Paper Dungeons’ world: peasants, merchants and heroes

About common heroes

In Earth’s Medieval Era society was divided in three orders: oratores (those who pray, the priests), bellatores (those who fight, the aristocrats) and laboratores (those who work, the peasants and merchants).

In the last weeks we talked about priests and aristocrats, now it’s time to understand the common people of the realm and how they are connected with the adventurers and heroes.

Prepare yourself to know a history of work, creativity and iron will.

From slavery to servitude

One thousand year ago, in the Volsco Empire Era, slavery was the most important way of work: in mines, farms, and workshops you would find enslaved people.

Unexpectedly in the final centuries of the Empire the amount of slaves decrease quickly. The scholars debate the causes of this change in the supply of workers. 

Clerics say the fundamental factor was the rise of the Prophet’s Church and the prohibition of slavery decreated by High Priest Vigilius II. 

On the other hand, teachers of the Ventima College defend another theory: when the empire dominated all Ditomea the peace has settled and the most important font of slaves, the war, had come to an end.

This change in the ammount of slaves created significant problems, specially in farms where the quantity of workers was high. In general the solution was the establishment of some kind of servitude. 

Landlords offered protection in war times and land use to the farmers in exchange the commoners paid these privileges with a part of the production in every harvest. In most of the cases, the land owners became local authorities with soldiers, tax collectors and courts of justice in their castles.

Does a servant have a better life than a slave?

Yes, he does, but in the last centuries, the increase in taxes, fees and levies has been significant and has been convincing the descendants of the servants to leave the countryside for freer places.

Cities of freedom

In the cities the former farmers found a perfect place to start a new life. If you have talent for crafts like weaving, cooperage, woodwork or smithy it is possible to join an artisan guild.

The guilds are powerful players in local politics. In Ventima, the Council of The city is composed of one hundred master artisans of the most important and traditional guilds. 

If you don’t have a talent for crafts, that’s fine. You can try to open a store and sell goods of all kinds.  Just like artisans, merchants are organized in associations to defend their interest. Leagues of trade connect cities across the continent and have a tendency to be more militarized than guilds. 

The Ostian League is an example of this power: they control ships, soldiers and trade routes to every town in the Northern Sea area.

Folk heroes

If you have the courage, talent and madness needed, the most profitable job in the world is to find a group of adventurers and explore ancient ruins. Nobles, wizards, members of the Prophet’s Church and rich merchants pay good prizes for antique relics of the past. 

You can find heroes dedicated to promoting truth, justice and civilization, but most of these “champions of the realm”  receive support or are children of the nobility. Heroes with a popular origin can defend honor and virtue, but they need to pay the bill before saving the world.

Exploring ruins of Volsco is a good option for adventurers, but they can use their talents in other activities like trade caravan escort, bodyguard for big shots, debt collection and many types of jobs very important for organizations linked to the criminal underworld.

In the big cities of Leonia, it is not so simple to see the difference between heroes and villains.