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= Port Epinum =

This is a busy city and river port, sitting on the [[River Dolma]] which runs south though [[Cerlain]] from the mountains to the north to the coast.  It has begun to suffer somewhat in the expansion of trade by water, as it sits on the opposite side of Cerlain Bay from [[Obsecum]], which is a deep water port and which can better handle the larger modern vessels employed in shipping across the former Empire.

The city does have the advantage of being a river trade route through to [[Tamish]] and so has seen its volume of trade grow steadily through the 13th and 14th centuries.  The locals, however, are quick to tell all how it is losing out to the bigger port across the water, despite this being only partially true.  Obsecum serves the whole of eastern [[Antaurus]], and has trade routes through [[Francorum]] into the heart of [[Jorlinum]].  Port Epinum cannot compete with that, but it doesn't need to.  It has its own trade destinations - and does well handling cargo to and from the eastern stretches of the Empire.

The water front in the city is well established.  The major buildings here were built in the 1100's, when also the current water façade was completed.  The port is geared up to move goods between the small river craft that plough the waterways to the north with the seafaring vessels that stop off here at the wide end of the river.  The port accounts for half the city's employment, and is crucial to its economic success.

The city is not just a trading port, it also has other big industries.  Coppicing of the huge woodland away to the east is profitable, although this also gives rise to hiding places for bandits and robbers who are well known of, and much resented, on the well-used south road.  It also produces large amounts of charcoal, and the proximity of the port and northern river makes this an export commodity.  The woodland is also a source of some of the hardiest oaks found in the Cerlain and Antaurus.  Such good quality that it exports its wood directly to the shipyards of Obsecum.  The woodland also provides the building materials used by the city; the stone built waterfront is a contrast to the largely wooden framed and wooden fronted homes and other buildings here.

As with many of the coastal towns and cities, there is also a thriving fisheries industry.  There is little farmland around the port, and fish is the main staple diet of the people here.  Fishing mostly takes place in the shallower waters to the north of the mouth of the river Dolma, and waters here are well stocked.  The road that runs away north west to Lomnus is dotted with small fishing villages between the beaches where the shoreline can provide moorings for boats.

Imported food, of course (especially food from [[Mellinara]] and [[Selbern]]) has been a growing industry in recent years, too.  As there is little agriculture here, there is also very little spread of the city into a suburban sprawl that is seen in many of the other towns across the former Empire.  Visitors are often surprised by how compact the place is when the population and amount of trade that passes through here is considered.

The city has population of some 30,000 people, and has the remnants of a wall which was constructed sometime around 1050, but which was never properly completed.  In all the fighting that took place over the years, Port Epinum seems to have escaped the worst of the bloodshed - it never really featured in the wars that formed the Empire, or even in the fighting that formed the Cerlain kingdom a six hundred years ago.  It seems to have been a place of utility, but sea-borne vessels used by the military are still a new arrival to [[Arthea]], so the old town would not have held strategic importance.  It has always been tied through trade with whatever political power sat in the capital city, Tamish, since the earliest days of post-Disaster civilisation.

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CategoryPlaces