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Halflings (Warhammer)

2023-05-21T18:04:00Z

2601:18C:8F00:FB0:74EB:422A:E66F:8DAE: /* Age of Sigmar */

{{Oldschool}}
[[File:The Scariest Thing In Warhammer.png|thumb|right|500px|"That's a real nice Daemonic steed you've got there. It'd be a shame if the lads were to shoot it full of arrows and spitroast it over a fire with a pineapple shoved in both ends. But since you're on your way to [[Stirland]] and all that isn't gonna a problem now, is it?"]]
Remember back when [[Warhammer Fantasy]] was about combining history with criticism of the modern world and comedy while adding stuff "inspired" by the young and evolving modern fantasy genre alongside [[Tolkien]], the works of [[Michael Moorcock]], [[Glorantha]], and [[Dungeons & Dragons]] all for the purpose of selling models of the aforementioned IPs?

Don't worry, [[Games Workshop]] doesn't either.

'''Halflings''' are a remnant of the older Warhammer, mostly forgotten aside from those moments that modern writers want a touch of levity. They've appeared off and on throughout the years, but never once in the starring role of anything. They were more or less removed from the game September 9th 2006 with the release of 7th edition by virtue of not having rules, officially removed in 8e by virtue of not existing in any rulebook and the [[Dogs of War]] army no longer being supported by omission in the core rule army list. The last of them perished in [[End Times]], and as one would predict they were not brought back for [[Age Of Sigmar]] nor in any sort of demand by the fans of that game. UNTIL NOW! Featured as victims of the Kunnin Krew!

For their [[Warhammer 40000]] equivalent, see [[Ratling]].

For the record, if you want to proxy them on the tabletop they use a 20x20mm (AKA Goblin-sized) base.

==Origins & History==
For a summary, "Tolkien Hobbits but black comedy in the Warhammer universe, with surprisingly few changes other than making some gentle fun of Hobbits".

In the prehistory of the world the [[Old Ones]] were trying to create a race that they could use as their army of slaves against [[Chaos]] because it would eventually invade, not realizing that drawing magic from Chaos was making it a self-fulfilling prophesy. First they created the [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Elves]] in a special magical continent called [[Ulthuan]], who were effective Chaos fighters but lacked the reproduction rate needed to keep a long war going and were easy for Chaos to manipulate. The [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dwarfs]] were created in the mountains of the [[Old World]] as everything good about the Elves, but instead of channeling the power of Chaos into magic and sending it right back at them, the Dwarfs were resistant to magic and even nullified it. But the Dwarfs were also slow to reproduce, and although designed to be so stubborn they were hard to manipulate, they were too uncompromising to react to the changing tactics of Chaos. Humans were next, which were created in [[Nehekhara]], and since they were worse than Elves and Dwarfs in every single way other than reproducing quickly, it can be assumed they were just a test batch.

Halflings were the next creation, set just northwest of the Dwarfs in the Old World in a highly fertile and perfect land full of valleys and rivers which would be called the Mootland. This is only really meta-knowledge however. While the [[Slann]] of the [[Lizardmen]] may know the true origins of the Halflings given they likely were participants in their creation, nothing regarding the Halflings has been mentioned in any of their plans. Dwarfs don't really know where they came from, only recording that humans and Halflings have been together as long as they've been paying attention to races other than Elves and that it took some time for them to realize they weren't just human children. Elves seem to have no real interactions with Halflings. Humans believe they're a failed creation of one of their gods, either as an experiment in Chaos-fighting by [[Verena]] or as a joke by [[Ranald]].

After their creation the Old Ones were apparently pleased, given they immediately set about creating [[Ogre Kingdoms|Ogres]], which are pretty much just giant Halflings; however they were too late, the [[Warp Gates]] exploded and Chaos invaded the world before they were finished. As a result the Ogres were physically finished, but their environment couldn't support them (unlike how the Moot could the Halflings), and their culture was entirely unfinished, which resulted in a race of brutes with very little intelligence.

Elves have the most complete record of the world, and between their creation and the invasion of Chaos was a golden age that no records survive from. Since all the (intended, natural) races of the world were finished (barring Ogres which simply exist) by the invasion it can be determined that approximately 5500 years passed before the recorded history of the Halflings began. [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|The Empire]] AKA Warhammer Germans had existed for about 1000 years, having absorbed the territory of the Halflings at some point, when Emperor Ludwig II Hohenbach AKA "Ludwig The Fat" granted them autonomy from the rest of the Empire. Previously the Moot had been split between the provinces of Averland and Stirland as their primary source of arable land, but the combination of insults from the daughters of the Counts of those provinces and an especially delicious meal served by a Halfling chef had won the favor of the Emperor. Along with having a vote in the election of new Emperors, they became important to all provinces in the Empire for the massive supplies of food which support the rest of the nation. The Moot has no true Elector Count due to not having a Runesword, and instead the Elder Of The Moot is their supreme leader so much as they have one. The Elder vote is known for being obtained primarily through personal bribery of food and drink as well as promised protection for the Moot, and in the events of civil wars and election crises the Moot is generally left untouched. The Elder is the keeper of the Haffenlyver, a record of the geneology of the Halflings which was first recorded upon the independence of the Moot.

Aside from that, Halfling history is simple. They grow food and send it to the Empire, they play host to traveling Dwarfs, sometimes they are invaded by [[Orcs & Goblins|greenskins]] or [[Vampire Counts|the undead]] although Chaos invasions are generally unknown. Well, there ''was'' that one incident where they provoked [[Marius Leitdorf]] of [[Averland]] in 2502 IC, causing the bloody massacre known as "The Halfling Rebellion"...

In the End Times the forces of the Moot were kept at home to defend, with only the Fighting Cocks (see below) leaving to defend their human allies albeit mostly by fighting on their way home to the Moot. They battled [[Skaven]] the entire way before finally disappearing in Averheim at some point between the siege of the city by [[Skaven]] and [[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian]] forces and its destruction by [[Archaon|Archaos The Fuckwad]]. Whether this was a cheeky reference to Bilbo's lack of participation and invisibility during the events of the final battle of Tolkien's ''The Hobbit'' or just the writers forgetting they existed is open to interpretation, but the former is probably pretty unlikely (but let's pretend it was anyway, since it makes it a bit less painful). The Halflings themselves were destroyed by an infinite horde of pure darkness that came when the Warp consumed the world, having fled to Sylvania and found temporary protection alongside the last of the civilians of mankind among the undead forces lead by [[Queen Neferata]] and [[High Queen Khalida]].

Halflings weren't involved in [[Storm Of Chaos]] aside from their participation in Empire armies.

In an alternate universe of [[Total War: WARHAMMER]] the Halflings don't participate in any way beyond some scripted events but multiple factions can find them as chef companions. The fate of the Moot is dependent on what faction you play as, but generally speaking they'll probably be taken over by Vampires at some point before being destroyed by greenskins or liberated by the Empire or Dwarfs. In the 2nd game, Markus Wulfhart's campaign gets a Halfling chef advisor named '''Berry Drury''', whom was shown in a portrait with a disturbing-greenish-worm-crawling-cupcakes he probably baked.

==On Halflings==
Halflings are short, stoutly built humanoids, naturally tending towards the portly given their propensity for eating and drinking in ridiculously large quantities. They have rosy cheeks although this isn't a natural trait so much as the result of their constant intake of ale and imported wine. Both the men and women have hairy feet and tend to go barefoot, but sporting a beard is rare given that Dwarfs thought them to be children and know them as unbearded folk.

While the general perception among folk who haven't met them is they are peaceful simple folk unaccustomed to war, the truth is they take after their Ogre cousins a great deal but just have a culture that doesn't reward the ambition needed for conquest and live in a land that provides for their massive appetites. Non-Halflings in Halfling lands can sometimes feel uneasy, and its implied that killing troublesome foreigners and eating them in pies is not unheard of. Halflings live in extended families among their clans, and have rivalries that can be bitter but rarely result in war. A result of this lifestyle is a general belief that you can just take anything you need since everyone is kin anyway, and when they need it they'll just come and take it back...or take a similar item from someone else who shares their blood anyway. When in foreign lands (or working as chefs/servants in the rest of the Empire) they will still show this trait from time to time and have developed a reputation as thieves (although nowhere near as bad as fucking [[Kender]] at least). The more aggressive Halfling takes this trait to its logical conclusion, as Halfling brigands, poachers, and bandits are well known throughout the lands of men.
Ever since being granted the Moot they have organized militias of bowmen for standard defense, but in times of trouble they'll form true armies. Some Halflings of a more militaristic bent will enlist in Empire armies, usually as mercenaries. Others are strangely attracted to the armies of Ogres or in companies of Maneaters, despite the fact that Ogres will constantly enslave their people for their cuisine and even eat them; its possible that willing Halflings are treated with more respect and enslavement occurs when no willing Halfling can be found. Ogres greatly prize access to Halflings for their cooking skills, and the greatest of Tyrants almost certainly have at least one on standby. Mankind similarly enjoys Halfling cooking despite the aforementioned thievery, although its unknown if races like Elves and Dwarfs or even Vampires would desire having them around.

As you'd expect given their "inspiration", Halflings have almost supernatural sneaking ability and a strange affinity for nature; they instinctively are aware of the best farming techniques and conditions, and have a connection to the forests that are beyond even that of [[Wood Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Wood Elves]] (treekin are somewhat resentful of the Elves and fiercely hate every other race, other than Halflings who they serve by simple request).

Being a rural folk, even in their towns, the Halflings are earthy types who enjoy good food, strong drink, a good smoke, and conversation that would turn a Marienburg marine’s ears blue. Expressive to a fault, Halflings think nothing of discussing their aunt’s nightly business with perfect strangers in complete detail. “Just to pass the time, y’know.” They love a good chat and strangers are welcomed by farmers along the roads as long as they bring gossip, coin, or lunch. Or preferably all three.

In essence, they're a send-up of the original [[Hobbits]], just hornier. No, we're not kidding. There's a story in [[White Dwarf]] involving a dwarf army needing to defend the Moot against an orcish invasion; one dwarf general is scandalized by a halfling barmaid who keeps bluntly flirting with him, complete with pinching his arse, and mention is made of a pair of halfling youths deciding that underneath a dwarven battle wagon was a great place for a shag - and not stopping when the wagon rolled off of them despite being surrounded by mortified and pissed-off dwarves.

It's possible that the Halflings and Ogres were meant to be companion species in a similar manner to Kroxigors and Skinks. While there are exceptions, members of the two races have an uncanny tendency to get along when they meet. After the depature of the Old Ones left the two species in seperate geographic locations, the Ogres started taking on Gnoblars as their protectorates, which could be related to their affinity with Halflings through the Ogres trying to fill in the void caused by their missing companions with an inferior substitute.

==Religion==
As far as religion goes, they have their own gods although they don't really do much to worship them. Halflings aren't a faithful lot, seeing religion very much in terms of "what will you do for me in exchange for my devotion?". In some parts of the Empire Halfling gods were substituted when Sigmarites drove out the old pagan faiths and their witch priests. Stirland is the only place where Halfling religion is wholly considered heretical.

* '''Esmerelda'''
Goddess of hearth and home, symbol is a triangle above a vertical line. Her only rules are:
::Never refuse food to the hungry.
::Never use cooking utensils for anything else.
::Never water ale down.
::Never eat less than three quarters a meal a day.
::Never do anything strenuous after a meal.
::Never leave anything unattended while it is cooking.
::Always observe Pie Week.
Humans technically worship her too, given Pie Week is celebrated throughout the Empire.

* '''Josias'''
God of farming, only invoked at the start of planting seasons (spring and summer), grants knowledge of the weather and can make depleted soil fertile again for the devout.

* '''Hyacinth'''
Goddess of fertility and childbirth, primarily only invoked during the act of childbirth by the mother-to-be and attendants (fertility presumably not being a problem with Halflings).

* '''Gaffey'''
God of building and villages, we don't really know anything else about him.

* '''Quinsberry'''
God of ancestry and traditions, we don't know much about him either.

* '''Phineas'''
God of smoking tobacco. We know his pouch is eternally full of the stuff, but nothing else.

Halflings are said to have many more gods, but all of them are unknown to outsiders and worshiped even more rarely than the above by Halflings themselves.

The primary faith of the Halflings is actually [[Sigmar]], and despite there being no records of him interacting in any way with them he's nonetheless seen as their protector (which is the only reason he's worshiped of course). Its not known if the other human gods or any of the Dwarf gods have Halfling devotees, but given that some humans think that Halflings were an experiment to develop an anti-Chaos race its safe to say they're unfriendly with worship and devotees of the [[Chaos Gods]].

===Pie Week===
'''The''' single most important halfling holiday is Pie Week; an entire week (1st to 8th Erntezeit) devoted to doing nothing but baking and eating pies, pies and more pies. Originally a holy rite to the goddess Esmerelda, Pie Week has become viewed as a largely secular affair; as far as the halflings are concerned, so long as they're busy baking pies and stuffing them down their gobs, the goddess is pleased, so they don't really bother with a lot of religious pomp and pageantry the way humans do. Despite this overt lack of religious attributes, Pie Week is Serious Business to halflings. The [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] 2nd edition adventure "A Brutal Finish" spells it out plainly that only crazy halflings don't indulge themselves during Pie Week. As in, not only can you literally spot the insane halfling arsonist Clempo Buttleburr by the fact he's the only halfling not constantly shoveling pies down his gullet, but it's mandated that halfling PCs will suffer a whopping -20% penalty to their Fellowship checks with halfling NPCs if they refuse to eat pies during the festivities, since not gorging themselves will be taken as a sign that there is something seriously wrong with the non-indulgent halfling's mind.

In and of itself, Pie Week is largely devoted to eating pies, with competitive sideline activities such as pie eating, best pie, and most unusual pie being largely suggested by humans - the rite's lack of overt religiosity has seen it become fairly popular amongst humans as well. Pie Week is often folded together with other harvest season festivals in which it overlaps, such as Averheim's annual Wine Tasting Festival.

==The Moot==
{{Infobox Empire Province
|Name = Mootland
|Heraldry = [[File:Banner of Mootland.png|250px]]
|Elector Count as of 2520IC = [[Hisme Stoutheart]]
|Province capital = [[Eicheschatten]]
|Runefang = None (cuz Halflings)
|Specialties = Cooks and pipe makers
|Commerce = Food, leather and tobacco
|Primary military colours = Unknown (probably green or green and white)
}}
The Halfling homeland. Was once the best bit of farming country in all of [[Stirland]] (and to a lesser extent [[Averland]]), until Ludwig the Fat gave it to the halflings as a reward for the delights his halfling chef showered on him. The Stirlanders are still pissed about that, and the Averlanders aren't all that thrilled either. It's beautiful farming country, but there's not much more to it than that.
<gallery>
Mootland map.png
</Gallery>
{{clear}}
{{Provences of the Empire}}

==The Halfling Rebellion==
Whilst the Moot has traditionally been a peaceful place largely spared the wars that've wrecked the rest of the Empire's shit time and time again, there is a particularly notable exception in that history.

The so-called "Halfling Rebellion" is a particularly bloody piece of the Moot's history that occurred in early 2502, Imperial Calender. A [[Orcs & Goblins|Goblin Warlord]] named Nhobgarg was gathering a WAAAGH over in the Worlds Edge Mountains, which prompted the Elector Counts of [[Stirland]] and [[Averland]] to agree to unite their forces in a singular counter-crusade. There was just one problem: how to get the two armies together to march on the Worlds Edge Mountains? The answer was simple; to use their common borders on the Moot and march their forces through it. But that posed its own problems. First, they would have to pass through halfling country, already a trial in and of itself. Second, the Moot's roads and bridges are ''legendarily'' awful, even by Imperial standards. Finally, the proposed route would require crossing the River Stir. Now, there were certainly local ferries criss-crossing the River Stir, but attempting to use ferries to transport a whole army and all its baggage would have been ridiculously impractical even if said ferries ''weren't'' being managed by a race notorious for its indolence and larcenous inclinations.

Full of good intentions, the Elector Count of Averland sought a diplomatic solution, petitioning the Council of Elders for the right for his army to not only move through the Moot, but to engineer superior roads and bridges as they traveled, an act that would incidentally benefit the Moot greatly by making trade and travel through their lands much easier. Unfortunately, halflings are as avaricious as they are gluttonous, and so this kind of enlightened self-interest wasn't enough; the Averlander Count had to sweeten the pot with a colossal bribe of gold and livestock before he got permission. Still, permission was received and the engineers of Averland set to work, making pretty good time... up until they reached the River Stir.

That was when things started to go wrong. The Averland engineers began to sink pilings for the new bridge; so far, so good. And then they woke up the next morning, and some cheeky bastard had scattered the pilings, forcing them to start over! And when they did, the next day, it happened again! And again! They posted guards, but said guards would vanish with the stones, only to turn up serveral days later in nearby ditches, bound and gagged.

As it just so happened, the area where the Averlanders were trying to build their bridge was "controlled" by a halfling ferry clan, the Tomfiddle family, and it didn't take a genius to realize that they were probably behind all this goblin business. The Averlanders pleaded with the Moot Elders to make the Tomfiddles knock it off... and instead, the Elders said that they couldn't; they only gave the Count of Averland permission to build ''roads'', they never said anything about ''bridges''!

Now, it's anyone's guess why the Moot Elders would do this. Maybe they were hoping to score another bribe; halflings are infamously corrupt, even compared to their human neighbors, after all. Maybe they were just reacting with knee-jerk halfling bigotry, instinctively deciding to support their own kind as a "screw you" to the humans, without considering the logical repercussions of their actions. Either way, it was the absolute '''worst''' decision they could have made.

Most Elector Counts would have taken a very dim view of these shenanigans, but the Elector Count of Averland at the time was [[Marius Leitdorf]]. A man whose own people called him "The Mad Count". We don't know the precise details of what communication was exchanged between the two sides, but the Moot Elders decided that the best course of action to take with an Elector Count infamous for his unpredictable behavior and maniac outbursts of intense rage was to continue provoking him. The end result? Marius gathered the Averland forces and marched against the Moot, with the stated intent of massacring the entire population. No joke; his order to his men was literally "slaughter every one of the malodorous runts".

Realizing they had perhaps made a boo-boo, the Moot's Elders marshalled all the halfling warriors they could find and sent them to the Moot's southern borders to intercept the Averland forces. It went... even worse than you're thinking; the so-called "Battle of Nearstream" became one of the most one-sided slaughters in Imperial history as the halflings took one look at the grim-featured humans marching stoically towards them and collectively thought "stuff this for a game of soldiers!" They turned and ran before the Averlanders had so much as begun the attack, but being small and near-morbidly obese to a one, they were swiftly overrun and slaughtered.

Most Elector Counts would have had their ardor cooled by this first blood, and would have leveraged the butchery to wring the Moots' Elders' necks ''metaphorically'' now that they had them fully intimidated. But Marius was nuttier than a squirrel turd, so as far as he was concerned, the fight was just beginning.

We don't know the details of Marius' rampage, except that it become so excessively bloody that over three quarters of his army quit in disgust, an act that only further enflamed the mad count's rage, to the point he would spend the small hours stalking the mist-shrouded fields and screaming challenges at trees and shrubs. Whilst the dwindling population of the Moot either ran for their lives or otherwise tried to avoid being butchered, the Elders hid themselves in the deepest, darkest holes they could find and began sending desperate letters for aid to literally anyone in the Empire they thought might be able to help them.

One of the people they contacted was, of course, Emperor [[Karl Franz]], who was mortified to hear what Marius was up to - as annoying as the halflings might be, letting one electoral province massare another would set a bad precedent. So he immediately dispatched the Reiksguard to bring the Count of Averland to heel. But it would take time for his forces to arrive.

Luckily for the Moot, two of their letters found receptive [[mercenary|mercenaries]]. The first was Lumpin Croop, whose Fighting Cocks immediately came running to the motherland's aid in a patriotic fury. Far more useful was the second; the Tyrant of a small [[ogre]] tribe, one Blaut Feastmaster. Mustering his whole tribe, or at least a decently large gathering of his bully-boys, Blaut came thundering along to the Moot and agreed to bash the Averlanders. Who knows what the Moot Elders offered to ''pay'' for his protection, but it evidently worked.

The details of the subsequent battle are murky. All we know for sure is that Marius emerged alive and apparently sated his bloodlust, at least enough that when the Empire finally caught up with him, he called off his attempted halfling genocide. The proof? The halflings are still alive! Thus ended the Halfling Rebellion.

As for Blaut Feastmaster? We don't know if he left of his own volition or ran with his tail between his legs, but he definitely didn't leave the Moot empty-handed. No, when he returned to the [[Ogre Kingdoms]], he brought entire ''clans'' of halflings with him, dragging them back to serve as slaves in the Mountains of Mourn. To this day, the Feastmaster tribe is famous for scorning the use of [[gnoblar]]s and instead keeping dozens upon dozens of halfling slaves to attend their every whim, which means they have some of the best cooking in the entirety of the Ogre Kingdoms, something that attracts great envy from their fellows. And so the once fat, lazy little bastards instead find themselves working like dogs to keep life and limb intact in the service of bigger and ''meaner'' fat great bastards.

Who says there's no justice in the Warhammer world? If karma has any sense of humor, the entirety of the Tomfiddle clan is there now.

==Notable Characters==
Unfortunately, the Halflings don't have many characters other than Lumpin.

* [[Hisme Stoutheart]]: The current Elder. Although he only supported [[Karl Franz]] due to extensive bribery in the form of beer and oatcakes he also secured a lucrative trade deal, and has been more active in sending Halfling forces to defend the Empire than previous Elders.

===Lumpin Croop===
[[File:Lumpin Croop.png|thumb|right|400px|"I don't always bullshit my way into being more famous than [[Markus Wulfhart]]. But when I do, its with some stolen turnips and a rabbit from the local lord's private forest. Stay hungry, my cocks."]]
The only notable named halfling character in all of Warhammer canon. Bastard son of an itinerant carrot salesman and a blacksmith's daughter, Lumpin grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, his father dead before his birth (possibly at his grandfather's hands), his mother a drunkard and his grandparents hating him. The ginger-haired little nuisance ultimately ran away from home to become a pickpocket, con-artist and poacher. This ultimately got him into trouble when, one evening, he was ambushed at a halfling tavern - The Old Pig & Bucket in Beggar's End - by a band of vengeful gamekeepers, ready to give him a sound beating.

Staring down so many angry halflings, with no way of escape, Lumpin did the only thing he could do: he started spouting bullshit. He spun his audience a yarn of of excitement, treasure and vast banquets waiting to be had in the lands over the mountains, of how they could have adventure, gold and glory by becoming mercenaries. And they bought it hook, line and sinker! Next thing Lumpin knew, his former angry mob was now a loyal band of glory-seeking mercenaries, and he found himself reluctantly leading them from the Moot to the wider world. He keeps trying to give them the slip and escape, but they're better trackers than he is, so he always gets caught. He also has a tendency to end up in the most amazingly fortunate turns of events, usually winning glory despite his attempts to keep away from the fighting.

Amazingly, his followers adore him, and believe him to be a brilliant, adventurous thrill-seeker, whom they'd follow into the Chaos Wastes if he asked. In this, he can be seen as a sort of prototype for [[Ciaphas Cain]]... complete with a certain level of ambiguous heroism, as his fluff usually states that Lumpin is starting to become loyal to his men.

In 6e, Lumpin Croop has Movement 4, Weapon Skill 3, Ballistic Skill 5, Strength 3, Toughness 3, Wounds 2, Initiative 6, Attacks 2, and Leadership 9. He carries a hand weapon, a bow, a shield, and light armor. He has the Skirmishers special rule.

===The Fighting Cocks===
The former gameskeepers turned mercenaries who follow Lumpin Croop. Despite his endless attempts to escape them or keep them out of danger's way, they keep tracking him down and getting themselves into danger. And they absolutely love their new lifestyle; they wouldn't give it up for the world. They have endless faith in Lumpin for putting them on this path, and constantly rationalize his cowardly behavior as just brilliant tactical insight. And, in fairness, his "training exercise" (the Fighting Cocks tracking him down when he tries to run away) have made them some of the best damn scouts in the Empire.

Their battlecry is "Hurray! Hurray! The Moot! The Moot!". This was born out of an early battlecry when Lumpin tried to flee the field, shouting "Run Away! Run Away! To the Moot! To the Moot!", but the chaos of the battlefield garbled the message and they instead made a heroic charge that brought the Empire victory.

The Fighting Cocks are a halfling [[Dogs of War]] unit that have appeared in most editions of Warhammer Fantasy.

In 6e, each individual member of the Fighting Cocks has Movement 4, Weapon Skill 2, Ballistic Skill 4, Strength 2, Toughness 2, Wounds 1, Initiative 5, Attacks 1, and Leadership 8 - the exception is the Standard Bearer, Neddly Hamfist, who has Ballistic Skill 5. The default Fighting Cocks consist of Lumpin Croop, Neddly, a Hornblower, and three halfling archers at a total of 90 points; they can purchase additional halfling archers for +7 points per halfling, to a max unit size of 20. The Fighting Cocks are a Special Unit for [[Dogs of War]] and a Rare Unit in any other 6e Army, except [[Bretonnian]]s, who won't have anything to do with them.

[[Category:Regiments of Renown]]

===The Halfling Hot Pot===
The ''other'' halfling [[Dogs of War]] unit, the Halfling Hot Pot is a pissed off team of halfling chefs using a giant slingshot to propel kettles of boiling hot soup at the enemy.

A Halfling Hot-Pot, in 6e, consists of the Hot Pot itself and 3 halfling crew for 50 points. The Hot Pot is a warmachine with Toughness 4 and Wounds 2; it fires as a Stone Thrower except it has a maximum range of 36" and hits are S3, no Armor Save allowed - the model directly under the template's hole takes a S6 Armor-Ignoring hit that does D3 wounds. The individual halflings have Movement 4, Weapon Skill 2, Ballistic Skill 4, Strength 2, Toughness 2, Wounds 1, Initiative 5, Attacks 1, and Leadership 8, and are armed with hand weapons.

==The Hungry Horde==
The first ever Halfling army list appeared in issue #36 of Citadel Journal in the year 2000, which also contained rules for a Halfling warband in [[Mordheim]]. [[Wayne Oldfield]], one of the longest of the Longbeards in tabletop gaming and alumni of the notorious Nottingham Games Club (seriously, in the introduction to the army this magnificent bastard mentions his '''10,000 point Dogs Of War army''') wrote the rules while the British author David Lee Stone (best known for the The Illmoor Chronicles novels) wrote the lore. The lore is canon to the setting unlike a fair amount of supplementary material which tends towards the questionable, showing it to be [[Black Library]] Approved (literally, a picture of a purity seal with that exact phrase appears to the side of the text).

All Halfling infantry have the Woodsman rule, giving them immunity to penalties from Woods terrain.

Believe it or not, the army is fairly OP for an army of its time period, although if the general rules for transferring stats to modern editions are used, it becomes even stronger since your monster options are damn decent and don't end up as cannon fodder like the monsters of most armies.

After this brief appearance, halflings as a fighting force... technically never appeared again. The February 2006 issue of [[White Dwarf]] (#313 for UK, #314 elsewhere) contained a scenario called "The Revolting Moot", which allows you to fight the decisive battle of the Halfling Rebellion between the halflings and their ogre allies under Blaut Feastmaster vs. Marius Leitdorf's remaining imperial troops in a game of Warhammer Fantasy 6e.

In this scenario, the "Halfling Army" is basically just a normal [[Ogre Kingdoms]] army, but using [[gnoblar]] fighter and trapper units to stand in for halfling militia squads. It can also include Lumpin Croop & His Fighting Cocks, Halfling Hot Pots (replace Gnoblar Scraplaunchers), and "Kathleen", the Halftank (also known as the Soup Tank); a broken-down [[Steam Tank]] clumsily salvaged and rebuilt by the halflings as a mobile soup kitchen, but still capable of fighting in an emergency.

Kathleen the Halftank is a 0-1 Rare Unit in the arm that costs 150 points; she has Movement 6, Weapon Skill 1, Ballistic Skill 4, Strength 5, Toughness 6, Wounds 6, Initiative 0, Attacks 0, and Leadership 10. She has the special rules Large Target, Unbreakable, Unit Strength 6, Cause Fear and Nearly Irresistible Force; she can't march, but when she charges, she inflicts D6 Impact Hits, just like a chariot. When engaged in melee, she does D3 Strength 5 hits each turn, representing the halflings trying desperately to run over whatever is in the halftank's way. Its sole armament is the Soup Cannon, which fires in a 45 degree arc from the halftank's front; place the Flame template touching the cannon and roll Artillery dice - move the template this many inches forward. Models hit by the SouP Cannon take a Strength 5 hit that ignores Armor Saves; models covered by the template are hit automatically, models partially covered are hit on a 4+.

===Regiments===
These are equivalent to the "Core" of 8th edition. At least 25% of your army must consist of these models, and each unit has to have a minimum of 5 models with no maximum limit to unit size (this is before rules to prevent things like the "1000000 Skaven Slave" list).
* Halfling Militia
Basic troops. Your standard Halfling.
* 0-1 Great Eagle Riders
Yeah, even before the movies people were making "Eagles save the day" jokes. Its common enough in-universe that "When the Halflings are in trouble along come the Lords Of The Air." is a common saying. Two Halflings ride on each Eagle, and can be equipped with Light Armor for 1 point, and Spears and a Shield for 0.5 points each.
* 0-1 Swan Riders
The rider is a highly skilled archer, and the swans themselves are large enough to maul and even kill using their wings (those who scoff at the idea haven't met a real swan or their goose cousins). They fly in a V formation like small swans, quickly maneuvering the battlefield. They can move and shoot, and can even attack other models that are flying too high to be in range albeit at a -1 penalty. Have Light Armor in addition to their bows.
* 0-1 Battle Ram Riders (Halfling heavy cavalry)
Male War Sheep. They are specifically trained and intended for use as cavalry. Their wool is thick enough that it grants Barding bonuses and a +1 to save.
* War Sheep Riders
Halfling War Sheep are technically the best of their normal female sheep, which have been bred to massive size and for obedience unusual in livestock. However they are still just sheep, and have a -1 Leadership during Break Tests.
* Goat Riders
Unlike the War Sheep these are just the largest of their ordinary goats. They don't suffer penalties from Woods or Hills, and can be Skirmishers.
* 0-1 Pantry Guard
Elite chefs who can be assigned to guard the Chuck Wagon, earning them a +1 Combat Resolution bonus. Can be equipped with Light Armor and Double-handed Weapons (meaning cleavers). They can also carry a Magic Standard.
* 0-3 Crazy Chefs
Night Goblin Fanatic knock-offs who can be part of the Pantry Guard. Their behavior is due to them getting into the "spicy dumplings".
* 0-1 Halfling Housewives
A squad of female halflings come to add their own vicious temperament to the fray; become Frenzied if other halflings die within 8". Have higher durability than standard militia due to their childrearing and housework (that's the canon explanation, not our joke). You can only take one unit of them because they'd become too jealous (again, that's not us making that joke). Their weapons are all Hand Weapons, but are listed as rolling pins, barrels, cudgels, and brooms. They can be equipped with corsets AKA Light Armor (why Halfling women care about hiding their fat guts isn't clear, though it may be that they get better support for their chonky bosoms than with bras) and the The Washing Line magic item. They can also take Double-handed Weapons for 1 point (so you can have an entire unit of Halfling ladies bashing Warriors Of Chaos with fucking barrels).
* 0-1 Lords of the Harvest (elite halfling infantry being carried piggyback by lowly Gatherers)
* Poachers (halfling archers)
* [[Treeman|Treemen]]

===Warmachines===
* Halfling Hot Pots
* The Reaper & The Shearer (halfling "chariots" (repurposed farming machinery) which do 2d6 damage on a charge due to their abundance of spinning blades)

===Monsters===
* Baby [[Dragon]] (can be taken as a character steed or a general monster)
* [[Pegasus]] (can be taken as a character steed or a general monster)
* Giant Eagle (can be taken as a character steed or a general monster)
* Giant Swan (can be taken as a character steed or a general monster)
* Poultry Swarm: Angry chickens, ducks, and geese herded onto the field of battle.

===Characters===
Can be up to 50% of your points.
* Moot General
Designated by bearing a (ceremonial?) Picnic Basket which is how Halflings mark their military commanders (no, really). Mandatory for your army as your General; can take the Ring of Concealment for 30 points to become immune to missile attacks and inflict a -2 penalty on enemy melee attack rolls, and must take Glammyding, a magic sword that grants +2 Strength and causes Fear in [[Orcs & Goblins]] - yeah, they're Bilbo ripoffs). Glammyding is not a one-of-a-kind item, it's a type of magic sword that all Halfling Generals bear to distinguish them from officers. They can be upgraded to ride a Battle Ram or anything from the Monsters section.
* Chuck Wagon
The Halfling Battle Standard Bearer. Contains most of the rations for the army, and is pulled by two Aurochs which are the giant feral ancestors to cattle (note: Aurochs existed in real life, they're just extinct in our world while in Warhammer the Halflings have preserved them as delicious war beasts). The crew consists of two Cooks and a Chef who are equipped with Light Armor and Hand Weapons with the Chef being allowed to equip a single magic item. If the Chuck Wagon is captured by the enemy (instead of destroyed) the ENTIRE HALFLING ARMY GAINS HATRED AGAINST WHATEVER TOOK IT. Meaning they've decided who's going to replace the lost rations.
* Halfling Hero
Your standard Halfling character, with no limit on how many you can take. Have the lowest stats of your Characters.
May have any combination of available weapons and armor, and a maximum of two magic items (unless given one by a Thief). Can ride Battle Rams, War Sheep, Goats, or any model from the Monsters section.
* Halfling Master Chef
Master Chef may only be in a unit of Cooks. Same upgrades as the Hero.
* Halfling Housewife Lady
Like the Master Chef she can only lead a unit of Housewives. Same upgrades as the Hero.
* Halfling Thieves (0-3)
The Halflings call them their "Scouts". They have a 1/3 chance chance to steal the weakest magic item or a 1/6 chance to steal any magic item of their choice from any enemy unit that their unit is in base contact with, which they pass to any Character also in their unit but may not use any they steal on their own. There is a 1/6 chance they fail to steal anything but are not revealed to the opponent, a 1/6 chance to fail and be revealed, and a 1/6 chance to immediately be killed (and obviously revealed). As a result this die roll is based on the honor system. They can be equipped with any weapons/armor, can be equipped with one magic item of their own, and can ride a Battle Ram or anything from the Monsters section although they can only hide in units using the same mount.
* 0-1 Sheep Dog
The companions of Battle Ram Riders in lore, becomes a Familiar to any character model you want in crunch. They must stay within 12 inches of their master and take his/her Leadership for morale tests, and if they can get into base contact with any War Sheep or Battle Ram unit that is fleeing it automatically rallies.
* Halfling Champion
The weaker form of the Hero. They use the same equipment as their unit, and can carry a single magic item.
* Halfling Chef
The weaker form of the Master Chef, can similarly only join Cooks. Same upgrades as the Champion.
* Housewife Matron
The weaker form of the Housewife Lady, can similarly only join Housewives. Same upgrades as the Champion.
* Halfling Wizard
Lousy; they cap out at level 2 and know 1 Battle Magic spell per level. They can be equipped with any weapon/armor combination however, may take one magic item for their magic level, and can ride a Battle Ram or anything from the Monsters section (ironically making them a very good wizard option for most armies even if their actual magic is not great).

===The Comradeship===
A send-up of the Fellowship from [[The Lord of the Rings]], these guys were special characters in the halfling army that debuted in Citadel Journal #36. Consist of the mad mage Olorin the Grey Wizard, Aragand the Layabout, Giblet the Dwarf, and Legles the Elf.

'''Olorin''' is a 4th level Wizard Lord who costs 290 points and wields Battle Magic and Grey Magic spells. He is armed with a sword and 4 magic items of the player's choice, and has the following stats: Movement 4, Weapon Skill 3, Ballistic Skill 3, Strength 4, Toughness 4, Wounds 4, Initiative 6, Attacks 3, Leadership 8. He is characterized as a mysterious wanderer whom the Moot mostly knows as a traveling entertainer who creates fireworks and pulls (tasty) rabbits out of hats. It is said he has a secret, but he won't say what it is.

'''Aragand''' is described as the type of scruffy, unwashed bloke you see sitting the dingy part of any tavern in the Empire, usually all on his lonesome. Aragand claims to be a king in waiting from a far-off country, and who knows, maybe he's telling the truth. He costs 290 points, wears light armor, wields a Magic Sword of the player's choice as a two-handed weapon, has 2 other Magic Items of the player's choice, and has the following stats: Movement 4, Weapon Skill 6, Ballistic Skill 6, Strength 4, Toughness 4, Wounds 3, Initiative 6, Attacks 4, Leadership 9.

'''Giblet''' is a failed [[Slayer]], so bumbling and incompetent that his disgusted peers sent him out to make friends with an Elf... which, somehow, he did. Now the two are inseparable, with Giblet loyally trundling along after Legles, who does his best to help Giblet avenge his dishonor by getting himself killed. This failed Dragon Slayer costs 30 points, goes Unarmored, and wields a Great Axe, although he's permitted to take 2 Magic Items and/or Rune Items. He has the following stats: Movement 3, Weapon Skill 6, Ballistic Skill 5, Strength 4, Toughness 5, Wounds 2, Initiative 4, Attacks 2, Leadership 5. He is Immune to Psychology so long as Legles is alive, but suffers from Stupidity if Legles dies.

'''Legles''' we know the least about, which is saying something. Ever since Giblet forcibly befriended him, he's been stuck leading the dwarf all over creation, hoping to get the dwarf killed so he can fulfil his Slayers Oath. Costing 104 points, he wears Light Armor, wields a Wood Elf Longbow and a Sword, and can take 2 magic items. He has the following stats: Movement 5, Weapon Skill 6, Ballistic Skill 6, Strength 4, Toughness 4, Wounds 2, Initiative 8, Attacks 3, Leadership 9.

===Warhammer Army Project===
As laughable as halflings are, it's worth noting that they've been a part of Warhammer's military forces for quite a while, from being an Ally mini-list available to [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|Empire]] and [[Wood Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Wood Elf]] generals in 3e to being one of the core Empire units in 4e, to say nothing of their consistent appearance throughout the [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]]. So, it was inevitable that the [[Warhammer Army Project]] would try to cook up an army book for them for their Warhammer 9th Edition project.

The WAP version is clearly based on the Hungry Horde article from Citadel Journal #36, but does put a few unique twists on it.

The obligatory '''Commanders''' are the ''Elder''s (Lord Tier) and the ''Sheriffs'' (Hero tier), these representing the figures of authority in the Mootland.

One of the new additions to the Hungry Horde in 9e is the '''Enchanters'''; [[halfling]] [[wizard]]s. They aren't common, as that "resistance to [[Chaos]]" thing means halflings have difficulty drawing in the raw magical energy needed to fuel a spell unless they actually work at it good and hard - and you know how halflings feel about work! Still, that same resistance to the forces of Chaos means they excel at disrupting hostile magic, and usually don't have to worry about the "minor side effects" like [[human]] wizards do. Most live simple lives as entertainers or arcane physicians, but a few are truly devoted to magic and get good enough that they can be called upon to lend their spellcasting powers to the Moot's defense. A halfling enchanter (or its Lordly counterpart, the Grand Enchanter) can practice all of the common forms of magic but the Lore of Death, and their special "Resistant to Magic" rule means they only channel Power Dice on a 5+, but channel Dispel Dice on a 3+. They are, however, going to be vastly outgunned power-wise by any comparable [[wizard]]; Enchanters are fixed at Level 1, and Grand Enchanters at Level 2!

'''Master Chefs''' are to the Hungry Horde what Battle Standard Bearers are to pretty much every other race; these are the guys who inspire the army to fight harder. They may often go to war alongside the '''Pantry Guard'''; deputized cooks charged with guarding the precious Chuck Wagon that holds the valuable supplies needed for the post-battle meals. Nothing inspires a halfling to fight like the idea that they might lose their lunch!

'''Master Thieves''' are, of course, some of the most skilled and famous of all halfling burglars and pickpockets, often motivated to lend their aid to the defense of the motherland. Whereas regular halfling '''Thieves''' clump together for mutual protection and safety, Master Thieves go it alone as characters.

The humble '''Militia''' makes up the bulk of the Hungry Horde's fighting forces, whilst the professionally trained '''Vigilante Guards''' are more of an elite trooper. But even they are not as respected as the '''Fieldwardens''', who keep the peace on the Moot's borders and serve as its first line of defense against [[goblin]]s and the [[undead]].

Physically handicapped by short legs and a racial proclivity towards obesity, halflings don't exactly make natural cavalrymen. Yet in times of war, the pony-riding couriers known as '''Hobilars''' are the best they've got... or were. '''Hound Riders''', '''Ram Riders''', and '''Swan Riders''' may not be as fast as the Hobilars, but at least they're not so likely to fall off at the first bump! Plus, they have their own unique advantages.

The halfling '''Rangers''', crack archers and wilderness scouts, are the most well-known and respected of the halfling's meager military might, providing backup to the Fieldwardens and scouting for the imperial armies of their neighbors.

The '''Housewives''' are, well, exactly that; halfling women who've shown up to make sure their menfolk do a proper job of keeping the Moot safe, complete with the ability to carry a clothes line full of newly cleaned laundry as a banner. ...Yes, we know, they weren't that funny even in the 2000s, but can you ''really'' say that Warhammer is above this kind of humor? They're no longer a 0-1 unit, but they do use up Special Unit slots.

Not being particularly blessed with native monsters and creatures to tame, the halflings have had to get... creative... when it comes to supplementing their forces. '''Bee Swarms''' are gathered from the many hives on Mootland farms and tied up in sacks, then released in the hopes they will sting the enemy to death and not their wielders.

Similar creativity can be found in the '''Lords of the Harvest'''; gangs of young halfling youths that ride each other piggyback into battle in hopes of proving their martial prowess, their use of the '''Reaper and Shearer''' farm machinery as weapons of war, and of course the legendary '''Halfling Hot-Pot''' and '''Kathleen the Half Tank'''.

Finally, there is the true muscle of the Hungry Horde; the small but disproportionally powerful bands of '''Moot Ogres'''.

Of course, what would an army list be without some special characters?
* '''Hisme Stoutheart''' is the Halfling Elector Count and the Elder of the Mootland.
* '''Nicholas Warfoot''' is the descendant of one of the Moot's few dedicated military families, and its current overall commander.
* '''Clegg the Indomitable''' is a Master Thief with a small but potent arsenal of magical items.
* '''Gabbo Flugbend''' is a now-retired [[adventurer]] of genuine skill, who rides a loyal [[[pegasus]] named Greywing.
* '''Ogglethorpe Bulnhelm''' is the latest scion of the most legendarily skilled chefs in the Moot.
* '''Jolly Bolbottom''' is an inkeeper who became an unlikely hero when he killed a [[giant]] by being swallowed whole and then igniting the fetid gases inside of its gut, causing it to explode, which he miraculously survived.

==Age of Sigmar==
Confirmation of their existence in the Mortal Realms is here! In the novella "Nadir" in the compilation "Harrowdeep": Halflings are counted among the prisoners held captive in a trap created by the Kunnin' Krew. Not much is known about them beyond their race name and that they are recognizable at a glance by a Stormcast, but they're here!

A new subspecies was recently confirmed in Aqshy, specifically Aspiria: The Rockwrist Halflings. They have periwinkle skin and indigo blood.

== Bloodbowl ==

The joke team of the already humorous football fantasy game. The technical deficiency of Halfling teams is legendary. They're too short to throw or catch, they run at half pace, and it goes without saying that their blocking game leaves something to be desired. Most Halfling coaches, aware of the material that they have to work with, make up for quality with quantity. If you are able to somehow win a game that act alone will impress other players. Being a halfling coach requires in depth knowledge of the game and skill in order to make a decent team from horrible starting units.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Halflinghammer.png|The legit Halfling minis. The one with the sword is Lumpin Croop himself.
Image:LumpinBoxin.jpg
Image:The Moot Petitions.jpg
</gallery>

==External Links==
* Warhammer Wiki article on Halflings: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Halfling
* Warhammer Wiki article on Lumpin Croop & His Fighting Cocks: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Lumpin_Croop%27s_Fighting_Cocks
* Online copy of Citadel Journal #36: https://img.fireden.net/tg/image/1535/88/1535889742650.pdf

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:The Empire]]

Slavery

2023-05-21T18:01:57Z

2601:18C:8F00:FB0:74EB:422A:E66F:8DAE: /* Slavery in Warhammer Fantasy Battle */

{{flamewar}}
[[image:Slaves sugar cane.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Slaves harvesting sugar cane, not a lot fun for them. It is really good in tea, though.]]
{{Topquote|I came here in peace, seeking gold and slaves.|Jack Handey, ''What I'd Say to the Martians''}}
{{Topquote|No! We are true men, not slaves! I would sooner choose death than to betray my god and serve the likes of you!|A certain [[Chaos|Forsaken tribesman]], made a <s>foolish</s> bold decision to reject Nagash's slavery, and was devoured alive moments later by Nagash's ghouls. AKA getting exactly what he wants.}}

'''Slavery''' is the institution of owning other humans ([[Hard Science Fiction|as well as other sapient]] [[Soft Science Fiction|beings by extrapolation]]) as property. As slaves are bound to their owners, they were prevented from leaving or refusing to work under threat of immediate violence for disobedience. When two groups would fight, it was not uncommon for the victor to capture some of the defeated along with the goods or territory and put them to work. Later on, as long-distance trade improved, they also began selling said captives to other cultures. The children of slaves usually were slaves themselves, though this was not universal.

In other cases, people would be put into slavery as a punishment, e.g. for failure to pay their debts, or voluntarily such as an alternative to paying for something. Some systems of slavery even offered opportunities for, like the Devshirmeh system in Ottoman Empire, where boys taken from among Christian vassals who were bright enough could actually end up as Grand Vizier of the Empire (with a few caveats; they had to be smart and all of them had to be converted to Islam willingly or not... either way they weren't allowed to stay Christian).

In addition to the practice of owning human beings as chattel, there are other contemporary and historical arrangements so similar to slavery that they are referred to as slavery informally or at that point in history. A few of these include serfdom ([[Peasant|serfs]] were not owned, but they were bound to the land owned by [[noble]]s and are required to work the noble's land 2-3 days per week for free and keep what else they could grow-keep-trade), indentured servitude or peonage in colonial America (in exchange for passage to the new world being paid, criminal fines or to discharge a debt in a form of unpaid or coerced labor called debt bondage, someone would be indentured to a contract holder and have to work off their debt over a number of years such as British criminals and Irish people too poor to pay for the trip), impressment and shanghaiing (where people were kidnapped or tricked into leaving from home ports or ships and forced to serve as sailors with said debt not being hereditary, often with their identification papers or debts held over their heads to keep them in line), unreasonable use of unpaid labor such as some more extreme versions of prisons or POW interment facilities, and the various forced labor programs used by the [[Nazi|Nazis]] and other despotic regimes and the victims of human trafficking which is still ongoing today.

Presently it's generally acknowledged that humans cannot be considered ''real assets'', although there remain locations where this is not an absolute, and only the most extreme activists consider this to be a universal right that should be extended to other organisms. Then there is issue of mandatory labor and the debates whether or not its acceptable to have the practices of mandatory conscription, prison labor, court-ordered community service and non-dischargeable debt.

Economically slavery is... tricky. At the first glance it looks like free labour, meaning easy way of getting rich without paying your workers. But slavery have lots of hidden expenses, most notably on security and overseeing work, making it not nearly as free as it looks. Furthermore, most slaves are unfit for any sophisticated work, being way worse motivated in the result of their labour than hired workers. That's not to say you can't have slave engineers, teachers or other high-intelligence jobs, but historically it only worked by giving said highly skilled slaves so much freedom and privilege they end up more like contracted workers with no way of getting out of the contracts, and not much (if any) cheaper than free people doing the same job, so the only upside is that they don't run away from you and tell your secrets to your enemies. For this reason in most cultures for the overwhelming length of history slaves were a luxury, not really a means of creating wealth, unless you happen to have highly profitable industry with very low skill requirement, like strip mining in antiquity (deep mining required way more skill), cotton farming in new age or textile sweatshops in modern times. Even then it have another hidden detriment: slaves don't consume as much as free people, so they put a giant handbrake on the economy, hampering the circulation of the capital and generally making everyone, including even slave owners, poorer compared to the same economy running on hired labour instead of slavery. In short, slavery excels at making nobles or their equivalents in society richer than plebs, but not at making them richer than "nobles" of other societies that don't run on slavery. One of the reasons modern slavery only survived in third-world countries is partly because they're shitholes that still use slavery that cannot afford to "cash out" their slaves and transition to a traditional economy.

== History stuff ==
{{skubby}}
The oldest surviving codex of laws yet discovered in the world, the "Code of Ur-Nammu" dating back to at least 2050 BCE, has multiple references to slaves, so slavery has been with humanity for a ''very'' long time. Slavery was practiced in virtually every culture at some point throughout their history; as soon as a people progressed from a hunter-gathering and nomadic culture to an agrarian one it became more convenient to look for ways to increase productivity and lower expenses. Before the advent of modern machinery, often the best way was some flavor of slave workforce since you generally had to spend fewer resources on a slave than you would on your fellow clan member. That said, it was unusual for a society to have more than 10% of it's population as slaves.

Prisoners of war were taken as slaves and made to ply their trade for their conquerors, or were sold abroad for goods. Since civilizations would wax and wane from time to time, the enslavers of one generation might end up enslaved in the next. The Ancient Egyptians made use of slaves in various ways, though even then, there was something of a hierarchy among slaves. That being said, contrary to popular belief, the pyramids weren't built by slaves but by free people (paid in fresh crops grown on the most fertile and irrigated lands in Egypt owned directly by the pharaoh and worked by said pharaoh's personal slaves, as well as good amounts of meat). The Greeks made heavier-than-usual use of slaves, and the Romans even more so. The Persians did not use slavery themselves and tried to limit it, but slavery did exist in their Empire among their conquered vassals. Slaves worked in every field from miners (who were quickly worked to death) to farmers, to factory workers and skilled craftsmen. Other examples range from the [[Grimdark]] examples of sex slaves or fodder for human sacrifice (the latter being something the Aztecs were notorious for), to non dark examples such as entertainers, teachers and doctors (particularly Greeks who could buy their freedom in a year, or even less if skilled) and even up to high ranking government officials in the Empire. Ancient Romans used to grumble about all these slaves coming in stealing people's jobs (this sentence is not a joke).

Slavery existed in [[Medieval Stasis|Medieval Europe]], but declined after the year 1000 CE in a lot of places, especially the north. The Domesday Book (a census carried out by William the Conqueror in 1086) stipulated that about 10% of the population of England was slaves. In fact, the basis for the modern English word slave gets its roots from the fact that the Slavic races were so often put upon that [[Grimdark|the ordeal was named after them]], also providing the first example of race-based slavery. The Vikings practiced slavery, acquiring them primarily on expeditions or raids in Eastern Europe and the British Isles. They could also obtain Viking slaves at home (as crimes like murder and thievery were punished with slavery) or through doing business with the Arab world, which also had a prominent slave trade. The Vikings' treatment of slaves was all over the spectrum. When Arabs, and later the Europeans, discovered the continent of Africa, there was much contact between local tribes and foreigners on this subject. Many nations would take slaves from the peoples of Africa abetted at times by local slavery systems among African people themselves (see below). [[Grimdark|In Brazil and most of the Caribbean between 1600 and 1800, the slave population never was able to achieve natural replacement rates due to a high death rate from overwork and abuse by their masters]]. The American system of slavery (aka "the peculiar institution") would arguably require an entire article of its own, but since we'd rather not try to poke that hornet's nest, suffice to say it was little different from the Caribbean experience and was only abolished by President Abraham Lincoln as a result of the American Civil War (and was one of the reasons Lincoln was assassinated). In Europe, society eventually transition from using slaves to serfs where they were tied to the land (which is owned and under the protection of a landowner) instead of being tied directly to owners under the feudal system. The said system hung on until the Black Death but held out in Eastern Europe right until the eve of World War I.

During this aforementioned time, the idea of racial slavery was raised. In the Classical World (for example, Ancient Rome), slaves were basically from everywhere in the Empire and many places beyond and the children of freed slaves (Libertus) in Rome became more Romans, and Rome being Rome, they even had the manumission (freeing) of slaves as a religious/bureaucratic ritual onto itself. While if Slavic people are considered a race, they were the first case of racial slavery due to being popular choices of slaves. Ideas raised in attempts to justify the idea arose between the Arab Slave Trade and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Slavery is not a nice thing even at the best of times, but racial slavery adds to it the conception that an enslaved race is inherently inferior, doomed to servitude forever, and that people from it are unfit for anything else. Those caught up in it had little hope of ever elevating themselves from a state of being a form of livestock with the hands for manual labor. Slave ships sailed from Europe to Africa loaded with manufactured goods, textiles and weapons which they traded for prisoners of war, criminals and existing slaves. They were packed in like sardines to be shipped to the new world, collecting sugar, rum, coffee and other goods produced by slave labor to sell them in the mother countries.

Africa has had slavery between its various tribes and kingdoms for millennia, even to the present day. Between this and many foreign civilizations making extensive use of African slaves, the history of slavery in Africa is complicated and violent. In Africa, even prior to the Arab slave trade or the Atlantic/European slave trade, slavery happened in all forms from ancient times. This was enacted between many of the various tribes and nations of Africa; however, in many African societies where slavery was prevalent, the enslaved people were not treated as chattel slaves and had certain rights in a system similar to indentured servitude elsewhere in the world. When the Arab slave trade - and centuries later, the Atlantic slave trade - began, many of the local slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. They also supplied local criminals and captives from rival tribes or nations to the Arab, European or American slave trades. This means African slave traders short-sightedly helped fan the flames of the issue of racial slavery, unaware of the dehumanization these buyers would subject them to - and that's before the Scramble for Africa caused many of them to become slaves themselves.

While black Africans were shipped to the Americas as slaves in huge numbers, they weren't the only victims of slavery there. Many Native Americans were enslaved by colonial powers, especially the Spanish and Portuguese. That said, the influence of humanitarian-minded Catholic clergy eventually led to positive reforms in the treatment of these indigenous peoples, though these improvements weren't always enforced properly. Native Americans were also known to practice slavery themselves, either on their own initiative or due to influence from colonialists. One famous example of the former are the Haida of the Pacific Northwest, who frequently engaged in maritime slave raids against other tribes, almost like Native American Vikings. When it comes to the latter, the Five Civilized Tribes adopted the practice of owning black slaves. Some members of these tribes fought for the Confederacy, frequently because they wanted to keep their slaves.

North African corsairs were notorious for their frequent slave raids against merchant ships and coastal settlements. They struck as far north as Iceland and as far south as the Congo. Foreign nations were expected to pay tribute to avoid having their vessels and towns attacked. Such raids began in the 16th century and didn't end until the French conquest of the Algerian coast in the 1830s.

In the Ottoman Empire, whose system can ''arguably'' be seen as similar to the Eastern Roman Empire (better known as the Byzantine Empire) it supplanted, the system was more or less the same, but with a small possibility of moving up if you were a Christian (or claiming to be one) because Christians and Jews are considered "people of the Book", meaning the worthiest of non-Muslim people according to Islam. It had three sources of slaves: The first was Africa, with the usual [[Grimdark]] fate for blacks brought by the thousands, many castrated and dying during transport, females ending up as house slaves and non-castrated males working agriculture in Egypt and Anatolia as ''fellahin'' (though the descendants of said slaves could and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Ali_%C3%87elikten did] have success stories). The second was the slave-port of Caffa, the most underreported and forgotten white slavery port which took ''millions'' of white slaves from Ukraine, males killed and women sold as sex slaves ([[SJW|you don't get to hear much about it because they are not black]]). ''Devshirmeh'' is the name for the system of taking one boy out of 40 houses from the population of Christian vassals in the Ottoman Empire; this mostly meant Balkan Christians, with the inclusion of Bosniak Muslims while Armenians, Romani and Jews were explicitly excluded. The taken boys were converted to Islam one way or another, then made into elite monastic troops called Janissaries (new soldiers) in Anatolia or the Mamluks in Egypt. If they proved intelligent, they were sent to the Imperial Academy in Enderun to become bureaucrats. Being slaves, they had no ''habeas corpus'' and could be executed at any time - in theory. In practice, while the threat hanging over their heads was very real, they could also push back against this by working their way into military ranks, marrying Ottoman princesses, engineering palace coups to kill off sultans who didn't pay them enough, or even investing back in their native countries such as Bosnia (the reason Bosniaks mourned the fall of the Janissary institution while EVERYONE ELSE celebrated it). The dangers of the ''devshirmeh'' system didn't stop some families from actively sending their kids there in desperation, often to the point of bribing the Janissary Aghas. A similar situation exists in Egypt with the Mamluks; who were typically taken as children from the local Christian Copts by their Arab rulers.

Female slaves in the Ottoman Empire didn't get as many opportunities, with the "best" option allowed to them being to end up as palace concubines. But this contained more backstabbing than a Tzeentchian party, and few died peacefully. Ironically, many concubines who ended up marrying Viziers or military officers ended up in better positions than concubines who were gunning for the top spot (The Sultan rewarded success with concubines he didn't use- talk about sloppy seconds. Or VERY rarely, [[Loli|one of his daughters]].). With the advent of nationalism, the French Revolution, Russia conquering Ukraine and destroying the Muslim-Tatar slavery business ([[Alignment#Lawful_Evil|If only to preserve their white serf population]]) and the growing need for military reforms bitterly opposed by the Janissaries, the system's flaws burst like rotting cysts, and Ottoman-style slavery went the way of the Dodo in 1847 thanks to [[Noblebright|Abdulmajid's reforms]]. The harem was numerous enough by then, and the freed whites went on with their lives while the black population [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Turks settled in Western Turkey as free farmers]. Slavery didn't ''completely'' end until [[Sebastian Thor|Atatürk]] did the [[Noblebright|final house-cleaning]] around the 1930's.

Eurasia, particularly Ukraine, was the hotbed of slavery for the Ottoman Empire, with the port city of Caffa being the continent's major slave ports. The Russians liberated it from the Crimean Khanate, whose major income was thousands of taken women and children from villages, supplying the Ottoman Empire's need for European/white women. Evliya Çelebi even wrote about the despair and cries of women separated from their children and then sold separately.

But the problem was particularly acute in Russia. Tzar Alexander II officially ended serfdom in Russia via two edicts in 1861 and 1866, liberating roughly 33 million people (23 million private serfs and at least 9 million state serfs) from obligations. But this was achieved by simply taxing all of them and paying the tax to their former lords. While this tax was intended to expire, ultimately the hardship this caused, combined with the Great War and other factors, would lead to the Russian Revolution, where the Tzar abdicated and the Bolsheviks rose to power.

In contrast to the above, slavery is virtually never mentioned in [[Oriental Adventures|east Asian-inspired]] settings. This has some basis in history in certain areas: The [[Mongols]]' nomadic lifestyle was not conductive to widespread slavery, though they did take some captives as slaves ([[Genghis motherfucking Khan|Genghis Khan]] himself was briefly a slave in his youth), and during the Mongol Empire's runs on conquering China people were often little better than slaves anyway. The Chinese themselves went through several periods of loosening and then making stricter laws surrounding slavery, usually rallying around who was in charge following their frequent wars to unify, only to break apart once more. The question of working conditions in China and comparisons to slavery along with "prison camps" came up during and after Mao Zedong's rise to power, but rather than poke that hornet's nest suffice to say these stories have more than a grain of truth to them (there's a reason for the stereotype of the Chinese sweatshop worker). The inhabitants of the Ryukyu islands "would die over" slavery rather than participate. Slavery in Asia was probably most prolific on the Korean peninsula, who had a caste system, but population growth, a few slave revolts and modernization eventually rendered it less than palatable.

The earliest European reports of [[Japan]] mention that, though it existed there, slavery was rare and primarily inflicted on debtors and prisoners of war. The main recorded examples are the maids/concubines of the rich, and those brought by Europeans themselves. One European held slave's physical stature impressed Oda Nobunaga so much that he purchased him, freed him and elevated him to samurai status (making him potentially the first and only non-Japanese Samuraï). This man would be known as Yasuke, [[Anime|the only black samurai]]. During the Sengoku a not-insignificant of Japanese prisoners of war were sold to the Europeans for foreign trade until 1587/1595, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi banned it. HOWEVER... the Japanese were one of the last countries to give up serfdom; the feudal land system disappeared along with the Samurai who oversaw it during the Meiji Restoration.

==Slavery in Fantasy==
[[File:Drow slaves Into the Darklands.jpg|thumb|[[Drow]] are notorious slavers.]]
Because slavery is viewed as such a moral repugnance throughout the modern world, it is an easy way for lazy [[GM]]s to get a reaction from players. Slavery being one of the common features of a setting's bad guys makes for an easy way to establish that civilization or organization is [[Alignment|evil]]. A bunch of armed guys attack a peaceful village with chains and whips to catch its residents, bind them, and take them to their dwelling, where they're treated worse than how we treat livestock and forced to: toil, be beaten, probably raped, and made to fight to the death in arenas for the amusement and benefit of some sick bastards? That is more than enough reason to establish "these guys are bad, go [[murderhobo|kill their asses]]" regardless of alignment; even Evil characters can simply indulge their drive to kill by offing slavers, and exploit the freed villagers and their families for more favors - particularly Lawful Evil ones.

However, this is not always the case; both the perceived "good" and "bad" factions can also engage in slavery, although how they do it usually defines who's good and who's bad (regardless of how minute the difference is). Take [[Araby]] and the [[Dark Elves]] in the ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battles|Warhammer Fantasy]]'' setting, for example. Both factions engage in wanton slavery and have no qualms about it being a common thing everywhere. However, what sort of defines each of them is how they see their slaves. In Araby, slaves have several rights, the children of slaves are guaranteed by law to not be slaves, and particularly cruel mistreatment of slaves will result in punishment to the masters and the mistreated becoming free. The Dark Elves consider all non-Dark Elves to be beneath them and will torture, maim and kill their slaves for various reasons including thinking its fun.

Though it is found in both, slavery is more common in fantasy settings than in science fiction. In your typical Tolkien knockoff, the way you go about digging rocks, harvesting lumber, tilling fields and raising buildings is normally with strong backs. In most sci-fi worlds, why have a bunch of slaves working in an irradiated asteroid space mine when you could have a bunch of robots who don't need slave drivers, don't require food or air, won't plot escape/rebellion ([[Men of Iron|'''hopefully''']]), and are stronger and easier to repair if damaged?

Slavery of a [[/d/|certain kind]] is a common feature of many [[Magical Realm]]s.

===Slavery in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]===

Since we are a bunch of [[Warhammer]] nerds, here are some examples<ref>Besides the pair that allows us to explain that there's a sliding scale of evilness associated with slave-holding societies</ref> from those two/three settings, because we can't restrain ourselves:

[[Tomb Kings|Ancient Nehekharan's]] society mostly had its labor powered by slaves that were either prisoners of war or captured from oversea raid (like their Egypt counterpart). According to the Nagash novel, most slaves would overwork themselves and die under the whips of the architects (or soon to be necrotects) while building a pyramid (Settra's pyramid only took 20 years and cost over 2000 slaves; His successor's pyramid usually took 25 years and cost over one million slaves). This does not mean Nehekharan were mostly cruel tyrants, for a few kind or wise rulers would grant a boon to talented slaves by giving them a place in their hierarchy, allowing some of them to even become a vizier (second most powerful man in a great city besides a priest king). Females would be used as servants instead of labor just because they are good looking.

Then there's [[Nagash]]. HE believed everyone but him are either slaves, fuel for spells or enemies to kill (then made into undead slaves). Even talented generals and his nine noble lieutenants were just considered his most useful slaves, and he only treated them better because he understood positive reinforcement was the best approach with them. Necromancy was his idea of free labor; to build the Black Pyramid, Nagash was merciless even by Nehekharan standards (in hindsight, his dad getting a fuck ton of slaves killed to build his own pyramid, which Nagash would [[Grimdark|wall up his own brother alive in to usurp him]], should have raised a few alarm bells), to the point of telling living slaves to make tools from the bones of their dead co-workers to meet his design. Anyone who died in Nagash's service would be made undead to continue working or punishment, best case scenario they'd get a promotion or power boost if they weren't mindless.

Skaven mainly enslave their own kind - Skavenslaves, the bottom rung of their society. There's always a surplus of Skaven ratlings, so most of those end up as slaves. Their lives are often filthy, painful and short; they're underfed, fight for what little food they have and cannibalism is often required not to starve. They get the most dangerous and thankless jobs, including test subjects for [[Clan Skryre]]'s experiments or raw material for [[Clan Moulder]]'s fleshcrafting. Their most famous role is to act as expendable fodder for Skaven Warlords to pin down or exhaust the enemy with (the same could be said about Clanrats, but they have actual combat training and also get armor - albeit poor quality armor). Skaven do take slaves from other races, though they end up as food, material for fleshcrafting or spell ingredients. Humans whom were enslaved by the Skaven for any length of time often go insane (due to their disbelieve in the said ratmen's mythical existence) and even start to act like a Skaven. Rumors claim that at some point they actually mutate into Skaven, but given Skaven Xenophobia and how they treat skavenslaves the chances of them lasting that long are pretty low. non-skaven slaves, especially the humans would often band together in their cell to prevent anyone of them from devoured by other Skavens, especially if they have infants in their group since Skavens finds [[grimdark|infants to be tasty]].

[[Warrior of Chaos|Chaos Tribes]], like Kurgans and Norscans, employ slaves that are captured in the aftermaths of victorious battles and raids. The former, funnily enough, have a system compared to that of an Ancient Rome, where slaves are constantly fighting to get more privileges and eventually free himself. Norscan slaves are called thralls (even though in real history they weren't exactly slaves) and are mostly used in labour and sacrifice.

All elves have some form of "involuntary servitude". The most notorious slavers are, unsurprisingly, [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy Battle)|Dark Elves]], who use them in pretty much every type of work and take them from every race (although Dwarf ones are the most valuable). [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|High Elves]] of Lothern use slaves (mostly humans) in menial tasks and also trade them, but in other kingdoms slavery is forbidden. [[Wood Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Wood Elves]], meanwhile, kidnap [[Bretonnia|Bretonnian]] children and turn them into servants that regard Asrai as gods and never grow up.

[[Chaos Dwarfs]] are one of the most iconic slaver civilisations in WFB, they rely on it as much as Druchii. Most are [[Orcs & Goblins]], but there are other races working for them. [[End Times|This ultimately brought their doom at the hands of Grimgor.]]

Fantasy Greenskins, interestingly, do not have a developed slavery system. Yes, Goblins can work for Orcs because they're smaller, but by outgrowing Orcs they can free themselves (like [[Grom the Paunch]], for example). Not to say that there are excusively Goblin tribes...

[[Ogre Kingdoms|Ogres]] mostly employ [[Gnoblar|Gnoblars]] as their slaves, but there are also battle [[Giant|Giants]]. However, most other captured enemies are just sacrificed or eaten immediately.

Most of the Order-aligned human nations forbade slavery. The only exception is [[Araby]] (which has an extensive slave system similar to that of Ottoman Empire, Berber Coast and other Arabic nations at the time), also slaves are sometimes traded in [[Sartosa]] and [[Marienburg]]. Bretonnian serfdom can also be somewhat compared to slavery. However, older lore mentioned an Imperial owning a Southlander slave in Drachenfels, and the Empire was mentioned as having enslaved a Pygmy once, before said Pygmy rebelled and ate a few dinner guests at his "owner"'s feast before escaping.

=== Slavery in [[Warhammer 40,000]] ===

''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' actually justifies having slaves fairly well. In a galactic empire like the [[Imperium]], automation is considered techno-[[heresy]] (or simply decayed like spaceship artillery loaders) due to a robot rebellion happening in the past and the risk of Chaos corruption for the machines. Even during the heyday of the Great Crusade, "indentured servants" are found in many canon literary works, mostly for payment for medical treatment, crime (think U.S Penal System), or augmentation. In order to access "free" labour without the fear of Abominable Intelligence, they created [[Servitors]], cyborgs made out of human criminals or vat clones. Then again, every human in the Imperium is indebted to the Emperor at birth and thus [[count as]] his currency to be spent [[Imperial Guard|on wars]] and [[Administratum|labors]]. Basically modern slavery but with more fanaticism, cloning and cybernetics. [[Imperial Worlds#Feudal_Worlds|Feudal Worlds]] and [[Hive World]] exists for this purpose and are basically designed to let the Imperium to shit out billions of humans every single day.

Notably, [[Angron]] was a gladiator, a slave warrior who risk his life to entertain his master, making him the only Primarch to be a slave.

The [[Dark Eldar]] are sick bastards who need to consume souls of psychically susceptible species (human youngsters are prime specimens, while Tau souls taste bland and weak) and get their rocks off at making others miserable.

And the [[Orks]]... well, the Orks simply believe might makes right is an axiom <span style='color:green;font-size:150%'>'''(A WOT?!)'''</span>. It's the natural order that the big and tough can and ought push around the small and puny. There's no universal right, only the power you possess and general Orkiness. Ork fluff is dodgy as far as slaves from other species are concerned, but Grots and especially Snotlings fill the role of slaves for manual labour and occasional plaything (not [[/d/|''that'']] kind of plaything). It should be noted that grots and snotlings are part of the broader Orkoid support ecology which was deliberately engineered to support Da Boyz. [[The War of The Beast]] has shown Orks are capable of enslaving other species if they were given a propa brutal cunning (or cunning brutal) evolution to do so.

And let's not forget the [[Enslavers]], as if their name isn't already an obvious giveaway. They are creatures of warp who feeds on living beings soul, then turning them into their incubation bed/cannon-fodder minion afterwards.

=== Chaos in general ===
Since Chaos works the same way in both fantasy and 40k, it is fine to put both setting together when discussing anything about Chaos.

All Chaos worshipers could be count as some kind of slaves to the Chaos Gods. However, since Chaos Gods is the living conscious of everybody's emotion to the extreme, this means Chaos worshipers are in fact enslaved by their own emotions. [[Khorne|Khornate]] followers need to endlessly offer blood and skulls harvest from their enemy and never show cowardice (only to either die by their enemies' hand, or by Khorne's wrath because of taking some of his glory as their own). [[Tzeentch]] followers need to endlessly plot with hopes that their ambitions could succeed (only for their plans to backfire, that or they get turned into...[[Chaos Spawn|whatever that is]]). Nurgle devotees need to continuously bathe in shit and live in misery, or else Nurgle will give them [[Extra Heresy|extra encouragement]] to become a proper follower. Slaanesh's followers need to tirelessly perfect their depraved art and entertainment (only to have their acts caught by their local [[Adeptus Arbites|PDF]], that or Slaanesh might punish them with a hellish "supplementary lesson curse" just because they made one step wrong, or because it is jealous). Only the Undivided Worshippers do not get constantly bent over by their god-masters since they do not channel the power of Chaos in the same way or as often. However, this does not stop the Chaos Gods from punishing them, and since unlike a devotee of one single god, Undivided followers are not likely to gain much favor with an individual god because of their veneration of Chaos as a whole.

There's also a saying that we are all slaves to fate. If that's the case, then Tzeentch is probably the master of all intelligent beings that are capable of having emotions. However, Tzeentch cannot claim the fate of a person if they are; A. claimed by one of his three brother gods; or B. are claimed by other non-chaos gods that could resist him ([[The God-Emperor of Mankind|Big E]], [[Cegorach]], [[Gork]] an' [[Mork]], etc...). Then again, claimed by any god could also count as slavery, but some might not feel the same way. In this situation, the interpretations of slavery is up to how the gods treats their subjects, but for the most parts, the subjects are nothing but pawns to further their gods' plan, that or to entertain them. [[Inquisition|Some are willing, feeling it as a sacred duty to do the god's work]]. Others will resent feeling like a slave, and might [[Horus Heresy|rebel]] against their god, only to be [[Officio Assassinorum|put down]] or [[exterminatus|exterminated right where they stood]].

To the like of [[Wulfrik the Wanderer]], he was cursed to seek out the bounty the god's had marked, or else they will constantly annoying him with headache, and he will be sent to torment for eternity if he dies. He initially hated the curse since it restricted his freedom, prevent him from having a prosper life. However, after facing many encounters with his arch-nemesis, traitors, cheating girlfriend and manipulators throughout his journey to remove his curse, he realized the curse was in fact a bless, and this whole journey was the gods' way to show Wulfrik how much they care for him, in exchange to be enslaved by them, the gods ultimately helped him exact vengeance and gain glory. So yeah, Chaos Gods do have a soft side for their subjects, in a weird dickish way, and being enslaved by them is has its own warped form of glory.

==A Digression About the Economics of Slavery==
For serious worldbuilders who have it, you need to consider what economics already considers a long-standing question: Is slavery profitable in the long term, and if so where?

The consensus answer among economic historians to the first one is that yes, slavery can be profitable, but only in those situations where technology does not offer a faster/cheaper/safer solution. Indeed, most ancient Empires (Egyptian, Greek, Roman) had some form of institutionalized slavery that allowed them to endure. This being said, the very concept of slavery has some serious downsides (that have nothing to do with morality) dooming it in the long run. The short answer to the "where" question is "cash crops and other agriculture, unskilled labor, and a bit of mining", in roughly that order of profitability.

The practical downsides that doom slavery include, but are not limited to:

*First of all, in any area where sabotage is a serious concern slavery is usually a non-starter. For a recent example, look at the [[Nazi]]s using forced labor to build their weapons later in the war, and the quality of said weapons, with Russian POWs and Communist and Social Democrat political prisoners being the most profilic for small-scale sabotage (like leaving out a bolt here and there or not quite soldering something right). Turns out a learned clockmaker isn't the best at toiling the fields. That rules out most semi-modern mining, as well as just about any industry with any degree of mechanization and a surprising amount of agriculture.
** Despite mining being the stereotypical use of slaves in fiction, mining past a certain depth is sufficiently deadly and expensive that semi-skilled labor is '''absolutely required''', and a slave has a nice way to commit suicide AND hurt his master's profits at the same time. While ''other'' exploitative practices may be used, the training required means actual slavery-based mining is very much a no-go save for tasks such as the very basic work of breaking surface mineral seams, as well as open-pit mining, where "getting stuck" is not an issue and carrying loads to processing stations a la South American silver mining done by Spanish or simple stone quarries where all one needs doing is to hit a stone with a pick and carry the resulting ore chunks to the storage.
** The same goes for large-scale infrastructure projects like those undertaken during the Great Terror under Stalin in the Soviet Union. Nearly all of these projects that heavily relied on forced labour fell apart very quickly once they were put to use, often with disastrous consequences. The sinister thing about this is that, because the Soviet system was supposedly infallible, every accident of this kind was attributed to "Sabotage", leading to another round of arrests and purges, endlessly propelling forward a cycle of mass arrests, deportations, accidents and so forth. Krushchev ended the Gulag system mainly because the shoddy work the Gulag produced wasn't sustainable in the long run (and also to distance himself from Stalin) when the USSR was to look eye to eye with the United States.
*Second, unless reproduction is heavily encouraged (and ties down the female slaves to light labor), slave populations have a tendency to drop over time, especially compared to relatively free populations (even ignoring manumission, buying freedom in better societies and escapes), and five seconds of thought on slaves' living conditions should lead to a few obvious conclusions as to why. So if you want to keep up, you need to constantly raid (or trade with raiders) for more slaves. Last time this was done beyond the 16th century, the United States wrecked the entire Barbary coast with artillery and freed slaves. So any "sustainable" raiding *will* attract military threats that will make sure any slave taken will eventually be more expensive than a free worker who is A) already available and willing, B) lives within the empire and C) has many motivations, such as family, welfare and [[Tzeentch|hopes for a good future]]).
*Third, slave-holding societies are usually economically out-competed by non-slave-holding societies once military considerations are either removed or temporarily equalized. There are plenty of reasons for this, but the big ones are the twin spectres of Incentives (which align more closely in non-slave societies) and Efficiency (effort you expend on keeping slaves from escaping or rebelling could usually be more productively used elsewhere, and that's just to ''start'', saying nothing of potentially intelligent slaves wasted in labor they are not optimal for rather than being educated and made into scientists).
*Fourth, distinct from the point above, slavery has a bad habit of leading to a hyperstratified society. Such heavy social stratification leads to a heavy decline in economic flexibility, which is a ''bad'' thing when you're in competition with a more flexible (and thus better able to change) society, particularly if innovation is a factor.
*Fifth, if slaves are owned in large numbers they start to displace the local non-slaves. This is not a simple case of [[Meme|"DEY TOOK AHR JERBS"]], as the Romans can attest: when large numbers of slaves started to displace local farmers who were forced to sell their land for some reason or the other, said ex-farmers were driven to the cities, where there were not a lot of jobs either. This bred poverty, and from poverty rose a class dissatisfied with their lot in life as they starve while the rich grow fat. And from this rose political and civilian unrest, which is never good for any state. In the case of the Romans, this gave birth to a populist dictator, Julius Caesar and his adoptive son Octavian, which created a major precedent for all modern dictatorships and bread-and-circuses states.
*Lastly, having a large slave population essentially constituted a permanent fifth column presence. Every empire that employed slavery was compelled to maintain a large armed presence in its home territory to suppress revolts. This tended to limit the size that a state could grow to territorially, with only a few superpowers managing to consolidate enough territory with reliable regional governors to sustain a permanent campaigning military while retaining enough force at home to prevent rebellion. This was a noticeable problem with Sparta where the ratio of Helots to Spartiates (ethnic Spartan cizens, not to be confused with free-dwelling Perioikoi non-citizens) fluctuate around 7 Helots for every Spartiate. Hence, the Spartans had to initiate ritual war and assassination of those deemed too dangerous under the Krypteia to keep the Helots in line. On the other hand, others argue Sparta’s helot management system was more akin to ritual depreciation to make Helots suffer an inferiority complex instead of blatant terror tactics. Serfdom policed by religious caste systems was more effective at maintaining civil order, with serfs tending to rebel only in the case of famine and excessive taxation.

Slavery in worldbuilding is not confined strictly to historical settings; it is also a valid consideration in near future science fiction. The time and cost of moving individuals to other bodies in the solar system by conventional means, combined with the work to be done and the scarcity of hands will mean that people on such ventures will NOT have the luxury to quit. Space colonization under these circumstances will inevitably require a return to the ancient naval tradition that a captain at sea must be an absolute despot for the good of all aboard; "keeping ''everyone'' alive" and "avoiding ''everyone'' dying" are not synonymous, and many hazards of space make the distinction very important. Activity in space today is achieved as a pseudo-military expedition with carefully selected teams trained to cooperate, but larger scale operations WILL necessitate an organization divide between labor and operations and that will result in social friction (this is already seen at the South Pole station; disputes between operations and scientific staff are a continuous problem, especially during winter when the station is completely isolated for months). In some settings, colonization is achieved by using convicted prisoners as labor to sidestep the moral questions of compulsory work and sacrificing some to save all (though this raises the issue of sabotage being a '''very''' serious concern).

[[Category:History]]