Gearing up for a campaign, I have a Q about servants. There are some indications that there are professional clans that do things that usually a servant would do, but would one really let another clan into your clanhouse to sweep the floors? They could be spying on your grandmothers secret chumetl-recipe for all you know!
Slaves would be the obvious reply, but with a mere 15% slaves in the empire then it would get a bit... they're spread thin then, especially since you have to count in the palanquin-bearers and fieldworkers in those 15%.
So I gather low-lineage clanmembers do odd chores around the house, and that works fine for a low-lever clan, but a high-level clan... it strikes me as oddish. If anyone would be so kind as to enlighten me where I am wrong in this respect, I would be so grateful that I would stop the hooting and odd dancing for at least a full two-days.

I played in a middle-clan level campaign, and the "housework" was done by the young folks between their school and apprenticeship duties. Cooking was done by our clan mothers, cleaning up by all our little cousins.

That may not be "canon," though... and even so it doesn't address what happens in high and very high clans.

Anyone else?

Ah, yes, never forget clan!

Now, this isn't to say that this stuff CANNOT happen. It CAN happen, it DOES happen, just the same way that bank robbers sometimes write "Hand over the money" on the back of one of their own deposit slips.

If you're a GM, you can certainly predicate an adventure on the notion that an item of value has been stolen from a clanhouse by a servant. Just be aware that there are ramifications, that's all.

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