One of the Nine Free Cities
The Free City of Velanos
Keels before crowns.
At a Glance
| Founding House | House Velanos, no longer in the seat |
|---|---|
| Ruling House (present age) | House Kessler, a landed family whose original holding lies twenty miles inland |
| Karthaav (present age) | Tomas Kessler |
| Trade | Shipbuilding and maritime trade; the shipyards are the city's lifeblood |
| Defense | A harbor watch; shipwrights, not soldiers |
Overview
Velanos builds ships. Its shipyards are the city's lifeblood and its whole reason for mattering: the hulls that carry the Free Cities' trade, and a good share of the rest of the southern sea's, take shape on its slips, and a Velanos-built keel is a mark of quality from one end of the archipelago to the other. It is a city of shipwrights rather than soldiers and has never pretended otherwise. Its harbor watch is its army, and its yards are its treasury.
The founding house of Velanos has not held the city in living memory. The seat belongs to House Kessler, a landed family whose original holding lies twenty miles inland, and in the present age it is held by Tomas Kessler, a young man who came to it only after a hard succession had thinned his house. The yards have known better years than these. Whether they see them again is the question on which the whole city turns.