Spirits of the Weeping Swamp

The Weeping Swamp is a foggy bog in Rojgrasz dividing the southern region from the western one. In Remnava they say wrathful spirits inhabit the swamp and attack any person fool enough to try and traverse it. Unfortunately, the swamp is the most convenient way to travel westward since the only other option is to make a two weeks-long detour northwards. Witness tales, legends and facts have mixed over the years, creating the legends of the Weeping Swamp.

Summary

According to the Dark Swan legend, when the demonic creature cursed the four lands, it transformed all inhabitants in the western one into spirits. The people, neither dead nor alive, wandered the region, and some reached a prosperous forest. When the curse of the Swan settled in, the forest deteriorated until it became a swamp. A supposedly magical fog enveloped the place, trapping the spirits inside. The ghosts had no way of escaping and no way to die.
While most versions of the myth are the same up to this point, what follows can be vastly different.
According to some people, an abyssal spirit came and devoured all the previous inhabitants, settling into the swamp. Others claim the spirits went mad because of the whole situation, lost their minds and fused into a single entity. According to these people, whenever a living person passes by, they become furious seeing someone who could cross the swamp from one side to the other and attack as a single being to force them to join their rank and stay trapped there forever.
Whatever the case, the result was the same. The legend urges people to avoid the swamp at all costs staying as far as possible from it.

Variations & Mutation

A common variation comes from adventurers who survived the wetland and shared their experiences. They recount as the fog and swamp themselves seemed to become aware of their presence, hindering any attempt at escaping. The mist condensed, the ground was shaking, and voices far and pleading at first, then closer and wrathful muttered incomprehensible speeches. A presence felt closer and closer as in a chase. In the end, the turmoil made them think the earth awoke and was about to crack open and swallow them whole.
It is not the only legend variation admitting it is impossible to exit someplace because the region itself seems to try to keep people inside. According to many Nojgraszian, "it is impossible to leave the Dark Lands unless they want you to". Analogously, the The Forbidden Forest appears to be unapproachable because of the same reason.
While many people, especially foreigners, feel like these sensations are born from suggestion and are conditioned by the harsh situation, similar experiences happen in so many places that many other people, especially alńy, claim it is just how the Dark Lands work, in general.

Related Ethnicities

• Zatjal

Related Locations

• Dark Lands