On the shores of Lake Prophyria the ancient Kellids bound their holiest sacrifices and most revered oracles, committing them to the spirits of the marsh. Amid the bog muck and sucking lake mud rest the skulls of ancient Kellid witches and seers, their rot mixing with the sickly waters and beasts of the swamp, imbuing the land with the sight of the ancients and an inheritance of timeless pacts and savage magic. During the Tyrant’s rule, the lich lord sensed some strange power amid the lake’s waters, and executed dozens of would-be sorcerers and arcanists in its waters — a grim parody of the sacrifices of old.
Today, belief in the eerie magic of Graidmere Swamp and Lake Prophyria permeates the minds of Sinaria’s people as absolute truth. Criminals, Kellid refugees, and practitioners of strange magics have long taken refuge amid the swamp’s gnarled trees and veils of hanging moss, giving rise to a insular race of proud, swarthy Kellid-Varisian swamp-dwellers, locally known as “leechfolk” or “swampers.” While many are little more than brigands and scavengers, some hidden swamp communities gather around the fallen, vine-gripped monuments of ancient barbarian mystics in attempted renewal of the blood pacts of old.
Some even succeed.
