D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

The Rustwater Plague

# Dark Fantasy# Wilderness# Intrigue

A creeping ecological disaster has transformed the Blood-Red Marsh into a hunting ground. The water runs with a metallic, rust-colored sludge from the upstream Dwarven stronghold of Khaz'Grund, and the marsh's fauna—once benign stitch-fish—are mutating into aggressive, amphibious horrors that prey on the border communities. You are hired to investigate the source of the plague and end it, but the truth is more tangled than any monster hunt. The Dwarves are not mere polluters, and the marsh communities are not helpless victims. Your actions will decide who survives and who is sacrificed for the greater good.

Chronicle Prelude

The player arrives at the fortified river-village of Drowner's Rest, a bastion of desperation clinging to the edge of the infected marsh. The air smells of rust and rot. Stakes tipped with sharpened bone line the palisades, and the townsfolk eye the player with a mixture of hope and suspicion. The village elder, a grim-faced human woman named Helda, offers the initial contract: stop the attacks, find the source of the rust-water, and end the plague.

Environmental Traits

The Rustwater Plague is a cascading ecological and social crisis. The upstream Dwarven mine of Khaz'Grund, in its desperate search for a rare, soul-binding metal to forge weapons against a greater, encroaching evil, has been discharging alchemical runoff into the river. This runoff mutates the stitch-fish and poisons the land. The Dwarves believe their actions are a necessary evil to save the entire region from annihilation. The Marsh Communities believe the Dwarves have doomed them and seek to destroy the source of the poison at any cost. There is no simple villain, only conflicting survival imperatives.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Elder Helda
An elderly human woman with sun-weathered skin and eyes that hold a deep, weary sorrow. She wears practical, patched robes of undyed wool and a necklace of polished river stones. Her hands are calloused from a lifetime of work, and she moves with a deliberate, pained stiffness. She is the focal point of Drowner's Rest's hope and fear.
Grumni, the Exiled Geologist
A stout, grizzled dwarf with a thick beard braided with copper wire and tools. His leather apron is stained with chemical burns, and his eyes are sharp but haunted. He carries a worn satchel filled with rock samples and charts. His demeanor is wary but not unkind, carrying the weight of being proven right too late.
Miretha, the Bog Hag
A stooped, gaunt figure draped in robes of woven reeds and moss. Her skin is a mottled green-brown, covered in warts and bog-mud. Her long, bony fingers end in blackened nails, and her eyes glow with a faint, swamp-gas yellow light. She smells of peat, decay, and strange herbs, and moves with a disturbing, silent fluidity through the muck.
Commander Kadrak
A powerfully built dwarf in full plate armor of blackened steel, etched with geometric patterns and the cog-and-fist insignia. His face is a mask of grim determination, scarred and framed by a neatly trimmed iron-grey beard. He carries a massive warhammer and exudes an aura of unbending authority and defensive fury.
Forge Master Bolgur
A dwarf with soot-stained skin and hair pulled back under a heavy leather cap. His arms are bare, corded with muscle, and covered in intricate tattoos depicting gears and flowcharts. His eyes burn with the intensity of a dedicated artisan, but are ringed with dark circles of sleepless labor. He constantly mutters technical calculations to himself.
Stitchfish Broodmother
A colossal, grotesque fusion of fish, crustacean, and something horrifyingly humanoid. Its body is a taut, membranous sack of mottled grey and sickly green, covered in pulsating, rust-colored veins. Dozens of smaller, juvenile stitch-fish are sewn directly into its flanks, their tails twitching in unison. Its primary maw is a circular, lamprey-like ring of metallic teeth.
Drowned Collective Scout
A lean, agile human with skin darkened by marsh-mud and hair matted with reeds for camouflage. They wear piecemeal leather armor adorned with feathers and small bones, and carry a short bow and a wicked, serrated knife. Their movements are silent, and their eyes constantly scan the treeline with sharp, distrustful awareness.
Rust Wraith
A shimmering, translucent figure of a dwarf miner, its form constantly flickering between solid and a cloud of orange-red rust particles. Its armor and tools are fused to its spectral body, and its face is locked in a silent scream. Where it passes, metal corrodes and water turns a bloody ochre. It is a palpable manifestation of the mine's original tragedy.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Frost-Melting Verdict

The Bay of Chitin and Lees