The Rotmire

A swamp brimming with death and rot of the battles of old, yet swarming with both the living and the undead.

Geography

The Countless Courses. Southwest in the region, the innumerable rivers trace along meeting others from the mountains, creating an nigh unnavigable tangle of waterways and estuaries. The region is now known primarily for war salvagers, those willing to brave the swamp to recover remnants of battles long past.

The Dead'mangroves. The northern jut of the Rotmire into the Water Divide is marked by endless mangroves that by their nature are in a state of endless decay, the waters become shifted to an almost bilious putrescence. The corporeal undead are seemingly drawn to this place, as if they have an offering for this rotten landscape.

The Ebonsail Moors. To the north and the east where the tempests of the Air Divide spill over the swamp, the carbon dust forms strange monoliths, carved by the wind to appear as giant sails that reach into the sky.

The Gna'el River. The massive influx from the tributaries create one of the world's great rivers. Flowing south from heart of the Rotmire many settlements huddle along its banks as it flows forth to end at the sacred Lake Waikandir in the Barrens..

The Grey Basins. At the northwest borders of the region, where the Shadowed Passes give way to the swamp, basins pockmark the landscape, forming natural havens from the oppressive swamps.

The Myriadal. From the waters of the Bleak Deltas that border the Blastlands form countless islets of blackened stone around wildly shifting rivers at the eastern heart of the region.

The Noct'dlo River. Carrying the blackened sediments from the edges of the Myriadal this great river flows westward through the center of the region to the Shadowed Passes and then northward to the Water Divide.

The Slough Sea. At the heart of the Rotmire lies the open expanse of this brackish and fouled water, where it is said many shipwrecks haunt the waters and innumerable war dead lay at its bottom.

Roads and Landmarks

Brimstar's Last Stand. A battlefield within the Countless Courses to the southwest, where the Dwarven Commandore Dromthul Brimstar met his end at the hands of the vampiric guerrilla forces. The landscape still marked by the weapons of war that due to the attrition brought upon the dwarven forces, there no longer stood any to move them.

The Leading Lights. Set atop salvaged masts, poles, trees, near anything that rises above the swamp, are the ceaseless lights that act as beacons to guide ships and travelers along safe paths. Originally used by Synstasia to mark movements of troops, it quickly became a tool used by Duemonte to mislead their enemy. Though the magics endure no one trusts these beacons, but the tradition has endured of everyone taking a hand in relocating the magical lights.

The Pale Passage. The road along the edge of the Shadowed Passes. So named by the other inhabitants of the region as it is wholly controlled by Duemonte to maintain the line to Pallorport and the numerous keeps in the mountains.

The Smouldern. A massive sinkhole in the Grey Basins that drives the swamp's waters down into the Ended Fields, but drawing inward the peat-moss that has been ignited and now burns away choking out the sky above with blackened smoke that can be seen for miles.

Settlements

Blackwater Bridge. A settlement founded at the end of the War by warriors on either side of the conflict. A pair of keeps at the ends of a bridge that spans the River Noct'dlo, home of the Blackwater Blades, a college of bards dedicated to the perfection of their bladed prowess, creating the most capable and versatile of warriors.

Echoknok. A mining town in the Grey Basins nearest the Fire Divide, it was once destroyed by some terrible monstrosity that reigned fire from the sky.

Fernhallow. A small village at the western reaches of the Myriadal the village now lies barren. Once home to a population of farmers, artisans, and a renowned healer, the residents were taken or slain outright. It is said that the healer of this village now wanders as a vengeful undead, seeking to bring an end to those that had done this evil.

Malmordre Redoubt. A keep once hidden in the southern Shadowed Passes behind a cataract, where the forces of Duemonte had sent forth dread ambushes into the swamp to assassinate and sabotage the Synstasian forces. Now primarily serving as a depot for patrols of the Duemonti Ward and a small port of trade.

Mournhard. Once held by Duemonte, near the end of the War of Extinction the human populace rebelled against their enslavers, driving the vampires from this hardened fortress town built into the mountains of the Shadowed Passes. Though desperate, the populace persisted through years of siege. Repelling all manner of attacks to take back the keep, they eventually took to harvesting mosquitoes to subsist upon and they endured until peace of the Pact of Arkyme took hold. The Duemonti military now has a presence in the settlement, but only at the allowance of the human populace.

Pallorport. A magnificent Duemonti port city at the edge of the Fire Divide, elevated atop a rise of volcanic stone, the city is lit by vented gases from the swamp igniting, creating a miasma that hangs heavy in the lower quarters of the city. Serving as the regional power of Duemonte, the port is the largest in the southern hemisphere.

Ioannes-wane. A ruined port town along the northeastern shores of the Rotmire, where once great Synstasian sailing ships were docked, they now serves as manors for the nobility of this decrepit settlement.

Rhi'essah Koh. The great southern hold of the Hunter's Age, set into the ruined Palace Lair of a Black Dragon King along the river Noct'dlo. The immense stone moorings hold the city above the marsh below, allowing for the whole of the ruin to be accessed by boat. Though crumbling it still serves the order of hunters well in bringing their quarry and spoils from these southern wilds.

Salandhyr. A Duemonti village far southeast of Pallorport along the Noct'dlo River known for its scavengers of bog iron.

Vodun. Long held mystic arts have allowed this Kreon human settlement to persist through years of persecution. On the Slough Sea, the residents of Vodun harness and control the undead in order to repel even greater threats that the Rotmire holds.

Yalotin's Harbor. A human settlement upon on the westerly course of the Noct'dlo River, east of Blackwater Bridge. The town formed after silver mines were discovered, though they are only workable in the Season of the Earth where the power of the Water Divide is diminished.

Ruins and Subterrane

That which feeds the festering warped jungles of the Ended Fields in the Depths, the Rotmire is the wretched maw that devours life. All the dead from the War of Extinction sinking into the Depths, only to rise again as a countless horde ever to wander in the subterranean wasteland.

Ruins heaped upon ruins pervade the region, as so many campaigns of the War of Extinction met their end in this fetid landscape. The dead of the War still wander, on an endless march to battles long past.

Ossandei. An ancient human barrow of some unknown nature due east of Mournhard, now flooded and swarmed by the warped undead. Believed to have been less a barrow and more of a sacrificial site to the Eldritch Realms in the Age of Water.

Primocaius. A city envisioned by the Pontiff Fredrem Caius of Synstasia, seen as the foothold needed to win the War of Extinction, yet now lies as a broken ruin and testament to the folly of war. The destructive cycles of wind and water in the Countless Courses led the city to crumble before it was even built, not even the greatest architects of Dilig could raise the city.

Troagdoshan. The vast palace city of a Dragon King of black ancestry, now sunken into the quagmire. When the Ashbreak Rebellion took hold the slaves of the dragonkin rose up to free themselves, ensuring the utter destruction of any of dragon, down to the last bone and scale.

Zandriel. A sprawl of ruins erected by ancient humanity that have been corrupted by fell magical experimentation by its long dead denizens. Within the Ebonsail Moors none dare draw near it, not beast, nor monster, nor man. Those that have traveled there and returned tell of horrific amphibian beings suffused with destructive energy spawned in this place, and the terrible secret of their creation lies within.