Story
We thought them harmless at first. Colorful frog-people leaping through the branches, chattering like children, tugging at our gear with greedy little fingers. They traded pearls for knives, laughed at our armor, and filled our packs with strange fruits. My men grew careless.
It was Rann who ruined us. He wandered off at night, looking for their secret pools. Said he wanted to see where they kept their treasures. When the dawn came, he was gone. We searched, shouting his name, but the Fibians only blinked their great golden eyes and croaked as if they had never seen him.
Then we found him. High in the trees, where the mangrove roots twist into black thorns, he hung like a gutted bird. A sharpened branch had been driven through his belly, pinning him above the tide. His eyes moved, wide and wet, but his mouth could not form words, only whimpers.
The Fibians watched from the branches, bright as painted masks, their chirping laughter echoing through the swamp. Not a single arrow was loosed, not a single spear raised. They only stared, curious as ever, as if they could not understand why we wept - or why we were afraid.

Description

The Tideforest lies where the jungle meets the sea, a vast mangrove labyrinth of roots, tidal pools, and shadowed waterways. Trees rise like columns from the brackish water, their roots knotted together in mazes that stretch for miles. At high tide, the water floods the groves, leaving no dry ground. At low tide, pools shimmer with trapped fish and the smell of salt and mud.

The Bright Fibians

The Bright Fibians are a people as strange as the forest they inhabit. Their skin is vivid with mottled colors, crimson, emerald, sapphire, gold, shifting slightly with mood and light. Their great eyes are golden or silver, with wide pupils that see well in darkness. Their voices are croaks, chirps and guttural calls, though when speaking to outsiders they manage a broken, croaky tongue.

They are amphibians, and can stay under water for up to half an hour, making them excellent pearl divers and spear fishers.

They live upon woven platforms and rope bridges strung between the trees, rarely setting foot on the ground. Villages are often hidden, built high above the water in dense foliage, blending into the canopy. To outsiders, the Bright Fibians seem without order: no leaders, no wealth, no families. In truth, their tribes, called Clutches, are everything. To be of a Clutch is to exist. To be cast out is to be less than nothing.

Clutches have simple names, often taken from the forest around them: The Clutch of Silver Leaves, The Clutch of Moon Pools, The Clutch of Red Feathers. Each sees itself as unique, but all share the same way of life.

Customs and Warfare

The Bright Fibians are skilled hunters. They move silently through the trees, their skin blending into foliage, their movements sudden and precise. Their favored weapons are short bows and blowpipes, always tipped with venom. The paralysis venom of the blue-spined tree frog is most prized, and victims caught by it find themselves unable to move while still fully aware.

Their enemies, pirates, intruders, or even troublesome neighbors, are sometimes impaled alive upon sharpened branches high in the canopy, paralyzed. This practice is called The Hanging of Roots. Outsiders debate whether it is a ritual sacrifice to their gods or simply a cruel warning. The Bright Fibians themselves never explain.

Conflicts between Clutches are rare. When they do occur, they are resolved by what outsiders call The Quiet Hunt: the silent killing of one or two troublesome figures until tempers cool.

Religion of Tide and Tree

The Bright Fibians worship the Tree Father and the Tide Mother. The Tree Father is the endless root, stretching both above and below, who gives life to the Clutches and binds them to the forest. The Tide Mother is the womb of the sea, who floods the groves and brings the seed of renewal.

Each Bright Fibian sees themself as a messenger between the two, born of tide pools as tadpoles, living life in the branches, and returning at death to the ocean. The dead are set adrift upon the outgoing tide, in woven leaf cradles called Shellbeds, their bodies given back to the sea for rebirth.

Trade and Outsiders

Tideforest lies far from mapped trade routes, a place avoided by most. Only the Coralwyn elves and sea elf wanderers know the hidden channels to reach it, and even they tread lightly. Some pirate crews also dare to enter the mangrove mazes, risking venom and death in exchange for pearls, rare herbs, and potent poisons.

A wise visitor does not sneak. The safest way to meet the Fibians is to stay near the shore, and loudly call out your intent, and wait for their response.

What the Fibians desire most are knives, hooks, and other small metal tools, for they have no craft of metal themselves. In return they offer fish, dyes, pearls, and venom extracts that fetch high prices elsewhere.

The Bright Fibians never understood ownership, for the Tideforest gave all they needed. Fish swam in every pool, fruit hung from every branch, and vines for weaving were always at hand. Nothing was scarce, and so nothing belonged to anyone. When outsiders came bearing knives and iron tools, the first true limits appeared. A blade could not be plucked anew from the mangroves, nor a pot hammered from saltwater. Even so, the Bright Fibians have never truly grasped the notion of possession, and theft among them is often thoughtless, a casual borrowing that leaves outsiders furious and Fibians bewildered.

Named Places of Tideforest

• The Rootmaze: A vast tangle of roots where many Clutches live, some so high above the ground that the tides below are barely visible.
• Moon Pool Cavern: A sacred grotto where the tide goddess is said to meet the seed of the tree god. No outsider is permitted here.
• The Drowned Canopy: Where ancient trees toppled into the tide, creating a sunken maze now used as a hunting ground.

Notable Clutches

• Clutch of the Silver Leaves: Known for their skill in mixing venoms.
• Clutch of the Moon Pools: Keepers of the most sacred tide grotto.
• Clutch of the Red Feathers: Fierce warriors who trade most often with pirates.
• Clutch of the Pearl Roots: Skilled divers who gather pearls in the flooded groves.
• Clutch of the Green Eyes: Silent watchers, said to see through leaves and water alike.
• Clutch of Singing Throats: Known for ritual croaking chants said to call the tide.
• Clutch of Broken Shells: Outcasts and wanderers who take in those banished from other clutches.
• Clutch of Lightning Leaves: Gatherers of storm herbs and makers of potent stimulants.
• Clutch of the Black Tongues: Masters of the deadliest venoms, feared even by other Fibians.
• Clutch of Rain Shadows: Hunters who strike only during rain, when raindrops masks their blowpipes.
• Clutch of the Glass Tide: Divers who swim far beyond the mangroves, bringing back pearls and corals.
• Clutch of Fire Feathers: Brightly painted warriors who delight in mock battles and ritual contests.
• Clutch of the Root Whispers: Keepers of old tales, believed to speak with spirits of drowned ancestors.

Possible Secrets

Ritual Sacrifices

The impalings in the Hanging Roots are sacrifices to the Tide Mother, not just punishments or warnings.

Egg of the Ride Mother

A hidden Clutch guards a pearl of immense size, said to be the egg of the Tide Mother.

Visions

Some Clutches know the recipe for a venom that causes visions instead of death.

Coralwyn Trade

The Coralwyn elves secretly use the Fibians' venoms in their own rituals.

The Drowned Ruin

A drowned ruin lies beneath the mangroves, older than both Fibians and elves.

Betraying the Clutch

Exiled Fibians sometimes become guides for pirates, betraying the hidden paths of the Tideforest.

The Glowing Pool

The Moon Pool Cavern contains a tide-spring that glows with bioluminescent light.

Adventure Hooks

Missing Silver

A pirate ship went missing in the mangroves, and its cargo of silver may still be hidden among the roots.

The Serpent

A Clutch asks for help against a sea serpent that has taken to hunting their pearl divers.

Venom of Madness

Traders report a new venom from Tideforest that causes madness, and they want someone to uncover its source.

Missing Elves

A Coralwyn elf emissary seeks guides into the Hanging Roots, where her kin vanished.

Retrieve the Totem

A tribe of Bright Fibians offers safe passage if the party retrieves a sacred totem stolen by outsiders.

Shipwrecked

A storm has stranded shipwrecked sea elves in the swamp, and the rising tide threatens to drown them.

The Outsider

Rumors spread of a foreigner living among the Fibians, who has gained their trust and wields strange influence.

Pearls of Pestilence

An outbreak of disease in a nearby port traces back to pearls taken from Tideforest.

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