The Danjerie Marsh

People

People from the Danjerie Marsh are generally referred to as “Danjerie” by those not from the region. Within the Marshlands themselves, people refer to one another by cultural/living differences, and then further by familial designation, matriarchally.

Bargers

Bargers live in the most water-flooded areas of the Danjerie. They build large, floating barges of logs, reeds, and soil, each of which hold not only the family’s living accomodations, but their means of survival. Each barge houses a single extended family unit, often carrying several generations. Some very large, very branching families (or families who do not get along well) will live on multiple barges connected by thick woven rope. The soil on the barges is generally cultivated, and barge agriculture focuses on water-loving plants whose root systems help hold the barge together.

Barges may be as large as the family can build and maintain, and a family’s holding may expand (or collapse) based on how prosperous their farming is, and how well-maintained they keep their barge. Barges drift like mobile islands through the deep, brackish waters, and will often trade with one another (or with Stilt-Walker settlements) as they pass.

Barges are extremely vulnerable to fire, so bargers tend to grow and eat what can be consumed raw. They also catch fish, reptiles and amphibions, and drag woven net-baskets along the bottom to gather mollusks, all of which are either salt-cured or air-dried.

Stilt-Walkers

Stilt-walkers live in swampy, extremely dangerous areas of the Marsh. They build stilt houses out of long-rooted, narrow-trunked trees, which are generally clustered together in family groups. A man is considered ready to wed when he has constructed a stilt house large enough to accomodate himself, his wife, and at least two children.

Travel between these stilt-houses is accomplished either via short bridges, when they are very close together, or long wooden stilts, which can be used to traverse great distances by an experienced Walker. A man’s stilts are considered a part of his person; the destruction of a pair of stilts is akin to declaring war between families. Danjerie feuds can last for multiple generations, and are known to wipe out entire family lines if peace cannot be negotiated.

Stilt-Walker women keep careful family records. The suitability of a proposed bride is determined by her mother inspecting the bride’s pedigree, and how closely she is related to clans the groom’s family is currently feuding with.

Tree-Toppers

Tree-Toppers live in the forested areas of the Danjerie, in treehouses connected one to another by a vast network of long rope bridges, which give and sway as the trees move in the harsh, coastal winds. Tree-toppers are reluctant to come to the ground, particularly in winter months, when predators from the Bahstwood roam Shatterward in search of easier prey. Their reluctance to travel throughout the Marshes means most other groups from the Danjerie assume Tree-Toppers are inbred, and they generally avoid joining families with them.

Because of this isolation from other Danjerie groups, Tree-Toppers have learned to trade with people outside the region, often trading fruit and nuts they cultivate and gather with passing ships from Morrdovach, Urkuma, and even as far as Phairoux’s Exile.

Tree-Toppers have a rich, vibrant spirituality involving animism and divination, which follows matriarchal lines. An elderly woman who has been untouched by a man is considered the most powerful conduit of visions. As such, a powerful lesbionic subculture exists in many tribal groups, and in most Tree-Topper villages, men and women live in separate communal family housing, even when married.