Category:Free Ports of the West

The Free Ports of the West are not a military alliance or a mercantile cabal, nor do they have any overarching political system to unify them. And yet, the small number of Free Ports are often spoken of as one by the sailors on the Western seas.

In the West, land is scarce, and along with it vital supplies... food, fresh water, wood for repairing masts and hulls, not to mention harbour safe from waves and storms, without which a ship and its crew face doom upon the oceans. As these resources are precious, and conflict over them fierce, a ship must not only bear the risks they will not be found, but if they are found will bear risk that they will be held by hostile powers, or those who will extort a desperate vessel for all it has and more in exchange for the shelter and supply needed to stave off death another day.

The ‘free port’ has evolved from this reality, combined with the traditional Law of the Sea. A free port is one where the harbour and market (though not necessarily the rest of the state or island) are open: no vessel will be denied right to dock based on their flag or creed, and warrants based upon outside laws (such as those against piracy) are not served. Some fees might be levied (supplies are sold, not free, inn beds and taverns and even docking spaces do brisk business, though a ship must be free to anchor in the bay and send a boat ashore unharried), but free ports are also havens of free trade, where restrictions on imports and exports, including tariffs and customs duties, are not applied. At free ports where the surrounding island is not left so free, the walls of the port serve as a barrier to keep free trade confined, the gates to the land beyond serving as customs houses.

Free ports can sometimes boast local militias or the fleet of a pirate-lord-turned-harbourmaster, or even the military forces of a wider kingdom which places them under its umbrella to secure its own shores, but the powerful fleets of the great Western navies would certainly be capable of overcoming such defenses, as would some smaller states and large pirate gangs, and of course the monopoly-thirsty Guild... it is culture and unwritten agreement which preserves such ports, no power wishing to jeopardize the asset they represent across the West for gain of a single local port. Indeed, when some shortsighted pirate captain or regional warlord threatens a free port, the ships of the larger powers and Guild will often join in the defense to preserve the status-quo.