Tanomir Fens

As the waters of Lake Hargos empty to the east, they flow into a lowland known as the Tanomir Fens, some 200 miles of swamp and bog. The current is slow here, and interrupted by brackish pools and sandbars. During the short summers, those who choose to take a ship between the North Sea and the Gulf of Akados via the Grand Portage must take this route. With care, a knowledgeable captain can usually pick out a route to permit a longship to pass, but depending on the season and the amount of rainfall in the mountains, there may be no way to avoid bottoming out, which requires backtracking or disembarking and towing the ship forward by hand. Such a process can be laborious and unpleasant, as the fens breed hordes of mosquitoes and many varieties of incessantly biting flies.
In the winter, the Tanomir Fens freeze over and are covered by ice and, often, great drifts of snow. This makes travel here even more perilous, as the ice may not support the weight of a person, and those who break through the ice find themselves soaking wet in sub-zero conditions, and potentially stuck in the unfrozen muck beneath.
Eventually, at its eastern end, the waters of the fens coalesce into a single stream, and the Vindelsalven River reforms and continues its path to Seagestre Gulf on the North Sea.
The Tanomir Fens are home to the Bog Walkers, a tribe of Seagestrelanders who made it up the Vindelsalven generations ago and now eke out a meager existence here among the fens. In their watery fortress, they do not fear Northlander or K’Haln attacks. But that does not mean they are safe, and they pay a price for their security from attack.
Any captain — and even the Bog Walkers — passing through the fens know that they must always take care, for the fens host many dangers. Hags and wyrms hunt here, and it is said that a race of strange folk with the heads of lizards can be found in the deepest parts of the swamps. What these monsters don’t slay may fall instead to one of a dozen diseases passed on by brackish water and biting insects.

Type

Wetland / Swamp