On The Stilted Manors

When the hungry ocean broke Ramhknal's sea walls, half the city flooded as the waves tidily swept aside our homes. The Ramhknali didn't take the hint: we just came back and built them again. We raised them above the lapping wave on wooden pillars, and thus were born the Stilted Manors.

Where the Drowned Contrada's flooded mansions are made of stone, the Stilted Manors1 are made of wood. A maze of bridges, docks and gangways connects the contrada, each house a knot in a great wooden web2. The buildings rest on wooden stilts, no two the same height, so that the sea won't lick their floorboards. Boats float between everything always, darting like eels at dawn and lounging like fat seals come dusk3.

Almost all of these belong to fishermen4, who comprise the vast bulk of the contrada's citizenry. Some command vessels the size of houses, which drag great nets to capture swarming  squid. Others go to out in slim catamarans, diving for braided starfish5. Some fisherman need no boat at all: they cast twelve long lines from twelve wide windows,  waiting one hour between checking each line.

They do this from their affectionately named 'dandelions', for they jut out of the water on one long wooden beam, while the top blossoms into a mess of floorboards, supports and roofs. The hermits who live within rarely leave their homes6. When they care to re-provision, they lower small boats down from winches.

And so it is with the rest of the contrada. From the meager floating platform to the pleasant formal mansion, every home has it's own rowboat. It's how folks get around. Which makes committing crimes within in the Stilted Manors supremely difficult8.  It is only natural that the Contrada Guard has shifted it's focus to the sea. From their patrol boats they protect every ship within the reach of Candlemaker's9 Light10. They call themselves the Fishing Spiders11, and are regarded as the patron saints of sailors. No matter how rough the sea, the Fishing Spiders will race to your rescue. Even the Captanate's Navy, known for being dismissive of all matters civilian, holds nothing but respect for these heroes.

1. Much like the Red Tide and Tai Jin's Zoo, the Stilted Manors are never referred to as the Stilted Manors Contrada, but always as the Stilted Manors. The origin of this particular idiosyncrasy has so far evaded this humble author.
2. Weaved, no doubt, by an utterly shit faced spider.
3. When they are often used as impromptu bridges. If you can't see a way from here to there, just jump across a few boats, and be weary of a wrathful owner.
4. The Ramhknali fisherman is the wisest in all the sea of Rum; ours are many useful secrets. It was we who tied bricks to our feet and buoyed hoses to our mouths, so that we could pluck the sea sands for sleeping snailfish. It was we who learned to color pearls crimson and azure. And it was we who learned the whale songs; when the Ramhknali fisherman sings his sea dirge the Orca hears that he is mourning, and does not trouble him in his grief.
5. A local delicacy. I recommend them pan fried in goat butter, served with chopped raw chime peppers and sour cream.
6. If the Painter's Contrada exhibits the frenzied artist, then the Stilted Manors nurtures the reclusive one. Many poets, painters, authors7 and even the occasional sculptor, not keen for company from their artistic kin, seclude themselves in their dandelions. Their lonely works often turn out distorted and surreal; a diet made exclusively of fish tends to twist the mind into strange shapes.
7. The last of these benefits greatly from the Library Barge, which quietly patrols the contrada every Sunday. Anyone may flag the boat down as it passes and borrow a book from it's respectable collection. It's a very civil arrangement, partly because it's easy to track down overdue books when the residents never leave their homes.
8. Though not, of course, impossible. Here's an example mugging: you're walking between platforms in a more connected part of the contrada. A fat man rushes by you, and in his corpulence pushes you into the sea. He yells an apology but doesn't stop. As you pull yourself from the ocean, sputtering and cursing, what you've failed to realize is that you lost your purse in the drink, where even now a small child is diving to find it. Once your money is located it shall be happily split by both parties. The humble author includes this example so that the exalted reader may learn from his mistakes.
9. Named after the candlemaker's guild, who sponsored it's construction.
10. Which is quite the feat, since it is the most powerful lighthouse in the world, a true wonder of modernity. It is my pleasure to report that the glass works of Ramhknal are second to none.
11. Named after the beloved childhood pet12.
12. For those so inclined, the Spider Fancier's Society meets every Saturday at Makhmur Albaje's Bar.