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Pressganged!

Built on the unreconisable remains of an ancient volcano, Solis boasts a well protected deep and safe harbour in the otherwise trecherous estuary of the the mighty Dal river, with its shifting shoals and sandbanks, racing tides and thick mists.

The docks are what made Solis rich, a shining jewel among the polished glass of the City States. Goods from across the world passed through the bonded warehouses of Old Solis before making their way overland to the towns and cities upstream on the Dal. Everything from the mundane to the exotic passed through the great gates, coal, ore, timber, cloth, firs, foodstuffs, you name it, solis took some cut of it.

The docks were the lifeblood of the city, built up over the years to cater for all types of ship, from small coastal traders to great ocean going monsters, from single hand fishers to many handed whale boats and of course a timber-and-iron hulled navy that could ensure that traders were safe here.

With the mighty tides of the Dal, the engineers of Solis even came up with a basin dock that could be used at from half tide up, using a massive sea wall. Later still huge lock gates were installed and the Solis dock became even more important.

The advent of lock gates and the overzelous greed of Solis led to her downfall. With a virtual monopoly on trade, and navy to ensure goods were only landed here, plus a coastline that was cut from jagged rock with high cliffs and precipitous trails on one side and a flat, marsh ridden, bogged morass on the other, there was little other option for traders. The taxes on goods both in and out of Solis soared. Several times the Hinterland states marched against Solis, but her walls, her navy and her well paid mercenary army watched the massed flood crash against solis like waves against the very cliffs that she was built upon. Solis stood firm, bled them dry in revenge, and all but led to their ruin - almost but not quite, after all, how would Solis survive if the cities it fed were dead and gone?

But eventually the Hinterland States formed a new plan, and it would spell the end of Solis, and it relied upon the greed of Solis as its key. Diplomatic missions set out into the wider world, and the Hinterlands sourced all that they needed to topple Solis, though it cost them dearly, and brought it back through Solis, paying tax and bribe where needed, paying off any who stood in the way. For among the goods they brought in were living, breathing cargo.

Thus the made their bid for escape from the noose of tithe and tax. They sounded a new coastal town across the estuary in the uninhabitable low lands, and they made it habitable with the skills and knowledge of artisans from a-far who had knowledge of living in such places, and the labour of the slaves they had cruelly shipped half way across the world.

DalHaven was born, and Solis could only watch as it grew. But there was no fear, for the land was prone to flood, there was no port, there was only one seasonal road in and out. Until the great play was made and a both a dock was built at DalHaven and from there a canal driven deep into the heart of the Hinterlands, suported by forts every five miles, and a constant patrol of armed men. And all controlled by the use of great lock gates, copied from the massive valves first used in Solis itself, designed it is said, by the very same engineer.

From that day, the fate of Solis was sealed. The canal was completed, and the waves that once crashed, mirth taunted, against the walls of Solis had at last undermined it and would bring it crashing down.