Still waiting for an alternative non slavery gameplay to have NPCs join you or somehow unlock perks you only get from thralls.
It’s aways good to remmember Conan himself is a great enemy of slavery.
Maybe tie it to religion, cooking, gold mining, but there must be some way, if you don’t want to be a slave master you are cut from a large chunck of game content.
+1
I have been waiting for this as well.
a rescue option, a buy freedom option.
Some non enslavement option to gain NPC assistance.
Something other than the current club and drag enslavement.
While I am not opposed to the slavery in game or role play, I definitely agree that this would be a wonderful addition. I love options and anything that adds life to NPCs.
This 1000% - I would love for an alternative. I’m guessing we’ll get something like that with the merchant that sells thralls in the Relic Hunter City, but I would rather just have the chance to talk and maybe do some sort of quest for them to win them over as npc friends.
Even Conan get his freedom as a reward from his master after a long time of service in battle and fights.
So why don’t free a thrall with a well deserved reputation?
The thrall worked and fought for you. Therefore he earned loyality points. After a long time and a special amount of loyality points you are allowed to give him his freedom.
At this point you have also to give him a name and the thrall will level up one level. That’s the benefit you will get from this act.
An extra clue could be: a former level 4 thrall will now get a legendary worker/dancer/fighter… In the moment this happens the name of this new legendary one will instantly sprite as a rumor to every player on the server. 
oh no! As his former master you should protect him against the the other players who surely will come to get him. 
Just do what I do. Pretend they’re my employees, hired on during recruitment drives out in the Exiled Lands.
Woah now! Everyone hold it. Callisis, you’ve piqued my interest. Have you medical? Retirement? Do you offer Derketo inspired management retreats in the tropical swamps? Surely you jest! This simply cannot be true! Have you considered an IP Attorney? I mean you’re posting this miraculous work of creative thinking all across the interwebs!
If this is true, I will excitedly join you and help to build your adventuring company as a development administrator and team building coach! However, know this. Just as the writing of this post, I do everything with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. Also, always consider the presence of a smattering of arbitrary murmurs and a pinch of capricious harrumphs. And finally, I often write and speak from a body part whose slang namesake is a domesticated member of the family, Equidae.
Cal’s Emporium is an equal-opportunity employer. We’ll find you no matter where you lay your head at night.
And yes, we have medical and dental plans available for all employees. We also go 1:1 on 401K investment plans.
Exiles Dental Plan: Will happily knock out all of your teeth for complaining of toothache.
Exiles Medical Plan: Will extract wrist from bracelet at no cost. It’s a cure-all for any ailment.
I agree with the OP. Rescuing slaves would be much more fun than taking and enslaving. To accomplish that, slaves could be held in cages. One would still have the fight through npcs to get to them. Perhaps cage and shackle locks could be broken by the same Truncheon weapon? Instead of being tied up, perhaps the player has to help escort the rescued slave, traveling at normal speed with the same restriction as dragging a thrall, to a ‘fountain of restoration’ (instead of a pain wheel, which is also constructed using feats and same or similar building requirements). Thralls could rest beside the fountain instead of pacing on the ‘treadmill’ of a pain wheel (and resting thralls could be tended to by a Healer (new) Thrall). Basically, I would recommend duplicating the same restrictions and limitations of capture thralls as for rescuing thralls (who, at the end of the rescue and resuscitation, gladly pledge their service for as long as the player desires… and who can dismiss a Thrall rather than killing a capture Thrall when no longer wanted).
And if the devs want to get really fancy, they could also include quests (such as finding a book with a record of slaves that were sold, to whom, at which location, and may mention a named artisan in the slave lot). Thus, a player heads off to the general area in search of the named ‘spawn’ (much like what occurs in game now with random named Thralls), only for rescue quests, the named Thrall would be in a cage, or an enemy-faction pain wheel, or shackle to a wall or even chained to a workbench.
TL;DR - Agreed. Two systems for collecting Thralls: enslavement (currently in the game) and rescue (with the same restrictions as in the game currently for game balance).
This seens the most solid option until now. Lets hope it picks the interest of more people and also the dev team.
I did the same 
I had “re-education centre” at first. When I started with more RP game style i changed it to “before you join to our group of followers of Mitra, you need to let go all of your past sins, by hard work on wheel of …what ever…”
Anyway… yes i would prefer to have real ingame option for non violent companion acquisition
I believe the word you’re looking for is “penitence.”
The Wheel of Absolution 
Hear, hear. We need an alternative. Conan has no love for slavers, nor do I.
It was said we would be able to befriend them instead of making them thralls, I hope to see this soon.
After some thought I come up with another alternative maybe players could be allowed to man the crafting stations to speed up crafting time.
Maybe allow someone with a dancer outfit to dance and remove corruption, play musical instruments for the same, etc.
Doesn’t help single-player (or lack of players), though. But why not let us dance ourselves? Dancing and such is quite pleasant, after all, no?
Haven’t you got the memo? our characters are dancing instead of fighting… IF you equip a mace. 
Anyway yeah an option to loose corruption with an active thing to do would be great. reading a Conan comic book on the spot or something…
i mean that base of yours can be on the other end of the world… and half health running accross the map? good luck with that…
Just pretend that the truncheon is soft and the wheel of pain is their gym trying to get gains to serve you well
You civilized folk are soft
So you are against slavery but completely fine with murder and dismemberment and using the arms and legs of your fallen opponenets as makeshift weapons? All these things are part of the world of conan, if not for conan being taken as a slave and trained as a gladiator there would of been no conan at all.
If they listen to this, what’s next? no more boobs, no more dicks, no more killing, no more animal killing, no more building on land that isn’t yours.
If you buy a conan game, accept it as a conan game. A lot of us bought into this game because of it’s no poops given attitude, if that wasn’t for you why on earth did you buy it (if you even did)
Oh and before someone says “well they could just add it as an extra feature for the few of us who care”, it takes weeks of work to add this little extra feature and there will be months of bug fixes for everyone to endure because of it too.
If it bothers you and you bought the game (I seriously doubt you did buy it btw and are just posting here to push an agenda), just roleplay that it’s a rubber fluff wand and you’re playing fun games with your npc friendo.