Terk' castle?
just curious as I wouldn't think it would be at his manor.
thanks for any help on this one
RM
It would, in all likelihood be located near the harbour, and probably close to the harbour entrance and the merchant district or the garrision at the castle. There needs to be reasonable access for inbound ships and all manner of harbour- and waterside traffic. The harbourmaster might also need close proximity to a guard station or a garrision in order to bring manpower in to back up any unpopular decisions or calls.
I decided to use building F4 in the Merchant district (nominally the Smith's guildhall ) and dismissed them to another district. Nobody complained or cared.It just seemed a realistic placement in the heart of the merchant district and convenient access to a pier and the nearby castle.
imho, HIS office would be in his manor. He probably has as many seconds as there are docks, hence the ease with which the Lotus Dragons can take over the harbor. The tariffs/collections/taxes/fees would likely be under gaurd in the castle though.
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The thing with his manor being his office,the question I present is "Would you want all the harbor traffic coming & goin to your place of residence thou? I know I surely wouldn't want them.
I was thinking Azure as the other spot as well, being that the descriptions do say whaling, while Merchant District is more concerned with city trade. Maybe a office near the garrison perhaps? Just in case, of course.
The thing with his manor being his office,the question I present is "Would you want all the harbor traffic coming & goin to your place of residence thou? I know I surely wouldn't want them.
The office premises would need proximity to the harbour, to check upon the veracity of sailors'/captains' claims as to the type, size, position and condition of their vessels.
Given that the harbourmaster is responsible for the allocation of mooring and docking spaces (and maximum times, possibly) for every major vessels (aka, everything ut boats) in a prosperous and rather crowded harbour like Sasserine, collecting the corresponding fees, gauranteeing the safety of vessels in port (protection from pirates and burgalrs ) , responsibility of keeping the anchorage free of disturbances (like floating salesfolk etc), making sure quarantined vessels keep their "off-station" and are closely watched, the public offices would definitely be somewhere central and waterside.
Not to metion of having dozens or hundreds of clients rushing to and forth from the office, on business, with stinky, sea-stained clothes etc. Not to mention avaricious eyes or simply clumsi, if curious manners.
Besides and (renaissance) official worth his salt will want to have a representative seat of power (plus coat of arms, guards, livery and retinue of clerks ) furnished for him by the city, as befits the humongous duties he has to fulfill.
as for district choice, I picked the merchant district simply because the goods being landed from the ships would bring in the raw materials for the town's businesses, and short routes and proximity would be a benefit.
Harbormaster is usually the guy in charge of allocating dock space and making sure that the mooring facilities are in good repair. Ships would not stop in at his office--they'd anchor out and send a boat in to make arrangements to come pierside at any city-owned facilities.
The harbormaster might be a different entity from the officer in charge of collecting customs duties, although it makes quite a bit of sense for the harbormaster to collect taxes since he knows what ships are in harbor and has an idea of their cargo and such. But the most efficient way to supervise this would be to have underlings in charge of each of the docking areas, and each underling sends the customs money to Islaran, who counts it up and deposits it in some sort of vault at the castle.
The harbormaster probably also takes care of pilotage issues, like making sure the harbor is dredged and the various buoys, lights, and markers are in good repair to improve safety of navigation.
In a place like Sasserine, which has a huge merchant fleet, the Harbormaster might maintain a repository of nautical charts as well, although some merchant families might not share their private charts with the Harbormaster.
In general, before modern times people tended to work and live in the same building much more often. In such a sprawling manor, it would be easy to have a public courtyard and suite of offices where the harbormaster and his assistants receive business visitors and a separate private section of the manor that serves as House Islaran's private dwelling compound. There would be interior passages between the two, but you'd enter by a different gate if you are making a private call.
In general, before modern times people tended to work and live in the same building much more often. In such a sprawling manor, it would be easy to have a public courtyard and suite of offices where the harbormaster and his assistants receive business visitors and a separate private section of the manor that serves as House Islaran's private dwelling compound. There would be interior passages between the two, but you'd enter by a different gate if you are making a private call.
This is basically what I did in my game -- something like this was in the back of my head, but mostly I made that decision because it kept things simple; I didn't have to identify (and remember) yet another building on the map.