Thank you, and well done on getting to the Strange Havens!
If it interests you, the different flags actually originated as a hasty placeholder/reminder-to-self for a faction system, as I had the (very vague) idea for one while I was in the flow of writing one of the events. I can't remember whether it was the pirates or the merchants - I went and added the randomly generated flags to the other as well to make it consistent. But as you could see, I never went any further with the faction idea.
In any case, one way or another, the pirates and merchants are something I'd like to improve in future. I'll keep your suggestions in mind :)