City-state of Potavoli
Before the fall of the Empire I liked visiting Potavoli. The city itself is beautiful and Ravera is a nice place to stop when you are only passing by. Now I am more wary. The reintroduction of slavery and renewed dominance of the old "merchant families" show a people who cling to the past instead of looking forward. It also makes them predictable, and that is something a merchant like myself can work with.
The city-state of Potavoli lies on the coast of the Azure Sea. It is fairly wealthy, with most of the wealth coming from trade. Most of the trade goods are produced by extensive slave labor which is controlled by a small group of powerful families. The floating harbor of it's main city, Potavoli, is frequented by many traders operating in the southern seas. Aside from Potavoli, the only other large settlement controlled by the city-state is the town of Ravera. A number of smaller villages and hamlets dot the claimed lands, but these are considered private holdings of whatever powerful family controls them.
History
Prior to the Merchant Schism in 97 AtB Potavoli was just another settlement in the Azure Coast region, although it was already then the largest. When the merchant groups that remained in the city after the schism declared the forming of the great families, they also declared that Potavoli was now the "Free and Sovereign City-State of Potavoli". The holdings of the recently formed great families as well as some of the closer hamlets were absorbed into the new city-state without problems, but some of the larger settlements in the area did not accept the declared rule of Potavoli. At first this defiance seemed to go unanswered as the great families were still organizing their new government.
Then in 99 AtB the answer came. The great families had used their wealth to hire a number of mercenary companies, who along with soldiers from each of the great families attacked the defiant settlements over the course of a month, quickly subduing them. The conquered residents were forced into slavery while most villages were burnt down. A few of the villages were claimed by one of the great families and turned into their private holdings. The success of this campaign fueled a desire to seize more land and thereby also acquire more slaves. The armies of Potavoli marched first against the city of Trierre where the merchants who had lost in the Merchant Schism has settled. They were however ready for the new aggression f
Demography and Population
Humans make up the vast majority of the population of the city-state. A small number of dwarves, elves and other more umcommon races live in the city itself, but out in the small villages and hamlets it is almost unheard of to find anyone not of human descent. A number of halfling groups travel along the roads and the Voli rivers, and the Mercadi Lake is home to two halfling villages, but they do not consider themselves to be part of the city-state and are in return largely ignored the governing families.
The humans of the city-state have the same olive skin that is common to all humans in the region. They consider their culture and way of doing things to be superior to other humans' and other races' in general and frequently bring up the fact that they were the last part of the western continent to be conquered by the Graslendi Empire as proof of this. When dealing with foreigners who are not obviously more powerful then themselves this leads to a slightly condescending manner, from both a farmer in the fields or a noble at a ball. Even slaves sometimes display this attitude when dealing with obvious foreigners.
Slavery
When the Graslendi Empire conquered the different nations they banned any traditions that they considered wrong or immoral. One such tradition was the practice of slavery. Before the Graslendi Empire slavery was practiced in many nations along the Azure sea coast. After the fall of the Empire Potavoli was the only nation to reestablish the practice, claiming it was a return to the proper order of things. Each person is responsible for their own success and those who are not willing to work for it deserve to be ruled by others. This belief also shows in the idea that anyone can rise to greatness as long as they are willing to work for it. A slave who is skilled and works hard can eventually buy their freedom, and with enough hard work they might eventually rise to become a successful merchant or even a noble. Promising slaves are given special tasks that reward them a small amount of credit. If they do enough tasks well enough they can eventually buy their freedom. In practice the owners control exactly who gets the special tasks and how much credit the slaves get ensuring that only slaves with truly valuable skills are ever set free and allowed to join a lesser branch of the owning family. Each year only one or two slaves are given their freedom, but it is enough to motivate the rest to work hard.
Territories
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