Star Market
The southwestern island of the Star Kingdom is host to its only import/export trading location. Fortified and well-defended, this twin-ridge island only permits smaller vessels. Unlike most Sky Islands, the Star Market has no docks at its rim. Instead, Sky Ships must travel through a series of locks to reach the marketplace.
Ships and crewmembers are all weighed on both arrival and departure, to control mass leaving the island. The nearby navy prevents smuggling, and the island is well-defended against Sky Pirates. Its security makes the Star Market a popular trading place. So does the access to fresh meat and even fish, as livestock grazes the hillsides and the valley's lake is full of life.
The island is slightly overmined, causing its lowest borders to lie 8 metres below Standard Altitude. This weakness has been turned into its defensive strength by the Star Kingdom, allowing the Star Market to easily resist the occasional raid.
Goods
On top of the Kingdom's own import and export, the Star Market attracts traders that rent stalls and docking space. As a result, there is a large variety of trading goods available for purchase. Common resources available in bulk include timber, long lasting foods, cloth, and ropes. But metal bars, leather armour, weapons and even Cloudstone are also for sale. Also popular are fresh meat and fish, butchered on purchase. Often those are immediately consumed at parties, so that no tax has to be paid for exporting them. Unfortunately for crews, it's impossible for them to bring live animals with them: The Star Kingdom explicitly bans the sale of livestock. Another luxury good are seedless apples.Taxation
There are three primary forms of income for the government. Rent is charged for docks, lodging, and trading stalls. This is due each day at noon. Running up a tab is only allowed with proper collateral. Both import and export are taxed. However, these are paid at departure, so when goods are passed on, only the final buyer has to pay up. Visitors trading their own goods with each other are exempted. To accommodate this, all goods are inspected and ownership chits are drawn up. Trades will include said chits, to prove an external trade took place. Lastly, there are penalty fees for mass differences: Any ship leaving with more weight than they arrived with, has to pay fines. To prevent manipulation, extensive weighing takes place on every load. Furthermore, every crewmember and passenger is weighed and inspected when disembarking and embarking. Again, exemptions exist for trade among visitors, with help of the ownership chits. Some ships will register as a unified fleet, To prevent traders from playing the system through Cloudstone purchases, all Cloudstone trading is strictly supervised. Specialists are tasked to measure the precise buoyancy of all stones, calculating not just their relative but also their absolute mass compensation.Geography
The island is semi-oval shaped, like most Sky Islands. The surface is bowlshaped, with the long sides being significantly higher than the short sides. The short edges are -8m SA (standard altitude), while the ridges lie up to +24m SA. The center of the valley contains a shallow lake, with the surface -13m SA, and the bottom of the lake -16m SA. The island is roughly 8.7km by 5.3km. The lake is roughly 1.2km by 450m. Farmlands surround the lake and cover roughly a fifth of the island. Orchards cover large parts of the slopes, which are also used as grazing areas by livestock. Hedges cut the land into smaller portions. While there are former Cloudstone mines present, these have all been blocked off, as further mining is prohibited due to the Star Market's altitude.Defences
The entire Star Market island is surrounded by a hollow wooden wall, 3m high at the ridges, with a 1m high parapet on top and domed watchtowers every 300 metres. The valley entrances are blocked with high walls reaching up to 5m SA. Iron chains stretch between the towers, to stop ships from breaking past. A secondary row of watchtowers lies inland, equipped with heavy ballistas to take down any enemy ships that manage to fly through or over the defences. To pass through the valley, a ship must enter the valley on the southwest side, then pass through a series of four locks. During this trip ships are escorted by a squad of archers. Ships undergo inspection at the second lock, so that an ambush can't turn into a pincer attack. Incoming and outgoing ships use parallel lanes, separated and surrounded by walls on top of steep mounds. Because of the height and width of the lanes, bigger vessels cannot enter the island. Two navy vessels guard the outside shore of the island, near the first lock. Two more ships are stationed above the lake, and six patrol the surroundings of the island. Any ship trying to bypass the island and venture into the Star Kingdom, is shot down with ballistas equipped with fire bolts.Infrastructure
The marketplace is located at the southwestern shore of the lake. A navy dock is located at the northeastern side, while the locals live more uphill, connected by gravel roads. The docks are built on tall poles, so that ships can easily dock regardless of their height. The marketplace itself exists of multi-floor stone buildings. All buildings on the island have solid domes, to defend against aerial attacks. The visiting side of the marketplace has sixteen docking slots, separated with long palisades. Each slot is 70m by 16m, flanked by 2m wide docks on each side. The docking slot are equipped with complicated weighing devices, that can precisely measure a ship's absolute weight. Scales are present to weigh any individual as well, to verify no fraud takes place.Entry for WorldEmber 2020
In response to the prompt Describe a bustling market settlement in your world. What can I find for sale?
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