The Clutch
On the coast of the Lonestar, at the gossamer edge between blastland and the blind depths; lies The Clutch, oldest port city in the San Saba and generational home of sailors, fishmongers and leviathan hunters alike.
The peoples of the Spoiled Coast live in bizarre harmony with their unforgiving circumstances. With resignation or enthusiasm; the waterkind of the East wrestle with the forces at play beneath the black waters of the Inksea and eke out a living as tradesmen and killers; the few willing to brave the many-toothed waves and haul their thin spoils to shore.
Much of the money that flows through the Clutch stems from its single, massive cargo port. Most of the trade from Gatorland, 40Watt, and other Southeastern locales must pass through the castiron gates of The Clutch before being trucked many miles to its final destination somewhere inside the San Saba Interior. In the miles of open water and open mortis between the Clutch and more eastern ports, tradeships must contend with privateers, homicidal weather, hypermutated megafauna and the threat of badbrain outbreaks that, in the close confines of a sailing ship, spell doom for the entire crew.
The city itself, attached to the port, is a vibrant crystal growing from the fetid gray matter of the Spoiled Coast. Mostly old warehouses that have been patched and rebuilt so many times as to recall the topical Ship of Theseus, small lean-tos have been constructed in the eves of the oldcestor facilities. Possessing a kind of “grown over'' look, the thatch-roofed slums and converted boat houses meld into one another along a long promenade that begins at the mouth of the port and extends some half a mile inland. Otherwise, the porthouses of the clutch encrust the stone mantle of the port like so many glowing barnacles grown over a prefall shipwreck.
The Clutch is the most populous port in the Lonestar, the oldest port city in the San Saba and generational home of sailors, fishmongers and leviathan hunters alike. Largely inhabited by Baywalker clans and offshore Junkerpunk Saltwise this waterlogged settlement is used to surviving and rebuilding after constant turmoil from within and without. After the chaos of the Hiway War, what was once a struggling outpost that trucked largely in old ship tech and waster eels is now a bastion of trade - and host to a half dozen pirate clans that raid both sea and portwards. Because of the resurgence of the San Saba Board, the fortunes of the Clutch have waned as trade inland has dried up.
Once seen as a premium, sea-side resort, Port Victory is mostly sleepy and quiet now, the bones of former opulence resting dormant. Statues and remnants of the Purebloods who owned this land are all that remains -- now it belongs to the people. Massive white dunes crest into the berm itself and beyond the city on all sides. Curiously, the sands continue inland along dead veins of waterways, towards the Dune sea to the north-west. The further you travel from the coast, the more sterile the sand becomes until there is almost no trace of life outside of the dew-collecting succulents and tracks easily blown away by harsh winds.
The population of the Clutch varies, with most of its official residents being sailors who spend a nontrivial amount of their year at sea. Those who live there as permanent residents are generally shopkeepers, bartenders, craftfolk or family - extended family in the case of many Junkerpunk households. In the bay of the Clutch is a motley assembly of ships and makeshift buildings built on an uncertain foundation of broken hulls and former vessels. Serving as a partial seaport for larger ships that can’t make a shallow harbor, and a home for captains of the Junkerpunks that can never be claimed as territory of any landowner, the Flotilla is the heart and soul of the Junkerpunk faction. Over the years, the Flotilla has waxed and waned like the tides as new ships are built in the dampened dry docks or as broken carcasses of lost fleets are added to the ramshackle mass.
Underneath the murky water of the Inksea lies the sole morgue of the Clutch, known only as the Cicatrix. When the Gravemind reclaims biomass nearby, the tendrils that emerge resemble that of a monstrous octopoid kraken, dragging down helpless ships and those too near the water alike. The capricious nature of the morgue means the newly dead are first returned to a chaotic embrace of imminent drowning. Those that don’t survive the return are thought to become the Drowned Ones, as the spark of life is chased away by a need for air and survival.