My First Book in 2 Years is Out!

Two years and two days later, Sex Slaves and Warlords is now live.

36,000 out 150,000 New-Written Words

It is only 36,000 words (and there’s 3000 more in alternate scene content, on the website). However, it is just the first chunk of over 150,000 words I’ve written. The other chunks will follow (I’m hoping to release one book a month, for the next 4 months or so).

Did I need 2 years to write 150k words? Gods no. A good chunk of that was cleaning after the Great Amazon Book Blocking that killed two out three books and ended a series. Those books, in their uncensored and too-hot-for-Bezos entirety, are here and will remain here. I have no beef with Amazon over this. They have boundaries and I crossed them. In a (small) way it has been good for my writing — I now know where the line is. Instead of self-censoring, I can just put the super racy stuff on the website as alternate scenes.

Why did I write 150k words just to put out 30k for the first book? Well, because the books are better when I can manage them all as a single project. Things that happen in one book might need changes made in an earlier one. Ideas at the start may not be as interesting as ideas that emerge later — and would require re-writing.

The cost though, is that it takes a long time.

Also, its not done at 150k. I took stock at that point and figured nope; this thing is going to top out at 300k! I figured waiting till 2026 was a dumb idea and that I should start getting these books out without precious about them. Halfway through, there’s nothing much I think that will change. Not a good enough reason to keep these to myself.

Sharing it With Fellow Hyperboreans

Keeping it to myself is exactly how this has felt. So much has happened on Hyperborea! I have to fill you in on this.

As you may remember, Gerard picked a big fight. There’s been consequences, but he had a point. Dura is now at war with the Deep Ones (I’ve working towards this since 2021).

There’s other factions Gerard has to deal with. Shemite city-state of Starka is not pleased and they are moving to check Dura’s power. Their poweful ally, Marna, a city on the coastline of Shem, is getting involved. There is also the Hataduri farming garrison - a prelude, if unchecked, to further colonization. Last of course, there is are the Wakers of Azathoth:

““We are the Wakers of Azathoth. You are the first outsider to hear our name. Please accept that as the greatest compliment, Butcher. Our plans extend from the choking ruins of Armanea to Dura to Starka. All this river will be ours. We will wake Azathoth, and he will end the world! Thank you for your help, Butcher. We will speak again.””

Enjoy the read and thank you for coming with me on this journey. It has been wild!

Alice

Write Like a Gorean: The Gorean Protagonist

Let’s look at how to create a Gorean Style hero. For this first we’ll examine how Norman created his heroes (or rather anti-heroes), and from there the essential components to a successful and compelling Gorean main POV character.

The ‘Competent Man’

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

A popular trope of early 20th century science fiction that still resonates, is that of the "competent man." The competent man is more than just a character who is competent; he is essentially superhuman. There is nothing he can't do, be it in a fight, solving a science problem, or coming up with needed trickery to overcome a numerically superior but arrogant foe. They tend to have world-changing ability that other characters in the setting somehow lack, either being nameless cannon fodder, or becoming supporting cast. John Carter of Mars, Flash Gordon, and Conan the barbarian are early examples.

Competent man Flash Gordon with supporting cast character, Dale Arden.

Compare these characters with the powerlessness of Wells’s unnamed protagonist in The War of the Worlds, and even Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit being distressed by just the idea of life without enough spare hankies. The "competent man" has changed little in the last hundred or so years - shirtless, impetuous Captain Kirk has resonates even today, and every first-person game revisits this powerful storytelling tool. There's nothing quite like having a single point of view character who the author can throw pretty much any crisis at, and who can be relied on to change the world by the end of the book.

Gor’s Tarl Cabot is very much a competent man hero. City states, powerful nobles, and even alien leaders are subject to his involvement in their affairs.

Is this then, a compulsory trope? Does a Gorean hero have to be a character whose exploits stress the reader's suspension of disbelief, or worse, their patience? Must he so suspiciously unrelatable? Must he even be a man?

I would argue no. All that matters in a Gorean story is that the world changes between the beginning and its end, and that someone hot is sexually dominated.

Personally, I like competent men characters. They are useful; appropriate to the "planetary romance" genre; and if you get into their heads and lay them bare for the reader they stop being cardboard cutouts. My competent men are all heterosexual men enjoying heterosexual and bisexual slave girls, but this is in no way important to the Gorean hero. John Norman would disagree with me, but that's because Gor means one thing to him (a serious prescription for how people should live), and something else entirely to the rest of us (sexy slave porn, yo!).

I am not interested (and do not support) a world where one group of people barbarizes another. However, violent, barbaric, adventure sex slave stories are hot as hell, and I can't get enough of them. To write like a Gorean, this is what you must be true to. As such, the gender of your "competent man," and the gender of his prey, are irrelevant. All that really matters is that he hunt, enslave, and sexually dominate his prey.

In coming years, we should expect to see Gay Gorean stories, gender fluid heroes, female Goreans with their own slave girls - and slave men - and other explorations as we wink at and beckon to our gender buddies across the spectrum to see what we have in our brown paper bag.

Anti-Heroism

The Gorean hero is no boy scout. Conan, more than Tarl Cabot, is the archetype here. Our hero needs to be more than happy to do full-on bad things - remember, he (or she) is a sex slaver. You cannot have a boy scout turn around and steal a a girl and keep her in a cage. It’s not compelling.

Connected with this is the general appeal of any anti-hero character: an exploration of being evil. Through the anti-hero’s actions, the reader can take vicarious delight in things they could never, or would never, do. It is the appeal of the Joker over Batman (screw Batman).

The trick to using an anti-hero and having the reader root for them, is quite simple. You have them stand against the "true" evil of the story or setting. For example, in The Pool of the Black One, Conan challenges and kills a pirate captain for no other reason than to become one in his stead. However, he still fights to save the rest of the crew from the monsters on the island. Accordingly, Tarl Cabot joins Ivar Forkbeard in in Tovarsland and enjoys the man's slave girls, but he risks all to joins the stand against the Kurii menace.

Contrasted against alien invaders who would see humanity exterminated, collaring, branding, and breeding captives becomes an act of humanism. The anti-hero’s actions can be condoned as part of the setting’s ‘Wheel of Life,’ underlined by the chattels own acceptance of their situation.

An Outsider

The hero of the Gorean tale is always a proxy for the reader. A Gorean world is always an interesting one. Here again is the influence of classical science fiction: the wonderful world of Barsoom, of Pellucidar, and other planetary romances. As an outsider, the Gorean protagonist can ask whatever questions he likes and go down any alley. Whatever wonders are mundane to the rest of that world, can be as interesting to him as they are to the reader.

The character does not need to be an outsider for this. It is nothing a first-person narrative can't do, just as well. However, what a general first-person narrative cannot accomplish unless it of is an outsider plopped into a Gorean world, is a stage-by-stage exploration of, and participation in, sex slavery. The reader, especially one who is just picking up a Gorean-style book for the first time, will want to take his or her time exploring what they can do in that world.

This could start as simply as staring at a sex slave without reservation. Imagine looking a beautiful woman up and down, as she walks past. Imagine doing so making no attempt to hide your action, from her, or anyone else. Even the idea of this is creepy and sleazy to us. However, in a Gorean world, it would be so common it wouldn’t be noteworthy to them - if they even realized they did (how often do you stop and realize that you’re breathing?).

An outsider though, would do this with the same nervousness, discomfort, and gleeful taboo interest, that the reader feels when they do it right along with him. The reader can feel the same strange sense of power the protagonist does, when he realizes that he can do it all he likes, and the slave girl expect this - and adjusts herself to better exhibit her body to him, well-trained meat that she is, when she notices his interest.

A good example of this is in Nomads of Gor where Tarl Cabot is asked to be a team player and collar Elizabeth Cardwell. Tarl is uncomfortable doing it - and yet he does it. We feel the same rush of power he does when he closes the collar around her throat. She asks him what that means between them and he says it is nothing, but it is in his power to decide. He could just as easily have told her it meant he saw her as a slave, to do with as he pleased. That he said otherwise is irrelevant. We collared her, right along with him.

Above all, a Gorean story is one where the reader may explore the taboo delight of sex slavery: something they have no access to, and if presented with it, would be horrified and not participate in (of this I'm certain. Reading teaches empathy, and incels do not read).

However, there are no hard and fast rules to writing. All that matters is that a writer understand the "rules" well enough that they know when to use or discard them to best effect.

Point of View

This is to do with how the Gorean protagonist is presented. Gorean fiction is cerebral - yes, you read that right. It is not just a man dragging a snarling and swearing beauty by a chain to the whipping post, it is also what goes through that man's head (or hers).

Leave aside the justifications and mental torture he may go through in order to excuse his own actions; he is also in a mental battle with his prey. How will he break her? Can she even be broken? They are sparring with each other in a game where he controls all the moves, but it is for her to decide if she will lose or not. What he is doing is essentially no different from breaking and taming a wild animal.

There is a lot of tension here: frankly, it is worth its own story with nothing else in the background. This story can be told from a third person perspective - which is fantastic for action scenes. However, third person is very limited when it comes to trying to get into a person's head.

I would go so far to say why bother with it for Gorean fiction, at all. That's just my opinion, though. Why don't you try this experiment and decide for yourself:

-Think of a short, one-on-one breaking scene between your Gorean protagonist, and his captive.

-Write it from first-person.

-Write it from third person.

In which do you empathize with and and root for the slaver? Is he likable? In which do you root for the slave girl? Do you find his experience vicariously hot, or do you find hers horrific?

Your reader needs to root for a character who enslaves people. Perspective is everything.

Changing the World

A good Gorean story is also a good story, period. Things need to change and people need to change. A free woman with proud aspirations ends up a degraded slave girl with expectations on par with an animal’s. Evil lords are confronted and defeated. A hero who hates himself for sleeping with a slave girl, becomes the proud cruel, and exacting owner of several. This is enough for any story.

However, I would argue that for the Gorean story, the Gorean protagonist needs to do more than change a few things around him. He also needs to change the world in some way, for the better. This can be as grand as foiling an invasion by the Kurii, or toppling an illegitimate claimant to a city’s throne. Whatever it is, it needs to have the degree of magnitude that anyone in that world would find impressive. There must be an element of Opera!

The operatic world changer is very much a competent man, and in changing the world our brutal sex slaver gets the free pass he needs to be received as an antihero, and not a villain. The reader identifies with the slaver, and you do want them to feel like monsters for it. Give them a heroic tale so they too can look upon a world changed for the better, a chained beauty kneeling obediently at their feet! She stops being a tragedy, and become a deserved trophy, instead. What is more Gorean than a beautiful slave girl as a trophy?

So there you have it. Put these elements together and you have a Gorean protagonist. Experiment with them, leaving out elements and adding new ones, to your delight and amusement. If you enjoy it, so will your readers!

***

Write Like a Gorean: What Is A Gorean Book?

When I was 16 years old, I came across a man selling old science fiction and fantasy paperbacks, in the middle of the street. I looked through his collection and found a book by one John Norman, Assassins of Gor. It seemed a hefty read and for less than a dollar, my 16-year-old self was quite happy to give it a try. What followed was a surprise awakening of my own, unrealized and already thoroughly suppressed, dominant sexuality. I realized I very much liked the idea of beautiful, naked slave girls crammed into cages, looking up at me with collars stamped with my name around their throats, and my brand on their lovely, bare thighs. I had, for better or worse, become a fan of all things Gor and Gorean.

Ever since, I’ve began writing Gorean style fiction. Just little stories here and there of beautiful, young women being captured, broken, and completely sexually dominated. It was just something I did on the side until a few years ago, when I began writing Gorean style fiction and putting it up on online.

Several years and 27 titles later, it has been my delight and privilege to write for the reading pleasure of many other fans of Gorean style writing. I get questions every so often about how I write these books, so I thought it about time that I wrote a little guide for authors who would like to try their hand at this, and for the enjoyment of Gorean readers, as well.

What follows here is the first of a series of articles on how to write Gorean style fiction. These are just my observations. There are no set rules, and the best work is an experimentation where the writer will follow their story, wherever it goes. Not everyone will follow, but some will, and they will appreciate that you shared it with them.

 What is a Gorean Book?

H. P. Lovecraft had such an impact on horror that he created a sub genre, Other writers, both his contemporaries and those who came after, emulated his work (with mixed results) produce Lovecraftian writing, themselves. It has been many decades since Arkham Press’s reprints of his work revitalized horror writing. Time enough that we now also refer to the sub genre as not only ‘Lovcraftian,’ but also ‘Cosmic Horror.’ There has been time and space enough for a generic label to emerge.

That generic label has yet to come to Gorean writing. How else does one describe John Norman’s erotic, Sword and Sandals fantasy writing? It has no antecedents (though Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E Howard were casting about in the same room). It has very few successors. Until such a date that Gorean fiction has established itself securely across a range of authors and many works, it is best to call it simply, “Gorean.”

What, then, is a "Gorean" book?

A Gorean work is about completely dominating sex slavery, in a setting where that taboo has been completely normalized. It is a mental playground where a writer (and by invitation, a reader) is completely free to do anything they like, to the sexual conquests of their characters.

This complete freedom to explore, is important. The domination sexual kink is specifically about dominating sex slavery. It is not something a writer or readers can discuss with non-fans! It is the most guilty of taboos; a Gorean book must then serve as a an outlet for its exploration.

It may seem at first that Gorean books are really just about BDSM. However, while the two may look similar, BDSM it is very much a different creature. It refers to a specific and careful set of guidelines, knowledge, and safety practices between consenting adults that guarantees the power and safety of the submissive. It is "real world," and as such is tempered by the considerations and values of our time, as much as any other activity is. That is hardly the same thing as a sexual kink about completely dominating, sex slavery. There is no room for "real-world" examination of such a thing, and those drawn to Gorean stories would probably be quite disturbed by anyone who did tried it in real life, like a computer gamer on meeting an actual mass murderer. The Gorean kink can have practitioners but never those practiced upon.

As such, the three key components of a Gorean book, game, or other such creative output are:

• -Sex slavery.

• -The unfettered exercise of sexual domination.

• -A world where these two are completely normalized

Supporting these must be a setting where Gorean sex slavery makes sense, and storylines that must be about, or at least largely feature, completely dominating sex slavery.

 Why Write (or Read) Gorean Style Books At All?

Why play an open world video game where you can kill without any moral or otherwise meaningful consequences? Because it is deeply enjoyable. Playing Grand Theft Auto doesn't make you a murderer, or any more likely to be one. If anything, the opposite is true.

It is the same with Gorean writing. It is deeply enjoyable. It doesn't make you a slave-trading predator. Gorean works are fun, safe, sexual explorations that no one should get hung up about. The bulk of Amazon Kindle sales are by white, middle-American women reading stories about women cuckolding their husbands to have sex with billionaires, dinosaurs, or billionaire dinosaurs. There is nothing wrong with this. It is a sexual kink and perfectly natural. So, stop feeling bad about getting turned on at the idea of a beautiful young slave on their hands and knees at your feet, kissing them and calling you master. You are Gorean! Happy reading :-) .

***

John Norman Held Back - What Explicit Gorean Slave Sex Would Have Looked Like in the Gor Books

What would that look like, and how can 'Sex, Swords, and Sandals' writers take that forward?

John Norman never gives us explicit sex. Sometimes he comments in between bouts of sex between characters, but you don’t get a gritty, sticky, blow by blow (pardon the pun) of what happens after Tarl drags a girl to his bed. Let’s look at possible reasons why, and what Gorean slave may actually have been like if presented in explicit detail.

Possible reasons why:

1 - It’s not his thing.

Sexual bondage of Gorean slaves is the dominant feature of the Gor books, but also, so is story. Characters have changing fortunes and opinions, there’s the politics and life of a whole world to present.

I don't think this is the reason though: Norman spends so much content talking about how slaves are taken, broken, and trained, why would he then hold back right at the most fun bit?

2 - He may have been squeamish.

This doesn’t hold water, either. Firstly, why would a squeamish person write about the hunting, training, and use of sex slaves, at all? Also, Gor is the product of the ‘60s. By 1970 he had 5 books out firmly establishing his universe - and giving him plenty of room to experiment with explicit writing:

Tarnsman of Gor (1966)
Outlaw of Gor (1967)
Priest-Kings of Gor (1968)
Nomads of Gor (1969)
Assassin of Gor (1970)

John Norman created this sub genre. He isn’t shy about a damn thing.

3 - He was not allowed to by the publisher.

Consider that right before, or just as as sex begins, his slaves make clear how much they want to have sex with their masters. Their cries are always of pleasure. They beg for their masters’ touch. Why is Norman so keen to make clear the slave girls are giving active consent? Because otherwise, his books can be slammed for dealing with rape just for the sake of titillation. That’s an open and shut ‘no no’ for any publisher.

Leaving out explicit sex wasn’t enough to protect the Gor books; in the 80s they suffered a backlash no one should have been surprised by. Nowadays however, after a generation of Internet use, we know a lot more about the staggering range, diversity, and truly eccentric nature of human sexual interests and fetishes. People aren’t worried about fetishists being weird monsters who will kill them and rape their children, because they’ve discovered that THEY are those fetishists. 50 Shades of Grey is mainstream - who would have seen that coming? Judging people by their sexual interests and fetishes is invitation to a circular firing squad.

Now, 54 years after Tarnsman of Gor was published, let’s try and figure out what it was about Gorean slave sex that his editors likely found so disturbing. Fortunately, John Norman has given us plenty of clues.

Buckle up - this is going to get disturbing, even for Gor fans. You’ve been warned.

A Look At The 'True' Gorean Lifestyle - Abject Sexual Slavery

Slavery is never practiced by kind-hearted people. Slave owners aren't known for taking the time to think about how their slaves might feel about what's going on. Look up how women are treated in human trafficking right now. And whenever slave owners did stop to think about such things, their slave holding culture had the institutions in place to make sure they didn't think about it too long.

Aristotle wrote of what he called 'natural slaves.' In Hinduism the less fortunate are suffering for actions in their past lives. Then there is always the argument that 'someone else will profit from this, if I don't. It’s better if its me.'

Picture if you will a man, fully celebrated by his culture for keeping gorgeous, naked, young women in cages. Is he one day going to give them some clothes, and ask them to be on their way with an apology and a handjob, for old times sake?

Some men will do that (in any slave holding culture). Most men though, won't. Ask yourself; does your phone or tablet have chips in it made by a manufacturer who exploits their workers? If so, what have you done about that?

With the choice made to set aside all empathy for a group, this allows the choosers to impose any treatment upon said group, without reservation, be it forced labor, sex, sadism, cannibalism, or extermination. This choice is the central characteristic of Gorean slave sex. The choice to enslave.

The Rape and Dubious Consent of the Kajira

No Gorean slave girl decides within a couple of days that actually, she loves master, who also coincidentally has chosen just that moment to pin her down, force her legs apart, and fuck her. This is done to imply in the Gor books that people are having sex.

They are not.

Sex is consenting between two people who just really hit it off, even if they don't understand why, or each other. Or brain wave patterns sync with our partner's when we're having sex. There is eye contact. There is participation. There's chemistry (sex without chemistry is very unsatisfying. Just go to the bathroom and use your hand, next time).

Goreans never have sex with their slaves. Instead, they impose power over them. In Julius Caesar's words, 'the strong take what they will, and the weak suffer what they must.' John Norman doesn't hide this from us; this is what the 'whip of the furs' is. Gorean slave girls are 'used.' They are used to teach them their place. They are used to break resistance. A Gorean slave girl is likely used as soon as she is captured or bought -- it sets the tone of the relationship at its start. They are used often, to reinforce their understanding of where they kneel in the hierarchy, and for the double rush it gives their masters: one of sexual delight, and the other, a tremendous sense of power.

In my John Norman inspired books, the main characters almost never kiss slave girls (and when they do, its because there's something weird going on between them). Instead, the most common sexual encounter begins with a naked slave girl kneeling at their feet, to suck them off. This is common, low impact, and not often noteworthy to the characters.

Consider this excerpt:

“Before me were two naked girls who had opened the door for me. Both knelt at my feet, thighs tightly together, and resting back on their heels. One had her wrists bound in front of her, a slender, dark-haired Shemite who was fit for a harem of ancient Assyria. The other had her wrists cuffed behind her back, a gently tanned, petite, Caucasian girl with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. It was the slave girl he had kidnapped from the criminal Lukor's mansion.

"He has not returned yet, master," said the Shemite. Ninli, I think he had named her.

The blonde looked up at me, her blue eyes wide.

A mistake.

"He said he would be back by dawn," I loosened my belt and pulled out my penis. "It is not like him to be incorrect about such things."

I grabbed the blonde by her hair and pulled her to me. She quickly opened her mouth and took in my penis. Her mouth was warm; she began to bob her head back and forth.

"What's this one's name?"

"Master Fogrim has not named her yet," Ninli shook her head.

I surveyed the girls hanging chained along the far wall.

“Where is Yura?" I asked. The Shang girl Yura was his current favorite. A subtle beast; she looked like a swimwear model whisked away from a Beijing fashion week.

“He took her with him, Master.”

The blonde Armanean pushed her head forward till my penis touched the back of her throat. Well-trained, she did not gag.

"How old is this one?" I asked.

"She is 19, Master," said Ninli.

"Did your master say anything about where he was going? Or why he took a woman with him? Anything at all?"

"No, Master. I am sorry."

The blonde stroked my penis with her tongue, rolling back the foreskin and licking clean the area around the crown. I seized her hair with both hands and pumped her head until I came. I did not let her move until I was finished. Then, I pulled myself clear. She tilted her head back and opened her mouth wide for me to see.

She remained like that, awaiting my command.

"Excellent girl," I wiped my penis dry on her bared throat. "Tell your master when you see him, but I need to speak with him urgently."

"Yes, Master," said Ninli.

I cupped the blonde’s jaw, shut her mouth, and nodded to her.

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. Then she opened and showed me her empty mouth.

"Good Slave," I stroked her hair.

I turned and left the room.”

-Temple Girls and Spies, Book 7 in the Tales from Hyperborea

This is a non reciprocal activity. It is performed from a vulnerable position. It is demanded casually, and failure to obey - and to satisfy - have grave consequences. It also literally leaves a taste in the slave girl's mouth to remind her of what her status is. In Tales from Hyperborea, free women do not even know what semen tastes like - oral sex is so correlated with slavery, free women will not perform it. As such, slave girls in the stories find fellatio a truly degrading activity - to commit it, is to accept and actively support their own enslavement, and the idea that the taste of cum belongs in their mouths.

It may seem unfair to block the trivializing (and glorification?) of rape, when we trivialize and glorify murder all the time, presenting it casually and callously, however we see fit based on genre, medium, and intention. And it is unfair. However, when you look around a crowded room, some of those people haven’t been murdered. But, some of them have likely been raped. It is a sensitive matter to write about because for many it is the stuff of nightmares, not fantasy stories.

So, is it genre appropriate to write a graphic, detailed, elaborate rape scene in a Gorean style book?

Absolutely.

Is anyone going to then? Not any time soon, and not on most publishing platforms.

In one of my books, the main character tracks down a slave girl who has run away in part because she was to be given to him, for breeding. In that brutal world, a master may give one of his slave girls to another man, so he may stud her, as token of comradeship. The main character is annoyed the hot little slave is missing - but more than that, angry that in running away, she has caused her master, his friend, to lose face.

After he captures her, he scolds her for what she has done - and then he uses her. An explicit sex scene follows. It is not a rape scene. Yet, I try to make clear that the slave girl is not not enthusiastic. She doesn't protest, refuse, or otherwise resist - but she is very much shown her place:

"You cannot breed me!" She had the defiance of the wronged in a courtroom. "Only my Master can breed me!"

"I am not interested in your weird lovers’ quarrel," I began to disrobe, "and any man who puts his dick between your perfect little buttocks, can make you pregnant. As I am going to do to you now, Slave."

Her expression changed; fear stilled her tongue.

I lay down my clothes and my pack. From inside my pack, I produced four, sharpened, wooden stakes, some rope, and a hammer. I hammered each stake into the ground around her, forming the points of a rectangle. I released one slender ankle from the hogtie, and tied it to a stake. Then the other ankle, to the other stake. Last I tied her wrists to the forward stakes. Thus, Layla ended up on her hands and knees, each limb secured to a separate point of the invisible rectangle.

"Just like in the breeding hut," I slapped her behind. It was warm and soft. "But I want to breed you here, so you will always remember what happened to you when you ran away."

She looked straight ahead, trying to blank her face. I could make out a suppressed pout. Forgrim had spoiled her: no female back at the Red Water slave camp would have behaved this way. Much less a woman under his cruel discipline.

I knelt beside her. I gripped her throat and ran the other hand down the gentle curve of her back, feeling the muscles on either side of the spine, the rise of her buttocks, how they felt cupped in my hand. Her ankles tugged at their ropes, her hands curled into fists.

"Lovely beast, I reached under and stroked her flat belly. "You are perfect." I gripped her by her chin and forced her head to face mine. "A fine little bitch, Layla."

Her dark brown eyes rebuked me.

Afterwards he whips her. Then, he leads her away, naked and bound by her wrists.

Gorean Slave Sex Would Have Been Rough

The intersection between sex and violence is so strong, it is one of the world's biggest social problems. The brain pathways for the two are closely related. The plight of female migrant domestic workers in the Middle East makes clear how vicious this can be. It would only be worse with actual sex slavery.

Graphic, rough sex is (sadly) abundantly missing in John Norman's Gor novels. Slaves are certainly whipped and beaten, but it is never implied that this may be a part of the lovemaking.

Let us leave aside truly vicious sadism - John Norman's men are quite happy to own beautiful young women in excellent physical health, and take pains to keep them that way. However, that does not preclude rough sex. John Norman doesn’t dive into it, but you know these girls are getting thrown about and manhandled. At the very least, some slapping, biting, spanking, and very hard drilling must be going on. This feeds back into imposing dominance. On the worse end, these girls would be getting thrashed just to hear them squeal. This quickly moves into sadism, which would be another aspect of graphic depictions of Gorean slave sex.

Sadism: Whipping, Branding, and Torturing the Kajira

Imagine that the world has ended, and you are stranded on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific. It is idyllic, quiet, and it will be centuries before anyone ever comes here again.

Trapped on this paradise island with you is stunningly beautiful girl. Maybe you capture her by accident in a hunting snare. Maybe she says she'll do anything for you if you keep her alive. Perhaps she just always wanted to crawl after a man, on a leash. Whatever the genesis, you now have a delightful slave girl.

It would be a real shame if you didn't string her up by her wrists and whip her - just a few times, while she insists yes, as she jumps from foot to foot, that you are her master. If she drops something, you would have no choice but to make her crawl round and round in circles on her hands and feet, chanting that she will do better next time master, with you sitting watching her with your whip at your side. You find some metal flotsam - wouldn't her thigh look good with your initial branded into it? As the sun goes down, you wait for the iron to heat as she struggles beside you, bound to a tree trunk.

Sadism is literally the delight we get in the suffering of others. Whether it is glee at an idiot's failures on a Youtube video, or the spanking of a slave girl on the furs. Everyone has a little bit of it. Owning helpless slave girls would see it developed. Gorean slaves suffer a great deal of sadism in their training and general duties - it follows that they would also suffer sadism in sex.

What sort of sadism would Gorean slaves be put to? It depends on their owners and their owners' cultures, but they are least protected in that John Norman never writes about masters who mutilate or scar their girls. An explicit Gorean sex scene would involve 'non bruising' actions such as slapping, spanking, and whipping with soft and wide-bladed whips. Tension and physical tortures such as long kneeling, squatting, or suspension by feet or hands may feature.

In one of my books, the main character uses two slave girls but finds a way to add a new, sadistic element to his pleasure:

“Come, pets.”

They smiled and crawled forward on their hands and knees. I pulled their heads into place between my thighs and they got to work. They licked my balls and penis, taking turns blowing my cock. They kept looking at each other and giggling, and then up at me.

I wrapped their leashes around my hand. In the other, I held the whip.

It is another indescribable feeling, seeing beautiful slave girls such. You are their universe; all they want is your approval. Everything they fear, is your whip.

I could feel the ejaculation coming on. I stood up in the bed, my foot on their chains so they could not rise up from their elbows and knees. I grabbed my penis and sprayed semen over their backs. I squeezed out every drop, both girls remained still.

I got off the bed, pulled up a stool, and sat to watch them.

"Keep very still," I said, raising the whip. "If any of my seed drips off your backs, I will will thrash and crucify you."

-Tendrils of the Mi-Go, Book 5 in the Tales from Hyperborea

(Crucifixion here involves no nails - the slave girl is just tied in position to the cross and left hanging like that, for a few long, painful, hours.)

A slave owner has already decided that cruelty and the denial of empathy are going to be the foundation of his relationship with his slaves. As such, he is freed to explore his sadism with them. A Gorean would do things to his slave girls he would not dream of doing to anyone else. The slaves will suffer what they must.

It is not only physical tortures that a Gorean would use to torment his slave girls with. Psychological ones would be as prominent, if not more so, and far more powerful. It's time to talk about degradation: the wheel upon which so much of Gorean sex would spin.

Going Well Beyond Slave Positions - Degradation in Gorean Sex

The first thing that happens to a girl when she falls slave on Gor, is that she's stripped naked. She may be kept in a tight cage, or crammed into an overcapacity cell with other naked captives. She will be fed slops, perhaps by hand, if she is even fed at all at first. Most powerful of all, her name will taken from her. The most insulting renaming I can remember from a Gor novel is a slave girl who is renamed ‘Pudding.’

Everything about a slave girl's life from the moment she is stripped, is utterly degrading. Goreans enjoy degrading their Gorean slaves, John Norman certainly does. Degradation isn't just another form of sadism - it is a tool of domination. When a caged girl is given a hunk of moldy bread, she will wait till she is desperate before she finally breaks down and eats it. When she does, the casualty is her dignity, her pride.

The next step is to give her a piece of bread her master has stamped on. She eventually capitulates and eats that too. The step after would be bread used to wipe up her master's piss - or his semen.

The gradual stepping down teaches the slave girl to reset her bounds of what is acceptable. After a week of semen-bread, she will be delighted to have stepped-on bread. After a month of mashed and fermented insect guts, semen-bread will make her cry tears of gratitude and lick her masters' feet, rubbing her breasts against legs in true adoration.

Degradation makes a slave girl stop acting like a kidnapped princess, and start acting like a slave girl. The more servile and base she becomes, the more contemptible her master will find her, and the more degrading his treatment of her will be. It does not matter; as long as she is clean when he drags her to his bed, and when she comes into his view as, naked and with a bell at her throat, she goes about her duties, he is satisfied. He will treat her worse than a dog, and she will find such treatment unremarkable. She has come to find it acceptable.

Whatever else we may conjecture about what explicit sex scenes in the Gor novels could have been, we know at least that they would have been utterly degrading. In my writing I've got slave girl's eating cum off the floor. They lick their master's penises clean of smegma every morning. They eat out other slaves for the entertainment of men, swap cum till it spills down their necks and breasts, and eat it off their skin.

Nothing is off the table. This randomly happens to one slave girl who is unfortunately in the right place at the right time:

"Why are you in cages, and not chained for milking?"

"We are waiting to be bred," said the Shang.

I pulled out my knife. There were gasps from some of the girls, and the caged ones tried to shrink back. The Shang stared at me; her eyes were large, dark, intelligent.

I went to her cage and cut away the leather thongs that tied it shut. I opened the cage door.

"Out."

The Shang crawled out on her hands and knees.

"There," I pointed to the brick square.

She crawled to the middle of it. I took one shackle, opened it, and fastened it around her ankle. Then I secured her other ankle, and then both her wrists. She knelt on her hands and knees.

I pulled down my pants, got down behind her, and got to work. Her body was thrown forward with each stroke, her hair tossing. She started to moan; I cupped one hand over her mouth.

When I ejaculated, I pulled her close against me. I held her like that for a few moments, she lowered her head down to the tiles and began panting. Then I stood and shook myself clean; semen dripped onto her back.

I uncuffed her wrists and ankles and led her by her hair to one of the milking shed.

"Kneel."

She knelt under a bar, the collar hanging down by her face.

I lifted her long, silk-soft hair out of the way, and pressed the collar against her warm, sweaty skin. It clicked as it locked. Then I took each of her wrists and shackled them as well.

"What do you say?" I said.

"Thank you, Master."

I left the stable.

-Dagon’s Price, Book 3 in the Tales from Hyperborea

The character was just investigating an area of a camp. He had no idea what he would find there. After he was done with her, he didn’t give that slave girl a second thought. The thoroughly degraded slave girls of that universe expect things like that to happen to them, and worse.

Stockholm Syndrome: Gorean Slave Sex would Have Been Sustainable

Stockholm Syndrome may as well be called Slavery Survival Syndrome: it is a behavior that took root early in human history. Those enslaved who had it, survived. Gorean slave girls survive quite well, which is all their genes care about. Becoming a powerful animal's pet is good survival strategy; I cite the existence of pets as proof of this.

Being utterly powerless before a master who thoroughly degrades her and is amused by her suffering, is not a good place for a slave girl to be. Yet, what most threatens her is that she is easily replaced. If a Gorean doesn't like his slave girl he will sell her - or even kill her.

Given these, the Gorean slave girl learns first not to resist, and then to participate (as best as she is allowed). This protects her from the dangers of not being 'pleasing,' and ultimately what little favor there is to be had. In the Gor books, slave girls compete for little pastries or a piece of ribbon. This is how John Norman shows us the complete power their masters have over them. Their slaves will do anything for a pastry - it is the nicest thing that can ever hope for.

The successful Gorean slave girl is one who:

• is utterly subservient to her master

• has no expectations about her treatment

• is a great performer in bed, and adores her master.

• Is truly happy in the rare moments when she wins tokens of his favor (a pastry, a real kiss, be given a blanket for one night)

• believes she deserves to be treated this way, and will actively fight to remain so.

Her master will always find her pleasing, and will delight in having such a servile sex pet, likely one of several he pits against each other for limited favors.

The less successful slave girls don't make it. They are killed 'off camera.’

Dark shit, eh?

I did warn you. Gor is a dark world, where people do dark things to each other. Never forget the gravity of this or its subject matter. John Norman sanitizes Gor for us with sword fights that Tarl Cabot enters without fear and wins within a few lines.

And that’s fine. This is a fantasy.

Just as fun is the fantasy of markets filled with beautiful, twenty-something, slave girls, who mysteriously have no VDs, and are all somehow just a good, hard, fuck away from lying gratefully leashed and oiled at a man’s feet.

Reading Between the Lines

Whatever the reason we don’t have deep, explicit, slave sex in the Gor books, John Norman has still given us more than enough hints as to the possible nature of the Gorean lifestyle. It is for writers inspired by his work to explore this, and see where this takes the Slaves, Sword and Sandals genre, next.

World Building: The Slave Girls Brought by Landing Beasts

When the Great Old Ones came to Earth they needed slaves; to worship them, build their cyclopean cities - and to be eaten. These they picked from across time, favoring humans above others because of their fertility, abundance - and mental and physical weakness

They brought these humans to the Carboniferous period using Landing Beasts: dimension-crossing creatures part ambush predator and part spacecraft. Landing Beasts would snatch captives right out of space and time, suspend them in eggs, and fly them back to the Earth of 300 million BC.

There, they break atmosphere, most landing within the shrouded continent-battleground that lies behind the Mist Wall. Whatever fate befalls them there is unknown to any (sane and living) human.

However, many Landing Beasts descend off course, disoriented as they enter fully into our universe, or lead astray by Hyperborean sorcerers. Those human that survive the crash landings that follow, are quickly recovered by opportunistic raiders, slavers, and magicians.

Male survivors are quite rare and so assumed to blessed in some way. Women however are seen as nothing more than prime slave stock; arrivals from brutal cultures where only strong but submissive females get to live.

Here's a breakdown on the origins of most of these females, found in abundance at any Hyperborean slave market.

Ancient North Eurasians, 24,000 BC

The ancient north Eurasians are a people that survived the Last Glacial Maximum; a world of drought, deserts, and titanic glaciers. They persisted in the Siberian steppes before mixing with neighboring peoples as the planet warmed again – spreading a new trait they had evolved; blonde hair.

Siberian females are considered difficult to break, but once trained are especially servile to their Hyperborea masters. This is because their earlier lives were worse.

Shang, 70,000 AD

As climate change baked the planet, along the equator and tropics the Earth was abandoned; people moved to cooler temperatures - or tunneled underground.

Among those who descended where the ‘Shang’ – tribal descendents of those East Asian nations that lasted long enough unlock the underworld. Mostly ‘Chinese’ in origin, 50,000 years of change has made the term meaningless. It is a concept lost in time, along with their once great technology.

The Shang are genetically engineered with better disease resistance, stronger bodies, and faster recovery. This makes them more valuable and strenuous and outdoor roles, such as farming and mining.

Life in the underground caves was marginal; while hunters would often come back with large game, low status females survived on mostly foraged diets of rock scums and blind insects. Raiding between tribes was common, with men slain and women enslaved. As such Shang females take readily to their new lives: they are little different from their old ones.

Neolithic Anatolians, 12,000 BC

The Neolithic saw the development of agriculture and with it the mass organization of tribes into settled, temple-building, communities. At the forefront of this cultural shift were the peoples of Western Asia. They quickly spread into Africa and Europe; their descendents traveling as far as England where they built Stonehenge.

The success and booming population of the Anatolians is what draws the Landing Beasts to hunt from them. They are no better adapted to surviving slavery than any other group, but they are numerous. Hyperboreans prune their Anatolians aggressively.

Bharaji, 2200 AD

Great Bharaji is an city of 10 billion people under the Subcontinent. It was built as a refuge against climate change, and while the Shang world collapsed into tribalism, Great Bharaji survives run by an ancient, artificial intelligence.

However, it is simply too large and populous to be closely governed. Great Bharaji is a fractured mess of competing, giant, underslums. While those who control the slums enjoy great wealth and power, most however live crammed in beehive-like cells, with access to no better than Bronze Age technology.

Bharaji slave girls are genetically engineered for good health, long life, and marginal living conditions. Raised under the powerful social control of the teeming slums, Hypberborean slavers find them pliable.

Iberian Beakers, 2800 BC

The 'Beaker People' are a culture that expanded across Western Europe, reaching from as far north as Scotland to as far south as Sardinia. Like the Neolithic Anatolians, their sudden growth is what draws the landing beasts to raid them.

Ansaru, 31,000 AD

While the Shang and Bharaji survived underground, a new civilization rose out of the jungles around the inland sea of terraformed, Central Australia. These were the Ansaru; a blended people of Eurasian genetics. They expanded into the transformed world creating a sea lane empire from the Pacific islands to the Straits of Sumatra. Their power derived from their sailing galleys, salvaged dark age machines, and mass slave breeding plantations.

Like the far future Shang and Bharaji, Ansaru are genetically engineered for health and fitness.

***

And that’s it for the biggest groups brought by the Landing Beasts! Later, I’ll be doing a post on the ‘native’ slave girls of Hyperborea.

World Building: Hyperborean Slave Breeding Pits

In Tales Hyperborean Book 6, Gerard gets to visit a slave breeding pit in Ebugal. Breeding pits are too big to deal with within the confines of the story, so they got themselves an article.

Origin of the Breeding Pits - Shub Niggurath Worship

Dark Young, Picture credit Unknown

Shub Niggurath is the Outer God of fertility. She spits out creatures known as the Dark Young, which she then consumes. Those that escape from her though grow into giant, tree-like beasts with hoofed legs and a crown of huge tentacles. Wherever she or they go, life springs.

Shub Niggurath is worshiped all over Hyperborea by farmers and breeders. She is (as far as humans know) neutral in the war of the gods, and all seek her favor.

Breeding pits evolved in the deep, ancient history of Hyperborea, estimated by Shemite priest-viziers to predate the arrival of the first Shemite priest kings in Hyperborea, 20,000 years before Gerard's arrival. The pits evolved from ancient Shub Niggurath worship and the post conquest/slave capture rituals of her followers. In ‘deep woodlands under the darkest of the moon’ (HPL), a victim would be sacrificed on a stone altar to her. This would draw the Dark Young out of the old forests, who would then consume the victim.

Slave girls (taken in war, or shed by Landing Beasts) would be kept in pits around the altar. These pits would be protected by overhead, criss-crossing bars to keep the Dark Young from eating the slaves as well.

After the worship ritual, these slaves would be made to drink a potion made from the milk of the Dark Young. This potion renders slave girls immediately fertile and ready to breed.

Over time the pits became permanently occupied and towns and villages formed around them. The essential layouts of the pits would remain, and new pits would be added around the initial ones as the settlement grew. The pits are commonly linked together by underground train systems, and made accessible by cell doors for ease of access.

Dark Trees

Strange, leafless, black trees would begin growing at the sites: these are subterranean creatures related to the Dark Young, with roots going down quite deep. Whether they are multiple creatures or all extrusions coming from one, is unclear, as it is sacrilegious to excavate them. These trees are fed blood and tapped for their sap, which has fertility powers similar to that of Dark Young milk.

Breeding Pits and Hyperborean Cities

The Power of City Elites

The power of a town or city comes from its population. The bigger a Hyperborean settlement, the more it offers in terms of tax base, conscription, desperate colonists to fling at cosmic god-scorched lands, and the free and endless supply of slaves (see below).

However, cities in Hyperborea (as were all cities until the 20th century) are ad hoc death camps. Cramped and filthy, they are rampant with disease. Those miserable enough to be living there tend to have poor nutrition, high infant mortality, and poor life expectancy. The net population growth of these settlements is negative: they need constant replenishment.

Some city dwellers buy and adopt slave-born infants from farmers, so they may better play the odds against infant mortality. However, they will only ever adopt 2 to 3 children, and never at the scales that the city elites would like them to. Further, artisans and professionals in Hyperborean cities have no real interest in adopting infants. They would rather put that money towards buying lovely slaves girl to serve in their kitchens and beds.

To solve this, city and royal elites came up with a now widely practiced solution, to maintain and grow their power by keeping Hyperborea's settlements artificially teeming.

The Slum and Breeding Pit System

Even among the free, Hyperborean society is highly stratified. In every town there is a significant sized class of poor slum dwellers.

Slave-born infants from the city breeding pit are given to these slum dwellers who receive a grain stipend for each infant they adopt. This is an attractive bonus: slum dwellers with large families enjoy a higher caloric intake than those who choose not to adopt.

However, grain is not all a child needs. Large slum families go to suffer even greater poverty, and there are no meaningful opportunities in the city slums. In order to leave the slums (which are walled off) slum dwellers must pay a fee. Most, however, cannot pay it. This condemns them to remain within their slum district walls, essentially a captive population.

Slum dwellers are taxed annually: those in arrears for taxes are noted. When the town satrap decides more troops or slaves are needed, he sends in the city guard. From the pool of debtors, sons are conscripted to become spearmen and archers for local or royal armies, and the daughters are enslaved. These seizures are carefully managed to help maintain the fiction that the system is not rigged, and that if those in the slums only worked hard enough, they would succeed…

Most of the females seized by the town will spend some time in its breeding pits. The infants born of the slaves are given to slum dwellers, and the cycle repeats. The bred slaves are then released back to the city's stock (to do municipal tasks, or be sold at the slave market for the city’s financial gain). However, if a slave girl is deemed an exceptional example, she will be kept in the pits and bred again. And again.

Master Breeders and ‘Special Breeds’

In most settlements, the breeding pits are controlled by semi-independent, master breeders who are part priest, part public servant (which is arguably the lot of most public servants on Hyperborea). These master breeders mostly see that the sites are well watered with (mostly) animal blood, and that the tapping of Dark Tree sap is managed (Dark Young do not come to sites that have become settlements). They are given responsibility for the towns breeding pit targets and usually have one or two "special breeds" that they and the master breeders before them, have been developing over centuries or even millennia.

The offspring of special breed slaves are carefully tracked in later life and invited back (or captured) to mate with the original stock and cement the bloodlines. Special breed slaves are typically females with a distinctive physical characteristic deemed valuable (large breasts on otherwise slender bodies, breasts that produce high amounts of milk) or give birth to unusually large, strong, or fierce men. Such "warrior breeds" often form the elite bodyguard of a satrap or priest king, and are presented as their superhuman symbols and regents to the general population.

The Life of a Breeding Pit Slave Girl

Any slave girl owned by the city may be rotated in to serve in the city’s breeding pit. There she will be packed into a pit with other slaves, while men selected to do the breeding assess her. If selected, the slave girl is dragged to a different pit where she will be put on her hands and knees, her wrists and ankles chained to metal rings set in the ground. Fertility runes will be painted on her back and crotch, and a prayer recited to Shub Niggurath. Then the breeding man will enter, and force her to drink a potion called the “milk of Shub Niggurath;" a purple blend of fermented goats’ milk and Dark Tree sap.

One drop of the sap is enough to render the slave immediately fertile, and guarantees she will be impregnated.

Two drops of the sap makes the slave hyper-fertile and birth quadruplets or quintuplets, but her life expectancy will drop sharply (this is rarely seen as a problem by breeders, given that most Hyperborean slave girls are culled on reaching middle-age).

If given three drops, she will mutate. This is never done except to give thanks to Shub Niggurath - or to make an example of a slave to the others.

After breeding, the slave girl is returned to her normal tasks. When she can no longer work she will be sent to a nursery, where she will remain until after birthing and the infants separated from her. The slave then goes back to normal rotation, unless she has been flagged as high-value by the master breeder. If so, she is returned to the breeding pits for more breeding.

Shang and Bharaji slave girls are preferred in the pits: this is because they are designed humans from the far future, genetically engineered for toughness and high immunity. This makes them excellent for breeding.

Outer Mutant Transformation: Gofnn Hupadgh

Gofnn Hupadgh Picture Credit Unknown

Rapid, high intensity breeding does great damage to a slaves’ health. After four or five such breedings, she becomes too weak. At this point, her life will end in three ways:

1 - she is slaughtered and her blood used to water the Black Trees of the breeding pit. Fertility in the pits will briefly rise. This is the fate of most such unfortunates.

2 - she is made into a trophy. As above, but her skull will be taken and her breeding history carved into it. This is usually the fate of special breed girls; their skulls are not only a physical record but a trophy of the master breeders success.

3 - she is given three drops of Shub Niggurath’s milk to transform her into a Gofnn Hupadgh, an Outer Mutant. Outer mutants can be satyr-like beasts, but no two are the same. They often sport fangs, claws, and hooves but not in any pattern that makes sense to the normal human mind. They are functionally immortal (though they can be slain).

These Outer Mutants are kept in cells in a lower, catacomb level of the pits, where the trophy skulls are stored and the Shub Niggurath milk produced. This catacomb is holy ground: it can only be accessed by the master breeder and high-ranking worshipers.

The Men who Get to Breed

The highest preference is given to outsiders: wandering strangers from distant lands are coveted: the more distant and alien, the better. Regardless of whatever local prejudices may exist, master breeders understand objectively that a mixed gene pool means improved health.

Second preference is given to warriors, trappers, and bounty hunters: men living dangerous lives who by necessity need to be in good physical condition. This is taken as (limited) indicator of their fitness to breed.

The last preference goes to those in power. The town elites are not above visiting the breeding pits for the sheer delight of breeding beautiful young slave girls. The master breeder must balance both his professional and spiritual integrity, with the political expedience of being semi-beholden to such people.

Book 6 of the Hyperborea details deals with Gerard to visit to a breeding pit. Follow the link below to get the first book in the series, absolutely free and with no obligation :-).

Enjoy!

Alice, Tormentor of Eager, Lovely, Slave Girls

Worldbuilding: Why Hyperboreans Share Their Slaves (NSFW)

There is a problematic matter in Book 4 that was not anticipated: why is Gerard sharing his slave girls with Fogrim? He does so with no sign of jealousy or possessiveness. This is an oversight on my part, and is corrected in Book 5.

However, Hyperborean customs in this matter should be examined.

Why Do they Share?

"Where is Layla?" I asked.

"I do not know. I thought that you had taken her last night, to breed her, as planned."

Book 4 begins with Gerard going to a slave pen to drag out Fogrim's slave, Layla, in order to breed her (Layla as it turns out, has her own ideas about this). Gerard makes use of Fogrim's other slaves, with as much reservation as he would a cup in a friend's kitchen. Likewise, Fogrim discusses how much he enjoys having sex with Gerard's girls, Amber and Haley.

Setting aside Gerard's feelings on the matter, why is Fogrim so comfortable with letting another man have sex with his slave girls, even as far as breeding one of his favorites?

The Quality of Quantity

abundance

Everywhere on Hyperborea, one will find highly attractive slave girls. Many fall literally right out of the sky in the vicinity of the Mist Wall, or along its latitude as failed landing beasts deorbit. A good portion of the slaves in Hyperborea's markets are Siberians and Anatolian's from the Neolithic past, and Shang and Bharaji from the deep future (Tales of Hyperborea, Book 1).

The majority however are bred. Hyperborea's humans are generally Bronze Age. Specialization is low and most are involved in farming. However, unlike farmers in the Ancient and Medieval period, Hyperborean farmers are slave owners. Even one with a small farm will own at least 5 to 10 slave girls. Hyperborean farmers do not farm so much as manage; they are slave drivers managing intelligent livestock who do the work, and are bred to produce more slaves.These bred slaves, raised from birth to their station, are most of what end up in Hyperborea's markets.

Lastly of course, there are free women who go on to become enslaved. Some are captured in raids or wars. Most though end up enslaved to settle debts, or as punishment for crimes.

CHEAP

With abundance comes low prices.A beautiful young woman can be purchased for a fistful of coins (gold, yes, but a fistful all the same). Hyperborean slave markets are generally glutted, especially at seaports (supplied by pirate raiders); near the Mist Wall; rich agricultural areas; and where slave-breeding is mandated to maintain large populations (Shem). Slave traders make their profit in quantity.

disposable

Hyperboreans are quick to discard their slave girls. They may be sacrificed to please Gods, sold off for quick liquidity, or simply traded away for the delight of new females, or because they are getting older.

The disposable status of slave girls is a direct function of their low cost and high abundance. Only a handful of slave girls will make it past the age of 40; once aging becomes noticeable the average slave girl becomes worthless.

As Such…

Given that beautiful slave women are abundant, cheap, and not highly regarded, Hyperborea Masters have no concerns to do with scarcity or deprivation where they are concerned. As such, they have low attachment to their slave girls. They will often see unique value in some of them, but in the end, they see them as ultimately interchangeable. The last thing a Hyperborean master sees a slave girl as, is human.

Courtesy and Politeness

Having established the reasons for Hyperborea attitudes, let us examine how these play out in their culture.

Slave girls, like any common property, are seen by Hyperborean masters as things to be shared with their friends and guests. The sharing of a slave girl with a guest, likewise necessitates the guest to return the favor. Fogrim shares his slaves with Gerard; this forces Gerard to share his own with Fogrim, even though he is not excited at the idea. The cost of refusal would be to insult Fogrim's hospitality.

Bonding Between Masters

Another reason Hyperborean men will allow others to enjoy their slave girls is to build bonds with each other. It is a way of reinforcing alliances and unit cohesion.

I missed this out in Books 2 and 3; should Gerard join another gang of raiders or slavers, such bonding will occur.

Enjoyment

Hyperborea men enjoy having sex with slave girls! Customs and social practices that allow them to have sex with more than the ones they personally own, are to their benefit.

Additionally, they benefit the slave girls. Shared girls learn new tricks, are trained to meet new expectations, and enjoy the novelty of different men. Mostly slave girls on Hyperborea are sexual submissives; those brought by the landing beasts are almost exclusively so. Sexual submissives (to varying degrees of course) enjoy and even crave sexual slavery.

On that note, all of Gerard's slave girls are sexual submissives. He has an unerring sense for finding them. However, he has become Hyperborean enough that he would not care, either way. He buys in wholeheartedly to Jean-Paul Sartre's argument that there are no rules, and that instead he should live authentically by his own.

Under his rules, no beautiful young woman is safe from his chains.

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