Arelith

Is there a reason that characters who start as slaves can never use ships or take surface writs, even when they've been freed? It doesn't really make any sense to me why a character who is freed from slavery should be punished eternally, island-wide, simply because they were the victim of slavers.

Is it safe to assume that this is merely a technical issue, and the right flags aren't changed/set?

because you started as a slave. I would say working as intended.

Why is it intended to work that way?

It never really goes away. I have an ooold character who took slave background before slave was a thing mechanically, because it fit his backstory and because...heck...in the old days, it was a way to nab a +1 fort. in exchange for -1 will I believe.

I would second there should be a way to purge it as it inconveniences characters even for whom the condition no longer applies.

"Yarr, I can tell by tha touch o' melancholy about yeh, that yeh were once a slave. Well I'll not haul the likes o' yeh! Sher, I'd sell me mum for a nip o' rum, but a man 'as limits."