Story
The girl’s wrists were bound with ropes hardened by spellcraft, tighter than iron. She knelt on the damp stone floor of the tower chamber, the air thick with smoke and rot. A circle of runes burned faintly red beneath her, searing her bare feet, but she did not cry out. Fear had taken her voice long before.
The mage stood over her, robe the color of blood, his bronze mask shaped into the leer of many faces. In one hand he traced symbols into the air, each stroke leaving behind a line of fire that hung for a moment before fading. With the other, he poured black ash from a jar onto the circle, whispering words that clawed at the ear.
The air split. The smell of sulfur and wet earth rushed in, and from the circle rose a shape that dripped with heat and shadow. Horns curled from its head, its skin like scorched leather, eyes burning with hunger. It looked upon the mage first, then the naked girl, and its smile was all teeth.
“You will serve,” the mage said, voice cold and without emotion. “She is your vessel. Together you will breed something greater.”
The demon’s laughter echoed through the tower, a low, boiling sound that shook the walls. The girl’s eyes went wide, wet with terror, and for a heartbeat she thought she saw her mother’s face in the bronze mask, watching without pity.
The mage raised his hand, and the runes flared brighter, sealing the chamber. Outside, the swamp was silent, as though even the frogs and birds dared not witness.
No one in the village would speak of her again. By morning, when the mage’s guards dragged the cage down to the pens beneath the tower, the girl would be gone. What remained would cry with two voices, one human, one not.

Description

The Nation of Drowned Marshes

The swamp between Montosho and the Great Desert is known only to its inhabitants as Drowned Marshes, though outsiders almost never hear the name. It is a land of still waters, choking mangroves, clouds of insects and perpetual gloom. The mages who rule here call themselves the Crimson Synod. Their red robes and bronze masks are the only true symbols of authority, feared more than storms or plague.

The Crimson Synod

The Synod is thought to consist of twelve mages, though their true number is unknown. Their names are never spoken aloud in the villages, only amongst the Synod itself. Each mage holds dominion over a portion of the swamp, ruling from black stone towers hidden among the mangroves. These towers are known as the Pillars of Silence. They are rarely seen except when the mages and their hybrids descend upon a village to claim research subjects or enforce decrees.

The most whispered names include:

Veythros the Unending

Mask: A bronze skull with ruby eyes. Specialty: Immortality, life-extension, necromantic flesh. Oldest of the Synod, believed to have already lived five centuries before exile.

Rhovan the Binder

Mask: Bronze stitched like sewn flesh. Specialty: Body-shaping, fusing creatures, molding flesh like clay.

Sythra the Veiled

Mask: Smooth, featureless bronze, polished to a mirror. Specialty: Divination, scrying, and visions of possible futures.

Kaelthar of the Masks

Mask: Engraved with a hydra’s head, the necks curling over the surface. Specialty: Demon-human breeding, creation of monstrous hybrids.

Zhorai the Whisperer

Mask: Bronze lips, half open, teeth bared. Specialty: Mind magic, ripping thoughts apart, implanting false memories.

Orphyn the Shattered

Mask: A broken bronze face, riveted back together. Specialty: Madness magic, fear illusions, breaking wills into fragments.

Iyssandra of the Red Tide

Mask: Bronze wave crested with jagged coral. Specialty: Summoning water demons, control over swamp currents and blood alike.

Tholmar Ash-Eater

Mask: A fanged beast. Specialty: Binding infernal fire into living flesh, creating burning husks.

Drevan the Collector

Mask: Multi-eyed bronze mask, like a spider’s face. Specialty: Spirit binding, capturing souls in jars and gems.

Maltheris the Hallowed

Mask: A priest’s bronze visage with weeping eyes. Specialty: Blasphemous rites, corrupting holy symbols, draining divine essence.

Serathis the Twin-Souled

Mask: Split bronze face, one side serene, the other twisted. Specialty: Soul splicing, grafting two minds into one body, or splitting one mind into two.

Nyssar the Hollow Child

Mask: Bronze face of a crying infant. Specialty: Flesh regression, turning adults into malformed children, erasing maturity, reducing people into helpless, stunted forms.

No one knows if others exist, perhaps a hidden leader, perhaps a council deeper in the swamp. Only these twelve ever show themselves.

Though they have their specialities and preferences, they are old, and quite capable magicians in many forms of magic.

The Villages

The swamp is dotted with villages of stilt-huts, connected by narrow walkways of rotting planks. The people call themselves the Nerathi, though they almost never dare speak their name.

The coastal villages are kept as a facade to the outside world, a place were trade can happen, and a normal appearance is upheld. However, any visitor will soon feel the wrongness of the place, the fear, the hopelessness. Any trek further inland will be strongly discouraged, and reported to the Synod.

However, due to the location, trade is uncommon, but traders occasionally risk stopping for swamp pearls or dried fish.

Some of the larger or notable villages are:

• Zhalmaar, the largest coastal village.
• Shath Hollow, half abandoned, after a great purge when a family dared hide children from being taken.
• Fenreach, stilt-village deep in the swamp, half swallowed by reeds.
• Mirefall, built near a sluggish waterfall where black water pours from the mountains into the marsh.
• Brackfen, poor fishing hamlet, the air always stinking of brine and rot.
• Stillroot, hidden among ancient mangroves, eerily quiet even by marsh standards.
• Duskfen, a center of Synod activity.
• Crookwater, crooked boardwalks winding like a maze, notorious for sudden disappearances.
• Lowmere, lowest of the villages, often half-flooded, with huts leaning into the water.
• Bleakshore, a coastal hamlet where a few traders dare to stop.
• Rotmere, known for its black-stained fishnets and sluggish, foul-smelling ponds.
• Grief Hollow, named for a purge long ago, now little more than a few huts clinging together.
• Ashmere, the ruins of a burned village, still occupied by fearful survivors.
• Tideworn, half sunken into the sand and sea, rebuilt many times after storms.
• Eelstrand, known for its catch of slimy swamp eels, traded dried and salted.
• Graveshore, named for the many shipwreck timbers used to build its huts.

The Nerathi live in constant fear. They eat river fish, swamp tubers and mangrove fruit. When a mage arrive, silence falls, and no one dares look them in the eyes.

Punishments

The punishments are not merely executions, but transformations meant to terrorize the survivors.

A man who stole a single fish during a famine was reshaped into a creature with gills and fins, thrown into a brackish pond where he still thrashes years later.

A girl who tried to argue when her daughter was taken, was molded into a pig-like creature, with a pig snout and short arms and legs, and was thrown naked in a pen, where she had to remain as an animal.

These victims are kept in the villages, in full view, but no one dares to help them, lest they become the next victim on display.

The Synod believe these punishments to be lessons, recorded in secret grimoires as proof of their mastery over flesh and soul.

Religion

The mages themselves invoke names whispered in the dark, entities from the Abyss and the dragon gods of the north. Their towers are carved with runes of summoning and lined with cages for offerings.

The Nerathi are forbidden to pray, only worship of the Synod is allowed, but secretly some whisper to Old Mother Fen, a half-forgotten swamp spirit said to dwell beneath the roots of the oldest mangroves. Her name is carved only on hidden stones, and offerings of herbs or frogs are left in the mud.

Relations

No one beyond the swamp knows of the Synod. Sailors sometimes tell of eerie lights in the swamp, or of masked figures watching from the shore, but no kingdom has ever investigated. The desert peoples avoid the swamp entirely, saying only that it is cursed and older than their people.

Possible Secrets

The Masks Are Seals

The bronze masks are not merely disguises. Each is an arcane lock, holding back the true form of the mage. Without the mask, their warped, corrupted flesh would unravel, and their bodies might collapse into sludge or flame.

The Synod Is Not Whole

There were once thirteen mages who fled the Great Empire. The thirteenth, Eralith, disappeared in the swamp. Some villagers whisper she still lives beneath the waters as a half-drowned specter, guiding rebels in dreams.

The Towers Are Alive

The Pillars of Silence are not stone alone. Each was grown from flesh and bone, mixed with swamp rock, and beats with a slow pulse if one presses an ear to the wall.

An Old Pact

The Synod did not simply wander into the swamp. They were led here by a demon lord of the fen, known as Khorruth the Swollen Maw, who demanded servitude in return for safe refuge. The mages have secretly served him for centuries, though some wish to break free.

The False Death of Veythros

Veythros claims to be the oldest of the Synod, but some believe the true Veythros died long ago, and his successors simply wear the same mask, pretending continuity.

The Secret to Their Long Life

They do not live longer, but they choose a body and transfer their soul to it before they die. This is also the reason for the masks, to hide that the body changes.

The Hidden Cult of Old Mother Fen

Despite prohibitions, the villagers still whisper prayers to Old Mother Fen. What the mages do not know is that she is real, and she answers in subtle ways. A rebellion may one day form around her worship.

The Crimson Bloodline

The Synod has not only created hybrids of demons and men, but also secretly bred a hidden dynasty of part-mage offspring among the villages. These children grow up unaware, but some awaken with strange powers and are quickly taken away.

The Great Empire Remembers

Though most believe the Crimson Synod to be a forgotten tale, in the vaults of the Great Empire there are still records. An old order of imperial witch-hunters, the Ashen Spears, may even now be secretly preparing to march into the swamp again.

Adventure Hooks

The Vanished Trader

A coastal merchant named Halaris failed to return from Drowned Marshes. His family offers good coin to anyone who dares enter the swamp. In truth, he was taken by Magister Rhovan for flesh-shaping, and his screams still echo from a hidden tower.

Pearls of the Deep Fen

A Montosho noble seeks the rare swamp pearls said to glow faintly in the dark. He hires the heroes as guides, not knowing tha the search will take them deep into the swamp.

The Thirteenth Tower

Whispers in the villages speak of an abandoned thirteenth tower, swallowed by roots and mud. Some say Eralith, the missing mage, still dwells there, not alive but not dead, and willing to bargain with outsiders.

The Ashen Spears Return

A forgotten imperial order of witch-hunters, the Ashen Spears, reemerges and hires the heroes as scouts and protectors to guide them into the swamp. Their mission is to eradicate the Synod, but the Spears are fanatics who may be as dangerous as the mages.

The Rebel’s Plea

A desperate villager named Lirath begs the heroes to help free her sister, taken by Kaelthar of the Masks. Helping her will drag the party into open conflict with the Synod and reveal the grotesque breeding pits of demon-spawn.

The Masked Procession

During a rare alignment of stars, all twelve mages gather in the village of Duskfen for a secret rite. The villagers whisper that sacrifices will be needed, and dozens will be taken. Heroes might witness or disrupt the gathering, risking the wrath of the entire Synod.

The Old Mother Stirs

Signs appear that Old Mother Fen, the forbidden swamp spirit, has awakened. Strange lights dance over her roots, and whispers call to the oppressed villagers. The heroes may be drawn into helping her followers rise against the Synod, but what price will her freedom demand?

The Hidden Child

A fisherman in the coastal village of Zhalmaar quietly begs the heroes for help. His daughter has begun speaking in her sleep with two voices, one her own and one filled with echoes of things not human. He knows the Synod will soon sense her and claim her for Kaelthar’s pits. He asks the party to smuggle her out of the swamp, perhaps across the desert or into Montosho, without the mages learning.

But the girl’s powers are awakening more quickly than he admits. She sometimes mutters spells she does not understand, fish rot at her touch, and her eyes shine red in moonlight. The Synod’s hybrids will be hunting her soon, guided by visions from Sythra the Veiled.

_{Previous Index Next}