The Definitive Country Almanac: The Free Oreth Coast States — 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#

Three sovereign states, three constitutions, and four shared instruments:

The Three States (administrative divisions)#

The Tessmere Republic#

The Merrin Confederacy#

The Stellan Free City#

The Three Shores Council#

The Calathe Question. Whether to ask the Crown for a defence treaty. Tessmere is split (the Calathe Party wants it; the Shore Party fears it would give the Imperium its excuse). Merrin is against: the cantons have never taken a side. Stellan is against: the Exchange trades with Hesk. The treaty needs two of three, and today it has, at most, half of one.

The Judiciary#

• Each state's courts; a Shore Court at Low Merrin for disputes between the three.
• Runaway cases are never heard in court. Under the Refuge Law there is nothing to decide: a person who reaches the coast is free. Imperial requests for return are answered with a form letter unchanged since 1881.
• No death penalty anywhere on the coast. It was the first law the Tessmere Senate passed in 1398, in answer to the Imperium's public executions.

Foreign Relations & Defence#

Membership#

• The Homeworld Assembly: three founding members, and often three votes together.
• Signatories of the Frame Accord and the Quiet Sky Accord. Holders of Ilyr Accord licences for piloted defensive frames, which the Imperium is refused (the Ilyr Sanctum almanac).

Relations#

Defence#

Defence budget: about Cr 47 billion, 3.2% of GDP, the highest share of any small state on Kethra.

Doctrine. Make the price too high. No one on the coast believes the Three Shores could stop the Imperium. They mean to make absorption cost more than it is worth, and to make sure the Assembly is watching.

The Grey March. Under the Truce of Northgate (1399) neither side may settle it. Coastwatch patrols it from the north, Tessmere from the south. Since the Corridor War, the patrols have met more often. In AL 2314 a Tessmere patrol and a Coastwatch column spent nine days camped within sight of each other at a river ford, and then both went home. The Tessmere Courier called it "the Nine Days". The Imperium did not call it anything.

Section 6: Economy, Infrastructure & Industry#

Macroeconomics#

Working. 61.0 million × Cr 24,000 = Cr 1.46 trillion. Cr 47 billion ÷ Cr 1.46 trillion = 3.2%.

Key Industries#

Finance & Banking#

• The shore-note, issued since 1911 by the Bank of the Three Shores at Stellan: 1 shore-note = Cr 0.80.
• The Imperial mark (IM) circulates in Stellan and Aldport, where the Hesk trade is.
• The phosphate question is also a money question: the Imperium prices phosphate in marks, and every rise is a tax on the coast.

Infrastructure#

Communications#

• The Tessmere Courier and the Stellan Exchange Letter.
• Lamp Radio: the refuge broadcasts, read in plain Orethi, that tell runaways where the Roads are open. The Imperium jams it; it moves frequency every night.

Section 7: Culture, Arts & Daily Life#

Holidays & Celebrations#

Culinary Traditions#

• Harbour stew of fish and valley greens.
• Orethi flatbread from the gorge tradition, eaten on both sides of the border.
• Merrin orchard fruit and cider.
• Runaway bread: plain barley bread given to every new arrival, and eaten by everyone on Lamp Night.

Arts & Literature#

• Lamp songs: songs of the Underground Roads, sung in plain Orethi.
• Harbour painting of Tessmere and Stellan.
• The Burning Tapestry in the Senate of Tessmere, 60 m long.
• Literature:
  • Down the Roads, runaways' accounts collected since 1881;
  • The Greywall, a novel of the Burning of the Beaches;
  • Nine Days, a play written in AL 2314 about the ford in the Grey March. It has run at Tessmere every night since.

Sports & Recreation#

Social Norms & Etiquette#

• Call people by their names. No honorifics, no ranks. A Shore person calls a marshal "Vosk", not "Marshal".
• Never ask a runaway's former holding. They will tell you if they want to.
• A lamp in the window means "you may knock here". Never knock on a window without one.
• Do not wear a rank-collar, even as a joke.
• Greeting: "Door's open." Reply: "And the lamp's lit."

Section 8: Appendices & Reference Materials#

Statistical Tables#

Gazetteer#

Every place below is in the interactive Atlas. The generated Register of the Free Oreth Coast States gives coordinates.

Bibliography#

In-world sources#

• The Charter of Tessmere (1398)
• The Treaty of the Three Shores (1402) and the Truce of Northgate (1399)
• The Refuge Law (1881)
• Down the Roads (collected since 1881)
• The Tessmere Courier (AL 2314 on the Nine Days)

Development sources#

• 00 - Spine and Status · Introduction · Chapter I · Chapter IV
• The Vardane Imperium almanac and Part 2: the coast states' names, Coastwatch, the Bond Laws, the Corridor, Hesk Holding, rank-collars
• 10 - Who's Who
• The free Oreth coast states are an original grouping, so the relationship register has no entry for them.
• Almanac structure supplied by Briana.

Guidance for AI actors#

• A Shore character calls everyone by name, never by rank, and notices when an Imperial does not.
• The Refuge Law is sacred. No Shore politician of any party would return a runaway.
• The Calathe Question divides Tessmere; Merrin and Stellan are against. Asking the Crown for help might save the coast or give the Imperium its excuse, and nobody knows which.
• The Grey March is where it could start. The Nine Days of AL 2314 ended with both sides going home. Everyone knows the next time might not.
• This almanac is approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision).