The City of Three Portlands, commonly called Three Portlands, Three Ports (3Ports), or simply Portlands, is an independent city-state, paranormal enclave, and Free Port Nexus located within a self-contained pocket universe, accessible via Ways located in and around Portland, Maine; Portland, Oregon; and the Isle of Portland in the United Kingdom. With an estimated permanent population of approximately 80,000 persons, Three Portlands is the largest paranormal enclave in North America, and is one of the most populous locations to be entirely concealed behind the Veil.
Three Portlands' sovereignty has historically been challenged by the United States since 1929, arising from the need to monitor and limit access to the city in order to maintain consensus normalcy. Since 1940, Three Portlands has been in free association with the United States, which recognizes and guarantees the city's autonomy while reserving the right to enforce laws and regulations necessary to protect normalcy within the adjacent regions of America.
The Unusual Incidents Unit has maintained a legislative presence in Three Portlands since the Federal Bureau of Investigation's founding, to the mixed opinion of the populace. Since the SCP Foundation's discovery of Three Portlands in 1970, the Foundation operates covertly with occasional assistance from the UIU due to the populations animosity against the Foundation's modus operandi.
History[]
The origins of Three Portlands are unknown, and the subject of much speculation, but it is generally assumed that the city did not exist prior to the incorporation of Portland, Oregon in 1851. Parahistorian L. Rowe had theorized that Three Portlands may have been formed by the global thaumic backlash from the 6th Occult War, which would place the city's origin in the 1880s. The earliest external record of Three Portlands is an memorandum from the British Occult Service dated 1899, documenting the activities of various minor occult cabals in the south of England and the adjacent multiverse; this memo indicates that Three Portlands had been lightly populated for at least a decade at that point, which closely matches Rowe's timeline.
In 1905, following negotiations with the native genius loci, the BOS began using Three Portlands to house Sidhe refugees from the ongoing collapse of their homeland, Avalon. Although many of these would eventually be relocated to isolated portions of the Hebrides, the influx of displaced Sidhe greatly increased the city's population and left a lasting influence on its culture and future development. However, aside from the Sidhe relocation efforts, British authorities remained largely disinterested in Three Portlands, preferring to focus their attentions on occult activities on Earth.
With the start of the First World War, the BOS became committed to preventing an outbreak of occult warfare; most British operatives in the city were recalled, leaving Three Portlands to manage its own affairs. In 1915, a city council was elected and a municipal government organized, although this went unrecognized by British officials, who continued their policy of treating the city as the demesne of the native genius loci; this lasted until 1922, when the city charter was amended to include the genius loci in the government as the Mayor.
The near total absence of any paranormal authorities was quickly capitalized upon by various criminal organizations, who used the city's extensive Way network to evade US customs authorities and — following the passage of the [[]] — Prohibition agents. Even after the end of the World War, the BOS did little to curb the growth of paracrime, despite the increasing British presence within the city. However, recognizing the strategic importance of the city's Way network, British authorities began working to actively conceal its existence from other normalcy preservation agencies, including those of the United States government.
Despite the efforts of their British counterparts, American law enforcement discovered Three Portlands in 1929, after agents from the Bureau of Prohibition managed to track the operations of the Chicago Spirit to the city. In accordance with federal policy at the time, the existence of the city was concealed, and all related cases were transferred to the Bureau of Investigation. BOI Director J. Edgar Hoover immediately began waging a clandestine war against the Chicago Spirit within Three Portlands. While early raids and sting operations were highly successful, the BOI soon met opposition from the citizens and city government, who resented the unprecedented intrusion upon their autonomy, ultimately culminating in a firefight between BOI agents and members of the city council.
In response, Director Hoover had all known entrances to Three Portlands within the United States placed under siege, imprisoning anyone who attempted to enter or exit the city. This standoff lasted for almost two months, only ending with the intervention of President Herbert Hoover and the formulation of the Hoover Mandate. Under the Hoover Mandate, the United States would guarantee the autonomy of Three Portlands; in return, federal agents would be allowed to operate within the city to a limited degree. Fearing furthering escalation, the city council eventually accepted President Hoover's terms, despite protests from many of the city's inhabitants.
The British response to the Hoover Mandate was extremely negative, as the United States' guarantee of autonomy was perceived as a threat to their expanding operations in the city, particularly their use of the Way network. Although direct confrontations between British and American agents were rare, tensions remained high throughout the next decade, as both sides made competing claims of jurisdiction and sought to exercise exclusive authority within Three Portlands. With the outbreak of the 7th Occult War in 1939, the British Occult Service sought a rapprochement with the Unusual Incidents Unit, eventually leading to the Howard-Grant Agreement in 1940, under which the United Kingdom abandoned its claims on Three Portlands in exchange for a number of wartime concessions.
During the 7th Occult War, Three Portlands played a significant role as a clandestine supply route and shelter for the Allied Occult Initiative, with the AOI making extensive use of the city's Way network to move personnel and materiel between Britain and North America. As a result, in 1943, Three Portlands came under attack by a joint force between the Ahnenerbe Obskurakorps and Thule Society, who apportated onto the Isle of Portland and opened a Way into the city, with the intention of seizing the International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumatology campus and looting the AOI storehouse there. Despite the unexpectedness of the attack, a combined force of UIU agents and BOS operatives, alongside ICSUT faculty and students, municipal police golems, and local citizens, succeeded in repelling the assault.
The city grew rapidly in the post-war era, driven by a global tightening of the Veil, which led to the mass expulsion of parahumans, occultists, and anartists from urban areas in Europe and North America, many of whom sought refuge in paranormal enclaves such as Three Portlands and Backdoor Soho. The city's status as a major paranormal freeport was further cemented in 1956, when Prometheus Laboratories chose to massively expand its operations in Three Portlands, motivated by its unique taxation laws and its exemption from most Veil regulations. Over the next few decades, Three Portlands evolved to become a hub of both anartistic endeavors and parascientific research, reflecting many of the same cultural pressures that were shaping the adjacent Portland, Oregon.
As part of the Howard-Grant Agreement, the UIU and the BOS had both agreed to continue the policy of concealing Three Portlands from most other normalcy preservation agencies, with exceptions made during the 7th Occult War to facilitate AOI operations. While these efforts were never totally effective, especially given widespread awareness of the city among the paranormal communities in adjacent regions, they were deemed necessary to preserve the city's status as a paranormal freeport. Following the reorganization of the AOI into the Global Occult Coalition, the primary focus of these efforts then became concealing the city from the SCP Foundation, which was — and still is — viewed as the single largest threat to Three Portlands' autonomy.
Although the Foundation's eventual discovery of the city was largely viewed as inevitable, UIU agents, relying heavily on memetic misinformation campaigns, succeeded in delaying this event until 1970. This marked the start of a major shift in relations between the UIU and Three Portlands residents, ushering in an improvement of public opinion that swelled even further following the death of Director Hoover in 1972. Local recruiting into the UIU increased dramatically, and by the end of the decade, almost a quarter of the Unit's irregular agents were from Three Portlands.
Starting in the late 1970s, Three Portlands emerged as a center for the nascent Maxwellist movement; the city's thriving paratech industry and relaxed Veil made it a perfect fit for the transhumanist religion, which was facing active suppression efforts by major normalcy organizations on Earth. As Maxwellism continued to spread throughout the city and its paratech industry during the 1980s, the GOC responded by orchestrating the creation of Eurtec, a paranormal freeport controlled by one of its member organizations, with the intention of establishing a competing hub of parascientific research under its own oversight. Under the GOC's sponsorship, Eurtec rapidly grew to rival Three Portlands, leading to a gradual erosion of the city's paratech industry.
The decline of the city's paratech industry was further exacerbated by the economic shock from the end of the Cold War and its accompanying anomalous arms race. While Eurtec offered generous bailouts to local businesses, Three Portlands' paratech companies were left to weather the downturn on their own, resulting in the near total collapse of the city's paratech industry, culminating in the closure of the Three Portlands offices of Prometheus Labs. At the same time, organized paracrime was beginning to return to the city, this time in the form of the Lighthouse Mafia smuggling ring.
The city finally began to recover with the start of the 3rd millennium, due in large part to the efforts of Portland native Vincent Anderson and his paratech startup, Anderson Robotics. Taking advantage of the void left by Prometheus Labs, Anderson established his corporate headquarters in Three Portlands and rapidly expanded, spurring a revival of the city's local industry. This, along with his numerous philanthropic contributions throughout the city, helped endear Anderson to Portlands' population, particularly its large Maxwellist contingent.
This popular support made it politically unfeasible for the UIU to take action against Anderson, a fact which he exploited to circumvent — and eventually ignore outright — federal and international restrictions on paratech development. This flagrant disregard for normalcy eventually drew the attention of the Foundation, which launched a protracted campaign against Anderson and his operations, with limited success. Anderson further consolidated his company in Three Portlands, using the Hoover Mandate to shield himself from Foundation reprisals.
The stalemate between Anderson Robotics, the UIU, and the Foundation lasted until 2018, when it was discovered that Anderson had used his Saker androids to infiltrate the United States Government. A warrant for his arrest was issued and he vanished from public life — both the Foundation and the UIU believed he had been taken into Foundation custody. However, Anderson Robotics continued operating with Anderson secretly in control, until his final capture in 2024 by a joint task force of the Foundation and the UIU. The accompanying raid on Anderson Robotics' Headquarters in downtown Three Portlands was the largest concerted UIU action in the city since Hoover's Siege, leading to widespread protests and a decline in public opinion of the Bureau to the lowest levels of the post-Hoover era.
Topology, Geography, and Climate[]
The pocket universe containing Three Portlands is a finite 3-space bounded by two elliptic paraboloids. Local gravity is oriented downwards along the central axis, allowing for a distinction between the upper and lower paraboloids. The lower paraboloid is a solid surface which constitutes the ground; the constant gravitational vector and the curvature of the ground surface combine to produce a gentle but noticeable slope. Three Portlands occupies a roughly circular area upon this surface, centered around the lowest point of the ground paraboloid. While the curvature of the ground is extremely shallow, it still makes it possible to see any point of the city from any other point, resulting in an inverted horizon that can be extremely disorienting for newcomers.
Three Portlands has no natural astronomical or meteorological events, although a day/night cycle and weather are provided by the Mayor. The upper paraboloid which encloses the pocket universe is used as a skybox; a point light is projected onto this surface to produce daylight, moving across the skybox in mimicry of the sun. Solar time as provided by this artificial sun approximates that of Portland, Maine, although sunrise and sunset times may differ by as much as an hour. Weather, mostly in the form of rain, closely emulates the current weather of the adjacent regions of Earth.
The ground surface of Three Portlands is constantly expanding away from the city center. The rate of this expansion is normally imperceptible, but results in the gradual outward migration of almost all permanent structures. At a distance of approximately 3 miles from the city center, there is an impassable, invisible barrier imposed by the Mayor, which delineates the outer edge of the city, called the Periphery. The ground surface continues for an unknown distance beyond the barrier, forming a region known as the Outer Periphery; local reality in this region gradually degrades with increasing distance from the city center, producing a transition layer between the pocket universe and Outside unspace. Old buildings are abandoned as the expansion of the city pushes them into the Outer Periphery, where they eventually pass into the Outside and deconceptualize.
While most buildings in Three Portlands inevitably move towards the Periphery as a result of the city's expansion, there are a handful of structures that are anchored in place relative to the city center, providing a set of fixed landmarks. These anchor points can disrupt the normal outwards flow of the ground, causing distortions in the polar street grid and potentially even creating tears in the underlying surface that expose the Outside. As a result, the City Council has placed tight restrictions on anchoring parts of the city; most existing anchor points were created by the Mayor, with only a small number of independent anchorings maintained by private thaumaturges.
The most prominent anchor point is the city center itself, Three Portlands Plaza where City Hall and other municipal government buildings are located. The Plaza is surrounded by Cambium Circle, where the city's outward growth originates. The rapid pace of expansion in the Circle makes it unsuitable for development, and as a result it sees use as a public park. At semi-regular intervals, once enough expansion has taken place, the outer edge of the Circle is sectioned off and zoned for new development, allowing for the replacement of buildings lost to the Outer Periphery.
The largest anchor point is Prometheus Plaza. Created in 1956 as part of an urban planning experiment aimed at establishing a downtown area, Prometheus Plaza hosted the local headquarters of Prometheus Labs, after whom the Plaza was named. The Plaza developed into a mixed-use industrial and commercial district occupied by a variety of parabusinesses that desired permanent leaseholds in the city. However, the size of the Plaza caused a major disruption to the city's surface expansion, which resulted in the Docks District. Situated on the leeward side of the Plaza, this region of the city is marked by gaping chasms in the ground surface that expose the Outside. Reality near these chasms is extremely thin, giving rise to the densest cluster of Ways in the city, which have made the area a major transport hub.
Other notable anchorings include Memorial Park and the ICSUT campus, a pair of points located near the Periphery. The ICSUT campus anchors itself using advanced architectural sorcery, and forms the largest anchor point not maintained by the Mayor. The adjacent Memorial Park was created by the City Council to preserve the site of the Battle of Portlands, and contains the 7th Occult War Memorial. Due to its proximity to a major GOC affiliate and the residual anchoring effects near the campus, the area around Memorial Park hosts offices and embassies for many representatives of the global paranormal community, including the Sidhe Consulate and the local Gormogon Wedge.
In addition to anchor points, Shadows provide another type of landmark in the city. Shadows are metaphysical projections of locations and events in the adjacent Portlands. While anchor points maintain a fixed location relative to the city center, Shadows maintain a fixed location relative to each other and the city's Way network.10 Under normal circumstances, Shadows are imperceptible and non-corporeal; however, various occult workings exist that can render a Shadow visible, and certain structures, such as lighthouses, have reality stabilizing properties that cause their Shadows to manifest naturally. There are eight such lighthouse Shadows in Three Portlands, which serve as valuable navigational aids for the Way network, due to their strong manifestations and high visibility.
Government and Law[]
The municipal government of Three Portlands is organized under a Mayor-Council model, with the Three Portlands City Council exercising combined legislative and executive functions under the nominal oversight of the Mayor. The City Counci is a unicameral body, whose members are selected by city-wide election using a single transferable vote system to achieve proportional representation. All permanent residents of Three Portlands above the age of majority are entitled to vote in these elections; notably, Three Portlands is one of the few municipalities to allow ghosts to vote.
The City Council is responsible for drafting and passing municipal ordinances and regulations, as well as carrying out the day-to-day business of the city. The Mayor's role in the city government is largely a formality, as it rarely participates in the City Council's deliberations. Instead, as the native genius loci of Three Portlands, the Mayor is ultimately responsible for the overall health of the city — the day/night cycle, weather, ground expansion, periphery barriers, anchoring points, and electrical and hydraulic utilities are all controlled directly by the Mayor, although it is suspected that much of this control is exercised passively or unconsciously. While the City Council is able to communicate directly with the Mayor when needed, this is a rare occurrence.
Local law enforcement in the city is provided by the Three Portlands Police Department, which is comprised of a small officer corps supplemented by volunteer auxiliaries and special security golems. Due to the Unusual Incidents Unit holding primary jurisdiction over most major investigations, including investigations of all felonies, the focus of the Three Portlands Police Department is largely on crime prevention and community outreach. TPPD provides security to major local events, runs regular patrols throughout the city to deter vandalism and violence, and assists the UIU in its investigations when necessary.
Three Portlands operates its own municipal courts, which cover violations of city ordinances and handle most civil cases arising in the city. Federal judicial functions are performed by the United States Domestic Security Court for Three Portlands, one of the seven Domestic Security courts responsible for handling Veil-related cases. The USDS Court for Three Portlands is responsible for authorizing local UIU warrants, trying criminal cases brought by the Special US Attorney, and hearing civil lawsuits outside the jurisdiction of the municipal courts. All proceedings of the Domestic Security Court are done under geas-seal, in order to preserve the integrity of the Veil.
Federal authority in Three Portlands stems from the Hoover Mandate, first issued in 192, and upheld in the Compact of Free Association signed between Three Portlands and the United States in the wake of the Howard-Grant Agreement. The terms of the Hoover Mandate grant the UIU primary criminal jurisdiction within the city, and exclusive jurisdiction over matters related to the maintenance of the Veil. Due to the size of the city, the local UIU field office is the largest of any paranormal enclave, and is second only to the Miami field office in caseload.
Three Portlands is also a major recruiting ground for the UIU's irregular agents, as its diverse parahuman population offers many talented individuals willing to work for the Bureau. This is especially true in the wake of Director Hoover's death in 1972, as the UIU's popularity in the city has risen considerably — although recent events involving Anderson Robotics have done much to damage the Bureau's reputation. Joint operations with the Foundation through Joint Task Force Delta-3 have provided supplementary manpower to deal with crisis operations, such as the raid on Anderson Robotics Headquarters, but over-reliance on Foundation agents risks compromising the Hoover Mandate, and may further damage public opinion of the UIU.
Transportation and Infrastructure[]
Three Portlands' street plan is arranged along a polar grid, with straight "spoke" streets radiating from the city center, connected by concentric rings at irregular intervals. There are numerous narrow alleyways between buildings, created by the expansion of the ground beneath the city. As Three Portlands is primarily a pedestrian city, these roads are not designed for motor vehicles and are largely inaccessible to them; moreover, the City Council maintains a city-wide ban on personal automobiles and heavy motor vehicles, with only a few limited exemptions. Instead, personal transportation is provided by several cab companies operating auto-rickshaws, which are able to navigate through Portlands' narrow streets.
In addition to these auto-rickshaws, Three Portlands has a robust mass transit system based on street-level trolleys. These trolleys run along all major spoke and ring streets at regular intervals, with a special express line connecting Prometheus Plaza and Three Portlands Plaza. Use of the trolley system is free to all, except for members of the FBI; the city offers a monthly transit pass to members of the UIU for $20, with the Bureau providing compensation for this cost to agents who request it.
While electrical and hydraulic utilities are provided by the city through the Mayor, Three Portlands' communications infrastructure is much more patchwork. City-wide intranet access is provided via a combination of Maxwellist network hubs, cafe Wi-Fi, and independently maintained point-to-point hardlines. This intranet is not connected to the global internet, and as a result is not subject to the information sanitization that would normally be required by the Veil. The Three Portlands intranet has its own forms of social media, the most popular being Void, which is essentially a local clone of Twitter.
Connections to the global internet are provided via the Prometheus Labs Aethernet protocol, and were formerly handled by that company at the behest of the city. Following the breakup of the Prometheus conglomerate, the city purchased a fifty percent stake in Prometheus' former Aethernet subsidiary and reconstituted it as Asterism Communications to serve as a municipal ISP. Asterism has partnered with local Maxwellists in an effort to expand and consolidate Portlands' patchwork intranet and internet infrastructure, although progress in this venture is slow. Outgoing internet traffic is required to pass through UIU filtering servers to ensure compliance with the Veil, which has hampered the addition of more Aethernet access points.
Education[]
Three Portlands notably lacks a public school system; attempts by the City Council to establish a local school district have been met with resistance by the city's citizens, citing concerns that the federal or municipal governments could use it for indoctrination. Instead, primary education is done through home schooling and independent community schools. These independent schools are run as charitable endeavors, and are generally established and maintained by the city's non-human inhabitants, as the human population has the option of enrolling in one of the adjacent Portlands' school systems (although this practice is discouraged by the UIU due to the potential risks to normalcy it presents). While rare, private for-profit schools also exist within the city, although these are generally considered inferior to the community schools they compete with.
In terms of secondary education, Three Portlands hosts a number of occult and non-occult colleges. Three Portlands Community College is the largest of these, with enrollment open to all Portlands residents. TPCC offers two- and four-year degree programs in a variety of mundane fields and paratech disciplines, as well as a small anart studies program. However, the college does not teach courses on thaumatology beyond an introductory level, and is generally not considered an occult college as a result.
The city's occult colleges are dominated by ICSUT Portlands, the Three Portlands campus and branch of the International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumatology. Established in 1941 as one of the concessions of the Howard-Grant Agreement, ICSUT Portlands initially housed the administrative headquarters of ICSUT, which were relocated from London during the 7th Occult War. Since the conclusion of the occult conflict, ICSUT Portlands has grown to become a major technical and research university in its own right, with the highest levels of enrollment of any ICSUT campus. Offering extended degree programs focusing on advanced occult studies, ICSUT Portlands attracts students from across the globe.
The other major occult college in Three Portlands is the local Deer College. Founded in 1948 and anchored to the Shadow of Reed College, Deer is often seen as the liberal arts counterpart to ICSUT Portlands, and the two schools have a well-developed rivalry. Deer's thaumatology curriculum is much less technically inclined, and instead focuses on combining mundane and occult studies. The college's anart program is generally well regarded, and is considered one of the institution's cornerstones. While it lacks the lucrative GOC research partnerships of its rival ICSUT, Deer benefits from several generous endowments, including one from Anderson Robotics, which it uses to fund scholarships for non-human students.
Demographics and Culture[]
Three Portlands is by far the largest paranormal enclave in North America, with an estimated 80,000 to 110,000 persons permanently residing in the city. The current number of people at any given time is often greater than this, due to the large transient population which passes through the city each day; as many as 2,000 persons with full-time jobs in Three Portlands live in one of the adjacent Portlands on Earth, relying on Ways to commute to work; an even larger number of occultists and anartists travel to the city sporadically to purchase supplies and procure services. As a result, it is difficult to produce a complete and accurate assessment of the city's demographics, a problem compounded by the lack of any kind of comprehensive census.
UIU-conducted surveys of sample populations have produced the following figures for self-reported nationality and/or cultural identity:
| Identifier | # of Responses | % of Responses |
|---|---|---|
| American | 1,259 | ~36% |
| Portlandser | 1,012 | ~29% |
| British | 621 | ~18% |
| Sidhe | 411 | ~12% |
| Other/None | 197 | ~5% |
| Total | 3,500 | 100% |
Similar UIU sample surveys produced the following figures for the numbers and types of parahumans and non-humans living in the city:
| Identifier | % of Category | % of Total Population |
|---|---|---|
| Human or Parahuman | — | ~80% |
| * Baseline | ~34% | ~27% |
| * Thaumaturge | ~22% | ~18% |
| * Cyborg | ~16% | ~13% |
| * Psychic | ~11% | ~9% |
| * Minor Reality Bender | ~7% | ~5.5% |
| * Seer or Oracle | ~4% | ~3% |
| * Biologically Modified | ~3% | ~2.5% |
| * Human Shapeshifter | ~1% | <1% |
| * Other Parahuman | ~2% | ~1.5% |
| Sidhe | — | ~13% |
| Ghost | — | ~3% |
| Intelligent Animal | — | ~1% |
| Amorphous Shapeshifter | — | ~0.5% |
| Non-necrotic Spirit | — | <0.5% |
| Demigod or Major Reality Bender | — | <0.25% |
| Conceptual Entity | — | <0.1% |
| Other Non-human | — | ~1% |
With its connections to two major American cities and the United Kingdom, Three Portlands has developed a unique multinational character. The dominant Anglo-American culture has seen significant influence from the sizable Sidhe minority, and the city's status as a paranormal freeport has attracted parahumans from many different nations and cultures, all of whom have contributed to Three Portlands' diversity. As a general rule, Portlandsers tend to be distrustful of authority, especially external authority; individual expression and liberty is highly valued, but there is a strong undercurrent of mutualism throughout Three Portlands -- this is particularly pronounced among local Maxwellists, who are responsible for many charitable ventures within the city.
Three Portlands has the largest Sidhe population outside of New Avalon, and is a major center of Sidhe culture. The distinctive architectural styles of the Sidhe can be found in many buildings, including the exterior facade of City Hall. The Sidhe language of Modern Celtic is common throughout the city, and shares status with English as one of Three Portlands' two official languages, with nearly all signs and notices made in both; while full fluency in Modern Celtic is rare outside of Sidhe communities, most native Portlandsers possess a limited degree of fluency, and the Portlandser dialect of English has assimilated many pieces of Sidhe vocabulary.
While artists make up a much smaller proportion of the population than they do in anartist enclaves like Backdoor Soho, Three Portlands is widely renowned within the paranormal community for its thriving art scene. Public displays and performances are common, and the relaxed Veil within the city allows for anart to be displayed openly alongside more mundane works. While Three Portlands is best known for its visual arts, with numerous galleries displaying works of painting and sculpture scattered across the city, it has a notable performance art community as well. Cambium Circle hosts local theater troupes on weekdays and public concerts on weekends, and the infamous All Orpheum Theatre is occasionally located in the city.
Almost half of Three Portlands' residents identify as having no religious affiliation, although only a tenth of these (representing approximately 5% of the total population) describe themselves as atheists. Christianity and other "conventional" religions are a minority within the city, with the largest faith being Sidhe ancestor veneration (12% of the population, largely among the Sidhe minority). This is closely followed by Maxwellism (11% of the population), which has been steadily increasing in popularity since its emergence in the 1970s. In contrast, non-Maxwellist Mekhanite faiths are a considerable minority, with less than 1% of the population identifying as Mekhanite but not Maxwellist.
Industry and Economy[]
Three Portlands lacks a local currency; as a result, most business is conducted using the US dollar and the British pound sterling, although many residents have stopped accepting payment in the latter in the wake of Brexit and the subsequent collapse of the pound. In addition, there is a well developed barter economy within the city; geas work contracts are often used to guarantee delivery of promised services, allowing for the direct exchange of goods for labor. This sector of the economy is largely unregulated and uncontrolled, despite the best efforts of the Unusual Incidents Unit and the Infernal Revenue Service.
The city's labor economy is almost entirely based upon golem workers, and the local golem-makers union, Golemancy United, exercises significant political and economic power within the city. Golems fill jobs in manufacturing and construction, supplement the ranks of the local police force to perform crowd control and security duties, and are involved in the operations of city services such as sanitation and transit. While the replacement of human labor with golems has allowed many residents to pursue creative and scientific endeavors, it has also resulted in widespread unemployment. Attempts to relieve this problem by limiting the use of golems has met stiff opposition from Golemancy United; at this time, there are no city ordinances regulating the type or number of golems a business can employ, and this is unlikely to change in the near future.
Much of the city's overall economy is based around the local paratech industry, which contains a large amount of sensitive manufacturing that cannot be handled by golems. This industry is based out of Prometheus Plaza in the downtown area, but many startups which lack capital for a lease in the Plaza rent space throughout the city. While the industry is anchored by a number of relatively stable companies, such as Anderson Robotics and Vanadox, the current economy is dominated by venture-capital-funded startups that often fail within the first few months of operation. Even when successful, these companies often suffer from high rates of employee turnover and chronic stability problems, and their proliferation throughout the city has enabled gentrification and led to housing shortages.
ICSUT and the GOC have remained relatively constant factors in the city's economy since the 1940s, with ICSUT Portlands receiving a large share of the GOC's research contracts. In addition to student researchers, ICSUT employs a large number of the city's residents in auxiliary roles, and often partners with local companies to work on major research projects. Over a hundred mechanics and thaumic engineers are employed just in the maintenance of the university's massive Everhart Resonators, and the GOC often outsources paratech production contracts to ICSUT's local partners.
The city government maintains title to all land in Three Portlands, which is rented out through fixed-term leaseholds. The fixed-term nature of these leases allows the City Council to control zoning as buildings migrate towards the Periphery, and the rents collected constitute the majority of city revenues. While sub-letting is relatively common, rent control policies and aggressive adverse possession laws are in place in an attempt to limit the ability of landlords to engage in rent seeking. Additionally, the city maintains a number of public housing projects, in order to cope with the high levels of unemployment within Three Portlands. Despite these measures, housing shortages are still common, with gentrification of the areas around Prometheus Plaza resulting in the displacement of many low-income residents.
With most city services maintained by the Mayor or operated by golems, city revenues are primarily spent on public works projects. The City Council provides endowment funds to various anartistic and parascientific endeavors throughout the city, and employs numerous artists to design public art installations. The daily public performances in Cambium Circle are all paid for out of the city's art budget, with most scheduling slots reserved for unemployed performers. However, the efficacy of these programs is limited, due to the golem monopoly on construction work, which is the normal cornerstone of jobs programs. The City Council is currently evaluating hiring citizens to act as guides for visitors, although there are concerns that this would undercut the local scam economy.