Stage Coach And Dossier

Ghazgul and the others were assigned a stage-coach from the royal fleet, and sent on thier way south. After loading up their belongings and getting seated they took a look at the heavy parcel of notes and papers on thier assignment.

(I won't bore you, the reader, with the full content of the Dossier. It was put together by Sir Humphrey, a bureaucrat who LIVES for the minutiae and fine details of every situation plus the obfuscation of the facts by use of excessively verbose language. You have little or no need to know the exact statistics of the area's agricultural output, birth/****/population-growth projections, special tax burdens/incentives, municipal legal precidents, etcétera, ad nauseum. All that will be presented here is the summary letter, which distills the truely relevant information on Ghazgul and party's actual mission.)

In summation the following pieces of information are considered to be most likely to be relevant to your quest:

The Borphen Mire is a trackless Expanse of mud, water, Marsh plants and fog on the south-western coast. Existing at the mouth of the River Shalka it is a brackish swamp delta that extends over 1000Sq.Miles. The swamp has never been fully explored, and many who have tried have vanished without a trace. The only Survey of the area was conducted by the Order of the White Hand using flight spells, and spyglass in year 1503, but as many areas have a dense canopy of Water Cyprus much of the ground level geography remains unknown. For further information see section 2A.1 and the copy of the master map from the royal archive in section 2A.2.

The mire’s main exports are marsh plants that can be used as medical treatments and/or dyes, and a type of local mud. This special mud is apparently one of the best fertilizers in the kingdom, and is exported even abroad. In outside countries this Borphen Mire mud is known as the ‘golden muds’ or ‘breeding muds’. (Further information was covered in section 4A.3.) The medicinal plants of the area are covered in section 4A.1 of the dossier, while those for dyeing are covered in section 4A.2, but suffice it to say that they are sustainability harvested from the fringes of the swamp by families who have done so for generations uncountable. Most of these plants grow nowhere else, and as such are highly valued by the kingdom's dyers or apothecaries, and in some cases (those which can be dried) even abroad. These exports make the areas surrounding the mire very tax lucrative, and keeping it operating is crucial to the kingdom's economic wellbeeing. Overall the areas surrounding the mire are prosperous and un-troubled until recently. It's economic impact on the national market cannot be overemphasized.

As has been mentioned previously dissappearances into the mire are nothing new, over a half dozen mapping expeditions have vanished into it over the years, as-well-as various other groups such as rescue teams and adventurers. For example: there are unconfirmed rumors from three months ago of four missing elves in the swamp. It was supposedly reported by another elven woman, half-naked and raving in terror. The guards decided to detain her due to her erratic behavior: after short interview she was sent to a; House of Healing, for some mental rest... This is just one of a long litany of alleged dissappearances which includes the Dyers reported two days ago.

This brings us to the missing couple. The Dyers were an elven woman by the name of Elaia Dyer and her husband Timothy Dyer. They had been married less than a year, and were still in the 'honeymoon' phase of thier marriage. The reason their dissappearances are significant is that Elaia Dyer was formerly Zamil Kyavela Heasinddare, a ward of the King of Walach. The King of Walach' Ambassador had registered a note with his Majesties government upon her entering the country that should anything happen to his ward while she was in our national borders, he would hold us responsible. Her recovery is of utmost importance, even if she must be resurrected. Should it prove nessecary for her soul to be willing to accept the word of recall, resurrect her husband as well, otherwise he is of no consequence.

Moving on, the sounds which first drew our attentions to this matter are singing in a language which no one who has heard it understands. A phonetic facsimile follows...
[Osanai ko yo, watashi wa anata o tsur...]
This has a certain resemblance to the language of the Empire of Cathay's way of speaking, but does not match known languages and without a mage ON SCENE to use soothsaying magic to understand it, remains a mystery.

The second sign that all was not well was that the fog boiled up in the Marsh out of season.

The Borphen Mire is home to a peculiar phenomenon. Its interior is covered by fog year round, a fog that is thaumicly active: blocking all known forms of scrying, divination, comunication magic, and extra-sensory perception, as well as dulling not only vision but all other forms of mundane perception as well. It also prevents all acess to the inner and outer planes except that empowered by a connection to the divine, and those abilities are sharply curtailed. This fog lurks about a mile into the Marsh most of the year, growing ever thicker and stronger the deeper one travels. During the spring and fall it extends to cover the entire marsh, and even a bit outside it's borders. The fog reaches its maximum extent in late fall and early spring, stretching as much as a three miles outside the boundary fences in the worst years. During summer it sharply drops off most days, unless there is heavy cloud cover in the area when it can rush out to the edge of the Marsh, but rarely further. At night however it can extend for upward of a mile. During the Winter it retreats to the heart of the Marsh as the cold freezes the droplets of moisture and they form rhyme-ice. This is when the locals do the majority of thier plant harvesting. Samples of the water removed from the Marsh have no specific powers, and the reason for the fogs' damping effects remain unknown. This fog is the key reason the swamp remains unmapped. We're it not for this fog, scrying devices would have been employed to do what physical activity could not in mapping the area centuries ago.

As was mentioned before the, fog appears during spring and autumn, but retreats during summer and winter. However, it is presently high summer, the Solstice having passed only last week, and the fog is blanketing the Marsh from dawn to dusk! It further extends upto two miles beyond that during the night. This is wreaking havoc with the summer harvests, and could throw the entire economy into a downturn. It is important that you reach the area quickly, discover the source of the disturbance swiftly, and put an end to it decisively!
(All pertaining information and detailed analysis of the phenomenon was covered in section 8B.1 to 8B.5)

Reading, or at least skimming, the whole Dossier ocupied the entire ride from the Capitol of Dornoch to the coaching house where they were to take thier evening meal and change the horses that night. Everyone was tired and grumpy from the bouncing and jostling ride over poorly maintained roads and was glad of the break...

Questions To Vote On:

A: What greets Ghazgul and the others at the Inn?
A1: The Missionaria Agent.
A2: The Person Fleeing Something.
A3: The Assassin.
A4: The Innkeeper's-Daughter.
A5: The Inkeeper.
A6: Thier Royal Cavalry Escort.
A*: Write In...
*(Write in votes must be extremely concise: any write-ins more than five words long are disqualified, as are any using words of more than five syllables. Also please number your vote as though adding it to the end of this list, not with an asterisk. Furthermore, do not suggest additional side quests, unless they would take place wholey inside the Inn and occupy in total** a single hour or less of in-game time; we have quite enough as it is...)
**(From arrival to departure...)