City of Keys, North Options

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Extract from The Companion Issue Seven Vol 2
April 2005
By Alan Morgan

City of Keys
By far the youngest city within the Empire, Keys was until a scant two or three years ago simply the coastal village of Armastas. Settled and expanded by a group of ten Noble and Merchant Houses the site was chosen due to the nature of its natural harbour. Though not large it was found to be the source of the curious trade currents along the east coast. So strange are these that they flow both into and out of the harbour such that skiffs, sloops, barges and cogs heading for Keys are swept along with relative ease. It takes an experienced trader or sea captain to make use of the Lowing Current (that going away, that coming in is the Wellowing Current) but given the way the city has grown most have taken the time to acquire such skills.

When the Ten Houses sent craftsmen to the city they sought out the best and made it clear that they would pay top grull for materials and supplies. With the land being free of anything other than an easily cleared village the houses and buildings were made large and sturdy. Cheap to the craftsmen they settled there with those that protected them. Well paid for their work the traders became interested and then the Sires were courted by the new Council. They had to be of course – the city was intended to be the trade capital of the Empire and there may be an argument made that this has indeed become so.

Near from the day of its inception, Keys has been governed by a consistent Council. Baron Drago (or ‘Mother Drago’ as local slang would have it) embarked on an ambitious and successful plan that has seen Keys rise from little more than a muddy frontier town to a compact city of shining buildings, clad streets and Guild after Guild, after Guild. The facilities for trade are second to none and the Council has ever been at pains to welcome, aid and facilitate trade on whatever level. As a result the citizens have become rather rich and business thrives on every street.

Keys is very young and this shows both in the newness of even the most simple dwelling to the way it rises suddenly amongst the wilds about it. Other cities see a gradual change from urbane civilisation into rural dependant villages, to settled lands and then wilds. Such a blur across the landscape is not seen in Keys. Within its simple fortifications lies the city, directly without a northern wasteland with little to recommend it! Sparse and cruel, the territory of Keys is hardly Imperial at all – most of the few folk living there being tribal at heart and certainly with little in common with the citizens themselves.

The closest city to the Far North it might seem to have been an odd location for a trade city. But it gives good access to the Far North and excellent berth to shipping along the populous east coast of the Empire. The best roads in the Empire lead to Alguz – which was itself once the centre of trade for the Sallow Princes and those that came after. The Northern cities of the Empire have all based much of their policies on trade and certainly there are many, many traders whose routes centre purely on Keys. Deci and Eartholme. If the Northern cities weren’t in such stiff competition with one another they’d doubtless be able to buy the other cities in a few years…

Or at least be able to swap Deci for a good ox, only slightly lame, one careful owner.

The People and the Land of Keys
The people of Keys derive from two main groups. The first are, or certainly were, skilled craftsmen and experienced soldiery who were paid extremely well to come to Armastas and forge it into the City of Keys. Most settled when life was made further rewarding for them and they in turn brought the factors, retainers and artisans that trade attracts. Since then even the transients are swept up by the Guilds and newcomers soon learn to fit in – or go hungry.

Conscious of their former skills but lowly social roots, the citizens tend to be rather touchy. They are far richer than people found elsewhere and they take pains to show this by dressing gaudily, by living well and thinking of themselves as being very fine folk indeed. Arrogance hardly begins to describe the people’s opinion of themselves towards others and they are downright scathing to adventurers and common mercenaries. Here wealth is the key to everything, apparent if not always actual. The people are often plump, smug men and women who have done well and believe that if a person want to ‘get on’ then they need to do a proper days work. Violence is anathema – whilst a studied insult is perfectly acceptable. Always eager to rise higher they can be a bitchy people but ultimately they do know their place in society. Often starkly so. Social rank is all important and propriety ever to be observed. In short, the citizens are snobs – but hard working ones who fiercely believe in order and the rule of their Masters and Council. This attitude extends across the racial divide – the city has no qualms about what form one might take as long as one fits in. The city has ogres that dress well, orcs that skive a lot but make their way humping goods from ship to market and even the hired alfar tend to enjoy their punch-ups in their own taverns.

Disliking war and conflict (because it is bad for business, is the first resort of the witless and because they’re a bit too far and puffy to put up much of a fight) the people have learnt to regard formal Mercenary Helds as just about acceptable. They pay them a regular wage to go out and scour the land for them after all. Besides which, and probably more importantly, Mercenary Sires and their followers tend to be flash bastards. If one has to wear a sword then it is only right that it be one in a velvet scabbard and with a gold wrapped hilt.

Much younger than other cities there is little to pick between Quarters – it is not a large settlement and differences between its varied areas are less starkly marked than elsewhere.

In many ways crime is similar to Halgar. This is to be expected as so many of the civic leaders came from there. They’re not as given to malcontention perhaps but neither do the people disapprove of the likes of assassination. The latter is just one more tool for social advancement and is certainly better than skirmishes in the streets.

There are very few Nobles in Keys. There is a lot of influence from such as they (of course) own Keys but almost none make their homes here. Instead the loftier social strata is made up of the many Merchant Sires that dwell here. Not that the people dislike the Nobility – indeed, Keys is a very loyal city to Empress and, perhaps just afterwards, Empire.

At this time the only consternation amongst the citizens is the rumoured hostility between the Councils of Keys and Eartholme. The two cities are probably the most alike on so many levels (both young, both hard working from craft beginnings and both given very much to trade) that many cannot understand the rumours. After all, since Keys clearly dominates the east of the Empire shouldn’t they ally with the city that is most likely to do the same with the west?

Why Mercenaries Adventure in Keys
Often they don’t.

The city is not a good place for adventurers as they are regarded so badly. Adventurers are nothing other than assassins who don’t have the wit to pretend otherwise - it is said. Brutal, opinionated and dressing like beggars as they are the work to be had is typically found in more quiet tasks. In fact there is plenty of work to be found as there is so much wealth in the city but it is not hawked on street corners or even decided in public. The people who understand this best and have the skills needed are commonly traders. Since established traders are affectionately regarded as roguish ruffians anyway (they being the exception since they do, after all, trade) it is they that get a lot of the work. Traders are all adventurers anyway so whenever there is a particularly noisome orc tribe or the like to be dealt with it is to the traders that the concerned turn. They in turn then tend to seek out an adventuring party to do the work. Many traders have hiring licences to do just this and a few of these to nothing else but such seeking and hiring. Trading in skills, as it were.

Keys (despite its inward looking feelings of safety) is surrounded by a wild and hostile land. The tribes hates Keys and it really is the only vestige of civilisation for days, even weeks of travel. With the Far North relatively close the city is the remotest settlement in the Empire – apart from Port Miere (which of course has a sea to contend with). There’s a lot of unsettled land out there, and plenty of space for evil, darkness and the hungry to spawn.

Then again, this is very much the face of things. With so much wealth in the city and with most of the Empire’s Sires and grand Guilds present the more specific, important and well-paid work of all can often be found here. Or at least it might be the place where a meeting might be held to decide upon, hire and support such. The work might not be in or even anywhere near to Keys, but the cities influence might touch on the whole of the Empire and beyond. Thus the work might be varied and of more importance than the commonly disturbed mine or ardent brigand chief.

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Final Dawn IM 1007

Keys at the Final Dawn was, with the exception of one monumental event, the epitome of the calm before the storm. The city has been for some time bracing itself for the upcoming attack by the Tribes of the Torn Isles. Although the astute have pointed out that such an attack bears more the hall marks of a duel on a huge scale then an actual attack on the city. The city has continued to prepare for the attack, through the year but this has not been without problem. Long touted as being the city of Trade the Merchants, finding their profits at risk from the possibility of war and the inability to run the Torn Isles blockade had abandoned the city at an alarming rate, seeing opportunity elsewhere, mostly in Scarlene.

Even the very supernatural power and the ocean’s trade currents that had once flowed to Keys at the beck of the Green Mana Dragon had turned aside to flow towards Scarlene instead. Realising the potential for disaster the Governor acted decisively to stem the flow and entice the Dragon back to Keys, some say he acted perhaps too slowly and should have seen the signs before but his determination and that of his council is to be admired in the swiftness of their action.

Aided, somewhat surprisingly but most effectively by the Stadtus, Sol of Tsu-Ling, Keys were able to Manifest the Green Mana Dragon. With Manifestation the Dragon thus claimed the city as his own undermining a great many other faiths washing them away along with their shrines and temples from the city. Even those of Sol’s Master, Tsu-Ling, who simply sat and watched calmly from his isle as the Dragon overtook the city that many had long envisioned as being, in a supernatural sense, his, sheltered as it had been by his now diminished power.

With three of the most powerful of the Foundation Guilds, The Diviners, Converyors and Fundamentors, being based in Keys and the Grand Imperial Guild Chambers the Governor, Senator Drago, was able to have them oversee the construction of a Cathedral to the Green Mana Dragon in but a single month. Without the Rites, Traditions and Observances of the Foundation Guilds a cathedral would take decades to build. Even with the assistance of such those Cathedrals already built across the Empire took at least three months. The speed of such a build is testament to the strength of the Foundation guilds in Keys. With the Cathedral in place the Manifestation was able to proceed without any great negative issues.

It is rumoured that amongst his discussion with the craft guilds Governor Drago spoke with them concerning the Chancellor’s ordering of the Foundation Guilds from Deci. It is common knowledge across the Empire that the guilds were fearful and angry over the Chancellor’s intervention and meddling in their business, regardless of how good a reason he had for doing so. The Governor had sought to apologise to them for the Chancellor’s recent breach of protocol but they had no interest in such an apology from Drago, fully accepting that it was not his fault.

The empire’s Foundation Guilds as a whole felt slighted by the Chancellor failing to act through traditional channels and ignoring their own internal hierarchies. So it was no particular stretch of the imagination to assume that if any were to see such a slight as an insult then it would be those Foundation Guilds in Keys whose prerogative it is to command the empire’s lesser foundation guilds that was being denied. The details of what was discussed are unknown but it seems unlikely to be coincidence that within days of Drago’s discussion the Foundation guilds in Deci were once more working.

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Events in City of Keys ~ Martius IM 1008

The City of Keys is being watched by a great many both within and without the Empire as it prepares for its challenge by the Torn Islanders. The ramifications if the Champions of the City fail against the Champions of the Torn Isles are myriad.

The city has been emptying somewhat of late, with the Lingist influence swept aside from the city by the Manifestation f the Green Dragon many have been gathering at the rural settlement of Carp’s Cove. A place long agreed to be one of neutrality and free from the attention of the Torn Islanders. Sol, Hospitaller and High Priest of Tsu-Ling has made available refuge to as many as wish to avoid the conflict with even followers of Geldonvol turning up bearing a great Icon of their faith.

Watch Captain Owain, took to the rural lands in an attempt, with apparently little success, to instil some order to the lands there. The people of the rural lands having a high disregard for the rule of Law in the territory, ultimately not surprising given that the people of the lands barely see themselves as part of the Empire. Those he took with him, the Ogre Watch, whilst greatly suited to keeping of the peace within the walls and on the streets of Keys were most definitely not suited to the rough rural lands.

The Commissent of Keys, Kintarma, perhaps somewhat foolishly visited Cathedral to ask for the Green Dragons blessing for the upcoming battle. Foolish in that such a blessing could only be given by rite and the terms of the challenge of the Torn Islanders made it clear that no ritual warfare is to be used. However, perhaps, one should not judge a Warsire who’s very being is removed from the touch of the supernatural, too harshly for not understanding the subtleties of ritual craft.