The Farporters: Cultural Profile

Introduction: The farporters are relative newcomers to the Lonely Island, having established the city of Farport about 130 years ago. Consisting of mostly humans with a few disguised snake people living among them in secret, the farporters are the modern descendents of First Empire dissidents who wanted to get as far away from the influence of their homeland as they could. Farporter society has since evolved in direct opposition to First Empire culture, valuing community, struggle for the good of the many, and loyalty to each other. The farporters have taken these values to heart and undertaken the hard work of starting a new settlement in a remote area with little access to trade. The city of Farport has banned First Empire citizens and merchants, even from docking in the harbor, reducing their options to the few gnome merchants willing to make the voyage. This has made the farporters good at making due with the materials at hand and finding resources on the Lonely Island that they can replace an expensive trade good with. Today, despite setbacks such as the Terror’s Rampage and resulting famine, the people of Farport are beginning to feel they know the island well enough to start founding new settlements. More conservative segments of the population, however, are of the opinion that people should stay and help Farport grow and that the rest of the Lonely Island should be left to the Island Lord and his Holy Lieutenants. Whether or not new towns are founded on other parts of the island, the farporters overestimate their understanding of the island, not even being aware of the four elf towns which have been on the island for hundreds of years now.

Magic and Technology: While the farporters are descended from First Empire citizens, as are the sporadic influxes of new dissidents from the empire, the people of Farport tend to be luddites, eschewing many of the technology and magic of the First Empire in favor of doing things with their own body whenever possible. As a result, most farporters deliberately live with technology comparable to early 17th century Europe from the real world. The main exception to this is magic and technology for safety, healing, and construction, which farporters see a great deal of value in. In farport, the technology, enchanted items, and schools of magic are focused exclusively on healing, safety, and things that make constructing buildings easier. The Academy of Arcane Casting is the only established school of magic in Farport, and it only teaches people to cast spells which pertain to the three approved applications. The academy does, however, offer these lessons for free, provided each potential student is able to pass a rigorous entrance exam, all supported by community donations. Enchanters, on the other hand, work out of several shops throughout the city and take on apprentices with some regularity, although new apprentices must buy their way in and become a partial owner of the shop they apprentice in. Each shop tends to specialize in crafting items which are useful to just one of the three applications. Those Farporters who manifest magical talents and interests outside of the approved types are viewed with distrust, seen as individualists who want to grow their own power rather than use their skills to help those around them. This is considered an “imperial attitude” towards magic and often forces people to pursue their taboo studies in secret.
        Mages and enchanters, despite their importance to Farport, are relatively rare, with the vast majority having their time taken up by assignments for the good of society such as hospital duty or construction work. Perhaps one in every 100 farporters is trained in magic, although their services are freely available to those who need them so no one complains too much about a lack of numbers. One side effect of this is that people generally have a good opinion of those who graduate from the Academy of Arcane Casting, graduates of which are almost hired by the City of Farport and paid a comfortable wage to perform their work for the other residents of the city. This has resulted in a healthy population living in well-constructed homes who are able to ply their trades and explore their home as much as they desire. Most people are unaware of the dangerous magical leftovers from the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden that are scattered around the Lonely Island, but if they were, they would probably want nothing to do with it.

Society: Farport, in direct contrast to how things are run in the First Empire, is not ruled by any one person or even any one group of people. Instead, the residents of each building in the city, businesses, shops, workshops, etc. excluded, are expected to provide a single representative in the Council of Many. This body of thousands of people, some the sole occupants of their homes, is expected to meet on the solstices and equinoxes of each year in order to hear policy petitions, vote on them, and other perform other tasks such as interviewing prospective city officials like the captain of the guard or the city planner. Some representatives are more invested in the council than others. In order for any bill to be made law or a person to be appointed to a position, at least 80% of the Council of Many must approve. This high burden acceptance is meant to ensure that no city policy or official is put in place without good reason. These officials and policies can be revoked at any time, however, if just 21% of councilors vote to revoke, a vote that is only held in emergency council sessions as needed.

        The cultural values that led to this form of government are loyalty, communalism, and the willingness to undergo hardships for others, and they can be seen in most structures and traditions in Farport. As dissidents from the more individualistic and cutthroat First Empire, farporters would rather live in opposition to such values. This can be seen in the main conflicts over whether or not to establish new settlements elsewhere on the Lonely Island. Those against new settlements argue that it would not only risk cutting people off from their sense of community with Farport, and thus the ties of loyalty, but that to do anything other than expand the space they’ve already claimed would be disloyal to the island and the spirits that govern it. Others say that one day Farport will need to stop expanding one day or risk becoming a blight on the land, so they should be allowed to take on the struggle of creating more space for people and to have less of an overall impact on the environment. Spiritual arguments back both sides of the debate, and the Council of Many has only ever reached 65% acceptance for any proposals of new settlements, despite being happy to fund dozens of expeditions into the Lonely Island each year. This is the biggest tension in Farport at the moment, but other than that, people tend to live peaceful, comfortable lives.

        Laws and city guards in Farport are rarely harsh, the only exceptions being made for those who even appear to show support for the First Empire. Farport maintains a robust social safety net and a healthy trading relationship with the gnomes. People have access to goods from all over Tero, and they have the money to pay for them because the city provides medical services and housing at no expense to residents other than a progressive income tax which results in the wealthiest farporters paying for the housing and medical care of the poorest farporters. People generally enjoy this arrangement and take pride in their city’s ability to take care of its residents. In day-to-day life, the only strict rules anyone ever seem to impact people are those against contact with current First Empire Citizens. Newer waves of residents from the First Empire often leave friends and family behind and wish to stay in touch. The founders of Farport established the rule of no contact, not even to trade for vital supplies, before they even landed on the Lonely Island, and this policy has remained in place ever since.

Religion: After leaving the influence of the First Imperial Cult and veneration of the First Emperor, most farporters are wary of religious belief and organized practice. Despite this, a local religion has developed. Some of the first settlers in Farport received visions of the locations of vital resources which the more spiritual of the early farporters attributed to a single spirit which governs the entirety of the Lonely Island, a figure they refer to as the Island Lord. The assumption was, based on the helpful visions, that the Island Lord favors the farporters and wishes for them to succeed. In return, there are eight different festivals of thanks each year to reaffirm Farport’s loyalty to the Island Lord while thanking their god for the gifts of the natural world he provides through the island. Most of these festivals consist of many offerings and elaborate sacrificial rituals to the god, intended to honor the Island Lord through complexity and decorum.

        Over time, explorers started to return from expeditions with tales of strange, unique creatures that live alone on the Lonely Island. Early members of the Church of the Island reasoned that such legendary beasts must be the lieutenants of the Island Lord, able to act within the material plane on behalf of their Lord. Several smaller cults, considered priestly orders of the overall religion, have been established to worship these legendary creatures, each of which is associated with a specific region of the island. The Armored Behemoth is said to roam the Rusted Plains, the Elephant Bird rules the Crusty Mountains, Shepherd Jim guards Big Bay, the Shoveltusker makes its home in the Bronze Woods, and the Terror of Farport is said to live deep within the Bluesalt Marsh. These priestly orders make up the organized portion of the religious community, maintaining calendars of holidays particular to their chosen lieutenant, the celebration of which is optional, unlike the 8 festivals dedicated to the Island Lord. One such priestly order, the Behemoth’s Children, not only venerates the Armored Behemoth, but has developed a form of martial arts based on their subject of worship. This is unique among the priestly orders of the Lonely Island, but they have never caused any trouble so no one really bats an eye at them.

Farport: Farport is a growing, bustling city that sits on the North bank of the Iron River, at the point where it empties into Big Bay. Although relatively young compared to other cities of Tero, the occasional influx of new settlers and the steady growth of the existing population has caused Farport to grow into a decent-sized city of roughly 100,000 people. Construction teams are able to keep up with this growth through magical means, utilizing mages and magic items to essentially grow buildings out of the ground fully formed. Housing and healthcare are provided to residents free of charge, they just need to be registered with the tax office and up to date on their income tax payments, which is not usually an issue. People are happy to send representatives to the Council of Many, the governing body of the city, and important city services are staffed and led by competent people. Most residents of Farport are quite happy to live there. The only strict rules are around First Empire citizens being banned from entering or docking in the city while residents cannot have any contact with current citizens, even by mail. This is tough on some people, but every time reversing the policy has been suggested, not nearly enough votes were cast to abolish the policies.

        To support such a large population, thousands of acres of farms have been established in the Rusted Plains around Farport, growing food crops that are native to the Lonely Island and can tolerate the high iron content of the soils south of the Crusty mountains. Rustroot is the most common crop and a staple food for the people of Farport due to its highly nutritious, tuberous roots. Other crops grown for food include red sunflowers, the seeds of which are used for oil and turned into flour, and the sweet yucca, which produces fibrous leaves that can be woven into cloth and a sweet fruit that can be eaten either raw or cooked. There are some farporters who get their meat by hunting metallic kangaroos out in the Rusted Plains, however most get their protein from imported, preserved meats. Supporting such a large population with imported protein is one of the jobs of the massive port that gives Farport its name and acts as the only access most people have to the world outside the Lonely Island. Anything that cannot be produced on the island must be imported, and some domestic products are of an inferior quality to equivalent items from other parts of the world. While few gnome merchant companies have ever chosen to make regular voyages to Farport and First Empire merchants are banned from doing business entirely, that has not been an issue as the few gnome companies that chose to make the initial voyages have prospered and grown greatly. These once-small trading companies now maintain merchant fleets of hundreds of ships, built off of their near-monopoly on trade with the farporters. Not only do the people of Farport spend a lot of money on goods that wouldn’t be worth trading in other place, but the medicines and enchanted medical instruments that they produce have gained a worldwide reputation for their quality and efficacy. The native foods of the Lonely Island and the unique fabrics woven from dyed sweet yucca thread are also sold as exotic goods abroad, making the trade relationship fairly balanced overall.