The Loa

The Loa build their villages on stilts above the dark water of the Nightmarsh, harvest the bounty of the marsh above and below the waterline, and throw the best festivals in the Twilight Veil.

The marsh is trying to kill everyone in it at all times. The Loa treat this as an unremarkable feature of the venue.

The Water

Villages line the waterways on stilt-borne platforms, connected by shallow-drafted boats poled along gentle currents beneath a canopy of willow, cypress and mangrove. Not far past the last lantern of any village, the marsh hides a great deal that would prefer the lanterns went out.

They run the channels commercially as well as domestically: the Loa are the Veil's boatmen, and freight moving between the Shadowed Vale and the Duskmarket goes by Loa hull more often than by road.

The Water Question

The Nightmarsh is fed by runoff off the Crowns, which makes it downstream of the entire industry of the Rimeward.

The Loa raise this at every Kingdom assize. It has never once been minuted. There is now a body of Loa festival song on the subject, performed annually, in which the Chancery features unflatteringly and by name — and since a ballad cannot be confiscated, this has been considerably more effective than the petitions were.

Ways

Their villages are lively and brightly coloured in defiance of everything around them, and they are celebrated across the province for their music. A Loa festival has a serious guest list and a serious budget, and visitors from as far as the Eternal City contrive invitations.

They buy from the Duskmarket what the marsh will not provide, sell it what nothing else can, and maintain with the Navi the easy commercial friendship of two peoples who need each other and never compete.