Medria

Medria, a forlorn fishing village clinging to the southern shore of Tragedy’s Stage, exists in a state of quiet desperation. The lake it borders is infamous throughout Kartakass for its stormy temperament and unpredictable moods—a body of water as prone to stillness as it is to sudden, deadly squalls. Waves crash without warning. Mist rolls in even on windless days. Boats capsize with no trace, and songs sung on the water are said to echo back wrong.

The people of Medria are a superstitious, close-knit folk, hardened by generations of tragedy. Their homes are squat and weather-beaten, built low to the ground and lashed together with thick ropes and charms made from driftwood, bone, and braided lakeweed. Wind-chimes made of fishhooks and broken teeth jingle warning songs when storms approach. Nearly every villager wears amulets carved with theater masks—symbols of Kartakass’s patronage of performance, but here, they serve as wards against the lake’s wrath.

Though officially part of Kartakass, Medria shuns outsiders, particularly minstrels and bards. A traveler arriving with an instrument is likely to be turned away—or worse. The villagers claim that music on the lake draws its attention, referring to Tragedy’s Stage not as a lake, but as an audience of one, waiting to see who will drown next.

Locals tell tales of sunken plays—entire fishing barges filled with performers lured to their deaths by the promise of a performance seen by the gods. Beneath the lake’s surface, they say, lie the drowned theaters of the vain and cursed, where ghostly applause can sometimes be heard late at night.

It’s common belief in Medria that the lake chooses its victims, especially those who lie or pretend. Honesty is seen as a shield; pretense as bait. More than one young lover has been swallowed after performing mock vows on the docks. To this day, villagers conduct funerals before launching new boats, expecting that death is not a risk but a certainty—just hopefully not this time.

Some whisper of a ghost known only as The Drowned Playwright, said to haunt both the lake and the village. Supposedly a once-great bard who sought to stage a perfect tragedy upon Tragedy’s Stage, the Playwright cursed the waters with unfinished stories—each drowned soul becoming part of an eternal performance he’ll never complete. Those who have survived near-drownings often return with blank eyes and speak in lines of verse that are not their own.

Medria is a place of foreboding silence, inherited grief, and inevitable loss. It resists Kartakass’s theatrical flair, preferring solemn rituals over spectacle. It's the perfect backdrop for horror stories about fate, forgotten sins, and being caught in someone else's doomed narrative.

Medria is where tragedy takes root like seaweed, and the only true safety lies in silence, truth, and never performing for an audience you can’t see.