Port Calin
Port Calin is a large city on the eastern coast of the Inner Sea, and capital of Calin. The natural harbor at Port Calin is merely a shallow bend in the coastline, that might offer a pleasant beach but little shelter for anchored ships... but in the First Age, artificial structures were raised to create a port of significant size and quality. The bulk of the harbour juts out into the Sea, sheltered not by natural rock but by tall, thick breakwaters with an opening broad enough for even the largest ships to pass (though transit of more than one at once would require careful piloting. Once upon a time, the Steel Colossus of Calin stood astride this entrance, but now only its weathered feet remain atop the breakwaters, the massive statue’s bulk half-buried in the mud at harbour bottom.
Various piers and jettys extend into the harbor for docking and unloading cargoes, and the shorefront is dominated by a thin crescent of warehouses, markets and teahouses, as well as a large shipyard and docks for the Colossal Fleet. These, and the rest of the city, are surrounded by a high thick wall, within which can also be found three expansive districts: the Common District, home to the residences of most inhabitants, the Steel District, home to forges and industry, and the Court District, home to the Shogunal Court and the main residences of Calin’s noble families.
These residences are each walled compounds, filled with gardens and villas, where the family leadership and their various branches reside, the court of the Shogun a much larger compound at the center. Within these halls, decorated with fine Shogunate Era Silks and artworks, weaves the complex web of politics and scheme, culture and assassination, that is the Calinti Great Game.
Port Calin is, however, neither the most populous nor the most prosperous of the Calinti cities, with Goodharbour besting them at both. In yet one more element of the Game’s strike and maneuver, the further one goes from the capital the more opportunities present themselves, but the cost of leaving rivals free at Court risks being a very high price paid for them, and so by tradition most Calinti nobles alternate between their capital estates and those further into the hinterlands.
