The Definitive Country Almanac: The Line Free Ports — Part 2#

Kethra Almanac • Approved 19 September 2026 • drafted 18 September 2026 • Sections 5–8 (Sections 1–4 are in Part 1)

Status: approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision). Where this file calls something a proposal, read it as approved, except the open points that decision lists.

Status before approval: proposal throughout, except what Part 1 lists as already in the almanac.

Section 5: Government, Law & Politics#

Constitutional Framework#

Each port is sovereign, and all twelve are bound by three instruments:

How Each Port Governs Itself#

Each port is a merchant republic, "governed by a council of ship-owners and guild-masters" (Chapter II), with a chamber added in 1904:

The Tide Congress#

The factions, AL 2314:

The Stilt is not a Congress faction but the Common Halls' movement: water prices, rents, and raising the lower streets against the rising sea.

The Twelve Free Ports (administrative divisions)#

Vote working. Port votes 12 + population votes 33 = 45. Open Water: Saltline 7, Sunderlee 4, Farbourne 4, Ambergate 4, Morrowport 3, Driftmark 3 = 25, less one Saltline delegate who votes with the Harbour Guard = 24. Harbour Guard: Tern Harbour 5, Scarrow 2, Oarsend 2, Sundown Key 2, plus that Saltline delegate, plus 3 from Reefhold's hawks = 15. Uncommitted: Glasswater 5, and Reefhold's remaining 1 = 6.

Saltline's institutions#

The Judiciary#

• Each port's courts apply its own law, much of it merchant law older than the Crown's written codes.
• The Tide Court at Saltline hears disputes between ports, and between foreigners who choose it. Half of Kethra's cross-border contracts name the Tide Court as their court.
• Testimony follows Line usage: "He crossed the Line, by eye" is testimony; "by word" is rumour (Chapter IV).
• No death penalty in any port since 1911. The worst sentence is expulsion from the Line, and every port honours every other port's expulsions.

Foreign Relations & Defence#

Membership#

• The Homeworld Assembly: a founding member (2150), one seat for the twelve ports.
• The ports keep the Frame Accord and the Quiet Sky Accord, and host the Armistice Commission.

Relations#

Defence#

The Line has no navy, by law.

Defence spending: about Cr 6 billion a year, almost all of it on the harbour guards.

The argument of AL 2314. The Harbour Guard party wants twelve patrol ships: enough to keep a landing party off a reef, not enough to threaten anyone. That means repealing the Neutral Law of 1242. Open Water says that the moment the Line owns a ship of war, the powers will want to know whose side it is on. The ports' fear in the Who's Who is "being forced to choose a side", and each faction thinks the other's plan is how that happens.

The corridor question. The Armistice "left the corridor question open" (the Vardane almanac). Both powers press the ports to recognise their rights in the Line sea-corridors. The ports answer, every year, that the sea belongs to no one, and the Armistice Commission writes it down.

Section 6: Economy, Infrastructure & Industry#

Macroeconomics#

Entrepôt trade: "transshipment, shipbuilding for the Rovessa, finance and insurance. Neutral ground" (Chapter VI).

Working. 33.4 million × Cr 41,000 = Cr 1.37 trillion.

Key Industries#

Finance & Banking#

• The Line port-note: printed by each port, at par with the crown since the Par of 1702 (Chapter VI).
• The Saltline Exchange clears contracts between powers that will not trade with each other directly.
• Rovessa Letters are cashed here more than anywhere.

Infrastructure#

Communications#

• The Tide Sheet: the Exchange's daily prices, read on every ship.
• Every sign in two names, "and the order depends on who paid" (Chapter IV).
• Letters carry both dates, solar and moon (Chapter IV).

Section 7: Culture, Arts & Daily Life#

Holidays & Celebrations#

Culinary Traditions#

• Line pot: a stew of whatever the harbour brought in, "borrowed from everywhere".
• Salt fish from the stocked shoals; bread from imported grain.
• Stair wine, Ilyr tea, Eldvang dray jerky and Imperial phosphate-grown fruit in the same market.
• Everything is salted with Line salt, and Line people say northern food tastes of nothing.

Arts & Literature#

• The Line style: "brilliant white reefstone-lime houses on stilts, with lagoon walkways. It is borrowed from everywhere and belongs to no one" (Chapter III).
• The Wall of Flags in the Saltline Exchange: every flag on Kethra, in the order their owners' ships first called.
• Tide songs in Linecant and Landspeech.
• Literature:
  • The Salt Rising, the ports' founding chronicle;
  • Grey Pennants, Salt Fever in letters from Saltline (1420s–1430s);
  • By Eye, By Word, a novel of the Tide Court (AL 2266);
  • Driftmark, poems of the Landing (AL 2288).

Sports & Recreation#

Social Norms & Etiquette#

• Never ask whose side someone is on. It is the rudest question on the Line.
• Pay first, argue later. Debts are settled at the Exchange, never in the street.
• Respect the grey pennant. Never board a ship flying it.
• Both names, both dates. "Selenne / Kethra"; the solar date and the moon-date.
• "Tidewrack" is a fighting word.
• Greeting: "Fair tide." Reply: "Fair tide, and a berth."

Section 8: Appendices & Reference Materials#

Statistical Tables#

Gazetteer#

Every place below is in the interactive Atlas. The generated Register of the Line Free Ports gives coordinates.

Bibliography#

In-world sources#

• The Treaty of Hollowby and the Articles of the Tide (1242)
• The Salt Rising (chronicle, 1200s)
• Grey Pennants (letters, 1420s–1430s)
• The Tide Sheet (daily)
• Reports of the Armistice Commission (since 2291)

Development sources#

• 00 - Spine and Status · Introduction · Chapter I · Chapter II · Chapter III · Chapter IV · Chapter VI
• The Caldren Crown almanac, the Vardane Imperium almanac and the Rovessa Caravans almanac
• 10 - Who's Who
• The Line free ports are an original grouping, so the relationship register has no entry for them.
• Almanac structure supplied by Briana.

Guidance for AI actors#

• A Line character switches between Landspeech and Linecant mid-sentence, writes both dates, and will not tell you whose side they are on.
• Open Water or Harbour Guard? Ask where they are from. The western chain wants patrol ships; Saltline wants to sell to everyone.
• Driftmark 2286 is the Line's wound: the day the Neutral Law held on paper and failed on the reef.
• Money is how the Line keeps its freedom. Everyone needs the Exchange, the Launch, the quarantine and the Rovessa; nobody can afford to own them.
• This almanac is approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision).