Port Locations
The Reefgate Tavern
The Reefgate squats low near the inner quay, its ceiling beams darkened by decades of lamp smoke and stubborn history. Once it stored Company sugar shipments under armed guard. Now it stores rum, secrets, and the kind of loyalty that is never written down.
The front room is loud by design. Sailors sing. Dockworkers argue. Veterans of the revolt sit in the corner playing dominoes with a seriousness that borders on sacred. The tables are carved with names some crossed out, some circled in charcoal. When someone important dies, a fresh notch appears in the central support beam.
But the Reefgate’s true weight lies in the back room. No sign marks it. No curtain announces it. Yet anyone who needs to meet without attracting notice will eventually be told to “ask for the quiet bottle.”
Inside, negotiations happen over cups that are never emptied in one swallow. Mawon officers meet foreign captains. Jaraguan diplomats pass through disguised as idle socialites. Brotherhood agents occasionally appear and leave without being acknowledged.
The Reefgate wants stability. It wants Jaragua to survive long enough that its stories become legends instead of warnings.
The Saint Wall of Candlecourt
The Saint Wall rises three stories high in the heart of Candlecourt, its paint sun-faded and lovingly retouched. Officially it depicts the First, Second, and Third Prophets in heroic poses. Unofficially, every Jaraguan knows which Lwa hides behind which saintly mask.
Children play beneath it. Merchants set up stalls in its shade. Lovers lean against its stone and pretend they are not listening to the drums echoing off its surface.
Behind the wall, through a narrow door most foreigners mistake for storage, lies a small meeting chamber painted with symbols layered so densely they almost hum. Here, Kap Sèvi practitioners gather openly now. No more hiding. No more code required. But the habit of secrecy remains, like muscle memory.
The Saint Wall wants unity. It remembers how divided house-slave and field-slave once were. It remembers how those divisions almost outlived the Company. It pushes, gently but constantly, toward something shared.
The Shell Exchange
The Exchange is a long colonnaded hall halfway up the city’s climb, airy and bright. On any given afternoon you can hear the clatter of clam shells being counted, weighed, and stamped with the national mark. The sound is oddly satisfying. A new rhythm for a new nation.
Old Company guilders still circulate here, but more and more hands prefer shells. The exchange rate is carefully maintained, almost defiantly fair. Herlief Asgersen, gray-bearded and stubborn as a reef rock, can often be found arguing rates with a merchant twice his age and half his conscience.
Artisans display sculptures made from scrap metal and broken chain. Indigo traders haggle with spice sellers. Freed plantation stewards negotiate crop futures with the confidence of people who once had no say in what they planted.
The Shell Exchange wants legitimacy. It wants Jaragua to be more than a rebel story whispered in Théah. It wants treaties, recognition, permanence.
Fort Corail and the Salt Stair
Fort Corail watches the harbor mouth from its windward bluff, cannons angled not in threat but in readiness. The walls still bear scars from the final assault on Cap-Carrefour, when rebels scaled battlements in the dark and turned the guns inward.
Inside the fort, drills are constant but not theatrical. These soldiers are farmers, fishers, and artisans who learned war because they had to. They laugh easily, but they do not blink when a sail appears unannounced on the horizon.
Beneath the fort lies the Salt Stair, a narrow descent cut into coral rock, slick with spray. It leads to a sea cave large enough to hide a handful of small boats. During the revolution, it was a lifeline. Today, it is insurance.
Fort Corail wants vigilance. It knows the Atabean Trading Company has not forgotten Jaragua. It knows Mariana territory in the north is shifting uneasily. It trusts joy, but it keeps powder dry.
The Mangrove Reach and the Drum Circle
At the edge of the city, where stone gives way to brackish water and tangled roots, the Mangrove Reach stretches outward like a quiet question. Houses stand on stilts. Walkways sway gently. Nets hang between posts like lace made of rope.
Boatwrights craft shallow-draft vessels that can vanish into reeds. Herbalists grow medicinal plants in raised beds. Children leap between platforms with fearless balance.
In a clearing known simply as the Drum Circle, Kap Sèvi ceremonies unfold when needed. There is no permanent altar. The space is remade each time with chalk, shells, carved wood, and offerings. When a Sèvitè invites a Lwa to ride, the air shifts. The drums deepen. The line between spirit and flesh grows thin and electric.
The Mangrove Reach wants memory. It refuses to let Jaragua become comfortable enough to forget what birthed it. It is celebration and warning braided together.
Together, these five locations form a web:
The Reefgate holds the city’s whispers.
The Saint Wall holds its spirit.
The Shell Exchange holds its future.
Fort Corail holds its defense.
The Mangrove Reach holds its soul.