Mallow Coast
Temperate coastMallow flowers choke the old harbor basins, where pilots bargain over safe routes through the turning tide.Where: Western shore of the inland seaNext to
Mallow
World · A round world
Mallow
When the rivers turn, every promise runs downstream.
Overview
Mallow is a sphere of busy coasts, broad rivers, and farming valleys shaped by a strange but dependable rhythm: twice each year, the moon draws the rivers backward toward the inland sea. Towns have grown rich by learning to work with the turning waters, and common magic keeps locks, ferries, and clinics running. Now old flood barriers are failing, rival communities contest the repairs, and every choice about water puts lives, harvests, and hard-won trust at risk.
The world
ShapeA round world
What it is likeMallow is a single spherical world, with most settled lands clustered around a broad inland sea and its reversing rivers.
How people travelTravel is easiest by barge when the rivers run outward; during reversals, crews wait, haul boats over towpaths, or follow coastal roads.
Themes
Heroic community, Water rights, Flood-season adventure
Laws of the world
The rules
MagicMagic is common and practical, taught through guilds, temples, and family trades; skilled casters can mend levees, heal wounds, or shape a current, but not without limits.
TechnologyMedieval craft and trade thrive along canals, with watermills, sailing barges, stone locks, and little industry beyond skilled workshops.
Death and soulsSouls pass beyond the world after death; river funerals are common, but the dead do not return unless powerful magic intervenes.
Special rules
During a river's reversal, spells that move or control water are unusually potent and difficult to aim.
A promise sworn beside running water is easy to remember and hard to break, though it is not magically enforced.
The skies
SkiesBroad, changeable skies carry high clouds that often gather over the great inland sea.
Moons and stars
- The sun
- The moon
- The pale wandering star called the Heron
SeasonsThe year has four familiar seasons, but twice yearly the moon draws the rivers inland for several weeks before they turn back toward the sea.
Ages
3 agesA generation of floods wrecked old agreements, and communities now argue over repairs, refugees, and who controls the turning rivers.
Powers
4 powers · 2 conflictsPowers
- The Canal LeagueTrade allianceReach: Merchants and lockkeepers along the main waterwaysKeep trade moving by repairing the locks, even if some villages must be moved.
- The Reed CouncilsLocal confederationReach: Independent farming towns across the central valleysSecure fair water shares and keep distant authorities from redirecting local streams.
- The River TemplesReligious networkReach: Shrines, healers, and ferries in most settled regionsPreserve their influence as trusted healers and mediators during floods and droughts.
- The Bank RaidersRaider coalitionReach: Small bands operating along remote channels and floodplainsProfit from confusion and take control of poorly guarded crossings.
Conflicts
- The Levee DisputeSidesA new barrier could save the trade route but leave thousands of fields and homes beneath the flood.
The canal league, Farming towns downstream, River raiders
- The Dry Season TitheSidesWhoever controls stored rainwater can keep towns alive when the rivers run backward and low.
Temple healers, Local councils, The river duchies
Atlas
8 regionsSecrets
Secret 1 · GM only
Secret 2 · GM only
Secret 3 · GM only
Plot hooks
4 hooks- 1The Open LockRescue and investigationA lock town's water-mages vanish just before the rivers turn, leaving its gates stuck open.
- 2Mud on the GatePolitical mysteryA flood barrier is sabotaged, and the evidence points toward a downstream village that stands to lose its fields either way.
- 3The Low RunEscortA barge carrying medicine is trapped in a dry channel while raiders close in from the banks.
- 4The Old RoadExplorationA drowned road appears during the retreating tide, leading to a sealed storehouse filled with food from an unknown age.
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