“It is a great mark of prestige among slave girls to be selected for sale from the great block in the Curulean, and girls tend to compete viciously among themselves for this honor. To be sold from the Curulean great block is almost a guarantee of a rich master, and a luxurious pleasant life, though it be, of course, only that of a slave.”
The Curulean is a slave auction house located on the Street of Brands in Glorious Ar.
Cernus, of the House of Cernus, controls and operates the Curulean Auction House and the surrounding area of the street of Brands. His word, backed by Merchant Law of Gor, is the prevalent law in this room This is a full kill/capture/collar zone except during auction events, during which time the room will be a safe zone.
By engaging in role-play within the Curulean Auction House and/or its sub-room, the House of Cernus, you are indicating that you have read and will abide by the following rules:
All who enter are required to have a name to actively participate or observe. Initial's are not considered names. Lurking will not be tolerated and be asked to leave. All these will receive three warnings to adjust and participate according to the rules or will be booted from room. Anonymous names are not allowed and will be booted on sight.
By engaging in role-play within the Curulean Auction House and/or its sub-room, the House of Cernus, you are indicating that you have read and will abide by the following rules:
1. All role-play is to be realistic to the areas immediately outside and within the slave auction house, as well as within the House of Cernus sub-room, and out-of-character chitchat is not welcomed. Even if you are just strolling, down the Street of Brands and gossiping, do so around the subject of slave auctions.
2. Observers who use ~o~ in their tags are welcome. If an observer engages in role-play, they are subject to role-play consequences and are no longer considered observers.
3. Free women are welcome. In the books of Gor, free women visit auction houses and trade slaves. We do not police your actions here, but you should be modest in keeping with Merchant Law. Remember that the merchants here are in the slave trade and will not waste a chance to put steel on any woman who behaves as a slave.
A quote on free women visiting auction houses:
"Among the crowd, though it was predominantly male, there were, as I might have mentioned, several women, perhaps one in ten or fifteen; many of these were doubtless rich, and of High Caste; some of them were probably interested in picking up a serving slave; kettle wenches, so to speak, would probably be purchased at one of the minor markets; their bids would be made by a male agent; others of the women were perhaps just curious, interested in observing the beauty of the girls of other cities, wondering if it might match their own; others perhaps merely enjoyed the excitement and color of the sales, possibly thrilling to the sight of their sisters being sold nude into bondage; perhaps some, in the lights and shouts, imagined that it was they themselves who stood brazen and marvelous on the block, exciting men, driving them into frenzies of bidding, bringing higher and ever higher prices, beautiful women, slaves, sold at auction.”-Assassins of Gor-
4. Slaves who wander onto the Street of Brands may be collared, caged, and sold. There will be no safety whatsoever for un-collared slaves; however, there will be no automatic capture by NPC's. Instead, in the interest of offering possibilities for role-play, any free person may capture un-collared slaves and sell them to the Curulean Auction House. Un-collared slaves may role-play on Street of Brands until someone decides to capture them, but it would be unrealistic to wander into the auction house or the slaver's house sub-room without a collar.
5. Only registered buyers can bid in an auction. To register as a buyer, apply on our Message Boards to establish an account with the auction house. To prevent the syndrome of every man and woman on Gor having a pouch full of gold, as well as to add a certain amount of "luck factor" to the cunning art of buying and selling slaves, the opening balance of your account will be determined by 1 roll of a 100 sided dice which represents an amount of coin in coppers. Enjoy the thrill of the unknown!
There are opportunities to earn additional coins to improve your account balance. Such details are available through our message board to all registered buyers.
6. This is not a room for slave hunting. Anyone collaring a slave here will do so with the understanding that the slave will be immediately sold to the Curulean and later vended from the auction block. Those selling captives from the Street of Brands, or those who are disposing of personally owned slaves, will receive a payment from the Curulean Auction House, which will be deposited in their auction account and used to bid on slaves being sold from the block.
7. Upon the sale of a slave to the auction house, 1 roll of a 100 sided dice will determine the sale price of the slave in coppers, which will be added to the seller's account.
8. You are free to indicate interest in the purchase of any slave who belongs to this room, including personal slaves who reside in the House of Cernus sub-room. Indication of interest does not mean that we will sell her, but we guarantee that you will be informed when that slave is ready for the block. If it is a private auction or a secret sale, you will be invited if you have indicated an interest to buy.
Please also note that at times we will conclude sale through a private auction among those who have indicated interest. Hence, if you like a slave make sure you indicate your interest by role-playing in the room to that effect and posting the script on our board under the slave papers for that particular slave.
In fact, it is VERY Gorean to ask to buy a girl, as supported by the following quote:
‘What about the girl?’ asked Mintar.
‘She must accompany me,’ I said.
‘If you wish,’ he said, ‘I will buy her.’
‘She is not for sale.’
‘Twenty tarn discs,’ Mintar proposed.
I laughed.
Mintar smiled, too. ‘Forty,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said.
He seemed less pleased.
‘Forty-five,’ he said, his voice flat.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Is she of High Caste?’ asked Mintar, apparently puzzled at my lack of interest in his bargaining. Perhaps his price was too low for a girl of High Caste.-Tarnsman of Gor
9. Please also note if you visit us with slaves, you may get offers from others to buy them. If you are a kind of person who gets offended with some one showing an interest to purchase your slaves, please do not bring your slaves here.
10. We maintain some level of secrecy to the extent that a slave will not know if, when, or to whom she will be sold until the conclusion of the auction.
11. More detailed bidding procedures will be included with the auction announcement of each slave.
12. Marked Assassins may hunt here.
13. Combat may occur only if two free men of the home are present. (Capturing un-collared slaves and caging of misbehaving FW or unruly collared-slaves is exempted from this rule).
The Room Controller or another Prodigy judge specifically elected by the Room Controller will rule on all combats in the room.
14. Anyone caged here may be ransomed per Merchant law. The ransom amount will be decided by a Curulean official and will be divided 50/50 between The Curulean and the person who effected the caging.
15. Gender bending is not allowed here.
Additionally, this room follows the Prodigy rules of combat, and ALL Portal of Dreams rules apply.
|
Please read the following passage from Assassin of Gor to help you visualize the look and layout of the Curulean Auction House.
"We began to walk down a long, slowly bending passageway. I had seen the Curulean from the outside before, but I had never been inside. From the outside it resembles several tiers of disks, surrounded by a circling portico with lofty, fluted columns; the predominant colors are blue and yellow, the traditional colors of the Gorean slaver; around the outside there are large numbers of well-wrought mosaics set in the walls, and on the floor of the circling portico; various scenes, stories and events are depicted, primarily having to do with, as would be expected, the trade of the Slaver and his merchandise; there are hunting scenes, for example, and those of capture, enslavement, training, the sale, the dance, submission, and so on. One striking set of mosaics details a slave raid from its initial planning phases through the successful return of the Slavers, on tarnback, to Ar with their stunning victims; another picks up this story from the registration and training of prizes to the block of the Curulean itself; another records the theoretical history of certain of these prizes, fortunate enough to be sold to men of Ar, who find eventual rapture in the arms of their masters, of Ar naturally. There is another set of interesting mosaics, each portraying a chained beauty, identified as being of a given city, kneeling before a Warrior, identified as being of Ar...
Outside the Curulean also, on sale days, actual slave girls are exhibited, some in suspended plastic cages fastened to the roof of the portico, others in a tier of cages lining the interior wall of the portico; these are not, however, the exposition cages within the Curulean; they are merely, so to speak, advertisements and attractions to lure customers; on the other hand, of course, such displays, along with many others, will be offered for sale.
When a girl first arrives at the Curulean, there is, on a ticket wired to her collar, a lot number... The papers of most of the girls... had been transmitted days before to the staff of the Curulean, to be checked for authenticity, and for the updating of certain endorsements. The papers are correlated with the lot number and the girls' fingerprints are taken and checked against those on the papers. Some girls, whom the House had determined late would be sold, arrive at the Curulean with a small leather cylinder tied about their collar, which contains their papers, which girl is then, by the staff of the Curulean, assigned a lot number... When the members of the staff of the Curulean are satisfied that the girl's papers are in order the ticket with her lot number is stamped approved...
The girls, when brought to the Curulean, are braceleted and naked; they have been chained in slave wagons; they are brought to a large, heavy, barred gate in the rear of the large building, through which they are led; the bracelets are, of course, to secure them; the lack of clothing is simply to save the trouble of transporting numerous sets of slave livery back to the House; by the time the girls arrive at the Curulean the slave livery which had been theirs may already have been washed and be drying, soon to be ready for issue to another...
Now, following Philemon, and surrounded by guards, one of whom held my heavy leash, we passed by the heavy, barred gate in the back of the Curulean, through which deliveries are made...We passed tables on one side, and rooms where medical examinations could be held; there were also facilities for washing prisoners; here and there I saw the office of a market official; there were also rooms where I saw silks, cosmetics, vials of perfumes, chains and such. The sale at the Curulean is carefully planned, and the lots prepared and scheduled with much attention to such matters as variety and the attention of the buyers; for example, two consecutive lots are not likely to wear the same first silks upon ascending the block, yet each girl, given her complexion and hair color, must be attractively silked; similarly, the adornments initially worn must be apt and dissimilar; and further, of course, the merchandise itself must have great variety in its presentation; for example, women of the same general type and hair color seldom follow one another on the block. Cosmetics and their utilization present further problems. The sale of women, like that of any other merchandise, can be a difficult and time-consuming business, calling optimally for good judgment, experience and imagination.
I saw no merchandise in my passage through the rear halls of the Curulean; the girls are generally kept, prior to their sale, in holding cells, lit by energy bulbs, beneath the ground level; soon, however, I was passing by the exposition cages, which are accessible to the public; these cages were now empty; they are used, from the tenth to the fourteenth Ahn of a given day, to display the goods that will be sold that evening; access to the exposition cage area is free to the public prior to the sale, but, after the fourteenth Ahn, the Curulean is cleared and made ready for the evening's work; after that time a citizen must pay to enter the market; the cells themselves, and the corridors on each side surrounding them, are carpeted; the bars are set rather widely; inside the cells there are cushions and silks; on each cell there is a lot number and its date of sale; in the cells the girls are exhibited unclothed; moreover, they must be shown precisely as they are, absolutely without makeup; the only exception to this, interestingly, is that perfume is permitted; even the slave collars are removed, lest they be used to conceal a scar or blemish; the girl is simply washed, brushed and combed, and perfumed, and turned into the cage where, at the prospective bidder's pleasure, she may be examined; she is also expected, upon command, to walk, to assume postures, or otherwise to present the properties of her beauty for discernment and comparison;...it is sometimes difficult to make an assessment from the high tiers; on the block, of course, the girl is under the command of the auctioneer; moreover, on the block, she will customarily be made up; if the bidder does not recall that a particularly dazzling girl on the block was actually rather less dazzling in the exhibition cage, that is the responsibility of the bidder and not of the house; I suspect that, in the excitement of the sale, and in the marvelous presentation on the block of the Slaver's wares, the more careful, more dispassionate, assessments of the exhibition cages are often forgotten.
I supposed that now [the slave girls] would be in the holding cells beneath the ground level, perhaps being fed, some two or three Ahn prior to the sale; later they would be moved, with others, to the tunnel of ready cells, which leads to the block; there they would be adorned, made up and silked; each of these cells gives access to the one on its left and right; as the sale begins the lots move through the cells, one by one, until reaching that which opens at the foot of the block; as the lots move through the cells other lots are summoned from the holding cells and prepared for sale, these lots then moving through the tunnel of ready cells as did those before them.
Here in the area of the exhibition cages there were various citizens of Ar milling about, some meeting their friends, before taking their seats in the tiers; some seats in the tiers, the better ones, are reserved by number, but many are simply available on a first-come-first-served basis; those citizens wandering about, I gathered, had reserved seats.
Philemon, I and the guards emerged from the exposition area to the interior of the sales amphitheater; the entire house was now lit by energy bulbs; later, the block alone would be illuminated; the seats rose in tier after tier, largely circling the block, though a passage lay open behind the block; there were exits from the amphitheater available on several of the levels of tiers; certain specially favored portions of the tiers were boxed, seating areas reserved for important clients of the Curulean, often important Slavers from distant cities; the blue and yellow of the Slavers' was much in evidence in the amphitheater, worked into intricate patterns of fantastic designs, but the background color of the amphitheater was a rich, deep red; the block itself, lying in the pit of the amphitheater, was perhaps seven or eight feet in height, round, and with a diameter of some twenty feet; it was doubtless incredibly heavy, being formed of huge beams, shaped and fitted together with long wooden pegs; it was of simple wood, plain and unvarnished; the broad, heavy stairs, without banisters, leading to its height were shining and concave, polished, shaped and worn smooth by the bare feet of countless wenches who had climbed them; the surface of the block itself was similarly worn smooth and slightly concave; its broad surface had now been sprinkled, as is traditional, with sawdust; it is a Gorean custom that the girl, no matter how richly silked she may be when she ascends the block, must from the very first feel the wood with her feet...
I examined the interior of the amphitheater. It was now packed with the various caste colors of Gor. The aisles and passageways themselves were jammed with men, and some free women. The individual sounds of their conversations were indistinguishable, blurring into a melded roll of gray thunder, low-keyed, far-off. There was, however, a kind of tensity in the noise, reflecting, I suppose, an eagerness, an expectancy. I'm not sure what the seating capacity of the amphitheater was, theoretically, but I would guess that it would be in the neighborhood of four to six thousand; counting those crowded into the tiers, and standing and sitting in aisles, it might now have held twice that many; the air was hot with bodies; the faces of many of the men were streaked with sweat.
A number of Musicians now filed-out from the door at the foot of the block and took their places about it, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Those with string instruments began to tune them; there was a czehar player, the group's leader, some kalika players, some flutists, players of the kaska, small drums, and others. Each of these, in his way, prepared himself for the evening, sketching out melodies or sound patterns, lost with himself.
Even more individuals began to crowd into the amphitheater. Slaves on catwalks opened metal, shuttered vents in the ceiling, which is domed, and in the curved walls; I caught a breath of the cool air; outside I could see stars in the black Gorean sky; I could not see any of her moons.
There were vendors in the crowd. They had great difficulty in moving about. Still, given the size of the crowd, they seemed to have little difficulty retailing their goods in short order; they would then disappear down an exit, soon returning with more.
Among the crowd, though it was predominantly male, there were, as I might have mentioned, several women, perhaps one in ten or fifteen; many of these were doubtless rich, and of High Caste; some of them were probably interested in picking up a serving slave; kettle wenches, so to speak, would probably be purchased at one of the minor markets; their bids would be made by a male agent; others of the women were perhaps just curious, interested in observing the beauty of the girls of other cities, wondering if it might match their own; others perhaps merely enjoyed the excitement and color of the sales, possibly thrilling to the sight of their sisters being sold nude into bondage; perhaps some, in the lights and shouts, imagined that it was they themselves who stood brazen and marvelous on the block, exciting men, driving them into frenzies of bidding, bringing higher and ever higher prices, beautiful women, slaves, sold at auction.”
"Then the crowd stilled and the Musicians, too, were silent, as the energy lights in the amphitheater dimmed and went out, and another set of energy bulbs, to a pleased shout of the crowd, suddenly lit the block with a blaze of light.
The block, in the light, looked very stark and massive. It was empty.
I wondered how much the girls would be able to see from the block. I could make out, in the reflected light, the faces of those about me, and, as the moments passed, could make out more and more. The girls would be, of course, keenly aware of the crowd, its moods and responses, for this is extremely important in stimulating and tantalizing it, manipulating it to increase the frequency and quality of the bids. Even from the beginning Sura had trained Elizabeth, and Virginia and Phyllis, before men, that they might, from the responses of males, hasten their progress in the arts of the slave gift. Once Elizabeth had told me that Sura had informed them that they would, after a time, be able to see faces from the block. That was apparently important, being able to see the eyes of men, the attitude of their bodies, the movements of their shoulders.
There was the sudden crack of a whip, loud and sharp, and the crowd leaped to its feet, for the sale had begun."