Stickpicker

[Squaredeal Sten]

I note that the term "stickpicker" as a social and economic status has few official references, but is firmly embedded in most of our Gloranthas including mine.  Now  I am asking you whether you define it the same way I do:

Members of the clan or tribe who have no land to work and no skilled trade. No land means they are neither primary landholders (carls) nor tenant farmers. including not being among the clan's  herders and not having a hide-equivalent of herd animals, and maybe no grazing rights. They have a destitute standard of living.

They will ordinarily have some seasonal agricultural employment, for example as harvest hands.  They pick up odd jobs.  But "stickpicker" comes from their picking up things of negligible value, that is windfall branches. from the clan's wooded areas. and selling them either as firewood or as charcoal (thus they are charcoal burners, a dirty job).

 

References:

The first pace I saw it was In the King of Sartar game.

Recent discussions in these forums that use "stickpicker" include:

and

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8 by Squaredeal Sten
added second link, bad typing

[John Biles]

In Sartar:  Kingdom of Heroes for Heroquest, the worker group is described as:

There are also the workers: Makers, who build and craft; Cabbage-folk, who scrabble in gardens; Traders, who count money; Stickpickers, who gather fallen wood in the forest; jugglers, and other vulgar poets; beggars, everyone a thief if your back is turned; and slaves, animals.”  (Page 210)

 

 

 

[jajagappa]

13 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

I note that the term "stickpicker" as a social and economic status has few official references, but is firmly embedded in most of our Gloranthas including mine.

First place I saw the term was in King of Sartar, which is the same reference later used in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes. Also p.58 "There was a god named Eurmal who did not have much going for him. He was less than a stickpicker, because he had no kin, no friends, and no place to live." And on the back cover of the revised edition: "Listen! This is the Saga of Argrath, Lord of the Seven Directions, High King of the World, who was the son of a stickpicker"

@Nick Brooke made a nice tale about "Argrath the Stickpicker" which you can find here: Argrath the Stickpicker (albionsoft.com)

 

[EricW]

Beware the Stickpickers - Beat-Pot Aelwrin was a kitchen slave. Argrath is the son of Stickpickers. Trickster gives terrifying magics to those whom the rest of society despises and ignores. One day they will rise! 🙂 

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, EricW said:

Argrath is the son of Stickpickers.

But less of an Ambedkar and more of a Feric Jaggar?

[Memestream]

On 6/30/2024 at 4:11 AM, EricW said:

Beware the Stickpickers - Beat-Pot Aelwrin was a kitchen slave. Argrath is the son of Stickpickers. Trickster gives terrifying magics to those whom the rest of society despises and ignores. One day they will rise! 🙂 

On this note, and I could just be plain wrong by virtue of a wealth of examples to the contrary that I simply haven't run across...

... but I tend to construe the social status of stickpicker as more commonly being ephemeral within Orlanthi society than not. It seems more akin to being presently disenfranchised rather than indicative of anything like hereditary servility. It also seems to me that given prevailing social attitudes(informed by myth no less), a lot of them would be particularly prone to pursuing desperate feats of derring do, and thus either move up or die trying.

Edited July 1 by Memestream
Typo

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, Memestream said:

On this note, and I could just be plain wrong by virtue of a wealth of examples to the contrary that I simply haven't run across...

... but I tend to construe the social status of stickpicker as more commonly being ephemeral within Orlanthi society than not. It seems more akin to being presently disenfranchised rather than indicative of anything like hereditary servility. It also seems to me that given prevailing social attitudes(informed by myth no less), a lot of them would be particularly prone to pursuing desperate feats of derring do, and thus either move up or die trying.

I'm not sure. I wouldn't put "heroism/adventurism" up as a big factor in social mobility in any society, I doubt the demographical numbers would add up, though I suppose endemic warfare might be used to weed out population surplus and/or capture slaves. 

I agree with the others above that stickpicker is a description for the lowest social rung in Orlanthi societies, but with the discardment of the old vernacular of thane, carl, cottar, etc. you sorta have to map the old ideas onto the new vernacular. So you have the nobility, the free, the semi-free and the unfree now, iirc (correct me if I'm wrong here). It probably bears reminding ourselves that these are ideal classes - something the Orlanthi tell themselves to make things seem more orderly than they really are. 

Then we get into the issue of land allocation. One of the things that made me really interested in the Orlanthi clans was how their land-ownership was supposedly collective, with the individual families being granted land use rights rather than ownership. This is roughly still canon, I believe, but I think there was some clarification with how this allocation is ultimately derived not from the clan itself, but from the local earth temple institutions, as Ernalda is seen as the primarily "landowner". 

Anyway, it still ends up as a stratified society, where the nobility/thanes are those who are allocated the largest and most choice pieces of land, with carls/free farmers being given lesser plots and rights, and then you have the semi-free/cottars being those who apparently either directly given their own land at all and must effectively "sub-let" from nobility (or wealthy free/carls) OR, the plots they're allocated are so deprived that they must supplement their income with work on nobles or free farmer's properties, I guess. I can't help thinking of Scandinavian husmenn or Scottish crofters, where you essentially have smaller garden-plot houses who must otherwise partake in work on the larger property to either pay for their plot, or to simply get enough to live. It's both a case of the plot/property being too poor to farm on a large scale, as well as the family in question lacking the resources (oxen, manpower, plow, etc.) to do so even if they were given a better plot, at least in the foreseeable future. 

So where does this leave stickpickers? They might simply be synonymous with semi-free/cottar farmers in the is case. I don't see signs of most Orlanthi societies having an even more downtrodden social class, like serfdom, so I'm hesitant to propose that. Stickpickers might be semi-free farmers on the poorer end of the scale, or they might be completely disenfranchised family members who are seen as superfluous. Maybe sent off by their parents or other guardians to do seasonal work, or be day laborers, or otherwise supplement the household's income with whatever activity they can (hence the stick-picker or charcoal burner epithet).

But what about entire "stickpicker households"? Again, they might just be really deprived semi-free/cottars. Their own plot so poor that not even it combined with work on their landlord's farm is enough to make things go around. Or they might be people with outlying plots where going to work on the landlord's plot regularly isn't feasible. Them being outlying and them collecting fallen branches for charcoal burning does sort of go together. It might also apply to itinerant families, entire households who do seasonal work as a group, sleeping at the entryway to the "longhouse" (Ernalda square house) or in the barn (or whatever the iron age equivalent is). This kind of living must truly be a hard, grim existence, especially with snowy winters, and people like this might rely as much on customs of hospitality, better-off relatives and temple institutions as they do on simple employment relations. 

Social mobility in Orlanthi societies is more fluid than in some other Gloranthan societies, but the classes mentioned above appear to be pretty reliably inheritable. Noble families have a tendency to stay noble, and so on. I like to imagine the Orlanthi to generally allocate suitable land to as many households as possible, simply because it means less social turbulence in the long term, but in all honesty, I suspect the nobility are fine with some paupers struggling as long as it means they get the choicest plots and easy access to farmhands. Plus, there's always the question of immigrants. You can't easily just carve out a new plot at the drop of a hat, so newcomers to another clan's tula or another tribe's lands must expect to live off landless labor for a while, if not for life, I'd imagine. 


These are just meanderings, I suspect they're at least somewhat based on me misunderstanding Jeff or other stuff I've read here, lol. Apologies if so.

[Squaredeal Sten]

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

..........
I agree with the others above that stickpicker is a description for the lowest social rung in Orlanthi societies,

........

 I can't help thinking of Scandinavian husmenn or Scottish crofters, where you essentially have smaller garden-plot houses who must otherwise partake in work on the larger property to either pay for their plot, or to simply get enough to live........

......., or they might be completely disenfranchised family members who are seen as superfluous. Maybe sent off by their parents or other guardians to do seasonal work, or be day laborers, or otherwise supplement the household's income with whatever activity they can (hence the stick-picker or charcoal burner epithet).

But what about entire "stickpicker households"?.......

'''''''. Plus, there's always the question of immigrants. You can't easily just carve out a new plot at the drop of a hat, so newcomers to another clan's tula or another tribe's lands must expect to live off landless labor for a while, if not for life, I'd imagine.

My own personal non-canon thoughts on these matters are

1) The lowest rung in Orlanthi societies is not stickpickers, but thralls / slaves.  and we are told that some clans keep thralls.

2) Stickpickers are free - but dispossessed.  No one owns them but they have less economic security than a thrall.

3) There  are probably several ways to be dispossessed (become stickpickers): 

The most likely seems to me to be a refugee taken in by the clan, but not given land  .Many such refugees will be tenant farmers / cotters, but it may not be good to subdivide the hides of land into smaller and smaller pieces,  Nor to change land ownership during the growing season:  If there's a sure way to generate resentment it is to let Tom plant the land but say Jerry gets to harvest it.  

A slightly rarer way to stickpicker status is to be an unskillful, unlucky, or ill cotter and be fired from the position because your crop is insufficient.  

A third way is to be outlawed for a period of years, then you come back - but that doesn't mean you automatically get land. 

A fourth way is to simply fall out with your family and be unwelcome at the longhouse.

And as you suggest, if a cottar family's gardens etc can't support all of them, someone has to be sent out to do seasonal labor and whatever else will bring in something to live on.

Edited July 2 by Squaredeal Sten
spellng

[Joerg]

Most cottars (tenant farmers with an assigned hide to work for a thane of the clan or the tribe, with "hide" possibly being a flock of sheep) receive some means of income from the clan, but stickpickers usually don't have any livestock or gardening plot to their (household's) name and get by with what they can trade for their work or what they gather and produce from the commons. They might practice a "low craft" like basket weaving, they might collect raw material for other crafters (e.g. clay), they might collect fuel or winter fodder for a meal and somewhere to sleep, they attend as many worship services as possible for another bowl of food, they "pick up the rice where a wedding has been" or rather scour the fields after the harvest for anything the harvesters may have dropped, and they collect wild fruits, nuts, and roots. They might brew intoxicating concoctions.

At times of harvest or haymaking or for other communal works (e.g. on roads), stickpickers will receive tasks from the clan and be rewarded with better food and possibly temporary quarters.

When no such tasks are on the horizon, stickpickers are free to leave the clan territory and roam neighboring areas. Some may hunt on the side - what would be poaching in a feudal society is fair means of survival among the Orlanthi.

 

Marriages are arranged between clans, and while "landed" cottars do get marriage partners assigned, few stickpickers would. But Orlanthi society doesn't require marriage as a prerequisite for intercourse. Makign themselves representable would be a challenge, though. They will seek the company of low ranking guests.

Charity cases in the clan are effectively stickpickers, too, but they may have received an invitation to join house and table with other clan folk, where they help out to their capacity, even if that is minding the fowl or scaring away crows after the sowing.

Edited July 2 by Joerg
edited clan into clan territory. Avoiding "tula" because that term is ambiguous.

[Sir_Godspeed]

11 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

My own personal non-canon thoughts on these matters are

1) The lowest rung in Orlanthi societies is not stickpickers, but thralls / slaves.  and we are told that some clans keep thralls.

2) Stickpickers are free - but dispossessed.  No one owns them but they have less economic security than a thrall.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't discuss slaves at all because they didn't seem overly relevant to my thinking out loud above, but you're right here. Stickpickers are the lowest rung of NON-unfree people. They're not property. 

I'm not sure what the status of freedmen in Orlanthi societies are, but I could imagine there is a chance of freedmen becoming stickpickers if they're not able to secure a good patron-client relationship with established farmers, likely their old slaveowners. Maybe escapees, even. On the other hand, a desperate stickpicker might sell themselves into slavery, or even their kids. Times are tough.

[radmonger]

In summary:

• noble/warrior/priest: rune level or thane entitled to be supported by the clan 
• farmer [carl]: assigned land. neither obliged to give, or entitled to receive, such support  
• tenant farmer [cottar]: assigned land, but obliged to use it to contribute to supporting a noble
• hunter/fisher/laborer [stickpicker]: not assigned land, permitted to remain in clan if they support themselves.
• laborer [thrall]: not legally permitted to become a stickpicker
• laborer [slave]: forcibly prevented from leaving clan. 
• bandit/hunter [outlaw]: not part of clan

Exact details will vary per clan. Orlanthi-led Sartarite clans rarely have thralls and never have slaves.

The laborer occupation is in the JC publication Nochet QoC.

Edited July 2 by radmonger

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, radmonger said:

In summary:

• hunter/fisher/laborer [stickpicker]: not assigned land, permitted to remain in clan if they support themselves.

Herders, hunters and fishers are primary providers and usually have some clan property assigned.

Fishers may require boats and a boat shed an/or permanent fish traps, smoking huts (fish may require hot smoke not usually applied to meat), a net drying area near the shore, and possibly a rope making area. Hunters would have facilities to make and repair their hunting gear (javelins, arrows, bows, long spears, and gear for constructing traps such as hatchets, shovels/spades) in the settlements, places to cure the meat before it goes into preservation or to the feasts, and storage for pelts, skins, feathers/down, antlers/horns/teeth and workable bones from their prey. Both fishers and hunters will produce most of their job gear themselves - knitting nets, shaping spear and javelin/harpoon/arrow shafts, fitting (bought) metal heads or DIY bone or stone heads to these and in case of arrows fletching them.

(Given the listed prices for javelins, there is no way that a low status job like hunter can afford to buy the javelins listed in the core rules or W&E. At the same time, even though we jokingly talked about starting a business selling javelins, I doubt that these implements will be fit for a trading network. I GM this as using the relevant professional skill percentage as a measure how well these items are produced. Characters with an explicit crafting skill may actually produce marketable implements.)

1 hour ago, radmonger said:

permitted to remain in clan if they support themselves.

These folk are kin, even if they are not trusted with any significant clan wealth. On the whole Stickpickers aren't necessarily expected to completely earn their upkeep from the rewards of the jobs they do for the clan. They may have other skills that may allow them to be fed by others - low entertainers don't really provide any wealth and rely on donations or tips or on being invited to a feast on the low end of the table. Entertainers will be encouraged to visit other clans or nearby markets to increase their income, but they also will be expected to join everybody else in bringing in hay or harvests or communal works like road works or house raisings.

 

1 hour ago, radmonger said:

• laborer [stickpicker]: not assigned land, permitted to remain in clan if they support themselves.
• laborer [thrall]: not legally permitted to become a stickpicker
• laborer [slave]: forcibly prevented from leaving clan.

Exact details will vary per clan. Orlanthi-led Sartarite clans rarely have thralls and never have slaves.

BIturian Varosh did buy slaves for his journey in Prax. No idea whether his original plan was to sell Norayeep upon his return from Prax again at Pimper's Block or some other oasis or whether he would have taken her with him to his Sartarite kin.

By thrall I suppose you mean a person taken captive on some kind of combat encounter and not ransomed/ransomable, and thus kept around as useful labor, prohibited from quite a few of the natural rights all non-unfree clan members have like owning and wielding weapons, while slaves would be individuals from further away sold or transported into the clan lands. In practice, there would be no difference - unfree would be property of a clan, but no more clan members than would be the prize stallion or breeding bull, and less so than the alynxes.

Unfree would be restricted in their movements, whether supervised or left without direct supervision in the center of clan lands. They might be prevented from pursuing their cult outside of clan or tribal facilities.

[radmonger]

28 minutes ago, Joerg said:

These folk are kin, even if they are not trusted with any significant clan wealth. On the whole Stickpickers aren't necessarily expected to completely earn their upkeep from the rewards of the jobs they do for the clan.

On second thoughts I agree. Change 'if they support themselves' to 'if they at least try to support themselves'. It's not that you pick up sticks, sell them for silver, and buy food. You get the food, and the other necessities of a 'poor' standard of living, because you are kin. It's that anyone refusing to do any useful work would face the kind of overwhelming social pressure it would take an Eurmali to resist...

48 minutes ago, Joerg said:

No idea whether his original plan was to sell Norayeep upon his return from Prax again at Pimper's Block or some other oasis or whether he would have taken her with him to his Sartarite kin.

Not sure Biturian is specified as being from Sartar, let alone a rural Orlanthi clan. the Pimper's Block section in CoP says 'buyers from the Holy Country and Lunar Empire'.

In 1614, with the Red Earth faction ascendant in Esrolia, an Issaries trader from say Nochet might well have a very laissez-faire attitude to slavery. Over the course of the narrative, he gradually becomes more caught up in active commitment to the Lightbringer side of Issaries.

 

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

8 hours ago, radmonger said:

In summary:

• noble/warrior/priest: rune level or thane entitled to be supported by the clan 
• farmer [carl]: assigned land. neither obliged to give, or entitled to receive, such support  
• tenant farmer [cottar]: assigned land, but obliged to use it to contribute to supporting a noble
• hunter/fisher/laborer [stickpicker]: not assigned land, permitted to remain in clan if they support themselves.
• laborer [thrall]: not legally permitted to become a stickpicker
• laborer [slave]: forcibly prevented from leaving clan. 
• bandit/hunter [outlaw]: not part of clan

Exact details will vary per clan. Orlanthi-led Sartarite clans rarely have thralls and never have slaves.

The laborer occupation is in the JC publication Nochet QoC.

Everyone is probably entitled to *some* level of support from the clan, since i't's a collective entity with at least a fictive level of relatedness, but of varying degree. Presumably, everyone is also expected to *contribute* to some degree, or in some sense. The nobility is more about their specialized tasks than gross economic output, I'd assume, but I might be wrong. Anyway, there are alos likely to be quite a large amount of commons for grazing or other activities (such as hunting, fishing or gathering, or picking firewood), so no one should be completely without options most of the time. 

And as far as I understand, "thrall" is functionally the same as slave (much like it is IRL), it was just used for the Orlanthi as part of the wider usage of Germanic terminology for them.

Edited July 3 by Sir_Godspeed

[Memestream]

On 7/1/2024 at 5:01 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm not sure. I wouldn't put "heroism/adventurism" up as a big factor in social mobility in any society, I doubt the demographical numbers would add up, though I suppose endemic warfare might be used to weed out population surplus and/or capture slaves. 

Let me start by saying plainly that the unquoted portion of this post is very informative, well thought out, and something I'll think about for a long time even if it's a little Earthy(and I don't mean the rune) for my tastes.

But on this note, I'm informed by a largely non-canonical source in this matter, KoDP. However, I do take that information along with the apparently canonical information that Orlanthi clans have a headcount averaging about a thousand(with a bit over half of those being adults). Something has to be winnowing them out, especially given all the midwifing, fertility, and healing magic. Likewise, while I interpret Glorantha as a fairly tumultuous place(especially when looking at somewhere like Prax or Dragon Pass), it does seem a bit more "just" than Earth, at least inasmuch that divine favor and talent tend to go hand-in-hand.

Thus, while I understand that the upper classes have greater access and options with regard to contacting divinity, I find the idea of a strong and charismatic "stickpicker for life" kind of hard to swallow when social currency plays such an apparently strong part in Orlanthi society, but there's always the chicken/egg causality question when it comes to this world. On the same hand, I can see more enfranchised kinfolk gassing up their less fortunate cousins with the Orlanthi equivalent of 'get a real job' (if you want us to take you seriously).

Umath was arguably a stickpicker of the Celestial Court. Orlanth was practically a stickpicker when he first went to see the Emperor. I understand that humans aren't Gods, and that there are practical constraints that have to be lived with regarding life in Time, but it seems like these are details which would weigh significantly on the Orlanthi psyche. Surely, many of them are going to be too impotent to actually change their lot in life, but it seems like most of them would chafe at it. 

Then again, that perspective on my part is almost assuredly itself informed by the entirely non-canonical experience of growing up in the rural American South where I saw a great number of men slandered, shamed, and downright mistreated because they wouldn't undertake some herculean task of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps by hook or crook. Likewise, I saw a lot of them die, wind up in prison, or just plain do despicable things to elevate their family's station and be spoken of as heroes. The people I saw express these sentiments had belief systems watered down by postmodern mass communication at that.

Admittedly, all of this may be either here nor there, but I offer it up because 'stickpicker' seems to be an at least somewhat pejorative term and being painted with such a brush in an honor oriented society is devastating according to what I've witnessed. People on Earth will do crazy things to escape that kind of a stigma in that environment, and so I simply imagine this would be the case in Glorantha too.

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, radmonger said:

Not sure Biturian is specified as being from Sartar, let alone a rural Orlanthi clan. the Pimper's Block section in CoP says 'buyers from the Holy Country and Lunar Empire'.

True, he could be from the Holy Country. But e.g. the Sambari are notorious for dabbling in the slave trade, and their control of the pass between the Quivin and Storm Mountains makes them good middlement between Pimper's Block and the Holy Country.

How do traders like Joh Mith behave outside of Sartar?

10 hours ago, radmonger said:

In 1614, with the Red Earth faction ascendant in Esrolia, an Issaries trader from say Nochet might well have a very laissez-faire attitude to slavery. Over the course of the narrative, he gradually becomes more caught up in active commitment to the Lightbringer side of Issaries.

The Esrolian attitude towards slavery has not been changed significantly by contact with the Lunars. According to Jeff's breakdown of social standing in the core region, more than half a million Esrolians are unfree. There has not been enough time since 1614 to create such numbers.

The absolute power that grandmothers have over their houses makes selling kin into slavery a lot less complicated than in the Heortling clan structure, and the same might go for leaving captive kin in slavery rather than to ransom them.

Unfree don't lose all personhood even in Esrolian society, but I am unclear about whether unfree folk blood-related to a Grandmother still count as members of their House. If they have an owner different from the Grandmother, the Grandmother's authority has been supplanted by the new owner's. Declaring a person unfree without selling them is rather pointless since the Grandmother already has absolute power over the individual (including the power to authrorize capture an escapee and to sell them).

Civic participation of unfree won't include any decision making. Cultic participation of slaves seems to be accepted practice judging from Biturian's treatment of Norayeep early on, probably excluding any martial aspects or cults.

Indenture is a (potentially) temporary form of slavery, where an individual is bound to work off a debt. Such indenture "contracts" might be sold like unfree people with a life-long status. Typically the debt to be paid off would be titled to the House the individual is from, and might well surpass several lifetimes of work.

Merely indentured unfree would retain clan or house membership, although many of the freedoms suspended and their ransoms realigned to their current status.

I wonder whether calling in a ransom might lead to indenture of the ransomee or some of their kin.

[radmonger]

46 minutes ago, Joerg said:

more than half a million Esrolians are unfree

To me, unfree covers both thralls and slaves, using the distinction above. And Orlanthi in general are split on whether that is a significant difference; those who think it is think thralls are ok. But the prohibition on slavery is universal enough it is in the cult writeup.

Actual slaves will mostly be urban, or on dedicated (lunar) slave plantations. In a rural clan, it makes no sense to spend a scarce resource (trained, skilled and equipped warriors) to guard a plentiful one (unskilled labour).

In Nochet, a grandmother can force you to become a Voria prestess, cloistered in a temple. They can assign you to Asrelia, labouring in a mine. But all of that comes down to social pressure, backed up ultimately by the threat of exile. No chains, whips or manacles are required.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Declaring a person unfree without selling them is rather pointless

I'm not sure 'pointless' is the right criteria to use when dealing with myth, Selling kin into literal slavery, making a profit, is going to be at most a post-Opening innovation, from contact with Fonrit. Some Houses may have thought 'that's a good idea', but not many.

As Samastina aligns with Broyan, Orlanthi attitudes to slavery become dominant over Fonritian ones, to the point where by 1625 it may well be tentatively outlawed.

[Sir_Godspeed]

4 hours ago, Memestream said:

Thus, while I understand that the upper classes have greater access and options with regard to contacting divinity, I find the idea of a strong and charismatic "stickpicker for life" kind of hard to swallow when social currency plays such an apparently strong part in Orlanthi society, but there's always the chicken/egg causality question when it comes to this world. On the same hand, I can see more enfranchised kinfolk gassing up their less fortunate cousins with the Orlanthi equivalent of 'get a real job' (if you want us to take you seriously).

Umath was arguably a stickpicker of the Celestial Court. Orlanth was practically a stickpicker when he first went to see the Emperor. I understand that humans aren't Gods, and that there are practical constraints that have to be lived with regarding life in Time, but it seems like these are details which would weigh significantly on the Orlanthi psyche. Surely, many of them are going to be too impotent to actually change their lot in life, but it seems like most of them would chafe at it. 

I absolutely think temporary stickpickerhood is a thing. The harvest goes awry, so now your family has to beg, or do odd jobs to make things go around. But only until the next harvest season, which might turn things around, for example. Or you live as a stickpicker until someone takes you on as an apprentice. Or after several years, your household finally gets allocated a suitable plot to farm, or you finally acquire an ox to plow with, or you finally manage to arrange a marriage for one of your kids with a more well-off family, which lets them help you out with the essentials rather than them being a burden on you, etc. etc. 
 

4 hours ago, Memestream said:

Then again, that perspective on my part is almost assuredly itself informed by the entirely non-canonical experience of growing up in the rural American South where I saw a great number of men slandered, shamed, and downright mistreated because they wouldn't undertake some herculean task of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps by hook or crook. Likewise, I saw a lot of them die, wind up in prison, or just plain do despicable things to elevate their family's station and be spoken of as heroes. The people I saw express these sentiments had belief systems watered down by postmodern mass communication at that.

Admittedly, all of this may be either here nor there, but I offer it up because 'stickpicker' seems to be an at least somewhat pejorative term and being painted with such a brush in an honor oriented society is devastating according to what I've witnessed. People on Earth will do crazy things to escape that kind of a stigma in that environment, and so I simply imagine this would be the case in Glorantha too.

I don't doubt that many, many youths will try to find their fortune through raiding or mercenary work or otherwise travel and take serious chances to escape impoverishment. I just expect that, like in real life, the effort to substantially change their social standing is so disproportionate that most revert to a fairly low standard of living or die trying. The stories of people rising to a higher status is the exception, not the rule. 

You're right in that this is a desperate kind of outlet we see not only in historical societies but today as well (army enlistment, for example, or dangerous industrial contracts, or working abroad in the service industry, etc.). Pressure outlets are absolutely necessary to societies, with how dynamic they are. 

[Joerg]

27 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I absolutely think temporary stickpickerhood is a thing. The harvest goes awry, so now your family has to beg, or do odd jobs to make things go around.

IMG before you have to go begging around, you go around calling in favors - your participation in barn raising or other communal efforts that went to the benefit of certain individuals or households, your household's portion of the collection for a ransom, stepping in for guard duty when your neighbors are otherwise engaged, etc.

The typical household will accumulate a balance of potential favors. It is bad style to deny a favor owed, probably costing you two or more favors instead, which is why households tend to keep favors out without calling them in.

The social status is in your clan is usually tied to your household, not to you individually. (At least not until you change households by becoming the follower of some leader.) It usually is measured with the clan resources that your household was given to contribute to the clan wealth and welfare. If your allotted hide production is say 60& agriculture and 40% dairy, meat, hides and/or wool, then a single bad harvest won't take that hide away from your household's care. It takes more negligence than that to be removed from a holding.

 

53 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

 Or you live as a stickpicker until someone takes you on as an apprentice.

This only applies if your previous household was dissolved or you declared independence. This is rarely done IMG. Even if you join a mercenary band or a noble's retinue (say the Thane of Apple Lane), when you terminate that service, your previous household will usually take you back. Same with a person ransomed back to their clan after some absence, or similar, but usually the returnee will be accepted, but also expected to share the wealth they bring back - if only experience, training the militia or crafters or whatever.

As a young adult, until you join a master crafter's workshop (and household), or become a temple servant/guard, you will be reckoned as a member of "your" household - possibly led by a grand-uncle or cousin after the previous household head retired or died. Thus you are still part of that hide of orchard in Apple Lane, or part of the shepherding hide (or partial hide) entrusted to your household, or making hay or bringing in the harvest or working on the royal road...

 

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Or after several years, your household finally gets allocated a suitable plot to farm, or you finally acquire an ox to plow with, or you finally manage to arrange a marriage for one of your kids with a more well-off family, which lets them help you out with the essentials rather than them being a burden on you, etc. etc.

IMG you would separate yourself from your previous household only when you have some legs to stand on - you have become a god-talker, or a craftsperson, or amassed enough wealth while trading the clan surplus on neighboring markets, or you go into the city to join a guild. The motivation to do so usually comes with enstangement from the family head, possibly because your direct kinship has become a bit tenuous, or you and the household head have gone at loggerheads. Or you are married outside of the clan or to a marriage partner with enough status and dowry that a new household can take off.

Elevating the entire household is quite a feat if done by an individual - usually only achievable through "adventuring" - spoils of war, discovered treasures, a generous gift from a renowned leader.

Leaving a tenancy relationship like those orchard-managing households assigned to the Thane of Apple Lane probably means your household gives up the attached cottage and other hide-bound benefits you may have taken over or added to the holding. You'll probably receive a new building elsewhere, or help build a new cottage for your replacement next to yours if your heart or your new business is tied to the old cottage.

Starting a new household usually is a festive communal activity for the entirety of the clan, or at least those clansfolk nearby. Think of this as a barn raising. The neighbors put in some work, creating a balance of favors they may be able to call in later on.

 

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I don't doubt that many, many youths will try to find their fortune through raiding or mercenary work or otherwise travel and take serious chances to escape impoverishment.

Perfectly normal, although putting a strain on the parental household even though there is a mouth less to feed etc. Those who are more concerned with the well-being of their household may volunteer for clan missions instead - do work for the city confederation or the kingdom in the name of the clan, join the clan trader as mule handler or carrier, maybe also as guard, take extra duty in the confederate city militia or the tribal warband, volunteer for cult duties - building up favors and making yourself known to the higher ups. Favors or rewards collected may have to be offered to the household or to higher-ups.

 

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I just expect that, like in real life, the effort to substantially change their social standing is so disproportionate that most revert to a fairly low standard of living or die trying. The stories of people rising to a higher status is the exception, not the rule.

The problem is that the status is tied to clan holdings, which get assigned to households according to their status and renown. As an individual it is fairly easy to rise up in society - join a sufficiently high status leader as a retainer, and you will be participating in their household's status. (That leader doesn't have to be the household head, but would usually be among those who would be considered as successors to the household head, or some other high status office.) When the clan assigns a marriage partner of equal status, the in-laws will usually see to the household gaining somewhat in status. Accepting a marriage partner from lower status into the household will generate favors from the clan (ring) and the in-law clan. Getting married to a higher status partner usually means that you join that partner's clan for the duration of your marriage.

The majority of the clan folk are free folk, but of varying houshold wealth depending on differences in productivity and abilities in the household. A poor freeman household may do worse than a successful tenant farmer household, but still retain higher status (weregeld).

Most well-to-do households will have several adults putting in their work for the joint success. One of these will be your player character. Struggling households will often be under-staffed, but might mitigate that by taking in low status laborers and giving them a long-term place on their table and under their roof. Distribution of means of production still falls to the clan chief, advised by the inner and outer ring, and whenever new resources are to be distributed, politicking and calling in favors will susurrate in the community.

When it comes to agriculture, the best plots of land are likely to be under the plow already (or be alotted to lie fallow for a  year, providing pasture for the livestock kept close to the settlement, but also part of a holding). New land can be made arable, or new pasture can be wrestled from the wilds. Sometimes this means that isolated steads in higher valleys are founded or re-activated, sometimes isolated steads gain new households as they take more land under the plow. Possibly in a tenant relationship to the clan temple, or assigned to the local stead leader, possibly as a freeman household from the start. Typically, the quality of such new or reactivated farmland will either be lower than established ones, or it may take more effort to generate the same amount of income. Hide improvements might be required, check Weapons & Equipment and build a campaign side plot from that, collecting favors or granting them for aid.

Expanding the herding sounds easier, but the new "hide" will have to provide more winter fodder than previous, and the distance to the high pastures might increase, or move into more risky areas. Again, scenario hooks aren't that hard to find there, provided your players are interested in stuff that starts at the domestic level. (Simple hooks can explode into high level adventuring easily - just associate tracking those lost sheep with an encounter with a wounded high status person from elsewhere that you rescue, and off you go.)

[Sir_Godspeed]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

IMG before you have to go begging

Poor choice of words on my part. Less "beg" and more "ask around for help and favors". 

Also, my use of the word "you" has been pretty inconsistent. Sometimes I had an individual in mind, sometimes a household. English isn't the most intuitive language in differentiating singular and plural second person, and I was being careless. I fully agree that part of the big problem with social mobility is that one derives both one's fortunes and detriments from being a part of a household and kinship group. They can as much buffet you as they can drag you back down, it works both ways. Strong mutual obligations. I'm reminded of the failure of a micro-finance scheme in Papua New Guinea that failed partly because the project managers had not taken into account that kinfolk would expect that the borrowers would share the money with them, or share the goods for free, thus making many simply default on the loans, being unable to use the money to develope their own personal fortune through investment. The projected entrepreneurship therefore didn't follow. And who here haven't heard stories of promising young people who leave education or careers to go back home to take care of ill parents?