Tell me about the peasants and commoners of your setting

how did u make this map?

They are people, with all that entails.

High fantasy or urban fantasy?

She was the best, Zuko is an idiot for choosing frigid Mai over her

They don't own the land, they just rent it. They pay rent via a portion of their crops, their labour on the lord's construction projects, and military service. They are all illiterate.

Premarital sex is strictly forbidden. Punishment is being torn apart in the village square. All intentions for marriage must be reported to me. I personally bless every Union by deflowering the bride on her wedding night.

Thanks, comrade

MS Paint. Here is a higher view and compass rose

Depends where they live. Some are under the subjugation of crazed mage knights. Others indulge in near magical kung fu fighting. In other places, when they fail to become their family's container for a near immortal ghost warrior, the just grow stuff. Meanwhile, on another continent, they are working in factories and generally being exploited to the political/magical/plutocratic elite.

Gotta make strong heirs tho

Too much detail, try writing with less fluff next time

Like any "faction". You only know about certain groups because they are the loudest, most funded, or both of those combined. Got any leaflets drawn up? Love me some propaganda

...

They tend to have god-awful stats in general and are usually angry when people try to double-cross them, especially when inheritance is at stake.

they are all secretly fairies.

Everyone knows this, except the fairies.

Taxes haven't gone up in years, things are getting out of hand.

you may have this superior image for free

The expanding kingdom has recently colonized the land, and so its inhabitants are the kind of people who look to find a new place to start over or strike it rich.

They're hardy folk, and appreciate the adventuring spirit of the PCs. They'll help out where they can, and every household will take in travelers if they're caught out in a bad situation.

While they respect the other humanoid civilizations, they stick to where it's safe - out of fear of the untamed wilderness.

They all have detailed backstories to make PCS feel shitty and/or delight in putting PCS in morally grey situations.

They all carry knives, as tools and for self defense. Every last one of them is given one on they day they become an adult.

To be fair, the aristocracy also carry knives, but they tend to be more ornamental.

They have an unhealthy fixation on vegetables.

Peasant Villages in a province sends out representatives to the Provincial Court of Commoners to address their request, needs and grievances. They then elect a council head that would represent them in the State court, basically a Tribune of the Plebs. The peasants gained plenty of rights through this and became so influential that they can subvert a nobles decision. The only thing they can't do is create an armed assembly, only the nobility has the right to bear arms and to muster troops. Peasants doing so would be considered rebellion and would be put down quite harshly.

That sounds pretty gud gonna steal idea

the suddenness of this made me kek much more than I expected

They're holding the highest power in my setting.

They are whipped into the mud fields in the morning and whipped back to their hovels in the evening. Entertainment consists of watching a loved one dying from dysentery and casual incest.
They mostly eat mud, insects, mud, travelling gypsies and more mud.
The lord of the realm travels from village to village burning them down, collecting taxes and deflowering virgins. Not always in that order. He's currently playing Tic Tac Hut with a neighbor so they alternate on setting fire to hovels until one manages to set a full street of them on fire.

You guy sure treat your peasants well.
Well, except for Sir Edgelordington over here.
The poorest members of all of my nations are kept pretty powerless and ignorant.

Pretty edgy

Nah, it would be edgy with witch burnings and permanent rain and mist.

I prefer grim dark meets FATAL as description.

DM "Ok, you ate a worm today, so no hunger roll for you"
Player "Yes!"
DM "Now roll your daily dysentry check at -5"

They are cleverer than most of the nobility assumes. Some get solid education (particularly law) from the churches to better administrate their villages. The smart kings may realise this, and capitalise on them to put pressure on the nobility.

I love having townsfolk treat adventurers like they are monsters. The farmers they just saved want them to go away as soon as possible, and will give anything to see them off. The leader of the town tries to keep them outside of the town proper.

It started as a way to mess with my players after they started getting rough with NPCs, and just acting like savages all the time. Problem Is that my players thought this new dynamic was more fun so they began playing it up. Now it's just accepted that adventurers in my world are all fearsome monsters that should be avoided at all cost.

Theyre just doing their best in a world they didnt ask for. I have groups of them set up bunkers and train into fighters while high level wizards and warlocks pick out the smartest of the bunch to train in the ways of the arcane.

1st son inherits his father's business or equivalent. 2nd son always become part of the the clergy or similar. The rest have a bit more freedom, but they are expected to serve the 1st son.

Only 1 in 10 of them have souls.
The soulless ones are empty and miserable creatures with no zeal for living and the inability to feel anything other than dull fear and sorrow.
The one's with souls aren't much different.
The only thing they have going for them is wine.
They're totally cut off from the rest of the world and their leader is a vampire that hates them and fucks with them all on a regular basis because he's bored and crazy.
Yeah, I'm just running Curse of Strahd

Oops didn't mean to quote

In the Mage capital, everyone is required by law to learn magic, but the commoners still end up doing manual labor (still has to get done after all), using magic where they can to help them dig ditches or plow fields. Those who fail to learn the most basic of spells are seen as either delinquent or disabled.

Everywhere else, they are just non-magical ditch diggers and crop sharing farmers.

Call it ancient covenant magic or something and you are set for peseant punk

They're all sexy as fuck, like by genetic design, and they're damn dedicated to doing what their respective sexes are designed to be.

They are a hardworking, cheery race of blue mole creatures, living their days with no qualms against their extremely predatory neighbors.

Their mayor is a drunk gopnik who wrestles with each and every one of them whenever he wants, mugs them, and then gives them money as reimbursement. He also makes sure never to collect any taxes from any of them, since they serve excellent food whenever he punches their heads.

Those fields seem kind of small for a village that size.

Peasants don't exist. Feudalism is dead.

They're whores.

Technically there are no peasants, since that's a product of feudalism. As far as farmers go, depends on where you go, the city the PCs are in right now (which is a colony) works like this:

They go to work on the fields in the morning, they come back into the city in the evening. They eat the food provided by the palace, and the palace takes everything that is cultivated. The palace provides protection and assigns them housing. The palace directs the workers and controls the planting.

Every able bodied man must donate a portion of their time to working in the mines or the quarries or building public works (sewers, walls, aqueducts, dams, temples, roads, etc.). Richer folk can pay other people to work for them, of course, and some professions are exempt. Farmers in particular spend most of their off season working. There is hope that in the near future slaves will arrive from the metropolis and ease the burden on the free citizens.

In my world, all peasant and commoner families bear daughters.

Every family has a nubile, attractive daughter that they can use as a reward, bargaining chip, or source of income.

You get one, and it's up to you to choose how to spend it.

>mostly literate
>know about the 12 outer planes, 4 elemental planes and the other 3 but only the bare minimum of the details of each
>low to moderately religious for the most part almost everybody prays to multiple gods depending on what they are doing with even the occasional person that has a preferred diety giving the others there proper respect
>most do not own any magic items but its unusual for somebody to have never seen magic done
>enjoy sportsball and watching sportsball competitions although rarely get as invested in there local team as folks here on earth do
>big on democracy or more specifically voting if your to lazy to vote properly you will face heavy ostrication
>there is no dominate form of preferred alcohol
>terrified of kobolds

Well I'm trying to make a world semi form scratch, taking obvious inspiration form real world cultures so it depends. Area a the peasants are basically slaves, area b they are fairly happy and well treated, area c there's no large hierarchy so no major distinction between peasants and higher ups.

Depends on location. Some are serfs, some are citizens, some are sharecroppers.

I have one area that's my attempt at a 'flat hierarchy caste system,' where every caste is subservient to another caste in the chain -- rulers are subservient to clergy but lord over the commoners, who in turn lord over the clergy themselves, and so on. It's confusing, but satisfying to fuck around with. I've got about eight castes right now.

that wasn't unhealthy, his main source of income kept getting brutally destroyed, usually due to the involvement of the same group of kids

They're all retired adventurers. Any party that tries to murder hobo is immediately shut down.

I do this too, for the obvious reason that most adventurers run into running economies and ruin it.
Even had a little adventure about it where a group PCs run into a village that's gone bankrupt ever since the local evil had been rolled up.
Apparently these iron miners, farmers, and smiths ran shit out of luck when the local booming stronghold stopped ordering their weapons and food. And most of their young men died when the heroes killed the soldiers and servants in the keep.

And with the BBEG gone to keep the local evil wildlife in check and focussed on attacking adventurers there's now bands of kobolds and mutated bears running amock.
And besides all that, adventurers have a tendency to kill steal and loot. Even if they are on the good side of the spectrum, on grounds of simply being so strong that they can't be stopped. Which is kind of scary i.g.

I mean, without a feudal lord, that still sounds like a peasant system. Where most of the land they work is not their own, or only partially their own, and most of their produce goes to a central point where it is distributed among the rest of the populace by a lord/leader's decree. And ofcourse the gentleman's services the not!peasants are doing.

>I mean, without a feudal lord, that still sounds like a peasant system.
It is a much earlier system. I'm running a kinda sorta Late Bronze Age game, so most of the cities are still running a palace economy, which is what this is.

In effect, it is a much more centralized than feudalism, technically nobody owns land, currency isn't really a thing yet. Additionally they're not really tied to the land as feudal Peasants were, where each Peasant family works a parcel of land, but instead they work on communal city fields and live inside the city walls.

>have a chance to tap some earth kingdomese ass
>ignore it and continue lusting after your yet unreclaimed honor

It is a small wonder that was able to sire more than 1 child.

Oh, yeah okay, I get what you mean.
I was kind of confusing it with how early feudal society would have all the farmers working on land that didn't belong to them either. Or only partially. And they paid their lord in tithe and extra services.

I guess in the end the lower-class life wasn't all that different, you always serve.

The main difference between Feudalism and Palace economy is that in a palace economy, everything goes to the Palace, not just a large part, and then the Palace redistributes that however it sees fit, food, clothes and shelter are all provided by the Palace to everyone and everything is managed very tightly. It works as long as the population is small.

He only sired the one, unless you believe in the Zhao-approved theory.

They spend a lot of time appeasing cats, hawks and other wildlife, all of which lords over them with sheer physical force.

Are they mouse people or somethin?

They don't earn much XP

You kidding me? Her giant tits would have feed the strongest heir.
Earth wombs for fire babies.

To be fair to the poor guy, he probably wanted just one kid to avoid another Azula-scenario.

I KNEW IT!

Ah yes, peasants in my setting also power things.

> Sir Edgelordington

And yet his setting is still more benevolent to his peasants than real life feudal russia in the past.

Also
>Everything I dont like is edgy
Oh come on.

Mostly a happy bunch now that a cheap, semi-renewable form of labor has come about. Though some are very against it, considering its skeletons of their dead loved ones.

I imagine it will end in either another rebellion, or just peaceful assimilation once they die out and join the skeleton horde.

You kidding me? Her giant tits would have fed the strongest heirs.
Earth wombs for fire babies.

Probably wanted just one kid to avoid creating another Azula, buttsex from then on.

i liked that it was midly entertaining to watch unlike pakmar which just made you want to reach out and strangle ben

>Earth wombs for fire babies.

Did you really think that the Sozin claimed the fertile hinterlands of Earth Kingdom just for shits and giggles?

No, for farming... and farmgirls

Depends on your definition of "commoner." Humans who aren't part of the Council of Lords are basically living like they're in the Italian Renaissance, but with more farming - the combination of rich volcanic soil and the massive system of natural canals flowing around the two major rivers that makes up the Riverlands makes for very rich, fertile soil. Elves basically live in massive family groups where children are traded into arranged marriages to prevent bloodlines from going stagnant, so "commoners" in the traditional sense is meaningless here. Orc men are sort of commoners, as they travel in roaming packs guiding their massive herds of cattle around the Great Grass Sea for 75% of the year; their women technically act as a ruling class and have a matriarch at the top of their social hierarchy, although their control over the men is shakier than most think. Dwarven commoners are mostly miners, or - at the very bottom of their hierarchy - farmers at the surface, referred to as "durkahaz" ("loose topsoil") for their need to attach to some "overseer" to sell their crops through for a fair price and their lack of loyalty to any one "overseer."

>tfw no Ba Sing Se gf

>tfw dai li wasted their skills by making servants instead of mail brides

They range from downright stupid and superstitious to those who actually have common sense to actually think before acting. But this also depends on race, kingdom, laws, traditions, education and other major and minor elements...

All the flavors you want in fact.

Thus in one place a witch will be burned on the stake for...existing, while in another she will not only be appreciated by the villagers, but also welcomed by them.

A Necromancer may be feared and constantly observed with suspicion by people in a majority of places (and often also burnt on the stake), but in a strict magocratic province where magic users are common and the normies got used to their shenanigans will act reserved around a Necromancer.

All the flavors I tell you.

They're all gnomes. They spend their free time drinking, having sex, cowering before their Babylonian Elvish overlords, and sleeping.

>implying the Joo Dee's were never used for 'relaxation' by the Dai Li

This is the one true and only way to do peasants. Make them varied and different for all the regions and cultures of the world.

Don't you mean the prostitutes?

By all accounts they should be fucking miserable. But when you're born into a shitty situation alongside everybody else your standards change accordingly.

The prime worries of most villages is either conscription or animal attacks, since only animals are capable of performing magic naturally. Wolves can howl so hard your fucking house collapses.

The peasants generally circumvent this by making trinkets and clothes from the animals they kill, as they still possess magical qualities even after death. Some of the more strategically placed villages also live somewhat comfortably off of trade because of certain magics only coming natural to creatures with specific habitats. Those guys in the far north will surely appreciate those Cheetah-hide shoes that make you run fast

Is there a difference?

Yep.

This takes effort, but it's not impossible.

Pity some settings and certain GMs are a tad too lazy to do it right.

Most have at least one cybernetic enhancenent or retroviral alteration linked to his job. Allmost everyone of them has partially inactive nanites in the bloodstream that help keep them healty and a neurojack port to commune with the Gods. Even if the Tapestry of Souls went inactive making most of the most flashing enhancenents of yore inactive; the most down to earth stuff still works and can be made more efficient with enhancenents and secret techniques.
The tipical city guardsman has a Gauss rifle that's only active when he uses it, neurolinked sensors, a nanosteel armour with strenght enhancers, a monomolecular blade and a shock baton for riot control.
They still die in droves when adventurers show up.

Really depends of where they are.

For most, they have to pay the "no spear in your face" tax to some local warlord.
This is mostly paid in food.
Since warlords don't like accounting, it's a flat tax : each household has a quota of food baskets it must give to the warlord's officers every moon or so.
In exchange, the houses and fields ain't burned and nobody is sold into slavery in the nearest city.

Some warlords see themselves as true noble warriors and make a point of actually protecting the peasants that pay the taxes.
They are your stereotype knights in shining armors, whose brutality is focused against what they see as evil or dishonorable.
Others just take the food and just bother to maintain some kind of order to keep their authority.
Others yet are just plain thugs that take the taxes and whatever else they want.

The life of a peasant is spent between his harvests, his family and whatever project he got time to do.
He can barely manage to work enough fields to pay the taxes and feed himself and his family.
But in a good year, he might spend the low season working on some building project, either for himself, for his community or for some rich dude who pays for it.

>hot girls wearing fishnets and highheels tilling the soil

Current empire is full of beggars and guards.

The guards beat the shit out of the beggars if they beg to new comers.

Shit caravans travel across the continent dropping off shit at the edge of towns and cities.

My people are....phosphorus.

...

The heels are for making holes in the dirt to place seeds in.

>first you blow the fields
>then you "blow the fields"

Faceless aspects of the magical leakage courtesy of magical girls.

They're all gay and only nobles can reproduce.

my setting is literally called the dark medieval times. its over the top with retarded names like "Lord Bloodshed", "Lord Extremekiller" and so on, but its actually serious.

the peasants in this setting are good for nothing subhumans. they live and they die. they live in really shitty condition, the ground is all mud and shit. they die of disease, starvation and genocide (they get killed by their own lords just for fun and sometimes for being shitty peasants). they are actually biologically inferior (intellectually and physically). sometimes they eat their own shit, because why not, their lives aren't to get any worse than this.

sometimes they eat stew that is mud in a bowl mixed with some pebbles and grass.

their religion consists of worshiping fake gods. they build idols and statues to their gods made out of mud and shit. for this they get killed sometimes. sometimes the angels (murderous gods of this setting) descend from the heavens to commit genocide against these shitty beings. (only nobles and knights are allowed to worship them)

here is some drawing in paint i did almost 2 yrs ago. if anyone wants ill post more.

picrelated was 1 historical event (dont remember the names desu, havent written anything down) when the lord of the castle went to far away lands for battle, the peasants rebelled but lost to a single loyal executioner

Bump

They are surprisingly opinionated and frequently unexpected.

>fertile Earth valleys

Metal

I want to live in your world, tell me more.

Because peasants don't have to worry about heirs and diplomatic marriages, they don't care much about virginity or marriage.

Wives are frequently swapped during the harvest festival, either just for a night, or until the next festival. Everyone is family so there is nothing to worry about. Inbreeding is prevented by having your daughters warm the beds of any stranger who passes through. Children are raised collectively so it doesn't matter if the father is unknown.

That would be Veeky Forums