Argosi

Argosi's flag

Argosi topside, omitting the underside parishes Outher and Yaleven

**Argosi** (pronounced *aar-GO-see*) is the legendary first city founded on Chebeth. Many kith consider this city to be little more than myth. Melichor Verasmus Hewliss once framed the belief in Argosi as, "a collective fever-dream masquerading as history." Unbeknownst to Hewliss and the others, **Argosi** is indeed real and was originally founded on a large island off the southeastern coast of Yulia, roughly corresponding to the present day location of Ochoa.

The city of **Argosi** is unique to all other settlements of its size. The city moves constantly through the various oceans and seas of Chebeth, pulled by its fleet of tethered vessels. It has done so since leaving the confines of southeastern Yulia and as such, the concept of seasons based on the weather has lost all meaning. Despite this, the city is married to the sea and salt is constantly in the air, the "land" on which the city's buildings reside are nothing more than semi-stationary ships lashed, tethered, bolted, and welded together to make a gargantuan floating foundation. Some ships have been filled with soil and act as parks and small gardens, serving as home to only the most resilient of plants. Others have become whole tenement blocks, tall buildings, or hollowed out into theaters, factories, and workshops.

## Geography

Most citizens of **Argosi** travel the city via the myriad interconnected bridges connecting the ships to one another. The more affluent use small personal lighter-than-air craft known as aerostats and travel over the city in the sky. Even more take small dinghies, gondolas, and rafts to traverse the city on the water.

Two of the city's Parishes, Outher and Yaleven, are located beneath the waves. Built into coral and barnacle-like structures cemented to the underbellies of hundreds of vessels, the cities two sub-species of Crayfolk make their homes there. The Lobstone Cray primarily populate Outher while the Crabstroll live in Yaleven. These parishes are listed below, along with who they often have represent them at the pan-Argosi Parish Council.

### Parishes

* Armada - Van vi Denici, the Salt Corsair
* Brunthouse - First Foreman Edda Hornhart
* Caractacus - Caractacus Pentarchy
* Dry Moon - the Brine Sovereign
* Harbount Squall - Custodian Hower
* Outher - Drhyten Martzel
* Pennywigs - Oberlein Pennywigs CCCLVII
* Yaleven - Drhyten Ekain

### The Fleets

Lashed-together and repurposed boats made up the majority of **Argosi**, but there were three fleets of unconnected ships, each tasked with a specific role. All three were administered by the leadership of Armada.

* The Eye
* The Guide
* The Talon

## Demographics

**Argosi** is one of the most diverse cities on Chebeth, if not the most. Other than the Parishes of Outher and Yaleven, this diversity extends across the city. Elves, Humans, Halflings, Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblinoids, Crayfolk, Dragonborn, Tieflings, Tortles, Sahuagin, Lizardfolk, and many others have made their homes in **Argosi** over the many thousands of years of its existence.

### The Pressganged

If there was one thing that all the parishes could agree on, it was that immigration to **Argosi** would be non-existent. The city was to always remain hidden from the rest of Chebeth, partly for its own defense, and partly out of pride. Whenever an unlucky ship would be blown off-course and accidentally encounter **Argosi**, the city would seize the vessel and give its crew and/or passengers a choice: remain on Argosi forever or be drowned. These new arrivals were known as the "Pressganged" and would be forbidden from ever leaving the city. The only **Argosi** citizens permitted to venture outside the city were those native born.

The irony of the **Pressganged** is that some of even the longest living families in Argosi were actually **Pressganged** in their distant pasts.

## Culture

The culture of **Argosi** was wild and varied. Each parish had a distinct set of cultural mores and customs, but there were some characteristics that nearly all Argosans had in common. It was standard for all native-born Argosans to believe in the primacy of their city's culture over the rest of the world. It was also extremely important that all Argosans took pains to keep their city's existence and its location a secret from any outside power. Maintaining this secrecy was important for the city's defense but had also become an integral part of the **Argosi** identity. Some Argosans mistrusted the Pressganged out of fear that they may betray the city at some point. While the Pressganged were enthusiastically invited to assimilate themselves into the city's culture, they would always be forbidden from leaving for this reason.

These ideals were often expressed in the following precepts **Argosi**-born children learned in school:

1. The gods have forsaken the land of Chebeth to the dragons and giants. Argosi must take the sea.
2. Like water, we move. The oceans shall hide us from the children of the land.
3. The Pressganged were once of the land and now of the sea. They deserve our protection and our pity.
4. We are most free kith in the world.

## Defense

**Argosi**'s greatest defense was its mobility, slow as it was. It's secondary level of defense was the fact that most kith in Chebeth believed its very existence to be a legend. Thirdly, **Argosi** regularly sent out trading vessels to some of the major port of the world. All are able to find their way back due to **Argosi**'s orbotic lodestone.

Eschewing a city-wide system of policing, each parish managed their own. As such, some parishes could seem almost like lawless havens of chaos (Pennywigs), strict theocratic near-police-states (Dry Moon), or somewhere in between (most of the others). The underside parishes of Outher and Yaleven, though independent of each other politically, often collaborated, employing awakened dolphins, sharks, and other sea creatures to run security in their holdings. Together, the two underside parishes also accounted for most of **Argosi**'s underwater defensive capabilities.

In the interest of fostering more cooperation between parishes, the Yeoman Corps was founded in Caractacus as a form of intra-parish policing but only Harbount Squall, Brunthouse, Outher, Yaleven, and Caractacus itself took part in the project. As such, the corps was headquartered in Caractacus and its membership made up of recruits from the participating parishes. The parishes of Armada and Dry Moon maintained their own forms of policing and were not known to let the Yeoman Corps operate without certain restrictions within their borders. Pennywigs was openly hostile to the idea of any "unified police force" and refused to honor the Yeoman Corps.

There was no standing army representing all of **Argosi**. That said, if the city as a whole was even threatened, it was understood and expected for all parishes to work together to eliminate such a threat. Though historically rare, when the city was ever attacked out-right, the combined forces of the parishes would generally act as a united force to push away any interlopers.

## Commerce

The city's had little external trade to speak of. While **Argosi** would regularly send ships throughout the world for certain rarer supplies and resources, these ships almost always hid their true nature, pretending to be vessels from a random power in Tretch, Yulia, or Ossus. Certain goods were often coveted by these traders, such as more soil or plants for planting crops in Caractacus, spellcasting reagents tied to terrestrial sources, and most types of refine-able ore.

Most **Argosi** trade was internal and as a whole, the city was remarkably self-sufficient. Outher and Yaleven maintained vast underwater farms for producing edible sea flora and fauna as well as special seaweed and algae destined for the city's paper producers. Ink was plentiful and sourced from underwater octopus ranches. Topside, there were small chicken, pig, and chinchilla farms in Caractacus, Armada, and Harbount Squall. Caractacus was also home to many small fruit and vegetable gardens planted atop old ship hulls filled with soil.

Brunthouse was known as the manufacturing center of Argosi and was host to multiple shipyards, equipment factories, forges, and refineries. The majority of all ore obtained by the city's outriders would make its way to Brunthouse for processing.

Pennywigs was the mercantile center of the city. The largest markets in **Argosi** were found there and Pennywigs, as a parish, was ruled by a capitalistic oligarchy orbiting the holdings of the Pennywigs Limited Liability Corporation as well as Pennywigs Savings & Loan.

## Broadsheets

Many facets of Argosi's culture revolved around the proliferation of pamphlets, newspapers, and magazines, collectively termed "broadsheets." There were a handful of large and well-regarded traditional multi-page newspapers with circulation around the city. In addition, each parish and most smaller neighborhoods commonly printed their own, smaller and more insular 'sheets. The majority of paper was made from algae and seaweed harvested from farms in the undersea parishes of Outher and Yaleven, with ink harvested from their octopus ranches.

The most important 'sheets are listed below:

* The Primer - based in Armada, a very matter-of-fact 'sheet on the upcoming weather patterns, shipping new, fleet movements, and general bearing of the city. Releases weekly on Numsdays, with occasional special editions.
* Argosan Digest - based in Caractacus, a curated collection of public interest stories taken from many smaller 'sheets. It's an anthology paper. There are a couple paid columnists. Releases monthly on the first day of each.
* The Runagate Rampant - based in Brunthouse, this is the union rag. They report things from a labor perspective though generally skew towards a Hornhart perspective on most issues. Releases weekly on Numsdays.
* La Mer - based in Caractacus, this is the most popular of all the 'sheets. It contains the most basic, unbiased, and harmless reporting on "everything worth anything" throughout the city of **Argosi**. Releases weekly on Ashdays, with a "capstone" release at the top of every month that contains more cultural, sports, and political long-form writing.

## Organizations

The following are some of the organizations active in the city of Argosi. Other, even smaller groups certainly exist.

* Brunthouse Consolidated Trades
* Circle of Radiant Salt
* Caractacus Pentarchy
* Corvoruum
* Leviathan's Eye Detectives
* Parish Council
* Pennywigs Limited Liability Corporation
* Pennywigs Savings & Loan
* Scribekeeper's Guild
* Yeoman Corps