remedial goodness for Chelish archdukes
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"That sounds like it'd be - mostly the young children, who are innocent and pose no immediate threat to Menador."

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"It mostly is. In another population you might have elderly, but they usually don't. We could send up wagons." It's not really worth the extra expense, since nobody wants to pay enough for orc toddlers for them to be worth the cost of transit, but he's getting the sense that's not really the point. "I'm not sure the merchants would take them all, if they all made it down, but I can't say we've tried."

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"The next moral rather than practical concern would be that, uh, it sounds like the men...get personal slaves as a reward for successful raids?"

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"The first time a man makes a substantive contribution to the outcome, traditionally. If he wants another he can buy one." Oh, this is going to be a mess. "We can end that, if that's unacceptable. I just need to know what exactly we're ending."

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"Does this policy have any appeal if the Queen's decree that bans rape is interpreted to apply to people captured in war?"

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"Certainly much less of it, when it comes to new captures. But of course the old ones have children."

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"Of course. And presumably some of these women if freed will want to leave with their children?"

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"I imagine some of them would prefer it. - should we be letting them?"

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"So, if someone has been taken prisoner in a raid, enslaved, repeatedly raped, and has born her captors a great many children, a fairly extraordinary wrong has been done to her, and setting it even partially right would require giving her quite a lot of options about what to do next. I am worried about what would go well for the children. Probably we should talk to some women in this situation about what they'd want to do and how they think it'd go to figure that out."

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"But you should not continue the practice of awarding slaves to soldiers as rewards for their work in battle."

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" - yes you should definitely not keep doing that."

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"I understand. I imagine that if I tell them that, they'll want to know if that changes anything for the existing women, right now."

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"What if you start by not raping them anymore, and we can figure out everything else once we've had a chance to speak to them."

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"...do some people take male personal slaves instead? They should also stop that."

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Well. 

"You want me to announce a blanket ban on sex between free people and slaves in my household, until you've had a chance to speak to the slaves."

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He's saying that like it is an enormous imposition, and it probably is, and also - "....yes. I think that would be a good idea."

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...it isn't, really, untenable, as a temporary measure. It probably wouldn't be untenable forever, even, but - 

Well. If they're very insistent, he can free the people who will have the most reason to be angry, at least in his own household, as if it changes anything. But it creates a barrier, for all the future generations. No more mixing. No more half orc Menadorians. He's not sure he likes that. But it isn't really about what he likes, is it.

"Well, then. As you wish. Will you help me explain it?"

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" - yes, or at least we are happy to try, but I get the sense that our explanations have not really landed with you and probably they will encounter the same troubles with your people."

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"I think they will. But I suppose I can't imagine any better way to motivate them to share their views with you, if you want to hear them."

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He does not really want to hear about why the cultural tradition of seizing women in war to repeatedly rape is so important to these people.

 

He does need to, though.

 

"Then I guess we will just have to start having those conversations."

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"All right. If you don't mind my waiting a few hours, I think I'll let everyone know together at the feast. And tell Alfonso I should be looking for a marriage for him, perhaps he can be distracted." Less from the woman than from the insult, really. 

"I am otherwise inclined to keep the cleric and agree to her terms, if you think it's acceptable to hold a cleric of an evil deity. If he'd picked anyone else we would have no reason not to sell her on, but we need the healing."

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"If you think it is as a practical matter a good idea to keep an evil cleric as a prisoner for her healing I do not think it is inherently Evil. Though it is Evil to obtain her cooperation by threatening to kill her innocent children."

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"Does that mean that at this point we can't agree that we won't do it if she helps us?" He really feels like agreeing to someone's terms and then telling them you're only taking half of what they offered is being generous, here, and he's otherwise not sure what they're supposed to do.

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"....definitely don't kill the children. Ideally, you would not have first killed other peoples' young children, which would make it not very credible to claim you won't kill her children regardless, and you'd have negotiated with her something where if she doesn't do her end you can non-Evilly do your end, but - I think, for now, accepting her help and not killing her children is the easiest standpoint from which to hopefully improve on the situation?" He looks at Marit in case Marit has thought of anything he hasn't.

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