Enthrallment

Enthrallment is the ancient Alderan practice of enslaving lesser races through a combination of torture and mentalism. Very little of it is known outside of Alderon, as the process is considered a form of forbidden magic by the Temple.

A person who has been successfully enslaved through this practice is called a thrall. The process is irreversible.

## Process

In order for the mentalism involved to take root, the prospective must be in a weakened state, both physically and mentally. In many cases, this requires the use of prolonged torture in order to break the subject's will. This process can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, with careful attention paid to ensure the injuries inflicted are not crippling or in any way hampering. Those who are weak willed might not be tortured at all, and may simply be starved until physically weak enough.

Once the subject is appropriately weakened, a ceremonial rune is cut into the forehead, through which a sharpened tool is forced into the brain, destroying emotional expression, rational thought and memory. An aetherite shard is then driven into the injury, infusing the subject's mind with magical energy that suppresses what remains of their will. A skilled Alderan mentalist then instills the subject with a false sense of loyalty to a certain master or tribe, creating fail-safes that trigger pain responses in the brain when orders are not followed. The result is a person who is entirely obedient and without personality, acting at the behest of whomever was included in the conditioning. Ownership can be changed, but the longer a thrall has lived under influence, the more difficult the process becomes.

As the procedure is both surgical *and* magical, not every prospective thrall survives it. Magic tolerance plays a part in how successful the process is.

## Types of Thrall

Standard thralls are created for use in labor and production, made from captives and criminals of human origin. These are little more than slaves, and function only in a servile capacity.

Those who are more advanced than that are used in battle, with certain tribes making greater use of the practice than others. Those lacking men to act as foot soldiers may actively set out to bolster their numbers in this way. There are three major types used in combat.

### Riverki

As the Alderans' sworn enemy, Riverki are the most desirable subjects to Enthrall. With no magic resistance to guard them against the mentalist conditioning, one need only break their will to succeed. Riverki are singularly strong and resilient, and are notoriously hard to torture, making the process of Enthralling one a strenuous and sometimes deadly endeavor.

Those who are successfully Enthralled do not live long. The high concentration of magic required for Enthrallment of a Riverki invariably poisons them, causing rapid onset of the Blackness. They are useful only for a short time before the damage to the brain results in behavioral instability, seizures and eventual madness, requiring the thrall to be euthanized. For this reason, Riverki thralls are sent into battle very soon after their are created, in order to get the most use out of them before they become unreliable.

### Knights

Order Knights are a middle-ground between the Riverki and most mages, resistant to magic but not immune, and highly trained in combat. The ongoing conflict between the Alderans and the Temple make their soldiers all the more liable to become Enthralled, their resilience and strength making them optimal foot soldiers against the Order.

Due in part to their trained resilience to pain and torture, knights last the longest as thralls, often surviving the process and maintaining most of their martial skill. The taught loyalty of the Temple is easily turned to the Alderans by thrall conditioning, to the point that many of them never attempt to break free once Enthralled. At the same time, this loyalty makes them harder to turn initially, with some breaking conditioning before it can be properly completed. Those who struggle free before the conditioning is complete invariably resort to suicide, knowing what will become of them if the process is completed.

### Mages

Mage thralls are exceedingly rare, as their natural resistance to magic makes them difficult to Enthrall. The process requires a large amount of magic to force. A potential mage thrall with high enough magic resistance may fail to be properly Enthralled, ending up lobotomized and functionally useless. For this reason, the few mages intended to be used in this way are tested for mental resistances before being subjected to the process, in order to save resources.

As the destruction of the frontal lobe destroys control of power along with independent function, mage thralls who are successfully turned live blind and deaf, their wielders utilizing commands to trigger their gifts, and restraints to aim them. Alderans are a largely magiborn culture, not lacking in their own mages, so this fate is often saved for those with unique or vastly destructive powers.

## Use in Alderan Society

Along with being a method of controlling groups of non-Alderan people, Enthrallment is used as a punishment for despised enemies, transforming a threat into a useful tool. A prospective thrall is usually a someone of potential use to the tribes, though sometimes captives of particular strength or resilience are also Enthralled, either as punishment or as a method of guaranteed control.

Thralls that are physically strong or come from a combat background are sometimes used as foot soldiers in conflict with other forces. When pit against their own kind, thralls of certain groups are used as shock troops, catching the enemy off guard while minimizing Alderan casualties. This practice is commonly used against Temple forces, and rarely, against the RIverki.

## Involvement

In the *Chronicles of Paladin Wainwright*, Paal reveals that Petya's facial scar is the result of a failed attempt at Enthrallment when he was captured by the Alderans some years before. While it is implied that he avoided becoming a thrall thanks to an unnamed scout's rescue, the presence of the scar raises questions as to how far he made it through the process.

To date, no other mentions of Enthrallment have been made.