Patchworks
The fleet of vessels and floating structures known as the Patchworks falls under the mandate of the County of Sunderspray. Although the inhabitants share a fundamental genetic and cultural kinship with other Sundersprites, they have developed a technophilic society that remains generally separate. Their more freewheeling cousins throughout the county regard them as helpful, but odd to the point of mild insanity. Although the existence of the Patchworks is known to non-Sundersprites, outsiders nonetheless find it difficult to gather current information about it. The bulk of this article has been assembled from secondhand reports and documentation of contacts with this unfamiliar society.
History
The origins of the Patchworks remains obscure. On nearly all Sundersprite ships of the early periods, written history was primarily about the travels and trials of the Pennà as a whole, and dealt with their mythology, their time as inhabitants of the Isle of Benacia, their exile from the Isle, the founding of Sunderspray, and to a lesser extent the united actions of the county since that time. Such things as individual ship histories, genealogies, and the exploits of great captains, on the other hand, were for the most part transmitted orally up until recent centuries, and in some cases were not transmitted at all.
The inhabitants of the Patchworks, by and large, seem not to have any great interest in their own history, and the subject is no longer a matter of detailed study. Some of the oral histories, however, were transcribed before they ceased to be transmitted, and some accounts by outside observers have provided perspective on events as well. Altogether they point to the period after the formation of Sunderspray, in the latter half of the third millennium ASC, when Shireroth was beginning to recover from a long period of economic and political disruption. The recently pacified Pennà had begun to settle into their way of life, subsisting on fishing, information-gathering, and trade; but many of them remained wary with the arrangement that now bound them. There were many ports, especially in southern Brookshire, where the Sundersprites were still remembered as pirates and were effectively forbidden entry. Aside from a remnant that remained active around the Khaz Modan Isles, most Sundersprites migrated away from their original range and towards Musica and the mouths of the Elwynn, and from there followed the major shipping lanes to Yardistan. Along the same routes, and around the same time period, the sancts of Straylight began to emerge, and although it is now difficult to say for sure whether one development caused the other, sancts and Sunderspray fed off one another’s growth. The resulting economic boom did not go unnoticed by the Shirerithian government, which proceeded to take its share through the enactment of a series of fees and taxes on shipping making use of the major ports. The livelihoods of many Sundersprite ships were threatened by the reduction in their incomes, and although some were able to pull through by trade between sancts (which were not subject to the new taxes), or even into international trade, many others were pushed into smuggling, which was already a fairly popular pastime among Sundersprites. But because the various coast guards and port authorities had anticipated the move, the illicit traders often had difficulty finding a suitable base of operations. Even the sancts found themselves bowing to pressure from the Imperial government to inspect cargoes and drive out smugglers, though this was less successful than on the mainland.
It seems that around 2900 ASC or so, a number of smuggling vessels began investigating the isolated Vihreä Seamount. Southeast of Blavatsky and away from the most crowded shipping lanes, the seamount reaches to within several tens of meters of the surface, and is the base of a small atoll. Although the reefs had claimed several off-course ships over the years, it was far enough from the trade routes to have escaped widespread notice, or to be selected as the site of a sanct. A coalition of smuggling ships, possibly with covert aid from other Sundersprites, gathered together funds to construct a platform within the atoll as a resupply station and permanent swapmeet far from the prying eyes of the tax collectors.
Over the following centuries, the platform accumulated an association of mariculture operations, ships, docks, undersea constructions, junkpiles, and other debris, making its living originally through ship maintenance and repair. As technology progressed, the Patchworks came also to specialize in sensory and communications equipment, both valuable to mariners in general and smugglers in particular.
(To be continued)
