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Notes -
Of course, Malediction is still on the book. Personally, I would much rather be worked to death in some Cheliax salt mine and face Pharasma's judgement than be summarily sent to spend even a single eon in the tender cares of Asmodeus.
I think the underlying thing is that for SJ, the topic of slavery is simply sacred, and can only be mentioned in sufficiently pious, orthodox works, and an RPG which lets you play evil characters simply does not qualify. (Of course, half of the sacredness is in the word slavery, if the game had simply called an enslaved person a serf (and perhaps gotten rid of the slave markets), most of the objections would have gone away.)
Personally, I have a strong preference that worldbuilding should include organizations whose attitude to diversity is different from a 2015 tech company. I think that fictional racism/speciecism is fine, and actually a good way to tackle these topics without stepping on the toes real world people (except for the professionally offended). Pratchett did this masterfully in Discworld with the ethnic tensions between trolls and dwarfs. Likewise, slavery and serfdom were unfortunately common in a lot of human societies long before Europeans settled in the Americas.
Nor is including a price range for slaves per se offensive. Most reasons why a DM would require this information are non-malevolent, like "can we afford to simply buy our source and set them free instead of breaking them out". Per default, the adventurer lifestyle does not lend itself to slave ownership.
Now, if the source books had made special accommodations for PCs owning slaves -- like saying and you can get a discreet obedience tattoo for your slave which will force them to obey you, I would consider that in poor taste, just as I would consider an info box on how to use the grappling rules to rape someone. But on priors, I doubt this was what happened here.
Anyhow, I am looking forward to seeing how long it will take for SJ to get universal franchise for all residents of Cheliax.
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