Gorean City of Port Kar

For Additional Port Kar Quotes see:  Known As .. Port Kar

1) Port Kar is also known as: Tarn of the Sea and Jewel of the Gleaming Thassa.

Port Kar, crowded, squalid, malignant, is sometimes referred to as the Tarn of the Sea. Her name is a synonym in Gorean for cruelty and piracy. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 6

I did not know if the victory we had won, for victory it surely seemed to be, was decisive or not, but I well knew that the twenty-fifth of Se'Kara, for that was the day on which this battle had been fought, would not be soon forgotten in Port Kar, that city once called squalid and malignant, but which had now found a Home Stone, that city once called the scourge of gleaming Thassa, but which might now be better spoken of, as she had been by some of her citizens aforetimes, as her jewel, the jewel of gleaming Thassa. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 280

2) There is no Free companionship as we know it, rather the woman is taken by the man and simply know as their woman.

Port Kar does not recognize the Free Companionship, but there are free women in the city, who are known simply as the women of their men. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 295

3) Land is precious. If you have a garden, it is generally inside your house.

Yards, and gardens and courts, if they exist, are generally within the house, not outside it. This is very general in Gorean architecture. But there were few gardens or courts in Port Kar. It was a crowded city, built up from the marshes themselves, in the Vosk's delta, and space was scarce and precious. EXPLORERS OF GOR, page 46

4) The city is no longer governed by Ubars, but rather a Council of Captains.

As I thought it would, the group of proposals set before the council by Samos passed overwhelmingly. There were some abstentions, and some nays, perhaps from those who feared the power of one or another of the Ubars, but the decision on the whole was clear, a devastating of the claims of the Ubars and the, in effect, enthronement of the council of captains as the sovereign of the city. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 159

5) It was the only city to not have a Home Stone until Bosk/Tarl made it so. Fish, a slave boy who went for the rock, was the first to accept the Home Stone of Port Kar.

"And what of Port Kar?" I asked.
"She has no Home Stone," said one of the men.
I smiled. It was true. Port Kar, of all the cities on Gor, was the only one that had no Home Stone. I did not know if men did not love her because she had on Home Stone, or that she had no Home Stone because men did not love her.
The officer had proposed, as clearly as one might, that the city be abandoned to the flames, and to the ravaging seamen of Cos and Tyros.
Port Kar had no Home Stone.
"How many of you think," I asked, "that Port Kar has no Home Stone?"
The men looked at one another, puzzled. All knew, of course, that she had no Home Stone.
There was silence.
Then, after a time, Tab said, "I think that she might have one."
"But," said I, "she does not yet have one."
"No," said Tab.
"I," said one of the men, "wonder what it would be like to live in a city where there is a Home Stone."
"How does a city obtain a Home Stone?" I asked.
"Men decide that she shall have one," said Tab.
"Yes," I said, "that is how it is that a city obtains a Home Stone."
The men looked at one another.
"Send the slave boy Fish before me," I said.
The men looked at one another, not understanding, but one went to fetch the boy.
I knew that none of the slaves would have fled. They would not have been able to. The alarm had come in the night, and, at night, in a Gorean household, it is common for the slaves to be confined; certainly in my house, as a wise precaution, I kept my slaves well secured; even Midice, when she had snuggled against me in the love furs, when I had finished with her, was always chained by the right ankle to the slave ring set in the bottom of my couch. Fish would have been chained in the kitchen, side by side with Vina.
The boy, white-faced, alarmed, was shoved into my presence.
"Go outside," I told him, "and find a rock, and bring it to me."
He looked at me.
"Hurry!" I said.
He turned about and ran from the room.
We waited quietly, not speaking, until he returned. He held in his hand a sizable rock, somewhat bigger than my fist. It was a common rock, not very large, and gray and heavy, granular in texture.
I took the rock.
"A knife," I said.
I was handed a knife.
I cut in the rock the initials, in block Gorean script, of Port Kar.
Then I held out in my hand the rock.
I held it up so that the men could see.
"What have I here?" I asked.
Tab said it, and quietly, "The Home Stone of Port Kar."
"Now," said I, facing the man who had told me there was but one choice, that of flight, "shall we fly?"
He looked at the simple rock, wonderingly. "I have never had a Home Stone before," he said.
"Shall we fly?" I asked.
"Not if we have a Home Stone," he said.
I held up the rock. "Do we have a Home Stone?" I asked the men.
"I will accept it as my Home Stone," said the slave boy, Fish. None of the men laughed. The first to accept the Home Stone of Port Kar was only a boy, and a slave. But he had spoken as a Ubar.
"And I!" cried Thurnock, in his great, booming voice.
"And I!" cried Clitus.
"And I!" said Tab.
"And I!" cried the men in the room. And, suddenly, the room was filled with cheers and more than a hundred weapons left their sheaths and saluted the Home Stone of Port Kar. I saw weathered seamen weep and cry out, brandishing their swords. There was joy in that room then such as I had never before seen it. And there was a belonging, and a victory, and a meaningfulness, and cries, and the clashing of weapons, and tears and, in that instant, love.
I cried to Thurnock. "Release all the slaves! Send them throughout the city, to the wharves, the taverns, the arsenal, the piazzas, the markets, everywhere! Tell them to cry out the news! Tell them to tell everyone that there is a Home Stone in Port Kar!" RAIDERS OF GOR, Pages 250-252

6) The delta, claimed by Port Kar, is her strongest wall.

No one had been found who would guide me into the delta of the Vosk. The bargemen of the Vosk will not take their wide, broad-bottomed craft into the delta. The channels of the Vosk, to be sure, shift from season to season, and the delta is often little more than a trackless marsh, literally hundreds of square pasangs of estuarial wilderness. In many places it is too shallow to float even the great flat-bottomed barges and, more importantly, a path for them would have to be cut and chopped, foot by foot, through the thickets of rush and sedge, and the tangles of marsh vine. The most important reason for not finding a guide, of course, even among the eastern rence growers, is that the delta is claimed by Port Kar, which lies within it, some hundred pasangs from its northwestern edge, bordering on the shallow Tamber Gulf, beyond which is gleaming Thassa, the Sea. RAIDERS OF GOR, Pages 5-6

One might think that Port Kar, divided as she is, a city in which are raised the thrones of anarchy, would fall easy prey to either the imperialisms or the calculated retaliations of the other cities, but it is not true. When threatened from the outside the men of Port Kar have, desperately and with the viciousness of cornered urts, well defended themselves. Further, of course, it is next to impossible to bring large bodies of armed men through the delta of the Vosk, or, under the conditions of the marsh, to supply them or maintain them in a protracted siege.
The delta itself is Port Kar's strongest wall. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 104

7) The city does not recognize/celebrate Kajuralia.

The Kajuralia, or the Holiday of Slaves, or Festival of slaves, occurs in the most of the northern, civilized cities of known Gor once a year. The only exception to this that I know of is Port Kar, in the delta of the Vosk. The date of the Kajuralia, however differs. Many cities celebrate it on the Twelfth Passage Hand; the day before the beginning of the Waiting Hand; in Ar, however, and certain cities, it is celebrated on the last day of the fifth month, which is the day preceding the Love Feast. ASSASSIN OF GOR, Page 229

8) The chains of slavery are the heaviest on the slaves of Port Kar.

"I have heard," said Sarus, "that the chains of a slave girl are heaviest in Port Kar." HUNTERS OF GOR, Page 275

9) Commonly welcomes strangers; generally those who are cut-throats, pirates, and thieves.

I was in the delta of the Vosk, and making my way to the city of Port Kar, which alone of Gorean cities commonly welcomes strangers, though few but exiles, murderers, outlaws, thieves and cutthroats would care to find their way to her canalled darknesses. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 6

10) Has a Caste of Thieves who have a specific caste mark.

There is even, in Port Kar, a recognized caste of Thieves, the only such I know of on Gor, which, in the lower canals and perimeters of the city, has much power, that of the threat and the knife. They are recognized by the Thiefs Scar, which they wear as a caste mark, a tiny, three-pronged brand burned into the face in back of and below the eye, over the right cheekbone. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 104

11) Men have died, lost in the vosk, not knowing the pith of the rence plant, which grows in the vosk, is edible.

The plant has many uses besides serving as a raw product in the manufacture of rence paper. The root, which is woody and heavy, is used for certain wooden tools and utensils, which can be carved from it; also, when dried, it makes a good fuel; from the stem the rence growers can make reed boats, sails, mats, cords and the kind of fibrous cloth; further, its pith is edible, and for the rence growers is, with fish, a staple in their diet; the pith is edible both raw and cooked; some men, lost in the delta, not knowing the pith edible, have died of starvation in the midst of what was, had they known it, an almost endless abundance of food. The pith is also used, upon occasion, as a caulking for boat seams, but tow and pitch, covered with tar or grease, are generally used. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 7

12) The canals, when Bosk first enters the city, are gated. Prior to that, they were not.

Four days ago, in the afternoon, after two days in the marshes, my party had reached the canals of the city.
We had come to one of the canals bordering on the delta.
We had seen that the canal was guarded by heavy metal gates, of strong bars, half submerged in the water.
Telima had looked at the gates, frightened. "When I escaped from Port Kar," she said, "there were no such gates."
"Could you have escaped then," asked I, "as you did, had there been such gates?"
"No," she whispered, frightened, "I could not have."
The gates had closed behind us. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 101

The canals which open into the delta of the Tamber were, in the last few years, fitted with heavy, half-submerged gates of bars. We had entered the city through one such pair of gates. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 103

13) Buildings that face outward, have no windows on the outward side and those sides are several feet thick.

Port Kar, squalid, malignant Port Kar, scourge of gleaming Thassa, Tarn of the Sea, is a vast, disjointed mass of holdings, each almost a fortress, piled almost upon one another, divided and crossed by hundreds of canals. It is, in effect, walled, though it has few walls as one normally thinks of them. Those buildings which face outwards, say, either at the delta or along the shallow Tamber Gulf, have no windows on the outward side, and the outward walls of them are several feet thick, and they are surmounted, on the roofs, with crenelated parapets. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 103

14) Gets all of its timber from the northern forests where they have several reserves.

A motion was on the floor that a new preserve in the northern forests be obtained, that more timber for the arsenal be available. In the northern forests Port Kar already had several such preserves. There is a ceremony in the establishment of such a preserve, involving proclamations and the surrounds of trumpets. Such preserves are posted, surrounded by ditches to keep out cattle and unlicensed wagoners. There are wardens who watch the trees, guarding against illegal cutting and pasturage, and inspectors who, each year, tally and examine them. The wardens are also responsible, incidentally, for managing and improving the woods. They do such work as thinning and planting, and trimming, and keeping the protective ditch in repair. They are also responsible for bending and fastening certain numbers of young trees so that they will grow into desired shapes, usually to be used for frames, and stem and sternposts. Individual trees, not in the preserves, which are claimed by Port Kar, are marked with the seal of the arsenal. The location of all such trees is kept in a book available to the Council of Captains. These preserves are usually located near rivers, in order to facilitate bringing cut trees to the sea. Trees may also be purchased from the Forest People, who will cut them in the winter, when they can be dragged on sleds to the sea. If there is a light snowfall in a given year, the price of timber is often higher. Port Kar is, incidentally, completely dependent on the northern timber. Tur wood is used for galley frames, and beams and clamps and posts, and for hull planking; Ka-la-na serves for capstans and mastheads; Tem-wood for rudders and oars; and the needle trees, the evergreens, for masts and spars, and cabin and deck planking. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 141

15) Port Kar is the only city constructed by slaves.

I knew that only those who were free would be permitted to make a city. Doubtless there were many slaves in Ko-ro-ba but they would be allowed only to serve those who raised the walls and towers. Not one stone could be placed in either wall or tower by a man or woman who was not free. The only city I know of on Gor which was built by the labor of slaves, beneath the lash of masters, is Port Kar, which lies in the delta of the Vosk. ASSASSIN OF GOR, Pages 60-61

16) There are no towers in Port Kar.

In Port Kar, incidentally, there are none of the towers often encountered in the northern cities of Gor. The men of Port Kar had not chosen to build towers. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 103

17) Port Kar has the best dancers; some who are even free women.

“If you see her,” I said, “I think you will not feel sorry for her.” I didn’t really feel like telling Elizabeth that no one ever feels sorry for a wench from Port Kar. They tend to be superb, feline, vicious, startling. They are famed as dancers throughout all the cities of Gor.  NOMADS OF GOR; 4; Page 148

The dancing girls of Port Kar are said to be the best of all Gor. They are sought eagerly in the many cities of the planet. They are slave to the core, vicious, treacherous, cunning, seductive, sensuous, dangerous, desirable, excruciatingly desirable. RAIDERS OF GOR, Page 100

There was too a free dancing girl, a beauty with high cheekbones, named Sandra, who much pleased herself with the men of Bosk, and earned much moneys in the doing of it.  CAPTIVE OF GOR; 7; Pages 358-359

18) The death of the blood and the sea is the right of man in Port Kar.

It was Luma, the chief scribe of my house, in her blue robe and sandals. Her hair was blond and straight, tied behind her head with a ribbon of blue wool, from the bounding Hurt, died in the blood of the Vosk sorp. She was a scrawny girl, not attractive, but with deep eyes, blue; and she was a superb scribe, in her accounting swift, incisive, accurate, brilliant; once she had been a paga slave, though a poor one; I had slaved her from Surbus, a captain, who had purchased her to slay her, she not having served him to his satisfaction in the alcoves of the tavern; he would have cast her, bound, to the swift, silken urts in the canals. I had dealt Surbus his death blow, but, before he had died I had, on the urging of the woman, she moved to pity, carried him to the roof of the tavern, that he might, before his eyes closed, look once more upon the sea. He was a pirate, and a cut-throat, but he was not unhappy in his death; he had died by the sword, which would have been his choice, and before he had died he had looked again upon the gleaming Thassa; it is called the death of blood and the sea; he died not unhappy; men of Port Kar do not care to die in their beds, weak, lingering, at the mercy of tiny foes that cannot see; they live often by violence and desire that they shall similarly perish; to die by the sword is regarded as the right, and honor, of he who lives by it. MARAUDERS OF GOR, Pages 1-2

19) Property law in Port Kar; and, sword right.

After the death of Surbus, the woman had been mine. I had won her from him by sword right. I had, of course, as she had expected, put her in my collar, and kept her slave. To my astonishment, however, by the laws of Port Kar, the ships, properties and chattels of Surbus, he having been vanquished in fair combat and permitted death of blood and sea, became mine; his men stood ready to obey me; his ships became mine to command; his hall became my hall, his riches mine, his slaves mine. It was thus that I had become a captain in Port Kar, Jewel of gleaming Thassa.  MARAUDERS OF GOR, Page 2

20) Right of one of Port Kar - Free men do as they please.

“No,” I said.
He looked at me, startled.
“No,” I said, and moved the blade from the sheath.
“She is mind,” he said.
“Surbus often,” said the proprietor, “thus destroys a girl who has not pleased him.”
I regarded them both.
“I own her,” said Surbus.
“That is true,” said the proprietor hastily. “You saw yourself her sale. She is truly his slave, his to do with as he wishes, duly purchased.”
“She is mine,” said Surbus. “What right have you to interfere?”
“The right of one of Port Kar,” I said, “to do what pleases him.”
Surbus threw the girl from him and, with a swift, clean motion, unsheathed his blade.
“You are a fool, Stranger,” said the proprietor. “That is Surbus, one of the finest swords in Port Kar.”
Our discourse was brief.  RAIDERS OF GOR; 6; Page 122
 

Kudos to you, Mr. Norman for writing the Gorean series!
A rich, yet utterly simple saga; a world, a time, a people;
those of the Counter-Earth .. the planet .. Gor.
Thank you!

The material presented herein was researched and compiled by me, naia{Saul}.
The material referenced comes from John Norman's Gor Series, The Counter-Earth Saga.
This is a work in process.
Please, do not take, copy, duplicate, or use this work as your own.
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