D&D General How much trouble are the Slave catchers in for taking A 4 year old Crown Prince whose mother was A Escaped Slave?, which legally makes him a slave

[aco175]

Is there a lucrative market for stealing kids for slaves and corrupt officials that determine that their parents were slaves, so they are too? Maybe a corrupt priest that 'talks' to his god to determine if a random child is a slave.

Seems that after a while of kids going missing that commoners would start to have less kids, or maybe branding them to prove they are not slaves. Likely that the slave kids would be branded first though. The system only works if the common folk are not pushed that far.

 

[bedir than]

I still don't understand how D&D is involved

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I still don't understand how D&D is involved

I don't even understand the initial question. A royal prince is a royal prince and that trumps pretty much any status the prince's mother had so the kid is a prince in which case the slavers are in trouble as is any kingdom sheltering them or the kid is a slave and would not have royal bodyguards in the first place.

 

[bedir than]

Like are the adventurers supposed to stop the slavers?

If so, then the elaborate backstory about why the slavers think a prince should be enslaved doesn't matter. They're slavers - they deserve death.

Stop trying to find a way to justify slavery and let the players kill them

 

[Bagpuss]

I really hope the scenario isn't the PCs being both slavers and child abductors.

Edit 1: Oh they are... well you do you, not touching this with a 10ft pole.

Edit 2: Okay... maybe I'll touch it just a little.

I imagine the slave catchers will be hunted not only by the country that the crown prince belongs to, but also the country they are from for being such idiots as to think starting a war was worth one slave boy.

Basically if they returned the boy immediately and apologised profusely they might just get away with life in prison, if they get caught with the boy just beheaded. If any harm comes to the boy them they will probably be hung, drawn and quartered.

If they manage to get back to their own country with the boy, then the authorities there will hand them over to their neighbour (see hung/drawn/quartered option) with apologies for the diplomatic incident.

 

[JMISBEST]

I'd have a hard time suspending disbelief at several points in the OP's scenario. My first problem would be with the guards actually obeying the order to go into another country incognito, with the order given by a 4 years-old prince, without defering to the king (or using common sense and say no). It would be a terrible state if the whims of a child are obeyed without question...



Gorbatchev was a public figure. The 4 years old prince, much less and he probably didn't command a lot of interest. It's possible he didn't know about the mark. However, the OP confirmed that they used a spell to confirm his runaway slave status... but the odds of the guards recognizing the birthmark of a random slave when stopping him are very low in the first place. I am puzzled.

He's not a runaway slave, his dead mother was, which is why the law class's him as a slave, luckily not a runaway slave

The king fell in love with her and married her without knowing she was a runaway slave, if he'd known he'd have bought her freedom, but she didn't know that, she never told him for fear of being returned, and now her 4 year old sons suffering the consequences

 

[Umbran]

One country kidnapped another's crown prince while the King and Queen are still alive.

Well, that's a war. Doesn't really matter the whys and wherefores.

Yeah. Country A's laws don't apply in Country B. For Country A to try to impose their laws within Country B's territory would be a direct affront to B's sovereignty.

Unless there is some special political issue preventing it, such an act would call for reprisals. The specific individuals who did the kidnapping are less important than sending a message to Country A's leadership that such stuff will not be simply allowed to pass with no consequences.

Broadly speaking, war probably shouldn't be out of the question.

 

[Bagpuss]

He's not a runaway slave, his dead mother was, which is why the law class's him as a slave, luckily not a runaway slave

The king fell in love with her and married her without knowing she was a runaway slave, if he'd known he'd have bought her freedom, but she didn't know that, she never told him for fear of being returned, and now her 4 year old sons suffering the consequences

Yes but where do the PCs fit in all of this?

Also I can't imagine the slave catchers are stupid enough to try and kidnap the crown prince, even if they have some legitimate claim to him. I doubt they would even be brave enough to approach the king to suggest he pay something for the kids freedom. You write it up as a loss and forget about it, kidnapping is only going to bring way more trouble than he is worth.

If they didn't know he was the crown prince and snatched him when he had perhaps slipped secretly out of the palace to go swimming down by the lake and they happened to spot the birthmark. If they took him when they thought he was a nobody, that might make sense.

 

[Ancalagon]

The slave snatchers didn't snatch the 4 year old to check if he was a escaped slave, rather the 4 year old's mother, who was, she's dead, is a escaped slave, this means that the country the crown princes mother comes from class's the crown prince as a slave

This means that The slave snatchers didn't snatch the 4 year old to check if he was a escaped slave, rather they had reasonable grounds to arrest him on suspicion of being the son of a escaped slave, which if their right makes him a slave

There is nothing reasonable about this. They did not have reasonable grounds.

What happened is that the 4 year old's mother comes from a family were all male members have a distinctive birthmark that proves he's a male from that family, naturally he has the distinctive birthmark

1 of the slave snatchers got a good enough look at the 4 year old's distinctive birthmark for him or her, I haven't decided on the gender yet but the odds are it'll be a male, to be able to have reasonable grounds to arrest the kid on suspicion of being the son of a escaped slave

See, a special birthmark is an old trope used in literature a lot. And it's usually to indicate royal or an otherwise "special" bloodline. But in slaves? Why would the slavers memorize birthmarks?

This is SO unlikely it strains credulity. Here is what you should do:

Skip the birthmark entirely. It's stupid, it doesn't work. Instead, have a mark applied to ALL slaves - a brand, a tattoo, something like that. This mark was hidden on the boy by his mother. BUT the mark also had something magical about it (in case of tempering), something the mother did not know about - and neither did his guards (more on them later) know about it. So a routine border check, which the guards thought would be no trouble, revealed the prince to be a slave, and he was captured.

You've already spoken below about a spell. Again, you don't need the birthmark.

But what about his guards?, see below, and once they had him they used a spell that's unique to that country to confirm that he's the son of a escaped slave, which makes him a slave

In case your wondering how 7 5th level Thieves managed to get the better of 12 7th level Fighters? the answer is they didn't outfight them, they outsmarted them. Pretty good thinking for mere Thieves

They did this by arranging for 12 crooks they hate to do 7 muggings, the naive 4 year old send 10 of his guards to intervene, 5 of the 7 slave snatchers distracted the other 2 guards whilst the other 2 slave snatchers grabbed the 4 year old and used their knowledge of the cities back-alleys, alleyways, shortcuts, thorough-fares and backstreets to lose the guards

Again, WAY too convoluted, and not believable either.

• This is WAY too much trouble for slavers to capture a young boy.
• Are they slavers or "the authority" (you spoke of "arrest" earlier)? If they are the authority, they don't need these shenanigans
• A naive 4 year old is not listened to by his guards in matters such as this. If there is violence (muggings etc) they will protect their charge, not spread out.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

He's not a runaway slave, his dead mother was, which is why the law class's him as a slave, luckily not a runaway slave

The king fell in love with her and married her without knowing she was a runaway slave, if he'd known he'd have bought her freedom, but she didn't know that, she never told him for fear of being returned, and now her 4 year old sons suffering the consequences

Kings make the law, that is what makes them Kings. If the boy is an acknowledged Royal Prince that overrides any other status, and the boy is entitled to all the privileges of that rank.

If I were a King and somebody kidnapped my acknowledged son. I would treat it as the personal affront that it is and wreak bloody vengeance on any who touched a hair of his royal head or aided or abetted anyone that did him harm or malice. Because in a land of warrior kings that is what I would be expected to do and if I wanted to retain the loyalty of my liegemen and bannermen that is what I would have to do.
Now if you want to do something else go right ahead.