Technology
Generations of industrial espionage mean that the technologies available to Allusia and Rain are quite similar. In Bridgend and Bastion, electrical lights flicker and early motor cars transport supplies to the front. A high ranking officer may have a new telephone connection, backstopped of course by the reliable telegraph connection. Powered flight is still a few years off, but hot air balloons might be used by enterprising players. Within the Fens, technology tends to be a bit more backward, but the characters will encounter steam engines, revolver toting thugs, and phonographs playing the latest tunes.
A few technologies unique to the Fens are described below:
Marsh Carts: Small, steam powered boats with a circular central paddle and a galvanized rubber hydrofoil. Not sneaky and prone to bogging down in the tighter channels of the central swamps, but commonly used in its outer areas.
Diving Bells and Suits: While most of the waters in the Fenlands are shallow, that isn’t true everywhere. Enterprising scavengers and treasure hunters have repurposed diving gear from the Salt Sea. It requires a trusted friend on the surface to hand-crank its oxygen supply, or the user will soon find themselves suffocating in the deep.
Bounders: Clockwork land mines scattered liberally by balloon across the Fenlands. When triggered, they spring upward and explode into a cloud of grapeshot. Many have been replanted by the inhabitants of the Fens to deter unwary intruders.
Lumin: A bright, bioluminescent paint derived from the glands of a frog common to the Fenlands. Often used by smugglers for marking caches in the persistent smog.
Barges: Wrecked steam barges are strewn across the eastern portion of the Fenlands, relics of a failed Allusian offensive. Some have been converted into floating encampments by the inhabitants of the Fens, while others may still hold treasure.
Brushblack: A lush moss found nowhere else in the world and colored so deep green that it is almost black. It grows in the deeper parts of the Fenlands. When dried and smoked, Brushblack is psychoactive, highly addictive, and growing popular in Rain.
Magic in the Fenlands
As late as the start of the first Rain - Allusinian war, magic was, although uncommon, not unheard of in either country. A court magician might know a few rituals to call rain, speak across far distances, or throw fire. Older, more potent magics were typically imbued into artifacts and jealously guarded by its owners. In a hundred years of conflict, however, they became scarcer, as the fires of war consumed magical items and magicians alike. Even spells carefully recorded against the ravages of time grew unreliable, weak and sputtering before ceasing to function altogether in the modern era.
While the reasons behind the decline of magic are for the players to investigate, the average dweller of the Fens accepts that it is somehow linked to the rise of modern technology. A more uncomfortable argument might point to the profligate use of an already scarce resource during the fighting. A few of the artifacts that players might encounter in the Fenlands are below:
Reanimator: A black metal amulet in the crude shape of a human heart, commonly found inside a destroyed corpse. When installed into the chest of a recently deceased person, it brings them to temporary life as a howling, psychotic warrior, lasting until their body is dismembered.
Thorns: A bag of small, silver hooks, packed in a rawhide bag along with a beaten metal compass. The reverse side of the compass carries a ritual that causes its needle to point toward a properly prepared hook, no matter how distant it is.
War Golems: More often retrieved in shattered pieces, these seven foot tall, peat encrusted clay figures were used by both sides of the conflict. A complete Golem, especially with its activating instructions, could be worth killing for.
Plot Arcs
Players entering the Fenlands will engage with three primary plot arcs, each of which has the potential to affect the others.
Whispers of War
A new war leader, Ala Thunderspeaker, has ascended to the head of the Rain League. Pressured by declining tax revenues, he looks to choke the illicit trade running through the Fenlands. But as his personal operatives flood into the Fens seeking smugglers, they risk upsetting the delicate balance of power that has evolved over the last twenty years. And with the Allusianian Army just over the horizon, any new instability in the Fenlands risks sparking a larger war.
Found Magic
As smugglers are pushed into the southern Fens by Thunderspeaker’s forces, newly discovered magical artifacts begin to hit the markets of Bridgend. Scavengers whisper of rich salvage in the tidal flats, while the Bureau of Magical Recovery openly recruits for a southern expedition. Some of the recovered artifacts bear the marks of long immersion in the Fens, while others appear almost newly made. Has the ocean uncovered a remarkably well preserved cache, or has someone at last unlocked the secrets of artifact production?
Who Rules?
After months of tensions, the Fendland Liberation Front declares open season on the Borderers. In the reed beds and waterways of the Fens, a quiet, brutal war erupts, pitting brother and sister against one another. Seeking freedom from Borderer taxation on its smuggling, the Fenlands Royal Trade Concern runs guns to the FLF. Meanwhile, fearing that the FLF are little more than a front for brushblack trafficking, Rain’s First Frontier Company secretly offers support to the Borderers. What began as a small frontier struggle risks spilling over into a proxy war between the Protectorate and the League.
