The Nightfen

The Nightfen

The Nightfen is a south-central wetland in Oblivion Vale. Open water is gone, but the ground stays soaked from buried aquifers and slow seepage. Water rises into peat, then sinks again, so the land feels wet but gives little to drink. Fog sits low for most of the day and cuts sight to short distances.

Land and Water

The Nightfen is low ground of black peat, slick mud, and soft reeds. Pools form in shallow depressions, grow a scum skin, then drain into cracks or get swallowed by peat. Old causeways and plank walks cross the worst sections, but many are broken or half sunk. Some routes are older than the Drying and were built when this was a lake margin.
Hidden wells exist, but they are rare and fought over. Many are capped with stone and sealed with wax marks, then covered with reed mats to hide them from raiders. Some wells are trapped with weighted lids or pit spikes. A few wells are “living wells,” where thick rim growth blocks access unless it is cut.

Climate and Plague Adjacency

The Nightfen stays cold-damp most mornings and warm-still in midday pockets. That shift drives swarms of biting gnats, and many carry fever. Reed beds swell with sour moss, and fungus blooms on anything left on the ground for a night. Plaguelands influence is not constant, but it shows as sudden rot patches and animals that carry sickness without dying.

Control and Borders

The Nightfen sits within reach of the Southern Shield, the south’s militarized human kingdom. The crown claims the fen as a cordon zone and a water asset, even though it cannot fully hold it. Fen Wardens are stationed at edges and along the few stable causeways. Their public duty is to guard wells, enforce quarantine rules, and stop smuggling. Their real duty is to control who can move water casks and who must go thirsty.
Warden posts are raised platforms with ash pits, cordon stakes, and chained warning boards. The Wardens carry lists of approved well caps and permitted routes. They also carry authority to seize casks, break camps, and mark a family “unclean” for travel.

Water Law in the Fen

Stable wells are registered by the state, and the cap seal is the proof. A legal cap carries a stamped plate and a wax mark that matches a Warden ledger. Any cap without a matching mark is assumed stolen, poisoned, or bait.
Fen Wardens issue short-term travel slips for work crews. The slip lists a causeway entry point, a return hour, and a cask tally limit. Wardens check seals more than faces. This makes forged marks valuable and makes honest people easy to accuse when shortages spike.

People and Survival

Permanent settlement inside the Nightfen is small. Most people enter for work, flight, or crime. A few reed-hut clusters exist on higher ground, built on packed brush and old planks. They rely on fungus beds, insect traps, and eels taken from seep channels. Food is dried fast over low smoke to slow rot. Tools rust fast, leather straps rot, and rope frays unless it is kept oiled and off the mud.
Some families live as “fen-runners,” moving between caches and half-sunk shelters. They avoid Warden posts and large fires. When they are caught, they are treated as smugglers by default.

Work and Scarce Goods

The Nightfen produces a short list of goods, all hard to harvest:
• Peat blocks for slow fuel
• Reed fiber for cord and mats
• Tar and resin from rot-stumps on the edges
• Dried fungus for food and crude medicine
• Eels, insects, and small mudfish
Most of this work is done by poor crews under escort. Some crews are state-run. Others are tied to private handlers who pay in ration notes and take most of the yield.

Maintenance and Daily Risk

Everything in the Nightfen breaks faster than it should. People carry oil rags, ash, and spare cord because wet air ruins metal and leather. Boots are patched with reed fiber and tar. Anyone who sleeps on bare ground wakes with bites and fever. Camps are built on pallets and hung gear lines, even when materials are scarce.

Health, Containment, and Burn Practice

Fever from gnats is common. Cuts are more dangerous than hunger because rot takes hold fast in wet cloth. People keep ash packets to dry wounds and keep insects off. Fen Wardens maintain ash piles where they burn bedding, boots, and any gear taken from the dead. In some weeks, the Wardens burn whole shelters, then drive survivors to edge forts for screening.

Death Rites and Burial Law

Burial is hard in the Nightfen. Shallow pits fill and collapse, and bodies rot fast. Local Death practice focuses on ash, sealed pits, and boundary marks. Small pyres use peat and reed bundles. Ash is packed into clay jars or wrapped in oilcloth, then set into capped holes lined with stone when available.
Fen Wardens and Death priests argue often. Wardens want fast burning and fast removal. Death priests demand record marks and proper sealing, because broken rites raise panic and invite the dead to rise. In bad weeks, the state overrides the rites and burns stacks without names.

Monsters and Threat Ecology

Scarcity draws the desperate into the Nightfen. Desperate camps feed plagueborn change, and the wet ground hides predators until they are close.

Green Hags

Green hags thrive in the Nightfen because law is thin and hunger is constant. They use disguise to enter reed-hut clusters and edge relief lines. They poison wells, ruin stored food, and start fights over blame. A hag wants leverage more than quick kills. It keeps victims alive to force tribute, then uses threats to control paths and seep sites. It also trades false guidance to smugglers, leading them into soft ground, trapped wells, or Rot Charger lanes.

Rot Chargers

Rot Chargers roam firmer edge ground where corpses are sometimes left after patrol fights. When they charge, they break bodies and shields by mass alone. Their shoulder blooms can burst on impact and throw grit-spores into eyes and mouths. Wardens burn Rot Charger carcasses on sight, because the blooms seed new rot patches if left in the peat.

Pox Wolves

Pox Wolves stalk causeways and fence lines near trapped wells and old ash pits. They hunt in small packs and aim for legs and hands. A bite carries a wasting fever that locks joints and slows breathing. Packs trail groups through fog, staying just out of sight until someone falls behind.

Plaguehogs

Plaguehogs root through midden heaps, ruined markets, and abandoned store sheds on the fen’s edge. They damage more than they kill. Their rot bite eats wood and leather fast, ruining doors, straps, and water skins. A herd can destroy a supply shed in one night and leave infected scraps that draw worse beasts.

Other Pressures

Orc warbands skirt the Nightfen’s edges where the fen meets woodlands and broken farm ground. They watch causeway exits and well approaches, striking for casks, iron, and captives, then fading back into cover. Plague insects are constant pressure. Gnats spread fever, and leeches push rot into cuts. Swarms drive people off stable ground and into soft mud.

Travel, Trade, and Smuggling

Most lawful travel avoids the Nightfen. The few caravans that cross do so to shorten routes between southern forts and depots, and they pay escorts. Smugglers use the fog and shifting ground to move water casks, forged travel marks, and stolen ration tokens. Fen Wardens answer with cordon posts, night patrols, and trap wells, but the fen has more hiding places than the state has boots.

What People Believe

Local belief is shaped by hard experience:
• A clean-looking pool is often the worst one
• A well cap without a seal mark is a trap or a lie
• If gnats vanish at midday, something large is moving nearby
• A broken plank can be decay or a signal

Notable Features

Capped Wells: stone caps with warning stakes and ash rings, claimed by Wardens or fought over by locals.
Old Causeways: raised paths of stone and timber linking edge forts to hidden work sites.
Ash Pits: burn sites for dead, infected gear, and plague beast carcasses.
Cordon Lines: stake rows with rope, tags, and quarantine boards that define permitted travel.