Unreviewed Port Mercy

[Arris Windrun]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: A shadowport on Kashyyyk.
• Image Credit: Here
• Canon: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Links:
  • Expedition Kashyyyk

SETTING INFORMATION

• City Name: Port Mercy
• Classification: Planetary Outpost
• Location:
  • Kashyyyk
    • Western Forest
• Affiliation:
  • The Sith Covenant
  • The Mandalorian Empire
    • Crimson Dawn
  • Sanguine Enterprises
• Population: Sparse
• Demographics:
  • Humans and Near-Humans make up the majority of Port Mercy’s population. However, native Wookies make up a sizable portion, too, plying their trades as starship mechanics, tech brokers, or as guides for adventurers seeking the bounty of the Western Forest and Shadowlands. Trandoshans are frequent in numbers as well, often as hunters. Local Sayormi can be found trading for weapons or selling their services as bodyguards. A small Gank clan has also set up shop, providing security and satisfying their bloodlust against the native wildlife. Beyond that, Port Mercy is frequented by many hyperspace-faring species. The only real separator is money and opportunity.
    • Human - 30%
    • Wookie - 15%
    • Trandoshan - 10%
    • Sayormi - 5%
    • Gank - 5%
    • Other - 35%
      
      
• Wealth: High
• Stability: Medium
• Freedom & Oppression: As a criminal hub, Port Mercy is strictly unofficial. If you have the charisma, wit, or intimidation factor to pull something off, then it’s legal. Otherwise? Causing trouble and making enemies is a quick way to get thrown out. Nothing is off-limits unless someone stronger proves otherwise.
  
  
• Description: A shadowport built out of the old remains of a long-abandoned mining outpost. Most of the facilities have since been repurposed into living quarters, service providers, cargo hangars, and landing pads. At a glance, it appears like any other small industrial hub one can find on Outer Rim worlds - a company town, perhaps.

POINTS OF INTEREST

Mother’s Nest: Named for a sathog of legendary proportion, Mother’s Nest (often just “The Nest”) is a cantina and Hunter’s Lodge that serves as Port Mercy’s primary social spot. Spacers can come to drink and gamble, while hunters gather around to swap tall tales or plan their next excursion into the Shadowlands. With alcohol aplenty and egos abound, it isn’t unusual for rivalries to develop or escalate into physical altercations. As a result, it’s also a highly guarded area, with the worst excesses kept in check by Mandalorians and Sith-aligned Gank mercenaries.

The Docks: Due to its remote location, Port Mercy is virtually inaccessible except by starship. Foot traffic and airspeeders would have a hard time navigating the thicket of Kashyyyk’s Western Forest, which otherwise guards the Port from easy detection or low-altitude (let alone ground-based) penetration. Because of this, the outpost is dotted by numerous landing pads and private hangars. The largest collection of which are uncreatively called The Docks. Here, spacers make planetfall and solicit the services of local mechanics and fuel slingers. It is also a place where underhanded deals go down between smugglers, wildcat traders, and sometimes the odd bounty hunter.

Sanguine Branch: Sanguine Enterprises maintains a small corporate enclave. The location is entirely managed at the corporation's discretion, with its own private security and amenities, including a private hangar and exclusive landing pads. The enclave is situated at the outskirts of the former worksite, offering ample room and opportunity to expand these facilities as the corporation sees fit.

Hall of Trophies: An exclusive lounge for the Sith Covenant and its associates, the Hall of Trophies is a separate lodge with full amenities for esteemed guests to rest, relax, and conduct their business in private. Named for the various hunting trophies and plaques dedicated to those who have trekked into the Shadowlands and survived. These include Varin Mortifer , Nysa Veilwalker , Kaelyr , Seris Velmora , Drakul , Vulcan Zambrano , Veyla Tass , and Nyara Dakhan , with plenty of room still to recognize future achievements. Interestingly, however, Mercy’s name is absent from the list - rumor is, the Empress invoked a rare bit of humility, preferring to highlight the achievements of others. Of course, that may very well be a flat-out lie. Few truly know her reasons for anything.

The Walkways: Port Mercy is accessible to the rest of the Western Forest by a series of precarious walkways. These include various drawbridges, low-tech lifts, and Wroshyr branches large enough to carry foot traffic or occasionally the landspeeder. Without the walkways, Port Mercy would be utterly cut off from the surface, which is why there are auto-turrets and a handful of security checkpoints scattered across the platforms. Eventually, however, the walkways bleed into nature until they disappear altogether.

SECURITY

High

• Port Mercy is safeguarded by a combination of Sith-aligned mercenaries, Mandalorians, and corporate security. While it is a criminal hub first and foremost, it is in the best interest of all parties to enforce a certain decorum, settle disputes, evict the profitless, and excise its worst offenders. In addition to these forces, Port Mercy also maintains several static security features:
  • Autoturrets
  • Security cameras
  • Life detectors
  • Weapons sensors
  • Blast doors

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

Several decades before Port Mercy’s founding, Worksite 153 existed: a mining operation that went defunct when it turned out initial prospecting reports had been falsified in a pretty common Outer Rim con. The company that established the outpost abandoned it. Shortly after, a group of Trandoshan pirates occupied the site, converting many of the facilities into smuggling warehouses and makeshift digs. Over time, their little hideaway grew into a bustling shadowport where big game hunters, smugglers, mercenaries, and wildcat traders gathered to rest, restock, and stake out their claims of the Western Forest and Shadowlands.

Some years later, the shadowport entered a state of decline as it began to cater to more unsavory types. Creditless squatters, outlaw spacers trying to evade the bounty hunters or the law, and the sort of ruthless criminal scum that did more to drive away business than bring it in. Eventually - while seeking opportunities to snatch turf away from the collapsing Black Sun - the Sith Covenant arrived at Worksite 153, excising it of undesirables and revitalizing the shadowport beyond what it ever was.

Sanguine Enterprises, a dark corporation in league with the Covenant, was given special consideration in the development and exploitation of the shadowport’s resources; though other enterprising individuals were involved, too, many of whom laid out their own stakes. Beyond Astra Sadow , these include Lily Rhodes , Vess Sadragen , Parvati , Silara IX , Meliant , and Zorath .

It wasn’t long after that Mandalore swallowed Kashyyyk into its growing empire, but an understanding had been reached. While the Sith Covenant (or more accurately, Sanguine and the Covenant’s fronts) controlled the port’s operations, Mandalore and its people would take advantage of the port’s hospitality and opportunities for mercenary work, and leverage a means to subtly enforce the Empire’s influence on criminal activities in the sector through the Crimson Dawn Syndicate.

While no shadowport’s future is ever certain, Port Mercy is otherwise poised for expansive growth as a discreet route at the intersection of Hutt, Mandalorian, and Sith Covenant shadow lanes.