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On the Southern Isles, where the swamp meets the open sea, the stilted villages come alive with lanterns swinging from the rafters, their light flickering across the dark waters below. The lowland swamps of the Morel Marsh belong to the folk of the water—the gator-backed, web-fingered, slow-smiling kin who call the tangled bayous home. Their world is thick with mist and music, where lanterns bob along wooden walkways strung between gnarled roots, and voices roll easy as the river itself. The critters here do not rush; time here moves with the current, winding slow and steady, but never still.

Life in the Marshes is built on trade, stories, and the quiet understanding that survival is not a fight, but a dance with the swamp itself. The soil is rich, the waters deep, and the bounty plentiful for those who know where to look. They fish, they forage, they craft, and they trade with drifting merchants who respect their ways. Spirits are real as kin here—some old as the mangroves, some as fickle as the wind. Offerings of sweet smoke and river fruit keep them pleased, and those who listen well might just hear wisdom rustling in the reeds. Outsiders are welcome if they come honest, but those who take without giving, who rush where they should have waited, often find themselves swallowed by the swamp, never to be seen again.

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