The cosmos are filled with forgotten gods barely hanging on to existence. The powers in this swamp may be all that's left of our creators, or they may be some other thing entirely. They might be the ghosts of those who swam these waters before us, they may be manifestations of the swamp's soul. But the Sodden Shrines were already here, letting them rot would be wasteful and dismantling them would disturb the ecosystems that developed around them. We can only hope that whatever we're honoring honors us back.When early Zekke people first appeared on the Prime Material plane, they found fulfillment in untamed wild, in the silt and murk of the swamp, in the power of scale and claw. If they had truly been made of mud and teeth, they would be authorities over both. Untethered from their creator's intentions, they had no concern for waste or balance.
The discovery of the first Sodden Shrine went unremarked among the nascent society as a result. At the time, it was nothing more than another piece of the swamp they sought to rule. But those who made their homes inside the shrines began to notice changes. If the swamp was healthy, they were hale and energized. But as the ecosystem became unbalanced and resources were depleted, they found themselves withering away.
The efforts began small: light fishing regulations, loose rules for keeping waterways unobstructed, and a reduction in timber use. As small gestures became habit, they grew more aware of their environment. They found new ways to support the swamp that didn't significantly change their lifestyle and incorporated them over a generation or two. In these small steps, they became the Zekke we are today, fully dedicated to living in perfect harmony with the world around them. We would have remained in this pattern of complacency and innovation if not for the shrines.
After more than four centuries of this careful growth, the skreinvekke could be found tending shrines throughout the swamp. When one particularly sensitive skreinvek began having visions of cracked mud and dry earth, the public believed it to be a premonition. In the midst of the panic and despair, a team of {MONITORS} left the swamp to study {A DRIED OUT PLACE}. On their return, they found soil deposits in the riverbed were congruent with soil from {THE DRIED OUT PLACE}. They established several dig sites throughout the Swamp, and ultimately found land mammal fossils beneath the water. The vision wasn't a premonition, it was the story of what once was.
Unable to discern the conditions that led to the region drying up pre-Sundering, our forebears rededicated themselves to preserving the swamp's ecosystem, and the Zekken Preserve was founded.
Ideals & Values
The Hinterland Swamp is one of five known origin points for krokon mortals. Like krokons elsewhere, the people of the Zekken Preserve pay homage to a divinity presumed dead. In our case, however, our homeland hosts a quiet power that many hold to be proof of the krokon creator's extant divinity.Reputation
Less-generous interpretations depict us as primitive and unfriendly, but those who trade with us most often—namely the Mythalenairra and the occasional Telsine settlement—will call us resourceful and protective. If something needs fixed or salvaged, we will be able to do it most efficiently. Our whole society is wary of those we allow to enter the swamp, and will often provide very strict guidelines for where visitors can go, what they can do, and how long they can be there. Most folks will readily explain their reasonings and current environmental conditions, but visitors' reception varies.
The existence of the Sodden Shrines and the role they play in the swamp comprise the cornerstone of Zekken culture.
The magic of the shrines encourages environmentalism, balance, and harmony between civilization and the natural world. Consequently, we have only semi-permanent settlements that rarely last longer than a generation. When our youths come of age, they leave the village of their birth and set off in search of an untended shrine. Because the majority of us are egg-laying krokons, clutchmates and friends close in age will often set off together to found a village with those they already trust. Eventually, the population of the original village ages, and no more clutches are laid. When the last Zek dies, the settlement is left to be reclaimed by the swamp until the next youngsters come seeking their own home. We see ourselves as stewards of the swamp, and the core of our migratory
Virtues
Our founders are always reminding us that resourcefulness and environmental awareness are our best qualities, and it's true that the former is absolutely needed. Or so they always told me. A virtuous Zek maintains their niche, including caring for themself to be ready at all times. They are adaptable and can craft what the community or environment needs when it is needed.Taboos
Wastefulness is unequivocally vile, and indulgence offensive to even the most liberal-minded among us. We generally encourage smaller families, and will even send larger family groups to find another shrine if the village is at risk of overpopulation. Ask me how I know. And the shrines, of course, are never to be regarded frivolously or with irreverence.Conventions & Customs
We are necessarily community-minded; individualism sees each person taking for just themselves and guarding against lean times. Collectivism allows individuals to rely on the social safety net, reducing the resources each person must allocate to themself. We share most supplies, and excess is distributed as needed. Privacy concerns are low and personal property is minimal butHouses & Property
We don't build homes on an individual or even family scale, but on a community one. Sharing a dwelling with the neighbors serves the dual purpose of using fewer resources in building and retaining heat during the freezing winters. Each settlement comprises a handful of communal houses surrounding the kilns, with a shrine generally in line with the constructed houses. Privacy varies by settlement, with some houses having entirely open plans, some with curtains or dividers, and still others with proper walls for rooms. Lots of us have footlockers or chests inherited from family to keep our belongings separate from the shared space.
respected. We believe each person is but one part of a whole, and that individual diversity makes for a stronger whole.
Uniquely, our entire culture belongs to the Zekken Preserve; our civic practices are tied to our cultural ones and vice versa. We are a people dedicated to finding the joy in what we have, to progress with respect to preservation, and to thriving on only the bare minimum. Our society is built on the sublime delight of using a resource to its full capacity and the perfect harmony of organism and ecosystem.
Daily Life
Wherever possible, resources are shared through the community. While each settlement is built to support a Sodden Shrine, they are literally built around communal kilns and furnaces. The two inner shelves allow for crafting and cooking, while racks over the vents are used for drying pottery, fish, and herbs. Meals are taken togetherWhen we're not maintaining, repairing, or monitoring the local environment, our communities spend a lot of time idling; sometimes doing nothing is the best way to let nature happen. Most of a village sitting around a smoking kiln may appear wasteful to outsiders, but industry has never been our goal. Storytelling, music, and performance are the most common pastimes, followed by small space athletics like wrestling and sullei meditation (borrowed from our Mythalenairran neighbors).
Personal Identity
Zekke themselves by the niche they fill in their community, leaving those of us who lack a niche feeling empty and out of place. A potter is foremost a potter, and everything else in their life is curated to support their ability to make pottery as needed.Gender is largely irrelevant in. Krokons are just barely sexually dimorphic, and egg-laying is a simple enough task. Caring for the kids, babies, saplings, and hatchlings is a much greater concern, and those who manage it have to have the right attitude. So family units are loosely defined and generally more about those who did the actually rearing than those who genetically contributed to the new life. The latter only really comes into play when someone has too many kids and the village can no longer support them.
Language Groups & Dialects
Primarily, we speak a Primordial patois derived from both Terran and Aquan. Known as Drekkan, it is most commonly associated with the Plane of Ooze. Like other Primordial dialects, Drekkan speakers can understand and be understood by any Primoridal speaker. The prevalence of Drekkan among krokon origin points has led to certain speculation regarding the nature of the alleged creator deity, but like most other speculations regarding the krokon divinity, it remains unproven either way.A combination of the wet environment and conservation doctrines related to writing implements has resulted in spotty literacy rates. In fact, each warden triad must have at least one literate member, which certainly helped my bid to join. When a Zek can read and write, it is most often in Common due to the proximity of the Mythalenairran trade network. While charcoal is abundant, paper and other pulp-based materials are rare in the Swamp. Necessary records are carved into clay, dried in public kilns, and kept inside the shrines to reduce the resources needed to found a new village.
Naming Conventions
Before we were the Zekke, we had no names. Early Zekke acknowledged one another in growls and grunts and snaps and hisses, wild even in their nascent civilization. The histories say they knew the language of primordial earth and water but reveled in a tongue even more primal than that. Zekken names harken back to those early days of mud and teeth.Unlike most other cultures, our given names have no inherent meanings. They are unique sounds to identify individuals not part of any language. Spellings vary wildly as a result, and there is absolutely no standardization even among {SHRINE NAMES}. Zekken names are not passed down through generations, nor are they particularly affected by pop culture or trends. A person might use a name they heard and liked, but it's chosen for the aesthetic of the sound.
By default, we lack surnames. It's become more common in recent years to use professions or positions within the Preserve as personal identifiers, and those of us who leave the Swamp for trade or travel occasionally use their home Shrine as a title or surname. There is no Shrine in Torr, but the city itself was home enough to be my name.
Rites & Rituals
The Preserve—and consequently the Zekke—is reliant on a unique blend of tradition and progress. To maintain the ecosystem balance that's so important, we hold this dual philosophy of adhering to consistent observation of cycles, and also on adapting to the changes brought by outside forces. "Continuance through renewal" is a major theme in most of our holidays and traditions.Birth
Children are raised more or less communally, and there's little ceremony around hatchings or sproutings. Live births typically involve the community tending more directly to the infant and person who just gave birth, but this is more for efficiency than tradition. The newborn is named quickly after birth by the parents or community caregivers, whoever intends to be more directly involved in raising the kid.Coming of Age
We encourage children to spend time with as many members of the community as possible so they get a feel for the skills and necessities they are naturally drawn to. If the kid doesn't show much of an affinity for swamp life, well then clearly they just need to experience more of it. Apprenticeships are standard, and community members encourage one another to find the labors that bring joy. Slogging through joyless work leads to poor work, and poor work leads to wasted resources.{SENDOFFS} are our only holiday with tradition and pageantry. Twice a year, during the week leading up to each equinox, the young people of a given village prepare to leave. We only stay in a given settlement for one generation, "to maintain ecological balance, reduce over-settling, and lessen the strain on any one source of raw materials," they drill into us from the moment we can talk. When the first batch of children to be born reaches adulthood, they leave their home to find another shrine in need of tending. Once they discover one—or find another burgeoning settlement in need of more members—they set about building a small village around it. The next groups of young folk travel first to the new site, then off to find others once that one becomes full.
For the {SENDOFF} itself, the whole community gifts necessities to those preparing to leave, skreinvekke bless the youths and their belongings, and a warden historian recites {PROBABLY SPECIFIC SAGAS}. It's all very grand and momentous.
Marriage
Marriage isn't really a thing we do. Monogamy is common enough and lifelong commitments still exist, we just can't be bothered to waste resources on formalizing unions or maintaining their records.Death
Despite what you've almost definitely heard, we're not cannibals. Our dead return to the swamp.Family or friends remove the deceased's effects first—including any implants or prosthetics—and repurpose or reuse them. This is both efficient and sentimental and whatever my feelings about my home are, I don't understand why this bothers people. Next, the skreinvekke place the body in a ceramic vessel (called a todenvesch) mostly submerged in the swamp. For one day and one night, they stir swamp water over the body and swamp magic through the water. By the end of the ritual, the body has dissolved into a nutrient-rich liquid and the bones remain whole and clean. The liquid is poured into the swamp, and the bones are either dried and ground—also to be returned to the swamp—or made into tools or Shrine offerings.
Civic Duties
The ceremony of {SENDOFFS} is nothing compared to joining the wardens. After a full cycle of seasons in apprenticeship to another warden, the warden hopeful is either sent back to their home or fully inducted into the ranks of the Preserve. If the former, the village throws a big "sorry you couldn't cut it" party welcoming the would-be warden back to their niche. If the latter, the Preserve actually keeps the ceremony small, attended only by other wardens that happen to be in the area. But after that, there's a whole ritual greeting we have to perform every time we encounter a warden in their first year of service.The Arts
Cuisine
Like most communities near water, the diet back home comprises fish, waterfowl, and aquatic plant life, albiet in much smaller quantities than most are used to. Dedicated as we are to leaving the smallest footprint possible, the average Zek eats much less than everyone else. What began as minor restrictions on fishing, farming, and hunting grew—over decades—into a collective effort to reduce the mortal draw on the environment. Our small diet leaves room for more resources to be allocated to the pregnant, nursing, injured, or still-growing without straining a settlement's supplies. We expect visitors to bring their own food (without introducing foreign growths to the environment) or abide by hunting and gathering protocols. Even Torr, which has pretty lax regulations to help newcomers adapt, is not a city of restaurants and eateries. The locals manage communal kilns that account for foreigners' needs, but most of the actual food is imported along the Mythalenairran trade network.None of this is to say that Zekken cuisine is bland or uninteresting. We discovered long ago that many edible herbs thrive in the life-giving mud of our Swamp. It's virtually no strain on the environment to line a settlement with clay and ceramic planters filled with mud and cultivate dozens of varieties of herbs for seasoning and color. Our meals are filled with fresh, dried, and smoked herbs to create unique flavors in every dish.
Fashion
A lot of folks thing we go through clothing quickly and eschew adornment, living as close to the mud and water as we do. We have, however, taken our murky environment as a challenge. Reusing clothing doesn't simply mean wearing a dress for generations, it means wearing it until a sleeve disintegrates, turning it into a sleeveless tunic, and using the remaining sleeve as a belt or herb pouch. It means saving scraps to get creative with mending and patching, and it means redefining jewelry. Joy and personal expression are just as much a part of the environment as decomposers and consumers, and the Preserve has no compunction with allocating resources—particularly reused ones—to them.Performance
We are a people of storytellers. Telling tales as a community serves to unite those living collectively, avoid materials used in other performance arts, pass the time on long winter nights, and preserve a history not written down. We have no theatre culture; we almost never use costumes, makeup, sets, and props are. Magical illusions, traditional and modern dances, as well as a chorus or several musicians all might augment a performance though. And indeed, music is as practiced and respected as reciting the tales and histories. Singing fills nearly the same niche as storytelling, and well-made instruments are passed from master to apprentice for generations.Zekken storytellers rely on the natural environment for a set and being physically close to the audience. Walking or dancing among them, pulling audience members into a tale, and physically incorporating any elements at hand are all common in our tellings.
Literature
Between the watery environment and the restrictions on paper and vellum, we have virtually no written arts. Even imported literature is rare because most of us would rather listen or speak.Entertainment
The core philosophy behind most of our pastimes is simple: people need other people, and actively nurturing working relationships ensures everyone has the people they need. While organized activities are an integral part of life, regular socializing is a hobby in and of itself. Competition is infrequent and casual, and entertainment is intended to deepen the bonds of a community. Swimming when the water's amenable and ice skating when it's not, storytelling and music-making, sullei meditation, terrestrial and aquatic wrestling, hiking, and canoeing are some of the many ways we spend time together.Even in our professions and crafts, we tend to work in open spaces with others nearby. In my travels, I've found that we're a bit weird for embracing the notion of living and working together and not simply enduring it, but finding joy in it.
Creation
Like with our food and fashion, we have risen to the challenge of crafting with as little as possible; no material is unusable. Tools and utensils are made of everything from upcycled wood scraps to bone to ceramic. Homes are made of mud-and-wattle walls and wooden floors. Stilts of wood or stone keep the building away from the water, and packed roofs provide a surface for growing things. Most structures degrade back into the swamp in the years between habitants, but the first step of any new settlement is to salvage every possible scrap of building material. All of us have some skill and knowledge of building to contribute to founding a new settlement.Unsurprisingly, metal is uncommon, and we do virtually no smithing ourselves. We trade for the highest quality metal tools only when absolutely necessary, and repurpose them as shrine offerings when we can no longer repair them. Notably, the first shrines were discovered with rusted offerings already within them.
When we have to make something whole and new, it's made to last. Mundane musical instruments more than 150 years old are still in use by storytellers and chroniclers, and enchanted ones can date back to the founding of the Preserve. Bows, slings, shields, and spears are crafted to similar standards, but the nature of their purpose means the are less likely to last. Zekken-made instruments of both war and art are coveted across the world, but our crafters and artisans only part with them in the direst circumstances.
Magic
We use magic freely and regularly. It's present in the Skreinvekke's communion with the shrines, the wardens' connection to the swamp, and in the stories and histories passed down through generations of storytellers. Magicians across the multiverse constantly seek ways to reduce, negate, or circumvent entirely the natural entropy of enchantments and illusions, but we embrace it. An enchanted canoe might last hundreds of years, but eventually the magic binding it together will unravel fully and it too will return to the swamp. In fact, the Preserve monitors ancient, decaying magic to ensure any wild surges don't negatively impact the balance of the ecosystem, and that any raw materials can be safely recycled or left to rot. Even the most powerful spells fade, and we will be there when they do.
by Athevra via Adobe Spark
Character Creation
Use the guide and statistics below to create a Zekken character. The Zekke view most outsiders with suspicion, if not outright hostility. However, "outsider" is determined more by an individual's awareness and understanding of ecology than any physical traits. Any person who can demonstrate being respectful of the environment is welcome among the Zekke.A list of names to use directly or help generate ideas can be found here.
Ancestries
The Zekke are primarily the reptilian krokons, mud and water genasi, frogfolk, and ranschen. The least likely ancestries are often assumed to be outsiders unless or until obvious signs of Swamp familiarity are displayed.Most Likely Ancestries
Krokon, genasi (mud, earth, water), frogfolk, ranschen, merfolk (freshwater), tortle, petallion, psilocybeLeast Likely Ancestries
Kangra, lapienne, yuan-ti, gith, couatl folk, devan, lothran, goliath, jotunn, behirborn, phoenixborn, salamandriteClasses
Most Zekken adventurers are wardens of the Preserve seeking something to aid the Swamp. If a Zekken adventurer wields or wears metal, it is likely a prized possession and kept free of rust and damage. Martial training is the result of warden apprenticeship and home defense, and wardens primarily carry longbows, spears, shields, and blunt force hand-to-hand weapons. Armor tends to be lighter and piecemeal, but no less effective or durable. Magical study is passed from practitioner to practitioner following personal style and centuries of tradition. Spellcasters both natural and learned draw on the primal forces of the wilderness, tap into the magic of nature and mortality, and focus on the schools of enchantment, divination, evocation, and illusion. There is little in the way of organized religion or divine connection, but dedication to the Shrines can manifest as divine nature or life magic, further complicating the scholarship on the krokon creator.Most Likely Classes
Barbarian (any), bard (creation, lore, valor), cleric (life, nature, order), druid (any), monk (astral self, four elements, open hand), paladin (ancients, devotion, watchers), ranger (any), rogue (scout), sorcerer (sodden spirit, wild magic), witch (familiar, herb)Least Likely Classes
Alchemist (any), bard (eloquence, swords, whispers), cleric (forge, trickery, war), paladin (conquest, glory), rogue (mastermind, thief), sorcerer (clockwork soul), warlock (any), wizard (order of scribes)Sodden Spirit
A Sodden Shrine is not the kind of magical thing that can provide power to a warlock, but a sorcerous origin has been connected to their existence.Traits
The mandates of the Zekken Preserve mean that every Zek has a few skills in common. A Zekken character has the following traits:Languages. You can speak and understand Primordial (Drekkan) and Common. You determine your literacy with each language.
Cunning Artisan. As part of a short rest, you can scavenge non- or once-living material from the immediate environment to create a small trinket or art piece, a simple melee weapon, or ammunition for a simple ranged weapon.
Efficient. You're accustomed to taking only what you need. You require only half the normal amount of food and water per day.
Values
The Zekke are community-minded environmentalists, servants of the world they share. A Zekken character has strong opinions on the following values, regardless of whether or not those opinions align with their kin's.Ecology. We are only as good as the environments we live in.
Resourcefulness. It is virtuous to craft ingenuity from what is already at hand.
Stewardship. Not every situation demands a guardian, but staying ready for those that do is vital.
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