Glasswater: On Swamps, Secrets, and a Different Kind of Halfling
Halfling-infested Swamp or Edinburgh? You decide.
On the world of Mytyrra, towering dragons reign supreme over the food chain… but now and again, that chain rattles…
One such instance is of course the southern marshlands of Glasswater, populated by the halflings known as “Felkyo” in their own tongue. The felkyo halflings are far and away a sturdy bunch, their bloodlines culled by dragon teeth for centuries. Nowhere else on the planet is natural selection so evident as in these halfling-haunted waters feared by all travelers.
When I set out to create a race of halflings in Mytyrra, their pitiful size demanded a great deal of rethinking. In a world full of castle-devouring dragons, a wee halfling would be as readily available a snack as gas station Pringles. Surely the little folk would need some leg-up on their draconic predators. This is where I began to weave evolution and environmental symbiosis into the saga of these super-halfings.
The felkyo halflings adapted severely over generations, both in biology and in culture. I believe they were once a great deal taller than they are now but shrank to hide amongst the reeds and bracken more effectively. The felkyo of the current generation can turn themselves slightly translucent, just enough to camouflage their peach-colored flesh against the landscape. Even before the gift of conditional invisibility, the felkyo clothed themselves in various mosses and algae that acted as camouflage, nourishment, and arcane ingredients. Having lived their lives so close to the ground in backcountry no different from a dragon’s dinner plate, the felkyo became indomitable hunters, rangers, and druids.
Thinking about the relationship between moss and survival, I began splitting the felkyo halflings into clans based on what moss grew around their habitats. The country of the Pyllus Enclave is surrounded and mired by water more than any other. This is hardly a hurdle considering that Pyllus moss allows a halfling to breath under water! The Pieth Enclave felkyo live surrounded by ever-smoking moss, the sweet and bitter clouds of which protect from any peering, predatory eyes. The Dikranum Enclave weave tight coats of mail from the Dikranum moss, natural armor as tough as steel. Finally, the felkyo of the Tamarusk Enclave are surrounded by the darkest brush in all of Glasswater. Using the Tamarusk moss, however, these halflings can see through the bushes, vines, and creeping ivy, not to mention the pitch of night!
Below you’ll find my first draft for a map of Glasswater, one with horrendous scale and poor judgement of borders. This was the first of the nation maps I endeavored to draw up for Mytyrra, but it was far from the last. You can see my idea of having the rivers and lakes form in the footprints of primordial dragon gods. Kind of a fun first experiment with Glasswater, but far from anything that was game ready.
First draft of Glasswater map. Messy. Low-res. The shame of all cartography.
As fun as the dragon prints were, I figured they looked a bit more like chicken heads than claw-prints. And 5 miles for a fifth of the country? What was I thinking? Below you can see the version I did exactly a year later. At this point, I’d already mapped the nations of Campara, the Silver Steppes, and Rhyoll (as of last week). Excited to see what these maps look like a year from now! I figured the footprints idea could be more subtle, more folklore driven than overt. Some islands would be nice for the shore line. The Lost Isles remain uncharted for a reason, a hook for adventures in the future. Here’s an idea I can explore in a later post, but I imagined a sacred isle shared by all the nations where the dead could be entombed safely, like hiding leftovers from bears while camping. A charming thought.
Second draft of Glasswater map. High(?)-res. Layered. Wild.
I tried to lean into the environmental storytelling here, filling Tamarsusk with disorienting and dark waters. Dikranum moss gets its sturdiness from a natural symbiosis with local ores, hence the mountainous outcroppings of Dikranum Enclave. These mountains spill over from the northern neighbor nation of Gnyx, a topic for another day. The smoke clouds of Pieth’s great cities stretch for miles upon miles, making any mapping of these regions impossible! Pyllus’ island capital of Lightbubble was refined in this version, but I warped the shoreline a bit better to create more borderlands with Glasswater’s eastern neighbor. More borderland, more tension. More tension, more stories! Speaking of, there are outposts for diplomats and merchants from Gnyx and Batholith in the forms of “Wee Gnyx” and “Wee Lith” on their respective borders. The port towns of Blotroot, Shorelight, and Lyteburn (from west to east) also operate as cosmopolitan tidepools.
I imagine the marshy grasslands depicted on the map as being dense with pitfalls, hidden rivers, camouflaged dragons, and highway bandits. Not to mention underground homes, tunnels, and tombs. These swamps are alive, after all.
When I was trekking the lowlands of Scotland in search of castles and critters, I saw quite a bit of land that inspired Mytyrra. I imagine much of Glasswater to look something like these pictures of the river that runs through new town Edinburgh near Dean Village. Ignore the study abroad student.
Despite the diminutive size of a felkyo halfling, they make quick work of foot travel in the brush and are incredibly talented waterfolk. Having paddleboarded the waters of Marina del Rey for the past decade, I’ve seen how much difficult terrain can be avoided when traversing the water. For the felkyo, that means no dragons, dire spiders, or quickmud pits. For me, that means no traffic.
Since Mytyrra was originally devised for my soon-to-release system of dragon riding combat, Tooth & Wing, I had to come up with some way for these little guys to get on dragon-back. The result was the rare but all powerful Swamp Laird, a fixture of semi-feudal backcountry halfling society. Skilled in herbalism, animal handling, and holding on tight, the Swamp Lairds use the land and their place in it to dominate dragons. As dragons are incredibly intelligent creatures, this often comes from a deal, a toll to be paid on a later date. On occasion, the title of Swamp Laird is passed through a family line alongside a contract with a draconic lineage. Swamp Lairds act as the first line of defense for the countries of Glasswater, filling out the trained warrior caste. Organized armies do not exist in these nations. There is no need for any. Not when every moss farmer and whisky distiller bears an ancestral blade in the best and worst of times. Felkyo are hardly a peace-loving bunch. After centuries of being forced into life and death struggles, blood on the moss is as natural as nighttime. I’ve written a brief history of the War of Weeds, the Batholithian invasion of Glasswater, that I’ll polish up and post soon enough. In this war and conflicts yet unsung, the Swamp Lairds have defended against dragon elders, brutish invaders, and the occasional upstart kobold lord.
The Ivy Dragons and Bog Dragons of Mytyrra make watery lairs for themselves in Glasswater. A fragile hierarchy of elders living in Elder Mount, Pyllus, seek to control the wanton feeding. Fear of flesh-famine is well rooted in the possibility that no halflings will result in no food. That control comes at the point of halfling spears more often than not, who can defend themselves from death far better than any draconic decree of sustainable killing or biodynamic hunting. Ivy Dragons are known for hunting in the same manner as trapdoor spiders, a fitting comparison since their biggest rival is the Dire Spider. As for Bog Dragons, many a felkyo canoe has noticed too late that its paddles have stopped petting the water and started scratching scales.
Glasswater demonstrates much of Mytyrra’s thesis: the one at the top of the food chain is seldom the most interesting. It stands as a fantastic setting for Dungeons & Dragons: Ghosts of Saltmarsh style adventures, as well as survival-heavy slogs. The hobbits of Hobbiton hold a very special place in my heart, but they’re nowhere to be found in these earthy dwellings. Instead, the felkyo of Glasswater are pointy-elbowed hunters, shamans deeply in tune with the chaos of the land, and expert merchants harnessing the power of these glassy waters.
I’d like to end with a tavern, one of the first that I drew up using the template I described last week. As my players know, I map my world not by governments but by networks of taverns. Glasswater is no exception. To put everything detailed above into perspective, grab a pint of Batholithian Beer with me at The Cloven Tooth in Lyteburn town.
The Cloven Tooth, Lyteburn, Pyllus
Run by a suspicious hooded Felkyo named Katzen Fogwater. Katzen hides the fact that he is actually a dragonborn halfling using the illusory Decepsha moss of Glasswater. However, fame is ever at his door as his acid breath distills some of the spiciest whisky in Mytyrra. Though not offering much in the way of hospitality, The Cloven Tooth is rich in folkloric significance. The name stems from the story of an old Swamp Laird who survived a cut to the face that split his teeth, a cut delivered by the dragon he would come to ride into battle. That dragon, Ambergristle, is Katzen’s great-great grandmother.
Patrons
Krepla Redknife, Felkyo Rogue: An enforcer for a band of highwaywomen terrorizing the eastern border of Glasswater. Not afraid of an unfriendly game of darts.
Artee Wetknose, Felkyo Warlock: A violence-prone arcane enthusiast looking to make some heinous potions and poisons out of Katzen’s secret whisky recipe.
Sir Robert Twice-Lost, Human Fighter: A Batholithian knight hailing from Blueknoll, working as an ambassador and trade negotiator in Glasswater. Something of a chickenhawk in the War of Weeds, knowledgeable and entrepreneurial but bad in a fight.
Job Board
Collect Decepsha Moss for Katzen’s Illusions (x30 Bundles = 100 GP)
Kill the Motang Kobold bandit lord of the Tamarusk bogs (300 GP)
Map the lost isle of Sfiagnol (500 GP)
Menu
Black Blade – 1 Oz Katzen’s Whisky, 1 Oz Cream Rum, 1 Oz Sour Fruit Juice, 1 Oz Full Tang Fluid – 10 GP
Rusty Keel – 1 ½ Oz Katzen’s Whisky, 1 Oz Full Tang Fluid, ¾ Oz Cherry Juice – 9 GP
Fine Ale – 5 GP
Batholithian Beer – 5 GP
Glasswater Whisky (of Dikranum) – 7 GP
Glasswater Whisky (of Pyllus) – 4 GP
Shroom Chips – 3 GP
Catch of the Day – 6 GP
Butter Dough – 4 GP
Vine Loaf – 3 GP
Toad and Thyme Soup – 4 GP
For more worldbuilding, Dungeon Mastering, and storytelling articles, stay tuned for weekly content!
