Vagabond

In Maradia, there is no assumption that all people born in territory controlled by a state 'belong' to that state. Many people are instead born into deterrioritorialized and unrecognized societies that live on the margins of more wealthy and powerful societies. They go by many names based on the dominant religion and culture, but for the sake of legibility they are lumped together under one category: the Vagabond.    Vagabonds are, under traditional Maradian religion, understood as people-who-are-animals. According to Maradian imaginations and law codes, Vagabonds are essentially outcasts who have no legal claim to property ownership whatsoever - they are framed as the inverse of civilization, as part of the "natural landscape" as birds or rodents and totally beyond the bounds of social law or human rights.   In reality, many Vagabonds live in the orbit of "Civilized" and "semi-Civilized" Maradian society. People often move between the Vagabond and Peasant classes of society with some fluidity, and significant trade occurs between the two groups. Vagabond groups are also periodically contracted for their labor on major projects.    The enslavement of Vagabonds is a historical fact, and most Maradian religions have arguments for "ethical and regulated" Vagabond slavery that are still taught in schools. It is only by the threat of retaliation by Theia the Liberator that have pushed the Hierarchies to strictly ban the practice. Even then, the tendency to violently banish Vagabonds who do not accept unequal work contracts from the "civilized" powers means that these "consensual" work agreements can be wildly exploitative.   Ethically, Vagabonds are understood by the Hierarchies to have souls - and the potential for personhood - but are seen as being inherently childlike and lacking a full emotional-intellectual capacity. Education is seen as almost magically awakening Vagabonds into real people and is compared to how artificers transform inert stone into constructs.   Vagabonds lack a uniform culture, and instead represent a wide range of communities categorized externally as the same. Some are kin-based tribal or clan communities, some organize into their own political/social groups, and some are a mix of different parallel groups sharing mediated spaces. Most live nomadically, though some form towns and even cities. The larger settlements tend to be well-hidden, given the tendency to loot and exploit them by 'Civilized' powers.