Kingsport

Kingsport is a major city and a bustling harbour town situated on the southeastern shore of Rimnoque. Founded by the Espérians in 1494, it is one of the biggest cities in the Guerreros, functioning as Avalons centre of shipping and commerce in the Guerrerian sea. Stretching back from the harbour, shops jostle for space with Kingsport's many taverns. During the 17th century, the city was a popular place for buccaneers, eventually becoming the centre of piracy in the Guerreros, though that situation would change in 1687 with the outlawing of piracy. Wealthy and civilized, Kingsport's air came from its place as an official centre of Guerrerian trade.

Kingsport, a place to make a fortune at the expense of those less fortunate, a place to lose your savings in a single night, a place for new beginnings, a place of filth and self-made men.

Overview

Espéria

The Espérians first landed on Rimnoque in 1464 under the leadership of Victorino Marcos Aureli. Permanent settlement occurred when Juan de Esquivel brought a group of settlers in 1509. They came in search of new lands and valuable resources, like gold and silver. Instead, they began to cultivate and process the sugar cane. Much like the Taíno before them, the Espérians did not appear to have much use for the Kingsport area. They did, however, retain its Taíno name.
Espéria kept control of Rimnoque mostly so that it could prevent other countries from gaining access to the island, which was strategically situated within the trade routes of the Guerreros.

Avalon

Espéria maintained control over the island for 146 years, but the town was captured along with the rest of Rimnoque by Avalon during their invasion of 1655. By 1659 two hundred houses, shops and warehouses had been built around the fort situated there; by 1692 five forts defended the port.
The Avalonians initially called the place Cagway but soon renamed it Kingsport. For much of the period between the Avalonian conquest and the 1692 earthquake, Kingsport served as the unofficial capital of Rimnoque, while Espéria Town remained the official capital.

Cutthroat Economy

Espéria could not retake the island and, due to pirates, could no longer regularly provide their colonies in the New World with manufactured goods. The progressive irregularity of annual Espérian fleets, combined with increasing demand by colonies for manufactured goods, stimulated the growth of Kingsport. Merchants and privateers worked together in what is referred to as "forced trade." Merchants would sponsor trading endeavours with the Espérians, while also sponsoring privateers to attack Espérian ships and rob Espérian coastal towns. While the merchants most certainly had the upper hand, the privateers were an integral part of the operation.

"Both opponents and advocates of so-called 'forced trade' declared the town's fortune had the dubious distinction of being founded entirely on the servicing of the privateers' needs and highly lucrative trade in prize commodities." . . . "A report that the 300 men who accompanied Henry Morgan to Portobello in 1668 returned to the town with a prize to spend of at least £120 each leaves little doubt that they were right".

Piracy in Kingsport

Kingsport provided a safe harbour initially for privateers and subsequently for pirates plying the shipping lanes to and from Espéria and Darien. Buccaneers found Kingsport appealing for several reasons. Its proximity to trade routes allowed them easy access to prey, but the most important advantage was the port's proximity to several of the only safe passages or straits giving access to the Espérian Main from the Anduin. The harbour was large enough to accommodate their ships and provided a place to careen and repair these vessels. It was also ideally situated for launching raids on Espérian settlements.
Since the Avalonians lacked sufficient troops to prevent either the Espérians or Lormanians from seizing it, the Rimnoquian governors eventually turned to the pirates to defend the city. In 1650, as a solution to his defence concerns, Governor Edward D'Oley invited the infamous Brethren of the Coast to come to Kingsport and make it their home port. These pirates concentrated their attacks on Espérian shipping, whose interests were considered the major threat to the town. These pirates later became legal Avalonian privateers who were given letters of marque by Rimnoque's governor. Around the same time that pirates were invited to Kingsport, Avalon launched a series of attacks against Espérian shipping vessels and coastal towns. By sending the newly appointed privateers after Espérian ships and settlements, Avalon had successfully set up a system of defence for Kingsport. Espéria was forced to continually defend its property and did not have the means with which to retake its land. By the 1660s the city had, for some, become a pirate utopia and had gained a reputation as the "Sodom of the New World", where most residents were pirates, cutthroats, or prostitutes.

"Wine and women drained their wealth to such a degree that some of them became reduced to beggary. They have been known to spend 2 or 3,000 pieces of eight in one night, and one gave a strumpet 500 to see her naked. They used to buy a pipe of wine, place it in the street, and oblige everyone that passed to drink."

In 1670, Avalon began repairing and constructing a number of naval forts as an added level of defence for Kingsport, with the finished construction of Fort Charles in 1682, the number of Buccaneers needed to defend the town started declining, and with the outlawing of piracy in Rimnoque in 1687, the Buccaneer population quickly dwindled. Now, Kingsport is defended by five naval forts, the biggest of them being Fort Charles.

The 1692 earthquake

Main article: 1692 Rimnoque earthquake
On the 7th of Luni 1692, a devastating earthquake hit the city causing most of its southern section to be lost – and with it many of the town's houses and other buildings. Many of the forts were destroyed, as well; Fort Charles survived, but Forts James and Carlisle sank into the sea, Fort Rupert became a large region of water, and great damage was done to an area known as Morgan's Line.
Although the earthquake hit the entire island of Rimnoque, the citizens of Kingsport were at a greater risk of death due to the perilous sand, falling buildings, and the tsunami that followed. Though the local authorities tried to remove or sink all of the corpses from the water, they were unsuccessful; some simply got away from them, while others were trapped in places that were inaccessible. Improper housing, a lack of medicine or clean water, and the fact that most of the survivors were homeless led to many people dying of malignant fevers. The earthquake and tsunami killed between 1,000 and 3,000 people combined, nearly half the city's population. Disease ran rampant in the next several months, claiming an estimated 2,000 additional lives.
The earthquake caused the sand under Kingsport to liquefy and flow out into Cagway Bay. The water table was generally only two feet down before the impact, and the town was built on a layer of some 20 m of water-saturated sand. This type of area did not provide a solid foundation on which to build an entire town. Unlike the Esperians before them, the Avalonians had decided to settle and develop the small area of land, even while acknowledging that the area was nothing but "hot loose sand".

Founding Date

1494

Type

Large town

Location under

Rimnoque

Population
17,500 (1715)
• 70% Human
• 11% Half-elf
• 9% Halfling
• 10% Others

Related Articles