Vòh, Hanseatic Free City of

Vòh for Absolute Beginners

  Vòh is an ancient city located on a patchwork of artificial islands on a lagoon in the delta of the Vòhai River. It’s the largest city in southeastern Mondlokk, and it enjoys something of a mixed reputation for being a hotbed of intrigue, piracy, slavery, and sundry decadence. Vòh is a quasi-republic. The ruler is a duke who is elected by a council of the Old Families, who are descendants of the original Drogasian rulers of Vòh and its precursor cities.   The city is divided up into several loosely-defined districts. Notable are the Dockyards (also known as the Arsenal), the Strangers’ Quarter (where most non-humans and foreigners live; it is something of a slum), Hospice (named after the charitable hospital that is run there by the Eternal Sisters), The Canal (which comprises the neighbourhoods surrounding the Great Canal), The Trades in the southwest, and many others. Downstream of the lagoon is a satellite of Vòh, known as the Cité des Bateaux, which is a raft of old ships and barges held in place by a tidal gyre, and which serves as a base for the Corsair Companies. Shielding Vòh from the wild lands beyond is a sliver of something like civilisation: The Vòhene Fields. This is a band of farmsteads and plantations that surrounds the delta, reaching a short way up the rivers that feed it. The Fields are Vòh’s breadbasket, as well as growing the cotton and the other crops that fill Vòh’s coffers.   Vòh is a member of the Hanseatic Federation, a union of otherwise independent Mondlokki city-states whose aim is the protection and nurture both of trade and their independence. Vòh joined the Hanse about 80 years ago under somewhat shady circumstances, though despite resentment carried forward by some trading companies based in other cities of the Hanse, Vòh has proven herself a resilient and reliable trading partner. The one exception is that the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Lanyryck and the Lands Beyond has – controversially – not been afforded a trading licence in Vòh, mostly due to the persistent influence of the Corsair Companies, who resist the Company due to long-standing enmity.   Vòh does not have a standing navy or militia. Instead, the city has cultivated a strange symbiosis with some Corsairs: the Corsairs handle the defence of the city when the need arises, and in turn Vòh opens her markets to their goods. This has even gone so far as Vòhene trading houses (for example the de la Hayes, Grimsby and Associates, Wasserman & Cie, and others) to sign Compacts of Charter with particular Corsair captains whose vessels are consequently at the traders’ disposal in return for favourable trade terms and conditions.   Slavery has a complicated legal status in Vòh. On the one hand, transaction in slaves – their capture and sale – are illegal. However Vòh has robust protections of property rights, so a non-Vòhene who owns slaves will not be deprived of them. If on the other hand they were to escape, the slave owners find that they cannot count on the authorities to retrieve them. There is a market square on the northern edge of the Strangers’ Quarter known as the Harbour of Sorrow, where slaves were bought and sold. Today it serves a related purpose: the brokerage of indenture.   Law enforcement in Vòh takes the form of a watch, which is raised and funded by the Old Families’ Senate. Mostly it is concerned with protecting the interests of the higher-ups against crime by the lower castes. Consequently there are a number of “open secret” organisations that represent the interests of those whom the watch more or less ignores. The Worshipful Brotherhood of Locksmiths and Engineers is basically the thieves’ guild for most of the city. The Free Sailors’ Widows Assurance Society is an organisation that sells trade goods not legal on the open markets of Vòh (including slaves) or the provenance of which is problematic. The Assurance also underwrites corsair raiding voyages and serves as a clearinghouse for sailors looking for a berth. The Flock is a shadowy organisation that seems to be a guild representing the various Ekwara in Vòh. The Flock also maintains cordial relations with the Vòhai Riverfolk. Ecclesiastical Law is enforced – albeit less rigorously than in more “civilised” parts of Mondlokk – by the Inquisition, who is called upon in the event that the taint of sorcery is suspected.