How do splugorth slavers transport slaves

[Lostboy]

How do splugorth slavers transport slaves from there raiding site to their main holding area like the mother ship or slave pen at their base? Do the slave have to walk? do they ride the slaver barge? Is there a vehicle that they commonly use for this that i don't know about? Because this is a logistical nightmare. Can anyone help?

[Aermas]

Doesn't need a lot of logistics, you capture & imprison people, march them, load them on your boat, aircraft/hovercraft, or TW barge, etc. You take them to your slaver camp/outpost/city, attach more permanent devices to insure compliance & prevent escape. For practitioners of magic this usually means chopping of hands, taking out teeth & tongues or gagging. Once you get enough slaves worth the trip, you ship them all back to Atlantis for a mint. The trip doesn't take long & you don't really need to take too much care of them, turnover usually isn't very high & you can always grab more.

[taalismn]

Depends on the perceived value of the captive. More dangerous/valuable captures get bundled up and loaded on the barges or transport vehicles(and the slavers wouldn't be above pressing captured vehicles into service, and even claiming them as part of the swag if the vehicle is valuable enough), while the rest of the stock marches economy class.

[Curbludgeon]

With enough Zombitrons people can be stacked on a hover sledge like cordwood.

[glitterboy2098]

Doesn't need a lot of logistics, you capture & imprison people, march them, load them on your boat, aircraft/hovercraft, or TW barge, etc. You take them to your slaver camp/outpost/city, attach more permanent devices to insure compliance & prevent escape. For practitioners of magic this usually means chopping of hands, taking out teeth & tongues or gagging. Once you get enough slaves worth the trip, you ship them all back to Atlantis for a mint. The trip doesn't take long & you don't really need to take too much care of them, turnover usually isn't very high & you can always grab more.

while those are established methods of limiting magic and psionics, cutting off bits of a body would tend to reduce the value of the prisoner when sold onto in the slave market. it seems more likely that they would use more temporary measures like gags, blindfolds, arm and hand binders, etc.
that said, the splugorth have access to biowizardry tools that can pacify captives or bypass their free will.

for example the staff of pacification from WB2 for example could be used to hinder powerful captives long enough to slap a mindslug or zombitron on them, after which they'll docily follow instructions.

and non-powered captives can be herded fairly conventionally with just intimidation by the slavers.

once the slaving party has made it back to a beach they'd just meet up with one of the splugorth's slaver ships. where the captives would be thrown into cells for the trip back to port in atlantis.

[hup7]

How often does this come up? I feel like it was discussed fairly recently.

Have to agree with Glitterboy2098, you would want to damage your "cargo" as little as possible. Especially before you can properly assessed them.

We have a biased view of slavery from "modern" imagery and movies. Going back to Roman times slaves were very expensive (depending on skills, etc) and they were kept very well. They cost between about 500 to 6000 denarii, by comparison a horse cost about 125 denarii. 125 denarii was about 6 months wages for a soldier (but they got a lot of benefits).

If you look at prices in Rifts - "men of magic" are extremely valuable compared to unskilled humans. (Human 2d6x1000cr; Sorcerer 6d6x10,000cr WB02 p135) The slavers probably don't have time (or not really their job) to assess each slave for their requisite skills, age, and so on to determine their value. Even a minor psionic (who might not do much in combat) is worth 10 times an ordinary person. So the slavers would take care not to cause undue damage and risk damaging a valuable asset.

Logistically? Well there are many magical options - the ability to open a portal, or teleport, call for a pick up barge? Other more interesting options are shrinking the cargo with magic and storing them. Turning them to stone, for later pick up. Time Hole like storage in the barge? The barge itself could have quite a bit of below deck storage, it doesn't have to be comfortable - slide out coffin sized containers. If the distance to the nearest convenient pick up is close enough - sure just lead the captives there on foot. The possibilities are endless.

IMHO Use whatever will make for the most interesting session. Do the players need to overtake some slavers before they reach a pickup at the nearest river or seaside? Do the players need to find the help of a shifter / temporal raider to break the captives out of an extradimensional holding cell they found? Do the players need to escape from being captured themselves? My advice don't apply too much logic and make it inescapable just because you can - there is little fun in that. Have fun.

[Aermas]

while those are established methods of limiting magic and psionics, cutting off bits of a body would tend to reduce the value of the prisoner when sold onto in the slave market. it seems more likely that they would use more temporary measures like gags, blindfolds, arm and hand binders, etc.
that said, the splugorth have access to biowizardry tools that can pacify captives or bypass their free will.

for example the staff of pacification from WB2 for example could be used to hinder powerful captives long enough to slap a mindslug or zombitron on them, after which they'll docily follow instructions.

and non-powered captives can be herded fairly conventionally with just intimidation by the slavers.

once the slaving party has made it back to a beach they'd just meet up with one of the splugorth's slaver ships. where the captives would be thrown into cells for the trip back to port in atlantis.

It wouldn't be hard for those those in Atlantis to fix any real damage you do to the slaves before they go to market, but yeah depending on what tech you have available you dont have to be a butcher.

[glitterboy2098]

while those are established methods of limiting magic and psionics, cutting off bits of a body would tend to reduce the value of the prisoner when sold onto in the slave market. it seems more likely that they would use more temporary measures like gags, blindfolds, arm and hand binders, etc.
that said, the splugorth have access to biowizardry tools that can pacify captives or bypass their free will.

for example the staff of pacification from WB2 for example could be used to hinder powerful captives long enough to slap a mindslug or zombitron on them, after which they'll docily follow instructions.

and non-powered captives can be herded fairly conventionally with just intimidation by the slavers.

once the slaving party has made it back to a beach they'd just meet up with one of the splugorth's slaver ships. where the captives would be thrown into cells for the trip back to port in atlantis.

It wouldn't be hard for those those in Atlantis to fix any real damage you do to the slaves before they go to market, but yeah depending on what tech you have available you dont have to be a butcher.

using magic and biowizardry tools to heal slavestock is a lot of resources for stuff that wouldn't provide much return. better to avoid the need.

[Aermas]

[
using magic and biowizardry tools to heal slavestock is a lot of resources for stuff that wouldn't provide much return. better to avoid the need.

I like my enslaved leyline walkers to have lobster claws for hands. I'm willing to pay that little extra