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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:37:05 GMT -5
WATERCANE LOWLANDS
CONTINENT: Ventannen
REGION: Sawtooth Sea, Southern Shore
CONDITIONS: Forested, Plains, Swampy, Snowy, Temperate, Seaside
POPULATION:
- Unaffiliated: Moderate
- Loonies: Modest
- Space Loonies: Negligible
- Cult of Meat: Negligible
- Wildlife: High
LANDMARKS:
- Towns: Watercane, Geode Town, Drifter's Hills, Rundell Ranch
- Bases: Swansing Command Post (Agoraphobia 4), Swansing Drydock
- Roads: Melonway Underground, Hellonway Underground
- Biomes: Watercane Woodlands, Watercane River, Mudcat Swamps, Baldspot Quarry, Waxel Plains, Bismack Bay, Mestelford Archipelago, Karsight Ridge, Alexandria Fjord
- Other: Karsight Manor, Cosmic Bagel, Splitback Ruins
SUMMARY
The Watercane Lowlands are a hilly region centered on the town for which they were named; Watercane, one of the oldest towns on Set still standing. With a history of settlement stretching back some two hundred years and a lush, vibrant landscape to exploit, the area is home to roughly sixteen hundred people in several major towns. With a strong Looney presence in the Swansing Command Post and Swansing Drydock, the Watercane Lowlands are regarded as one of the safest shores of the Sawtooth Sea.
The population of the Watercane Lowlands is primarily made up of civilians and town militias from the towns of Watercane, Geode Town, Drifter's Hills, and the loosely-defined Rundell Ranch. Apart from Rundell Ranch, each of the towns hold membership in the Watercane Cooperative, which was founded roughly a century ago to help organize mutual defense, growth planning, and ecological policy between the major towns of the region. Each town cooperates closely with the Loonies of the Swansing Command Post, who themselves have been strong economic contributors to the region.
At the region's northwest and northeast edges are the shorelines of the Sawtooth Sea, which, at the region's north, give way to Bismack Bay and the Mestelford Archipelago. Bismack Bay is dotted with short, seaside ridges and hills, and features a heavily-forested western side. The Mestelford Archipelago is a chain of small, hilly islands leading out from the bay, which curiously wrap around the shadow of the Cosmic Bagel. Mestelford shelters the mouth of the Watercane river, which snakes south, west, and south again along a neatly-defined border between the Watercane Woodlands and the Mudcat Swamps.
Splitting the forests of Bismack Bay from the Waxel plains and Watercane Woodlands is the Baldspot Quarry, a bizarrely-placed desert trailing away from an abandoned quarry. The lifeless desert gives way almost immediately on its south and southeast to the wet and grassy forests of the Watercane Woodlands, which wrap around the Watercane River between the Karsight Ridge and Mudcat Swamps. The Mudcat Swamps occupy a large section of land that follows a branch of the Watercane River east, until they eventually terminate up against the Karsight Ridge's eastern rise.
On the southwest edge of the Baldspot Quarry are the Waxel Plains, a mostly-treeless expanse of grass and lively dirt. The Waxel Plains continue on to the edge of the lowlands and eventually meet the Sawtooth shoreline at the north. At their southern and southeastern borders, they meet the Alexandria Fjord and Karsight Ridge. The fjord and ridge both give way to mountains south of the lowlands, whose snowy peaks often send small flurries down to the otherwise temperate region.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:37:18 GMT -5
WATERCANE
The town of Watercane is the hub of most civilian activity in the area and lies just at the border between the Watercane Woodlands and Mudcat Swamps. Its short, red-brick buildings extend across the short distance between the Watercane River and the Baldspot Quarry, and much of the town is criss-crossed by gardens of fresh fruit. Space between buildings is at a premium and often covered over by elevated boardwalks, which themselves often connect to upper stories on public buildings. As with much of the Lowlands, the town features few roads and only a handful of dirt trails to other towns.
The town is a frequent stopover for travellers in the region thanks much to its economic success. Its livelihood was originally built on the cane-like plants that thrive in the Mudcat Swamps, but the town has since expanded into a mixed assortment of cottage industries. Watercane's primary exports are lumber, iron and copper ore, and a wide variety of foodstuffs, including genuine sugarcane from seeds loaned by the Swansing Command Post. As the largest town in the region, it likewise sports the largest town watch, which has helped keep its town limits clear of the region's dangerous wildlife.
Diving past the Melonway is Watercane's primary source of metals; the Therbly mineshaft. Along with Watercane's growing population of miners, the Therbly shaft is closely coordinated with - and sometimes staffed by - Looney mining efforts underneath the Swansing Command Post. Likewise, planning for the shaft's expansion is a tightly-organized affair that most often falls under the sole discretion of Swansing's mining supervisors. This is entirely due to its proximity to the Melonway's vital transport tunnels and power lines.
Watercane is jointly governed by the native Chryseus Foundation and officers from the Swansing Command Post. Its effective mayor is Bernard Kamdler, the head of the Chryseus Foundation, with the town's seat of power located inside the Foundation's headquarters on the shores of the Watercane River. Thanks much to its key role as an economic hub and the largest population center in the region, Watercane is the de facto leader of the Lowlands Cooperative.
Watercane's population rests comfortably at 426 permanent residents, roughly 24 assigned Looney guards and representatives, and a transient population regularly numbering between 50 to 80. While the town's population has remained stagnant for roughly a generation, escalating wildlife suppression efforts by the Swansing Command Post and local militias have paved the way to a boom in the future. As a further benefit, it is expected that, within the next decade, surface roads between the region's towns will be built, secured, and populated, both with domestically-produced vehicles and Looney security convoys.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:38:15 GMT -5
GEODE TOWN
Geode Town is the closest rival to Watercane, both in prosperity and physical proximity. The town sits in the northeast quarter of the Waxel Plains and is named for its most striking landmarks. Originally mistaken for overgrown boulders, Geode Town is home to three enormous, perfectly-spherical geodes, each roughly the size of an average two-story house. In the time since their discovery, the geodes have since been emptied out and converted into two farms and the town hall for the settlement. Around them are scattered, free-standing cottages and a surface station for the Melonway transport network.
Geode Town's defining features are an anomaly in the Lowlands. There are no other surface geodes of similar size and none have been found by mining activity underneath the Swansing Command Post or the town of Watercane. Their contents, unfortunately, are a mystery; they were recorded only in vague detail by the town's past inhabitants and were quickly sold off or broken down for resources. Little remains now but their shells. Similarly, scientific interest in them is muted, at best.
Though sparse in appearance, Geode Town is a bustling hub of agriculture and trade. For the handful of merchants that arrive in the region, Geode Town is often their first and most profitable destination. Much of this is thanks to the efficient specialization of Geode Town's crops, its convenient location, and its more readily-accessible roads and trails. Wanderers and explorers often use Geode Town as their central hub for expeditions into the Lowlands' wilderness. In much the same way, Loonies from Swansing and elsewhere often use the town as a temporary outpost for large-scale operations or as an emergency landing zone for aircraft.
Geode Town is the third largest settlement in the region, coming just shy of Drifter's Hills. It boasts a population of 209, led by a committee of 7 business owners and a solitary Looney representative from the Swansing Command Post. Temporary residents, however, greatly inflate population figures by roughly 130 at its potential maximum and wildly fluctuate between seasons, with many of them residing within the two hotels on the outskirts of the town.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:38:37 GMT -5
DRIFTER'S HILLS
Drifter's Hills is a densely-populated town situated on the eastern shore of Bismack Bay. With a small ranch, several farms, and a deep mineshaft running underneath the town, Drifter's Hills is fully self-sufficient - which is often a necessity given its distance from the rest of the Lowlands' towns. As per its name, Drifter's Hills rests atop a bumpy hillside overlooking a shallow valley to the east. As a result of its strategically-significant location and sizeable population, Looney patrols often pass through or near the town.
Drifter's Hills is packed tightly together between two prominent bulges on the hill the town was named for. Wooden and stone brick buildings cluster around small dirt paths that extend only to the edge of the buildings they encircle. Six farms dominate the town's southern end, while the town's ranch lies just at the eastern foot of the hill. Roughly in the town's center is an ancient church, presumed related to the Splitback ruins, which has served as the town hall for Drifter's Hills since it was founded.
Despite being one of its oldest and most prominent landmarks, the church in Drifter's Hills has attracted little attention. The cobblestone building was discovered by travellers from Watercane only after it had been ruined by a brush fire. Some time after, it was restored and Drifter's Hills was founded around it. Little is known about the church - and only a handful of miscellaneous artifacts found inside it identified it as a church. Few attempts have been made to uncover the building's history - or even its past religion - since its discovery.
Thanks much to its distance from the rest of the towns in the Lowlands, Drifter's Hills is a quiet, slow-growing town that has maintained a stagnant population for the past two decades. Expansion and population growth remain at the mercy of seasons and wildlife migrations in the area. Drifter's Hills is vulnerable to hostile wildlife in particular due to its far-flung location and limited ability to communicate with the rest of the Lowlands. Often times, when help does arrive, it arrives hours late.
Consequently, Drifter's Hills' self-sufficiency extends to its militia. Proportionate to its population, the town has the largest ratio of watchmen and reservists at its disposal. Similarly, no less than three quarters of its population is armed with weapons provided by the Swansing Command Post and Watercane, and its town watch retains an emergency stock of equipment large enough to supply the remainder several times over. While Drifter's Hills may not be able to expand, it is unlikely that it will ever die out.
At roughly 241 people and a negligible number of non-residents, Drifter's Hills is the second most populous town in the Watercane Lowlands. It is not, however, the second largest in infrastructure and overall size. Similarly, the town is an economic footnote in the region and contributes little in the way of trade to other settlements. Visitors are primarily explorers and patrolling Loonies, but rumors often suggest that cultists and stray bandits make regular stops at the town.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:38:49 GMT -5
RUNDELL RANCH
Rundell Ranch is the smallest town in the Lowlands and does not officially consider itself a town. It is instead operated as a business and supplies Watercane, Geode Town, and even the Swansing Command Post with products from its livestock and farms. Located a short distance northwest of Geode Town and efficiently gridded into a sprawling square of greenhouses and pastures, Rundell is a common stop for merchants and wanderers looking to resupply before leaving the Lowlands.
The Rundell Ranch has been owned and operated by the Rundell family for sixty years with employees hailing from all over the Lowlands. Originally, the ranch was built to support the rise of Geode Town, but, as time went on and more structures were added, it attained a level of autonomy that led to others seeing it as a fully-fledged settlement. Though the Rundell family continues to assert that it is still a component of Geode Town, the sheer number of permanent residents has made their claims little more than sentimental.
The ranch, however, is not fully self-sufficient. While able to provide its own food, it has minimal industrial capacity and relies almost entirely on Geode Town for expansion, tools, and similar supplies. Rundell's strong position as the primary supplier of food and medicinal ingredients allows the ranch to trade favorably with other towns for the equipment and materials it cannot produce locally. As a result, the ranch has a comfortable position of dependency on others. As population growth continues in the region, it is expected that Rundell will continue its rise in importance.
As a result, Looney patrols often favor the trails between Rundell Ranch and Geode Town. The necessity, however, is twofold; like Drifter's Hills, Rundell Ranch does not have a connection to the Melonway transport network and relies almost entirely on Geode Town for access to the network. As a result, emergencies at the ranch see markedly slower response times from the Swansing Command Post. While the ranch features its own security - which, further, is supplied directly from the Swansing Command Post - its sheer size makes it a difficult location to monitor and defend.
Rundell Ranch is populated by 146 people, both employees and their families. Additionally, roughly 60 seasonal employees arrive from Watercane and Geode Town for its spring and autumn harvests. These employees typically return during summer and winter. A guard force of 36 Loonies helps keep watch over the ranch throughout the year and transients from elsewhere often number around 20-30.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:38:59 GMT -5
SWANSING COMMAND POST
At the northwest edge of the town of Watercane is the Baldspot Quarry, an errant patch of sandy desert home to both an abandoned quarry and the overlooking Swansing Command Post. The command post is the oldest structure in the region and pre-dates the earliest non-Looney settlement by at least sixty years. Fitting to its legacy, the Swansing Command Post is one of the largest Looney bunkers in the region, with a population of 509 permanent residents, 133 attached personnel from the Swansing Drydock, and roughly 200 in transients, both Looney and civilian.
The Swansing Command Post is not only the largest military installation in the region, but also one of its strongest economic players. At least half of the Watercane Lowlands' industrial capacity is tucked away inside the sandy bunker's halls and two thirds of the region's weapons, mining equipment, and vehicles have all been produced in the bunker's manufacturing facilities. Looney engineers have been responsible for at least a quarter of the Lowlands' infrastructure, both independently and through direct assistance to nearby towns.
Likewise, the men and women of the Swansing Command Post are responsible for the bulk of security in the space between Watercane's towns. Daily patrols send nearly a quarter of the bunker's population out into the wilderness, be it in targeted raids on troubled areas or trail-clearing work between towns. While the unclaimed Karsight Ridge and Alexandria Fjord remain dangerous territories, deaths and disappearances elsewhere are few and far between.
The Melonway's transit hub is nestled inside the Swansing Command Post and serves as the bunker's primary access point to its own mining operations underneath the Lowlands. Thanks much to its age, the mining tunnels underneath Swansing are a labyrinthine expanse of overlapping tunnels that extend deep into the underground. Despite this, Looney mining operations continue to yield significant quantities of valuable minerals and routinely uncover new, unexplored cave systems. As a result, there are no concerns of exhausting the Lowlands' mineral wealth within the foreseeable future - though sinkholes and catastrophic cave-ins remain troublingly-probable prospects.
The Swansing Command Post is linked via the Melonway to the Swansing Drydock, which is situated on the forested northern shore of Bismack Bay. The Swansing Drydock was constructed originally as an observation outpost, intended to monitor the anomalous structure known as the Cosmic Bagel. As the town of Watercane grew, it was instead renovated into a minor port and naval repair facility. Though the Drydock remains a Looney-controlled and Looney-staffed facility, it is open to civilian vessels passing through the Mestelford archipelago, and often relays visiting merchants to Geode Town or Watercane.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:39:15 GMT -5
THE MELONWAY
The Melonway is a series of underground tunnels with a mixed variety of powered trams, hand-driven trolleys, and power lines that serves transportation needs between the town of Watercane, Geode Town, the Swansing Command Post, and the Swansing Drydock. Walkways line the sides of the tracks and are regularly patrolled by Loonies and town militia to keep the otherwise naked tunnels safe from subterranean monsters. Further contributing to the safety of the Lowlands' only public transit system are Looney miners moving to and from the connected Swansing and Ferbly mineshafts.
The Melonway is the primary vein of commerce in the Watercane Lowlands and regularly sees upwards of a hundred commuters per day. It features additional stops along its primary tunnels at various locations, allowing easy access to most areas above the transport network. Construction efforts on the Melonway are ongoing and intend to eventually link it with Drifter's Hills and the Rundell Ranch, with expansion scheduled to continue past them to arbitrary points elsewhere.
In addition, the Melonway connects to a deeper structure known as the Hellonway, a similarly-intentioned and long-stagnant set of tunnels far deeper into the underground. The Hellonway was meant to connect to other Looney bunkers outside the Lowlands, but difficulties in securing the deep caverns have caused repeated and lengthy delays on its construction. Problematic magma flows and a caustic haze in the tunnels have stalled the underground-savvy Loonies for at least three decades, and it is generally believed that the project will never be completed.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:39:28 GMT -5
RUINS
THE SPLITBACK RUINS
The Splitback Ruins are a series of abandoned, underground dungeons tucked away in a small wooded area in the Waxel plains, north of Rundell Ranch. The ruins are a series of manmade tunnels reinforced with ancient stone brick and furnished with long-rotted artwork and tapestries. It is unknown if the ruins were ever meant to connect to the surface, as no entrances or exits were ever discovered. Entry into the underground structure was gained only through a collapsed roof near the surface, by Loonies on reconnaissance from the Swansing Command Post.
They are a popular destination for explorers passing through the Lowlands, as a result of both their feared reputation for swallowing travellers and their wealth of untouched chambers. Recurring legends and myths surrounding the ruins claim that Splitback hides a gateway to the center of Set, guarded by wrathful protectors from the planet's core. Evidence supporting the tales, however, remains utterly absent. The origins of the story are similarly unknown and no sources have claimed credit for it.
THE COSMIC BAGEL
The Cosmic Bagel is the most bizarre of structures in the Lowlands and one of its main attractions. It is, as per its name, an enormous, bagel-shaped ring of stone floating over the Bismack Bay that has been in the region for longer than even the Swansing Command Post. Despite its menacing presence, the Bagel is a bafflingly-benign landmark. It is so utterly devoid of impact that it was determined several times throughout its history that the Bagel is, in no uncertain terms, totally indestructible and entirely immoveable.
Thirty-two years after the Swansing Command Post was built, the Cosmic Bagel was struck by a piece of debris falling from orbit. The debris was completely destroyed in the impact and produced a shockwave strong enough to disturb passing aircraft a kilometer away. The Cosmic Bagel was entirely unaffected by the strike. Twenty years later, a frigate-sized droneship suffered a critical navigation failure and attempted to fly through the Bagel from its northern side. The droneship was left a mushroomed hulk at the bottom of Bismack Bay. The Bagel suffered no damage. Further incidents with aircraft and weapons tests continually reaffirmed the Cosmic Bagel's invulnerability.
Facts about the Cosmic Bagel are virtually non-existent. While its geological composition was thoroughly studied, there is absolutely no information on the Bagel's history, its origins, or how it maintains its position. There is no understanding of how it is able to resist damage or displacement. It is a source of mystery and scientific frustration that has confused the locals of the Lowlands for centuries. By all means, the Cosmic Bagel simply is, has been, and will be - whether or not it actually does anything.
KARSIGHT MANOR
The Karsight Manor is an abandoned building overlooking the very end of the Alexandria fjord, just behind the Karsight ridge. It is unclear who built the structure or when; the manor has been abandoned since the Watercane Lowlands were first settled and only a scant few traces of its past owners remain. It was, when it was first discovered, an ornate and masterfully-crafted building fit for a wealthy family. It is now little more than a graffiti-stricken husk that most consider both unsafe and haunted.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 23, 2018 10:39:48 GMT -5
POPULATION
Transient populations in Watercane are primarily made up of merchants, wanderers, explorers, and Loonies abroad. Numbers often fluctuate wildly with the seasons, but typically reach their maximum in summer and their lowest points in winter. Space Loonies have made only rare landings, but often under harmless circumstances, with most ships using the clear terrain of either the Baldspot Quarry or Waxel Plains as their preferred stops. Cultists are similarly rare, appearing only as scouting parties or passing pilgrimages destined elsewhere.
Fauna in the region, however, is estimated to outnumber the Lowlands' human population by at least twenty to one, if not more. Many animals, native and introduced, are hostile to humans and just as many are fearless predators. Each biome of the Lowlands is home to its own, unique variety of monsters that prey on both stray travellers and native fauna. Natural caves and open chasms are common and afford much of the region's bestiary convenient hiding places and nesting grounds, whilst simultaneously allowing subterranean creatures easy access to the surface.
Common animals include caravan dogs, pseudocrustaceans, Dargen hawks, and peppercrabs. Unique in the region are swampmogs, insectoid creatures with curiously-feline heads and thick bristles across their body that mimick hair. Swampmogs are most often found in the Mudcat Swamps and Watercane Woodlands, but often roam across most of the region during Spring and Summer. Aquatic life is mostly restricted to passive species of freshwater fish and the occasional nailfish from deeper into the Sawtooth Sea.
Monsters in the region run the gamut from black horrors to trunkfingers. Most problems in the region stem from bone-shapers and meatmen, who are believed to have been imported from the Southern Veinlands by cultists. Giant peppercrabs routinely cause damage to roads and buildings during the autumn months, while sawtraps and golden floaters often leave the Bismack Bay inaccessible during the summer. Falling temperatures in winter allow the region's population of glass sirens to rise from lower caverns, which further dissuades travellers from entering the region at the beginning and end of each year.
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