Overview
For folk wanting to roleplay a ZingaranI have taken what was from the RPG books and made it simple, to give an idea of each culture.
Life in Zingara
Zingara is aland torn apart and ruined by civil war. Historically a king ruled the land out of Kordava, but when the elegant, bejewelled and hosed princelings and nobles, who usually fought petty battles among themselves and the Poitanians, rose up and destroyed themselves and their noble kingdom in flame and blood, the refined swordsmanship of the Zingarans unfortunately turned against itself. At its peak, Zingara had a population of approximately 20 million people. Today, that number is considerably less, about 8 million. The kingdom is faltering, unable to support itself due to burnt and salted fields, destroyed armies and crushed castles. The ghouls of the central region have begun to prowl all over the region, even in the north, toward the Poitanian border.
Once the proud possessor of a major shipping industry, Zingara is an exotic land that exists between the Pictish Wilderness, the Bossonian Marches, Aquilonia and Argos. Although often times thought of merely as Argos’ maritime rival, Zingara has in the past been a land of agriculture and elegance.
Honour
In its prime, Zingaran swordsmanship was taught in formal fencing-schools as well as in the deadly backstreets of every city, though many Zingarans learned only the civilian arming sword, rather than the more military-oriented broadsword. The Zingarans developed one of the most sophisticated forms of elite fencing ever developed, a sheer art form to behold. Many of these fencing schools may still survive and those that have burned are slowly being rebuilt. Many feel these schools, which also teach principles of chivalry, are essential to the rebuilding of Zingara to keep it from sliding backwards into barbarism. All they need is a strong king…
Honour for the Zingarans is a very real concept, built of a character’s reputation, moral identity and self-perception. This sense of honour is the guiding principle of Zingaran society and is never a matter of mere lip-service. Indeed, honour is an all-important issue. Zingarans of honour are always alert for insults. Actual or suspected, insults will impugn an Zingaran’s honour. An Zingaran’s honour also extends to his wife, his family and his beloved. Impugned honour will usually result in a duel or other form of violent redress. Among the aristocracy and the knighthood, honour is the measure of standing, setting them apart from the common man. To those who hold a code of honour, it is as real as a castle, yet vastly more important, for a castle can be rebuilt if destroyed and honour is wounded forever if stained.
Allegiance
Historically, the economics of Zingara depended on the concept of allegiance. The social orders relied upon their members swearing allegiances. Allegiance is a pledge, a promise and oath, taken faithfully and with full realisation that it may mean giving up everything, including but not limited to time, property and even life in support of one thing. Feudal lords pledge allegiance to the lord of their manor and their allegiance changes according to who wears the crown.
Allegiance is usually a reciprocal tie between individuals and between families. Allegiances involve obligations on both sides and are considered as binding as formal law. In some cases an allegiance is considered more binding than formal law. Written contracts count for little in rural Zingara, although they take precedence in coastal Zingara. Most of the rural nation is illiterate, so only an oath taken before peers is worth anything. These oaths are taken more seriously than any public law. This sometimes creates problems in society in the form of escalating violent vendettas as people avenge each other and counter-avenge in never-ending cycles of blood and war. Allegiances are often symbolised by making a man’s wife live on the property of someone he has pledged allegiance toward. This is extremely common if a man pledges an allegiance to a town or city – he is expected to move his wife into that town as proof of the sincerity of his pledge.
Allegiances have become a touchy issue in Zingara in light of the recent wars. Zingarans are increasingly unhappy fighting for causes they do not believe in, for lords who are greedy for land or to avenge a mere slight in protocol. It seems to the common Zingaran that the lords simply want to fight and make up fraudulent excuses to fire the people up, calling upon Mitra or other divinities to show righteous indignation before sending the people off to die for their illusory causes. Now Zingaran lords are relying on mercenary units, increasing the foreign population greatly, which is not easing the minds of the people, despite their polyglot and multicultural history as a cultural melting pot. Conspiracy and treason abound in Zingara due to all these mixed concerns and internal problems.
Elegance
Manners and pleasures are elements of Zingaran elegance and sophistication. Ballet troupes learn the finest dances in the schools and noblemen learn the fine art of fencing. Waving scented handkerchiefs, the nobility of Zingara plots and conspires against fellow nobles even as they talk elegantly of philosophy and civility.
Swordsmanship
Swordsmanship, known as the ‘True Art,’ is a mark of prestige in Zingara. The fine art of fencing is taught to all noblemen. The training begins with education in geometry to improve the noble’s thinking, training him to think logically and provide an understanding of spatial relationships. They are taught a coolness and a detachment when sword fighting so their mind can function with logic and clarity. The Zingaran fighting stance is taught as a circular model so that all fighting takes place within an imaginary and mobile circle. The swordsman is trained step by step how to move his body and how to move his sword. In actual combat, the Zingaran swordsman combines body movements with various sword movements to create a personal technique. Body position is as important as sword position. Unlike Aquilonian intricate swordplay, Zingaran swordsmen do not meet attacks with counter-attacks. Zingaran swordsmen answer attacks by moving into a defensive position while controlling their adversary’s weapon with their own – they move away from an attack instead of attacking into an attack. The Zingaran will veer away at an angle, stepping around his antagonist to thrust his sword into his opponent’s side or back as the opponent over-thrusts. Zingaran swordsmen fight by attacking and defending while circling each other, continually stepping out of each other’s way along the circumference of their personal imaginary circles. All attacks are made at angles. The Zingaran swordsman does not attempt to predict the responses of his antagonist; rather, he tries to command his opponent’s movements by subtle positioning on his part. The minds and bodies of the noblemen are trained to size up a situation instinctively and give the most logical response.
The Zingaran system of swordplay is a science, yet it is a science that is combined with art, experience, philosophy and spirituality in much the same way as Khitan hand-to-hand techniques combine these elements.Zingaran swordsmen are taught a frightening command of timing, distance, space and movement. The Zingaran system of teaching detachment and logical evaluation creates cold and calculating swordsmen, some of the deadliest the world has ever seen.
Women in Zingara
The woman’s position in Zingara is one of being an idol, put up on a pedestal. It is improper of men to openly speak ill of a particular woman, or even women in general. Those Zingarans who consider themselves particularly refined kneel in front of women to speak to them. Men are expected to provide a pile of merits before being admitted into the company of a woman, including gifts, actions and praises. Some women are able to command outright quests before they will consider a man more than just a fleeting acquaintance. Men do not court women in Zingara, they pay homage to women.
However, Zingarans do tend to keep their women in seclusion, believing that non-business conversation between the sexes is impure and prone to lead a couple into sexual activities. A Zingaran woman is expected to be known as chaste and, although in Zingaran literature it appears all women are cherished, in truth only women believed to be chaste are so treated.
Zingaran girls are taught how to make themselves precious. They have to appear chaste if they are to be properly married; to appear chaste means never looking up or looking someone straight in the eye. Zingaran women must appear reserved, an idolised quality in women. The eye is important to Zingarans. An unknown woman who glances at a Zingaran man excites that man, for she has dared to look at him at the risk of seeming unchaste and sinful. This, of course, is all in appearances. To the Zingarans, that which is not seen does not exist, so the appearance of chastity in public is all that is required. In private, matters can take a more amorous course. Parents are stringent in hiding their daughters. Each time a young girl leaves her home, she gives herself a place on people’s minds and, therefore, their tongues – a risky place to be. Even King Ferdrugo forbade his daughter Chabela from dressing as a sailor and swarming into the rigging of the royal yacht with the seamen once she hit puberty and began to show signs of womanhood.
Openness and public cheekiness does more damage to a woman’s honour than any failings that are secret. So long as her public reserve is intact, her reputation is secure. So, from maidenhood, women are taught to curb their inclinations in public, to express those inclinations as little as possible. In order to do this, a woman must live in seclusion prior to marriage in order to ensure she has a good name, which is essential for marriage. Thus, young Zingaran women repress themselves during girlhood, believing marriage will bring emancipation as the undisputed mistress of a Zingaran home.
Unfortunately, marriage is not all it is believed to be, especially if one marries into wealth. Most wealthy Zingaran husbands are jealous and harsh, rarely letting their wives go out in public. Chastity implies a loyalty to the husband and wives soon find out that such appearances are to be maintained even after marriage. The young girls, enraptured by the flames of arduous courtship filled with expressive poetry, hot passion and violent duels, suddenly find themselves reclusive,
expected to become unassuming and virtuous wives who spend the rest of their lives tending to hearth and home, seen by few, heard by even fewer. They live the rest of their lives with the memories of their brief, fiery courtships and little else. The good name of a wife lies in her seclusion, just as it did during her maidenhood. Noble women suffer the worst of the
loneliness because they have servants to go to the market for them or to run errands; lesser classed women often perform such chores for themselves.
Lower- and middle-class women tend to be more practical in these matters. They spend most of their time running the household, bearing babies, caring for children and performing domestic duties. Some Zingaran women, even while trying to maintain a chaste demeanour, must also work in a family trade or even in outside occupations, thus mingling with all manner of people, both citizen and foreigner. This is becoming more common as the civil wars leave more and more women as widows who must fend for themselves. Zingaran women are easily found along local water courses, where they wash their laundry or their hair. They also gather in courtyards and houses for sewing and spinning. Zingaran women are always familiar with each other’s handiwork. Women also like to sell surplus bread in the market in order to get out of the house.
Housewives are charged with provisioning a household, so this gives them reason to go to market, unless they are so wealthy that they have servants to do it for them. The woman of the house decides how much grain, wine and garden produce are stored and what animals are to be slaughtered from the herds. If the household manor does not produce something, a housewife is sometimes allowed to go to town to purchase it, or send a servant to purchase the item(s).
Noble women, however, are allowed to make a game out of flirtation. A man, even if he is married, may declare himself the lover of a noblewoman (even if she is married) and giver her presents, poems and declarations.
Racism in Zingara
Despite their own mixed heritage, Zingarans tend to be, as a society, racist. Zingarans are not wholly Hyborian yet they act as though their race is the most pure, the most elegant on the world. Zingaran women find themselves needing to be careful when dealing with Shemites or other foreign races, especially non-Hyborian foreigners. A Zingaran woman, married or unmarried, caught having sex with a Shemite or other foreigner is usually burned at the stake along with the offending male. Zingaran women who give birth to mixed-blood children are branded as ‘bad’; they certainly find themselves socially exiled from polite society and probably physically exiled from the town as well. The law is clear on this point – Zingaran women are unavailable to Shemites and other non-Zingarans. There is no punishment if a Zingaran man wants to have relations with a non-Zingaran woman, though. A Zingaran man with a mixed-blood son suffers no penalties and, if that son is part of the Mitran faith, may even pass on his lands and goods to that son. Thus many Zingaran men marry their foreign-born slaves. Male slaves are forbidden to marry their female Zingaran mistresses. A Zingaran widow who tries to marry one of her former spouse’s slaves will find herself burned at the stake right alongside that same slave.
Zingaran women cannot even nurse or heal Shemites and foreign women may not nurse Zingaran women. Many cities even have segregated sections to protect their Zingaran women. Zingaran society, geared to allow conquering men access to whomever they desire as plunder, stringently prohibits women from intimately associating with foreign elements, especially Shemites or Picts.
Slavery
Since the beginning, the people of Zingara have been capturing and enslaving each other – Picts, Shemites, Hyborians and all have felt the lash of Zingara’s whips as cultures clashed on Zingaran soil. When the Mitrans clashed with the aboriginal non-Mitrans, slaves were taken. The slave in Zingara is not so much an issue of chattel or property to be bought and sold individually but is an issue of honour. The slave is a symbol of domination and superiority by the slave-taker. There is no strict line between slave and master, and slaves can even become family, either through adoption or marriage. Slaves are a prestige symbol; to own a slave means you have conquered someone.
Slaves are usually attached to the land they work and are sold with the land, not as separate property. Mutilation of slaves is unlawful but virtually any other cruelty is permitted. Pictish and Black Kingdom slaves (as well as crossbreeds between the two) are usually used in the south to work the plantations and manors. They are driven to work with whips. Slaves in the manor houses and urban cities fare better and are treated as servants, although they are still attached to the overall property and not to a particular owner.
Beautiful foreign women are often tricked into slavery by wily Zingarans who promptly put them to work as prostitutes. The slaver makes seemingly legitimate offers for situations with the Zingaran elite, but once they arrive in Zingara the women find themselves alone and without friends, at the mercy of the man who brought them there.
Zingarans prefer female or child slaves. Most males are too resistant to slavery unless brought up in slavery to make usable slaves. Enslaved males are consigned to places where they can labour in chains, such as pulling the oars of Zingaran ships.
It is illegal for a Zingaran to sell another Zingaran into slavery to a Shemite or other foreigner. In some places it is illegal to sell any Hyborian into slavery to a Shemite or Pict. In either case it is also illegal for a Zingaran to sell him- or herself into slavery to such persons. Those condemned for this crime are usually burned at the stake, although along the coast those who sell themselves into slavery are burned; others are hanged. These laws are in place mostly to prevent Zingaran families from selling unwanted children into slavery.
Slave dealers are often considered to be just slightly better than prostitutes and are accorded little protection through the law. Most slave dealers, men and women alike, move into cities secretly and establish clients with the utmost discretion, since all parties could easily find themselves burned alive if caught.
Occupations
Occupations for Women
Zingaran housewives do the cooking, cleaning, preserving, mending and provisioning of a house, either alone or with the help of their daughters. Wealthy housewives also direct female staff members, such as maids, wet nurses, laundresses and housekeepers. Almost all domestic servants are female. Domestic employment is the easiest way for a woman in Zingara to find work. They are usually contracted for a year at a time and paid an annual wage, although they receive pay for the days they have worked should they leave their contract early. Many households employ the children of poor relations. The deputy housekeeper, who is the most important female servant directly below the housewife, usually lives in the house where she works, but other domestic servants usually live in their own homes and come to the house of employment on a daily or weekly basis. Wet nurses are also expected to live in houses that employ them; they are charged with a child’s survival and, thus, are important people in any wealthy home. Wet nurses are hired on three-year contracts, earning room, board and an annual wage. Some families are trying to extend the legal contract of wet-nurses to four years but so far they have met with limited success. Wet-nurses are expected to be in good health and to be pretty, in the belief that the child will hunger more for nourishment from a pretty woman than an homely one. Female domestic workers tend to earn more than male agricultural labourers and are eligible for back-pay if they leave their employment prematurely.
Occupations for Men
Men are usually hired to do agricultural work, and work as shepherds, beekeepers, vintners and farm hands. They are contracted for a year at a time and paid an annual wage at the end of that year. Unlike female domestics, if the men quit before payday, they lose their wages. This inequity between the sexes is justified to the Zingaran mind because the men do not work equally on each day – during the winter and inclement weather, they do little to no work on the manors – while women’s work is never done.
Trade
Historically, Zingara has tried hard to outdo Argos in the seas. The Zingarans managed to trade along the Pictish Wilderness, despite the intense ferocity of the Sea-Tribes that exceeds even the savagery of those Picts that ravaged Velitrium. They traded tin, ostrich plumes from Kush via Stygia, wine, weapons and other goods for copper ore, hides, gold dust, whale teeth, walrus tusks and other goods made by the Picts. The Picts tend to fiercely resist contact with the Hyborian nations, but reluctantly traded with the Zingarans, probably because they are not entirely Hyborian and have a distant kinship with the Picts. This trade is something the traders of Argos never try. The coast is too savage, largely uncharted (at least by Argossean chart-makers) and frightening. Today, there is little trading going on by Zingaran merchants along the Pictish Wilderness. The Picts have, as a result, increased the frequency of their raids, sensing the instability of Zingara.
Zingara’s primary export is tin, which is essential for the making of bronze. The mountains of this proud land are mined for tin, a rare commodity in most lands, but readily found here. In the past, Zingara’s once great plantations yielded crops of grapes, sugar, tobacco and grain and black serfs were brought in to work these vast plantations of southern Zingara, labouring under the whips of cruel slave-masters hungry for wealth and prestige. No more. Most of those fields are gone, burnt by the civil wars that have raged from one end of Zingara to the other. From the grapes, highly regarded Zingaran wines were once distilled. Even this industry has come to a crashing halt in recent years. In addition to the agricultural products produced in the fertile southlands, leather was another staple product from the Zingarans. This industry proceeds even today.
Zingara also competes with Argos by exporting olives and olive-products.
Social Standing
Zingara has evolved into a stratified society that is complex and, to some degree, racially motivated. The upper rung of the hierarchy are the nobles. Beneath the nobles are the middle classes, the lower classes and the slaves, in that order.
Nobles
All nobles have the right of denaturalisation, which allows them to renounce their allegiance to a lord (even the Crown) if they give due notice, which is ten days. The formal defiance must be made in the presence of witnesses. If the ten-day notice is not given, they are expected to perform their duty when called upon. The nobles are of four types: the upper, the middle, the knights and the esquires.
The upper nobility consist of barons and counts, viscounts and their aides and vassals who can command at least five knights. They receive land from the king in return for military service. Their tenure is hereditary but the king can alienate their land at will. The barons hold the largest land
grants, followed by the counts. The rents of various free towns are given to the princes and counts by the to ensure they can support an adequate number of knights. They are descended from the bravest and proudest of Zingaran knights back in antiquity, usually dating to the Hyborian invasion. They are exempt from corporal punishment and they have the right of trial by their peers. They must, however, serve the king’s army for two months of the year. They must serve longer if the king pays their expenses. This rank of nobility is hereditary only. The king is forbidden from granting anyone these ranks.
The middle nobility include the viscounts, comitores and vasvessores. The viscounts serve the counts. Comitores are the noble aids of viscounts. The lowest of the middle nobility include the vasvessores, who are vassals to the counts and comitores. This is the highest order of nobility the king can legally grant a person. The titles are hereditary to a point – they are hereditary for the life of the king. Each king has the right to appoint his own viscounts, comitores and vasvessores, although he often just reappoints the existing ones for the most part just to avoid unnecessary conflict. The current state of Zingara, however, is a nation with no king, so this rung of nobility is the most unstable for the moment.
The next rank of nobles are the knights, who command at best a single castle or manor. A knight is expected to own a wife, have children and possess a horse. They are also expected to have arms. Originally a knight was the vassal of the king but now they are allowed to be the vassals of the upper and middle nobility. They and their household are excused from municipal taxation should they enter a city or live within its jurisdiction.
The final rank of nobility are the esquires, who have grants enough to enable them to support a horse and arms. They are frequently vassals of the knights. Merchants who become
wealthy enough or have aided the king or a baron may be granted this title. They are exempt from taxation but are bound to serve for three days a year in the case of war. Esquires who fail to take the field when summoned by their knightly lords may be fined heavily. Some knights allow the esquires to make a payment to the knight of some sort in exchange for not enforcing military duty.
The Urban Classes
The urban classes are composed of the burgueses and the condishions. The burgueses are citizens who have Profession skill ranks and follow that profession. They are subdivided into the Greater Hand and the Lesser Hand. The Greater Hand are the bankers, doctors, advocates and their ilk. The Lesser Hand are the merchants, brokers, agricultural procurers, shopkeepers and the like. The condishions have ranks in Craft and make a living by producing things. The leaders of these classes are not merchants or artisans, though. The leading citizens are soldiers, stock ranchers and plantation owners who live within the walls of a city but own vast amounts of property in the country beyond the walls.
They are the economic lifeblood of an urban centre. This group is becoming increasingly significant in Zingara and many fear they may come to dominate the other orders. Townsfolk are the people who dwell in the large towns and cities as the social elite. They do not labour on the land as peasants and serfs do, but they are also not noblemen. They lurk in an awkward position in Zingaran society.
The Lower Classes
The lower classes also have two categories: propertied and non-propertied. They are generally attached to an overlord and the soil when on the manors, or they are servants in the cities. They are permitted to buy, sell and inherit land and livestock. The propertied lower class citizens own land and the non-propertied do not. An non-propertied man is tied to a plot of land owned by someone else. Non-propertied men cannot leave the land they are tied to without their feudal lord’s permission. In addition to working their own lands, they are required to labour on the lord’s estates as well and give up a portion of their own personal harvest to the feudal lord. They may be asked to perform other labour services as well, such as repairing a road or building a bridge. Non-
propertied men are otherwise free. They may accumulate personal wealth, for the social constraint is not an economic constraint. Non-propertied men may raise whatever they see fit on their land and can sell any surplus at the local market. A non-propertied man may also bequeath an inheritance to his heirs. Also, the tie to the feudal lord goes both ways. The feudal lord is not only obligated to protect the non-propertied man, the feudal lord cannot dispossess the non-propertied man without due cause.
A propertied man is a free man who lives in a village or more rural setting and owns his own land or, at most, owes rent on his land. Most propertied men are farmers, although some are more specialised, such as village blacksmiths, coopers or millers. Propertied men only owe a lord labour obligations during harvest time. Propertied men do not need to pay the various fees and fines imposed by the feudal lord, although they do pay taxes. Most propertied men swear fealty to the lord of the land in order to obtain the lord’s protection, but they also obligate themselves to pay all the various fees and fines like a non-propertied man. Propertied men often manage to attain a modest amount of wealth. In any one given village there will be some propertied men who are better off and more powerful than others. The wealthier and more powerful propertied men usually have better homes and better harvests. The more powerful families often have members who serve as aldermen, or elders. Often these elders have no formal identity bestowed upon them, so membership is cliquish. Certain families, it seems, are considered to have ‘always’ been among the elders. Many of the well-to-do can lend money, seed or livestock to the poorer members of the village. Well-off families collect on defaulted loans by repossessing property and extending their own holdings.
Propertied men who own land in the fields but live within a lord’s demesne are often employed permanently as manorial labourers. They serve the lord’s lands and protect his interests, thereby increasing the lord’s industries and profits.
The Lower Classes part 2
These permanent labourers are paid with any combination of grain, money, labour obligation relief or propertied men to help them with their own lands. These propertied men take Profession skills to reflect the amount of income they earn and to reflect the jobs they do on the manor grounds. These are Profession (ploughman), Profession (carter), Profession (shepherd), Profession (dairymaid), Profession (cowman), Profession (overseer) or Profession (household servant). Ploughmen plough up most of a lord’s fields as non-propertied men with labour obligations harrow and weed. Carters carry grain and goods to and from market and do any other deliveries as needed. Carters are usually paid very well to keep them honest and are especially important to lords with multiple manors. Shepherds tend to the lord’s sheep. Dairymaids milk the lord’s cows, goats and sheep, make butter and cheese, tend to poultry, collect eggs and make mid-day meals for the other manorial labourers. Cowmen receive the least amount of pay among the permanent labourers for odd jobs they do around the manor. Overseers manage propertied man labour and prevent theft, especially among a lord’s groves, orchards, vineyards or cash crops. Household servants are propertied men without farmland. They usually receive room and board as partial pay, although some manors pay in grain or money exclusively. Household servants include chamber maids,cleaners, marshals, grooms, messengers, pages, washwomen, slaughterers, poulters, cooks, butlers, pantlers, brewers, bakers, cupbearers, fruiters and their helpers. Only the largest of manors employ all of the above types of household servants.
About half the propertied men in Zingara own ten or fewer acres of land, which is at the subsistence level for a typical family. A third of the propertied men own 12 to 16 acres (a half-virgate). About 12% of the propertied men are so poor they own no land save for their home and the soil immediately surrounding the one roomed daub-and-wattle home. These are the poorest propertied men. The remainder are the wealthiest propertied men who own more land than they can work and hire the poorest propertied men to work their land. Rarely is the land owned by propertied men neatly divided up into contiguous plots. A single propertied man may own a strip in one field and a strip of land in another field and so forth, and all the strips and plots of land are mingled with those of other propertied men as well as with those still owned by the feudal lord and worked by the non-propertied men.
Slavery and Patronage
The lowest classes are those who belong to patronage and the slaves. The patronage state involves
a patron giving a slave possession of the land the slave is attached to in return for half the produce
from it. The patron usually also assumes the responsibility of protecting a former slave’s family if the former slave dies. The freed slave may not change his patron. The freed slave still is not all that free – he must seek his patron’s permission for just about anything, including marriage. He also cannot give evidence against anyone ranking higher than him.
Beneath those involved in patronage are the slaves. Slaves are either captured or born into slavery for the most part, although people can be enslaved as a legal punishment. Slaves may not own property; all they previously owned belongs to their master and the land. Even their children belong to the master. Southern Zingarans use slave labour from the Black Kingdoms to work their fertile plantations.
Social Mobility
No matter how well one behaves, no matter how much one accomplishes, one cannot be elevated in status because of mere accomplishments or behaviour. Marriage is generally the only way to socially move up or down the ladder of society. Misbehaviour short of criminal also does not decrease one’s social standing, although criminal action could cause one to be outcast from society, leaving a character without legal protection. Downward movement is certainly easier than upward movement.
Outcasts and Bandits
There exist on the outskirts of Zingaran society those elements who have either been cast out or those who have withdrawn voluntarily beyond societal borders. Among the outcasts are the itinerant poor, such as the wandering beggars or those who suffer from physical or mental handicaps. Unable (or unwilling) to labour, fight or pray, these persons are fair game for any sort of indignity or outrage because no one protects them. During times of famine or plague, their numbers swell, though at most times they are encountered as individuals or small groups or families. Occasionally a villager may give them a bit of food and a place to sleep, depending on the villager’s moral sensibilities and sense of security. Foreigners and outlaws also fall into this unprotected category. Outlaws may be captured or killed by anyone. They are without lords and have no protectors. Thus outlaws tend to avoid villages, towns and cities, save to loot them. Even foreigners must be careful. They too have no protectors save their own sword arms.