The Bound Compact

A noble-guild accord that legally codified halflings as a “heritable labor class.” It redefined slavery as “perpetual ancestral service”, enforced not through chains but through contractual legacy, magical brandwork, and guild recordkeeping.

Key Provisions:

• Halflings cannot own property, testify in court without a sponsor, or join the Crown Guard.
• Each halfling is assigned a Service Lineage, a bureaucratic bloodline tracked through guild and temple records.
• Children born to bonded halflings automatically inherit their parents’ status, even if conceived through rape or outside the city.

Enforcement Mechanisms:

• Rune Branding: Magical sigils placed on skin, hair, or bones that react to defiance or escape.
• Voice Locks: Some nobles use enchanted collars or oaths that prevent halflings from speaking certain names, secrets, or magical phrases.
• Contract Guardians: Minor clergy of Aergethyr and scribes of the Veiled Quill monitor “service violations” and issue restraint orders or rebindings.

How the Law is Resisted or Circumvented:

• Maharluini trade houses often conceal freed halflings within merchant crews.
• A few Sanctum Eternal priests have begun breaking binding runes, calling them heresies against Miell’s truth.
• The Ashroot Concord preserves true names—local legend details that when a halfling speaks their name into a “clean flame,” the contract begins to unravel.