The Nine Free Cities
Gold, blood, and flesh.
At a Glance
| What They Are | Nine independent city-states of the southern seas, bound by no common rule and sharing only their appetite for profit |
|---|---|
| Rulers | Each city is ruled by its own karthaav; each city bears the name of its founding house |
| Government | No single form. Some rule by charter, some by dictatorship, some by open democracy, and none of it holds still for long |
| Character | Capitalist to the core; the heart of the Continent's commerce, and of its slave trade |
| Stability | Turbulent. Ruling houses rise and fall often, and power seldom stays where it sat a generation before |
| Unity | None to speak of |
Overview
The Nine Free Cities are exactly that: nine, free, and cities, and almost nothing more that they will agree upon. They are independent city-states of the southern seas, each a law and a world unto itself, and the one thing they hold in common is the one thing that rules them all: money. Capitalist to the core, they are moved by gold, by blood, and by flesh, and by very little else.
To the rest of the Continent the Free Cities are a lawless backwater, a den of merchants, slavers, and cutthroats where no throne's writ runs and no law stays written long. They are also, and for the very same reasons, the one place on the Continent where a fortune can be made, or lost, in a single turning of the tide. The stately kingdoms look down on the Cities and trade with them all the same, for there is no market like them anywhere in the world.
The Nine
Each of the nine has its own entry. Six of the nine sit in the north of the archipelago: Caligara, Porthos, Sardis, Velanos, Myrenos, and Hasanith. Three sit in the south: Tortuga, Akkad, and Hashempur.
- Caligara: Founded on an oath.
- Porthos: The city that lays odds on everything.
- Sardis: Silver, copper, and dust.
- Velanos: Keels before crowns.
- Myrenos: A village that woke as a city.
- Hasanith: Everything has a price. Hasanith keeps the ledger.
- Tortuga: Passage, for a price.
- Akkad: Gold on every surface.
- Hashempur: Where the eastern trade ends.
Geography
The Free Cities are scattered across the isles and coasts of the southern sea, at the Continent's warm and crowded edge. They keep no shared border and no common capital; each city is its own point on the map, its own harbor and its own power, and the water between them is as much a highway for their commerce as a moat against their rivals.
Rule & the Karthaavs
Each Free City is ruled by its own karthaav, and each city takes its name from the founding house that raised it. Beyond that, they share no pattern of rule at all. One city may keep a written charter and a council of merchants; the next may groan under a single dictator; a third may run itself by the open vote of its citizens; and any of the three may be something else entirely within a decade.
For the Free Cities are a turbulent place, and nothing in them stays still. Ruling houses rise on a lucky venture and fall on a bad one; a karthaav's seat is only ever as secure as his coffers and his cunning; and power changes hands, in the Cities, about as often as fortunes do. There is no confederation here, no league, no unity worth the name, only nine proud cities that would sooner undercut one another than answer to any common voice.
Gold, Blood, and Flesh
Money is the god of the Free Cities, and profit the only prayer most of them know. Everything in them has a price, and much that other realms would never put up for sale is bought and sold here without a second thought. They are the beating heart of the Continent's commerce, the clearing-house through which its trade, its coin, and its contraband all flow.
Chief among those goods is the trade in human beings. Some of the Cities deal openly in slaves and some abstain, and it is no accident that the ones that trade in flesh are, as a rule, the richer for it. The Free Cities are the Continent's great slave-market, and gold, blood, and flesh are the three currencies by which the whole restless place truly runs.