Published by Merchant’s Guild
Welcome to Port Saint Frey, also known as the Jewel of the Ravenne Protectorate. Whether you’ve come to visit or to participate in the lifeblood of commerce in our fair city, you are welcome here. We hope this small guide will make your visit or your business more pleasant and fruitful.
Lodgings
Our distinguished guests will find luxurious accommodations at the Bailet Hotel. This fine institution is located on the Esplanade, overlooking the marketplace and the harbor, with views throughout the entire city from the rooms on the top floor. The Bailet has been thoroughly modernized with camphene lamps and a boiler in the basement that allows for en suite baths. For our more frugal guests, basins are available in each room for ablutions. WC on every floor.
Sailors are obliged to stay at the seafarer hostels on the harbor where they will be most comfortable.
Dining
There is no establishment like Alastra’s Restaurant for fine dining. Located on the Esplanade off Emery Place, this elegant restaurant specializes in fruits of the sea, oyster stew, and the world famous captain’s dinner, with biscuits as high as the gunwales, as the saying goes.
There are also many tea shops for the ladies and those with smaller appetites and leaner purses, and congenial taverns for those who wish to experience the famed hospitality of the city.
For the adventurous, try the cuisine along the waterfront, where the spicier dishes that cater to those captains and sailors who have grown accustomed to more unusual dishes on their voyages. Cuisine from Qin, the Cape, and the Eastern countries are abundant. Beware the chilies in the sauces purveyed by the street vendors! They are not for the faint of heart or sensitive of palate.
In recent years the Chahoki cuisine of the Eastern empire has made its way to Port Saint Frey. Legumes, maize, grain, venison and coney and black beer are the best Chahoki food west of the White Desert.
Shopping
Our ladies will tell you, the Mile is the best for shopping. Sturridges has been delighting for thirty years with just the right present for a friend or loved one — or for a business partner one especially wants to impress. Off the Mile is Dressmaker’s Row, where our ladies are adorned in the latest fashions by seamstresses of the hautest couture. There are a surfeit of small shops for those sundries the ladies are always out of — bonnets and gloves and slippers and ribbons, etc.
Mercantile Row is less fashionable, but there our city shops for the goods of a less rarified nature — there you will find bookstores, general stores, and purveyors of durable goods. Many a determined shopper has found bargains in these more modest surroundings that reward the hunt.
The Business of Port Saint Frey
We are a busy merchant city, and look forward to becoming partners will all good merchants wherever they hail from. You will find a Merchant Guild most interested in your proposals. Please note that no business arrangements may be made with any merchant in the Guild without the Guild’s approval. Please visit Guild Headquarters for an introduction. It is conveniently located on the Esplanade right next to the Bank of Port Saint Frey.
Please note: In years past, enterprising men of commerce have sought to bypass these regulations by going directly to Aether’s Coffee House to make arrangements with the Names. The Guild takes a dim view of such activities. This guide advises against it.
Harbor Rights
Captains and owners must visit the Guild headquarters to apply for Harbor Rights. Application fees are 2,500 guilders, no exceptions. Ships without harbor rights must anchor out past Nag’s Point until approved.
Safety
Common sense is its own reward. Men of means who wish to do business in the city, would do well to hire locals who can help them steer wide of dangerous shoals. This means those individuals whose emoluments come from understanding which sticky wheels to grease, to those individuals who can appear intimidating.
The Port Saint Frey Constabulary advises all newcomers to the city to stay away from the harbor after dark. As the Chief Constable says, “Don’t bring trouble down on yourself.”
Note: While the exploits of the Gentleman Bandit sell newspapers, the Merchant’s Guild has no official word on this brigand, were he to exist. Which we don’t think he does. But in case he did, we don’t talk about him.
Enjoy your stay!
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