My world's rotted through with this. In one land the people without power are kept that way through the lie that it's the natural order of things. When that failed the new leaders began sending anyone who knew better to the gallows.
In another they're kept down by threat of violence or being left to worse. And when that failed, they were seized to pay the debt that leader imagined they owed in some other way.
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In another they're kept down by threat of violence or being left to worse. And when that failed, they were seized to pay the debt that leader imagined they owed in some other way.