Into the Lion's Den (Dealing with extreme prejudice in game)

[roguerouge]

Have the only sleeping accomodations be at the very opposite edge of town in the slummiest of all the neighborhoods. Have it be disgusting.

Have them get picked up and questioned 1/week for crimes that they didn't commit, then released after a few hours.

Have getting food next to impossible: a lot of racism is based on irrational fears similar to pollution and polluting identities and gene pools.

Have some of the prejudices towards the race be based on characteristics that the race doesn't actually have, simply because they never interact with the race. (For example, elves are dirty because they love mining.) This grounds the prejudice in ignorance and inexperience as well as fear.

 

[Fenes]

Or make the prejudice have some causes - Kalamar is not exactly a peaceful setting, so the kingdom could have suffered in wars with non-humans. Or maybe an elf seduced the queen long ago, and plunged the realm into chaos when they eloped. Or some dwarven business caused the realm to suffer an economic depression, and so on.

For those who read "Oath of Swords" and "The Wargod's Own", there's a nice scene

Spoiler

When the human kingdowm goes to war against the demi-human nomads, both cite past agressions, and blame the other side for starting it. The wizard present (over 1000 years old) then explains that the humans started the war back then, he was there and argued against it)

 

[NewJeffCT]

Or make the prejudice have some causes - Kalamar is not exactly a peaceful setting, so the kingdom could have suffered in wars with non-humans. Or maybe an elf seduced the queen long ago, and plunged the realm into chaos when they eloped. Or some dwarven business caused the realm to suffer an economic depression, and so on.

For those who read "Oath of Swords" and "The Wargod's Own", there's a nice scene

Spoiler

When the human kingdowm goes to war against the demi-human nomads, both cite past agressions, and blame the other side for starting it. The wizard present (over 1000 years old) then explains that the humans started the war back then, he was there and argued against it)

The history of the realm was that Eldor was once a huge human kingdom called Brandobia that lived in relative peace & harmony with the elves, halflings and dwarves of the region. After several centuries of this, a vast empire (Kalamar) attempted to invade. Despite being outnumbered, the humans, elves, dwarves and halflings bravely fought the invaders to a draw in a mountain pass (in fact, a group of halfling slingers broke the last charge of the Kalamarans) and both sides withdrew to their respective sides of the mountains to lick their wounds.

The human king of Brandobia blamed the elves (in particular) for not winning, as well as the dwarves and halflings, and promptly attempted to invade the elven kingdom... of course, the invading humans were promptly trounced and the human king was left with only hurling obscenities at the elves, and then passing laws against anybody not human. The elf king responded by telling the human king to be fruitful and multiply...

which was, in fact, a curse, as the human queen soon bore triplet sons. Upon coming of age, the three sons fought for power and the kingdom degenerated into a civil war. After years of fighting, Brandobia was split into three kingdoms: the smallest (Cosdul) to the north where humans and non-humans lived in relative peace and harmony and humans are a minority in the capitol; the middle kingdom of Eldor, which is the largest and most powerful, but also extremely intolerant; and the southern kingdom of Mendarn, which is sort of balanced between Eldor and Cosdul in terms of tolerance.

It has been that way for a few centuries now, and the three kingdoms that used to be Brandobia have fairly tense, but cool relations (no major wars)...

 

[Fenes]

So, people are apt to remember "demihumans let us down in our time of need", and "the elves cursed our king, and caused civil war and the break up of our nation"?

 

[NewJeffCT]

So, people are apt to remember "demihumans let us down in our time of need", and "the elves cursed our king, and caused civil war and the break up of our nation"?

You got it!

even though the reality is that the demihumans did not let them down in their big war - it was just that the king blamed them for that very thing.

 

[Fenes]

You could always add a twist and make it true that the demihumans let the humans down, and see how the PCs deal with finding out their stories were wrong. What will they do? The humans are still wrong for blaming every demihuman for the actions of a few, but the situation would be less black and white.

 

[Derren]

The elf is from the Lendelwood, an area that Eldor is at war with, though the pace of the war is more along the lines of skirmishes.

Thats probably the biggest problem the party should face. If it is an official war then the elf wouldn't even be able to get into the city. All other demihumans would only have to deal with racist remarks and people not doing business with them, but as long as they stay close to the human members of the party (and are well armed) nothing should happen to them. The elf on the other hand will be seen as a spy etc.

Speaking of arms, I don't think that non humans will be allowed to carry weapons so they would have to rely on the human PCs for protection.
If you want a mob, some crippled soldier blaming the elf PC for his condition seems like a good encounter.

3) I am torn between having them get in and out of the city quickly (overnight), and having them stuck there for a bit longer. Would you suggest to the party via an NPC that the three non-humans stay on the ship while the three humans visit the sage? Or, possibly give them a one-shot potion each to alter their appearances so the party can stay together? (Would the dwarf go for that?)

It depends on how easy or gritty your game is. This encounter can be a very good role playing situation, but if the players just want to be done with it and go back into a dungeon, or just can't deal with their PCs not being beloved heroes (I have seen many players which did not cope well with their PCs being not liked by NPCs) then it will be incredibly frustrating.
And what a specific dwarf would do can only be answered by this specific dwarf (or his player).

 

[NewJeffCT]

You could always add a twist and make it true that the demihumans let the humans down, and see how the PCs deal with finding out their stories were wrong. What will they do? The humans are still wrong for blaming every demihuman for the actions of a few, but the situation would be less black and white.

Interesting idea - I'll have to give that some thought.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Thats probably the biggest problem the party should face. If it is an official war then the elf wouldn't even be able to get into the city. All other demihumans would only have to deal with racist remarks and people not doing business with them, but as long as they stay close to the human members of the party (and are well armed) nothing should happen to them. The elf on the other hand will be seen as a spy etc.

Speaking of arms, I don't think that non humans will be allowed to carry weapons so they would have to rely on the human PCs for protection.
If you want a mob, some crippled soldier blaming the elf PC for his condition seems like a good encounter.

It depends on how easy or gritty your game is. This encounter can be a very good role playing situation, but if the players just want to be done with it and go back into a dungeon, or just can't deal with their PCs not being beloved heroes (I have seen many players which did not cope well with their PCs being not liked by NPCs) then it will be incredibly frustrating.
And what a specific dwarf would do can only be answered by this specific dwarf (or his player).

good points - all the PCs have some rather nifty magic weapons, and I doubt the elf and the dwarf (especially) would take kindly to having their weapons held in storage for them by the Eldorans. Perhaps a disguise or alter-self potion may be in order?

The players have been used to not being loved, or even liked, though. Even though the kingdom where they started is far more "enlightened" when it comes to dealing with non-humans, I did warn the players going in that while the cities and larger towns are definitely more cosmopolitan, you can still run into the rather bigoted attitudes in rural small-town areas - which they did in their very first session, and its kind of been a running in game joke since that time (the players got caught in a bit of a ruckus and one of them got nailed with a rotten tomato...)

 

[NewJeffCT]

I wanted to give this one last kick, as last week was a slow week with folks on vacation & the like.