Story

A harbor city, a dead man's chair and the child he chose.

Port Vesper

Port Vesper was run for decades by one man, Ambrogio Sarti, who ended a bloody war on the docks with a single rule: count the city every month instead of burning it. He died in his chair on the first night of winter. He had two children of his own blood, and one he chose. The Seat, the great ledger he called the Legacy, and the lamp on the hill went to the one he chose. You are that child. You arrive by boat with little money and a good memory. Your brother wants the house closed to anyone but blood. Your sister wants it sold before the harbor reform passes. Your father's enemies want it broken. The harbor has families. It has room for one more.

Port Vesper is a city of two clocks. Down by the water the glass towers and neon blocks never switch off: rooftop pools, night clubs, supercars idling outside lit hotels, phones in every pocket. Up on the hill the Old Families still live by the Charter of the Dry Years, written when the harbor first learned to sit at one table: three-piece suits, felt hats on the hall table, black sedans older than their drivers, business done in a room, over bread, face to face. The Dry Law itself ended long ago. The habits never did. Nobody in the city finds this strange. They call it the Old Way, and the young heirs wear it better than anyone.

A short history

Kuru YıllarThe country banned drink overnight and the harbor became the cheapest way around the ban. Families from every shore arrived, and the first houses to survive wrote the Charter: one table, one count, no hand raised at a family's door.
SolmaThe Dry Law ended and the Table lapsed. The harbor modernised around the families, but the Old Families kept the suits, the cars, the manners and the habit of a second ledger.
Liman Savaşı (bir nesil önce)New money and old shores collided over the docks. Families from every shore fought for the cranes. Streets emptied. Funerals became the city's busiest trade.
The SettlingAmbrogio Sarti, a quiet importer nobody feared, found the old Charter in a Customs House drawer and proposed the impossible: stop fighting over streets. Count them. On the first of every month, every family's claim is reset and the city is re-dealt by merit, in public, at the Grand Table. He added three rules of his own (§2.4).
The Old Man's YearsHe held the Grand Table for decades, not by force but because the families trusted his count. The city grew rich and, by its own measure, peaceful.
The Empty Seat (now)Sarti died in his chair. His will left the Seat to his chosen child, not to his blood. The Grand Table is empty, the accounts are frozen by a court petition, and every family counts differently without him. Ten Letters went out.

“A Legacy is not won once. It is earned again every month.”

The Old Man's Rules

The Hearth Rule. No hand is raised against a family's house. Business happens in the street, never at the door.
The Quiet Rule. Nobody is buried over business. A man can be hurt, humbled, or priced out; he cannot be erased.
The Honest Count. Once a month the city is counted in public. What you hold, you hold until the next count.

The Sarti House

The Sarti House is the oldest standing family in Port Vesper, though it has not held the Grand Table since the Old Man's death. Its Mansion still stands on the hill above the Docks. Its lamp is out. The Old Man took in strays all his life: anyone who came to the dock as a stranger could be called figlio, child. Two were his by blood. One was his by choice. The House has always taken in people from every shore, because the Old Man was once a stranger on this dock too.

The Will and the Letter

Before he died, the Old Man wrote his will. The Advisor read it aloud in the Mansion study, with the Judge and Madame as witnesses. It had three sentences:

“To Leo, the docks, the warehouses and my respect. To Livia, the accounts, the hospital and my trust. To my third child, the Seat, the Ledger and the Lamp; because the Seat is not property. It is a weight to be carried.”

The will leaves no one empty-handed. It only gives the Seat to someone else.

To call that child home, he wrote a Letter of a single sentence and addressed it the way he always had: figlio mio, figlia mia, my child.

“The lamp of the Mansion is yours. Light it or put it out.”

You arrive with almost nothing. A court petition has frozen the House's accounts: the Mansion still stands, but its vault is locked.

The Stepchildren Concept

Leo and Livia are story characters. They are not in the game yet.

Leonardo "Leo" Sarti · “Il Primogenito” · The Firstborn · age 44

Leo ran the Docks for twenty years: he loaded, counted and bled for the Old Man's peace while his father sat at the Table. He believes the Settling made the House soft. "A house re-dealt every month has no walls." He wants the Grand Table closed to blood and to the old families, and he cannot forgive that the Seat passed to someone who "has not carried one crate in this harbor." He is disciplined, never lies, and keeps his father's worn gloves in his coat. He will squeeze the heir's collection rounds. He will not touch the heir's door. On the heir's first night, someone leaves the Mansion's kitchen key on the step. There is no note. Everyone knows whose it is.

“He taught us to count. I am the one who carried.”

Livia Sarti · “La Bilancia” · The Scales · age 36

Livia trained in law and numbers and ran the House's accounts and the charity hospital by the harbor. She believes the Harbor Reform Act, now in committee, will strip the Old Families of their last exemptions within a few years, and that every dollar of the family's wealth is standing on a clock. She wants to dissolve the Ledger, sell the Mansion and move the holdings into banks and clinics before the clock runs out. She opposes the heir because the Seat obliges the House to keep playing a game of crowns and funerals, and she has buried enough of the family. She signed the petition that froze the accounts. She did not know that Valenti was using her signature as cover. When she finds out, she will say so, aloud, in a room full of people.

“A house on a clock is not a legacy. It is a fuse.”

Rival Families

The four families are NPCs. None of them is evil; each is right in its own way.

Moretti Defensive

Donna Immacolata Moretti, “La Roccia” (The Rock)

The Morettis were on the docks in the Dry Years and mean to be there when the glass towers are gone. Immacolata holds fewer streets than her rivals and has never given one back.

Romano Aggressive

Dario Romano, “Scintilla” (The Spark)

Dario is twenty-nine and in a hurry. Every month he eyes a new district, and every month he is surprised that nobody lets him have it.

Bellini Economic

Costanza Bellini, “L'Argento” (Silver)

Laundries, restaurants and a dozen small banks. Costanza's vaults are full and her guards are few, because she believes money is best protected by being indispensable.

Valenti Political

Ottavio Valenti, “Il Cancelliere” (The Clerk)

He never fights. His house is on the Hill, but his word carries in City Hall. He bends rules until they fit, and lets others carry the weight of his decisions.

Districts Coming soon

Today the city map shows The Docks. The other districts and their Landmarks are coming soon.

The Docks

Salt, rope and ledgers. Everything that enters the city passes under these cranes first.

Landmark: Customs House

Velvet Mile

Neon after dark, quiet by noon. The back rooms pay more than the front.

Landmark: The Grand Marquee

The Works

Furnaces, rail yards and warehouses. A man's worth here is the weight he can ship.

Landmark: Rail Terminal

Finance Row

Glass towers, marble lobbies, quiet voices, loud money. Every family keeps an account here, in a different name.

Landmark: Central Bank

Lantern Quarter

Theaters, jazz rooms, rooftop pools and tea gardens. The one place where all the families smile at each other.

Landmark: Grand Hotel

The Quay

The old customs stairs and the border sheds, where cargo changes hands before the paperwork is dry.

Landmark: Quay Warehouse

Civic Center

City Hall, the courts and one very large round table.

Landmark: The Grand Table

Councils Coming soon

When several heirs and houses decide to sit together, they form a Council: a table inside the Table. Councils share a vault, a research tree and a bad habit of arguing over who sits where. They are how a quiet house becomes a power.

Blood or Word?

Who carries the Seat: those born to it, or those who choose to bear its weight? Being the chosen child means proving it again every month, with your word, your work and a house that stays standing.

There are no villains in Port Vesper, only different counts. Leo counts the past, Livia the future, Moretti the order of things, Romano the opportunity, Bellini the money and Valenti the rules.

And the Hearth Rule holds for everyone: brothers, sisters and rivals press you at the door, never through it. Collection rounds, courts and the monthly count, but never your house.

The Goal

Protect the inheritance. Earn with your word what others claim by blood. Make the Sarti House the strongest family in Port Vesper.

This month Coming soon
Raise your Influence, hold Territory and have your rank written down on Settling Day, when the city is counted.
The House In game
Build it back: upgrade the Mansion, gather the crew, run the Estate and, later, sit with a Council.
The Ledger Coming soon
Fill it for good: raise your Legacy, hold Landmarks, sit at the Grand Table and be Kingpin for a month.

The game has no finish line. The Seat is earned again every month; the Estate, the crew and the Legacy stay.