Slavery in Occitan

Slavery in Occitan is widely used, and encouraged by the Kaiser himself. Why should you cook your own meals and clean your own latrines when you could have some unworthy Auslander do it for you?

Contrary to popular belief, many Kazuth still live on inside Occitan. As slaves.
Slavery in Occitan has been prominent for many years, and this aspect of Occitan is frowned upon by both Talibar and Sida alike. Talibar because of its views on slavery, and Sida because they dislike the competition.
Unlike most nations, slaves are a luxury affordable only by the richest members of society. In Occitan, due to the supply highly outweighting the demand, prices for slaves are very low. And thus, many Occitanian families own slaves.
The slaves are used as nannies, cleaners, chefs, and sometimes even as nothing but a friend. There are also many families who decide to buy enslaved children and raise them as their own. Either because of problems with fertility, or just because they want to "skip" a certain age-range.
But slaves are not only used by private families. Slavery has many other uses in Occitan. For example, certain blacksteel factories, mines, and lumber businesses utilise slave labour to get work done. And if a slave is particularly good at the work chosen for him, he might be designated a tutor to the other slaves, teaching them the tricks of the trade for that specific trade.
But contrary to popular belief, most of these venues would rather employ a proper Occitanian worker, as these can feed themselves, sleep in their own homes, and often have much greater qualifications. This way, the companies save alot of money. As they don't have to pay for housing, food, and they can expect their services or goods to be of the highest possible quality.

Aside from businesses, slaves are also used by the Occitanian military forces. In this case not as soldiers, but training dummies. Occitanian legionaries develop their skills and grow accustomed to blood and death by being pitted against 5 or more unarmed slaves in a special fighting pen designated "das Blut Ring", literally "the blood ring". There have been very few cases where the slaves have managed to actually achieve victory over a legion recruit. But the few times it has happened, the slaves have been offered to fight in the Occitanian Arena for their freedom.
That is not all they are used for however. Often slaves are strung up by their arms and legs, only to have their guts cut open with swords, their ribs broken by maces, their kneecaps smashed asunder by warhammers, or shot in the heart with crossbows just to increase the soldier's skill and experience with the weapon.

Of course there's more "intimate" wants among the populace, and there are business who cater to this want. Occitanian brothels are legal, but frowned upon by the richer parts of Occitanian society. This makes most brothels sites for shady deals and illegal activities. To combat this, the Occitanian Wächtermacht have begun raiding brothels on a regular basis. In some cases even going as far as to post a couple of guards inside the brothel.

Slaves are only allowed to be sold in specific areas of Occitan. If a slave trader tries to sell slaves outside of these designated slavemarkets, the Kaiser confiscates all slaves currently in possession of the dealer, and issues them to Occitanian military training facilities.
The current largest slavemarket is located in Occitan City, in the western part of the city. This slavemarket can hold up to 6,000 separate stalls. All with place for a wagon, roughly 25 slaves, and 5 mercenaries for protection. This totals to roughly 150000 slaves

Prices for slaves vary greatly between dealer and dealer. But a general thing that almost all dealers like to do is to price slaves according to a few attributes.

• Age
  
• Sex
  
• Physical strength and attributes
  
• State of Health
  
• Good Looks
  
• Skills
  
• Intelligence and education