Salt Miners

Salt miners are outcast slaves in Dźike. The Salt Trading Company exploits them to earn as much as it is possible from their fatigue, ultimately letting them die when they are no longer able to work.
Rumour has it they even sell the injured as volunteers for scientific experiments since feeding them while they recover is not profitable enough.

Perception

Purpose

The miner's purpose is to extract as much salt as possible before they die.
Most of them end up as miners for debts. Life in the Rojgraszian cities is hard, arguably harder than in the wilderness. People do not have to worry about demons and feral creatures, but other people can be equally deadly. As the old saw goes, "If you have two friends, beware one of them".
To survive many are forced to contract debts they know they cannot honour to buy food. Once they decide not to pay back, they try to flee the city and go somewhere else. Their creditors hire bounty hunters to find them and bring them back. The hunting does not last long, usually, since urban people cannot go very far outside the cities.
Once the creditors have the debitor, they offer a simple choice. Either they get their money back immediately, or they inform the justice. Since no one wants to have anything to do with Nojgraszian "justice", debitors try to pay. One of the safest ways to get enough money quickly seems to sign a contract with the Salt Trading Company. They anticipate the sum immediately to the creditor and put the debitor to work in the mines until they repay their debt.
Unsurprisingly, only a handful of miners got out of the mines alive. Incidents are frequent, health problems likely. Any injury is a death sentence. The Company should feed the injured and tend to them until they recover. Sometimes, if they are close to repaying what the Company anticipated, they are set free, which means they have to care for themselves.
Injured in an unknown and hostile city, they won't last long.
For the others, rumour has it they are sold to unscrupulous scientists for experimentations, or blood mages looking for organs, or demonic worshippers for rituals. The Company dismissed any accusation saying that people's imagination is way too fervid when it comes to morbid details.

Social Status

You don't want to be seen with one of them. No talking with them, no looking at them. Pass by as they do not even exist. If you help one, everyone will come to you looking for help. They work in the mines. They extract the black salt, and it curses them, it makes them corrupted.

— Dźikan parents to their children

Miners are outcasts in Dźike. They are people in need, and, in the Nojgraszian cities, no one wants to help people in need for free. As if that wasn't enough, they handle black salt, which is widely considered a source of demonic corruption.
Parents often use them as a bad example to educate children. "If you do not do this, then you will end up like them" is a common phrase. Most miners became so because of debts, but often there was not much they could do to avoid it.
However, miners are vital to not only Dźike but the other cities too. They are the only ones mining salt, which is necessary to preserve food and hard to come by otherwise. Dźike would not even exist if it was not for the mines.

Alternative Names

The Slaves

Type

Raw Materials Gathering

Demand

High demand, due to the common injuries and deaths.

Related Locations

• Dźike

Used By

• Salt Trading Company

Related Materials

• Black Salt