If You Grew Up In Ramon
For any characters growing up in Ramon, the write up below is from the perspective of the typical Ramon citizen and what you’ve most likely grown up hearing. By nature of Ramon having frequent communication with Barbose (specifically, their port city Riviera) and inter-city communication being so sparse in Agora, Ramon’s the only Agoran city to have any idea what’s going on beyond their home island.
What You Know About Ramon
“Say what you will about the Arment family or Lord Halsey’s policies regarding the neighboring cities, but there’s no denying that family has single handedly secured our fair city’s good fortune in light of a whole bloody island vanishing into thin air and this once beautiful island withering away to dust.”
Despite the diversity of ideals and values, all Ramon people share a love for their glowing city. While loyalty or even care towards outsiders is hard to come by, Ramon’s citizens do have a strong sense of familial loyalty towards one another and go out of their way to help one another. As a result, the city’s poor/peasant class is practically nonexistent, with most people being at least working class.
When the city’s not overflowing with sailors from their return trips, the city consists mostly of artisans and guild members. You name it, they have a guild for it: marble sculpting, painting, pottery, jewelers, the works. Historically, Ramon never had much raw materials to trade with, so they had to get creative to produce anything worth trading.
You’d know that the entire city lives off the shipping route with Riviera. Due to the danger of ship travel and the few active ships left in the fleet, a crew’s return is met with a solid week of celebration and a couple months of family time before they must set out to once again to make the dangerous route to Riviera. Due to the mystic, attention, and danger surrounding the profession, most young boys and girls in Ramon dream of being sailors one day themselves.
You’d also know that it’s not too uncommon for ships to never return at all, and has been becoming increasingly common in recent times.
What You’ve Heard About Riviera
“Now that’s a city that knows how to adapt! If it weren’t for us, I’d say Riviera is the most prosperous city left on the ocean.”
You’d know Ramon and Riviera have coexisted for ages: Ramon providing precious art pieces, and Riviera providing raw materials from their mineral-rich land. Because of their history together, Riviera is perhaps the only city Ramon people would go out of their way to help.
While only sailors have actually been to Riviera, you’d have no doubt heard stories of their wondrous invention called the “steam train” that spans the entire parameter of Barbose, connecting all their various mines to the port city. You’d have also heard that the city is famous for having the toughest workers around, and that the people there value putting in a good day of physical work and a good night of carefree pleasure above all else. Very simple lives, but honest lives.
What You’ve Heard About Drakkar
“Those people need to understand that we’re all just trying our best to survive in this damn world, they’re just jealous we’re doing a better job of it.”
Since Ramon pays for its routine coal and occasional stone shipments to be delivered, practically nobody has journeyed to Drakkar for centuries (save for the heads of the merchant guilds on occasional negotiation trips). After all, why would you? Nothing you’ve heard about the city makes it seem like the kind of place you’d ever want to see, let alone visit. It’s grimy and poverty-stricken, with people that are supposedly just as cold as their weather. From the constant “whining” for more money per coal shipment and stories of Drakkar’s poverty, most people in Ramon think Drakkar should consider themselves fortunate anyone conducts business with them at all.
What You’ve Heard About Lorelai
“Where?”
It’s doubtful you’ve even heard of Lorelai before. If you have, the most you’d know is it used to be a thriving hub city serving trade between Ramon and Ivarstead via the Amber River, but trade hasn’t been conducted on the river in ages. Instead, nowadays occasional shipments are sent back and forth with caravans via the Auburn Road.
What You’ve Heard About Ivarstead
“Sure, Ivarstead were a cruel, hard bunch of people back in the day, but now? The place is just… odd. To be honest, I try not to work any caravan routes there when I can help it.”
While practically nobody has travelled to Drakkar (and even fewer know of Lorelai’s existence), a handful of people have made occasional trips to Ivarstead on trade caravans, and the stories they tell upon their return are always strange. Sometimes they arrive and the city seems even more busy than Ramon, while other times it seems practically nobody’s left in the city at all (even though the boats are always there). After all, they don’t sail anymore, traveling the Black Tar Ocean nowadays is a death sentence…