The Damp Plains: Setting Notes

So I haven't really run anything in this setting, I've just kind of been working on this bit of worldbuilding in my free time. I may develop dungeons and specific towns at a later point, but not for a while I think.

 Introduction: The Damp Plains are the southwestern lands controlled by the Bog Person Confederation. The Plains are hillier and slightly higher in altitude than the Bog Lands, resulting in a massive tallgrass prairie free of the annual flooding in Squee to the North. The Damp Plains are contained by the Mud River to the East, the Far River to the West, and the Tortoise Herd Mountains to the South. The soil is similarly low in nutrients like in Squee and there is also very little rainfall, but the water table is still fairly high from the flooding rivers that surround the plains, making them quite damp throughout the year. The bog people of the Damp Plains have always needed similar survival methods as their relatives in Squee, resulting in a relatively similar lifestyle despite the lack of annual floods. The tall grasses of the plains make visibility on the ground difficult for even the tall bog people, and in many ways the plains are even more treacherous and difficult to traverse than the bog lands.

Geographic History: The Damp Plains are on a higher part of the continental crust, diverting its containing rivers to either side. Despite this, thousands of years of floods have forced water through the sandy, salty soil, producing a high water table that the salt-tolerant plants of the plains are adapted to exploit. Very little rain makes it across the continent to the Damp Plains, so this groundwater is all that is available to plants in the area. The tall grasses stabilize the top layer of soil, preventing any serious erosion. Although the plains are free of annual flooding from the rivers that surround it, that does not make building in the plains easy. The loose, damp soil is very deep before hitting bedrock, making traditional foundations difficult to build, and water tends to seep out of bare ground, making stilt houses the most affordable option. Despite the poor soils, a diverse array of antelope, wild horses, wildebeest, and even water buffalo can be found in the area, hunted by packs of land gators and viscous leopards.

The Bog People: A species of tall, bipedal salamanders known as the Bog People. Despite what outsiders might view as a crude society with a low level of technology, the bog people have a complex and thriving culture and government which oversees the homeland of the bog people. This matriarchal society is generally peaceful, but invaders tend to meet their ends more than anything else. Bog people seem content to stay in their ancestral homelands, and they seem to want others to do the same.

The bog people of the Damp Plains tend to view the plains spirits less favorably than their relatives in Squee view the bog spirits. Bog people of the damp plains often do the bare minimum to maintain the ability to make new buildings and fortifications through rituals and worship. The plains spirits, luckily, seem much more relaxed and willing to help out than the bog spirits of Squee, usually having very few customs they want observed. Some bog people living close to plentiful sources of wood, a rarity on the plains and almost unheard of in the bog lands, are even able to build and maintain their communities without the help of spirits and have left their old practices behind. This kind of irreverence for the spirits of the land can be shocking to bog people from the bog lands, and causes much tension at the Queen Mothers’ Council.

While stilt houses are still useful and common, bog people tend to have larger settlements on the plains where food is more plentiful and the spirits are more welcoming. In turn, matriarchs and queen mothers of the plains tend to be more progressive and welcoming to outsiders, which shows in the towns and cities they run. Without flooding, nursery pools do not need to be on hills, although they are still walled and found in the centers of settlements. Adult bog people rarely get the chance to swim and must regularly bathe in mud pits to keep their skin from drying out too much. The high water table of the damp plains is useful for this as it makes mud pits relatively easy to construct anywhere on the plains. They tend to see the bog people of Squee as stuck up and rude.

Rough Timeline

• 4,000 years ago- bog people from Squee first settle the Damp Plains

• 2,000 years ago- exiles from an ancient snake person kingdom invade and conquer the bog lands and the damp plains, subjugating the bog people of both regions

• 1,500 years ago- the bog people develop a relationship with the spirits of the plains and wetlands around them and use the powers of the spirits to drive out the snake people 

• 400 years ago- agents from the First Empire arrive for the first time to establish diplomatic and trade relations between them and the Bog Person Confederacy

Major Factions

Most of the Damp Plains are controlled by the bog people, but there are several other groups that call the plains home. Most of the inhabitants of the plains are actually quite dangerous, even the bog people, to outsiders and the unprepared, so it is often best to be aligned with one of the more powerful groups in the Damp Plains to guarantee some amount of safety.

The Bog Person Confederation- Led by the Queen Mothers’ Council, they maintain a positive relationship with the plains spirits to be able to maintain their peaceful way of life in the Damp Plains. The bog people of the plains tend to be pregressive thinking but not very mindful of their relationship with the plains spirits. Bog people maintain many towns and even a few cities of stilt buildings that keep the floors of buildings from rotting or turning to mud. The Queen Mothers’ Council meets in a secret location in the middle of Squee, forcing queen mothers of the Plains to travel long distances. The council’s policies also tend to favor bog people in Squee over the plains, which bothers most plains residents. While they are generally welcoming to outsiders, they generally look down on anyone who needs their help traversing the Damp Plains, which is most people who aren’t bog people.

Bog Person Secessionists- Some of the families in the far west of the Damp Plains have taken such issue with the dominance of the bog-living bog people that hey have stopped sending representatives to the Queen Mothers’ Council and have stopped following certain practices that are only useful to the bog people in Squee. While they still pay taxes and allow free travel between their lands and the rest of the confederation, it feels like only a matter of time before they try to break off completely. These are the families who rely on their relationship with spirits the least and see little reason to follow rules made by bog people on the other side of the confederation.

Bog Person Towns- Bog person stilt towns and cities tend to have a lot of influence over the immediate area. The surrounding lands are where the bog people of a given town hunt and gather for food and supplies. Towns are all built around one or more walled and guarded nursery pools. These pools are also where the matriarchs and queen mother have their homes. Buildings are usually made from magically grown plants, built with the help of the plains spirits. Gaining the favor of these plains spirits to be able to build settlements in the first place requires the inhabitants of each town to observe certain customs and take part in regular rituals, the details of which vary greatly between settlements. Some areas have much more hospitable spirits than others so some towns merely have to hold an annual festival and abstain from certain foods, while others have hundreds of arbitrary taboos and weekly acts of ceremonial worship. Every town is controlled by a single family of bog people, with many families controlling several towns with several matriarchs serving under a single queen mother for the entire family. These groups of settlements populated by a single family form de facto provinces within the Bog Person Confederation.

First Empire Diplomats- The First Empire Diplomatic Corps exists to maintain positive relationships with the territories that border and trade with the First Empire. They set up and maintain embassies whenever possible, and they ensure a direct line of communication between the leaders of other territories and the First Emperor. While the empire is not currently focused on expanding its borders, it still values the work of the diplomatic corps because a good relationship with its neighbors will make future conquests that much easier. Any attempt to conquer the Damp Plains is centuries away, however, and it is unclear if the diplomats of today are even aware of this long-term plan.

First Empire Merchants- Merchants from the First Empire are civilians with a license from the First Emperor to leave the empire and travel abroad to sell the excess of the empire and bring back exotic goods for the people of the First Empire to buy. Some merchants are more reputable than others, but they all must meet a certain standard of trustworthiness to maintain their merchant's licenses. They are mostly concerned with making money and retiring with a small fortune as soon as possible, so merchants try not to spend too much time in a single place. Merchants tend to know many local rumors and can be great resources for those looking for unorthodox money-making opportunities.

Snake Cultists- In the many years since the snake people were ousted from Squee, a strange religion has arisen surrounding the secretive oppressors. These cultists believe that the ancient snake people who conquered Squee and the Damp Plains left mainstream snake person society to venerate an ancestral snake spirit. The cultists also believe in and worship this ancestral snake spirit, as they believe that the spirit is destined to one day swallow the world, consuming all who did not help it and sparing its loyal worshippers. The bog people and humans who join this cult eschew their former culture and join the other cultists who live and worship in ancient snake person ruins. These ruins, built by the ancient snake people who conquered Squee, are seen as holy sites built by the founders of the cultists' religion. Cultists see these ancient people as demigods, gifted with power for their decision to leave home and establish their own lands in the name of their new god. It is worth noting that modern snake people have records from the time of the conquest of Squee which indicate the snake people who took over Squee and the Damp Plains were exiled for attempted revolution in the name of a false god and had no exceptional influence or power before their exile.

The Bog Lands of Squee: Setting Notes

So I haven't really run anything in this setting, I've just kind of been working on this bit of worldbuilding in my free time. I may develop dungeons and specific towns at a later point, but not for a while I think.

Introduction: The Bog Lands of Squee are a large part of the territory controlled by the Bog Person Confederation. Due to the 3 massive rivers (known as the Mud River, the Bogmother, and the Frontier River) which flow through this relatively flat region that each flood for part of the year, the bog lands are very wet and nutrient-poor. Although the entire area is referred to as bog lands, there are actually many different types of wetland that make up this area, resulting in a diverse patchwork of habitats. The bog people of this region rely heavily on their stilt houses and raised nursery pools to avoid the worst of the flood season. Life in Squee revolves around the annual snowmelt floods which turn the entire region into a network of bogs, stagnant ponds, and muddy flats. The area gets very little rainfall during the year, but there is usually so much snowmelt that the 3 rivers are flooded for nearly half the year, overflowing to the point that they each become hundreds of miles wide and mix their waters before reaching the ocean.

Geographic History: The bog lands sit in a gigantic dip in the continental shelf, funneling the 3 rivers of the bog lands through the area. Squee has never had much precipitation and the soil is mostly salt and sand beneath the organic layer. This results in a relatively hostile environment for most plants with deep roots, which is why trees are a relative rarity in the bog lands. Without the annual snowmelt from the mountains to the East, Squee would be a desert with almost no nutrients in the soil, and it has been one during colder and drier periods in Tero’s climate. The floods each year not only deposit nutrients from more fertile mountain soils, but also provide habitat for algaes and plants that will stabilize the soil and leave behind nutrients when the rivers return to their banks after the flood season ends. Over thousands of years, the organic layer has gotten deeper and deeper, allowing the bog lands to act as a gigantic sponge, maintaining a relatively damp environment during the parts of the year without flooding. 

The Bog People: A species of tall, bipedal salamanders known as the Bog People. Despite what outsiders might view as a crude society with a low level of technology, the bog people have a complex and thriving culture and government which oversees the homeland of the bog people. This matriarchal society is generally peaceful, but invaders tend to meet their ends more than anything else. Bog people seem content to stay in their ancestral homelands, and they seem to want others to do the same.

The bog people of Squee are particularly tied to their traditions and relationship with the bog spirits because they deal with the worst of the flooding each year and rely on their relationship with the spirits the most for their stilt houses and nursery ponds. Bog people from Squee also tend to be less trusting of outsiders and will frequently mock those who struggle to traverse the bog lands or deal with the flood season. Matriarchs and queen mothers tend to rule a more insular, traditional, and sometimes even xenophobic society in Squee.

Settlements made by the bog people here tend to be smaller than on the damp plains, contributing to the insular attitudes of the bog people of Squee. The stilts of the houses are very important and tend to be taller and more robust than those on the damp plains. In needing to stand up to annual flooding, the bog people here also tend to be strong swimmers, able to move around their towns even if a strong current has taken over the streets. Although they still consider them kin, the bog people of squee seem to think of themselves as better than those of the plains.

Rough Timeline

• 5,000 years ago- the earliest bog person families claim territories in Squee, maintaining a nomadic lifestyle and rebuilding their nursery pools every dry season after the floods receded

• 4,000 years ago- the bog people begin to settle the Damp Plains

• 2,000 years ago- exiles from an ancient snake person kingdom invade and conquer the bog lands and the damp plains, subjugating the bog people of both regions

• 1,500 years ago- the bog people develop a relationship with the spirits of the bogs and wetlands around them and use the powers of the spirits to drive out the snake people

• 400 years ago- agents from the First Empire arrive for the first time to establish diplomatic and trade relations between them and the Bog Person Confederacy

Major Factions

Most of the bog lands are controlled by the bog people, but there are several other groups that call the bogs home. Most of the inhabitants of Squee are actually quite dangerous, even the bog people, to outsiders and the unprepared, so it is often best to be aligned with one of the more powerful groups in Squee to guarantee some amount of safety.

The Bog Person Confederation- Led by the Queen Mothers’ Council, they maintain a positive relationship with the bog spirits to be able to maintain their peaceful way of life in Squee. The bog people in Squee tend to be traditional and very mindful of their relationship with the bog spirits. Bog people maintain many towns and even a few cities of stilt buildings that stay above water during the flood season. The Queen Mothers’ Council meets in a secret location in the middle of Squee, and their policies tend to favor the more conservative bog land residents. While they are generally welcoming to outsiders, they generally look down on anyone who needs their help traversing the bog lands, which is most people who aren’t bog people.

Bog Person Towns- Bog person stilt towns and cities tend to have a lot of influence over the immediate area. The surrounding lands are where the bog people of a given town hunt and gather for food and supplies. Towns are all built around one or more hills which hold the nursery pools for the town. These hills are also where the matriarchs and queen mother have their homes. Buildings are all made from magically grown plants, built with the help of the bog spirits. Gaining the favor of these bog spirits to be able to build settlements in the first place requires the inhabitants of each town to observe certain customs and take part in regular rituals, the details of which vary greatly between settlements. Some areas have much more hospitable spirits than others so some towns merely have to hold an annual festival and abstain from certain foods, while others have hundreds of arbitrary taboos and weekly acts of ceremonial worship. Every town is controlled by a single family of bog people, with many families controlling several towns with several matriarchs serving under a single queen mother for the entire family. These groups of settlements populated by a single family form de facto provinces within the Bog Person Confederation.

First Empire Diplomats- The First Empire Diplomatic Corps exists to maintain positive relationships with the territories that border and trade with the First Empire. They set up and maintain embassies whenever possible, and they ensure a direct line of communication between the leaders of other territories and the First Emperor. While the empire is not currently focused on expanding its borders, it still values the work of the diplomatic corps because a good relationship with its neighbors will make future conquests that much easier. Any attempt to conquer Squee is centuries away, however, and it is unclear if the diplomats of today are even aware of this long-term plan.

First Empire Merchants- Merchants from the First Empire are civilians with a license from the First Emperor to leave the empire and travel abroad to sell the excess of the empire and bring back exotic goods for the people of the First Empire to buy. Some merchants are more reputable than others, but they all must meet a certain standard of trustworthiness to maintain their merchant's licenses. They are mostly concerned with making money and retiring with a small fortune as soon as possible, so merchants try not to spend too much time in a single place. Merchants tend to know many local rumors and can be great resources for those looking for unorthodox money-making opportunities.

Snake Cultists- In the many years since the snake people were ousted from Squee, a strange religion has arisen surrounding the secretive oppressors. These cultists believe that the ancient snake people who conquered Squee and the Damp Plains left mainstream snake person society to venerate an ancestral snake spirit. The cultists also believe in and worship this ancestral snake spirit, as they believe that the spirit is destined to one day swallow the world, consuming all who did not help it and sparing its loyal worshippers. The bog people and humans who join this cult eschew their former culture and join the other cultists who live and worship in ancient snake person ruins. These ruins, built by the ancient snake people who conquered Squee, are seen as holy sites built by the founders of the cultists' religion. Cultists see these ancient people as demigods, gifted with power for their decision to leave home and establish their own lands in the name of their new god. It is worth noting that modern snake people have records from the time of the conquest of Squee which indicate the snake people who took over Squee and the Damp Plains were exiled for attempted revolution in the name of a false god and had no exceptional influence or power before their exile.

The Bog Person Confederation: Cultural Profile

This is the cultural profile for the Bog People, the inhabitants of the Bog Lands of Squee and the Damp Plains. I had a random burst of creativity a few months ago and have been working on this off and on since then.

Introduction: The Bog Lands of Squee and the Damp Plains are inhabited by a species of 8-foot tall tall, bipedal salamanders known as the Bog People. Despite what outsiders might view as a crude society with a low level of technology, the bog people have a complex and thriving culture and government which oversees the homeland of the bog people. This matriarchal society is generally peaceful, but invaders tend to meet their ends more than anything else. Bog people seem content to stay in their ancestral homelands, and they seem to want others to do the same.

A typical bog person, holding a trident carved from the thigh bone of a massive bog creature

Magic and Technology: The technology of the bog people is limited by the materials available to them in Squee, but they are masters of the materials they have. Metalworking is entirely unknown to the bog people, and even if it wasn’t, the geography of their homeland makes mining nearly impossible. Regardless, the bog people make due just fine with stone, bone, and reeds. Bog people farm whatever arable land they have available to them, but there is precious little in Squee, so most bog people must hunt and gather for their meals. Hunting and gathering is done with well-crafted and refined tools, even if those tools are made of things readily taken off the ground. Throwing spears and their associated throwers are ubiquitous, as well as stone axes and flint knives. Bog people are also prodigious weavers, having a nearly endless supply of weaving materials in the bogs. Despite this apparent reliance on hunting and gathering, most bog people live in permanent settlements made up of many stilt houses. Stilt houses and permanent residences are necessary due to the frequent flooding of Squee and the somewhat permanent nature of bog person nursery pools, often placed in the centers of settlements. 

Arcane magic is mostly unknown to the bog people, so the main thing that tends to puzzle outsiders is how these permanent villages of wooden stilt houses are made. There are very few, if any, large trees in Squee, so the bog people rely on magic, performed by the matriarch of each village, to grow shrubs into the appropriate shapes to make the houses in a matter of hours. This magic is performed as a religious ritual in reverence to the spirits of the bogs which the bog people must stay in balance with. They maintain this balance by using sustainable hunting and gathering practices and by adapting their communities to fit into the landscape instead of trying to be separate. As long as a village is able to maintain balance with its environment, the matriarch will be able to perform the rituals which channel the power of the bog spirits into creating houses, among other things the community might need. Sometimes, this magic is even used to raise new hills to put nursery pools on, or expand natural ones that are safe from flooding. In times of danger, it is common for the matriarch to raise defenses around her village, and these can take many forms depending on the village and matriarch in question. The most important rule for bog person magic is, however, that it cannot be used to attack, only defend and support the community, making warfare between bog person communities relatively rare, as sieges have an abysmal success rate.

One of the Queen Mothers, eating a meal and holding an ancient scepter said to have the skull of an ancient invader on top

Society: The bog people maintain a matriarchal society where only females who have laid eggs in the nursery pools at least once may participate. For bog people who meet the criteria, their society is essentially a representative democracy. Individual settlements are usually populated by members of a single family, the mothers of which form a council that governs day-to-day life and discusses local policy. The oldest member of this council of mothers is the Matriarch of the settlement, who is responsible for representing the needs of her settlement at her family’s council of matriarchs. The council of matriarchs is where every matriarch of a family meets to discuss issues that affect the entire family and they decide how each village must act to bring about a solution. This council of matriarchs is led by the oldest matriarch of the family, referred to as the queen mother. There are hundreds of families, some of which only control a single village, and each one sends their queen mother to be part of the queen mothers’ council, the body which governs the entire confederacy. Every member of this council is considered to be an equal and has an equal vote when proceedings call for it.

Bog person children never get to know who their biological parents are because all eggs are laid in the communal nursery pond and raised from tadpoles together. Likewise, bog people tend to live communally, with adults freely choosing who to share a stilt house with and regularly changing houses to get to see other members of the family. Reproduction happens once a year when everyone of the proper age leaves home to go meet up with the population of another family’s settlement and have a fertility festival. This is done to avoid the inbreeding that would happen otherwise, and families make sure to meet with a different family every year.

Due to their importance in governing settlements, females of the bog people tend to stay closer to their homes in case they are needed, while it is often the responsibility of the males to range farther and gather food while they hunt. This social order is perpetuated by those in power and many bog people never question it. There are, however, members of bog person society who are unhappy with the division of labor based on biological sex. These people are frequently pariahs in their families, although their attitudes are tolerated to a certain extent.

Around 2,000 years ago, if the oral histories of the bog people are correct, a powerful military invader took over Squee and the Damp Plains, subjugating the bog people. These invaders ruled for 500 years before they were overthrown and removed from the bog peoples' lands. Oral histories attribute this successful revolution to the development of their current relationship with the bog spirits, giving them access to a power they did not have before the invasion. Little is known of who exactly invaded, but all accounts agree that they were a group of snake people, obsessed with secrecy. Because of this secretive tendency, very little information about their one-time rulers ever made it to the bog people. Despite this, the Snake Monarchs of Squee left behind many stone monuments and buildings, all made of imported stone. Many of the monarchs left wondrous treasures and dangerous magic behind when they were overthrown. This has been left to fester for 1,500 years, and many problems for the bog people of today are caused by the things left behind in these ruins.

Other than the physical impacts, the Snake Monarchs have also left a cultural distaste for expansionism and conquest in the bog peoples' mouths. While they are welcoming to outsiders, they will not hesitate to remove anyone who seems to want trouble. The defensive capabilities of the bog people are vast, and no one has been able to conquer them since their revolution.

A freshly hatched bog person will take about a year to grow legs

Religion: The bog people do not have any kind of organized religion or universal spiritual practice. Each settlement and village must find its own way to reach a balance with the local bog spirits and gain access to the magic which lets them grow and defend their communities. Rituals and prayers are not particularly common, as keeping to a certain way of life seems to be the most consistent way to please and work with the bog spirits. The rituals used to perform magic may seem like worship, but they are really just a way to get the attention of the spirits and tell them what to do.

A young bog person who has not yet learned how to walk on two legs

Towns: Individual towns are built and maintained by the matriarchs who are able to channel the powers of the bog spirits. When a new town is founded, the prospective matriarch must first commune with the local bog spirits to understand what she and her family must do to perform constructive magic. Once this is done, the first thing that is built is a large hill with a nursery pool on top, and then wooden stilt houses are grown outwards. Larger, more elaborate houses and meeting places are placed closer to the nursery pool, and the matriarch usually lives on the hill, right next to the pool itself. The process takes about a week, and produces enough housing for all members of the family who intend to live in the new settlement. The maximum size and population of each settlement is usually decided by the bog spirits as part of their covenant with the matriarch of each settlement. Areas that have more food and resources have bog spirits that allow more bog people, although this is not universal. Because a single family usually inhabits a single town, inhabitants tend to work for the greater good of their settlement and family, and there is a generally friendly atmosphere in the stilt villages.