me during a recent OOC conversation.

Let us say you have a character, for instance, a duessa. Who has pledged herself to a Master, and who serves his interests (and him) religiously, yet who does not act much like a slave outside of that.

Now, this character would not fit into the area of Concubine, she is not her Master's lover, she does not profess to love him, she is his slave, she devotes herself to him, and he considers her his property, not his lover. IE, he does not use her only for sex, and she is fully submissive to him, not just sexually submissive to him.

However, she doesn't see herself as 'slave to the world', and will likely do all the things that slaves should not do.

Now ICly, if someone was to punish her for this, that would probably be working right into what she -wants-, being a painslut and a duessa, as well as one who likes to push boundaries. And this is fine with me. Someone wants to teach her to 'obey slave rules' you have my complete ooc permission to do so.

But what worries me, is that this might be rolled to the ISA and then she is forcibly stripped of her {} and forced into whatever concubines are eventually forced to wear. Thus limiting the RP rather than expanding it for her.

Will the ISA be able to force a slave to become a concubine? When both slave and Master know the possible ramifications (punishment, fines, forced slave lessons with ISA trainers) and accept them as a part of the deal that they accepted when the collar was originally put in place?

I really can't see any reason or logic for allowing the ISA to shift a slave to a concubine. I say let IC actions invoke IC reactions and responses, whatever they may be.

Which I am completely fine with. But I would like to see a list of penalties written out and enforced.

I don't want this to be "left up to the discretion of the Slave-mistress of the ISA", I am perfectly fine with accepting IC consequences for IC reactions, as is my character's Master, since he was aware of them when he collared her. I just don't want to be forced to accept something like 'becoming a concubine' instead when half the fun of playing a duessa slave is being punished.

Avarwraith wrote:Now, this character would not fit into the area of Concubine, she is not her Master's lover, she does not profess to love him, she is his slave, she devotes herself to him, and he considers her his property, not his lover. IE, he does not use her only for sex, and she is fully submissive to him, not just sexually submissive to him.

There is no reason why a concubine cannot be defined in exactly those terms if that is what the players wish. A concubine doesn't have to have any love element to it or any limits on submission within the relationship. Just as with a slave, which can vary from a spanked lover to a cum/painslut, inside the relationship, so too concubine can come with any level of affection / use / x-slut too. The difference is more concerned with how the slave or concubine is allowed to function within society.

Having said that, I don't see any way that the ISA or anyone else will have the power to force a collar change on a character. I'm not going to jump the gun on slave revisions but that won't be one of them unless it is really demanded by the players, in which case I wouldn't allow it without OOC consent.

Slaves in TLI are not completely in line with their traditional role either and would you really expect to see a Viceroy / Baron selling erotic underwear in a bazaar?

I am a man of many talents... You should see what i can do with a golf club, ice cube, and stuffed penguin.

Now IC, I can see this giving a new dimension, a concubine may not need to defer to free people who are not their Master, but that doesn't mean everyone else won't treat them like chattel. They almost become half- a citizen, or second-class. Slaves are hardly counted as a citizen at all, if at that, they are akin to work mules and the cart which that mule pulls.

This is a very good idea of what I see it as. Basically indeed a Concubine = 2nd class citizen, Slave = property, not citizen.