Cuartalan Wetlands

Location of the Cuartalan Wetlands in Duilintinn by tumblr user @thewatchau

The Cuartalan Wetlands are a massive estuary in eastern House Brody, Duilintinn. Filled with a mixture of water from the Pa'Gille River and the Eastern Sea, the wetlands nearly spread as far inland as the Beinnfaire Ridge, with the Guardian River as its southern border.

## Name Origin

Cuartalan means to meander or wander, as if in a maze. I felt like it was fitting, since the constantly shifting wetlands can be very maze-like if you don’t know where you’re going

## Agriculture and Wetland Reclamation

Along the coast of Duilintinn, the climate is mild in the winter and hot in the summer. House Brody gets a good amount of rain from the mountainous regions to their north, which, combined with the milder temperatures from the coast, makes it the most fertile area in the kingdom.

The Cuartalan Wetlands form one of House Brody’s three main agricultural regions, all of which are characterized by mild and brief winters, warm summers, and plentiful precipitation. While wetland agriculture is extremely diverse and heavily dependent on the reclamation practices of a particular community, rice, potatoes, and a wide variety of herbs are some of the most common crops grown year-round. Fisheries also dot the region, cultivating and harvesting the estuary’s diverse population of aquatic life.

Unlike other agricultural regions, however, the agricultural practices of wetland communities are not only defined by their cultivation habits, but by the water management structures they build. Sea walls and embankments, drainage ditches and channels; life in the wetlands revolves around these structures. Their size and intensity determining the economic foundation of your entire community, and maintaining them is a constant race against the currents that seek to wash everything away. Some communities work tirelessly to maintain intense waterworks that reclaim the soil for arable farming. Others allow the wetlands to simply remain as they are, only building enough embankments and drainage paths to ensure their homes are not flooded with the spring rains or winter storms.

### Water Defenses and Reclamation

Regardless of their agricultural practices, every community living in the Cuartalan Wetlands has to build some sort of water defenses to protect against flooding and erosion from the storms and tides. Small floods are considered “normal,” and don’t do a lot of damage if the community is keeping up with its maintenance responsibilities. However, a larger flood could destroy infrastructure faster than it can be repaired, leaving the community vulnerable to smaller, “normal” floods.

However, the type of agricultural practices and ecology found in a wetland community depends on their Wetland Reclamation practices. There are three different types of inhabited wetlands: Unaltered, Modified, and Reclaimed.

Unaltered Wetlands are left largely untouched, with only a few structures and ditches built to prevent destructive flooding. This sort of ecosystem is bad for agriculture, but provides a treasure trove of wildlife that can be gathered for food, fuel sources, crafting materials, and more. In addition to gathering from the local flora, other industries include fishing, snaring wildfowl, harvesting salt, and running water mills powered by the tides.

Modified Wetlands use walls and ditches to drain some of the water from the land. While this does not provide enough dry soil for agriculture, the newly exposed grassy environment is perfect for grazing herds of animals. However, the reduced water levels will remove the fish population, seafowl, and many of the plants found in an unaltered wetland.

Reclaimed Wetlands use intensive drainage techniques to transform the land into arable, farmable terrain. The newly exposed soil is extremely fertile, perfect for agriculture and livestock, and can be very lucrative. However, this process almost completely removes the natural raw resources found in an unaltered wetland. Moreover, maintaining such an array of water defenses carries a high labor and resource cost, and if those defenses fail, the region will revert to a modified or unaltered state, undoing all efforts to “reclaim” it.

As you can see, the level of wetland reclamation a community chooses will determine a significant amount of their agricultural practices and economic structure. Communities have to find a balance between preserving their desired level of reclamation and constructing water defenses that can protect them, without building more infrastructure than can be sustainably maintained. It’s a constant game of risk assessment and preparing for the worst case scenario, all centered around these walls and drainage systems.

## Travel and Infrastructure

While there are some roads in the Cuartalan Wetlands, they are few and far between. Roads (and especially those traveling on it) will damage the ecosystems that support a wetland region’s economy and culture. Nor is wetland geography kind to roads; between erosion, the constantly shifting landscape, and the sheer instability of the ground itself, any roads constructed in a wetland environment would need constant maintenance to stay functional. In short; roads are not good for wetlands and wetlands are not good for roads.

   This means that roads are far more trouble than they’re worth, especially in a culture that’s already swamped (no pun intended) with maintaining water defenses and repairing infrastructure. What few roads exist are small, winding, and often unmarked; I’m not sure if anyone would be able to know exactly where they were unless they lived in the region. The only major roads cutting across the Cuartalan Wetlands are maintained by and for The Watch to allow for quick travel between the Pa’Gille Caverns Outpost and Fort Stiofán, and they have to veer west towards the Beinnfaire Ridge for sustainable upkeep.

Since the lack of roads in the Cuartalan Wetlands make it incredibly difficult and hazardous to traverse on foot, boats are the primary method of travel in this region. Most people who live in the Cuartalan Wetlands have at least one small, thin, maneuverable boat with long, stick-like oars for getting around the region. In addition, the Ocean Men guild manages a thriving ferry industry, where trained and experienced navigators ferry boats of newcomers from Point A to Point B through the wetlands.

This aquatic-based travel affects the architecture of the region. Most communities are built up around a body of water that’s deep enough for boats, far from the nearest bit of dry land, usually with at least one outlet that would allow you to row out of town without getting grounded in shallower waters. Buildings of wood, thatch, stone, and brick are perched on stone stilts above the waterline, surrounded by a deck at water-level for easy access to and from the boats.

Within individual communities, buildings are connected by a creative assortment of bridges over the waterways. These bridges allow people to wander the community without having to get out the boat, while simultaneously accounting for anyone who would float by underneath. You’ll never see a simple, flat bridge hovering just above the waterline in this region, but otherwise, the people get super creative with these structures. Some have drawbridge-style bridges that can open up to allow boats to pass by, while others are built in a high and carefully angled archway shape. Still others are made from rope and spread between roofs, with outdoor steps leading up to the roof of most buildings.

## Culture

The Cuartalan Wetlands is one of the few geographic regions of Duilintinn that has a unique culture almost entirely based around their environment. The region features small towns of tightly-knit communities that have to know how to communicate and cooperate in order to make a living in the constantly shifting environment of the wetlands. Resilience, adaptability, and above all, a severe awe and respect towards water as a force of nature; all of these traits are the tools to survival that have been passed through the generations.

In order to live in a wetland area, communities must build and maintain the infrastructure that stands between you and the body of water that floods the area on a regular basis. This isn’t just an individual effort either. Even if the rest of the community has perfectly managed the upkeep of their defenses, if even just one person does not properly maintain their section of the infrastructure, that weak link could cause huge damages for everyone else, not just their own property. This means that cooperation, trust, loyalty, responsibility, and communication are a must in any wetland community. Not only do you need each other’s support during the construction of the water defenses, but you are all equally reliant on each other for their proper upkeep.

Moreover, there are differing intensities of wetland infrastructure that change what resources the land has to offer. This process of chaining a wetland environment through these structures is called Wetland Reclamation, and it’s vital that a community is unanimous about what level of reclamation it aims to achieve. Much like the person who doesn’t maintain their water defenses properly, a miscommunication or argument that results in two different levels of declamation will render both nearly useless. Hence, the ability to communicate and agree upon the correct course of action is a must in wetland communities.

Finally, wetland communities value resilience, adaptability, and a mentality of risk versus reward that heavily favors safety. After all, the water is powerful and unpredictable, so you want to be able to endure the danger, adapt to the randomness of nature, and move forward doing everything you can to limit other sources of danger and uncertainty.

As a consequence of these unique cultural struggles and values, the people of the Cuartalan Wetlands are one of the most insular demographics of Duilintinn. (Note that this does not count the independent communities that never pledged their allegiance to the kingdom, since they’re not technically “in Duilintinn.”) By “insular,” I mean that these people tend to remain in the communities they grew up in, rather than availing themselves of Duilintinn’s opportunities to branch out and find a passion in other parts of the kingdom. Since people rely heavily upon each other to preserve their mutual safety and way of life, it’d be much harder to leave your hometown without feeling like you’re abandoning them. Similarly, a new person who doesn’t know how to pull their weight could be a liability, meaning they’re often hesitant to welcome new people into their communities. As a result, the only people who usually leave the wetlands or who intentionally move to the wetlands are people who have an incredible passion that’s willing to face the heavy emotional toil of leaving/integrating oneself into the community.

### Ocean Man and Ocean Men

Ocean Man is a Big Deal. The Ocean Men Guild came from these communities and their understanding of the waterworks needed to keep their towns safe would be used as the basis for the plumbing system that they helped create in Duilintinn’s major cities alongside the Order of Stone.

Nowadays, almost everyone in Duilintinn knows of the benevolent Fae being we call the “Ocean Man” and how his blessing ensures that all of Duilintinn’s major waterways are safe and clean for all who rely upon them.

However, once upon a time, no one except the people of the Cuartalan Wetlands were aware of the Ocean Man’s presence and power. After all, it’s much easier to assume that a river is naturally clear and safe to drink than it is to overlook how the destructive potential of water in a wetland was being tamed by some outside force.

Indeed, the Ocean Man’s first documented intervention among the peoples of the Mortal Realm was to magically coax the tides of the Eastern Sea away from the Cuartalan Wetlands in an attempt to protect the settlements of the region.

Unfortunately, the fae being was ignorant of how wetland civilizations thrived in a balance with the water’s life-giving and destructive properties. Assuming these settlements were being slowly flooded, the Ocean Man used his power to essentially “reclaim” the region and turn it into normal, dry land.

Obviously, the people living in the wetlands weren’t exactly thrilled by this.

Thankfully, this initial misunderstanding set the stage for open and genuine communication which had never before been seen between the fae and mortals. The wetland peoples convinced the Ocean Man to return the tides in all of their power, and demonstrated how they worked as a community to stave off the danger while embracing the vitality of their ecosystem.

The Ocean Man respected how these people placed great pride in their ability to shape their environment, and in turn redirected his powers towards protecting these strange mortals from the forces of nature they could not control. While he could not stop the winter storms or spring melts that posed the most dramatic threats to the region, his power over the water itself allowed him to mitigate the damage that such natural disasters would cause.

Moreover, he offered his own understanding of the physics and properties of water to the people, hoping they would be able to use that knowledge to improve upon their ability to control the tides.

And thus, the Ocean Men were born.

Centuries later, the Ocean Men Guild still consists of those who seek to learn from the Ocean Man, those who wish to worship him, and those who simply make their living in his domain. This legacy makes the Ocean Men the oldest guild in Duilintinn, surpassing even the Guard Coalition by a significant margin.

While today, the Ocean Men is probably most known for its role in bringing accessible plumbing to all of Duilintinn’s large cities, a significant portion of their work is still centered in the Cuartalan Wetlands. Between continuing to foster the kingdom’s relationship with the Ocean Man and developing new cultivation and infrastructure techniques for the wetland ecosystem, the region remains the central focus of the guild’s efforts.

## Trivia

When researching for the Cuartalan Wetlands, the author took about 10 pages of notes from various academic sources, including Wetland Reclamation in England: Medieval Risk Culture and the 1396 Commission of Sewers for Pevensey Levels by Stephanie Suzanne Hartmann, Wetlands: A Guide to the Scientific Literature by Paul Keddy PHD, and the Ramsar Sites Information Service. This is one of the only times that the author felt prompted to write down her sources for future reference due to the sheer amount of research that had been necessary. Not everything in the notes made it into the official posts, but if you want to read more about wetlands with the author’s commentary about how it might be relevant to the world of this AU, check out this document.