Table 46

April Foundry - Fisher's Island (Week Three)

The challenge continues! This week's post is a bit late because I completely forgot about putting it up after returning from Easter travel on Sunday. I hope everyone enjoys it.

April 14 - Describe one significant event in the history of your setting.

The thalassocracy that once held dominion over the islands of the archipelago along with the northern fringes of the Riverlands, the Canyonlands of the eastern continent, and the Sunset Kingdoms of the western continent fell in a series of civil wars and rebellions half a century ago, with the final thalassocrat entombing himself among the remains of his ancestors 47 years ago. These wars scarred Fisher’s Island as the cities and towns swore themselves to different factions in an effort to get one over on their rivals and position themselves better for the aftermath of the war, leading to several of them being burned in the ensuing war. In Metal City, originally a colony founded by the thalassocracy for the purpose of extracting the rich ores of the region, there were campaigns of assassination waged between elite families.

April 15 - Create a d6 table of professions PCs/NPCs might have in your setting.

  1. Farmer - ninety percent of people in the pre-modern world are involved in producing food. On Fisher’s Island, this means tending coconut, date, banana, and breadfruit trees alongside growing potatoes, yams, taro, beans, flax, amaranth, and quinoa.
  2. Herder - in the areas too marginal for good agriculture but still supporting enough plant life, people will herd goats and sheep in order to get meat, milk, fiber, and hides
  3. Weaver - more generally, this encompasses all the steps involved in the production of textiles, including shearing, sorting, scouring, combing, and washing for wool or retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling for linen to get the fibers ready for spinning, weaving, and dyeing
  4. Miner - these are the people involved in the extraction of iron and other ores near Metal City, including everyone from the miners extracting the ore to the woodcutters and colliers involved in the making of charcoal to the smiths smelting and shaping the resulting metal into useful tools and weapons
  5. Sailor - there’s commerce constantly moving in and out of the ports at both Metal City and in the farming country centered on the major rivers, primarily exports that feed the great cities of the Archipelago but with trade occasionally making its way in from the Tradelands, Thek, or the strange lands even further east
  6. Potter - people go through a lot of pots or other clay vessels, so there’s a constant need for new pots and pans as old ones wear out or break. Beware the lead-based glazing!

April 16 - Describe one or two regions/countries/states, or lack thereof, in which your setting is divided?

Fisher’s Island is divided between the fractious city states of the island’s primary watershed and Metal City, the former colony of the thalassocracy. There are also various regions of the island too marginal to support state formation.

Over the century or so that the thalassocracy held sway in Metal City, they shipped in slaves from all over the Jewelsea. The collapse of that empire and a gradual process of manumission has meant that the free people of the city are now composed of a variety of ethnicities, languages, and religious backgrounds, though by no means have all the slaves been freed. The primary industry remains the extraction and processing of ore, mainly iron. The peninsula here was already low on foliage and the years of charcoal production have largely denuded it of trees. The economy is in danger of collapse because of the cost of shipping charcoal in from elsewhere on the island.

The city states of the river network are much more fractious and insular. While they nominally paid tribute to the thalassocrats, they were one of the first regions to stop making their payments when the instability at the end of the thalassocracy became clear. Their traditional feuding and warring has resumed in recent decades and the more powerful states are attempting to consolidate their lesser neighbors in an effort to grow their power faster than their chief rivals.

April 17 - Do your denizens exist under governing bodies? Describe the hierarchy in place. If not, describe the self-governed system in place.

Every government on Fisher’s Island is organized as a kind of city-state, ruling the city or town, its immediate environs, and as much arable land as they can exert control over. There are both republican and monarchic governments, but in practice the city’s elite are the only ones with a real say even in those polities that do have forms of elections. The systems are skewed to give them a larger voice and often allow them to control what comes up for a vote at all.

As some of the cities wax in power, they are beginning to treat their neighbors as vassals and clients. Formal annexation of “unruly” cities is likely not far in the future.

April 18 - Is travel beyond the boundary of your setting possible?

The world beyond the Jewelsea is a massive place. To the north of the western continent lies the perpetually circling black clouds that surround a great citadel defended by riders who never dismount and never speak. Sailing north along the coast of the western continent is said to eventually bring one to the Isle of Shivering Dawn and eventually to endless fields of ice beyond that. To the east lies the great mass of the eastern continent - trade routes run across the steppes and down the rivers to unknown oceans thousands of miles away. To the southeast are the Tradelands, the Sour Sea, and the great isthmus. Beyond them is the great mass of the Further East, the largest continent in the world. To the south and east of the Riverlands is endless ocean - none who have sailed far in those directions has ever returned.

April 19 - Imagine a city/settlement for your setting and create a d6 table of structures one might encounter while exploring the area.

Using City of the First Moment for this one would be cheating - it’s really more of a dungeon than a city. Here’s what I’ve got for Metal City:

  1. The smithies - here the ore that the mines produce is smelted and smithed into bars and ingots for export.
  2. The great plaza - this is where the assemblies, trials, and other public meetings of the city take place
  3. The Sea Watch - the tallest building in the city, this tower overlooks the harbor and watches for the ships both coming and going. A beacon is kept burning at its summit.
  4. Apartment buildings - typically three to five stories high, these host most of the city’s population. They typically share a communal oven and kitchen where all the residents cook their food
  5. Market stalls - though the city’s economy is centered around the export of metals, everyone still needs to eat, drink, and clothe themselves. A plaza near the docks contains many stalls that can offer these things and more.
  6. City walls - these surround even part of the harbor, making the entrance narrow enough that a chain can be drawn up between them to prevent entry by hostile ships. They’re roughly ten meters tall and four meters thick. In places near the gates, settlement has spilled outside the city over the last few decades of peace.

April 20 - List/Describe one or more struggles the denizens of your setting might regularly face.

The smaller of the two suns that the world of the Jewelsea orbits is a tiny blue star with the propensity to flare irregularly. These flares change how reality works chaotically - the laws that both philosophers and mages study shift under its influence. Monsters rarely seen awaken and make their presence known. These flares usually last between hours and days and things return to normal after they subside.