[hider=Fens of Lochlund][center][h1][b][color=#9fc09d]~[/color][color=#c8cb70] Lochlund [/color][color=#9fc09d]~[/color][/b][/h1] [img]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/39a6a2f8-b90e-4072-bc16-48ecc52921e6/d8ar1dn-41779e92-aaf9-4bbf-8f1a-73407b0cb569.jpg/v1/fill/w_1137,h_703,q_70,strp/the_willow_bath_by_anna_lakisova_d8ar1dn-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NzkyIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvMzlhNmEyZjgtYjkwZS00MDcyLWJjMTYtNDhlY2M1MjkyMWU2XC9kOGFyMWRuLTQxNzc5ZTkyLWFhZjktNGJiZi04ZjFhLTczNDA3YjBjYjU2OS5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.32Et8LDM3L4XbQa4FMtKNADO5VlS2Y8fqjjFPnzVVcE[/img] [color=#9fc09d]~ - ~[/color] [color=#c8cb70][b]Government[/b][/color][/center] The voice. They call her [i]Clíodhna[/i]. It is the gentle song in the night that all men and women hear in their minds and amongst the evening breeze. She keens to them at dusk when deep mists draw through the moors. She leads them without direction. She pulls at their heart each in their own separate way. Legends say no one has ever seen her, save the suitor she pines for each night. The people have long murmured that she lives on a small bog, deep in the loch where the fog and the faerie light hang like breath. Yet none venture to find her. The only man she will see is the one that belongs to her. Death awaits all else. [center][b][color=#c8cb70]Demographics[/color][/b][/center] Lochlund holds host to many races. The disheveled lot that landed here in the time of the Great Rift found quickly that their means to survival lie within each other. Dwarves make up the heaviest weight, with elves, gnomes, ogres, and other such folk a minority in their keep. The woodlands around – with their reaching birches and thick, homely willows – are the lands of the fey. Few see the sight of them, and the denizens of this realm are harassed and worse by their incessant mischief. Pixies have been known to consort with townsfolk the most, though their intentions are never pure. They are an essence integral to this world, larks bent misfortune of its prisoners. [center][b][color=#c8cb70]Population[/color][/b][/center] Small and uncounted. The wharf holds enough souls to count as a viable city though humble in wealth and resource. Those who survive these lands are blessed. Those who perish... have a less decided fate. Rumors stir that thousands of souls lost to the deep make their bed in the fen across the loch. A great craft stands in that haunted pace. Even the woodland fey fear it. [center][b][color=#9fc09d]~ - ~[/color][/b][/center] [center][b][color=#c8cb70]Plane Description[/color][/b][/center] The lands of the Loch are harsh, though comical they may be at first glance. In total, the plane is a great fen, bordered by fey-kept wood, further bound by a circle of mountains so high and sharp that they cut through the sky. Dragons and giants are said to tend her cliffs, though no man has ever survived her peaks. They are perhaps nothing more than the night tales mothers give their children to keep them warm in their beds, safe from the sound of the wind. Those poor souls who have survived this prison live in a single wharf town on the edge of the Loch. They keep well away from the folly of the deep and dancing woods, and live from the bounty of the waters beneath and around. They fish her keep and harvest her flora. However, these waters are not kind. No predators roam the lands, but death comes to many who swim weakly or do not heed what words Clíodhna calls in the night. [center][b][color=#c8cb70]History[/color][/b][/center] Nothing is left. No books have survived the damp, no wood has survived the rot, the stories that remain are those which kept the people of these lands alive here and now. They are the tales that guide stray minds from the witchlight. They are the paths that harvest a small catch, the mushroom that feeds without turning your child blue, the bogweed that you can pull out of the depths without it pulling you back. [center][b][color=#c8cb70]Culture and Society[/color][/b][/center] “Pixies only laugh at blood, and not their own. Stay out of the wood lest you be a joke.” - The first lesson a Loch mother gives. Life revolves around the Loch, the wharf, the small pleasures of this life: still waters and the twinkling lights of the fey from a distance. The lost souls of Lochlund are a miserable lot, and yet they find a kinship and humor in their plight. Small competitions of the muddiest boot are held each night and broken bones are mended with a well concocted bowl of stew. Tales of what one should not do are generally the crux of every conversation. The peak of this advice is staying away from the Big Boat. Its wreckage lies far away opposite the shores of the wharf. And for good reason. It is said that the dead live there, amongst the old ship. The Loch, in its mischievous cruelty, will not even let souls die. They simply gather by the giant craft awaiting passage to the next life in realms beyond. [center][b][color=#9fc09d] ~ - ~ [/color][/b][/center] [center][b][color=#c8cb70]Governance and Politics[/color][/b][/center] Though the voices of the Loch and pressures of the wood guide the lives of the wharf folk, there is still an unspoken structure within her midst. Quarrels are dealt with at the local pub and boat races are frequent amongst the neighborhoods (to much fanfare). More chronic disputes are settled by the women at meal times, the greatest form of trail in these parts. Most folk pull their weight and realize their plight in a world. Their neighbor is the key to their survival, or at least necessary for hope at a laugh. [center][b][color=#c8cb70]Technology and Magic[/color][/b][/center] Magics of the fey twinkle even along the dingy boarded streets of the wharf. It dances in the sky and amongst the constant fog that weaves its arms through every crevice of this realm. It is bounding everywhere and even possesses food and drink. Magic is something of a nuisance to people forced to live through its vexing effects. Drinking a pint might well grow your toenails out of your boots if the brewer chose the wrong seed or crossed the wrong pixy in his travels. With the wrong wax, candles are liable to float bottom up. They fey around torture the people of these lands. They are the stumped toe of every joke. And they know it. Yet a more sinister magic also lies in these parts. Far across the loch lies the [i]Big Boat[/i]. There amongst the runes of ancient trolls and glyphs of great fishes slumbers a hermit. He is perhaps the only townsfolk to ever use the magic of these lands against the lands themselves. There he gathers a herd of those drowned and lost to the loch. There they wait and drink and make merry within the great halls of that gargantuan wrecked boat. It's not known how he came upon this curse. None even know him by name. Many say he walks among the people of the wharf, studying them and listening to their woes. And at night when he hears the keen of Clíodhna, he learns who he will recruit next. [center][b][color=#c8cb70]Military Overview[/color][/b][/center] The fighting body of the citizenry is slim. Perhaps a spare drunken dwarf, one hand with a frog gig and the other with dark ale. Yet the powers of the Boat Man are a great cause for concern. How many generations have fallen dead in these lochs? How many could be called upon should the time come? [center][b][color=#9fc09d]~ - ~[/color][/b][/center] [center][b][color=#c8cb70]Additional Info[/color][/b][/center] [center][i]Don’t let this be a literary mystery. There definitely are dead folk in that boat. And it's a [i]Big Boat[/i].[/i][/center][/hider]