Port Miere

The only Imperial City not to be found on the mainland, Port Miere sits tenaciously on the western edge of the Island that has formerly been known as Pelys, Long Rock and the Gravid Isle but is more commonly known by its typically mercenary label of the ’Isle of Dread’. Sitting determinedly in the shadow of the large Port that has been built within the Isle’s natural harbour, the city is one of the smallest settlements within the Empire and newcomers are often surprised when first they alight on the quayside to see how small the city seems to be in comparison to its impressively large and well built harbour.

Built on the slopes that descend towards the bay, Port Miere is a sturdy city in which most of the buildings were built some years ago of a thick stone brought from quarries further inland and which now cannot apparently be found. Cresting the city is the settlements Citadel, a fortress about which the other buildings cluster in a loose curve. The design of the streets once channelled the incessant rain into the harbour but now, as a result of the Port construction instead floods northwards into the Marshes – the poorest part of the city where the houses of the single street are raised on rotting stilts above the muddy sludge below.

The city makes its way through three primary industries – fish, handicrafts and smuggling. The former very much serves the city but of late, with the repair of the city-owned salt mines this looks set to expand to a larger market. The ferocity of the winter storms has long seen the people retreat to their homes for the season and it is here that they work upon wood and stone craft of surprising delicacy - much in demand from the traders who call come the spring. Indeed, the Sloop-Traders often use Port Miere as their base since it is traditionally more lax than elsewhere regarding taxation – a combination of this and the cultural smuggling tradition has lead over the years to the point where the Governor does not even to seek to stop something that clearly gives the citizens so much pleasure.