| Both sides previous revision Previous revision Next revision | Previous revision |
| home [2024/11/01 11:08] – created jcderr | home [2024/11/26 09:31] (current) – jcderr |
|---|
| The following pages recount my travels and travails along the waterways of the Misty River and beyond. This guide aims to inform you of the people and challenges you will encounter on your own sailings. With this guide, perhaps you will see more success in this world than I have. | | [[Geography:home]] | [[People:home]] | [[Factions:home]] | [[Gods:home]] | [[Daily Life]] | [[dm guide|DM Guide / Meta]] | |
| |
| I am Markus of Thicket, known as the Old Bard among my own people, but we come from just beyond the Misty Rivers themselves, and tall tales are our heritage. If you are of the more worldly riverfolk yourself, you have heard me called Clemens Silvertongue, and hold a dimmer view. Nevertheless, I tell you - what follows are my true and honest recollections of my meanderings through your lands, and those beyond. | ===== Foreword ===== |
| |
| My own homelands are far to the south and west of the river lands, and not safely found by land - though in my later life I would make this treacherous journey as well. But my first great voyage would be to leave the forest downstream by boat, a journey not common to my people. It was a fortnight down the River Wash before we would make our way into the Great Shallow Sea. Not long after we alit, the trees of the thicket gave way to grasslands and sandy shores, and for days you could not set foot off the craft without sinking knee-deep into marshy, wet sands. At dusk and dawn, great flocks of birds would cover the landscape such that nary a blade of grass could be seen. | These pages chronicle my journeys through the lands of the Misty River Valley and beyond. |
| |
| The River Wash meets the Great Shallow Sea much differently than does the Misty River. The Misty River delta is a dark place, shrouded in fogs and mists (thus its name) as well as vast cypress trees, lilies, and moss, and unseen dangers lurk ever-present just beneath the surface. The River Wash meets the sea under an oppressive sun, amid a giant delta of treacherous sandbars. Many an errant craft has beached here, its occupants lost into the eternal sands. We were lucky to navigate these sands with relative ease, and our first trials arrived only as we entered the darker Misty waters another week or so north and east. | From the stories, you'd not know it, but I am not [[people:Riverfolk]] myself. In my youth, I rebel roused - sometimes literally - in faraway [[geography:region:Thicket]]. In truth, it is not that far away as the crow flies, but the temperate western rainforests are all but impassable even to the most intrepid travelers. |
| |
| My first encounter with riverfolk was not with yourselves, but with your distant cousins of the swamplands - they are a distrustful but resourceful people, which perhaps you must be to survive in their habitat. They came upon us while we made busy in defense against a horrendous lizard creature. With some difficulty of tongue, they agreed to be our guides in exchange for the carcass of the lizard. We happily accepted this offer. | In making my way to the valleys of the [[geography:river:Misty River]], I explored the swamplands and befriended the druids and shamans who give passage through the dark and foreboding [[geography:region:Misty Delta]], and learned something of their magicks. The river floods a great basin to your south, but hardy and hearty farmers till this fertile land, starting over every few years when the gods of the River wipe the slates clean. |
| |
| The swamp folk are one with nature in a way I have still not seen evidenced in other peoples of this realm, and were my first exposure to true magic. Their magic attunes them to nature and guides them through the swamps almost effortlessly. At times, we were required to pull our crafts from the waters, over well trod levees, and into adjoining rivers, while at others several rivers seem to converge on a point only to flow away as completely different rivers all together. | But after these trials, I came upon the [[geography:nation:Central Empire]]'s [[geography:city:South Gate]] and made my way to the [[geography:city:Grand Towers#Markets]] between the [[geography:city:Grand Towers]]. Here, commerce prevails and coin rules above all else - except, of course, for the [[people:Riverfolk#River Controllers]], whose motives and means are forever shrouded in secrecy. A thick smog hovers forever over the harbours and markets, providing ample cover for shady business of all types. |
| |
| Eventually, the darkness of the swamp gave way to a flat, sunny valley to the north. Here upon the Misty River proper, we parted ways with our swamp guides. They instructed us to stay on the larger river at each fork, until we reached the famous South Gate - but they refused to come further, saying they were not welcome among your people. | Beyond the Towers, and beyond the Gates, live people as varied as the lands they occupy. The cold, bluegray mountains of [[geography:nation:Tanas]], known for their abundance of coal and a people as hard as the mountains they dwell in. The endless farmlands of the [[geography:nation:Carmi]] valley and its many kings and vassal lords. The hardscrabble tundra along the vast [[geography:sea:Inland Sea]], and the fur trappers, lumberjacks, and metal miners the eek hard livings from a hostile, cold [[geography:nation:Frontier]]. |
| |
| We paddled north from the swamp folk for days, seeing no significant settlements along the way. The distance was dotted with the occasional farmhouse on the horizon, and we made peace with the stray fishermen we encountered. | Few dare approach the many seas, distant and fuzzy remembrances of floods and storms of bygone eras still haunt our nightmares. But few is not none - and still the occasional outcast roams the plains beyond Tanas, towards the [[geography:sea:Stormy Seas]], and still the occasional monster makes way from these lands to intrude on the relative serenity of our lands. In winter, the [[people:icemen]] venture south from beyond the [[geography:sea:Inland Sea]], threatening both the Carmi and the Frontiersmen. Many great and terrible beasts still lurk in the [[geography:region:misty_river:Green Mountains]], and deep in the mines of Tanas as well. |
| |
| - Markus Clemens of Thicket | I have met many men from beyond this valleys as well - I myself am of [[geography:nation:Thicket]] and occasionally trip upon my fellow countrymen; hardy and foolhardy folks, gregarious, scratching out a living on the edges of a great, dense rainforest. Their nearest neighbours, a more rowdy and dangerous lot who settled the arid [[geography:nation:Chaparral]], tending their herds of cattle and protecting them from lurks deeper in western deserts. I've ventured as far west as a great city, many weeks' travel from the [[geography:city:North Gate]], that sits in the foothills of sharp, craggy mountains the likes of which beggar belief, a city with vast mineral wealth, but so remote that the people live as nomadic hunters and sheep herders, unaware of what their riches would fetch at the [[geography:Grand Towers]]. |
| | |
| | In these pages, you will read a great deal about each of these and more, and I do hope that these writings will aid you in your journey. You may address any corrections to me via correspondence to: |
| | |
| | [[people:adventurer:Marcos Clemens]] |
| | |
| | care of: |
| | |
| | [[geography:city:Cairo#The Silver Oar]], the West Reaches, [[geography:city:Cairo]] at the [[geography:city:South Gate]]. |