Formatting code for Saltmire
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>>{{image url="http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z62/ZamahLand/Wiki/Swampwreck.jpg"}}>>====__**The Saltmire**__====
Realm: [[Calantyr]]
Population: Unknown
Military: None
Economy: None
Language: None
The Saltmire is the curse of the [[EarloftheTidemarshes Earl of the Tidemarshes']] realm. It is a great saltwater swamp that stretches up from the sea to the southern borders of Wrymeade's lands. Branched, slow-moving rivers feed the Saltmire's northern reaches, but the majority of the swamp's water is salt. Plants grow there that can be found nowhere else in Calantyr, ranging from enormous, knobby-trunked trees to the elusive mandrake root.
Pestilences flow out of the swamp every summer, sweeping through the towns and villages that lie nearby. Marauding trolls and stranger monsters hunt its depths. The Saltmire itself is impossible to farm, cannot be settled, and offers no ores or minerals. Much of that domain's poverty is directly attributable to the insects and illnesses of the swamp.
Nevertheless, people occasionally emerge from the swamp's murky interior with exotic hides, mystical herbs, and artifacts from unknown civilizations. In recent years, several people have brought back finely carved statues of glossy white or black stone, depicting creatures of coiled tentacles and disjointed bodies; no one knows who made the statues or what they depict, but they have become a fascination for local scholars.
These treasures do not begin to compensate for the damage that the Saltmire wreaks upon the Tidemarshes, but they do draw a thin trickle of hedge-wizards and treasure-hunters to the region. Even if most seekers are bound to be disappointed, their inevitable ailments at least bring business to the Tidemarshes' healers.
==The Mud Graveyard==
The southeastern tip of the Saltmire is known as the Mud Graveyard. Sailors practical and superstitious alike regard it with extreme distaste. A combination of the strong (and, many say, magically enhanced) winds whirling around the pirate haven of Tartessos, ever-shifting shoals, and treacherous currents cause many ships to founder in the stretch between Vir and Coeur d'Ennui. A disproportionate number of these wrecks are mired in the thick, salty sludge of the Mud Graveyard. The superstitious say that there is no natural explanation for these wrecks, and that some malign witchcraft from the Saltmire draws the ships to their doom; the practical scoff at these claims, but it is true that this generally peaceful stretch of water can turn dangerous when least expected, and that far more ships lie buried in the Mud Graveyard than logic should predict.
Other stories circulate about the eerieness of the Mud Graveyard. One of the most popular tales claims that the crew of a wrecked ship managed to reach the Saltmire alive. They built a makeshift village from the planks and other wreckage of dead ships trapped in the mud, and there waited for another ship to come and rescue them. Inexplicably, despite the high trafficking along the coast, no ship ever came. In desperation, the sailors turned to cannibalism, until the last of them was felled by disease (or, some say, was bewitched by evil fae from the mire and led into its depths, never to be seen again), and their village of planks became a haunted location. Sailors passing by the Saltmire sometimes claim to have heard ghostly voices calling to them, or to have glimpsed a ramshackle collection of huts built from broken planks and tattered sails, but most assume these are sea-stories and nothing more.
-**See Also: [[MuteFens The Mute Fens]]**
Back to **[[World]]** -> **[[DuchyOfCoeurDEnnui The Duchy]]**
>>{{image url="http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z62/ZamahLand/Wiki/Swampwreck.jpg"}}>>====__**The Saltmire**__====
Realm: [[Calantyr]]
Population: Unknown
Military: None
Economy: None
Language: None
The Saltmire is the curse of the [[EarloftheTidemarshes Earl of the Tidemarshes']] realm. It is a great saltwater swamp that stretches up from the sea to the southern borders of Wrymeade's lands. Branched, slow-moving rivers feed the Saltmire's northern reaches, but the majority of the swamp's water is salt. Plants grow there that can be found nowhere else in Calantyr, ranging from enormous, knobby-trunked trees to the elusive mandrake root.
Pestilences flow out of the swamp every summer, sweeping through the towns and villages that lie nearby. Marauding trolls and stranger monsters hunt its depths. The Saltmire itself is impossible to farm, cannot be settled, and offers no ores or minerals. Much of that domain's poverty is directly attributable to the insects and illnesses of the swamp.
Nevertheless, people occasionally emerge from the swamp's murky interior with exotic hides, mystical herbs, and artifacts from unknown civilizations. In recent years, several people have brought back finely carved statues of glossy white or black stone, depicting creatures of coiled tentacles and disjointed bodies; no one knows who made the statues or what they depict, but they have become a fascination for local scholars.
These treasures do not begin to compensate for the damage that the Saltmire wreaks upon the Tidemarshes, but they do draw a thin trickle of hedge-wizards and treasure-hunters to the region. Even if most seekers are bound to be disappointed, their inevitable ailments at least bring business to the Tidemarshes' healers.
==The Mud Graveyard==
The southeastern tip of the Saltmire is known as the Mud Graveyard. Sailors practical and superstitious alike regard it with extreme distaste. A combination of the strong (and, many say, magically enhanced) winds whirling around the pirate haven of Tartessos, ever-shifting shoals, and treacherous currents cause many ships to founder in the stretch between Vir and Coeur d'Ennui. A disproportionate number of these wrecks are mired in the thick, salty sludge of the Mud Graveyard. The superstitious say that there is no natural explanation for these wrecks, and that some malign witchcraft from the Saltmire draws the ships to their doom; the practical scoff at these claims, but it is true that this generally peaceful stretch of water can turn dangerous when least expected, and that far more ships lie buried in the Mud Graveyard than logic should predict.
Other stories circulate about the eerieness of the Mud Graveyard. One of the most popular tales claims that the crew of a wrecked ship managed to reach the Saltmire alive. They built a makeshift village from the planks and other wreckage of dead ships trapped in the mud, and there waited for another ship to come and rescue them. Inexplicably, despite the high trafficking along the coast, no ship ever came. In desperation, the sailors turned to cannibalism, until the last of them was felled by disease (or, some say, was bewitched by evil fae from the mire and led into its depths, never to be seen again), and their village of planks became a haunted location. Sailors passing by the Saltmire sometimes claim to have heard ghostly voices calling to them, or to have glimpsed a ramshackle collection of huts built from broken planks and tattered sails, but most assume these are sea-stories and nothing more.
-**See Also: [[MuteFens The Mute Fens]]**
