The Silver Knight's Doom

What is the Silver Knight's Doom

The Silver Knight's Doom is the romanticised name given to the coastal swamp east of Castellac. The swamp is known by the locals as 'the Doom' or by its ancient name, Greenwater. When adventure novels featuring errant knights became all the rage a century ago, the local laird decided to rename the swamp (which he owned) after the character in his favourite storybook, Knight Beliarn de Tourelle. 

Life would imitate fiction as Baron Waller decided to pursue adventuring like his favourite heroes: he entered the Greenwater on a fine winter day and never reappeared ...

Geography

The Doom only extends over a 30-mile stretch on the coast of the lakeshore, but has never been fully mapped. The place is well-known for its treacherous quicksand and unpredictable earth shifts, which make crossing extremely dangerous.  No one knows what causes the terrain to move, but the few adventurers who have returned from the swamp have described the ground suddenly disappearing from under one's feet.

The trees are a subspecies of mangrove, similar to those found in the Narbonnan jungle further south, with extremely thick roots that make it difficult to advance through the putrid waters.

Fortunately, one can circumvent the swamp, as it is only about 10 miles wide. There is a well-trodden and safe road taking the higher ground north of the swamp, which avoids the lake shore and the Doom entirely.

Ecosystem

The flora and fauna of the Doom are legendary. Travellers through the green hell have spoken or retrieved strange specimens of frogs and toads - some of them giants of their kind. The locals call them the Grenille. 

A species of cat-like animals prowls the upper branches of the mangrove trees and prey upon the unwary in this game-rich environment.

However, the Doom is well-known for its host of beautiful birds, such as the white egrets. With the fad for sporting feathers on one's fashionable clothes, many adventurers have been tempted to venture into the Doom, but it is a perilous undertaking, and only the thought of gold earnings from the colourful feathers has drawn hunters to the place. Many, in fact, use boats and hunt birds from the lake waters instead of venturing into the swamp itself.


 

Myths and Legends

As well as the natural dangers of the Doom, adventurers and hunters have mentioned seeing the ghost of Baron Waller in their travel through the swamp. Baron Waller appears on his black horse at dusk and stands there as an omen of doom. Usually, someone will die the next day when he is seen in this manner.


 

Secrets of the Swamp

Baron Waller might still be a ghost erring through the swamp, still trying to find its way out of the Doom.

The Doom is home to an underground tribe of sentient earth elementals. They do not tolerate any other species on their sacred land, especially hunters.

 

Characters

- 
-