Queensport, formerly Stolevan, is the capital of the Stolevan Matriarchy in the modern age.
In the time of Camac That Was, Stolevan’s population was even larger than Camac’s, and was the most important city in the southern half of the empire. Farms sent massive amounts of grain and forestry products down the Wide River, and Stolevan’s shipbuilding facilities rivaled Koyr’s. The important Conclave of Sorcerers had its headquarters in the Great Keep, standing guard over the mouth of the Wide.
Like most cities, Stolevan was devastated during The Madness. Protector Kontir was able to preserve the Keep, but soon abandoned it for the relative stability in the Northern Reach. Old Stolevan remained largely empty throughout the Age of Heroes, sheltering only the occasional raider or squatter.
About a decade before the Council of Captains agreed to dissolve, Captain Rietha established the Stolevan Matriarchy. Once the population began to spread north, she renamed the city Queensport, using its old name for the entire nation. With an agreeable climate, and plenty of good farmland nearby, immigrants poured in (many of them the poor of Ak’koyr and women of the East, with hopes of freedom and land ownership).
In modern times, Queensport is once again Termag’s most populous city. Again, the city distributes the bounty of upriver farms across the world, builds ships, and is the home of the Conclave. Rietha established a tradition of open borders; citizens are free to emigrate, and foreigners are free to immigrate. (Often, men leave and women come, both seeking opportunities they do not enjoy at home, but the ramifications of the Matriarchy’s social structure could easily fill two or three blog posts.)
Next: R is for: (Captain) Rietha
Saturday, April 19, 2014
4 comments:
Comments are welcome, and they don't have to be complimentary. I delete spam on sight, but that's pretty much it for moderation. Long off-topic rants or unconstructive flamage are also candidates for deletion but I haven’t seen any of that so far.
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I've been reading through this off and on (the A-Z challenge kind of overwhelms me as a blog reader), but the amount of detail into the geography, history, and culture is very impressive and compelling.
ReplyDeleteReading this as the A-Z theme makes me think of Dictionary of the Khazars -- a history told through an encyclpaedia format.
Men don't like the matriarchy's social structure?
ReplyDeleteSounds like another interesting place.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, if it's been a lot of work to keep up reading, think about how much work it was to write it. ;-) I have to admit, I bit off a huge thing, completely forgetting that April is often a rather crazy-busy month with Easter preps, getting gardens started, outdoor (and indoor) cleanup, etc. It's been a good stretch, not NaNoWriMo scale, but plenty enough. Still, it's been something I've needed to get done. Can you shoot me a link to that book?
ReplyDeleteSonia, some men want to be in charge. The Matriarchy has an "open borders" policy, so those who don't like it are free to leave. About a generation in, some of the really strict laws (for example, men originally were not allowed to own or inherit property) were relaxed when too many men started emigrating. But there was a plot and an attempted coup, and the exiled losers resettled Westmarch. And there's the chronic shortage of men… like I said, I could fill several blog posts just with stuff about the social structure and the effects it's had.
Thanks, Patricia!