A lot of people instantly associate Handra and its isles with Venice. But another City of the Seven Isles is Mumbai, with its isles of Bombay, Parel, Mahim, Mazagaon, Worli, Colaba, and Little Woman’s Isle. Actually Venice has over one hundred islands, so the Seven Isles might be inspired by early Mumbai, rather than Venice.
Corflu is more like some of those embarrassingly half-assed settlements in the American southwest like Fort Yuma or Blythe. Basically, somebody thought hey, wouldn’t this be a great financial investment – with hard work I can turn this into an important port and market. Except the location sucked, the money ran out, and eventually even the promoter was happy to sell his shares at a loss just to get away from the damn marsh bugs. Meanwhile the place shows up on all the maps as The Furthest Reaches of the Lunar Empire. But in truth it is probably more relevant to impressionable imaginations in Glamour than to anyone in Prax. Including its own residents. If I recall the Moonson freeform even had its own take on John Law’s Mississippi Company with Corflu as La Mobile.
And eventually a band of lunatics straight out of Blood Meridian show up.
Please, let’s call the Magnificent Sultan of the River Flotilla what he is. If it is the Red Navy, it is no doubt because the Oslir River is orange-brown with mud. I do wonder if the river flotilla is a separate thing from the Lunar Army.Moon Boats of course serve the Red Emperor. But there aren’t a lot of them. Heck, I expect the only Moon Boat Prax ever saw was the one that took the Coders there.