Bhethos Marshes

Bhethos Marshes The low-lying area between Bhutan and Cordival is a salt marsh called the Bhethos Marshes, which are within the domain of the Sultanate of Cordival. This uninspiring landscape has gray-green grasses that go on for a hundred miles, with occasional spots of high ground indicated by clumps of spindly trees. Some of the high areas are large enough to support a few huts, and the marshfolk live on these isolated hills. They make a living hunting frogs, turtles, and fish in their flat-bottomed boats, taking marsh birds or their eggs, and catching crabs. All of these are sold into the great markets in Bhutan or, from the western marshes, into Cordival. Sometimes the folk bring in unusual specimens of strange plants or animals with odd markings and weird changes. They have trouble selling these in the food markets, but wizards or scholars are often interested in acquiring them. Some marshfolk are skilled with herbs and gather (or cultivate) healing and culinary herbs to be found nowhere else in the caliphate. Marshfolk are pale-skinned, tight-lipped people who keep to themselves and rarely interact with the “drylanders.” They are more likely to have neutral relations with the little grippli — small frog-like creatures with the same intelligence as most humans — that also live in isolated communities in the marsh.