“Hark, Leviathan! Hark, Albatross! Betwixt black sea and red sky, we chase the compass to the Fiddler’s Green, always a league ahead of the Ferryman! Bellow! Bid the Dread Siren, bulging and bursting, to damnation eternal! May salt foam and bilgewater forget the name of the Drowned!”
- Captain Ephraim Wake -
The roiling black ocean of Druskenvald is unnatural, mysterious, and treacherous. This is also how outsiders perceive the province that is so connected to and supported by the sea and the things that lurk within it. Olmarsh (OAL‑marsh) stretches along miles of rocky shoreline and flooded salt marshes, and it encompasses numerous islands that dot the waters off the coast. A shadow hangs over the province and slithers up from below, gripping its people in a paranoia of the unknown.
Life here is simple and buoyed by the bounty of fish that the sea provides, allowing the people of the province to live beyond a meager existence limited by the scarce resources of the land. But there is a constant threat from the watery depths. Even the semi-aquatic deepborn fled to the surface in fear of the abyss from which they emerged. Worse still is the ever-present feeling of being watched by something from the night sky overhead. Above the waves, the cold, salty air is thick, almost viscous, and a strange fishy stink lingers in every corner of the province.