#water;

The Festering Keep is a castle left by ancient dragonkind on plague lands that has had the contagion creep up its sides. From behind it looks like a large mound of the contagion, but from the front is an elaborate stone castle. No one of clan fester know exactly who created this castle, as the designs hint at many different flights styles of buildings. It seems to be an eclectic mix of flight styles and eras, now encroached upon by plague lands. The stone walls and towers need to be routinely cared for by the dragons of the Keep, or else they'd be swallowed up by masses of wandering contagion. The walls contain the castle itself, patches of land to grow native plague plants for King Krahdiin and Queen Marina's consumption. The excess gets distributed to the dragons of the clan. Outside the walls is the town of Clan Fester. A collection of homes and businesses made from all sorts of materials both scavenged and traded for. The town is clustered outside the gates to the castle, which are always left open for dragons to come and go as they please. The main road through town travels from their water flight border outpost, straight to the castle gates.

Situated on the edge of the Sea of A Thousand Currents, the Black Mire is the product of rain and river runoff from the nearby borders of Plague and Shadow. The clear blue water brought in from the Sea has become thick, murky, and undrinkable. Almost no light reaches the bottom, allowing the local dragon clan, the Miretooth, to keep the subterranean entrances to their caves undiscovered. What creatures live in this festering lagoon and its surrounding shores have evolved powerful toxins and resistances to diseases; unaccustomed creatures that find themselves in the Mire rarely find their way back out, succumbing to the poisonous waters or the appetites of the vicious local fauna. The animals of the Black Mire are primarily omnivorous opportunists, hunting or scavenging what they can and constantly moving from shore to shore to find enough to fill their ravenous bellies. Most are hardy enough to cross over into pure Plague and Shadow territory, though they almost always return to the Mire to rear their young. Miraculously, there is plant life here, though it is difficult to harvest, and the tough, often poisonous plants are barely worth the effort, providing very little nutrition. Spreading across both shores are variants of plants found along the shorelines of Plague and Shadow, adapted to live in the nutrient poor soil. Beneath the surface, low-light plants manage to take root, their sickly fronds reaching almost to the surface of the water. What vegetation isn't poisonous is predatory, massive pitcher plants and insect-traps managing to eke out a living from carrionflies and small rodents and lizards. The clan here is as unforgiving as its territory, venomous and vicious, utilizing their immunity to disease and poison to reap the scarce benefits of living in such an inhospitable place. Those who can prove themselves survivors in the harsh Mire are welcomed with open arms, praised for their adaptibility and perseverance, and they may be accorded the rare reward of being able to ally their clan with the Miretooth, or at the very least, being allowed to intrude upon their lands without leaving covered in infected wounds.

Grobbach by Cloudtail the Snow Leopard on Flickr.