Maveren and their thralls

A thrall of the Maveren is in service to either a House , or an individual Maver. They might be of any social rank, and perform any sort of work from labourer to high-level administrator. They are not slaves, technically, but their “patron” legally owns all their property and is only allowing them to use it. There are strict protocols around this, social and legal, and abusing one’s thralls is illegal or at least frowned upon, depending on the type of abuse. But it still isn’t a nice social system.

Ways to become a thrall

Semi-hereditary thralldom

The Maveren think their custom here is very reasonable and generous. When a thrall has a child, they can choose to sign the baby into their patron’s service, or to abstain so the child will be free. The Maveren respect this choice; if the child is free, it will be raised by its parents in the Maveren household, and then at age fourteen kicked out the front door and never aided by the household again—or by any of the household's members, including the child’s parents.
What if the fourteen-year-old wants to stay in the household after all? Too bad, their parents should have known better fourteen years previously. Unsurprisingly, the majority of thralls choose to keep their children in the household.

Captured in war

Originally the most common origin, still the classiest. This might also include Houses fighting each other, as well as fighting others. Maveren don’t raid in order to gather thralls, but when they do, traditionally they offer the defeated a choice between thralldom or death. If you accept thralldom, you give your parole and are expected to abide by it. Maybe this is enforced semi-magically?

Debt

This could include a were-gild, in the norse tradition of the debt one owes for murder. Thralldom is a kind of criminal punishment for Maveren. There’s also debts of having saved one’s life. Purely monetary debts are rarer but still a thing.

Promotion for offsiders

In Malfa these days, a number of people work for the Maveren without being thralls, which puts them at the bottom of the food chain. For a servant, being offered thralldom is like being given tenure, at least from the Maveren’s perspective. A goblin urchin like Billy might work their way up to thralldom. This would put them at the bottom of the food chain within the household, but still they’re inside now.

Terms of thralldom and leaving service

Technically, thralldom is a fixed-term indenturehood with some end state. This end state might be "until you buy out your service with some price that I have yet to decide upon and probably never will in your lifetime." It might be "until you fulfill x service for me," which might or might not ever happen. The terms are "agreed upon" by both parties, and vary with the power and leverage of the thrall. Powerful beings might become thralls for Maveren who get the upper hand, but this is very likely to be temporary.
In theory, any thrall can agree with their patron on a price to buy out their service. This price can be as low or as high as the Maver wants, but Maveren don’t, and by custom can’t, release a thrall without a price even if they want to. The exception is when a thrall commits a crime, and is expulsed and exiled.

Social elevation

A thrall can’t become Maver. A thrall can become free, and a free person can become Maver, so technically a thrall can go through freedom and then be elevated to Maver, but this is so rare it might never have actually happened.

Primary Related Location

Malfa