Shadow Marches

The following is an excerpt from celebrated rhymer and known rapscallion Martus Makfleye d'Phiarlan's historical treatise/sexual odyssey, Onward to the Past: My Adventures in Eberron.

The Shadow Marches are not a recognized nation, and you can thank the pantheon of your choosing for that because the antics you can get up to there are highly illegal everywhere else. Or rather, they would be illegal if the prudes in charge everywhere else had the imaginations required to dream them up. Happily, the Marches remain an independent territory with no centralized government. Now, before you go haring off to book your hen-party with visions of oiled orc-glutes gyrating in time to lizardman bongos, you need to know that the folk who dwell deep in the Shadow Marches have a well-earned reputation for xenophobia. Outsiders are rarely welcomed there. And even in those rare, wonderful locales that do cater to thrill-seekers and sex-tourists, always keep in mind that they like your money (coin, never bank drafts) much better than they like you.
All the races of Khorvaire (probably all of Eberron) can be found living somewhere in the Marches. That's not because it's so cosmopolitan. Quite the opposite. The Marches attract the kind of people who hate paying taxes and being told what to do so much that they're willing to go live in a hole they dug out of the mud in a fetid, smelly swamp. It's certainly not the most rational decision a person's ever made, but then again, rational people are bloody boring to hang out with. Orcs make up more than half the population, and if you know a few orcs that won't shock you in the least. Come to think of it, I don't know where Tok the Brownie was born (hatched?), but if that mad bastard has a spiritual home, it's a mud hole in the Shadow Marches.
There are still a great many wild orc tribes roaming about. I'd like to say they're more afraid of you than you should be of them, but that would be an outright lie. The only thing those orcs fear is a bar of soap. The tribes of the deep swamps are split almost evenly between two faiths: The Gatekeeper Druids and the Cults of the Dragon Below. The Gatekeepers want to murder you because you are a city-tainted, industry-loving, despoiler of nature, and the Cultists want to murder you because they think your head would make a lovely gift for grandmother. Neither option is particularly sexy. Avoid.
Stick to the outer edges of the Marches. You'll find that the mixed clans of humans and half orcs living there are more accepting of outlanders, tend to lead libertine lifestyles, and aren't afraid to experiment. Steer well clear of House Tharashk outposts and enclaves unless your kink is being put to work. On second thought, Tharashk is the de facto government and only law-enforcement organized security force in the territory, so keep them in mind if your debauchery becomes overly debauched. Pro tip: The Mark of Finding can be especially useful in recovering one's misplaced signet ring, wife, or virtue!
But enough scene-staging. There's a tale that needs telling, and if there's one lesson mother ever taught me (after I first taught it to her during my trip back in time) it's that the best stories never tell themselves. Imagine it's the eve of your 228th birthday. You're young, drunk, and sure you've seen it all. You're impatiently standing before the locked, shining gates of House Ghallanda's newly-opened, anything-goes, party-enclave which, for reasons that will soon be obvious, I will call the Ladyboy Mansion...

Geography

Almost the entire territory consists of marshlands and swamps dotted with dense, primeval forests. Solid ground is scarce. Rafts and skiffs are the primary form of transportation. Many villages are built on stilts buttressed by druidic magic. Rice paddies are common, as are mineral-rich underground springs. Mountains delineate the border with Droamm.

Natural Resources

The Marches is a significant source of Eberron dragonshards and also a minor source of byeshk.

History

The orcs of the Shadow Marches are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, societies on Khorvaire. As old as the ancient goblin empire of Dhakaan, orcs in Eberron have always valued the individual over the group and thus have built neither great nations nor even great cities despite their millennia of history.

Tourism

The Marches have an "anything goes" reputation that attracts a particular kind of tourist. These types of tourists are rarely equipped to deal with the realities of lawlessness, however, and often lose their money, sometimes even their lives. House Ghallanda has more than one enclave here that caters to such tourists and protects them from the dangers inherent to the territory, but individuals who can't afford such places or insist on a "more authentic experience" abound.

Capital
Zarash'ak

Type

Wetland / Swamp

Owning Organization

House Tharashk

Eberron Next Notes: The fashion and culture of the Marches is similar to Vietnam or rural China. However, because of the lack of a centralized government, there's quite a bit of a Wild West vibe as well. It's a bit like Deadwood if the cowboys were the minority group or Warrior if San Francisco was a small district within Chinatown. Neither the orcish language nor the Marcher accent has been established in our game (but I'm thinking Cajun would be a good fit).