2.4 KiB
type, world, campaign
| type | world | campaign |
|---|---|---|
| location | Eldar | The Hollow Between |
The Hushmere
[!info] At a Glance Type: Marsh and reedwater First impression: Still black water, long grasses, low fog, and paths marked by bone-white stakes Mood: Beautiful, disorienting, attentive
What You See
The Hushmere is a spread of dark water and floating sedge broken by islets of firmer ground. The air smells of wet earth and pennyroyal. Sound carries oddly here. A laugh can travel for minutes. A whispered warning can stop a boat as surely as a pole in the mud.
The Surprise
The reeds in the Hushmere repeat important words after they are spoken - but never immediately, and never in the same voice. At first this seems eerie. Then useful. Then dangerous, once the party realizes the marsh decides for itself what counts as important.
The Rule
Never speak a full name over open water.
Locals shorten, blur, or nickname each other on the marsh. The water keeps names it hears clearly and gives them back later to things that should not have them.
The Spirit or Being
Ysa of the Reeds moves through the Hushmere as a woman-shaped drift of reeds, ferry rope, and silver fish scales. She tends crossings, listens for broken promises, and cares deeply about names used carelessly.
Ysa does not want the waking place destroyed. She wants it understood, because she remembers what it was for before people became afraid of it.
Secrets
- Surface: Smugglers once used the marsh, and some of their hidden paths still exist.
- Hidden: The reeds have started repeating words spoken decades ago, not just recent ones.
- Buried: Ysa helped put the waking place to sleep and has told no one that the old pact was meant to be temporary.
Connections
- The marsh paths lead back toward campaigns/the-hollow-between/locations/briarcross
- The waters bend around the burial rise called campaigns/the-hollow-between/locations/the-hollow-bell
- Ysa knows things about the region of worlds/eldar/geography/the-lantern-moss
DM Notes
The Hushmere is ideal for navigation scenes, overheard truths, and bargaining with Ysa. It should feel like a place that listens before it acts.
Hooks
- the reeds repeat a dead person's warning in front of the party
- a ferried passenger vanishes from the reflection before they vanish from the boat
- Ysa offers guidance if the party returns a stolen name to the marsh