Bayport Intro

During the "present" of the campaign (roughly 1610-20, "Common Time" - CT, dated from the creation of the kingdom of Norland - another post is surely called for explaining the kingdom of Norland,and why they got to establish what was common time...), Bayport might be the most important city in the north. This was not always the case - until the 1590s, Bayport was a modest, if prosperous, seaport on Horseshoe Bay at the eastern edge of the Viking Sea. But then, in 1593, George Blighton had Duke Frederick IV of Regelsburg murdered, and claimed the Duchy for himself. This touched off war - war that lasted almost a decade, pitting Regelsburg against everyone - free cities to the north; Kingdom to the south. Regelsburg, however, neatly straddled the Great River, and during the war was able to stop trade fro north to south dead. The cities of the north (Waynesburg and Hillsburg, Dassal, Farmington) scrambled to find new trade routes - and one of these was overland to Bayport (200 odd miles west of Waynesburg), and thence by sea to the wide world. It was a difficult route - overland, and over hills (no rivers connected the areas), through land barely tamed - but the distances proved to be manageable enough to allow the trade to go through. And the rewards for getting goods to Bayport were immense - it connected the north to the rest of the world again.

That made Bayport exceedingly rich. Bayport had been a seaport for as long as ships were sailing the ocean (about 200 years), so they were ready to carry this new trade, and quickly established their dominance. Lenay also benefitted - they were a shipping power as well, and had a navy on hand to protect their ships - but even they had to move goods through Bayport to get to them Waynesburg. For a decade, the river was closed to significant trade - by 1605, it was open again, but by then, the overland routes were very well established, and Bayport was able to hold on to much of the trade it had taken. It's ships sailed everywhere - to the Kingdom, of course, to Vinar, but also past Vinar to the Southern Ocean, where they could trade directly for the tropical goods so much in demand: sugar, coffee, spices, tobacco. And they did not limit themselves to carrying goods back north - Bayport merchants established bases in the southern ocean, where they were able to trade extensively through the region, far to the east, to the great desert cities, all through the south, the Jungle Continent and so on. They traded in commodities not allowed in the north - slaves; drugs. All of this made the trading companies immensely wealthy and very powerful. Some of them, as strong as entire countries by themselves.

All this brought gold pouring into Bayport,and with it, people, to sail and build the ships, and to provide everything the sailors needed, the merchants wanted - there was money and work for everyone, at a time when many other cities were falling apart - and so Bayport grew at a tremendous pace. They crammed into its waterfront districts; some built around the edges of the city; the ones who had the means, moved into the old town, filling all of it up. They came from everywhere - so Bayport became a cosmopolitan city, full of every ethnicity, and every intelligent race that could get along at all. They also brought all the problems that boom towns have: crime, strife - all those people brought their grudges and rivalries and wars with them, lawlessness, license - whole chunks of the city became red light districts, thieves quarters, overnight. It never seemed to blow up - probably because the sea was always there as an outlet: tensions got to high, you committed a crime that made you a target, you could find a berth on a ship bound for Norwich or Vinar or San Marcos or Chult and your troubles were over. The sea drew off political ambitions as well - why make trouble in Bayport when you could steal an island or half a continent somewhere in the south? More than one Bayporter found themselves a count or duke or grand Vizier off in the far corners of the world.

But it created a city that bubbled with opportunities. It started to draw adventurers the way Waynesburg always had - men and women who knew they could find work with their swords and spellbooks in the city - and who knew there were riches to be found in the city itself. Like Waynesburg, it was an exciting, lucrative place in itself, and the portal to even greater adventures. Just as adventurers in Waynesburg could always head into the hills to take out an orc or goblin lair, so could you here - the hills and forests were only 5-10 miles away, almost wilderness. The sea was a frontier, and the road to a frontier - to the untamed parts of Lenay, Wingmar - as well as the whole wide world. Bayport, by the 1610s, had the reputation Waynesburg had had for ages - if you were a young, ambitious fellow, good with a sword or your wits, with no obvious place for your skills at home, go to Bayport, and it would all be up to you.