Through trial and terror, Sinaria has always been a land of song. Echoing across the algae-thick waters of Lake Prophyria, the voices of downtrodden peasants, mysterious swamp folk, and the virtuosos of Karcau’s famed opera cry to the heavens for lives better than those granted them, and—when those entreaties fail—chant to choirs below for the charity of the damned.
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.
Beyond the shunned depths of the Graidmere Swamp rolls a land of meandering streams, scattered ponds, and wet grasslands. Predictable seasonal rains and droughts create vast f lood plains, where rice, cotton, mustard, and olives grow in abundance. During the dry season, streams and pools wither to countless tiny fishponds, where fierce gar, crimson-f lecked Prophryian eels, and poisonous river moccasins prey upon captive populations of catfish and stickleback, as well as the occasional unwary angler. Swamp pigs, sharp-eared vine cats, hosts of marsh snakes, giant bats, fungal crawlers, and gloomwings also make frequent excursions from their homes in the Graidmere to harass the peasant farmers and plantation workers occupying much of the open country.
The people of Sinaria have great respect for the mysteries and creatures of their land, raised to know that more than snakes and hunting cats lurk amid the reeds pervasive throughout the county. Although city dwellers and even the country folk often scorn swampers and view members of these recluse clans with suspicion, all know that for the right price, the bayou dwellers might jinx a foe, read omens in the algae, or even concoct a medicine to raise the dead. Even still, resentful pride and underhanded literality characterize most dealings with the raft dwellers, and often the hexes bought to stymie a foe come to haunt the buyer a hundredfold. To defend against such old magic, witch wards hang upon the lintels of windows and doors throughout the county, with snakeskins stuffed with arbutus, chicken feet with the toes pointed away, and mirrored wind chimes all frequently employed in weakening or def lecting curses and vengeful swamp spirits.
Noteworthy Locations
Although the smallest county in Ustalav, Sinaria holds several destinations of strange beauty and antique mystery within its swampy borders.
Baallalota: On the night of the vernal equinox, in the depths of the Graidmere, the daughters of the swamp and their chosen protectors gather at the ground of Baallalota and dance for the spirits, just as the ancient Kellids did in ages past. Throughout the night, the swamp women spin, the knives in their sashes f lashing as the envious ghosts of the marsh wrap themselves in warm f lesh once more. When finally the light of dawn slips sickly through the hanging moss, only one stands among her sisters, the ground slick with the blood offering to the souls of the ferns, mud, and snakes, and for a year she is Queen of Baallalota, before the swamp reclaims its bride.
Cormegi Manor: When the miserly noble Hest Cormegi sent men to kidnap youths from the swamp to work his faltering plantation, the swamp folk rose with fire and vine nooses to lynch the old man. But even in their fury, they were no match for the landowner’s thugs, who planted their bodies to fertilize the fields. Only when those corpses rose again did Cormegi and his lackeys meet their fate. But the doom that came to Cormegi Manor was not the end, for the children freed had nowhere to turn, and their rotten parents refused to abandon them. Today, none go near the muddy fields of Cormegi, as the swampers working the plantation live in wary secrecy, hiding away the generation that, in saving their children, gave up their chance to die.
Karcau: The Village of Voices holds a reputation for producing some of the finest singers and musicians in Avistan, though few who complete their training at the renowned Karcau Opera linger in the mysterious city for long. Karcau’s grand spires are detailed later.
Saintsgrove: Stories say that once a shrine to Desna stood among this secluded stand of ancient olive trees. When a priestess of the goddess of undeath attempted to use the shrine and its small congregation of wanderers to spark her dark apotheosis into a monstrous daughter of Urgathoa, the Song of the Spheres intervened, causing the trees to age a thousand years in a single moment. As the grove exploded in size, the trees trapped the bodies of Desna’s fallen followers and the half-transformed horror in a prison of grasping boughs and gnarled bark for all time.
Countess Sasandra Livgrace
When Count Birmienon Livgrace sent his 8-year-old daughter to board at the Karcau Conservatory, in the shadow of his county’s famed opera house, he envisioned her taking the stage by night as a beloved diva, while rising each day as an even more adored countess. What he did not expect was a scandal of delusion, obsession, and psychosis.
Among the girls’ dormitory of the conservatory, Sasandra garnered no special treatment, enduring the same strict curriculum as her schoolmates. Ballet, choir, orchestra, along with a complete course of academic pursuits, challenged the young noblewoman, but also granted no end of opportunity to exhibit her seemingly endless talents. For 6 of the conservatory’s 8-year program, Sasandra f lourished, convincing several mistresses of her inevitable place among the Karcau Opera’s greatest prima donnas. And then she encountered the opera ghost.
All the students of the conservatory and opera house’s staff and performers knew of the opera ghost, the phantom responsible for every mistakenly dropped curtain, lost costume, or faulty rigging. Yet while most accounts of the ghost merely left schoolgirls shuddering beneath their sheets or spooked fresh-faced stagehands, Sasandra became fascinated. Over the course of her seventh year, she spent increasingly more time among the catwalks and storage basements of the opera house, at first seeking evidence of some mysterious spirit, but later, as her classmates would report, conversing in whispers with some secret muse. Word of her strange activities eventually reached her teachers, the head mistress, and—when she began missing rehearsals on the cusp of her vital eighth year—the count.
When questioned by her father, she explained that the opera ghost himself was secretly tutoring her in knowledge beyond music. Furious, convinced that some costumed stagehand was taking liberties with his daughter, Count Birmienon forbade her from returning to the conservatory. Outraged, Sasandra railed, and later that night f led her father’s estate. While her classmates witnessed her entering the grand theater, Sasandra vanished, and over the course of the ensuing search, none of the opera house staff, the count’s men, or the constabulary could find any trace of the girl.
Three months would pass before anyone saw Sasandra again, the girl found sheltered by a sewer pipe draining into Lake Prophyria. As soon as she was well enough to travel, the count spirited his daughter away to Caliphas, where Sasandra spent the next year in the care of Doctor Trice at Havenguard Asylum. Although rumors spread of an extended tryst or political kidnapping, none in Karcau ever learned the truth of Sasandra’s disappearance—including Sasandra, who claims to have no memory of the time.
Today, Sasandra rules Sinaria with a gentle hand. While she never became a star of the stage, she is known as a fine soloist and not unskilled dancer and violinist. Her elderly father, Birmienon, still resides with her at the Livgrace estate, Starling House, where the pair lives quietly and modestly. Although several years her junior, a former street thief named Vennel Endronail has long called upon the countess, and the pair share a quiet romance—though the lady quickly dismisses any discussion of nuptials without explaination. In equally uncharacteristic fashion, certain tunes provoke unexpected reactions from the countess, such as bursts of song in strange tongues or the recitation of strings of facts. Although unusual, Countess Livgrace and her companions disguise her fits well, though many wonder what connection these episodes and her youthful disappearance hold—Sasandra foremost among them.
Notable Personages
In addition to the nobility, one figure holds sway over the souls of Sinaria’s people.
Zeffiro Lesiege: From his penthouse crowning the lavish Eylusia Building, Lesiege runs an empire of suffering. Rising from beginnings at the Lady’s Gardens cemetery, Lesiege turned mourning into a business, his company crafting burial monuments and employing professional mourners. Yet recently, Lesiege’s life-long preoccupation with death has transformed into an obsession with life’s darkest pleasures. Monthly, Lesiege leads a masked congregation of Karcau elite into the arched waterways below the city to cavort in a chapel of vices beneath icons of the malebranche Alichino,
devil-reveler