Ngani Swamp

The Ngani Swamp is a low, sunken tract along Lemuria's southeastern coast and the land behind it. Trees and plants grow into horribly twisted shapes, the air stinks of rot, and leeches four feet long or more swim its brackish water. Ghouls prowl here, some risen from dead lemures and others more like neanderthaloids, while Hantu, earth-bound demons, lurk hidden in drifting clouds of foul vapor.

Even so, it is the most visited part of Lemuria, for two reasons: black pearls and black lotus. The shellfish that make Ngani black pearls live nowhere else, and the pearls sell for 100 gold pieces or more per carat, among the costliest jewels in the civilized world. Divers from certain Salawati island tribes brave the swamp for them; a lucky one can gather 1-10 pearls of 1-10 carats in a day, if the predators do not get him first.

Black lotus grows among the tangled roots of some swamp trees, and its narcotic pollen, known as Ngani black, fetches at least 100-300 gold pieces per dram. Rich Turanian and Sheban merchants have long sent shiploads of mercenary adventurers after it. A skilled picker may find 1-8 plants a day, each giving roughly 1-4 drams of powder. The drug is outlawed in many lands yet prized by black marketeers everywhere, and because demand for pearls and powder stays high, rivalry is sometimes fierce: visitors may face human as well as inhuman foes.