Sanctuary Countryside

Outside Sanctuary city, and past the fine estates, are the grain fields and gardens that keep the town fed. These extend up to a day's ride in all directions, and are a combination of local freemen scratching out a living in subsistence farming, and huge plantations worked by hundreds of slaves. These plantations provide perhaps three-quarters of Sanctuary's fresh food, the rest being grown in town or imported by sea or river.

The living conditions on the plantations are poor, with foreign slaves – mostly Arabiq or Orcs – being worked very hard, with little food or rest. These slaves are often troublemakers that could not be sold at a profit, and are regarded as expendable. As foreigners, they have trouble escaping as any other estate they cross would recognise and recapture them. Most of the slaves are branded for ease of identification. The chance of earning freedom is also slim – only the occasional doxy or catamite has been freed. A third option was to be picked for the owner's gladiatorial team, but with the closure of the gladiatorial pits after Chenaya's mistakes and the arrival of the third Command, this chance for liberty or death has been denied.