Editing Setting:Unified Setting/Sergal (section)

==Commerce==

The most common professions are Herders, Butchers, Potters, Tanners, and Weapon- and Armor-smiths. Notably, there is little patience for the preparation of food; Sergals have fairly underdeveloped taste buds and the highest culinary achievement is salting or pickling meat. 

Most northern sergals lead a semi-nomadic lifestyle, driving herds across their sparse but enormous lands, raiding, trading with outsiders with the permanent towns and cities of the empire. Here, meat and other goods are exchanged for metal tools, weapons, armor, and crafted wares. Sergals remain talented workers of crystal, ceramics, glass, and pottery. Their metal-working is adequate, but beneath that of more legendary forges outside the empire. These facts, combined with the near limitless Sergal demand for weapons, keeps trade flowing. Perhaps out of sheer necessity, Sergals often show surprising hospitality and civility to outsiders in times of peace.

In the south, the Sailzane desert remains a conquest. Free southern sergals exist, but their tribes are few and far between, always in danger of being set upon and enslaved by Silvorum's armies. Life for the slaves and serfs isn't much worse, raising meat and crafting goods for their masters, as their ancestors did for themselves. The brutal policies of General Rain have given way to an unkind but survivable system. Northern masters dwell mostly in fortified towns and cities, sending out punitive war-bands to punish any southern sergals who fail to obey. These are also home to the mines and workshops of the region, with southern sergals figuratively, or sometimes literally, chained to their work, processing rations and goods for the army, or goods to be traded. Much of the empire's wealth comes from this serfdom.

Mercenaries are another form of income. Independent bands of sergal soldiers venture forth to fight for whoever has gold for it, and the empire's army sends out trained units with the same intent. These warriors gain valuable experience and pay for themselves, along with providing the empire with a portion of currency, and knowledge of foreign techniques and tactics. More than once has a neighboring state faced a sergal invasion, to find their foe trained and equipped to counter their particular art of war. Thankfully, this works both ways. The empire's army has proven formidable, but not unbeatable.